ÆSOP SMITH.
"Æsop Smith's Rides and Reveries" is one of the books which, really
written by me from beginning to end, is nominally only edited. It is a
volume of self-experiences, to be read "through the lines,"--and almost
every incident and character therein is drawn from living models and
actual facts. It grew naturally out of the simple circumstance that I
used daily to ride out alone on one of my horses--more exactly,
mares--Minna and Brenda, and jotted down my cantering fancies in prose
or verse when I got home. Hurst & Blackett were its publishers in
1858,--and it soon was all sold off, but did not come to a second
edition in London, though reproduced widely in New York and
Philadelphia. The fact is that, between an independent publisher who
sells a little over cost price, and a Gargantua purchaser of thousands
at a time, like Smith or Mudie, the poor author is sacrificed: he has
received his fee for the edition (I got £100 for this first and only)
and forthwith finds himself dismissed, while the reading public is made
glad by easy perusal instead of costly purchase: and thus he is cheated
of his second edition. Most authors know how their interests are
affected wholesale by that modern system of subscription libraries: but
cheapness pleases the voracious multitude, and so in this competitive
free-trade era the units who feed those devourers are swallowed up
themselves. However, "what must be, must,"--_che sara sara_,--and I care
not even to complain of what cannot be helped, and wins fame to the one,
whilst it does good to the many, though financially unprofitable to
individual authorship.
In the scarce copy of "Æsop Smith" now before me, I find a few
manuscript notes of mine perhaps worth transcribing. One has it, "This
book is actually autobiographical; but (as Rabelais did) I often mix up
irrelevant and extraneous matter by way of gilding pills, &c., and that
&c. is like one of Coke's upon Littleton, full of hints to be
amplified." Further, "Let readers remember that this book was written
and published long before recent changes in our laws of marriage and
divorce and libel: also when no Englishman dared to go bearded, and no
civilian was permitted to be armed. In advocacy of all these things and
many more, then unheard of but now common, I was in advance of the age;
and in some degree my private notions conduced to very wholesome public
changes." Again: "When Rabelais is diffuse, or a buffoon, or worse, it
may be to throw disputers off the scent as to his real mark of satire or
philosophy. Perhaps, like Liguori, Æsop has written a book for the sake
of a sentence, and veils his true intent in a designed mist of all sorts
of miscellaneous matter. I shan't tell you clearly, but you may guess
for yourselves." The book includes a hundred and thirty original fables,
essayettes, anecdotes, tirades, songs, and musings, all of which
thronged my brain as I cantered along, and were set down in black and
white as soon as I got home. Stay: some were even pencilled in the
saddle,--in especial this, which became very popular afterwards,
particularly in the charming musical composition thereof by Mrs.
Stafford Bush, and as sung by Mr. Fox at St. James's Hall and elsewhere.
It was printed in an earliest edition of my Ballads and Poems (Hall &
Virtue), and is headed there, "Written in the saddle on the crown of my
hat." I reproduce it here for the sake of that heading, though it occurs
also in my extant volume of poems without it:--
_The Early Gallop._
"At five on a dewy morning,
Before the blaze of day,
To be up and off on a high-mettled horse,
All care and danger scorning,
Over the hills away,--
To drink the rich sweet breath of the gorse,
And bathe in the breeze of the downs.--
Ha! man, if you can,--match bliss like this
In all the joys of towns!
"With glad and grateful tongue to join
The lark at his matin hymn,
And thence on faith's own wing to spring
And sing with cherubim!
To pray from a deep and tender heart
With all things praying anew,
The birds and the bees and the whispering trees,
And heather bedropt with dew.--
To be one with those early worshippers,
And pour the carol too!
"Then off again with a slackened rein
And a bounding heart within,
To dash at a gallop over the plain
Health's golden cup to win!
This, this is the race for gain and grace,
Richer than vases and crowns;
And you that boast your pleasures the most
Amid the steam of towns,
Come taste true bliss in a morning like this,
Galloping over the downs!"
Among the most notable prose pieces (though it is of little use to refer
my readers to a book hopelessly out of print) there may be selected my
panacea for Ireland, to wit, a Royal Residence there to evoke the
loyalty of a warm-hearted people,--I called my fable "The Unsunned
Corner:" I mean to quote some of it in a future political page of this
book. Also other papers, as "Bits of Ribbon," suggesting as just and
wise the more profuse distribution of honours,--in particular
recommending an Alfred or an Albert Order. Also, many of my Rifle
ballads,--whereof, more anon. And "The Over-sharpened Axe"--applicable
to modern Boardschool Educationals: and Colonel Jade's matrimonial
tirades, all real life: and "The Grumbling Gimlet," a fable on Content,
&c. &c. With plenty more notabilia--which those who have the book can
turn to if they will.
I could fill many pages with the critiques _pro_ and _con_ this queer
book has provoked, but it is useless now that the world has let it die.