As the most beautiful flowers are found in the most arid deserts, so
out of the dry study of law comes forth now and then the most genial
and tender spirit of poetry. Such has been the case with Mr. Procter,
or Barry Cornwall, for we delight in that old favorite _nom de
guerre_; and although I have been able to obtain but little
knowledge of his homes and haunts, still these volumes would be
incomplete without some notice of a man whose writings hold so firm a
place in the public heart.
About seven-and-twenty years ago, Mr. Procter, then a young man, just
called to the bar, and in very delicate health, published his first
volume of poetry. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Campbell, and Leigh Hunt,
were then pouring out volume after volume; and Scott, who was crowned
with the laurels of his metrical romances, was riveting the attention
of the whole world by his earlier romances; while Crabbe, as if woke
up out of his slumber of twenty-two years by this great constellation
of genius, had just put forth his new work, the Tales of the Hall. It
was not a moment when a poet of ordinary power had any chance of
sustaining his existence; but the young aspirant stood among those
gigantic men, as one who, if not equal to them in all points at that
moment, was yet kindred with them; and, although the Sicilian story,
Diego de Montilla, Mirandola, and the Flood of Thessaly, have rather
become pleasant memories than the actualities of the present day, the
poet has established a lasting reputation by his volume of "English
Songs, and other small Poems"--a volume, in which there are gems of as
noble and perfect poetry as any in the language, and which abounds
with the most healthy, manly sentiment, and the broadest sympathies
with suffering and struggling humanity. It is now the fashion to
sympathize with the people--and a noble fashion it is--the only fear
being of this otherwise holy Christian sentiment becoming, in some
minds, morbid, if not mawkish. In Barry Cornwall, it is as genuine as
any other part of his nature; feigning and falsehood are as impossible
to it as darkness to the sun. He has the clearest understanding of
moral truth, and a detestation of the cold, sordid spirit of the
world. According to his faith--
"Song should spur the mind to duty,
Nerve the weak and stir the strong;
Every deed of truth and beauty
Should be crowned by starry song;"
and like a true man, who proclaims no more than he himself practices,
his song becomes a watchword in the cause of man. In confirmation of
this, let me select one little poem, A Lyric of London, which contains
a deeper moral than most sermons.