a great deal of humor too; everything is | scholarship as amuses the well-read people good that makes the two nations known to of the world; but it is never pedantic. In each other." style it is faultless; but though it requires an absolute perfection, the perfection is its own, for, notwithstanding that the workmanship must be fine and thorough in every part, it must not be the workman. ship of inspiration. Dresden figures want as much work on them as small Greek bronzes, but the work must differ in kind. There must be no heaven-sent harmonies, only plenty of well-devised melody. Then, too, its subjects are always men and women, and not only men and women, but men and women of the world. But, though And with this thought I close. His last few words of personal kindness I cannot repeat here; but it would seem to me as if I had, in some small measure, ful filled his wish and the wish of the best spirits in both countries, to "make the two peoples known to each other," if I had contributed a few small touches which may give life to the well-known outlines of his genius and his work. For his genius was great indeed, and his work was done for that commonwealth which is the whole earth. He strangely realized Goe-it is always of the world, it is never the the's lofty poem. He achieved the impossible, brought order out of confusion, he chose and judged; it was given to him to endow the moment with lasting life, to bind all that strays and errs to noble uses: song of the person of quality, or the mere chronicle of the court. Its heroines are valued not because they are duchesses, but because they are handsome, witty, and famous. If it occupies itself with little things, they are the little things of great people. It is very seldom that a real poet is a successful writer of vers de société. Every now and then he cannot help a touch of inspiration, and blows through the reed as if it were a trumpet, and then the reed is broken. When English poetry was at its best, not only did the poets write no vers de société, but there were no vers de société writers at all. It is true that Sir which had so much the true ring in it, that Walter Raleigh wrote one pretty quatrain in the age when such verse was most appreciated, the wielder of the diamondpointed pencil deemed it worthy to be produced as his own impromptu. Who could have supposed, when Chesterfield wrote out the charming lines, Silence in love betrays more woe Than words, though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity; THOUGH we cannot find it an English name, and though no English critic has yet been able to discover a satisfactory that he was quoting from the unpolished definition, we all know well enough what age of Elizabeth? No wonder the "little is vers de société, and what is not. We tea-table scoundrel,” as George II. loved can recognize its strongest features, if we to call him, felt quite certain he would cannot tell all its changing colors. We not be detected. Ben Jonson, it is true, know that though it comes near, it never every now and then gives us a line or two quite touches burlesque. We know that that is pure vers de société; but he, again, it is never bitter enough for satire, or was too inspired a poet to bear the necesbroad enough for comedy. It never really sary restraint successfully. Chloris's demoves us, though a touch of pathos, only scription of the man who could please her half expressed and only half believed in, is very near; but just as it is settling is its most effective resources. It is never down into the proper swing, comes a rushserious; but then, it is never thoughtless, ing wind of poetry that carries us into a -for it is never dull. It sometimes af- very different region, and bids us breathe fects to be innocent, but yet is never a very different air. It is not till we reach childish, for it always appeals to men and the age of the second Charles for dur women. It will own the aid of as muching his father's reign the overflowing fancy For while she makes her silkworms beds For though the strictest prudes should know Prior, too, could manage to be lively, al is infinitely too strong a satire; while the on burlesque or comedy. For instance, exquisite quatrain, Were I of all these woods the lord, Than all my large command; is true poetry. Congreve, in his "Amoret," has given us an absolute touchstone for the true manner. Nothing can be imagined more perfect as vers de société than: Fair Amoret is gone astray! Pursue and seek her, every Lover; Both study'd, though both seem neglected; Affecting to seem unaffected. Congreve, however, did not write very much that is as perfect as this. His "Doris" is too bitter. Yet one verse, if it were not for a horrible cockney rhyme, is charming. We quote it as the awful example: Whom she refuses, she treats still With so much sweet behavior, That her refusal, through her skill, Looks almost like a favor. when Kitty is trying to get the chariot from her mother: Must Lady Jenny frisk about, And visit with her cousins? At balls must she make all the rout, And bring home hearts by dozens? Here Prior is pressing the line which separates him from pure comedy, but he does not pass it. Vers de société does not suit the couplet, and hence the greater eighteenth century writers are not very prolific. Gay's manner is, in truth, very suitable, but in his works there is a certain languishing air which is seductive enough, especially in the mock pastorals, but yet cannot quite agree with the brightness and vitality inseparable from true vers de société. Pope is another instance to show that a real poet cannot write it. He was forever writing on suitable subjects, but his magnificent powers of style, his ear for verse which is always classic in spirit, even when most restricted and benumbed by sameness, and his splendid inspirations of expression, raise his verse to too high a level. He cannot compliment a second. rate Irish painter on his portraits of the beauties of the day without introducing so sonorous and so proudly worded a cou Thus Churchill's race shall other hearts sur- Hardly, except in "Amoret," is the ideal orid once ben This is not workmanship fit for Drsden I know the thing that's most uncom I know a reasonable woman, pret mage a the ray Oh! bless'd with temper whose unclouded The "Miscellanies," which were forever appearing throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century, contain plenty of vers de société which, as far as subject and style go, may readily be admitted. The quality, however, is for the most part very indifferent. Charles Fox's rhymes are sometimes spoken of as excellent in their kind, but in truth they are not well enough worked to deserve to be called vers de société. Canning, in the next generation, is too much of a satirist, while Byron is too full of passion on the one hand, and comic force on the other. Yet some of his verses can properly be allowed under this head. The lines beginning, "Hurra! Hobhouse, we are going," the song of "The Spanish Ladies," originally meant to be inserted in "Childe Harold," and "Oh! talk not to me of the names great in story," might all be included. With Tom Moore it is very difficult to deal. We have no desire to speak of him with disrespect as a poet, but there is no denying that though he was always trying to catch the tone of vers de société, he never succeeded. When he puts any real feeling into his verses, as in "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," he rises above the required level; when he does not, his slipshod style, his shambling and pretentious melody, and his vulgarity of expression and thought, render him quite unworthy to strike the lyre of elegance. It is not till Praed began to write that we get again real perfection. It is not too much to say of him that he has nothing to learn in his particular art. He is never too gay, never too solemn. He is always breathing the air of good society, without ever the slightest fear of a vulgar slip to haunt the reader. He is as little likely to make an unmelodious line or an awkward sentence, as he is to perpetrate a dull joke or an ill-bred phrase. He is easy without being slangy, mock-serious without burlesque, gay without grimaces. He has lightness uninjured by thoughtlessness, scholarship without pedantry, good breeding without pomposity or pride. Perhaps not the least delightful of the delightful reprints which the public is now being offered in exchange for its shillings and sixpences, is the little volume of selections from Praed in the "Canterbury Poets." We will not pledge ourselves to its being the best possible selection, but it fills a very great want, and makes Praed accessible to every one. With such a field, it is hardly possible to quote. Perhaps the last stanza of "My Partner" is as representative as any, though somewhat hackneyed: Our love was like most other loves, The usual vows, and then we parted. Yet some admirers will insist on giving the palm to "The Portrait of a Lady,' where the poet puts all the possible conjectures concerning the unnamed Academy portrait: I see they've brought you flowers to-day; From all the pinks and all the roses. Of one whose look as fondly answers, And is he fairest in the Church? Or is he ain't he—in the Lancers? To see how absolutely essential is this lightness, and yet certainty of touch, we have only to turn to Thackeray. As poetry, as the work of a genius, how infinitely superior! but as vers de société, how much below Praed! "The Canebottom'd Chair" is far too full of deep and tender sentiment, the "Almack's Adieu" is too satirical. In the present generation, Mr. Frederick Locker alone has done anything to imitate Praed suc cessfully. Some of his verse is, indeed, charming, and all of it is composed in the true manner. Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Austin Dobson have both tried their hands at the difficult task. Mr. Lang, as having very many islands (Pallas estimated their number at seventy), but they are not reliable. As to the map of 1784, no cartographer, accustomed to distinguish nature-true maps from fancy ones, would hesitate in recognizing it as quite reliable as to its general features. It is also fully confirmed by the ulterior 66 though he can write so pleasantly, has hardly enough "go" about him. He is quaint, he is learned and ingenious, he is melodious; but his work is just too labored, just too pedantic, smells just too much of the study. Mr. Austin Dobson is a truer poet, but hardly hits the mark. We cannot call him a greater success. With him, somehow, the suburbs are al-detailed surveys dating from the beginways with us. Clapham is doubtless just ning of our century. It appears from this as tender and true, and may be just as series of four maps, dating from different witty, as St. James's and Mayfair; and periods, that the drying up has gone on yet the verses that deal with the people at a speed which will surely appear astonwho live in the latter, alone are tolerable ishing to geographers. The group of as vers de société. Not that we for a mo- lakes consisted of three large lakes ment suggest that Mr. Austin Dobson's Sumy, Abyshkan, and Tchany, with a verses have any particular local color. smaller lake, Moloki, between the two Our geographical allusion is solely by way latter. Lake Tchany (the largest of the of example. We only feel that, some-three) has much diminished in size, espehow or other, a society living, dancing, cially in its eastern and southern parts; flirting, making puns, and talking politics but the greatest changes have gone on in in the widest sense, is the society which the other lakes. Whole villages have must be described, and that the slightly too decorous and thoughtful surroundings of the modern literary man are hardly the most suitable atmosphere for such verse. We cannot bid adieu to the subject before us without alluding to Mr. Frederick Locker's charming collection of vers de société. This anthology of exotics is in-years of this century, and whose surface deed a delightful possession. Happy is the man who has his bookshelves full of them. Wise is the man who obtains a copy when he sees one in a sale-room or on a book-stall. From Nature. DRYING UP OF SIBERIAN LAKES. THE rapid drying up of lakes in the Aral-Caspian depression, in so far as it appears from surveys made during the last hundred years, is the subject of a very interesting and important paper contributed by M. Yadrintseff to the last issue of the Izvestia of the St. Petersburg Geographical Society (vol. xxii., fasc. 1). Two maps, which will be most welcome to physical geographers, accompany the paper. One of them represents the group of lakes Sumy, Abyshkan, Moloki, and Tchany, in the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, according to a survey made in 1784. The other represents the same lakes according to three different surveys made during our century, in 1813 to 1820, in 1850 to 1860, and finally in 1880, and it shows thus the rapid progress of drying up of these lakes. There are also earlier maps of Lake Tchany, which represent it grown on the site formerly occupied by Lake Moloki, which had a length of twenty miles at the end of last century, and now is hardly three miles wide. Of Lake Abyshkan, which had a length of forty miles from north to south, and a width of seventeen miles in the earlier was estimated at five hundred and thirty square miles, only three small ponds have remained, the largest of them being hardly one mile and a half wide. The drying up has been going on with remarkable rapidity. Even twenty-five years ago there were several lakes ten and eight miles long and wide, where there are now but little ponds. Lake Tchebakly, which was represented in 1784 as an oval forty miles long and thirty miles wide, has an elongated irregular shape on the map of the beginning of our century; it measures, however, still forty miles in length, and its width varies from seven to twenty miles; while several small lakes to the east of it show its former extension. Thirty years later we find in the same place but a few small lakes, the largest of which hardly has a length and width of three miles; and now, three small ponds, the largest of them having a width of less than two miles, are all that remain of a lake which covered about three hundred and fifty square miles a hundred years ago. The same process is going on throughout the lakes of west Siberia, and throughout the Aral-Caspian depression. No geologist doubted upon it, but we cannot but heartily thank M. 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