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Rh "For so doing you shall be most fair, most wise, most rich, most everything! You shall feed upon superlatives." Carew, adopting the same tone, and less gallant than Wither, who refers even his own fame to Arete's kindling glances, tells the flaunting Celia very plainly that she owes her dazzling prominence to him alone.

What wonder that, under such conditions and with such reminders, a passion for being be-rhymed seized upon all women, from the highest to the lowest, from the marchioness at court to the orange-girl smiling in the theatre!—a passion which ended its fluttering existence in our great-grandmothers' albums. Yet nothing is clearer, when we study these poetic suits, than their very discouraging results. The pleasure that a woman takes in being courted publicly in verse is a very distinct sensation from the pleasure that she expects to take when being courted privately