MR. GODLEY'S VERSES.*

Mn. GODLEY has earned the gratitude of all University men and all lovers of belles-lettres by collecting in this slim volume some thirty of the entertaining pieces that he has contributed in the last ten years to the Oxford Maga:ine and other journals. Even where the academical standpoint is most strongly emphasised, esoteric allusiveness is never overdone. One need not be an Oxford man, for example, to enjoy the fun of the delightful " Rubiliwit of Moderations" :—

" Take these few Rules, which—carefully rehearsed— Will land the User safely in a First,

Second, or Third, or Gulf : and after all There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst.

Plain is the Trick of doing Latin Prose ; An Esse Videantur at the Close Makes it to all Intents and Purposes As good as anything of Cicero's.

Yet let it not your anxious Mind perturb Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb : Be comforted: it is like Tacitus, 'Tis mostly done by leaving out the Verb.

Keep clear of Facts the Fool who deals in those A Mucker he inevitably goes :

The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er He knows about it all,—or thinks he knows.

A Pipe, a Teapot, and a Pencil Blue, A Crib, perchance a Lexicor —and You Beside him singing in a Wilderness Of Suppositions palpably untrue-

'Tis all he needs: he is content with these : Not Facts he wants, but soft Hypotheses Which none need take the Pains to verify, This is the Way that Men obtain Degrees !

'Twixt Right and Wrong the Difference is dim : 'Tie settled by the Moderator's whim : Perchance the Delta on your Paper marked Means that his Lunch has disagreed with him."

Scholars will be especially taken with the "1713 against Newnham," in which Mr. Godley has applied to a Greek tragedy the method adopted in regard to fiction by Bret Harts in his "Sensation Novels Condensed," while in the " Quadriviad" we have some delightful doggerel hexameters on the " ructions " which attended the visit of the Prince of Wales, when the services of a contingent of London constables (" Metropolitanae cnstos, Robertnle, pacis ") were retained for the purpose of keeping order. Two lines are worth quoting at the present juncture :—

" Nescio mentiri : si quis mendacia quaerit In vespertinis quaerat mendacia chartis."

There are touches in this piece which recall Calverley's inimitable "Carmen Saeculare," just as the lines "After Horace," "The Journalist Abroad," the "Pensees de Noel," the dream of "The School of Agriculture," and "The Last Straw" recall by their verbal felicity, their unexpected cadences and genial Philistinism, the unforgettable whimsi- calities of the "beloved Cambridge rhyme." Take these

• Lyra Frivolo. By A. D. Godley. London : Methnen.and Co. (is 6J.] stan zee, for instance, in which the question "What asks the Bard ?" is answered :— " The simp!e incomes of the poor

His meek poetic soul content : Say £30,000 at four Per cent. !

His taste in residence is 'plain : No palaces his heart rejoice : A cottage in a lane (Park Lane For choice)—

Here be his days in quiet spent : Here let him meditate the Muse; Baronial Halls were only meant For Jews."

The true inwardness of the "Dialogue on Ethics" between the Isis and the Cherwell can, perhaps, only be adequately comprehended by an Oxonian, but the satire on "Pedagogy" is writ so plain that he who runs may read, while every sub- scriber to the Daily Chronicle may be recommended to peruse the stirring stanzas headed " GrEeculus Esuriens." The first stages of " L'Affaire " are wittily summarised in the following lines :— "It was a little Bordereau that lay upon the ground : 'I'he Franco-Gallic Government that document it found, And straightway drew the inference, though how I do not know, Some Jew had sold to Germany this dreadful Bordereau.

'Tis all (they said) a Hebrew trick—a treasonable plan— And, now we come to think of it, why Dreyfus is the man ! At any rate (they argued thus), it is for him to show That lie is not the criminal who sold the Bordereau.

Some hinted at another man, whose autograph it bore— But this was Dreyfus' artifice, and proved his guilt the more; No motive for the horrid deed confessedly be had: And crimes which are gratuitous are nearly twice as bad.

They caught that Jew (did Government) and charged him with the sale; They proved his guilt—or said they did—and shut him up in gaol ; And then, their case to justify and show their verdict true, They took and baited every one who called himself a Jew."

Mr. Godley has one notable advantage in comparison with his rival academic jesters. He has in his command of the Dublin brogue an extra string to his lyra frivolo, and handles it with admirable results, though we regret that he should have found it necessary, out of deference to the dead, to dilute his humorous ballad on Mr. Parnell's arrest in 1381, the original version of which, familiarised by the gifts of a well-known Irish singer, was immensely superior in raciness and point to that given here on pp. 68-70.