Winthrop Mackworth Praed

“ By persons who are used to borrow;
Forgotten as the sun that sets,
When shines a new one on the morrow;
Forgotten—like the luscious peach
That blessed the schoolboy last September;
Forgotten like a maiden speech,
Which all men praise, but none remember.
Yet, ere you sink into the stream
That whelms alike sage, saint, and martyr,
And soldier’s sword, and minstrel’s theme,
And Canning’s wit, and Gatton’s charter,
Here, of the fortunes of your youth,
My fancy weaves her dim conjectures,
Which have, perhaps, as much of truth
As passion’s vows, or Cobbett’s lectures. ”

“ He is equally a warrior and a ballad-singer, a prince and a cook. To-day he cuts up oxen, and to-morrow he cuts up Trojans. In battle he is as stout a glutton as ever peeled at Moulsey Hurst. At supper he is as hungry a glutton as ever sat down to a turtle. Homer has been blamed for the faults of his hero. For our part we think, with his defenders, that the character which aims with success at perfection, aims in vain at interest; and the feats of Achilles appear to us to derive much of their lustre from the Asyndeton which pervades them. ”

“ Rake up the reliques of the sinful dust,
Let Ignorance mock the pang it cannot feel,
And Malice brand, what Mercy would conceal;
It matters not! he died as all would die;
Greece had his earliest song, his latest sigh;
And o'er the shrine, in which that cold heart sleeps,
Glory looks dim, and joyous conquest weeps.
The maids of Athens to the spot shall bring
The freshest roses of the new-born spring,
And Spartan boys their first-won wreath shall bear,
To bloom round Byron's urn, or droop in sadness there! ”

“ When some mad poet stops to muse
About the moonlight and the dews,
The Fairies and the Fauns,
He’s apt to think, he’s apt to swear,
That Cupid reigns not anywhere
Except in groves and lawns,
That none have vulnerable livers
But bards who haunt the banks of rivers,
That none are fair enough for witches
But maids who roam through dells and ditches,
That dreams are twice as sweet as dances,
That cities never breed romances,
That Beauty always keeps a cottage,
And Innocence grows pure on pottage.
Yes! those dear dreams are all divine ”

“ Was he a Greek one day? He was a Persian the next. To sum up his character: he was skilled in every profession; an amateur in every fashion; adorned by every virtue; made infamous by every vice. He moralized like a philosopher, jested like a mountebank, fought like a hero, lied like a scoundrel, lived like a knowing one, and died like a fool.
We assert, and we defy the soundest sophist in the world to contradict us, that these mixed characters obtain and preserve a greater portion of the admiration of the world, than more consistent and less interesting personages. ”

“ And the world, as it rolled through Twenty-eight,
Must roll through Twenty-nine.
Some king will come, in Heaven’s good time,
To the tomb his father came to;
Some thief will wade through blood and crime
To a crown he has no claim to;
Some suffering land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her,
And gather the links of the broken chain
To fasten them proudly round her:
The grand and great will love and hate,
And combat, and combine;
And much where we were in Twenty-eight
We shall be in Twenty-nine. ”

“ Reginald’s national prejudices began to rise high within him, and to overpower the want of energy which was his failing. “Sir Lothaire,” he replied doggedly, “methinks thou hast forgotten Hastings.”
“Sir Knight,” said his companion, in a melancholy voice, “it is not possible for thee or for me to forget Hastings. Thine ancestor did obtain there power, and title, and riches; mine did win nothing but honour and his grave. The chance may be ours in another field. If valour and desert in arms had had their meed the bastard of Normandy had never set foot upon the corpse of Harold.” ”

“ When I reflect exultingly on the powerful minds upon which Peregrine Courtenay has leaned for support, I would fain hope that in after years he may continue to share in their praises—to partake of their immortality!
I shall be very sorry, Mr. Bookworm, to give up my editorship; and yet, upon second thoughts, I think I shall be very glad. To say the truth—the plain, honest, unvarnished, unsophisticated truth—editorship is a desperate bore. Eh bien! I did not encounter it voluntarily! As Shakespeare says, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them!” ”

“ It is beyond a poet’s skill
To form the slightest notion whether
We e’er shall walk through one quadrille,
Or look upon one moon together.
You’re very pretty!—all the world
Is talking of your bright brow’s splendour.
And of your locks, so softly curled,
And of your hands, so white and slender;
Some think you’re blooming in Bengal;
Some say you’re blowing in the City;
Some know you’re nobody at all:
I only feel—you’re very pretty.
But bless my heart! it’s very wrong ”

“ The idol of his affections was perhaps at that moment receiving the incense of adoration from another, possibly a more favoured votary: perhaps she was balancing, in the solitude of her boudoir, between the Vicar’s band and the Captain’s epaulettes; or weighing the merits of Gout with a plum, on the one side, against those of Love with a shilling, on the other. Or, possibly, she was sitting unprepared for conquest, unadorned by cosmetic aid, rapt up in dreams of to-night’s assembly, where her face will owe the evening’s unexpected triumph to the assistance of the morning’s “Not at Home.” ”

“ I think the world has lost its wits,
And you have lost your labour.
I think the studies of the wise,
The hero’s noisy quarrel,
The majesty of woman’s eyes,
The poet’s cherished laurel,
And all that makes us lean or fat,
And all that charms or troubles,—
This bubble is more bright than that,
But still they all are bubbles.{163}
I think the thing you call Renown,
The unsubstantial vapour
For which the soldier burns a town,
The sonnetteer a taper,
Is like the mist which, as he flies,
The horseman leaves behind him ”

“ How many pleasant moments, how many dear friends, do they recall to my recollection! It was with their ponderous solidity that I astonished the weak nerves of one, and trod upon the weak toes of another. Every inch of them, old and emeriti as they are, is pregnant with some delightful, some amiable sensation. It was in them that I excogitated the first number of the Etonian—they shall live to look upon the last! I cannot say they were ever very elegant in shape or texture. Like the genius of my friend Swinburne, they possessed more intrinsic strength than outward polish. ”

“ And apt—which is silly—to quarrel,
And fond—which is sad—of champagne.
I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
For I saw, when my Lady began,
It was only the Dowager’s malice;—
She does hate a talented man!
He’s hideous, I own it. But fame, love,
Is all that these eyes can adore;
He’s lame,—but Lord Byron was lame, love,
And dumpy,—but so is Tom Moore.
Then his voice,—such a voice! my sweet creature,
It’s like your Aunt Lucy’s toucan:
But oh! what’s a tone or a feature,
When once one’s a talented man? ”

“ Reginald blushed, and seemed doubting whether it were not well to make a precipitate retreat. The Lady Elfrida turned away her head, and let down her veil, with a gesture of affected horror at the indelicate sallies of her father. Nothing daunted, the old man continued his pertinacious system of annoyance, while the domestics applauded, by ill-repressed acclamations, the surprising jocularity of their lord.
“Thou art sparing of thy food, Sir Knight; but doubtless thou art used to other diet than this: the board of a Saxon thane hath but little to tempt the palate of the son of a Norman noble.” ”

“ The eldest, who had behaved with great presence of mind, was supporting her sister, who trembled with agitation. “Take care of this box,” said Emily: it contained her father’s title-deeds. “For Heaven’s sake preserve this locket!” sobbed Matilda; it was a miniature of her mother!
We have left, but not forgotten you, beautiful creatures! Often, when we are sitting in solitude, with a pen behind our ear and a proof before our eyes, you come, hand in hand, to our imagination! Some, indeed, enjoin us to prefer esteem to fascination—to write sonnets to Sensibility, and to look for a wife in Sense. ”

“ Winthrop Mackworth Praed, most precocious and most prolific of the poets of society, began his literary career as a schoolboy, and for twenty years flooded the periodical literature of his day with songs and satires, ballads and legends innumerable, all of which are forgotten. It is not quite fair, perhaps, to say all, for some half-dozen pieces at most survive, and have done duty with monotonous regularity, as representative specimens of his verse, in every volume of poetical selections of the Vers de Société order that has seen the light for the last quarter of a century. ”

“ Were we to follow their opinions, we should place the solitude of the lover in whispering groves, purling rills, and moonlight; that of the sage in a library or an observatory; that of the poet in a dish of vegetables and a Sabine farm; and à fortiori, that of the Etonian in an uncarpeted domicile, with a fractured window on the one side and a smoking fire on the other. Is this solitude? Far from it! We must most strenuously contend that true solitude is to be found in a multitude. ”

“ Kenney should have written a farce on the words “Turn Out?” We regard Mr. Kenney’s farce as a sacrilege, a profanation, a burlesque of the best feelings of our nature; and in spite of the ingenuity of the writer, and the talents of the performers, humanity and its attendant prejudices revolt in disgust from the scene which endeavours to raise a laugh by a parody of so melancholy a topic.
It is not difficult to account for the pensive feelings which are excited by these words: they recall forcibly to our mind the uncertainty of all human concerns ”

“ But hark you, sir! you may meet, at some of those hotbeds of frivolity and fevers, which are called card-parties, routs, balls, and I know not what beside—I say, sir, you may meet a girl called Adèle Lepicq—a fantastical name forsooth, but ladies are as fine now in their appellations as they are in their costume—very well! What’s in a name? I tell you, Frederic, if ever you mean to play the fool to any purpose, fall in love with that girl. Why, sir, she is rich enough to buy up the Bank of England—to keep even a ballad-monger from starving! ”

“ After a considerable pause, the Knight began the conversation. “I am doubting, Robin——”
“It is a wise man that solveth his own doubts!” returned his attendant.
“I am doubting, Robin,” continued Reginald, “whether thou or I be the greater fool!”
“A gibe! a gibe!” cried the jester; “thy reasons, most convincing disputant? thy proofs, most inventive master? thine arguments, most incontrovertible Knight? Marry, an thou make me the greater fool, it will ill become the servant to be greater than his master.” ”

“ And he strained his eye as he spoke in the direction of Kennet Hold, as if he would measure the space which lay between his lip and the flagon.
“Thirdly,” resumed Lothaire, “thou must hate a Norman as thou wouldest hate the foul fiend.”
“I do,” cried Reginald; “I do hate a Norman: the Norman we parted from e’en now, Richard de Mallory. A blight upon him! He hath bound me, scoffed at me, worried my body and my mind, until I can scarcely keep my saddle on my journey or recollect whither the journey tendeth. A murrain on the proud knight! ”

“ This is a most comfortable doctrine, inasmuch as it enables us to set down to your Majesty’s account all the degeneracy which modern Eton is said to exhibit. The remedy is as obvious as the evil. Pay us a visit! Are our cricketers weak in the arm? Your patronage shall add vigour to their sinews! Are our poets weak in the head? Your encouragement shall give new life to their hippocrene! Are our alumni diminishing in numbers? Beneath your influence recruits shall tumble in like locusts! Are they diminishing in stature? They shall grow like mustard beneath a Royal smile. ”

“ It is the better; thou hast gentle blood within thee, although thy first address did belie it wofully. What if I were to lead thee to a fray, where an estate shall be had for the buckling on of thy harness, and an earldom shall be the requital of every blow? How sayest thou, Reginald d’Arennes? Is not prince’s favour more worth the winning than lady’s love? ”

“ The luxury which I renew in the recollection of the past is equal to that which I feel in the enjoyment of the present, or create in the anticipation of the future. I love to count and recount every treasure I have flung away, every bubble I have broken; I love to dream again the dreams of my boyhood, and to see the visions of departed pleasures flitting, like Ossian’s ghosts, around me, “with stars dim twinkling through their forms.” I look back with delight to a youth which has been idled away, to tastes which have been perverted, to talents which have been misemployed ”