AUSTIN DOBSON.
The proverb that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is somewhat the worse for wear, and perhaps Mr. Austin Dobson was not altogether inclined to agree with it when he heard that the Puzzle Editor of Truth had published the following notification:
“Truth” Puzzle, No. 472.
Thanks to the efforts of Messrs. Austin Dobson, Andrew Lang, and others, Triolets, Ballades, Rondeaux, Vilanelles, and other metrical devices used by Villon and other French poets of the past, have been freely adapted to English verse-writing, and I am assured that I shall be setting numerous competitors an agreeable task in asking them to write a rhyming composition on one of the revived French models now so fashionable.
The Prize of Two Guineas will accordingly be given for the Best Ballade, written on any Social Subject, in accordance with the following rules:—The Ballade in its normal type, consists of three stanzas of eight lines each, followed by a verse of four lines, which is called the “envoy”—or of three verses of ten lines, with an “envoy” of five lines, each of the stanzas and the “envoy” closing with the same line, known as the “refrain.” In this instance, a Ballade of the former length is asked for—viz.; one with three eight-lined stanzas and a four-lined “envoy.” But it will be, perhaps, a better guide for competitors if I print here a Ballade as a model on which they are to form the ones they compose. Here, then, is a well-known Ballade by Mr. Austin Dobson, which must be followed so far as the arrangement of rhymes goes. The metre, though, of the Ballade often varies, and competitors are not bound to use the same metre as that employed in the subjoined specimen.
ON A FAN THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR.
Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light,