These premises conceded, I will only ask you to choose the metre. Blank
verse is very much in fashion just now."

"Pooh! blank verse indeed! I am not going so to free your experiment
from the difficulties of rhyme."

"It is all one to me," said Kenelm, yawning; "rhyme be it: heroic or
lyrical?"

"Heroics are old-fashioned; but the Chaucer couplet, as brought to
perfection by our modern poets, I think the best adapted to dainty
leaves and uncrackable nuts. I accept the modern Chaucerian. The
subject?"

"Oh, never trouble yourself about that. By whatever title your Augustan
verse-maker labels his poem, his genius, like Pindar's, disdains to be
cramped by the subject. Listen, and don't suffer Max to howl, if he can
help it. Here goes."

And in an affected but emphatic sing-song Kenelm began:--

"In Attica the gentle Pythias dwelt.
Youthful he was, and passing rich: he felt
As if nor youth nor riches could suffice
For bliss. Dark-eyed Sophronia was a nice
Girl: and one summer day, when Neptune drove
His sea-car slowly, and the olive grove
That skirts Ilissus, to thy shell, Harmonia,
Rippled, he said 'I love thee' to Sophronia.
Crocus and iris, when they heard him, wagged
Their pretty heads in glee: the honey-bagged
Bees became altars: and the forest dove
Her plumage smoothed. Such is the charm of love.
Of this sweet story do ye long for more?
Wait till I publish it in volumes four;
Which certain critics, my good friends, will cry
Up beyond Chaucer. Take their word for 't. I
Say 'Trust them, but not read,--or you'll not buy.'"

"You have certainly kept your word," said the minstrel, laughing; "and
if this be the Augustan age, and the English were a dead language, you
deserve to win the prize-medal."

"You flatter me," said Kenelm, modestly. "But if I, who never before
strung two rhymes together, can improvise so readily in the style of the
present day, why should not a practical rhymester like yourself dash off
at a sitting a volume or so in the same style; disguising completely the
verbal elegances borrowed, adding to the delicacies of the rhyme by the
frequent introduction of a line that will not scan, and towering yet
more into the sublime by becoming yet more unintelligible? Do that, and
I promise you the most glowing panegyric in 'The Londoner,' for I will
write it myself."

"'The Londoner'!" exclaimed the minstrel, with an angry flush on his
cheek