Kitabı oku: «Literary Byways», sayfa 4
Epigrams on Authors
The epigram is of considerable antiquity. The Greeks placed on their monuments, statues, and tombs, short poetical inscriptions, written in a simple style, and it was from this practice that we derive the epigram. In the earlier examples we fail to find any traces of satire which is now its chief characteristic. The Romans were the first to give a satirical turn to this class of literature. Amongst the writers of Latin epigrams, Catullus and Martial occupy leading places. The French are, perhaps, the most gifted writers of epigrams. German epigrammatists have put into verse moral proverbs. Schiller and Goethe did not, however, follow the usual practice of their countrymen, but wrote many satirical epigrams, having great force. Many of our English poets have displayed a fine faculty of writing epigrams.
The birthplace of Homer is a disputed point, and has given rise to not a few essays and epigrams. Thomas Heywood, in one of his poetical publications, published in 1640, wrote: —
“Seven cities warr’d for Homer, being dead,
Who, living, had no roof to shroud his head.”
Much in the same strain wrote Thomas Seward, a century and a half later: —
“Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begg’d his bread.”
The two writers have not stated fully the number of cities which claim to have given birth to Homer. The number is nearer twenty than seven. Pope, in his translation of Homer, was assisted by a poet named William Broome, a circumstance which prompted John Henley to pen the following: —
“Pope came off clean with Homer; but, they say,
Broome went before, and kindly swept the way.”
Butler, the author of “Hudibras,” was much neglected during his life. It is true that Charles II. and his courtiers read and were delighted with his poem, but they did not extend to him any patronage. The greater part of his days were passed in obscurity and poverty. He had been buried about forty years when a monument was placed in Westminster Abbey to his memory, by John Barber, a printer, and afterwards an Alderman and Lord Mayor of London. Samuel Wesley wrote on the memorial the following lines: —
“Whilst Butler, needy wretch! was yet alive,
No gen’rous patron would a dinner give;
See him, when starved to death, and turn’d to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust!
The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown, —
He asked for bread, and he receiv’d a stone.”
An epitaph similar in sentiment to the foregoing was placed by Horace Walpole over the remains of Theodore, King of Corsica, who, after many trials and disappointments, ended his life as a prisoner for debt in King’s Bench, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne’s, Westminster: —
“The grave, great teacher, to a level brings
Heroes and beggars, galley slaves and kings.
But Theodore this moral learn’d ere dead;
Fate pour’d its lesson on his living head;
Bestow’d a kingdom, and denied him bread.”
The fourth Earl of Chesterfield, on seeing a whole-length portrait of Nash between the busts of Sir Isaac Newton and Pope in the rooms at Bath, wrote as follows: —
“Immortal Newton never spoke
More truth than here you’ll find;
Nor Pope himself e’er penn’d a joke
More cruel on mankind.
The picture, plac’d the busts between,
Gives satire all its strength:
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
But Folly at full length.”
Stephen Duck’s poetry and progress in life gave rise to some lively lines by the lampooners of the eighteenth century. He was an agricultural labourer, having a thirst for knowledge and some skill as a writer of verse. This humble and self-taught student was brought under the notice of Queen Caroline, who was much interested in his welfare, and pleased with his poetry; she granted him a pension of £30 a year. He was next made a yeoman of the guard, an appointment he did not long retain, for he was advanced to the position of a clergyman in the Church of England, and presented to the living of Byfleet, Surrey. It is to be feared that his education was not sufficiently liberal for a clerk in holy orders. Dean Swift assailed the poor poet as follows: —
“The thresher Duck could o’er the Queen prevail;
The proverb says ‘No fence against a flail.’
From threshing corn he turns to thresh his brains,
For which Her Majesty allows him grains.
Though ’tis confess’d that those who ever saw
His poems, think them all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck, employed in threshing stubble!
Thy toil is lessen’d and thy profits doubled.”
The want of dignity displayed in the foregoing is unworthy of Swift, and the reply as follows made by Duck is certainly much to his credit: —
“You think it, censor, mighty strange
That, born a country clown,
I should my first profession change
And wear a chaplain’s gown!
If virtue honours the low race
From which I was descended,
If vices your high birth disgrace
Who should be most commended?”
Duck wrote the epitaph for the tombstone over the remains of Joe Miller of mirthful memory. The following is a copy of the lines: —
“If humour, wit, and honesty could save
The hum’rous, witty, honest from the grave;
The grave had not so soon this tenant found
Whom honesty, and wit, and humour crowned.
Or could esteem and love preserve our breath,
And guard us longer from the stroke of death,
The stroke of death on him had later fell,
Whom all mankind esteem’d and lov’d so well.”
The poet-preacher was advanced to the chaplaincy of a regiment of Dragoon Guards. Sad to relate, in the year 1756, in a fit of insanity, he took his own life.
During the Gordon riots on the 7th of January, 1780, Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square was burnt, and in the flames perished his valuable library, which he commenced collecting when a lad at school. It included many valuable volumes and materials for memoirs of his times. Cowper thus wrote on the subject: —
“So then – the Vandals of our isle,
Sworn foes of sense and law,
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman saw!
And Murray sighs o’er Pope and Swift,
And many a treasure more,
The well-judged purchase, and the gift
That graced his letter’d store.
Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,
The loss was his alone;
But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own.”
A pleasing and playful epigram on Robert Bloomfield, the author of “The Farmer’s Boy,” was written by Henry Kirke White: —
“Bloomfield, thy happy omen’d name
Ensures continuance of thy fame;
Both sense and truth this verdict give,
While fields shall bloom thy name shall live.”
The residences of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge near the English Lakes suggested the title of lake poets, and of their works the Rev. Henry Townshend wrote: —
“They come from the lakes – an appropriate quarter
For poems diluted with plenty of water.”
Surely Lord Holland was a little wide of the mark when he penned the following epigram, complaining that Southey did not write sufficient laureate poems; the fact is, he wrote too many to sustain his reputation as a poet: —
“Our Laureate Bob defrauds the King —
He takes his cash and will not sing;
Yet on he goes, I know not why,
Singing for us who do not buy.”
In the Diary of Thomas Moore, under date of September 4, 1825, it is stated: “Lord H. full of an epigram he had just written on Southey, which we all twisted and turned into various shapes; he is as happy as a boy during the operation. He suggests the following as the last couplet: —
“And for us, who will not buy,
Goes singing on eternally.”
It has been truthfully observed that William Wordsworth “found poetry in the most common-place events of life, and described them in familiar language; he naturally contended that there was little real difference between poetry and prose.” Byron thus rallies him on the theory: —
“The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May,
Who warns his friend, ‘to shake off toil and trouble,
And quit his books, for fear of growing double;’
Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose inane.”
Theodore Hook produced some pungent verses; here is a slight example on Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”: —
“Shelley styles his new poem Prometheus Unbound,
And ’tis like to remain so while time circles round;
For surely an age would be spent in the finding
A reader so weak as to pay for the binding!”
Scott wrote a poem which was published in 1815, under the title of The Field of Waterloo, and prefaced it thus: “It may be some apology for the imperfections of this poem, that it was composed hastily, and during a short tour upon the Continent, where the author’s labours were liable to frequent interruption; but its best apology is, that it was written for the purpose of assisting the Waterloo subscription.”
This plea did not disarm hostile criticism. Thomas, Lord Erskine, expressed himself as follows: —
“On Waterloo’s ensanguined plain
Lie tens of thousands of the slain;
But none by sabre or by shot
Fell half so flat as Walter Scott.”
Wrote Thomas Moore in his Diary: “I have read Walter-loo. The battle murdered many, and he has murdered the battle; ’tis sad stuff.”
The Earl of Carlisle wrote a sixpenny pamphlet advocating small theatres; and on the day it was issued the newspapers contained the announcement that he had given a large subscription to a public fund, a circumstance which formed the theme of the following epigram by his cousin, Lord Byron:
“Carlisle subscribes a thousand pounds
Out of his rich domains;
And for sixpence circles round
The product of his brains:
’Tis thus the difference you may hit
Between his fortune and his wit.”
Byron made his unhappy marriage the subject of at least three epigrams. Here are two of them as follows: —
On His Wedding-day
“Here’s a happy new year! But with reason
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day.”
At a later period he wrote —
I beg you’ll permit me to say —
“This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you:
’Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.”
Lord Byron’s friend, Thomas Moore, wrote many excellent epigrams, and not a few were penned about him. He published his first volume of poems under the name of Thomas Little. It is stated that a lady found a copy of the book under the pillow of her maid’s bed, and wrote on it in pencil: —
“You read Little, I guess;
I wish you’d read less.”
The servant was equal to her mistress, and wrote: —
“I read Little before,
Now I mean to read Moore.”
Lord Byron wrote the following in 1811 on Moore’s farcical opera: —
“Good plays are scarce;
So Moore writes farce;
The poet’s fame grows brittle —
We knew before
That Little’s Moore,
But now ’tis Moore that’s Little.”
Respecting Moore’s duel with Lord Jeffrey, Theodore Hook composed the following lines: —
“When Anacreon would fight, as the poets have said,
A reverse he displayed in his vapour,
For while all his poems were loaded with lead,
His pistols were loaded with paper.
For excuses, Anacreon old custom may thank,
Such salvo he should not abuse;
For the cartridge, by rule, is always made blank
That is fired away at Reviews.”
“Moore is here called Anacreon,” says W. Davenport Adams, “in allusion to his translations from that poet.” The duel was owing to an article in the Edinburgh Review, which Moore thought proper to resent by challenging the editor. The combatants were, however, arrested on the ground, and conveyed to Bow Street, where the pistols were found to contain merely a charge of powder, the balls having in some way disappeared. Byron alludes to the circumstance in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: —
“When Little’s leadless pistol met his eye,
And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by.”
After this strange encounter, the poet and critic were firm friends.
Slips of the pen have given rise to some smart epigrammatic corrections. Albert Smith wrote in an album as follows: —
“Mont Blanc is the Monarch of Mountains,
They crown’d him long ago;
But who they got to put it on
Nobody seems to know.”
Albert Smith.
Thackeray was successfully solicited to contribute to the same book, and wrote under the fore-going: —
A Humble Suggestion
“I know that Albert wrote in a hurry,
To criticize I scarce presume;
But methinks that Lindley Murray,
Instead of who had written whom.”
W. M. Thackeray.
Samuel Warren on one occasion made a slip in writing in an album, misquoting Moore, writing “glory’s throb” instead of “glory’s thrill.” The mistake formed the subject of the following impromptu lines by Mr. Digby Seymour: —
“Warren, thy memory was poor
The Irish bard to rob,
Had you remembered Tommy Moore,
Glory would ‘thrill,’ not ‘throb.’”
The vanity of Mr. Warren was unusually largely developed, and gave rise to a number of amusing anecdotes. Sir George Rose thus refers to his weakness: —
“Samuel Warren, though able, yet vainest of men,
Could he guide with discretion his tongue and his pen,
His course would be clear for – ‘Ten Thousand a Year;’
But limited else be a brief – ‘Now and Then.’”
For a long period Mr. Warren was the Recorder for Hull. Mr. Thompson, the Town Clerk, was a gentleman of cultivated literary tastes, and able to compose a neat epigram. He wrote the following: —
“Our Recorder, Sam Warren, from all that I hear,
Is one of the kindest of men,
For a friend he presents with ‘Ten Thousand a Year,’
And adds to the gift ‘Now and Then.’”
Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth, the romance writer, was very unpopular with the contributors of Punch, and many were the satires on him in its pages. Colburn published a magazine, in which many of Ainsworth’s novels appeared, and this gave rise to the following epigram: —
“Says Ainsworth to Colburn:
‘A plan in my pate is
To give my romance as
A supplement gratis.’
“Says Colburn to Ainsworth:
‘’Twill do very nicely,
For that will be charging
Its value precisely.’”
In early manhood, Edwin Paxton Hood called upon Bulwer Lytton without any introduction. The servant told him that his master could not be seen. On receiving the intimation, Hood took out of his pocket pencil and paper, and wrote as follows: —
“A son of song, to fame unknown,
Stands waiting in your hall below;
Your footman tells him to begone;
Say, mighty Bulwer, shall he go?”
It is not surprising to learn that the impromptu lines proved an effective introduction. The interview was the first of many pleasant meetings between the author of The Caxtons and Mr. Paxton Hood.
Poetical Graces
Literary by-paths furnish some singular specimens of poetical graces. We produce a few for the entertainment of our readers.
Robert Fergusson, the Edinburgh poet, was born in 1751, and was a student at St. Andrews’ University from his thirteenth to his seventeenth year. It was the duty of each student, in turn, to ask a blessing at the dinner table. One day, to the consternation of all, the youthful bard repeated the following lines:
“For rabbits young, and for rabbits old,
For rabbits hot, and for rabbits cold,
For rabbits tender, and for rabbits tough,
Our thanks we render, for we’ve had enough.”
The masters of the college deliberated how they should punish the graceless poet. It was finally resolved not to censure him, but to have in the future a more spare supply of rabbits. Poor Fergusson’s sad career closed in a lunatic asylum at an early age, not, however, before he had enriched Scottish poetical literature with some important contributions.
Burns appears to have had a great admiration for this wayward son of song. He placed over his remains in the Canongate Churchyard, Edinburgh, a tombstone bearing the following inscription: —
“Here lies Robert Fergusson,
Poet, born September 5th, 1751,
Died October 16th, 1774.
No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay
No storied urn, nor animated bust;
This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way
To pour her sorrows o’er her Poet’s dust.”
On the back of the stone it is stated: —
“By special grant of the Managers to Robert Burns, who erected this stone, this burial place is ever to remain sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson.”
More than one poetical grace is attributed to the facile pen of Burns. His grace before dinner is well known, and is as follows: —
“Oh Thou who kindly dost provide
For every creature’s want!
We bless Thee, God of nature wide,
For all Thy goodness lent:
And if it please Thee, Heavenly guide,
May never worse be sent,
But whether granted or denied,
Lord, bless us with content.”
It is said that at one of Burns’s convivial dinners he was desired to say grace, and he gave the following, impromptu:
“O Lord we do Thee humbly thank
For what we little merit; —
Now Jean may tak’ the flesh away,
And Will bring on the spirit.”
On one occasion a rhymster, who had placed before him a supper small in quantity and poor in quality, invoked a blessing with the following lines: —
“O Thou who bless’d the loaves and fishes
Look down upon these two poor dishes;
And though the ’tatoes be but small,
Lord make them large enough for all;
For if they do our bellies fill,
’Twill be a wondrous miracle.”
This reminds us of an epigram entitled “Dress v. Dinner:” —
What is the reason, can you guess,
Why men are poor, and women thinner?
So much do they for dinner dress,
There’s nothing left to dress for dinner.
On a graceless peer an epigrammatist wrote: —
“‘By proxy I pray, and by proxy I vote,’
A graceless peer said to a churchman of note;
Who answered,‘My lord, then I venture to say,
You’ll to heaven ascend in a similar way.’”
Here is a grateful grace: —
“Some hae meat that canna eat,
An’ some cou’d eat that want it;
But we hae meat, an’ we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.”
The Rev. Samuel Wesley, formerly vicar of Epworth, and another friend were entertained to dinner at Temple Belwood, by a host noted as a strange compound of avarice and oddity. Mr. Wesley returned thanks with the following impromptu lines: —
“Thanks for the feast, for ’tis no less
Than eating manna in the wilderness,
Here meagre famine bears controlless sway,
And ever drives each fainting wretch away.
Yet here, O how beyond a saint’s belief,
We’ve seen the glories of a chine of beef;
Here chimneys smoke, which never smoked before,
And we have dined, where we shall dine no more.”
In conclusion we give a vegetarian grace. The first four lines are to be said before the meal: —
“These fruits do Thou, O Father, bless,
Which Mother Earth to us doth give;
No blood doth stain our feast to day,
In Thee we trust, and peaceful live.”
The next is a form of thanksgiving after a vegetarian meal: —
“We thank Thee, Lord, for these Thy fruits,
Which Mother Earth to us doth give;
No blood hath stained our feast to-day,
In Thee we trust, and peaceful live!”
Poetry on Panes
In a variety of places, but more especially in old village inns, reflections in verse, good, bad, and indifferent, have been found scratched upon window-panes. We have carefully copied the best examples which have come under our notice, and present a batch herewith, believing that they may entertain our readers.
A genial old Yorkshire parson appears at the commencement of the present century to have been greatly pleased with an inn situated between Northallerton and Boroughbridge, for he visited it daily to enjoy his pipe and glass. On one of its window-panes he inscribed some lines, of which the following is a literal copy: —
“Here in my wicker chair I sitt,
From folly far, and far from witt,
Content to live, devoid of care,
With country folks and country fare;
To listen to my landlord’s tale,
And drink his health in Yorkshire ale;
Then smoak and read the York Courant;
I’m happy and ’tis all I want.
Though few my tythes, and light my purse,
I thank my God it is no worse.”
Here is another Yorkshire example, written towards the close of the last century; it is from an old wayside inn near Harewood-bridge, on the Leeds and Harrogate road: —
“Gaily I lived, as Ease and Nature taught,
And passed my little Life without a thought;
I wonder, then, why Death, that tyrant grim,
Should think of me, who never thought of him.”
Under the foregoing, the following was written:
“Ah! why forget that Death should think of thee;
If thou art Mortal, such must surely be;
Then rouse up reason, view thy hast’ning end,
And lose no time to make God thy Friend.”
In the old coaching days, the Dog and Doublet, at Sandon, Staffordshire, was a popular house. A guest wrote on one of its window panes the following recommendation: —
“Most travellers to whom these roads are known,
Would rather stay at Sandon than at Stone!
Good chaises, horses, treatment, and good wines,
They always meet with at James Ballantine’s.”
A penniless poet wrote on a tavern window-pane the lines: —
“O Chalk! to me, and to the poor, a friend,
On Thee my life and happiness depend;
On Thee with joy, with gratitude I think,
For, by thy bounty, I both eat and drink.”
“Chalk” is a slang word for credit. Innkeepers kept their accounts on the back of a door, written with chalk.
The following epigram was written under a pane disfigured with autographs: —
“Should you ever chance to see,
A man’s name writ on a glass,
Be sure he owns a diamond,
And his parent owns an ass.”
On the accession of Her Majesty, this jeu d’esprit was inscribed on an inn window: —
“The Queen’s with us, the Whigs exulting say;
For when she found us in, she let us stay.
It may be so; but give me leave to doubt
How long she’ll keep you when she finds you out.”
The following lines dated 1793, were written on a window-pane at the Hotel des Pays Bas, Spa Belgium: —
“I love but one, and only one,
Ah, Damon, thou art he!
Love thou but one, and only one,
And let that one be me!”
Early in the present century, it was customary for the actors to write their names on the panes in one of the windows of the York Theatre. On the glass of the same window were found inscribed these lines.
“The rich man’s name embellished stands on brass;
The player simply scribbles his on glass,
Appropriate tablet to the wayward fate —
A brittle shining, evanescent state:
The fragile glass destroyed – farewell the name;
The actor’s glass consumed – farewell his fame.”
Our next example, dated 1834, from Purwell Hall, Batley, Yorkshire, was composed by a Miss Taylor. It is generally believed that her heart was won by a lover who did not meet with the approbation of her friends, and that they made her prisoner in one of the rooms of the old Hall, and there, on a pane of glass, were written the lines which follow: —
“Come, gentle Muse, wont to divert
Corroding cares from anxious heart;
Adjust me now to bear the smart
Of a relenting angry heart.
What though no being I have on earth,
Though near the place that gave me birth,
And kindred less regard do pay
Than thy acquaintance of to-day:
Know what the best of men declare,
That they on earth but strangers are,
Nor matter it a few years hence
How fortune did to thee dispense,
If – in a palace thou hast dwelt,
Or – in a cell of penury felt —
Ruled as a prince – served as a slave,
Six feet of earth is all thou’lt have.
Hence give my thoughts a nobler theme,
Since all the world is but a dream
Of short endurance.”
Robert Burns wrote several lines on tavern windows. On a pane of glass at the Queensberry Arms, Sanquhar, he inscribed the following.
“Ye gods! ye gave to me a wife
Out of your grace and favour,
To be a comfort to my life;
And I was glad to have her.
But if your providence divine
For other ends design her,
To obey your will at any time,
I’m ready to resign her.”
Next may be quoted: —
“Envy, if thy jaundiced eye
Through this window chance to pry,
To thy sorrow, thou wilt find
All that’s generous, all that’s kind:
Virtue, friendship, every grace
Dwelling in this happy place.”
Burns’s lines written on the window-panes of the Globe Tavern, Dumfries, have frequently been quoted. The following inscription refers to the charms of the daughter of the factor of Closeburn estate, when the poet resided at Ellisland: —
“O lovely Polly Stewart,
O charming Polly Stewart,
There’s not a flower that blooms in May,
That’s half so fair as thou art.”
In some editions of the poet’s works, the following verse, stated to have been copied from a window of the same tavern, is given: —
“The graybeard, Old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures;
Grant me with gay Folly to live;
I grant him his calm-blooded, time settled pleasures;
But Folly has raptures to give.”
Such are a few of the many rhymes scratched upon glass. Some of the panes on which they were inscribed may now be broken, and this may be the only means of preserving them.
