"SACRA POESIS" AND "GERALDINE."
With the exception of "Rough Rhymes," my first Continental Journal as
aforesaid, and a song or two, and a few juvenile poems, my first
appearance in print, the creator of a real bound volume (though of the
smallest size) was as author of a booklet called "Sacra Poesis;"
consisting of seventy-five little poems illustrative of engravings or
drawings of sacred subjects, and intended to accompany a sort of pious
album which I wished to give to my then future wife. Most of it was
composed in my teens, though it found no technical "compositor" of a
printing sort until I was twenty-two (in 1832), when Nisbet published
the pretty little 24mo, with a picture by myself of Hope's Anchor on the
title. The booklet is now very rare, and a hundred years hence may be a
treasure to some bibliomaniac. Of its contents, speaking critically of
what I wrote between fifty and sixty years ago, some, of the pieces have
not been equalled by me since, and are still to be found among my
Miscellaneous Poems: but, many are feeble and faulty. Some of the
reviews before me received the new poetaster with kindly appreciation;
some with sneers and due disparagement,--much as Byron's "Hours of
Idleness" had been treated not very many years before: though another
cause for hatred and contempt may have operated in my case, namely
this: Ever since youth and now to my old age I have been exposed to the
"_odium theologicum_," the strife always raging between Protestant and
Papist, Low Church and High, Waldo and Dominic, Ulster and Connaught:
hence to this hour the frequent rancour against me and my writings
excited by sundry hostile partisans.
* * * * *
My next volume was "Geraldine and other Poems," published by Joseph
Rickerby in 1838. The origin thereof was this,--as I now extract it from
my earliest literary notebook:--
"In August 1838 I was at Dover, and from a library read for the first
time Coleridge's Christabel;" it was the original edition, before the
author's afterward improvements. "Being much taken with the poem, the
thought struck me to continue it to a probable issue, especially as I
wanted a leading subject for a new volume of miscellaneous verse. The
notion was barren till I got to Heine Bay a fortnight after, and then I
put pen to paper and finished the tale. It occupied me about eight days,
an innocent fact which divers dull Zoili have been much offended withal,
seeing that Coleridge had thought proper to bring out his two Parts at a
sixteen years' interval; a matter doubtless attributable either to
accident or indolence,--for to imagine that he was diligently polishing
his verses the whole time (as some blockheads will have it) would indeed
be a verification of the _parturiunt montes_ theory. The fact is, these
things are done at a heat, as every poet knows. Pegasus is a racer, not
a cart-horse; Euterpe trips it like the hare, while dogged criticism is
the tortoise, &c." The book had a fair success, both here and in
America, and has been many times reprinted. Critiques of course were
various, for and against; the shuttlecock of fame requires conflicting
battledores: but, as I now again quote from that early notebook, "It is
amusing to notice, and instructive also to any young author who may
chance to see this, how thoroughly opposite many of the reviews are,
some extolling what others vilify; it just tends to keep a sensible man
of his own opinion, unmoved by such seemingly unreasonable praise or
censure. When Coleridge first published Christabel (intrinsically a most
melodious and sweet performance) it was positively hooted by the
critics; see in particular the _Edinburgh Review_. Coleridge left behind
him a very much improved and enlarged version of the poem, which I did
not see till years after I had written the sequel to it: my Geraldine
was composed for an addition to Christabel, as originally issued."
Another note of mine, in reply to a critic of _The Atlas_, runs
thus:--"Nobody who has not tried it can imagine the difficulties of
intellectual imitation: it is to think with another's mind, to speak
with another's tongue: I acknowledge freely that I never was satisfied
with Geraldine as a mere continuation of a story, but as an independent
poem, I will yet be the champion of my child, and think with _The
Eclectic_ that I have succeeded as well as possible: as honest Pickwick
says, 'And let my enemies make the most of it.' At this time of day it
is not worth my while by any modern replies to attempt to quench such
long extinct volcanoes as 'The Conservative' and 'The Torch,' nor to
reproduce sundry glorifications of the new poet and his verses from many
other notices, long or short, duly pasted down for future generations in
my Archive-book. As to critical verdicts in this case, black and white
are not more contradictory: _e.g._, let _Blackwood_ be contrasted with
the _Monthly Review_, or the _Church of England Quarterly_ with the
_Weekly True Sun_, &c. &c."
It is a pity (at least the author of sold-out volumes may be forgiven
for the sentiment) that most of my books are not to be bought: they are
not in the market and are only purchasable at old-literature stores,
such as Reeves' or Bickers': some day, I hope to find a publisher
spirited enough to risk money in a ten-volumed "Edition of my Prose and
Poetry complete," &c.; but in the past and present, the subscription
system per Mudie and Smith, buying up whole editions at cost price
whereby to satiate the reading public, starves at once both author and
publisher, and makes impossible these expensive crown octavo editions,
"which no gentleman's library ought to be without." Some of the beat
smaller pieces in my "Geraldine and other Poems" will be found in Gall &
Inglis's Miscellaneous Tupper before mentioned: but my two Oxford Prize
Poems, The African Desert and The Suttees, are printed only in the
Geraldine volume.
Anecdotes innumerable I could tell, if any cared to hear them, connected
with each of my books, as friends or foes have commented upon me and
mine in either hemisphere. In this place I cannot help recording one, as
it led to fortunate results. In 1839 I was travelling outside the Oxford
coach to Alma Mater, and a gentleman, arrayed as for an archery party
with bow and quiver, climbed up at Windsor for a seat beside me. He
seemed very joyous and excited, and broke out to me with this stanza,--
"How fair and fresh is morn!
The dewbeads dropping bright
Each humble flower adorn,
With coronets bedight,
And jewel the rough thorn
With tiny globes of light,--
How beautiful is morn!
Her scattered gems how bright!"
There,--isn't that charming? he said,--little aware of whom he asked the
amiable query. But when I went on with the second verse, he opened his
eyes wider and wider as I added:
"There is a quiet gladness
On the waking earth,
Like the face of sadness
Lit with chastened mirth;
There is a mine of treasure
In those hours of health,
Filling up the measure
Of creation's wealth!"
Of course, discovery of the author was unavoidable: so we collided and
coalesced, and I rejoiced to find in this "Angel unaware" no less a
celebrity than John Hughes of Donnington Priory, father of the still
greater celebrity (then a youth) Tom Hughes of Rugby and "Tom Brown's
Schooldays." Some time after I spent several pleasant days at his fine
old place in Berks, and made happy acquaintance with the brightest old
lady I ever met, his mother, who had known Burns and Byron and Scott; as
also with his pleasant good wife and her clever sons, one of whom, in
the ripeness of time, married a then charming little girl, the
heiress-ward of my host, and since well appreciated in society as a
_grande dame_; wife also to one famous for a Rugby in both hemispheres,
for rifledom, the White Horse of Wilts, and now full-fledged county
judgeship. These excellent friendships survive many long years and will
be transplanted elsewhere hereafter. All this grew from a casual
encounter outside a coach: but such is life; what we call accidents are
all providences, and we are guided inch by inch and minute by minute.
Tom Hughes succeeded as a county judge in Yorkshire my old schoolfellow,
St. John Yates, mentioned on a recent page in connection with Andrew
Irvine's turkeycock irascibility.
"Watch little providences: if indeed
Or less there be, or greater, in the sight
Of Him who governs all by day and night,
And sees the forest hidden in the seed:
Of all that happens take thou reverent heed,
For seen in true Religion's happier light
(Though not unknown of Reason's placid creed)
All things are ordered; all by orbits move,
Having precursors, satellites, and signs,
Whereby the mind not doubtfully divines
What is the will of Him who rules above,
And takes for guidance those paternal hints
That all is well, that thou art led by Love,
And in thy travel trackest old footprints."