Read Ebook: The Mary Frances Story Book; or Adventures Among the Story People by Fryer Jane Eayre Prittie Edwin John Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 194 lines and 12508 words, and 4 pages

'When furious up from mines the water pours, And clears from rusty moisture all the ores.'

Another, on the rainbow, was in blank verse and impressively didactic in its tone. Then, when he was nine years old, he broke out with yet another effusion, called 'Eudosia;' and when only eleven he began the composition of an elaborate 'poetical' description of his various journeyings, under the title of 'Iteriad.'

It is easy to understand how this fondness for the rhythmical was fostered by the aforesaid parental admiration, and how it was still further increased by the boy's admiration, successively, for Scott and Byron. Certain early friendships held out to the young versifier the prospect of publication, and thus it is that we find him, in his sixteenth year, figuring as a contributor to 'Friendship's Offering and Winter's Wreath: a Christmas and New Year's Present' for 1835. This was the era of the old-fashioned 'annuals,' and 'Friendship's Offering' was one of the most notable of its kind. In the issue for the year named we note Barry Cornwall, John Clare, William Howitt, and H. F. Chorley among the writers of whom the youthful Ruskin was one. Here, by the side of really excellent steel-engravings, portraying languishing ladies in corkscrew curls, and illustrating literary matter not always unworthy of the embellishment given to it, we discover Mr. Ruskin's first published verses--'Salzburg' and some 'Fragments' of a poetical journal, kept on tour. In the former we seem to detect the influence of Rogers, rather than that of Scott or Byron. It opens thus:

'On Salza's quiet tide the westering sun Gleams mildly; and the lengthening shadows dun, Chequered with ruddy streaks from spire and roof, Begin to weave fair twilight's mystic woof; Till the dim tissue, like a gorgeous veil, Wraps the proud city, in her beauty pale.'

A little further on we read:

'Sweet is the twilight hour by Salza's strand, Though no Arcadian visions grace the land; Wakes not a sound that floats not sweetly by, While day's last beams upon the landscape die; Low chants the fisher where the waters pour, And murmuring voices melt along the shore; The plash of waves comes softly from the side Of passing barge slow gliding o'er the tide; And there are sounds from city, field, and hill, Shore, forest, flood; yet mellow all, and still.'

Herein, it will be seen, is something of the power of description which the writer was afterwards to exhibit so much more effectively in prose.

Four years later Mr. Ruskin's initials were to be seen appended to a couple of pieces in verse contributed to 'The Amaranth,' an annual of much more imposing presence than the 'Offering'--edited by T. K. Hervey, admirably illustrated, and happy in the practical support of such literary lights as Horace Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Sheridan Knowles, Thomas Hood, Praed, and Mrs. Browning. One of the two pieces in question is 'The Wreck,' in which Mr. Ruskin's poetic capability, such as it is, is visible in one of its most attractive moods. The last verse runs:

'The voices of the night are mute Beneath the moon's eclipse; The silence of the fitful flute Is in the dying lips! The silence of my lonely heart Is kept for ever more In the lull Of the waves Of a low lee shore.'

'We care not what skies are the clearest, What scenes are the fairest of all; The skies and the scenes that are dearest For ever, are those that recall To the thoughts of the hopelessly-hearted The light of the dreams that deride, With the form of the dear and departed, Their loneliness, weary and wide.'

It may be assumed that 'Salsette and Elephanta' has been read by all who care about the undertaking. It was recited in the theatre at Oxford, printed in the same year , and reprinted exactly forty years afterwards. It is a by no means unattractive piece of rhetoric.

Glancing through Mr. Ruskin's verse, one is forced to admit that it has no special individuality or charm. It deals with conventional subjects in a more or less conventional manner. There is a classical element, and a flavour of foreign scenery, and an occasional excursion in the direction of such topics as 'Spring,' 'The Months,' 'The Old Water Wheel,' 'The Old Seaman,' 'Remembrance,' 'The Last Smile,' and the like. The rhythm is always regular and flowing, and the descriptive passages have light and colour; but the 'lyric cry' has no particular tone that could attract the public. The longest piece ever written by Mr. Ruskin was, not the prize poem, but that entitled 'The Broken Chain,' with an extract from which I may conclude this brief survey of a great prose-writer's verse-production:--

'Where the flower hath fairest hue, Where the breeze hath balmiest breath, Where the dawn hath softest dew, Where the heaven hath deepest blue, There is death.

'Where the gentle streams of thinking, Through our hearts that flow so free, Have the deepest, softest sinking, And the fullest melody, Where the crown of hope is nearest, Where the voice of joy is clearest, Where the heart of youth is lightest, Where the light of love is brightest, There is death.'

ELECTIONS IN LITERATURE.

It is not surprising that Parliamentary contests should have figured largely in the English plays, stories, and poems of the past. That they will hold so prominent a place in them in future is, of course, by no means certain. If elections have been made purer than they were, they have been made less picturesque. They have now but little romance about them. Nearly everything in them is precise and practical. The literary artist, therefore, is likely to find in them few things to attract him, and will be, to that extent, at a disadvantage as compared with those who have preceded him. There were days when the preliminary canvassing, the nomination and the polling days, had features which invited treatment on the stage or in print. The whole atmosphere of electioneering was different to that which now exists. Those involved in it went about their work with a reckless jollity productive of results eminently interesting to students of character and manners. A battle at the polls brought out all which was most characteristic in the Englishmen of the times, and to describe such a conflict was naturally the aim of many a man of letters.

Several theatrical pieces have been based almost wholly upon the varied incidents of such a contest. There was, for example, that 'musical interlude,' 'The Election,' written by Miles Peter Andrews, and produced at Drury Lane in 1774. In this, Trusty and Sir Courtly are candidates for a seat, and, while one John, a baker, would fain vote for the former, his wife is desirous that he should support the latter. As she wheedlingly remarks,

'Sir Courtly says, if you'll but vote for him, He'll fill your pockets to the very brim.'

But John is not to be corrupted:

'Honest John no bribe can charm; His heart is like his oven, warm; Though poor as Job, He will not rob, Nor sell his truth to fill his fob.'

Nay, not though by so doing he may secure a husband for his daughter Sally. He votes for Trusty, and Sally's sweetheart respects him all the more for it. As the lover says to the lady:

'Your father's merit sets him up to view, And more enhances my esteem for you.'

And, in truth, everybody is delighted, for, as they sing in chorus:

'What to a Briton so grateful can be, As the triumph of Freedom and Virtue to see?'

Turning from drama to song, one thinks at once of the poem 'in seven books' which its author, Carlyle's John Sterling, dubbed 'The Election' and published in 1841. Sterling had been anticipated, a few years previously--in 1835--by the author of a satire called 'Election Day,' which supplied quite an elaborate description of such a day under the respective heads of 'The Inn,' 'The Hustings,' 'The Chairing,' and 'The Dinner.' 'Although,' said the writer, in his preface, 'there are some great improvements in the manner in which elections are now conducted, still the immoral and degrading principles that accompany them appear to remain nearly the same.' According to this earnest and depressed observer--

'Mud and stones and waving hats, And broken heads and putrid cats, Are offerings made to aid the cause Of order, government, and laws.'

But especially is he struck by the amount of eating and drinking that appears inseparable from an election in his time:

Sterling, though singing of

'Those high days when Aleborough proudly sent Her man to sit in England's Parliament,'

makes the plot of his poem turn upon a love affair in which one of the candidates embarks, and for the sake of which, indeed, he pretends to solicit the votes of the electors. There are, however, a few passages descriptive of electioneering phenomena. We are told, for instance, how one of the candidates went out to canvass:

'With smiling look and word, and promise bold, And dainty flatteries meet for young and old, The tender kiss on squalling mouths impressed, The glistening ribbon for the maiden's breast, Grave talk with men how this poor Empire thrives, The high-priced purchase for their prudent wives, The sympathizing glance, the attentive ear, The shake of hands laboriously sincere.'

We have, too, a graphic picture of the nomination day, telling how

'Ten public-houses opening for the Blues Their floods of moral influence diffuse, And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.'

By-and-by we read:

'And now the poll begins. The assessors sit Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ. The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.'

In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest pictured by George Eliot in 'Felix Holt'--that which leads to the riot in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? 'The nomination day,' says the novelist, 'was a great epoch of successful trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem, on the part of skilful agents.' And she goes on to describe

'the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting, the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and the soft hits with small jokes.'

Of the polling day, she writes:

'Every public-house in Treby was lively with changing and numerous company. Not, of course, that there was any treating; treating necessarily had stopped, from moral scruples, when once "the writs were out;" but there was drinking, which did equally well under any name.'

This was in 1832. In 1840 there was published at Dublin a tale, entitled 'The Election,' in which the author bluntly declared that 'bribery and perjury are the returning officers.' He was, in truth, a very 'high-toned' writer, for we find him declaiming vigorously against that which Sterling mentions as one of the canvassing weapons of a candidate--'the practice of shaking hands with all and every person whose vote is solicited, whether they be old friends or the acquaintance of the moment.' There are, we are told, 'cases when such buxom familiarity is out of place--when it assumes too much the appearance of vulgar cajolery to be received as a compliment.' Elsewhere we come across an instructive bit of talk between an Irish maiden lady of a certain age, and one of the gentlemen who desires her 'vote and interest.' The lady protests that she does not know the difference between the Whigs, the Tories, and the Radicals:

'I know two of them are in the history of England, where they gave trouble enough, whatever they were. But as for the Radicals, it is a newspaper word that I can't say I'm well acquainted with.'

Whereupon the candidate replies that all he can say for the Whigs is that

'they are very fair spoken, when it suits their convenience. But the Radicals are a foul-mouthed race, on all and every occasion, and are the bitter enemies to Church and State.'

Nevertheless, the contest which forms the main feature of the tale, ends in the return of Sir Andrew Shrivel, the Radical, together with Thaddeus O'Sullivan Gaffrey, Esq., representing the Nationalists.

FAMILIAR VERSE.

There is a species of verse, hitherto not classified distinctively, for which it seems desirable to find a name. In the first place, it may be necessary, perhaps, to emphasize once more the simple distinction between verse and poetry. There are, indeed, excellent and happy people for whom there is no difference between the two--for whom all that is not prose is poetry, and who recognise no other varieties in literature. Fortunate are they, and great is their reward. They are not disturbed by the necessity of distinguishing between this and that--of pronouncing upon what is poetry, and what is not. And, no doubt, if the critic were careful only for his individual comfort, he would adopt this rough-and-ready classification, and say no more about it. Unluckily, the distinction must be made. Rhythmical poetry must needs be in verse of some sort, but verse need not be poetry. What rhythmical poetry is in essence, the critics have not yet agreed to say; but, roughly speaking, it may be described as the language of imagination and of passion, as opposed to verse which is the vehicle, merely, of fancy and of feeling. Many can attain to the latter; the former is open only to the few. The one is the natural expression of poetic genius; the other is that of the natures which can lay claim only to poetic sentiment. The one is exceptional; the other, luckily, is tolerably widespread. The writers of verse which is not poetry have been many and able, and much enjoyment is derivable from their work.

I have said how numerous are its producers. Often it has been written by those who were poets as well as verse-writers; often by those who are well-known as wits and humourists. It has flourished, naturally, in, periods of tolerance rather than in strenuous times, and has been at its best, therefore, in the Caroline, Augustan, and Victorian ages of our literature. There was not much of it in the Elizabethan days, though some bears the signature of rare Ben Jonson. It came in, in full force, with the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease--with Suckling, whose 'Prithee, why so pale, fond lover?' is in exactly the right tone; and with Dorset, whose 'To all you ladies now on land' is another typical specimen. By-and-by Dryden showed how well he could write in the familiar style, when he composed the song about fair Iris:

'She's fickle and false, and there we agree, For I am as false and as fickle as she; We neither believe what either can say, And neither believing, we neither betray.'

Then there were the Lady Wortley Montagu, with her lines to Congreve; and Chesterfield, with his 'Advice to a Lady in Autumn'; Fielding, with his inimitable epistles to Walpole; and Goldsmith, with his incomparable 'Retaliation.' Later, again, came Cowper, with his 'Nose and Eyes' and 'Names of Little Note'; Byron, with his verses 'To Tom Moore'; Moore himself, with his 'Time I've Lost in Wooing'; Barham, with his 'Lines left at Hook's'; Peacock, Canning, James Smith, Praed, and Mahony; and, still later, Hood, with his 'Clapham Academy'; Brough, with his 'Neighbour Nelly'; Mortimer Collins, with his tribute to his 'Old Coat'; and a hundred others, all of whom could play delightfully on the familiar string.

SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND.

But these be the gibes of Danes and Italians--not of the man Shakespeare or of Englishmen speaking with his voice. True it is that if Shakespeare was strongly patriotic, he was so only in common with the Englishmen of his day. He lived in an age when the English people were consumed with a spirit of burning affection for the isle which they inhabited--when the great religious upheaval which we call the Reformation had set the blood coursing through their veins, and infused new life into their heart and brain--and when the fear of Spanish domination had joined all classes in an indissoluble bond of love and loyalty. Probably the English nation never was more thoroughly united, more profoundedly in earnest, more closely attached to its traditions and its soil, than in those spacious times of great Elizabeth. And if Shakespeare produced play after play dealing with the history of his country, and presenting on the boards many of the most famous Englishmen of the past, he was led to do so, no doubt, not only because the topic had attractions for him, but because the Englishmen of his day revelled in such reminders of the stirring years gone by--of the great soldiers, statesmen, clerics, and the like, who had shed lustre on the national name. There must have been a decided and continuous demand for these elaborate chronicle-dramas, and it may be argued that the poet, in supplying them, did but comply with the call made upon him by his public patrons.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet