They say that there is a kind of poetry that everyone can write. It is called a limerick.

Its master, though not its inventor, was Edward Lear (1812- 1888) who was a painter and illustrator as well. He once, by royal command, gave Queen Victoria drawing lessons. but in doing so ignored Court etiquette too often. She and her attendants were not amused.

For that or other reasons Lear was not mentioned in Lytton Strachey's book Eminent Victorians. He has, however, outlived some of them in popular memory. His life was as extraordinary as his poetry. The 21st child of his parents, he suffered from epilepsy, bronchitis, asthma and, in his later years, cardiac problems and partial loss of sight. When his parents fell upon what Charles Dickens called "Hard Times" he was raised by a sister 25 years his senior.

Lear never married. His onetime London home is now a small hotel in Seymour Street, Marble Arch, London. He lived abroad for many years and when he died at his "Villa Tennyson" on the Ligurian coast of Italy only a few neighbours attended the funeral.

He had the poet's mastery of words, sound and metre. Many a child still hears his lilting lines from The Owl and the Pussycat:

They dined on mince and slices

of quince

Which they ate with a runcible

spoon And hand in hand, on the edge of

the sand, They danced by the light of the

moon.

'Runcible' was one of his invented words, created just because he liked the sound of it and it had the necessary three syllables. It eventually took on a life of its own and came to describe a spoon with the kind of serrated edge that makes it suitable for eating grapefruit. It also became the adjective for a mischievous but not malicious person. "You runcible rascal" has a judgmental but affectionate ring to it.

Lear's most memorable work consists of his limericks. The origin of the form has been traced to the (usually) bawdy ditties sung in the pubs of County Limerick. The genre is celebrated in the lines,

The limerick makes jokes

anatomical In space that is quite economical

But the best ones I've seen

Very seldom are clean - And clean ones are so seldom

comical.

On the basis of their brevity and simplicity it has been said that even people not accustomed to consorting with those for whom work is the curse of the drinking class, anyone can become a poet by becoming a limerician. [I think that I, too, have just invented a word]. As the Irish proved, that kind of poetic inspiration may improve with successive pints and quarts of whatever.

The familiar limerick form has five lines. Lines 1, 2 and 5 have seven to ten syllables and rhyme with one another. Lines 3e and 4 have five to seven syllables and rhyme together. Thus: There was a young woman whose

eyes Were unique as to colour and

size.

When she opened them wide

People all turned aside

And started away in surprise.

Most limericks begin with "There was" or "There once was". The last line all but repeats the first one.

There once was a woman of

Norway

Who usually sat in the doorway. When double doors squeezed her

flat She said 'Who wants to be fat?'

That bulimic young woman of

Norway.

'Bulimic' was not one of Lear's neologisms. It is a modern touch. In 1846 he published A Book of Nonsense that went through three editions and made limericks popular with children and adults and especially with naughty adolescents. He did not always follow the five line format. His How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear concludes, surprisingly in view of his depressive moods, with this selfaffirmation.

He reads but he cannot speak

Spanish.

He cannot abide ginger beer.

Ere the days of his pilgrimage

vanish,

How pleasant to know Mr Lear.

During my time in England I came across the following lines that require some knowledge of alternative and abbreviated place names. Try this:

There was a young curate from

Hampshire Who went about without any

pampshire

But another from Salisbury

Advised him to Walisbury And so he returned to his pampshire.

It helps to know that the abbreviation for Hampshire is 'Hants'. 'Pampshire' must then be 'pants'. Sarum is the ancient name for Salisbury. Sarum rhymes with 'wear 'em'. The last line, again, should sound like 'Hants'. Similarly obscure is,

There was a young fellow named

Cholomondely Whose bride was so curvy and

colomondeley

That the best man, Colquhoun,

An inane young bolquphoon, Could only stand there and stare

dolomondely.

It helps to know that the English surname Cholomondeley is pronounced 'Chumley'and the Celtic name Colquhoun is usually simplified to Calhoun.

Lear the artist published several books with titles like Illustrated Excursions in Italy and

Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece. His ambition was to paint all the scenery mentioned in Tennyson's poetry from the flower in the crannied wall to the brook that came from haunts of coot and fern. And, of course, the willows and aspens seen by the Lady of Shallot

He did not live to complete his wish to illustrate all the scenery that had been word-painted by the great Victorian poet. His most whimsical drawings were made to accompany his nonsense limericks - the ones, for example, about the old man with a flute when a serpent crawled into his boot and about that extraordinary person of Dutton whose head was as small as a button.

Not surprisingly, it was Ogden Nash who eventually finished some of Lear's incomplete 'poetry lite'.

And now a challenge. This newspaper will offer prizes for what are judged to be the best limericks that include the names of places in or people or features of Dufferin County

All that are fit to print in general circulation papers will be published in The Orangeville Citizen/Shelburne Free Press and Economist in December.