here and there we light on an old friend. We can remember laughing
heartily over _A Modest Vindication of the Earl of S[haftesbur]y, in
a Letter to a Friend Concerning His Being Elected King of Poland_.
The ironical eulogy of Shaftesbury with which the pamphlet begins is
an admirable piece of satire. The Earl is praised for "his unshaken
obedience to every Government he has been concerned in or lived under;
his steady adherence to every religion that had but hopes to be
established." It is interesting to note that in this pamphlet, written
after the production of the _Spanish Friar_, and before the publication
of _Absalom and Achitophel_, Dryden is regarded as a Whig poet. For
the new King of Poland appoints "Jean Drydenurtzitz to be our Poet
Laureate for writing panegyrics upon Oliver Cromwell and libels against
his present master, King Charles II. of England." The deputy Laureate
is no less a person than "Tom Shadworiski," or Shadwell, Dryden's most
bitter enemy in the later years of the Plot. Mr. Dobell's price for
the pamphlet is 7_s._ 6_d._ Two pamphlets in this collection refer to
the fantastic rector of All Saints', Colchester--Edmund Hickeringill,
one time chaplain in the Scottish regiments of the Commonwealth, and
the author of the first retort to _The Medal, The Mushroom_, which
was written and sent to press on the day following the publication of
Dryden's poem--a feat of composition which he modestly suggests was due
to divine inspiration.
_Great News from the Old-Bayly, Mr. Gar's Recantation; or, the True
Protestant Renegade, the Courantier Turn'd Tony_, sounds interesting.
Henry Care had the distinction of being the first to reply to _Absalom
and Achitophel_. His _Towzer the Second_ was published three weeks
after the appearance of the _Tory Satire_, for Care was a true blue
Protestant in those days. "His breeding," says Anthony Wood, "was in
the nature of a Petty Fogger, a little despicable wretch ... a poor
snivelling fellow." He was a poor literary hack, and at James II.'s
accession, "for bread and money sake, and nothing else," he went over
to the side in power and turned his pen against the Protestants.
Three pamphlets deal with Roger L'Estrange, or "Towzer," as he was
nicknamed by his enemies. But there is one enchanting ballad entitled
"_A New Ballad on an Old Dog (Towzer) that Writes Strange-lee_," of
which Mr. Dobell does not seem to have a copy. We could wish that we
had space to quote it. But we have embarked on a subject which needs
treating at length. The literary history of the Popish Plot remains to
be written. A volume of extracts joined together by explanatory notes,
biographical, political, and critical, would be a thing of absorbing
interest.
* * * * *
We notice, by the way, in Mr. Dobell's catalogue that _The London
Mercury, or Moderate Intelligencer_, from December 24th to 27th, 1688,
may be purchased for 5_s._ It is to be hoped that the intelligence of
its namesake of to-day will prove more than moderate.
A. L. H.
CORRESPONDENCE
THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--All schoolmasters and schoolmistresses will be grateful to you
for your services to a great cause in allowing Mr. J. C. Stobart to
talk at length on the teaching of English, but I was surprised to find
myself selected as his scapegoat and "guillotined in distinguished
company" (that of the old _régime_). My colleagues will be amused at
that. Unfortunately Mr. Stobart is not a very skilful executioner.
He tries to show that in my _English Course_ I have followed the
traditional methods in "thoroughly normal chapters." And yet he does
allow that I am "trying to shake off a yoke which is not entirely
congenial" to me. It is more than ten years since I shook off the yoke
which he describes as uncongenial. "The traditional method," he says,
"begins with the copybook and proceeds by way of dictation and formal
exercises to its goal in the essay." I do _not_ advocate the use of
the copybook for the simple reason that copybooks insist on the Vere
Foster type of handwriting, while I require from my pupils an artistic
caligraphy which is opposed in every particular to the uniform ugliness
of the old Board School and present Army Council standard.
Dictation I use most sparingly, though I certainly do prefer a boy
to leave me with an elementary knowledge of punctuation and a slight
acquaintance with the more normal forms of spelling rather than with
a contempt for or slavish adoration of stops, and a phonetic system
of spelling which is intelligible and phonetic to no one but himself.
The reading that I advocate, both in my book and in practice, is
not limited (has Mr. Stobart himself read _all_ the books that I
recommended as useful for boys?), and the text is never obscured with
comment. Where did he get this false information from? To definite
grammar I assigned four and a half pages out of 500, which exactly
expresses my opinion of its importance. Having misrepresented me in
every detail so far, Mr. Stobart proceeds to attack me on two sides at
once. "If you ask the schoolmaster why he makes his English the dullest
subject in the syllabus, he will probably answer that he is preparing
for the London matriculation." I am both a schoolmaster and the English
examiner for the "Matric." I will pay Mr. Stobart's first-class return
fare from his home to Tonbridge and board him for a week if he will
visit my English classes and at the end of his stay retain that word
"dullest" in all sincerity. I cannot believe that it is only I who
enjoy these English hours so whole-heartedly. I certainly should find
them dull if I were proceeding on "traditional" lines, either in my
book or in the class-room.... I am next taken to task for daring to
teach observation and originality. Mr. Stobart rather rudely (I wish he
would practise gentleness and love himself) calls my methods here "a
generous diet of cold minced hash." It is "up" to him to prove it. The
point is, do I or do I not achieve observation and originality by my
methods? Come down to Tonbridge, Mr. Stobart, and I will let you judge
for yourself.
When, therefore, you suggest that every boy should learn how to express
himself freely and to read widely, I can only reply that every boy has
been doing so with very great advantage for years. You cannot picture a
Public Schoolmaster so zealous for the purity of his own tongue that he
treats a misplaced "and which" or "unrelated participle" as a personal
affront. You cannot have been inside a Public School class-room for
"donkey's years." I can show you scores as devoted to our classics as
Whitelaw was to _Latin and Greek_?--Yours, etc.,
S. P. B. MAIS.
Tonbridge.
MACARONIC POETRY
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--The author of _Specimens of Macaronic Poetry_, published by J.
Richard Beckley in 1831, is William Sandys, F.S.A. (1791-1874). He
was a barrister of Gray's Inn, and a member of the law firm of Sandys
and Knott, of Gray's Inn Square. He was born and died in London, and,
in addition to the book mentioned above, was the author of _A Short
History of Freemasonry_ (1829), _Christmas Carols_ (1833), and a few
other books, a full bibliography of which will be found in _Bibliotheca
Cornubiensis_. He was an enthusiastic musical amateur from youth, and
further biographical particulars will be found in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_.--Yours, etc.,
WINIFRED SPARKE.
Bolton.
* * * * *
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--_Specimens of Macaronic Poetry_, to which reference is made on
page 74 of your last issue, is chiefly remarkable for its interesting
introduction to the subject and to the fact that most of the specimens
printed are, or were at the date of publication, rarely met with.
The epic which you mention first is discussed on page 17 of the
introduction, where it is said to be an imitation of Folengo. I have
not been able to trace the author, but it bears many evidences of
having been written by Folengo himself. The ode was written by Dr.
Geddes, and the author of the old Scottish Testament was Wm. Dunbar,
whose name is printed at the end of the verses in my copy.
Macaronic Poetry creates but little interest in these days, though
there are still students who appreciate some of its qualities.
If "A. L. H." is interested, I am sure that an article on the subject
would be read with very great appreciation even if that quality be
confined to very few in number.--Yours, etc.,
B. BAGNALL.
43 Chancery Lane, London, W.C.2.
* * * * *
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--What does "A. L. H." mean by "no" author's name is given? The
_editor's_ of the book--or the author's of Mr. Andro Kennedy?
The latter is, of course, my compatriot, William Dunbar, but neither
of my editions of him mentions this poem's having been printed in that
particular book.
Also, your reviewer of Wilde, on page 91, begins, quite in error,
saying that the book has no indication of how it came into existence or
who chose them for republication. The wrapper, cover, and title-page,
all three, say, "Being extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies" (one
of those large white volumes on hand-made paper that smelt so of bad
paste, published by Methuen in 1912); while behind the title-page is,
"This selection has been made by Mr. E. V. Lucas." The best thing in
it is, I think, the charming paragraph on Balzac, "A steady course of
Balzac reduces our living friends to shadows and our acquaintances to
the shadows of shades"--Yours, etc.,
C. K. S. M.
* * * * *
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--With regard to your query in No. 1, as to who was the author
of _Specimens of Macaronic Poetry_, I think I can supply the answer.
After reading your paragraph on the subject I took down the book from
its shelf and found that my father, the late Dr. Henry B. Wheatley,
had pencilled on the title-page the name of Sandys. I then turned
to Lowndes and found the book under the name of William Sandys. The
_Dictionary of National Biography_ states that the author was born in
1792 and died in 1874, and that he is best remembered for his share in
Sandys' and Forster's _History of the Violin_, 1864. The _Specimens_,
published in 1831, was his second venture in authorship. My father
evidently bought the book when he was engaged in writing his own first
book _Of Anagrams_, containing in the introduction (I quote from the
title-page) "numerous specimens of Macaronic poetry, Punning Mottoes,
Rhopalic, Shaped, Equivocal, Lyon, and Echo Verses, Alliteration,
Acrostics, Lipograms, Chronograms, Logograms, Palindromes, and Bouls'
Rimes." To any one interested in queer forms of verse this book is full
of entertainment. It was published in 1872, and is now out of print.
In the first of your Bibliographical Notes, in which you notice Mr.
Percy Simpson's edition of _Every Man in His Humour_, you say, "A new
edition of Ben Jonson's work is certainly needed: Gifford's, re-edited
by Cunningham, is sadly inadequate." I have not yet had the pleasure
of reading Mr. Simpson's book, but I would point out that Gifford's
edition was not the only predecessor. An edition of Ben Jonson's play
was edited, with an introduction and critical apparatus, by my father
in 1877, for the "London Series of English Classics," edited by J. W.
Hales, M.A., and J. S. Jerram, M.A., and published by Longmans, Green &
Co. The excellent introduction contains, besides the facts of Jonson's
life, a lucid explanation and examination of the Comedy of Humours,
together with a critical comparison of the various editions. The notes
are adequate, and placed at the end of the book. It was a labour of
love, and, although doubtless scholarship has advanced since it was
published, my filial partiality compels me to think that it still ranks
as a worthy edition of this classic of our literature.--Yours, etc.,
GEO. H. WHEATLEY.
83 Salisbury Road, Harrow.
VOLTAIRE'S CANDIDE
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--A Bibliographical Note in your first number makes reference to
"a charming little first edition of _Candide_ (1759)", and the writer
of the paragraph, commenting on the absence of the author's name and
of any particulars concerning the publisher and place of publication,
states that "it was often Voltaire's custom not to acknowledge his
publications till they were a success."
There lies before me as I write, however, a copy of an edition also
published in 1759, but which contains the author's name and particulars
as to publication. As it may interest some of your readers, as well
as "A. L. H.," I venture to transcribe the title-page, which is as
follows:--
_Candidus: or, the Optimist_ By Mr. De Voltaire. Translated into
English by W. Rider, M.A., Late Scholar of Jesus College, Oxford.
London: Printed for J. Scott, at the Black Swan, in Pater-noster-Row,
and J. Gretton, in Old Bond-Street. MDCCLIX. [Price One Shilling and
Six-Pence.]--Yours, etc.,
LEWIS H. GRUNDY.
Highgate.
PARTICLES
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--Mrs. Meynell has the support of a great master in the niceties of
the English language when she takes exception to the particle "less"
being tacked on to a verb.
Writing to Bernard Barton (February 7th, 1826) in acknowledgment of his
_Devotional Verses_, Charles Lamb says: "One word I must object to in
your little book, and it recurs more than once--FADELESS is no genuine
compound; loveless is, because love is a noun as well as a verb, but
what is a fade?"--Yours, etc.,
(Mrs) G. A. ANDERSON.
The Moorlands, Woldingham, Surrey
BOOKS OF THE MONTH
POETRY
GEORGIAN POETRY, 1918-1919 Edited by E. M. The Poetry Bookshop 6_s._
net.
The new collection of _Georgian Poetry_ contains specimens of the
work of nineteen poets, fourteen of whom have appeared in one or more
of the previous volumes of the series, while five are represented
for the first time. The fourteen are Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie, Mr.
Gordon Bottomley, Mr. W. H. Davies, Mr. Walter de la Mare, Mr. John
Drinkwater, Mr. John Freeman, Mr. W. W. Gibson, Mr. Robert Graves, Mr.
D. H. Lawrence, Mr. Harold Monro, Mr. Robert Nichols, Mr. Siegfried
Sassoon, Mr. J. C. Squire, and Mr. W. J. Turner. The five are Mr.
Francis Brett Young, Mr. Thomas Moult, Mr. J. D. C. Pellow, Mr. Edward
Shanks, and Mrs. Fredegond Shove. On account of their editorial
connection with the LONDON MERCURY, the contributions of Mr. Squire and
Mr. Shanks will not receive further mention in this notice.
"I hope," observes E. M. in his preface, "that [the present volume]
may be thought to show that what for want of a better word is called
Peace has not interfered with the writing of good poetry." Certainly
many critics have supposed that war was the prime generator of what
they admit to be a new movement in poetry. But the anthologist's hope
is justified, on _a priori_ grounds at least, by the fact that the
movement began, however tentatively, before the late war. The first
collection of _Georgian Poetry_ appeared in 1912, when the title
expressed an act of faith, based on an act of divination, which has
since been confirmed. A comparison of the four members of the series
suggests that what, for want of a better word, has received this name,
is still in a state of slow development towards a certain community
of spirit and attitude, which does not however connote any uniformity
of style. In the third volume the nebula appeared to be taking shape,
and in the fourth the process has advanced a stage. E. M. may be
issuing the fourteenth before that shape can be accurately defined and
described. The curve has not been drawn far enough for us to say what
course it will trace; but there is already enough of it to look like a
curve and not merely like a wavy line.
That remote first volume, which was of course a symptom and a
rallying-point or the new tendencies, not their origin, seems now to
have been somewhat chaotic and lacking in direction. It included such
older poets as Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Mr. Sturge Moore, and Sir Ronald
Ross; and some of those who appear to-day the most characteristic had
not then shown themselves. At that time the most powerful tendency
seemed to be leading towards the realism, sometimes informed with a
conscious brutality, of Mr. Masefield, Mr. Gibson, and Mr. Abercrombie.
In 1919 this sort is fully represented only by Mr. Abercrombie's
_Witchcraft: New Style_, a poem principally in dialogue which is
realistic in method, if its conception has a fairy-tale brutality about
it. Such lines as the following are in a familiar style:
A little brisk grey slattern of a woman,
Pattering along in her loose-heel'd clogs,
Push't the brass-barr'd door of a public-house;
The spring went hard against her; hand and knee
Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar
Hullabaloo of talking men burst out,
A pouring babble of inflamed palaver.
In spite of their vividness and exactitude, they make us think of a
good passage of prose slightly spoiled. Mr. Gibson has not continued in
the vein, and is confined here to a few momentary impressions, mostly
in the sonnet form.
But if we dismiss this tendency from those we imply when we speak of
"Georgian," poetry, if we admit too that Mr. W. H. Davies is often not
characteristic but a poet who might have appeared at almost any time
(as, in another way, is Mr. John Drinkwater), what are we to take for
our definition? If we are ever to devise one, we must somehow reconcile
and bring under one heading a bundle of qualities, which seem to have
but little in common when they are separately described. Yet that there
is some common term, some central motive, is suggested by the fact
that the pieces in this book which may be thought to be on a lower
level than the rest, those by Mr. Moult and Mrs. Shove, are yet not
wholly out of place. These writers have been touched in some degree
by the spirit of the time, which manifests itself with more power and
originality in poets so diverse as Mr. de la Mare, Mr. Sassoon, and Mr.
Turner. But it is likely that for some time we shall have to content
ourselves with such vague recognitions of spirit, without attempting to
be more precise in definition.
We must at all events include Mr. Monro's curious and good poem, _Man
Carrying Bale_, which by its title gives a faint suggestion of some
sorts of modern painting, and is actuated by the same desire, to flash
suddenly a light on a familiar thing from an unfamiliar angle:
The tough hand closes gently on the load,
Out of the mind, a voice
Calls "Lift!" and the arms, remembering well their work,
Lengthen and pause for help.
Then a slow ripple flows from head to foot
While all the muscles call to one another:
"Lift!" and the bulging bale
Floats like a butterfly in June.
With this may be associated Mr. Davies' remarkable piece, _A Child's
Pet_:
When I sailed out of Baltimore
With twice a thousand head of sheep,
They would not eat, they would not drink,
But bleated o'er the deep.
Inside the pens we crawled each day,
To sort the living from the dead;
And when we reached the Mersey's mouth,
Had lost five hundred head.
Yet every night and day one sheep,
That had no fear of man or sea,
Stuck through the bars its pleading face,
And it was stroked by me.
And to the sheep-man standing near,
"You see," I said, "this one tame sheep:
It seems a child has lost her pet,
And cried herself to sleep."
So every time we passed it by,
Sailing to England's slaughter-house,
Eight ragged sheep-men--tramps and thieves--
Would stroke that sheep's black nose.
Yet of how different a quality is the whole admirable selection of
eight poems from Mr. de la Mare, to illustrate which we quote the
exquisite _Fare Well_:
When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?
Oh, when this my dust surrenders,
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May those loved and loving faces
Please other men.
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller's Joy entwine.
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.
Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight.
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.
We come again upon another manner in the poems of Mr. Robert Nichols.
Here an inadequate passage from a long and very lovely piece called
_The Sprig of Lime_ will serve to suggest his qualities:
Sweet lime that often at the height of noon
Diffusing dizzy fragrance from your boughs
Tasselled with blossoms more innumerable
Than the black bees, the uproar of whose toil
Filled your green vaults, winning such metheglyr.
As clouds their sappy cells, distil, as once
Ye used, your sunniest emanations
Towards the window where a woman kneels--
She who within that room in childish hours
Lay through the lasting murmur of blanch'd noon
Behind the sultry blind, now full, now flat,
Drinking anew of every odorous breath,
Supremely happy in her ignorance
Of Time that hastens hourly and of death
Who need not haste.
These poems are not realism, but passages of reality imaginatively
seized and transfigured by passion; and the same description may be
applied to a number of pieces in this book as different from these
as these are from one another. If we attempt to map out the whole
achievement and promise which the book represents, we must refer to
the originality and beauty of rhythm displayed by Mr. John Freeman in
such a poem as _The Alde_, which begins:
How near I walked to Love,
How long, I cannot tell;
I was like the Alde that flows
Quietly through green level lands,
So quietly, it knows
Their shape, their greenness, and their shadows well;
And then undreamingly for miles it goes
And silently, beside the sea.
We must refer also to Mr. W. J. Turner's noble and largely conceived,
if a little chaotic, poem _Death_; and to Mr. Sassoon's extraordinarily
economical and finished pictures of impressions at the front and in
England. There is moreover Mr. Brett Young's graceful and delicate
talent.
If we say that in all these it is possible to perceive reality
imaginatively seized and transfigured by passion, even if we add a
general curiosity to penetrate behind the appearances of things to
their substance, we say no more than we ought to say of any poetry
which we are disposed to praise. Perhaps if we could say much more we
should distinguish the literature with which we are dealing as one
which has forsaken the proper traditions of the art for qualities of a
merely temporary interest. It is not necessarily the business of new
poets to discover new objects for poetry; it is their business to bring
to bear on the old objects their own new personalities and whatever has
accrued both to the language and to general human experience. We are of
opinion that the "Georgian" poets are doing this; and though to give
them that title still requires something of an act of faith, it is one
much easier to make than it was seven years ago.
The survival of the word as the name of a period is, of course, not
yet assured. Many of these writers are still extremely young. Some of
them will develop in ways which cannot yet be foreseen. Mr. Nichols and
Mr. Turner, both of them capable of grandiose conceptions and engaged
in making a style to sustain them, will very likely attempt the drama,
where an empty throne is waiting. Mr. de la Mare, who is probably the
oldest of the distinctively Georgian writers, grows every year deeper
and solider, and it is impossible to say what will become of him. Mr.
Robert Graves is producing a body of work almost every line of which is
as sweet and sound as a nut, and is an influence against the obscurity
from which a good many of his contemporaries suffer. The author of _A
Ballad of Nursery Rhyme_, which begins:
Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June,
Beside the trickling stream,
may perhaps have done a service by writing these lines at the same time
as Mr. Turner was writing such a fine but involved stanza as this from
_Death_: