the Connecticut House of Representatives by a prayer, was requested by the Speaker to remain seated by him during the sitting. At the time the State of Connecticut had no general law of divorce, and to obtain annulment of the bonds of matrimony it was necessary for the parties to make application to the legislature. The clerical gentleman, having witnessed an instance of this process of legislative unmarrying, wrote and handed the following to the Speaker:

For cutting all connections famed
Connect-i-cut is fairly named;
I twain connect in one, but you
Cut those whom I connect in two:
Each legislator seems to say,

"What you connect I cut away."

All that history records of the following is that it was written on the window of an inn at Huddersfield:

"The queen is with us," Whigs exulting say,
"For when she found us in, she let us stay."
It may be so; but give me leave to doubt

How long she'll keep you when she finds you out.

And the following is said to have been dashed off in a court-room by a flippant young barrister while the tedious and ruddy-faced Serjeant C—, bewigged and clothed in purple gown, was making an interminable argument:

The serjeant pleads with face on fire,
And all the court may rue it;

His purple garment comes from Tyre,
His arguments go to it.

It is the generally-accepted theory that the earlier poets, the Homeridæ, the Bards, Skalds, Troubadours, Jongleurs, Minnesingers, or whatever other names they go by, were mostly extemporizers and their songs improvisations. If true, then in one respect at least the human intellect has degenerated. The gentlemen that write with ease, and write well, are, according to the best authorities, a literary myth. To prove the popular theory incorrect is as difficult as it is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and practically the whole question reduces itself to a balancing of probabilities. The folk-loristic ballad is the product of generation upon generation of accretion and polish. Of the true genesis of the most ancient poetry extant we have plenty of theory and correspondingly little historic fact. Of the well-authenticated examples of extemporizing the most notable are probably the Italian, particularly the Florentine, improvvisatori. These dainty rhymers, who never would permit their songs to be written down,-" cosi se perderebbe la poca gloria,"-making the Italian summer nights melodious with the tinkle of the guitar, flourished down to nearly modern times. Their themes, however, were extremely limited. Their most common subjects were the commendation of their several mistresses, or the contending of two swains for the same maiden, or a debate which was the best poet, after the manner of eclogues; indeed, they put one in mind of Virgil's third, fifth, and seventh eclogues, where the shepherds contend in alternate verse; and Virgil's shepherds seem sometimes to be tied down by the thoughts in the preceding stanza, just as these Tuscan extempore poets were by the rhyme of the one who had immediately preceded. The immediate influence of these canzonari on English literature is beautifully portrayed in the idyllic picture of Sir Walter Raleigh and himself as painted by Edmund Spenser, when the two were neighbors and visitors on their Irish He sings of their song-contests, when

estates.

He sitting me beside in that same shade
Provoked me to play some pleasant fit;
And when he heard the music which I made,
He found himself full greatly pleased at it.

Yet æmuling, my pipe he took in hond,-
My pipe, before that æmuled of many,-
And play'd thereon (for well that skill he cond),
Himself as skilful in that art as any.

He pip'd, I sung: and when he sung I pip'd;
By change of turns each making other merry:
Neither envying other, nor envied;

So piped we, until we both were weary.

Some of the feats, however, of the improvvisatori are astonishing enough. "When I was at Florence, at our resident's Mr. C.," writes Spence, "I first thought it impossible for them to go on so readily as they did without having arranged things beforehand. He said it amazed everybody at first; that he had no doubt it was all fair, and desired me, to be satisfied of it, to give them some subject myself, as much out of the way as I could think of. As he insisted, I offered a subject on which they could not be well prepared. It was but a day or two before that a band of musicians and actors set out from Florence to introduce operas for the first time at the Empress of Russia's court. This advance of music, and that sort of dramatic poetry which the Italians at present look upon as the most capital parts of what they call virtù, so much farther north, was the subject I offered them. They shook their heads a little, and said it was a very difficult one. However, in two or three minutes' time one of them began with his octave upon it; another answered him immediately, and they went on for five or six stanzas, alternately, without any pause, except that very short one which is allowed them by giving off of the tune on the guitar at the end of each stanza. They always improvise to music." It is a pity that the relator did not preserve a record of this contest; it would have proved a veritable curiosity. Something in this line were the exhibitions of the Signora Taddi in 1824 at Naples and elsewhere of her wonderful power of improvising lyric poetry and melody at the same time. She would not only adopt whatever stories or incidents might be suggested as her subjects, but would utter her improvisations in any metre prescribed and fit her words to music the time or measure of which should be dictated at the moment.

Returning to England and Raleigh, the story is about as well authenticated as any of the details of his career, that when a young adventurer, seeking the queen's favor, he wrote on a window which she must pass the line,—

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall,

which catching her eye, Elizabeth immediately completed the couplet by adding,

If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.

Other prompt rejoinders are attributed to Queen Elizabeth. When asked by a priest whether she allowed the real presence in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, she adroitly replied,—

Christ was the word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that word did make it,
That I believe and take it.

Even more clever was her reply, and in a Latin hexameter too, to the insolent message of Philip II., delivered by the Spanish ambassador in these

lines:

Te, veto, ne pergas bello defendere Belgas;

Quæ Dracus eripuit, nunc restituantur, oportet;
Quas pater evertit, jubeo te condere cellas;
Religio papæ fac restituatur ad unguem.

She instantly answered,—

Ad Græcas, bone rex, fiant mandata, calendas.

Much more doubtful is the tradition which, without sufficient reason, seeks to fasten on Shakespeare the epitaph on a rich usurer, one Combe, said to have been extemporized by the poet in a tavern at Stratford :

Ten in a hundred the devil allowes,

But Combe will have twelve he swears and vowes.

If any aske who lies in this tombe,

"Hoh," quoth the devil, "'tis my John-O-Combe."

Another version, which at least gives the jest more point, is that John Combe was a rich Stratford burgess and intimate friend of Shakespeare. During a discourse, not unaccompanied, we may imagine, with a discussion of beer, Mr. Moneybags remarked to the poet that in all likelihood he would write his epitaph, and if he postponed it until it was actually needed the interlocutor would never see it; therefore he would have him compose it, whatever it was, at once. With a laugh Shakespeare immediately complied by reciting this verse:

Ten in the hundred lies here engraved,

'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved.

If any man ask who lies in this tomb,

"Oho," quoth the devil, "'tis my John-a-Combe."

In the Warwickshire dialect "a combe" means "has come." Was it in memory of this jeu-d'esprit that Combe left the poet a legacy of five pounds? Only less apocryphal than the foregoing is that ascribed to Ben Jonson. It appears that "rare Ben" had been invited to a conviviality at the Falcon Tavern. At the time he was heavily in debt at the hostelry. Mine host's heart softening, he offered to accept payment in the poet's own coin,-to wit, he would wipe out the score if he would instanter compose a rhyme in which he would tell what God and the devil, what the world and mine host himself, would be most pleased with: to which the poet promptly responded,

God is best pleased when men forsake their sin;
The devil is best pleased when they persist therein;
The world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine;
And you're best pleased when I do pay for mine.

Leaving now the mythological and advancing into the historical ages of the impromptu, it may be remarked by way of preface that, the spontaneousness of their creation apart, impromptus are in all other respects a most heterogeneous lot. They assume every imaginable form, and their contents may be a parody or a polemic, a clever thought epigrammatically expressed, a bit of drollery, grotesquerie, or persiflage. The object is generally to elicit an approbatory smile or to raise a laugh.

A very effective impromptu was that of the Duke of Dorset. The duke, John Dryden, Bolingbroke, and Chesterfield were in the habit of spending their evenings together. On one occasion it was proposed that the three aristocrats should each write a something and place it under the candlestick, and that Dryden (who was at that period in very indifferent circumstances) should determine who had written the best thing. No sooner proposed than agreed to. The scrutiny commenced, judgment was given. "My lords," said Dryden, addressing Bolingbroke and Chesterfield, "you each of you have proved your wit, but I am sure you will, nevertheless, agree with me that his Grace the Duke of Dorset has excelled; pray attend, my lords: 'I promise to pay to John Dryden, Esq., on demand, One Hundred Pounds.DORSET." It scarcely need be observed that the noble wits subscribed to the judgment.

Not a whit less effective, however, was the well-timed speech by a mechanic. At the time when Sir Richard Steele was preparing his great room in "York Building” for public orations, he happened to be considerably behindx ii

45

hand in his payments to the workmen; and coming one day among them to see what progress had been made, he ordered the carpenter to get into the rostrum and make a speech, that he might observe how it could be heard. The fellow mounted, and, scratching his poll, told Sir Richard that he knew not what to say, for he was no orator. "Oh," cried the knight, "no matter for that; speak anything that comes uppermost." "Why, then, Sir Richard," says the fellow,"here have we been working for your honor these six months and cannot get a penny of money. Pray, sir, when do you design to pay us?" "Very well, very well," said Sir Richard; "pray come down. I have heard quite enough. I cannot but own you speak very distinctly, though I don't much admire your subject."

The following lines are sometimes claimed for Jane Brereton, but are more generally ascribed as an impromptu to Lord Chesterfield. When he saw Beau Nash's full-length picture flanked to right and to left by the busts of Newton and Pope, he exclaimed,—

The picture placed the busts between
Adds to the thought much strength:
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,

But Folly's at full length.

This suggests one of the best-known mots of William R. Travers. In the palmy days of the Fiske-Gould partnership the steamboat Mary Powell had been completely refitted and furnished, and a party of gentlemen were invited by the owners to inspect her appointments, among them Mr. Travers. The saloon of the vessel had been decorated in a magnificent manner, and two life-size oil-paintings of the owners, Fiske and Gould, hung up, one on each side. In the midst of the hum of admiration from the guests, the portraits attracting particular attention, "Very fine," cried Travers, "you on one side and Gould on the other, but where is our Lord?"

Even the sober dons sometimes are infected. Shortly after the tumult at the University of Oxford had been quelled, on which occasion troops had to be called in, King George I. sent to the University of Cambridge a present of books, which circumstance induced Dr. Grapp, of Tory Oxford, to write this epigram:

Our royal master saw with heedful eyes
The wants of his two Universities:

Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why
That learned body wanted loyalty;

But books to Cambridge gave, as well discerning

That that right loyal body wanted learning.

To this slur Sir William Thompson retorted with this very clever improvisation :

The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For Tories know no argument but force;
With equal care to Cambridge books he sent,

For Whigs allow no force but argument.

The following is credited to the poet Praed, who, while a member in Parliament and observing the Speaker asleep, wrote and passed up this squib:

Sleep, Mr. Speaker! Harvey will soon
Move to abolish the sun and the moon;
Hume will, no doubt, be taking the sense
Of the House on a question of sixteen pence;
Statesmen will howl, and patriots will bray,—
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may.

When Burke had concluded his exceedingly bitter speech against Warren Hastings, the latter, it is asserted on the authority of Mr. Evans, his private secretary, promptly penned and handed around these lines:

Oft have we wondered that on Irish ground
No poisonous reptile ever yet was found.
The secret stands revealed in Nature's work:
She saved her venom to create a Burke !

And of Charles James Fox it is stated that when a certain lady, in whose house he made one of a party, declared she "did not care three skips of a louse for him," he retorted with the stanza,—

A lady has told me, and in her own house,

That she cares not for me "three skips of a louse."
I forgive the dear creature for what she has said,
Since women will talk of what runs in their head.

A very elegant impromptu is that of Dr. Young, the author of the "Night Thoughts." Walking in his garden at Welwyn with two ladies, one of whom afterwards became his wife, a visitor was announced. "Tell him," said the doctor to the servant, "I am too well engaged to change my situation." The ladies, however, declared that this would not do, and, as the visitor was a distinguished gentleman, begged their host by all means to go in; finally, the doctor remaining obdurate, they grasped him each by an arm, and gently but firmly led and thrust him out of the garden. Finding himself worsted, the doctor succumbed with a grandiloquent bow and, laying his hand upon his heart, declaimed in his impressive and expressive manner these extempore lines:

Thus Adam looked when from the garden driven,
And thus disputed orders sent from heaven.
Like him I go, but yet to go I'm loath;
Like him I go, for angels drove us both.

Hard was his fate, but mine still more unkind,
His Eve went with him, but mine stays behind.

One of the neatest impromptus is another of Young's. Seated at a table after dinner, in company with a number of gens d'esprit, he borrowed Lord Chesterfield's diamond-mounted pencil, and with the diamond scratched upon a wineglass,

Accept a miracle, instead of wit

See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ.

The nearness of genius to madness is again illustrated by the retort of poor Nat Lee, when Sir Roger L'Estrange came to visit him in the mad-house. Shocked by the appearance of his friend, the visitor could not suppress an expression of solicitude for the sad alteration. The ear of the lunatic overheard the remark, and his quick eye caught the change of expression in the face of the visitor. In a flash he retorted,

Faces may alter, names can't change.

I am strange Lee altered, you are still Lé-strange.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, the apostle of common sense, the dread of the fool and the affected, of the untruthful and inaccurate, whose conversation was as happy and witty as his writing was pedantic and labored, had the truly Tuscan gift of improvisation. No man ever lived of whose sayings and doings the world has nearly so accurate a report, and the examples of his aptness in this direction are very numerous.

Johnson was discoursing with Boswell on a certain writer of poetry. “He has taken to an odd mode," said Dr. Johnson. "For example, he'd write

thus:

Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,
Wearing out life's evening gray.

Now, gray evening is common enough; but evening gray he'd think finer.— Stay, shall we make out the stanza ?—