Michel Hendersonus,
Qui jolly tryppas ante alios dansare solebat,
Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare boneas.'

But though this is not wholly unamusing, it is hardly, as nonsense, up
to the standard instituted for us by Mr. Lear.

The real thing is more nearly visible in Swift's macaronic lines about
Molly--'Mollis abuti, Hasan acuti,' etc.--another vein of fun which has
been exceedingly well worked out by successive writers. But such
inspirations as these have too much method in them to be quite
admissible. Much better was Swift's 'Love Song in the Modern Taste,'
beginning:

'Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart.'

Even this, however, has too much sense for it to pass muster. Nor can
one receive Johnson's

'If a man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,'

and so on, as sufficiently nonsensical. It is simply a _jeu de mots_,
and no more, though funny enough as it stands. One is better satisfied
when one comes to the 'Tom Thumb' of Henry Fielding and the
'Chrononhotonthologos' of Henry Carey, though even in those diverting
squibs it is rarely that the versifier surrenders himself wholly to
'Divine Nonsensia.' That charming goddess was saluted to more purpose in
'The Anti-Jacobin,' where she was invoked to make charming fun of 'The
Loves of the Plants.' In 'The Progress of Man' (in the same delectable
collection) occurs the inspired passage:

'Ah, who has seen the mailed lobster rise,
Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies
When did the owl, descending from her bower,
Crop, 'mid the fleecy flocks, the tender flower?
Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,
In the salt wave and, fish-like, strive to swim?'

But even this is too consistent in its grotesqueness to be perfect
nonsense.

One becomes acquainted with better nonsense the nearer one gets to one's
own times. How clever, for instance, was that well-known 'dream' of
Planche's, in which he fancied that he

'Was walking with Homer, and talking
The very best Greek I was able--was able--
When Guy, Earl of Warwick, with Johnson and Garrick,
Would dance a Scotch-reel on the table--the table;
When Hannibal, rising, declared 'twas surprising
That gentlemen made such a riot--a riot--
And sent in a bustle to beg Lord John Russell
Would hasten and make them all quiet--all quiet.'

It may be that Mr. W. S. Gilbert had this in his mind when, in