W. H. Davenport Adams

“ And it is pleasant to listen to their more cheerful voices. ‘Not an opening blossom breathes in vain,’ wrote Thomson; and the sentiment is heartily corroborated by Mr. Lowell:
‘There never yet was flower fair in vain;
Let classic poets rhyme it as they will.’
If the flowers have a short career, they make no complaint of it, says Landor:
‘Fast fall the leaves; this never says
To that, “Alas! how brief our days!”
All have alike enjoyed the sun,
And each repeats, “So much is won.”’
They enjoy life, and they help to make it enjoyable for others. ”

“ Wherefore, such works as novels must be discouraged in the bedside library. There is nothing to be gained by perusing a romance, by bits, in such fragments of time as the intending sleeper is inclined or able to accord to it. Keep a novel beside you, if you like, to turn to if the night should prove an obstinately sleepless one, and to that end let the tale be by ‘Miss Braddon or Gaboriau’—one which shall really fix your imagination fast, and finish, perhaps, by sending you to rest. But for ordinary uses let the book which you take up be one of ‘Jewels, five words long,’ or thereabouts! ”

“ FAMILIAR VERSE.
here 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. ”

“ Herrick was conspicuously fond of this species of verse, and his works abound in gems of style and fancy, the difficulty being, not to find them, but to select from them. The beauty of one is apt to be rivalled by that of its neighbour. ”

“ Pace Master Selden, there is nothing ridiculous in a lord printing his verses—if they be but good enough for the process. A peer is not necessarily a poet, but a poet is none the worse for being a peer. Nay, there are even certain kinds of verse in which a peer [Pg 102] may, other things being equal, be actually expected to excel. There is nothing to prevent his being—as Byron was—a poet of passion; there is every reason why, if he have the requisite literary capacity, he should shine in the poetry of the library, the salon, and the boudoir. ”

“ He was answered long ago by Horace Smith:
‘Your voiceless lips, O Flowers! are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book;’
and a living poetess has assured us, likewise, that flowers will preach to us if we will hear, the rose telling us that all her loveliness is born upon a thorn, and the poppy urging [Pg 67] that, though her scarlet head is held in scorn,
‘Yet juice of subtle virtues lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.’
There is one lesson which the flowers have been made to teach with rather wearisome iteration. ”

“ No age, indeed, was ever more favourable than our own for the composition of verse which should, above all things, never be betrayed into exaggeration—which may have, if it please, a soupçon of wit and humour, and even of sentiment, but which should, in particular, be tolerant and urbane. ”

“ The present Lord Lytton has remarked of flowers that their scent outlives their bloom, and has expressed the aspiration that, in like manner, his mortal hours may ‘grow sweeter towards the tomb.’ But the main point made by the more optimistic observers of Nature is that, though blossoms fade, they revive again, in equal beauty, by-and-by. ”

“ Everywhere there are eager and hasty readers who chafe at the delay which an uncut book imposes upon their impatient spirit. On the other hand, your genuine book-adorer, your enthusiast, who loves to extract from a volume all which it is capable of yielding, cannot but approve a habit which enables him to linger delightedly over his new possession. ”

“ There have, indeed, been instances in which literary capacity has been a special characteristic of persons in close relationship to each other: one thinks at once of the Sheridans, the Coleridges, the Wordsworths, and others who have been notable for their productiveness in prose and verse. But the cases in which the purely poetic gift—the vision and the faculty divine—has been inherited and exercised are few indeed. A certain intellectual power will mark the members of a family, and exhibit itself in various attractive ways, but less in the domain [Pg 46] of poetry than any other. ”

“ The reviewer, sitting surrounded by them, tier on tier, may rail at the productiveness of the age, and wish that there might not be more than one new book each week. And the omnivorous reader, anxious to keep up with the literature of the day, might fairly re-echo the aspiration. ”

“ They have solidity and richness. Nor do I say that for a certain species of publication ‘full calf gilt’ is not a very judicious form of binding. One likes to see the quarterlies and higher-class monthlies done up in that style. It befits the seriousness of their contents. But do not let everything be put into ‘full calf gilt,’ solid and rich though it appears. Let us give full play to the element of variety. Let every book have an individuality, a character, of its own. ”

“ It is in the atmosphere of culture that good verse, as apart from high poetry, takes its rise. There are probably few educated men who have not at one time or another essayed to pen a stanza. The busy city clergyman may nowadays have no time for such elegant diversions, but at all periods the lettered country parson has been inclined to occupy some of his spare moments in wooing the Muse of Song. There are other things than learning and leisure which impel him to the task. ”

“ There is, indeed, no subject on which the satirists of the world, both great and small, have so largely and so persistently made merry. It has been a stock subject with them. It is as if they had said to themselves, ‘When at a loss, revile the connubial condition.’ Married life has been the sport of every wit, and, sorrowful to relate, society has been well content to join in the pastime. There is nothing so common as [Pg 149] sarcasm on matrimony, and nothing, apparently, so welcome, even to the married. ”

“ Such men as the late Lord Lytton, for example, are, in one respect, a nuisance to it. Bulwer was about equally distinguished as a novelist, as a dramatist, and as an essayist; and, ever since, the average man has been puzzled whether to think of him as the author of ‘Pelham,’ the author of ‘The [Pg 195] Lady of Lyons,’ or the author of ‘Caxtoniana.’ Bulwer tried hard to establish a position as a poet, but, happily, there is no need to trouble one’s self greatly about ‘King Arthur.’ As it is, the fame of Bulwer’s dramas appears likely, by-and-by, to eclipse altogether the fame of his novels. ”

“ This mocking at matrimony has always been a feature of life and literature, and probably will always remain so—partly because it is so easy of achievement; partly because it is not less easy of comprehension; and also, perhaps, because humanity has ever been inclined to chasten that which it loves. It rails against marriage, but it marries all the same. ”

“ What Shakespeare felt to be true in his own day is equally, nay more, true now—that England, ‘set in a silver sea,’ is safe from all assaults, save those which she may suffer at the hands of her own ‘degenerate and ingrate’ sons. ”

“ There must be no unnecessary extension of the palm and fingers, for it adds so much to the fatigue. Unhappily, every volume does not fulfil this requirement, and the requisite selection must be made with care. Moreover, the ideal bedside book should be not only small, and light, and agreeable to the touch, but distinguished by special internal characteristics. Not only must the print be legible; the matter it furnishes must be in brief instalments. What is wanted is a series of short somethings which the mind can readily grasp and as easily retain. ”

“ Master Crashaw is not the only man by many who in the past has been seduced into putting into words and verse the aspirations, on this subject, which filled his soul. It would probably be found, if anyone had the requisite patience to go through with it, that there has been scarcely a poet who has not thus given expression to his conception of an ideal woman and to his desire for her companionship. ”

“ If there is poetry and verse, there is also verse and verse. Poetry may be said to be a fixed quality; but that is not so with the inferior article. There are many different [Pg 30] sorts of verse. There is that which is strongly sentimental, there is that which is broadly comic, and there is that which is something between the two—neither over-sentimental nor over-comic, but altogether light in tone, and marked in the main by wit and humour. Now, to this last class of verse has been given, in general, the name of vers de société or vers d’occasion—verse of society or for the moment. ”

“ It must be admitted that the House of Lords does not at this moment contain many hereditary peers who are also poets. Lord Tennyson, of course, is an ennobled commoner, [Pg 100] and the Bishop of Derry (Dr. Alexander) , who has written so much excellent verse, both in the thoughtful and in the imaginative vein, is no longer one of the spiritual lords. But there is Lord Lytton, there is Lord Southesk, and there is Lord Rosslyn; and by all of these Lord de Tabley will be welcomed as a brother in the literary art. What Lord Lytton has done in poetry, need scarcely be recapitulated. ”

“ In truth, it is not a bad thing thus to be associated with one definite, unmistakable success. Gerard Hamilton did more for himself by that single brilliant speech than if he had delivered a whole multitude of less striking orations. ”

“ But so far as the English literature of the past is concerned, ‘dialogues of the dead’ were written by only two persons worthy of celebration—Walter Savage Landor and George, Lord Lyttelton, the author of ‘Letters from a Persian in England to his friend in Ispahan.’ Landor’s ‘Imaginary Conversations’ are among those numerous works which everybody is supposed to have read, and, having read them, to admire. And unfortunate indeed would be he who could not recognise and appreciate the varied beauty and charm of these prose masterpieces. ”

“ The result is that those who care about books can differentiate them at a glance. They know [Pg 169] what is the approved style and line for biography and history, for poetry and fiction, for sermons, for gift-books, and so ad infinitum. The ‘Life’ of So-and-so, and the ‘Annals’ of Such-and-such, are unmistakeable; they have respectability written on every corner and angle of them. The dull brown or the dull green is sufficiently obvious to everyone. ”

“ You are conscious of growing chillier and chillier every moment. And, indeed, a very low temperature is usually fatal to the cultivation of bedside books. Even if you lie down, and almost smother yourself in the clothes, you are bound to obtrude one hand out of shelter, or how is the book to be held up? ”

“ But of how much of that sort of thing does English literature boast? There is plenty of unconscious nonsense, of course, but it is not of the right quality. Dryden said of Shadwell that he reigned, ‘without dispute, throughout [Pg 181] the realms of nonsense absolute’—he ‘never deviated into sense’—and yet he was the dullest of dull dogs. The fact is, that nothing is more difficult than to write amusing nonsense, and it is worth noting how few people, comparatively speaking, have ever attempted to produce it. ”

“ We have also the well-known lines by Pope, ‘written on glass with Lord Chesterfield’s diamond pencil;’ the equally well-known sentence on Rogers by Lord Holland; and the less-hackneyed and even more flattering couplet composed by Lord Lyttelton for Lady Suffolk’s bust (erected in a wood at Stowe) :
‘Her wit and beauty for a Court were made,
But truth and goodness fit her for a shade.’
The writers of verse have naturally shone in such concentrated testimonies to the merits of those whom they delighted to honour. ”

“ It does not dabble in the phrase of drawing-rooms, nor does it rise to the [Pg 32] height of sentiment or sink to the depths of low comedy. It is ‘familiar, but by no means vulgar.’ Its first quality is ease—absence of effort, spontaneity, freedom, a dégagé air. It is in rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is—flowing and unpremeditated without slovenliness—having the characteristics of the best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. ”

“ Marzials’ ‘tragedy’ in quatrain:
‘She reach’d a rosebud from the tree,
And bit the tip and threw it by;
My little rose, for you and me
The worst is over when we die!’
But, then, the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph; another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have used it for the purpose of enshrining some occasional or isolated utterance. ”

“ Jaques, in fact, is a rake turned cynical philosopher. He regards man and nature as only so much material for observation and for moralizing.
Such is the Jaques of ‘As You Like It’—a purely original creation, embodying a familiar type of humanity, but nevertheless not good enough for certain of Shakespeare’s successors in the dramatic art. Jaques has more than once been revised and edited, in common with other characters in the sylvan comedy. ”

“ As everybody knows, there is an ‘angry schoolboy’ in ‘The Alchemist,’ who is likely to survive not only in literature, but in history, by reason of the effective use which Sheridan once made of him when retorting upon Pitt in the House of Commons. Is there not, too, a comedy of Brome’s—‘The Antipodes’—in which the fathers go to school instead of their sons, and are made to ape the habits of the youthful scholar? ”

“ Often it proceeds from nothing more condemnable than a genuine overflow of feeling—a stream of sentiment which, checked by the signature of the writer, bursts its bonds and reasserts its power in a final sentence or two. ”

“ One might even have supposed that poetry would run—as other things have run—in families, making the ‘bards’ almost a gens, or class, by themselves. Poetry, after all, is an affair mainly of the temperament—of fancy and imagination, of feeling and passion ”