WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. [WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED was born in London on the 26th of July, 1802. He was educated at Eton, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He died on the 15th of July, 1839. His verses, contributed chiefly to periodicals such as the Etonian and Knight's Quarterly Magazine, were not collected in this country until 1864, when they were published in two volumes, with a memoir by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge.] 'In a collection of short pieces,' says Mr. Matthew Arnold in his preface to Wordsworth's selected poems, 'the impression made by one piece requires to be continued and sustained by the piece following.' The verses of Praed are in some sort an illustration of the justice of this remark. Had he himself prepared his book for the press he would doubtless have cancelled a good many poems which his representatives, naturally enough, hesitated to omit. But even the over-affluent character of his legacy to posterity has not much impaired his popularity, or influenced the critical estimate of his work. As a writer of 'societyverse' in its exacter sense, Praed is justly acknowledged to be supreme. We say 'exacter sense,' because it has of late become the fashion to apply this vague term in the vaguest possible way, so as indeed to include almost all verse but the highest and the lowest. This is manifestly a mistake. 'Society-verse,' as Praed understood it, and as we understand it in Praed, treats almost exclusively of the votum, timor, ira, voluptas (and especially the volup tas) of that charmed circle of uncertain limits known conventionally as 'good society,'-those latter-day Athenians, who, in town and country, spend their time in telling or hearing some new thing, and whose graver and deeper impulses are subordinated to a code of artificial manners. Of these Praed is the laureate-elect; and the narrow world in which they move is the 'main haunt and region of his song.' Now and again, it may be, he appears to quit it; but never in reality; and even when he seems to do so, like Landor's shell remote from the sea, he still remembers its august abodes.' Praed's chief characteristics are his sparkling wit, the clearness and finish of his style, and the flexibility and unflagging vivacity of his rhythm. He is a master of epigram and antithesis, especially of the kind exemplified by the following couplets : or, 'He lay beside a rivulet, And looked beside himself'; 'And some grow rich by telling lies, : His defects are that he lacks sincerity and variety of theme,that his brilliancy at times becomes mere glitter, and his manner mechanical. His biographer assures us that his nature had a deeper and graver side than would be suspected from his habitual tone of sportive irony: it is incontestable, however, that the indications of this in his works are faint compared with those which we find in Thackeray and Hood. My own Araminta is an admirable example of his lightest style; the Vicar of his more pensive character-pieces; whilst in My little Cousins, which our space does not permit us to quote, there is a rarer vein of playful tenderness. In many of his charades he almost manages to raise those metrical pastimes to the dignity of poetry. AUSTIN DOBSON. 1 Praed may perhaps have taken the hint of this device from the Holy Fair, 'There's some are fou o' love divine; There's some are fou o' brandy.' VOL. IV. Nn A LETTER OF ADVICE. FROM MISS MEDORA TREVILIAN, AT PADUA, TO MISS ARAMINTA VAVASOUR, IN LONDON. You tell me you're promised a lover, My own Araminta, next week; Why cannot my fancy discover The hue of his coat and his cheek? A vicar, a banker, a beau, Miss Lane, at her Temple of Fashion, Taught us both how to sing and to speak, O think of our favourite cottage, And think of our dear Lalla Rookh ! How we shared with the milkmaids their pottage, How fondly our loving lips faltered, 'What further can grandeur bestow?' My heart is the same ;-is yours altered? My own Araminta, say 'No!' Remember the thrilling romances We read on the bank in the glen; Would picture for both of us then. They wore the red cross on their shoulder, They had vanquished and pardoned their foe Sweet friend, are you wiser or colder ? My own Araminta, say 'No!' You know, when Lord Rigmarole's carriage, And whispered 'How base she has been!' When I heard I was going abroad, love, We walked arm in arm to the road, love, My own Araminta, say "No"!' We parted! but sympathy's fetters I muse o'er your exquisite letters, And feel that your heart is mine still; And he who would share it with me, love,➡ The richest of treasures below, If he's not what Orlando should be, love, If he wears a top-boot in his wooing, If he studies the news in the papers If he's sleepy while you are capricious, If he ever sets foot in the City If he don't stand six feet in his shoes, If his lips are not redder than roses, If his hands are not whiter than snow, If he has not the model of noses,My own Araminta, say 'No!' If he speaks of a tax or a duty, If he does not look grand on his knees, If he's blind to a landscape of beauty, Hills, valleys, rocks, waters, and trees, If he dotes not on desolate towers, If he likes not to hear the blast blow, If he knows not the language of flowers,My own Araminta, say 'No!' He must walk-like a god of old story Come down from the home of his rest; He must smile-like the sun in his glory On the buds he loves ever the best; And oh! from its ivory portal Like music his soft speech must flow!If he speak, smile, or walk like a mortal, My own Araminta, say 'No!' Don't listen to tales of his bounty, Don't hear what they say of his birth, Don't look at his seat in the county, Don't calculate what he is worth; But give him a theme to write verse on, And see if he turns out his toe; If he's only an excellent person,My own Araminta, say 'No!' |