Our exchanges have of late grown more or less satirical on the subject of verses usually found in college papers of the day. They might of course have stepped over the narrow bounds which they have placed upon their sharp criticisms and have reviewed the general run of poetry which appears in the more strictly literary periodicals, but they have spared us fortunately, and only college poets were hauled over the coal. It is noticeable that those whose verses are systematically worst are most noisy in carping and cavilling at the envied superiority of their betters and in disclaiming all partisanship in favor of what they mockingly call the French jingles. There is a college in New York which does not hear "the babbling of the brooks and twittering of the birds" in the rondeaux, ballades, triolets, and emphatically expresses its disapproval of such baubles of rhyme as follows:

COLLEGE POETRY."Of all the curious things of time,

Cranky metre and cranky rhyme,

Aimless reaching for the sublime,

The worst is college poetry.

Vapid gush of a gushy miss,

Sentiments on a fan and kiss,

Vealy co-ed effusion; this

Is college paper poetry.

Pointless doggerel, misused slang,

Odes to Bacchus with beery tang,

Oh! for a club with which to bang

The author of college poetry."

This is even less palatable than much of the condemned matter, but we judge from its conclusion that it was the first effort of the fighting editor.

However these exceptions are not altogether unjustly taken. Under the worthy leadership of the Argo and Acta we have seen whole armies of our exchanges plunge into the same paths of poetry, which are now worn so bare that the tardy straggler finds nothing to reward his journeyings. The Argo has excelled, as all will agree, in these foreign and exotic forms, and has from time to time published verses highly creditable, but we scarcely dare to whisper our opinion that it has gone beyond the bounds of moderation in restricting its effusions to these peculiar forms, which inevitably fall upon the reader, because only certain turns of idea and expression are possible in them, while the simpler old fashioned straight-away measures allow all themes and all licenses of thought and subject. The majority of appropriate college themes in French metres would find themselves ill at ease when so finely gotten up and would move about in a restrained and over-careful manner. The sad smile of politeness and worn-out gallantry is substituted for substantial good-nature. Appearance is of first importance, little matters the rest.