er's 'St. James's Street,' Mr. Dobson's 'Rotten Row,' Prior's lines
'To a Child of Quality,' and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's 'Ode to Miss
Harriet Bunbury'--these are the true _vers de societe_, the true
'poetry' of the ball-room and the _salon_.

What, then, is to become of the large amount of verse which remains
unaccounted for--which is neither distinctively sentimental nor
distinctively comic, and yet has no right to the designation of
society-verse? Well, this is the class of verse which, as we have said,
has hitherto not been christened, and for which it is desirable to find
a name. It is a very delightful species of rhythmic work, and deserves a
denomination of its own. It has the tone, less of society and of the
Court, than of the familiar intercourse of every day--of the
intercourse, that is, which goes on between people of ordinary breeding
and education. It does not dabble in the phrase of drawing-rooms, nor
does it rise to the height of sentiment or sink to the depths of low
comedy. It is 'familiar, but by no means vulgar.' Its first quality is
ease--absence of effort, spontaneity, freedom, a _degage_ air. It is in
rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is--flowing and
unpremeditated without slovenliness--having the characteristics of the
best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its
second quality is playfulness--a refusal to be too much in earnest in
any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme.
It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its
dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the
sentimental, sometimes to the witty, sometimes to the humorous; but
always the style and atmosphere are those of familiar life, of everyday
reunions; and hence the suggestion that it should be recognised as
'Familiar Verse.'

I have said how numerous are its producers. Often it has been written by
those who were poets as well as verse-writers; often by those who are
well-known as wits and humourists. It has flourished, naturally, in,
periods of tolerance rather than in strenuous times, and has been at its
best, therefore, in the Caroline, Augustan, and Victorian ages of our
literature. There was not much of it in the Elizabethan days, though
some bears the signature of rare Ben Jonson. It came in, in full force,
with the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease--with Suckling, whose
'Prithee, why so pale, fond lover?