is as
follows:--

Lauriers
Guerriers
Musette
Lisette
Caesars
Etendars
Houlette
Folette

One would be amazed to see so learned a man as Menage talking seriously
on this kind of trifle in the following passage:--

"Monsieur de la Chambre has told me that he never knew what he was going
to write when he took his pen into his hand; but that one sentence always
produced another. For my own part, I never knew what I should write next
when I was making verses. In the first place I got all my rhymes
together, and was afterwards perhaps three or four months in filling them
up. I one day showed Monsieur Gombaud a composition of this nature, in
which, among others, I had made use of the four following rhymes,
Amaryllis, Phyllis, Maine, Arne; desiring him to give me his opinion of
it. He told me immediately that my verses were good for nothing. And
upon my asking his reason, he said, because the rhymes are too common,
and for that reason easy to be put into verse. 'Marry,' says I, 'if it
be so, I am very well rewarded for all the pains I have been at!' But by
Monsieur Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the severity of the criticism,
the verses were good." (_Vide_ "Menagiana.") Thus far the learned
Menage, whom I have translated word for word.

The first occasion of these _bouts-rimes_ made them in some manner
excusable, as they were tasks which the French ladies used to impose on
their lovers. But when a grave author, like him above-mentioned, tasked
himself, could there be anything more ridiculous? Or would not one be
apt to believe that the author played booty, and did not make his list of
rhymes till he had finished his poem?

I shall only add that this piece of false wit has been finely ridiculed
by Monsieur Sarasin, in a poem entitled "La Defaite des Bouts-Rimes."
(The Rout of the Bouts-Rimes).

I must subjoin to this last kind of wit the double rhymes, which are used
in doggrel poetry, and generally applauded by ignorant readers. If the
thought of the couplet in such compositions is good, the rhyme adds
little to it; and if bad, it will not be in the power of the rhyme to
recommend it. I am afraid that great numbers of those who admire the
incomparable "Hudibras," do it more on account of these doggrel rhymes
than of the parts that really deserve admiration. I am sure I have heard
the

Pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick (Canto I, II),

a