Frederick Locker-Lampson

“ Why “smoothly written verse, where a boudoir decorum is or ought always to be preserved: where sentiment never surges into passion, and where humour never overflows into boisterous merriment” should be conventionally called “society verse,” or “occasional verse,” is not very clear. To write “society verse” is to be the laureate of the cultured, leisured, pleasure-loving upper classes; but some poets satisfy the above requirements—Locker himself included—yet certainly do not write exclusively of or for “Society.” ”

“ All bye-gones are bye-gones—and somebody knows
It was bliss such a baby to dance and to dandle,
Your cheeks were so velvet—so rosy your toes.
Aye, here is your cradle! and Hope, a bright spirit,
With Love now is watching beside it, I know ”

“ The tone should not be pitched high: it should be terse and idiomatic, and rather in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness: for, however trivial the subject-matter may be, indeed, rather in proportion to its triviality, subordination to the rules of composition, and perfection of execution, are of the utmost importance.” Among the enviable versifiers who can satisfy these requirements Praed and Locker both hold a high place. ”

“ He is far more genuine and spontaneous than Praed. It is difficult and perhaps invidious to compare the two as “humorists.” It may be that Locker’s vein of humour is larger and truer than the earlier poet’s. Praed belongs, as has been said, to a period of other men and other manners. Probably he is the wittier of the two; yet this might be contradicted. Locker’s humour has the reflective vein, with a suggestion of pathos, of the great writers who flourished in the early and middle Victorian era. ”

“ Red Riding Hoods small in thy woods, Piccadilly!
And there is a Statesman, the Man of the Day,
A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay;
No darling of Fortune more manfully trod,
Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod,
Can the thought reach his heart, and then leave it more chilly,—
“Old P or Old Q I must quit Piccadilly?”
p. 18Life is chequer’d, a patchwork of smiles and of frowns;
We valued its ups, let us muse on its downs.
There’s a side that is bright, it will then turn the other,
One turn, if a good one, deserves such another. ”

“ The variety of forms under which his verses appear at different periods will probably make the poet’s works a happy hunting-ground for the future commentator, who will no doubt assign this “lay” (as he will probably call it) to Locker, that to Lampson, that again to the Lockeridae or the Lampsonschule. The method is familiar. No one, probably, ever was so careful of the “limae labor.” “He took,” we are told, “great pains with his verses,” always aiming at a more perfect finish, with no loss of that naturalness which, as has been said, characterises all his work. ”

“ So many people even now confuse minor p. ixpoetry with bad poetry that it is almost invidious to call a poet minor. Yet there is no doubt that minor poetry can be good in its way, just as major poetry can be good in its way. “If he [Locker] was a minor poet he was at least [why ‘at least’?] a master of the instrument he touched, which cannot,” writes Mr Coulson Kernahan in the Nineteenth Century for October 1895, “be said of all who would be accounted major.” Locker was not of those, in his own opinion, who would be accounted major. ”

“ Praed, indeed, is the chief among writers of “vers de société,” for not only does his manner conform to the laws laid down by high authorities, but his theme is generally “Society” with a capital S. “Praed,” says Locker in “My Confidences,” “is the very best of his school: indeed, he has a unique p. xiiiposition; for in his narrower vein of whimsical wit, vernacular banter, and antithetical rhetoric, which may correctly be called vers de société in its most perfected form, and its exactest sense, he has never been equalled.” ”

“ It is really impossible to classify poets on any satisfactory principle. Every good poet is a class by himself. But if the attempt must be made, one may say that the author of “London Lyrics” belongs to that school of which the other chief representatives, in p. xiEnglish or American literature, have been Praed, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mr Austin Dobson. It has always been the fashion to class him with the first named of the trio as a writer of “occasional verse” or “vers de société.” ”

“ But we are not, presumably, to class “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints” among occasional pieces, nor is Wordsworth’s sonnet on London at dawn to be called occasional; yet the source of it, the fact that the poet happened to be upon Westminster Bridge in the p. xiiearly morning, was transient, not (apparently) inherent in the nature of things. However, these names must be accepted as we find them. Here is Locker’s own law: “Occasional verse,” he says, “should be short, graceful, refined, and fanciful, not seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful. ”

“ Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up, and kiss’d the pretty Lass:
She did not make the least objection! ”

“ It is Hope gilds the future, Love welcomes it smiling;
Thus wags this old world, therefore stay not to ask,—
“My future bids fair, is my future beguiling?”
If mask’d, still it pleases, then raise not its mask.
p. 10Is life a poor coil some would gladly be doffing? ”

“ This is the art which does not conceal itself. One may not be able to do the trick; but it is possible to see how the trick is done.
p. xv“No one,” says Locker, when speaking of occasional or society verse, “has fully succeeded who did not possess a certain gift of irony.” That is profoundly true. A would-be writer of light verse who has not an ironical habit of mind had better change his purpose and write an epic. ”

“ It is not necessary to prove by argument and illustration that Locker is a minor poet, nor that he belongs to that honourable company of writers of what we now call “light verse”—the masters of which are, after all, among the immortals—Horace and Herrick. His place in that company is not so easy to define. Probably he stands half way between the serious singers—who succeed by virtue of grace and artistic finish, yet lack the touch of passion, the indefinable something that makes greatness—and the bards p. ”

“ The bloom is a gift of the fays, who declare it
Will shield me from sorrow as long as I wear it.
p. 40And sigh not, old man, such a doleful ‘heigh-ho,’
Dost think I possess not the will to say, ‘No’?
And shake not thy head, I could pitiless be
Should supplicants come even younger than thee. ”

“ We are perhaps a little out of tune now with the sentiment of the middle of the nineteenth century and perhaps, too, with Praed’s “antithetical rhetoric”; but Locker’s humour can never be quite out of fashion. ”

“ Praed could no more have written that, or the lines “To my Grandmother,” than Locker could have written “The Vicar.” Both poets have other strings. Praed’s more serious vein could win a contemporary reputation: but he would not have been remembered for this alone, after eighty years. In “At Her Window,” which p. xviiiMr Coulson Kernahan rightly calls “one of the most beautiful love-songs of the century,” Locker is no longer ironical, but rises to the heights of real passion:
“Beating Heart! ”

“ “Vanitas Vanitatum” has rung in the ears
Of gentle and simple for thousands of years;
The wail is still heard, yet its notes never scare
Or simple, or gentle, from Vanity Fair. ”

“ Subsequently, about 1860, Thackeray, who was then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, invited Locker to contribute; and poems published there and elsewhere were collected and reprinted from time to time, the original title being always retained. Ten editions, besides some selections privately printed, appeared before the poet’s death. In almost all something new was added, in all something old was taken away ”

“ Why surely, my Jenny,
Such slender dimensions go somewhat to show
You were an exceedingly small pic-a-ninny
Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago. ”

“ So, too, “Patchwork”—a kind of scrap-book, a collection of miscellaneous anecdotes, mostly humorous, but not as a rule broadly or farcically funny—illustrates his delicate and subtle perception of the laughable.
Locker married Lady Charlotte Bruce in 1850, and soon after left the service of Government. Thenceforward he appears to have led a very placid life, happy in his family, seeing p. ”

“ She has—HE gave it tenderly—
Much faith—and carefully laid by
A little crutch.
p. 68ST GEORGE’S, HANOVER SQUARE
“Dans le bonheur de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvons souvent quelque chose qui ne nous plaît pas entièrement.” ”

“ It is less “Praedian” than in the original form: the puns in stanzas four and nine disappear.
Old Letters. Last published in 1878. Of all the p. 87London Lyrics this is the most obviously reminiscent of Praed: and as such it is rejected by Locker’s final judgment. It belongs evidently to the period when “I once tried to write like Praed.”
Susannah. Last published (as “Susan”) in 1872: omitted in 1868. The first verse, slightly altered, serves as “motto” for the serious poem, “Her quiet resting-place is far away,” which is in some of the later editions. ”