"My bank of early violets
Is now a bank of savings"
("you mark the paronomasia, play 'pon words"?) does not continue to
please the taste of the pun-despising _fin-de-siecle_ public or of Locker
himself: the corresponding stanza in the poem as published in 1893 is
purified of such tricks. These alterations are characteristic of
Locker's literary method. He was keenly critical of himself--"never,"
says Mr Birrell, "could mistake good verses for bad"--and was therefore
always changing and polishing his work, adding here, pruning there. Thus
only eight poems from the 1857 volume form part of the "London Lyrics" of
1893, and only five of these--"Bramble-Rise," "Piccadilly," "The Pilgrims
of Pall Mall," "Circumstance," "The Widow's Mite"--have maintained their
footing throughout in all intervening editions: the three others are, as
it were, "rusticated" from the very severely edited selection of 1881.
The variety of forms under which his verses appear at different periods
will probably make the poet's works a happy hunting-ground for the future
commentator, who will no doubt assign this "lay" (as he will probably
call it) to Locker, that to Lampson, that again to the Lockeridae or the
Lampsonschule. The method is familiar. No one, probably, ever was so
careful of the "limae labor." "He took," we are told, "great pains with
his verses," always aiming at a more perfect finish, with no loss of that
naturalness which, as has been said, characterises all his work.
According to the saying quoted by Matthew Arnold of Joubert, he
"s'inquietait de perfection." Perfection, to him, implied an appearance
of spontaneity: what _looked_ laboured or artificial must be elaborated
till it _looked_ spontaneous--as it was in thought if not altogether in
development. His critical sense seems to have grown keener with his
interest in the making of verses: "he was a great student of verse," Mr
Birrell says, and a student especially of that kind of verse of which he
was himself one of the masters. In 1867 he published the well-known
collection "Lyra Elegantiarum," assisted by Mr Kernahan: the preface,
written by Locker, contains some excellent rules for "light verse," from
which the selections are made. This anthology ranges over the whole
field of English poetry, and, like everything else of Locker's, it shows
the man. "Its charm," writes the editor's collaborator, "is entirely of
the editor's individuality"--at least, from his favourites in literature,
one may make a very fair guess at some part of his character. So, too,
"Patchwork"--a kind of scrap-book, a collection of miscellaneous
anecdotes, mostly humorous, but not as a rule broadly or farcically
funny--illustrates his delicate and subtle perception of the laughable.
Locker married Lady Charlotte Bruce in 1850, and soon after left the
service of Government. Thenceforward he appears to have led a very
placid life, happy in his family, seeing much of his large circle of
friends, devoted to poetry and book-collecting. "Lyra Elegantiarum" was
published in 1867, "Patchwork" in 1879. In 1886 Locker published a
catalogue of what he called the "Rowfant Library"--his collection of rare
and valuable books (mostly the poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries) and autographs--of which Mr Andrew Lang has sung:
"The Rowfant books, how fair they shew,
The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall,
Print, autograph, portfolio!
Back from the outer air they call
The athletes from the Tennis ball,
This Rhymer from his rod and hooks,
Would I could sing them, one and all,
The Rowfant books!"
Locker's first wife died in 1872. In 1874 he married Miss Lampson,
adding her family name to his own. The rest of his life was spent for
the most part at Rowfant: he died there, 30th May 1895. His
autobiography, "My Confidences," was published posthumously in 1896.