[Illustration]
His name was LEGION. He had kept his eye on the Laureateship from his
early boyhood, when he sent verses to the Poets’ Corner of the _Bungay
Weekly Mail_, which sometimes published them; then he cut them out,
and pasted them neatly in a book, which he still possesses. He always
wrote on an occasion. “Lines on the Recovery of My Sister EMILY from
the Mumps”; “Dirge on the Decease of a Favourite Squirrel,” beginning,
“No more!” but there was always plenty more where that came from, and
is still. At College he was one of the three men who wrote in _College
Rhymes_, and secured for that periodical a circulation by taking a
hundred copies each. LEGION sent dozens of his, marked, to every poet
he heard of, generally addressing them “Dear ALURED” (if that was the
Minstrel’s Christian name), or, in verse, “Brother, my Brother, my
sweet, swift Brother!” This annoyed some poets, who did not answer;
others were good-natured, and would reply,—
“DEAR SIR,—I have to acknowledge, with many thanks, your _Cebren and
Paris_, and anticipate much pleasure from its perusal.”
LEGION kept all these letters in a book, and published some of them as
advertisements of his _Cebren and Paris_ (an unsuccessful Newdigate),
when it appeared in a volume, with an astonishingly decorative cover.
It was a classical piece, in blank verse. Cebren, the father of
Œnone, is represented asking Paris what his intentions are as regards
that lady. It was piece of classical _genre_, the author said: such
interviews must have occurred when a young Trojan prince, with no
particular expectations, paid marked attentions to the daughter of a
River-god, like Cebren. Here is a specimen piece,—
“Now mark me, Paris,” said the River-god,
Seated among the damp lush water-weeds,
His tresses crowned with crow’s-foot,—“Mark my words,
Thou dalliest with my daughter; what thine aim,
I ask, and crave an answer—great thy line,
The lineage of renowned Laomedon.
Thy sires have wedded goddesses ere now.
But wealthy though the House of Troy may be.
Thy father has a monstrous family,
Daughters and sons as countless as the rills
That Ida sends to be my tributaries.
What he can give thee, what thy prospects are,
What settlements thou art prepared to make,
If thou wouldst lead Œnone to the altar,
This would I know; excuse an anxious sire!”
Then Paris murmured:—
“Honourable but vague,
Remote, but honourable, my purpose is:”
And that great River-god arose in flood,
Monstrous, and murmuring, and to the main.
He swept the works of men and oxen down,
And had not Paris climbed into a tree,
He ne’er had crossed the ocean; never seen
The fairest face that launched a thousand ships,
And burned the topless towers of Ilium.
Some accused LEGION of plagiarising the last line and a half, which
reminded them, they said, of MARLOWE. But he replied that great wits
jump, that it was an accidental coincidence. The public, which rarely
cares much for poetry, was struck by _Cebren and Paris_. “There is in
it,” said the _Parthenon_, “an original music, and a chord is struck,
reverberating from the prehistoric years, which will find an answer
in the heart of every father of a family.” The Clergy at large quoted
_Cebren and Paris_ in their charges and sermons, and the work was
a favourite prize at seminaries for young ladies. Consequently all
the other poets, whom nobody buys, arose, and blasphemed _Cebren and
Paris_ in all the innumerable reviews. This greatly, and justly, added
to the popularity of LEGION’s book. He followed it up by _Idylls of
the Nursery_, a volume of exquisite pieces on infants as yet incapable
of speaking or walking. This had an enormous success among young
newly-married people, an enthusiastic class of the community. At
recitations you might hear—
Tootsy, wootsy, pooty sing,
Mammie’s darling, icky thing!
Coral lips that fret the coral,
Innocence completely moral.
Sweet Babe,
They say,
Naught rhymes to Babe,
In any lay
Save “astrolabe,”—
And Tippoo Saib!
Oh, tiny face,
And tiny feet,
Oh, infant grace,
So incomplete,
Kiss me, my Sweet!
In sequence to these effusions, LEGION poured forth Ballades, and
Rondeaux, and wrote a Chant Royal on a General Election which occupied
a whole column of a newspaper, and needed three men to read, with a
boy for the “envoy.” But this ditty was not thought to have seriously
affected the voting classes in any direction. LEGION was now usually
spoken of as “the versatile Mr. LEGION,” a compliment which never
failed to annoy him hugely. Sated with popular applause, he turned
into a vein of new poetry, and produced _The Song of the Spud_, which,
his admirers averred was “racy of the soil.” A grand English Opera,
on the Pilgrimage of Grace, was performed, at immense expense, LEGION
being the Librettist. It was patriotic, but not exactly popular.
Still, with all these claims on his country, LEGION lived in hopes
which were wofully disappointed; for, when his chance came at last,
a Prime Minister of modern ideas declared that, as a Laureate is not
useful, he must be ornamental. Now, neither LEGION, nor any of his
rivals, could be called decorative, whatever they might have been in
their youth. They needed laurels, for the same reason as JULIUS CÆSAR.
The wreath was therefore offered (by a Plébiscite conducted in a
newspaper) to the young Lady-poet whose verses and photograph secured
the greatest number of votes; the Laureate, in every case, to resign,
on attaining her twenty-fifth birthday. The beautiful and accomplished
Mrs. JINGLEY JONES triumphed in this truly modern competition, and
her book was rushed into a sale of two hundred and fifty copies. After
this check the writing of poetry ceased to attract male enterprise—to
the extreme joy of Publishers and Reviewers; though the market for
waste-paper received a shock from which it never rallied. The youthful
male population of England determined never to become Poets, unless
they were born Poets, a resolution on which, at all times, a minority
of the race had acted, with the best results.
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[Illustration: Mr. J.L. “Walker” Toole and “Full Company.”]
“NOTES AND PAPER.”—There is a lot of “paper” about from
“Walker—London.” No, Mr. JOHNNIE TOOLE, Sir, not your “paper,” for
_your_ House is crammed and your “paper” is at a premium. But this
particular WALKER, of Warwick House, London, sends forth “Society
Stationery”—“which,” as _Mrs. Gamp_ would have said, “spelling of
it with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e,’ Society never is.” Among the lot
there’s an “Antique Society Paper,” which should be a Society Paper
as old as the world itself, or it might be used by a Fossilised Fogey
Club. WALKER & Co.’s new “Society Paper,” whether antique or modern,
is pretty and quite harmless—till pen and ink are at work on it; and
then—but that’s another story.
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