That for the month of November last, which now lies before me, is as
follows
Lauriers
Guerriers
Musette
Lisette
Caesars
Etendars
Houlette
Folette
One would be amazed to see so learned a man as Menage talking
seriously on this kind of trifle in the following passage:-
"Monsieur de la Chambre has told me that he never knew what he was
going to write when he took his pen into his hand; but that one
sentence always produced another. For my own part, I never knew
what I should write next when I was making verses. In the first
place I got all my rhymes together, and was afterwards perhaps three
or four months in filling them up. I one day showed Monsieur
Gombaud a composition of this nature, in which, among others, I had
made use of the four following rhymes, Amaryllis, Phyllis, Maine,
Arne; desiring him to give me his opinion of it. He told me
immediately that my verses were good for nothing. And upon my
asking his reason, he said, because the rhymes are too common, and
for that reason easy to be put into verse. 'Marry,' says I, 'if it
be so, I am very well rewarded for all the pains I have been at!'
But by Monsieur Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the severity of the
criticism, the verses were good." (Vide "Menagiana.
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