THE POET
You have heard the opinions of the "Society" as to Sam Semple. You
have also witnessed the humiliation and the basting of that young man.
Let me tell you more about him before we go on to relate the progress
of the conspiracy of which he was the inventor and the spring.
He was the son of one John Semple who was employed at the customhouse.
The boy could look forward, like most of us, to a life of service. He
might go to sea, and so become in due course, prentice, mate, and
skipper; or he might be sent on board as supercargo; or he might enter
the countinghouse of a merchant and keep the books; or he might follow
his father and become a servant of the customhouse.
He was two years older than myself and therefore, so much above me at
school. Of all the boys (which alone indicates something contemptible
in his nature) he was the most disliked, not by one or two, but by the
whole school; not only by the industrious and the well-behaved, but
also by the lazy and the vicious.
There is always in every school, one boy at least, who is the general
object of dislike: he makes no friends: his society is shunned: he may
be feared, but he is hated. There are, I dare say, many causes for
unpopularity: one boy is perhaps a bully who delights to ill-treat the
younger and the weaker; one is a braggart: one plays games unfairly:
one is apt to offend that nice sense of honour and loyalty which is
cultivated by schoolboys: another is treacherous to his comrades; he
tells tales, backbites and makes mischief: perhaps he belongs to an
inferior station and has bad manners: perhaps he takes mean
advantages: perhaps he is a coward who will not fight: perhaps he
cannot do the things which boys respect.
Sam Semple was disliked for many of these reasons. He was known to be
a telltale; he was commonly reported to convey things overheard to the
usher, by means of which that officer was enabled to discover many
little plots and plans and so bring their authors to pain and
confusion. He was certainly a coward who would never fight it out, but
after a grand pretence and flourish would run away at the first blow.
But if he would not fight he would bear malice and would take mean
revenges; he was a most notorious liar, insomuch that no one would
believe any statement made by him, if it could be proved to be
connected with his own advantage; he could not play any games and
affected to despise the good old sports of cocking, baiting the bear,
drawing the badger, playing at cricket, hockey, wrestling, racing, and
the other things that make boys skilful, courageous and hardy. He was,
in a word, a poor soft, cowardly creature, more like a girl--and an
inferior kind of girl--than an honest lad.
He was much addicted to reading: he would, by choice, sit in a corner
reading any book that he could get more willingly than run, jump, row,
or race. When we had holidays he would go away by himself, sometimes
on the walls, if it were summer, or in some sheltered nook, if it were
winter, contented to be left alone with his printed page. He borrowed
books from my father who encouraged him in reading, while he
admonished him on account of his faults, and from the vicar, who lent
him books, while he warned him against the reports of his character
which were noised abroad. Now--I know not how--the boy became secretly
inflamed with the ambition of becoming a poet. How he fell into this
pitfall, which ended in his ruin, I know not. Certainly it was not
from any boys in the school, or from any friend in the town, because
there are no books of poetry in Lynn, save those which belong to the
parson and the schoolmaster. However, he did conceive the ambition of
becoming a poet--secretly, at first, because he was naturally ashamed
of being such a fool, but it came out. He read poetry from choice, and
rather than anything else. Once, I remember, he was flogged for taking
a volume of miscellany poems into church instead of the Book of Common
Prayer. The boys were astonished at the crime, because certainly one
would much rather read the Book of Common Prayer, in which one knows
what to expect, than a book of foolish rhymes.
I myself was the first to find out his ambition. It was in this way.
Coming out of school one day I picked up a paper which was blown about
the square. It was covered with writing. I read some of it, wondering
what it might mean. There was a good deal and not a word of sense from
beginning to end: the writing was all scored out and corrected over
and over again. Thus, not to waste your time over this nonsense, it
ran something like this:
When the refulgent rays of Sol =began= prevail
early =Day= Morn
To =A=waken=ed= all the maidens of the dale
Lawn
Drove Morpheus =shrieking from the beds= away
--from the maids and swains.
and so on. One is ashamed to repeat such rubbish. While I was reading
it however, Sam Semple came running back.
"That paper is mine," he cried, with a very red face, snatching it out
of my hands.
"Well--if it is yours, take it. What does it mean?"
"It's poetry, you fool."
"If you call me a fool, Sam, you'll get a black eye." He was three
inches taller than myself as well as two years older--but this was the
way all the boys spoke to him.
"You can't understand," he said, "none of you can understand. It's
poetry, I tell you."
I told my father, who sent for him and in my presence admonished him
kindly, first ordering him to submit his verses for correction, as if
they were in Latin. It was after school hours: the room was empty save
for the three of us--my father sat at his desk where he assumed
authority. Outside the schoolroom he was but a gentle creature.
"Boy," he said, "as for these verses--I say nothing. They are but
immature imitations. You would be a poet. Learn, however, that the lot
of him who desires that calling is the hardest and the worst that fate
can have in store for an honest man. There are many who can write
rhymes: for one who has read Ovid and Virgil, the making of verse is
easy. But only one or two here and there, out of millions, are there
whose lips are touched with the celestial fire: only one or two whose
verses can reach the heart and fire the brain of those who read them."
"Sir, may not I, too, form one of that small company?" His cheek
flamed and his eyes brightened. For once Sam was handsome.
"It may be so. I say nothing to the contrary. Learn, however, that even
if genius has been granted, much more will be required. He who would be
a great poet must attain, if he can, by meditation and self-restraint,
to the great mind. He must be sincere--truthful--courageous--think of
that, boy; he must meditate. Milton's thoughts were ever on religious
and civil freedom; therefore he was enabled to speak as a prophet."
He gazed upon the face of his scholar: the cheek was sallow again; the
eyes dull; upon that mean countenance no sign of noble or of lofty
thought. My father sighed and went on.
"It seems, to a young man, a great thing to be a poet. He will
escape--will he?--the humiliations of life. He thinks that he will be
no man's servant; he will be independent; he will work as his genius
inclines him. Alas! he little knows the humiliations of the starveling
poet. No man's servant? There is none--believe me--not even the
African slave, who has to feel more of the contempts, the scorns, the
servitude of the world. Such an one have I known. He had to bend the
knee to the patron, who treated him with open scorn; and to the
bookseller, who treated him with contempt undisguised. One may be a
poet who is endowed with the means of a livelihood. Such is the
ingenious Mr. Pope; or one who has an office to maintain him: such was
the immortal John Milton; but, for you and such as you, boy, born in a
humble condition, and ordained by Providence for that condition, there
is no worse servitude than that of a bookseller's hack. Go, boy--think
of these things. Continue to write verses, if by their aid you may in
any way become a better man and more easily attain to the Christian
life. But accept meanwhile, the ruling of Providence and do thy duty
in that station of life to which thou hast been called."
So saying he dismissed the boy, who went away downcast and with
hanging head.
Then my father turned to me. "Son," he said, "let no vain repinings
fill thy soul. Service is thy lot. It is also mine. It is the lot of
every man except those who are born to wealth and rank. I do not envy
these, because much is expected of them--a thing which mostly they do
not understand. And too many of these are, truth to say, in the
service of Beelzebub. We are all servants of each other; let us
perform our service with cheerfulness and even with joy. The Lord, who
knows what is best for men, hath so ordained that we shall be
dependent upon each other in all things. Servants, I say, are we all
of each other. We may not escape the common lot--the common
servitude."
Let me return to Sam. At the age of fourteen he was taken from school
and placed in a countinghouse where his duty was to clean out, sweep,
and dust the place every morning; to be at the beck and call of his
master; to copy letters and to add up figures. I asked him how he
liked this employment.
"It is well enough," he said, "until I can go whither I am called. But
to serve at adding up the price of barrels of tarpaulin all my life!
No, Jack, no. I am made of stuff too good."
He continued for three years in this employment. We then heard that he
had been dismissed for negligence, his master having made certain
discoveries that greatly enraged him. He then went on board ship in
the capacity of clerk or assistant to the supercargo, but at the end
of his first voyage he was sent about his business.
"It is true," he told me, "that there were omissions in the books. Who
can keep books below, by the light of a stinking tallow candle, when
one can lie on the deck in the sun and watch the waves? But these
people--these people--among them all, Jack, there is not one who
understands the poet, except your father, and he will have it that the
poet must starve. Well, there is another way." But he would tell me no
more.
That way was this. You know, because it led to the basting. The day
after the adventure in the captain's garden, Sam put together all he
had, borrowed what money his mother would give him and went off to
London by the waggon.
After a while a letter came from him. It was addressed to his mother,
who brought it to the school because she could not understand what was
meant. Sam (I believe he was lying) said that he had been received
into the Company of the Wits; his verse, he said, was regarded with
respect at the coffee house; he was already known to many poets and
booksellers; he asked for a small advance of money and he entreated
his mother to let it be known in the town that he was publishing a
volume of verse by subscription. His former patrons, he said, would
doubtless assist him by giving their names and guineas. The book, he
added, would certainly place him among the acknowledged poets of the
day--even with Pope and Gay.
There was much difference of opinion as to sending the guineas: but a
few of the better sort consented, and in due course received their
copies. It was a thin quarto with a large margin. The title page was
as follows:
"MISCELLANY POEMS
_by
SAM SEMPLE,
Gentleman_."
"Gentleman!" said the vicar. "How long has Sam been a gentleman? He
will next, no doubt, describe himself as esquire. As for the
verses--trash--two-penny trash! Alas! And they cost me a guinea!"