Austin Dobson

“ Envoy
Austin, it was you they blest:
Fame to you belongs!
Time has proven you're the best
One to write their songs.
(Frank Dempster Sherman: To Austin Dobson.)
Mr. Austin Dobson is said to have been the first to reintroduce the ballade into English poetry, and the present specimen is a tribute to his success by an American poet.
Bird of the bitter bright gray golden morn
Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,
First of us all and sweetest singer born
Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears
Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears ”

“ In the 'Vers de Société,' as well as his other poetry, Dobson fulfills all the requirements of light verse—charm, mockery, pathos, banter, and, while apparently skimming the surface, often shows us [Pg 4742] the strange depths of the human heart. He blends so many qualities that he deserves the praise of T.B. Aldrich, who says, "Austin Dobson has the grace of Suckling and the finish of Herrick, and is easily master of both in metrical art." ”

“ Her eyes are bright as beryl stones that in the tankard wink; [Pg 234]
But when she sees me coming, she shrilleth out—"Te-Hee!
Fye on thy ruddy nose, Cousin, what lackest thou of me?"
"Fye on thy ruddy nose, Cousin! Why be thine eyes so small?
Why go thy legs tap-lappetty like men that fear to fall?
Why is thy leathern doublet besmeared with stain and spot?
Go to. Thou art no man (she saith) —thou art a Pottle-pot!"
"No man," i'faith. "No man!" she saith. ”

“ There are false colours on the objects about him; he looks at everything 'as through a curtain;' he sees 'a vision.' Most of all he suffers from his inability to think. But the old love of letters still survives; he quotes his own verses; and when in his waking moments Spence reads to him the 'Daphnis and Chloe' of Longus, he marvels how the infected mind of the Regent Orleans can have relished so innocent a book. ”

“ The Victorian age has provided poetry to suit almost all tastes. In striking contrast with those who wrestled with the eternal verities are such poets and essayists as Austin Dobson (1840- ) , long a clerk of the London Board of Trade, and Arthur Symons (1865- ) , a poet and discriminating prose critic. Austin Dobson, who is fond of eighteenth-century subjects, is at his best in graceful society verse. His poems show the touch of a highly skilled metrical artist who has been a careful student of French poetry. ”

“ Austin Dobson has written what is very nearly a perfect little book of its kind.... Mr. Dobson's book is composed with infinite literary tact, with precision, and a certain smiling grace, and friendly and easy touch at once remarkable and charming. Mr. Dobson is always accurate in his facts. He is fresh, vivacious, and interesting in his conclusions."
Mr. W.L. COURTNEY in the DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"Mr. Dobson's study is absolutely in the first rank, worthy to be put by the side of Sir Leslie Stephen's criticism of George Eliot."
WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—"We have nothing but praise to utter of Mr. ”

“ His official career was industrious though uneventful, but as poet and biographer he stands among the most distinguished of his time. The student of Mr Austin Dobson’s work will be struck at once by the fact that it contains nothing immature: there are no juvenilia to criticize or excuse. ”

“ In the shadow of a thicket to the left of the spectator is the negligent nurse who should have watched over her charge, but who, at this precise moment of time, is wholly engrossed by the attentions of an admirer whose arm is round her waist; Nor is it in those accessories alone which aid the story that Bewick is so careful. His local colouring is scrupulously faithful to nature, and, although not always an actual transcript of it, is invariably marked by that accuracy of invention which, as some one said of Defoe, 'lies like truth.' Nothing in his designs is meaningless. ”

“ It is not contended by Austin Dobson’s friends that Farrer’s unkind observation was not meant to include him, or that he was more than conscientious in his official duties. The Bibliography of Austin Dobson, published in 1900, before he retired, contains over 300 pages and makes it clear that his mind was principally applied to literature. A shy, nervous man, he was always anxious lest the evidences of his unofficial industry should jeopardize his post. ”

“ Not such as Nymphs Castalian pour,—
'Twas but the Kennel, nothing more.
His Plight was plain by every Sign
Of Idiot Smile and Stains of Wine.
He strove to rise, and wagged his Head—
"The Muse, dear Sir, the Muse—" he said.
"Muse!" quoth the Other, in a Fury,
"The Muse shan't serve you, I assure ye.
She's just some wanton, idle Jade
That makes young Fools forget their Trade, [Pg 143] —
Who should be whipped, if I'd my Will,
From Charing Cross to Ludgate Hill.
She's just...." But he began to stutter,
So left Sir Graceless in the Gutter.
[Pg 144] THE 'SQUIRE AT VAUXHALL. ”

“ As the Queen of Portugal did not leave Ryde until the 23d, it is possible that Fielding received a reply. During the remainder of this desultory voyage he continued to beguile his solitary hours—hours of which we are left to imagine the physical torture and monotony, for he says but little of himself—by jottings and notes of the, for the most part, trivial accidents of his progress. That happy cheerfulness, of which he spoke in the Proposal for the Poor, had not yet deserted him; and there are moments when he seems rather on a pleasure-trip than a forlorn pilgrimage in search of health. ”

“ On the other hand, his father, Captain John Blifil, has all the look of life. Nor can there be any doubt about the vitality of Squire Western. Whether the germ of his character be derived from Addison's Tory Foxhunter or not, it is certain that Fielding must have had superabundant material of his own from which to model this thoroughly representative, and at the same time, completely individual character. Western has all the rustic tastes, the narrow prejudices, the imperfect education, the unreasoning hatred to the court, which distinguished the Jacobite country gentleman of the Georgian era ”

“ Branghton would have written his name with just such beastly flourishes!” But perhaps the acme of his amiable speeches is his frank comparison of “dear little Burney,” as he comes to call her, with Fielding and Richardson. “Richardson,” he said, “would have been really afraid of her; there is merit,” he went on, “in Evelina which he could not have borne. No; it would not have done! unless, indeed, she would have flattered him prodigiously. Harry Fielding, too, would have been afraid of her; there is nothing so delicately finished in all Harry Fielding’s works as in Evelina.” ”

“ There are no eyes more beautiful than yours!
[Pg 229] GROWING GRAY.
"On a l'âge de son cœur."—A. d'Houdetot.
A little more toward the light;—
Me miserable! Here's one that's white;
And one that's turning;
Adieu to song and "salad days;"
My Muse, let's go at once to Jay's,
And order mourning.
We must reform our rhymes, my Dear,—
Renounce the gay for the severe,—
Be grave, not witty;
We have, no more, the right to find
That Pyrrha's hair is neatly twined,—
That Chloe's pretty.
Young Love's for us a farce that's played;
Light canzonet and serenade
No more may tempt us ”

“ You snared me, Rose, with ribbons,
Your rose-mouth made me thrall,
Brief—briefer far than Gibbon's,
Was my "Decline and Fall." [Pg 201]
I heard the summons spoken
That all hear—king and clown:
You smiled—the ice was broken;
You stopped—the bill was down.
How blind we are! It never
Occurred to me to seek
If you had come for ever,
Or only for a week.
The words your voice neglected,
Seemed written in your eyes;
The thought your heart protected,
Your cheek told, missal-wise;—
I read the rubric plainly
As any Expert could;
In short, we dreamed,—insanely,
As only lovers should. ”

“ Let Fielding take the pen! Life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men.”
There were others, however, who would scarcely have echoed the laudatory sentiments of Mr. Cawthorn. Among these was again the excellent Richardson, who seems to have been wholly unpropitiated by the olive branch held out to him in the Jacobite’s Journal. His vexation at the indignity put upon Pamela by Joseph Andrews was now complicated by a twittering jealousy of the “spurious brat,” as he obligingly called Tom Jones, whose success had been so “unaccountable.” ”

“ Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,—
Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent
His idle verse to turn;
And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern! [Pg 79]
Nay,—let my words be so discreet,
That, keeping Chance in view,
Whatever after fate you meet
A part may still be true.
Let others wish you mere good looks,—
Your sex is always fair;
Or to be writ in Fortune's books,—
She's rich who has to spare:
I wish you but a heart that's kind,
A head that's sound and clear ”

“ Of his second wife, as may be gathered from the opening words of the Journal, Fielding always speaks with the warmest affection and gratitude. Elsewhere, recording a storm off the Isle of Wight, he says, "My dear wife and child must pardon me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself, I was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them: in truth, I have often thought they are both too good, and too gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man." ”

“ To this the author of Clarissa replied by writing a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the “dear Ladies,” and minutely justifying his foregone conclusions from the expressions they had used. He refers to Fielding again as “a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spirited Man;” and he also trusts to be able to “bestow a Reading” on Tom Jones; but by a letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed in Barbauld, and dated December 1749, it seems that even at that date he had not, or pretended he had not, yet done so. ”

“ Mr. Fielding has overwritten himself, or rather under- written; and in his own journal seems ashamed of his last piece; and has promised that the same Muse shall write no more for him. The piece, in short, is as dead as if it had been published forty years ago, as to sale." There is much to the same effect in the worthy little printer's correspondence; but enough has been quoted to show how intolerable to the super-sentimental creator of the high-souled and heroic Clarissa was his rival's plainer and more practical picture of matronly virtue and modesty. ”

“ He has lost his hat and broken his stick, but he is afraid to get down because he has a basket of excited live fowl on his arm. Occasionally the humour is a little grim, after the true North Country fashion. Such is the case in the tailpiece to the Curlew where a blacksmith (or is it a tanner?) looks on pitiless at the unhappy dog with a kettle dangling at its tail; such, again, in the vignette of the mischievous youngster who leads the blind man into mid-stream. As a moralist, Bewick is never tired of exhibiting the lachrimo rerum, the brevity of life, the emptiness of fame. ”

“ The French original was rendered with tolerable closeness; but here and there Fielding has introduced little touches of his own, as, for instance, where Gregory (Sganarelle) tells his wife Dorcas (Martino) , whom he has just been beating, that as they are but one, whenever he beats her he beats half of himself. ”

“ There can be little doubt, too, that some of Mr. Wilson's town experiences were the reflection of the author's own career; while the characteristics of Leonora's lover Horatio,—who was "a young Gentleman of a good Family, bred to the Law," and recently called to the Bar, whose "Face and Person were such as the Generality allowed handsome: but he had a Dignity in his Air very rarely to be seen," and who "had Wit and Humour, with an Inclination to Satire, which he indulged rather too much"—read almost like a complimentary description of Fielding himself. ”

“ So early an attachment to a good and beautiful girl, living no farther off than Salisbury, where his own father probably resided, is scarcely consistent with the reckless dissipation which has been laid to his charge, although, on his own showing, he was by no means faultless. But it is a part of natures like his to exaggerate their errors in the moment of repentance; and it may well be that Henry Fielding, too, was not so black as he painted himself. ”

“ He's a queer little fellow, grave-featured, pock-pitten,
Tho' they say, in his cups, he's as gay as a kitten.
But where is our play-bill? Mistakes of a Night!
If the title's prophetic, I pity his plight!
She Stoops. Let us hope she won't fall at full length,
For the piece—so 'tis whispered—is wanting in strength. [Pg 261]
And the humour is "low!"—you are doubtless aware
There's a character, even, that "dances a bear!"
Then the cast is so poor,—neither marrow nor pith!
Why can't they get Woodward or Gentleman Smith! ”

“ That is Cumberland next, and the prim-looking person
In the corner, I take it, is Ossian Macpherson.
And rolling and blinking, here, too, with the rest,
Comes sturdy old Johnson, dressed out in his best;
How he shakes his old noddle! I'll wager a crown,
Whatever the law is he's laying it down!
Beside him is Reynolds, who's deaf; and the hale
Fresh, farmer-like fellow, I fancy, is Thrale. ”

“ The theatrical world is well represented by Garrick and Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Clive. Literature has no names of any eminence except that of Young; for Savage and Whitehead, Mallet and Benjamin Hoadly, are certainly ignes minores. Pope is conspicuous for his absence; so also are Horace Walpole and Gray, while Richardson, of course, is wanting. Johnson, as yet only the author of London, and journeyman to Cave, could scarcely be expected in the roll; and, in any case, his friendship for the author of Pamela would probably have kept him away. ”