ire tricycles from the dining-room attendants, and
have races up and down the long river terrace, much to the interest of
passers-by on Westminster Bridge. We projected, to pass the time, a
"Soulful Song-Cycle," which was frankly to be an attempt at pulling the
public's leg. Our Song-Cycle never matured, though I did write the
first one of the series, an imaginative effort entitled "In Listless
Frenzy." It was, and was intended to be, utter nonsense, devoid alike
of grammar and meaning. I quoted my "Listless Frenzy" one night to an
"intense" and gushing lady, as an example of the pitiable rubbish
decadent minor poets were then turning out. It began--

"Crimson wreaths of passionless flowers
Down in the golden glen;
Silvery sheen of autumnal showers;
When, my beloved one, when?"

She assured me that the fault lay in myself, not in the lines; that I
was of too material a temperament to appreciate the subtle beauty of
so-and-so's work. I forget to whom I had attributed the verses, but I
felt quite depressed at reflecting that I was too material to
understand the lines I had myself written.

My brother was a great admirer of the Ingoldsby Legends, and could
himself handle Richard Barham's fascinating metre very effectively. He
was meditating "A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay," dealing with leading
personalities in the then House of Commons. The idea came to nothing,
as an "Ingoldsby Legend" must, from its very essence, be cast in a
narrative form, and the subject did not lend itself to narrative.
Although it has nothing to do with the subject in hand, I must quote
some lines from "The Raid of Carlisle," another "Pseudo-Ingoldsbean
Lay" of my brother's, to show how easily he could use Barham's metre,
with its ear-tickling double rhyme, and how thoroughly he had
assimilated the spirit of the Ingoldsby Legends. The extracts are from
an account of an incident which occurred in 1596 when Lord Scroop was
Warden of the Western or English Marches on behalf of Elizabeth, while
Buccleuch, on the Scottish side, was Warden of the Middle Marches on
behalf of James VI.

"Now, I'd better explain, while I'm still in the vein,
That towards the close of Elizabeth's reign,
Though the 'thistle and rose' were no longer at blows,
They'd a way of disturbing each other's repose.
A mode of proceeding most clearly exceeding
The rules of decorum, and palpably needing
Some clear understanding between the two