An enormous collection of them was brought together by Titon du Tillet (1676–1762), in his Parnasse français, where those who are curious on the subject may observe to satiety how ingenious and artificial and trifling the vers de société of the French 18th century could be.
He is paying a visit at Burghley House, where the conversation turns on the merits and adventures of Mr Fleetwood Shepherd; Prior then and there throws off, in extremely graceful verse, a piece appropriate to the occasion.
The odes of Ambrose Philips (1671–1749) addressed by name to various private persons, and, most happily, to children, were not understood in his own age, but possess some of the most fortunate characteristics of pure vers de société.
Nothing of peculiar importance detains us until we reach Cowper, whose poems for particular occasions, such as those on Mrs Throckmorton's Bullfinch and The Distressed Travellers, are models of the poetic use of actual circumstances treated with an agreeable levity, or an artful naïvety.
In a later age, Byron, who excelled in so many departments of poetry, was an occasional writer of brilliant vers de société, such as the epistle Huzza, Hodgson, but to find a direct successor to Prior it is necessary to pass Henry Luttrell and W. R. Spencer, and to come down to W. M. Praed.
A certain character was given to English vers de société by Hood and R. H. Barham, but the former was too much addicted to a play upon words, the latter was too boisterous, to be considered as direct continuers of the tradition of Prior.
[2] That tradition, however, was revived by Frederick Locker-Lampson, whose London Lyrics, first printed in 1857 and constantly modified until 1893, is in some respects the typical modern example of pure vers de société.