sufficient to show the sound and healthy school of poesy to which he
belonged; Luce de Lancival, Parny, Saint-Lambert, Rouche, Vigee,
Andrieux, Berchoux were his heroes. Delille was his god, until the day
when the leading society of Soulanges raised the question as to
whether Gourdon were not superior to Delille; after which the clerk of
the court always called his competitor "Monsieur l'Abbe Delille," with
exaggerated politeness.

The poems manufactured between 1780 and 1814 were all of one pattern,
and the one which Gourdon composed upon the Cup-and-Ball will give an
idea of them. They required a certain knack or proficiency in the art.
"The Chorister" is the Saturn of this abortive generation of jocular
poems, all in four cantos or thereabouts, for it was generally
admitted that six would wear the subject threadbare.

Gourdon's poem entitled "Ode to the Cup-and-Ball" obeyed the poetic
rules which governed these works, rules that were invariable in their
application. Each poem contained in the first canto a description of
the "object sung," preceded (as in the case of Gourdon) by a species
of invocation, of which the following is a model:--

I sing the good game that belongeth to all,
The game, be it known, of the Cup and the Ball;
Dear to little and great, to the fools and the wise;
Charming game! where the cure of all tedium lies;
When we toss up the ball on the point of a stick
Palamedus himself might have envied the trick;
O Muse of the Loves and the Laughs and the Games,
Come down and assist me, for, true to your aims,
I have ruled off this paper in syllable squares.