18th Century Garb

LADIES' MISTAKES--James Laver-- Knopf ($2).

Among the lost arts is that of writing verse in "heroic couplets." Though the 18th Century thought it the only wear for poets, it has since dropped completely out of fashion, is now never used as a serious poetic form. For the English, especially, it still has a half-humorous academic charm. Author Laver, onetime winner of Oxford's Newdigate Poetry Prize, comports himself with fair grace in these borrowed 18th Century garments but never rises to the level of Pope's elegance or acid wit.

Sly rather than satirical, these three poems sing of London love. A Stitch in Time, or Pride Prevents a Fall tells how Belinda nearly fell a prey to the importunity of a suitor, at the last minute saved her virtue when she remembered she had darned her green chemise with pink thread. In Love's Progress, or The Education of Araminta a serious-minded, Ruskin-loving girl runs the gamut of arty life, ends as the wedded wife of a Victorian-lover. Cupid's Changeling, or The Lady's Mistake recounts the comic error of a lady novelist who took a stranger to her bed, thinking he was a famed cinemactor.

Now & then Author Laver recaptures the authentic 18th Century note:

Though pulpit prudes unendingly abuse

The harmless, empty, uncomplaining pews;

Occasionally he bends the style to modern uses:

Garbo the glamorous, the alluring Swede,

Mysterious blend of awkwardness and grace,

Or Janet Gaynor with her angel face,

Or Constance Bennett with the lustrous eyes,

Or blonde Marlene of the puissant thighs--

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