together with Spencer T. Hall as friends and helpers of the weaver
poet, Robert Millhouse [1788–1839], whom they assisted by writing on
his behalf and in other ways.
Booker was vicar of Dudley, and besides his poems (“Sacred, Moral, and
Entertaining”), wrote a didactic poem called _The Hop Garden_, and a
Descriptive and Historical Account of Dudley Castle; this was published
in 1825, and is described as “a good piece of work.”
Ragg, after being in his father’s printing office and then apprentice
to a hosier, became a bookseller’s assistant, and finally, having
attracted by his Christian apologetics the attention of some Church
dignitaries, took orders. He died vicar of Lawley, in Shropshire. Among
those interested in him were James Montgomery, Isaac Taylor, and Robert
Southey. His poem, _The Deity_, in twelve books, appeared in 1834, and
was called in the _Times_ “a very remarkable production.” In 1855 he
produced _Creation’s Testimony to its God, the Accordance of Science,
Philosophy and Revelation_. Ragg has been termed “the adopted poet of
the Evangelic Muse.”
SPENCER TIMOTHY HALL [1812–1885], “the Sherwood Forester,” had a
remarkable history, and was--
“A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all the world’s epitome.”
He said of himself that he “could dig, plough, reap, stack, thresh, and
winnow, make a stocking and a shoe, write a book and print and bind it,
or give a lecture, or take stock of a man’s body and mind and furnish
him with an inventory of the same!” He gave exhibitions of mesmerism,
helped to edit a newspaper, was once a postmaster, was secretary to the
Society for Abolishing Capital Punishment, and a poet to crown it all!
In his steady determined struggle upwards from obscurity and
uncongenial occupations to literary recognition and success he
resembled his great exemplar Benjamin Franklin, and his versatility
recalls his fellow-townsman Samuel Parrott the painter, whose boast it
was that he could do three things well--build a tall factory chimney,
play the violin, and paint an Academy picture. Among Hall’s writings
were, _The Forester’s Offering_, _The Upland Hamlet, and other Poems_,
and _The Peak and the Plain_. He was born at Sutton-in-Ashfield, and
died at Blackpool. His epitaph on Robert Millhouse will bear quoting
again:--
“When Trent shall flow no more, and Blossoms fail
On Sherwood’s plains to scent the spring tide gale,
When the Lark’s lay shall lack its thrilling charm,
And song forget the Patriot’s soul to warm--
When Love o’er youthful hearts hath lost all sway;
His fame may pass, but not till then away:
For Nature taught, and Freedom fired his Rhyme,
And Virtue dedicated it to Time.”
WILLIAM HOWITT [1792–1879], MARY HOWITT [1799–1888], and RICHARD
HOWITT [1799–1869] were a remarkable trio, who among them produced a
considerable amount of work of various kinds.
It seems unnecessary to say much in detail of William and Mary Howitt.
What child is not familiar with _The Spider and the Fly_ and _The
Ant and the Cricket_? They published together in 1821 the _Forest
Minstrel_, and in their literary activity they were as indefatigable
as Southey. Among William’s works were _Homes and Haunts of British
Poets_, the _Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain_, a _Popular
History of England_, and a _History of Priestcraft_, the last of which
dragged the writer into politics as an advocate of popular liberty,
and caused him to be made an alderman of Nottingham. Mary Howitt
dedicated her _Ballads and other Poems_, published in 1847, to “My
best counsellor and teacher, my literary associate for a quarter of a
century, my husband and my friend.” In the light of this dedication
the bronze plaque at the Nottingham Castle Museum is invested with
peculiar interest. On it husband and wife are represented as poring
together over the pages of an open book, and there is a moving pathetic
tenderness in the artist’s work. Mary Howitt’s reception at the
close of her life into the Church of Rome suggests that she had been
“voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.”
Richard Howitt published in 1840 _The Gipsy King and other Poems_, and
in 1868 _Wasp’s Honey: or Poetic Gold and Gems of Poetic Thought_.
These contain much beautiful verse. The _Athenæum_ said of him, “He
is healthfully English in his composition,” while Tennyson said,
“Nature has been bountiful to you.” He won also the appreciation of
Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, and Christopher North. A characteristic poem
showing his delight in simple nature is _On a Daisy_, first seen by
him in Australia. He died at Edingley, near Southwell. Interesting
illustrative quotations from the works of the Howitts, Robert
Millhouse, and other writers may be found in Wylie’s book already
mentioned. Millhouse has been called “the Burns of Nottinghamshire,”
and his sonnets have a simplicity and directness that indicate strength.
EDWARD HAWKSLEY published in 1829 some poems entitled _Colonel
Hutchinson and other Poems_. In a poem on the Trent he makes special
mention of Thomas Bailey--
“Last, Bailey tuned his sedgy reed,
And gave thee, rolling Trent, thy meed.”
In 1825 MARY ANN CURSHAM produced a long poem on _Martin Luther_,
in three parts, containing altogether well over two thousand lines;
and from Southwell, in 1844, came _The Eastern Princess_ and a drama
entitled _Walberg, or Temptation_, by SOPHIA MARY SMITH. The publisher
was W. Bunny. HENRY HOGG’S verses, published in 1852, have a pleasant
smoothness and melody due to a close imitation of his poetic master,
Tennyson, who at that time was evidently influencing considerably the
local writers. In Tennyson’s Memoir it is recorded: “Towards the end of
the year (1855) an unknown Nottingham artisan came to call. My father
asked him to dinner, and at his request read _Maud_.” This artisan, it
appears, had sent Tennyson his poems beforehand to read.
In illustration of Hogg’s style may be quoted these lines:--
“Till Knowledge from the statelier ranks
Shall come down unto earth, and lend
The faith to look beyond those banks
That skirt the life which has no end.
Whence some who look see nought but night,
And some feel nought but idle fears;
And grope in darkness for the light,
And waste a useless life in tears.
And some see lights that burn afar,
And hear a still voice wisely teach;
And live, and grasp their better star,
And rise on stronger wings, and reach
Unto the foremost fruits of time
Where Wisdom walketh, gathering Grace,
And swelling heaven-ward.”
EDWIN ATHERSTONE [1788–1872] was a voluminous writer. Among his
works were the _Fall of Nineveh_ in thirty books; _Israel in Egypt_,
containing nearly twenty thousand lines; and the _Last Days of
Herculaneum_. He was a friend of John Martin the painter. He died at
Bath, being at the time of his death in receipt of a pension of £100 a
year.
In 1859 JOSEPH TRUMAN published a volume of verse “inscribed to the
author of _Festus_ by his friend J. T.” The poems are pleasant reading
and the work of a thoughtful man.
In some lines on Fox How we have:--
“Reverential earnest Arnold,
Warmly human, wisely good;
O! for more of Arnold-spirit,
In our age’s feverish blood!
More of conscience in the Nation,
More of Manhood in the Man,
Statutes in a fairer fashion,
Churches on a broader plan!”
And these lines give the spirit of the writer’s creed:--
“Sooner or later all souls shall be saved,
Else God’s love is defeated, or not rich
Like God’s, and still the pleading Christ must stand
In human earnest raising unto Him
Pathetic eyes dim with eternal tears.
For life is like a circle drawn by God,
And closes in the place it came from--heaven.”
Did space allow, many beautiful thoughts might be set down here from
the poems of H. SEPTIMUS SUTTON [1825–1901], who has left behind him
a volume of verse distinguished by delicate sentiment and much beauty
of diction. He was educated at first for the medical profession, but
finding some of the work incidental to it distasteful, he became a
journalist and devoted himself to the cause of temperance, being editor
of the _Alliance News_ for more than forty years. He was intimate with
most of the writers of the “Sherwood Forest School,” and has left
slight sketches of some of those writers in his _Clifton Grove Garland_.
The “modest” White--
“A youth, slow pacing, unawares impelled
By blind thought,”
who
“Lifted from the grass his meditative eyes”;
Philip James Bailey, who
“Came down the grove, dark-haired, deep-eyed,
And groundward looking; but I will be bound,
Not seeing aught he looked at on the ground”;
Miller, “the basket-maker”; Hall “with many a merry smile.”
Sutton’s poems won the appreciation of such judges as Francis William
Newman, Frances Power Cobbe, Christina Rossetti, and George Macdonald.
One of his most exquisite productions is _Rose’s Diary_. What can be
more beautiful than these lines?--
“SORROW
“The flowers live by the tears that fall
From the sad face of the skies,
And life would have no joys at all
Were there no watery eyes.
Love thou thy sorrow; grief shall bring
Its own excuse in after years;
The rainbow!--see how fair a thing
God hath built up from tears.”
And to the question, “Is life worth living?” hear Sutton’s answer:--
“How beautiful it is to be alive!
To wake each morn as if the Maker’s grace
Did us afresh from nothingness derive
That we might sing ‘How happy is our case!
How beautiful it is to be alive!’
To read in God’s great book, until we feel
Love for the love that gave it: then to kneel
Close unto Him Whose truth our souls will shrive,
While every moment’s joy doth more reveal
How beautiful it is to be alive.
Rather to go without what might increase
Our worldly standing, than our souls deprive
Of frequent speech with God, or than to cease
To feel, through having wasted health or peace,
How beautiful it is to be alive.
Not to forget, when pain and grief draw nigh,
Into the ocean of time past to dive
For memories of God’s mercies, or to try
To bear all sweetly, hoping still to cry
‘How beautiful it is to be alive!’
Thus ever towards man’s height of nobleness
Strive still some new progression to contrive;
Till, just as any other friend’s, we press
Death’s hand; and, having died, feel none the less
How beautiful it is to be alive.”
WILLIAM FRANK SMITH [1836–1876]. In 1864 a small volume was published
by Smith, Elder & Co., _Poems by William Frank Smith_. It is dated
from The Park, Nottingham, July 1864, and is dedicated to “W. W. Gull,
Esq., M.D.,” the author being led to dedicate it thus “by a sense of
gratitude for this, that among the hours of your laborious life you
found time to encourage and appreciate my efforts when encouragement
was indeed of great price to me.”
Smith was educated at Bromsgrove School. He became a doctor, and held
the post of physician to the Sheffield Infirmary. His health broke
down, and he died at the early age of forty.
The poems are sixteen in all, the most important being a
trilogy--_Saint Bruno the Believer_, _Spinoza the Thinker_, and
_Meister Cornelius the Worker_. They are evidently the production of
a cultivated man with refined tastes and feelings, sensitive to the
charms and varying moods of nature, and brooding, perhaps unhealthily,
over the unsolved “riddle of this painful earth.”
There is in them much vividness of conception and beauty of
description. The writer seems to have drawn his inspiration largely
from the Ancient Classics and the Bible, from Tennyson, and mediæval
speculations and pageantry.
A second edition of the poems appeared in 1879, with a memoir of
the author by Dr. Pye Smith, and additional poems, including some
translations from the Classics. To illustrate the style and spirit of
the work, we quote from _Saint Bruno_:--
“But soon the music filled my thirsting ears
With richer harmonies,
The movement swifter grew, and then I saw
A curtain rise.
With sound of tinkling anklet bells there came
A train of laughing girls,
Dark-eyed, their braided raven tresses twined
With wreaths of pearls;
The silken rustling folds of Eastern robes
Half hid the glancing white
Of limbs divinely moulded; noiselessly
As flakes of light
From boughs in sunlight waved, their arching feet
Beat on the velvet ground
In time to that enchanted melody
That breathed around.
And sweetly chimed the silver anklet bells
While hand in hand they came,
Now bending towards me, now retiring poised
Like waving flame;
But still their dark enticing eyes were fixed
On mine unceasingly,
I might not turn away, I could not shun
Their witchery.”
As his death draws near, Spinoza soliloquises:--
“The polyp dies, his coral house remains,
The fragile ocean creatures melt away,
Their hollow spiral shells remain, perchance
For cycles hidden down beneath the earth.
I also pass away, and men no more
Shall hear my voice, but still my work remains.
In ages yet to come, high souls shall dwell
Within my palace, echoing my name
With reverence,
As one that draweth near
A fall of mighty waters in a pass,
What time the vale becomes a sunless chasm,
The overhanging rocks around him close,
He hears the awful thunder-voice more loud
Each step; even so, while now I draw more near
The awful presence, all my human life
Grows dark and narrow, all my soul is weak
With solemn awe,--with awe, but not with fear.”
The end of Meister Cornelius is impressively told. Perhaps these lines
from a sonnet on the death of T. W. Buckle indicate Smith’s outlook
upon life:--
“The strong right hand hath fallen from the standard,
To him, a man, was given to see the long
And dark world drama with unclouded eyes
Even as a God. Through centuries of wrong,
And sounding wars, and splendid tyrannies,
He saw the growth of thought august and strong,
The slow advance to mightier destinies.”
Of Thomas Miller a good notice appeared in the literary supplement of
the _Nottingham Daily Guardian_ of the date December 18, 1906. Only
passing mention can be made of John Hicklin, editor and part proprietor
of the _Nottingham Journal_; of Ann Taylor, afterwards Mrs. Gilbert, of
Ongar [1782–1866], a well-known writer of hymns and poems for children;
of Samuel Collinson, whose _Autumn Leaves_, a small volume published in
1867, deserves mention if only for its graceful lines of dedication; of
F. R. Goodyer, who wrote to the local journals many amusing parodies
and comic verses on passing events, and was besides associated with
William Bradbury in the production of a burlesque acted at Nottingham,
_Ye Faire Maide of Clifton_.
Among translators are Gilbert Wakefield the Scholar [1756–1801],
who made translations from Juvenal, Horace, and Virgil, and wrote
metrical versions of one or two of the Psalms: and Ichabod Charles
Wright [1795–1871], the translator of Homer and Dante. Wakefield’s
translations are not very remarkable, and in his Horace renderings he
does not attempt to reproduce the original metres. His Tenth Satire of
Juvenal ends thus:--
“One blessing on ourselves we may bestow:
’Tis peace: and Virtue is our peace below:
No power hast thou where Wisdom’s altars rise;
We, Fortune! build thee shrines, we station in the skies.”
It seems strange that for one of the exercises of his muse he should
have chosen a Psalm the last verse of which in his translation is:--
“Thrice blest the man, whose ruthless ears
Heed not the struggling mother’s moans:
Who from the breast her infant tears,
And dashes on the bleeding stones.”
GEORGE HICKLING, of Cotgrave [1827–1909], is better known perhaps
to Nottinghamshire readers by his pen-name of “Rusticus.” Of lowly
origin and circumstances and practically self-educated, he attained a
respectable position in the local world of letters, and, if he did
not achieve greatness, he produced work which showed that he had a
sensitive and observant mind, and that he had by perseverance won a
most creditable victory over limited opportunities. Much of his verse
was contributed to the Nottingham newspapers, to which, towards the
close of his life, he sent also communications in prose on agricultural
and meteorological matters. Two collected volumes of his verse were
published: _The Pleasures of Life, and other Poems_, which appeared
in 1861. It was dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle, and has some
introductory lines signed H. B., M.A., and dated Nottingham Park,
September 22, 1859. The other, _Echoes from Nature; or the Song of the
Woodland Muse, a Poem for the People_, is dated 1863, and dedicated
to Frederick Webster, Esq. They consist largely of descriptive and
reflective pieces, suggested by the village and its neighbourhood in
which his life was spent. They contain also patriotic verse called
forth by the current events of his time. There are in some of these
poems, naturally, unconscious echoes of more illustrious writers, such
as Goldsmith. This does not mean a charge of plagiarism; far from it:
the thoughts of “Rusticus” were his own, and he clearly endeavoured to
express them in his own simple words. But he would be as profoundly
influenced by the books he read in his early days as boys are by the
personal teaching of a vigorous and stimulating master. Characteristic
quotation from him is not easy. Perhaps the following lines will give a
fair idea of his style and thought. But his poems should be read whole
and one with another.
“WHAT IS LOVE?
“Ah, What is love? No mortal tongue can tell:
It is the power that saves the earth from hell!
It is the spring of many a noble deed,
It shines refulgent in the Christian’s creed;
It smiles in every bursting bud and flower,
It has a voice in every passing hour;
It compasses the whole creation round,
And by its tendrils hearts to hearts are bound.
’Tis the pulsation of the universe,
It counteracts the evils of the curse;
The golden cord that pendent hangs from heaven;
The mystic ladder-way to mortals given;
It is the breath of blessed spirit throngs
When round the earth they breathe eternal songs.”
The _Nottingham Athenæum_ said of him that “he was the truest poet in
our locality, and his present volume bears us out in our assertion”;
and the _London Athenæum_: “Some of Mr. Hickling’s poems are excellent,
and show great poetic power”; while the _Telegraph_ describes the verse
as a pearl “as pure and priceless as any of the glittering gems that
Nottingham genius has hitherto offered.”
In 1859 James Blackwood, of Paternoster Row, published a small volume
of poems entitled, _The Flirting Page, a Legend of Normandy, and other
Poems_, by Charles Dranfield and George Denham Halifax. “Charles
Dranfield” was the pen-name of RICHARD FOSTER SKETCHLEY, who was born
at Newark on 23rd July 1826. He was of far-reaching Newark ancestry,
and was educated at the Magnus Grammar School, from which he proceeded
to Exeter College, Oxford. In 1864 he was appointed Assistant-Keeper
of the Science and Art Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum
at South Kensington, and held that post for thirty years. He was on
the staff of _Punch_ for many years. A memorial notice of him was
contributed to the _Magnus Magazine_ by Mr. T. M. Blagg, another
old Magnus boy. It is clear from the testimony of his friends that
Sketchley was a man of great charm of manner and singular modesty; his
serious poems show that he had a cultured mind, refined and sensitive;
that he had no common gift for humorous writing is evident from his
connexion with such a paper as _Punch_, He died at Seaford in Sussex,
and was buried there.
His chief poem in the volume mentioned above is _The Flirting Page_, in
the style of the _Ingoldsby Legends_. It is amusing and well written,
with a great command of rhyme, and shows that the writer had an
extensive acquaintance with men and things. The more serious poems deal
with incidents in the Crimean War, or with feelings aroused by memories
of the far-off days of happy youth. Quotation is not easy; the poems
should be read as wholes. These lines, from the Introduction to _The
Flirting Page_, will illustrate the author’s gift of rhyme:--
“Leave business, and bullion, and British Bank bubbles
For woods and plantations, for fallows and stubbles:
Leave barracks and chambers, the clubs, and ‘the House’
For the mountains and moor, for the deer and the grouse,
For jungles and prairies, and lonely savannahs,
With rifles and pale ale, and lots of ‘Havanahs’;
Leave the porter of Barclay, the water of Thames,
For vin ordinaire and the waters of Ems:
Leave station and bridges, by railway and steamer,
For Keswick or Conway, for Antwerp or Lima;
For the Rhine or the Rhone,
Or the winding Saone:
For the valley of Chamouni, bent on pic-nicing
On the top of Mont Blanc with champagne and chicken;
For Rome to buy bronzes and gaze at the Pope;
For Naples whose king’s not so good as its soap;
For the Dove or the Danube, for Malvern or Mecca;
For the banks of the Wye, or the banks of the Neckar.”
And as specimen of the shorter poems, we may take to illustrate the
writer’s sympathetic insight, two contrasted verses from “Peace and War
(Sunday, November 5, 1854)”:--
“In the carved chancel stalls
Knelt a maiden in the sun;
And the marble on the walls
Told of fields her fathers won:
She was pleading in her love
That her lover might not die:
And the angels wept above
For they heard his dying cry.
* * * * *
Underneath the pollard oaks,
Clustered on a grassy knoll
Where the woodman’s ringing strokes
Never slash the slender bole;
Meeting death among his men,
Grasping still his father’s sword,
Never more to charge again,
Lay the loved one on the sward.”
It is clear that Sketchley’s work is too good to pass over without
remark. He had the gift of rousing the emotions and kindling the
imagination by a skilful touch of scenic colour, as when he speaks of
“the grange beyond the wold” (perhaps a recollection of Tennyson’s “old
mill across the wold”), and again,
“Where the rectory roses cluster, where the whitened cottage peers,
In the old manorial mansion, eyes were filled with thankful tears.”
The mention of Newark calls up the names of several writers whose works
were published in that town when it was a publishing centre. For a
more detailed account of these authors and their works the reader is
referred to Mr. T. M. Blagg’s chapter on “Newark as a Publishing Town,”
in his little book of Newark history.
In 1810, _Besthorpe, a Descriptive Poem by a Young Native_, was printed
by Hage. Charles Snart, solicitor, angler, and poet, brought out a
_Selection of Poems_, containing several pieces by himself. They have
many allusions to the Trent and the writer’s love of the rod and line.
In 1823 John Atkin, of North Muskham, published _Jonah Tink_, the title
being an anagrammatic transposition of the letters of the writer’s
name. In 1830 appeared _Cambria, Raymond, and other Poems_, by a
Lady; and in the same year _The Power of Gold_, by H. N. Bousfield,
undergraduate of Queen’s College, Cambridge; and in 1862 _Sonnets_, by
Thomas Lester, a schoolmaster at Ossington. At an earlier date (1793)
Allen and Ridge had produced _Miscellaneous Poems_, by R. P. Shilton.
_Jonah Tink_ has no claim to the title of poetry as the elegant
expression of subtle or deep feeling, and the idealized description
of nature, character, and action; it is merely a rhymed and not
over-grammatical account of the rise of an industrious and
well-conducted farm-servant to wealth and an influential position; it
is a kind of rhymed commentary on Hogarth’s Industrious Apprentice. Its
value lies in its descriptive touches of the life of a certain section
of society at the time it was written, and its incidental allusions
to social abuses and customs. From the preface it appears that Atkin
was originally a carpenter and joiner by trade, and afterwards became
master of the Free School in his native village. He mentions a visit
to a “personally unknown bard,” Mr. Benjamin Kemp, of Farnsfield. He
had his full share of pedagogic authoritativeness, and it is amusing
to read that he “disbelieved the theory” of Sir Isaac Newton as to
gravitation. He makes a disparaging reference to Southey,
“I should ’tis sure
Like S--th--y gain a sinecure,”