(Vol. iii., pp. 27. 108. 155.; Vol. iv. p. 196.)
I have not yet thanked LORD BRAYBROOKE for the obliging manner in which,
in reply to my inquiry, he furnished a list of the reputed authors of
"Winifreda." His recent note on the same subject gives me an occasion
for doing so, while expressing my concurrence in his view that G. A.
Stevens was not the author. In short, it may be taken now I think as an
established fact, that the author is unknown.
Nevertheless, I do not believe that this poem was written in any part of
the seventeenth century. It appears to me to be the work of a true poet
in the most vicious age of English poetry, and infected with all its
faults. Weakened with epithets, and its language poor and artificial, it
rises to nature at the close, than which nothing of the kind can be much
better. In the following stanza I do not altogether like the
personification of Time:--
"And when with envy, Time transported,
Shall think to rob us of our joys,
You'll in your girls again be courted,
And I'll go wooing in my boys."
A likely thought, truly, for a boy of sixteen! My own impression is,
that it did not long precede the age of "the little folks on Strawberry
Hill."
Since writing the above I have referred to my copy of Steven's songs,
which I had not at hand before. It is the Oxford edition mentioned by
LORD BRAYBROOKE; and although it does not contain "Winifreda," a clue,
it appears to me, may be drawn from it as to Stevens's connexion with
this piece. In the first place, it is to be remarked that the title of
the book is, _Songs, Comic and Satyrical_, by George Alexander Stevens.
The motto is from the author's _Lecture on Heads_, "_I love fun!--keep
it up!_" These circumstances are important, as one would hardly expect
to find "Winifreda" in such a volume, though it were by the same author.
Yet, there is a song which, though written in a more lilting measure, is
quite as much out of place; and this song shows evidence, in my opinion,
of Stevens having known and admired "Winifreda." It is entitled "Rural
Felicity," and is to be found at page 71 of the volume. Compare the two
following stanzas with the last two of "Winifreda:"--