My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
But with my numbers mix my sighs;
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.
Fair Chloe blushed: Euphelia frowned:

521

And Venus to the Loves around
I sang, and gazed; I played and trembled;

And thus the poet spent his time be-
tween his Chloes and Euphelias, constant
All his poetry has a devil-may-care air
to none, but writing charmingly of each.
about it; it gives the impression that it
was written by a man who found himself

Remarked how ill we all dissembled.

ministers to pleasure, and who meant to

in a world where there was much that

suck its sweets to the uttermost. The

Prior. Many have imitated his excellence in this particular, but the best copies have fallen short of the original." This is a generous tribute, coming as it does from one who was himself no mean adept in the same art. Cowper, though he has much sense and humour, is no match for Prior in this unpretending kind of poetry. The French are more exquisite than ourselves in drawing-room verses, and there is a decided smack of their quality in Prior. It has been remarked of him that he "drank Burgundy in its own vineyard." But he was a sad, rollicking dog, this author of "Solomon," and exactly after his patron, the Earl of Dorset's, own heart. Prior rose from the humblest rank of life to occupy a position complete absence of consciousness that of some importance in the state. He was born at Abbot Street, in Dorsetshire, mal pleasure deprived his poetry of the life had in it something nobler than anibut early removed with his father to London, who kept a tavern called the "Rum-high tone which should give a flavour mer Inn," at Charing Cross, and it was Whenever Bacchus and Venus are the even to light and unpretentious verse. here in the garb of a waiter that Lord Dorset one day discovered the future poet's gods we may look for enervation poet reading Horace. Acting the part of in his intellectual offspring. That taint a generous patron, Dorset sent the youth of scepticism in his nature of which an to St. John's, Cambridge, of which col-eminent French critic writes - and which lege he afterwards became a Fellow. he declares was transferred to Voltaire, After leaving the university, Prior, in conjunction with Montagu, wrote "The Town and Country Mouse,' which opened a path for him to the diplomatic service. Promotion was only a question of time, and accordingly we find that during his somewhat chequered existence he filled the offices of Secretary at the Hague, and at the Court of Versailles, and Commissioner of Trade. His life was a singular mixture of noble feeling and dissoluteness. Fickle in the extreme, and an easy prey to the wiles of the other sex, he was frequently reduced to the very depths of degradation and poverty. As a writer his longer poems have not many claims to a lasting remembrance; but his shorter pieces justly deserve all the fame they have acquired. They come barely short of perfection; Prior strives hard after obtaining a classic grace and just misses it. As a specimen of the finished character of his verses we cite one of his short odes :

The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name :
Euphelia serves to grace my measure,
But Chloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre,
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay-

When Chloe noted her desire

That I should sing, that I should play.

and was not of the latter's own originating
- is apparent in Prior's lines to his soul:
Poor little, pretty, fluttering thing,

Must we no longer live together?
And dost thou prune thy trembling wing,
To take thy flight thou know'st not whither ?
Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly,
And pensive, wavering, melancholy,
Lie all neglected, all forgot :
Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not
what.

Occasionally he had a satirical touch
which was very pointed if not great. If
he could not stab with the rapier he could
prick with the needle. He describes in
one of his effusions a remedy that is
worse than the disease:

I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill,

That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.

But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,

I died last night of my physician.
Mat Prior was held in high esteem by
the most competent of his contempora-
ries, with whom he lived on excellent
terms. But the judgment upon him must
be that he faithfully represented in him-
self the follies of his time. His verse is

Have lighted up too many feuds,
And far too many faggots;

I think, while zealots fast and frown,
And fight for two or seven,
That there are fifty roads to town,

And rather more to Heaven.

flexible, sparkling, and flowing; at times, but very seldom, it merits higher praise; yet there was no one in his own day who wrote such verse so well. His views of woman, society, life, and pleasure were those almost of the lowest stratum, though his power over his art was so The satire of Praed always conveys the great that he could frequently counterfeit impression that it is veiled. The poet is sentiments of a higher order. so vivacious, and so longs for all men to As we approach our own times, Win-be blithe, that he strikes rather with the throp Mackworth Praed may be said to back of his sword than with its edge. enjoy the distinction of having hit upon There is the flash of the blade in air, a new vein of poetry, and of having been but something arrests its descenthimself its happiest explorer. Without some sudden second impulse in the spirpossessing the highest gifts of the poet, it of him who wields it. From a very his smoothness and elegance have earned early period in life Praed gave himself for him a reputation. It is not a little up to the writing of light and amusing singular that his great ambition should verse, and the magazine he edited at have been to distinguish himself in a very Eton contained much that was choice different field from that with which his and sparkling. Macaulay had already name is principally associated. We re-shown that these amusements were not member him as a subordinate member of unworthy of a man of genius, and his Sir Robert Peel's first administration, Valentine to Lady Mary Stanhope, writand as an effective speaker in the House ten after his return from India, is a capiof Commons. His career was cut short tal illustration of the style of verse writby his death from consumption, at a ten by literary men in leisure hours. moment when he was beginning to put The stately verse of the Whig historian, forth broader and more sympathetic views as we find it the "Lays of Ancient than those which animated the great Rome," is far in advance of any serious bulk of the conservative party. His poetry written by Praed; but, on the spirit was keen and eager, and the great other hand, the latter excelled his distinincentive to all he did was the desire to guished collaborator in the poetry of excel. This passion mastered his whole the drawing-room. His work is all exbeing; and the momentary earnestness ecuted with a care and minuteness which he threw into every successive under-are very admirable. He knew exactly taking was probably instrumental in undermining his constitution. Praed takes us into another atmosphere altogether from that in which Swift and Prior moved. Even satire had become good-natured and love decorous. We discover no single line which could not be read aloud in the most fastidious circle. Praed has the sweetness of a summer's night, and his wit represents the twinkling of the stars. Yet, in the midst of all his gayety, in some of his poems a tinge of melancholy seems to indicate a premature weariness

of life:

I think that very few have sighed

When Fate at last has found them,
Though bitter foes were by their side,
And barren moss around them;

I think that some have died of drought,
And some have died of drinking;
I think that nought is worth a thought-
And I'm a fool for thinking!

But, again, he resumes in a more spright-
ly and hopeful tone:

I think that friars and their hoods,
Their doctrines and their maggots,

the precise amount of seriousness to in-
fuse into his lines, and we are never
wearied with too much sermonizing.
Could there be anything better of its
kind than his portrait of "Quince," who
stands out in bold relief, in pure flesh
and blood, with his last words on bidding
farewell to the world :

My debts are paid-but Nature's debt
Almost escaped my recollection;
Tom! we shall meet again, and yet

I cannot leave you my direction!
And with what fluency and whimsicality
of expression he describes his Vicar!-
His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rock to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns;

It passed from Mahomet to Moses:
Beginning with the laws that keep

The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.

And when religious sects ran mad,

He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad,

It will not be improved by burning.
And he was kind, and loved to sit

In the low hut or garnished cottage,
And praise the farmer's homely wit,
And share the widow's homelier pottage:
At his approach complaint grew mild,
And when his hand unbarred the shutter,
The clammy lips of fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter. This is not poetry to move the world; there is no vehemence of passion in it, but it is true drawing in quiet lines, and more powerful than the mere form of it will suffer to appear. The emotional element was not over-developed in the author or he would sometimes have been able to give to his sketches just that complementary strength which would have made several of them great. If he has not the highest command over the pathetic, however, in a certain flow of humour he is unapproachable. A specimen of this is found in his reminiscences of the old school-days at Eton, where he describes the school and his schoolfellows. He could throw round attachments of this kind an indescribable charm. Another character entitled "The Belle of the Ball-room," though not so clever and clearly cut in every line, is more humorous than "The Vicar." Even his love verses took a semi-humorous form:

Our love was like most other loves;
A little glow, a little shiver,
A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves,

And "Fly not yet " upon the river :
Some jealousy of some one's heir,

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted,
A miniature, a lock of hair,

The usual vows - and then we parted.
We parted; months and years rolled by ;
We met again four summers after :
Our parting was all sob and sigh;
Our meeting was all mirth and laughter;
For in my heart's most secret cell

There had been many other lodgers;
And she was not the ball-room's belle,
But only Mrs. Something Rogers.

champagne. His serious work has a reminiscence of the same flavour, but the spirit has fled. We are dealing with him only as a writer of fugitive verse, for he is one of the men who will be remembered longer for the trifles in which he succeeded than for greater undertakings in which he failed. Racy, graphic, witty, and brilliant, he was just such a poet as the society in which he moved demanded; and as he had a decided scintillation of genius, he was able to endow his fancies with more permanence than it is usual for such verse to attain.

But Praed must not blind us to the merits of other writers contemporary with him who are in danger of passing from recollection. Peacock, the novelist, author of "Headlong Hall" and many other remarkable works, had a decided gift in verse, though he seldom made use of it. His poem of "Love and Age" is amongst the best of its kind, and may well entitle him to mention here. Now and then his contempt for preconceived notions, and the bitterness of his soul, oozed out, as when he wrote upon the rich and poor :

The poor man's sins are glaring;
In the face of ghostly warning
He is caught in the fact
Of an overt act -

Buying greens on Sunday morning.

The rich man has a cellar,

And a ready butler by him;
The poor must steer

For his pint of beer

Where the saint can't choose but spy him.

The rich man is invisible

In the crowd of his gay society;

But the poor man's delight
Is a sore in the sight,

And a stench in the nose of piety.

Yet Peacock's nature was too caustic for a writer of light verse. A much better man in this respect was Luttrell, whose social talents were of a high order. He had not the genius of a Praed, but at times nevertheless showed much happiness in expression. One could scarcely imagine, for instance, a better or more perfect epigram than this on the distinguished singer, Miss Tree :

Although Praed's more pretentious poems exhibit considerable taste and the same wonderful facility for rhyming, they are evidently not penned in his most On this Tree, if a nightingale settles and natural vein. Not equal to the music of higher poets they pale still further, and The Tree will return her as good as she are somewhat dull and heavy reading,

sings,

brings.

when compared with stanzas such as Luttrell wrote a lengthy poem styled those we have been quoting, and which " Advice to Julia," which contains many have in them the sparkle and the fizz of witty descriptions of life in the upper

66

classes of society, and a most amusing Chair," whose simple description and description of London fog and smoke. | pathos must have touched all who have His Ampthill Park" shows that he read it. Easy, natural, and flowing, it is possessed no mean powers of poetical as good as anything that Praed ever description. Of various things which he wrote, and has glimpses of endowments wrote may be mentioned his verses to which he did not possess. With all his Lady Granville, his epigram on Moore's wonderful finish there was not the same verses being translated into Persian and width in Praed as in Thackeray; and sung in the streets of Ispahan, and the had he not achieved one of the highest lines still inscribed in Rogers's arbour at repututions as a novelist, the latter would Holland House. On this same arbour it have gained no inconsiderable place as a will be remembered Lord Holland penned singer of every-day life. Imagination the pretty conceit was absent in him; but humour, satire, playfulness, tenderness, were abundant. The Ballad of Bouillabaisse " might serve as a model of most of these qualities. Its writer shows here, as in other poems, the wonderful attachment he felt for old things, old places, and old faces. His riper genius loved to dwell on characters which were simple-hearted, and through the medium of his verse he talks to us in a pleasanter vein than in his novels. His "Peg of Limavaddy" has been a thousand times spoken of for its light dancing music, in which it is unapproachable except by Father Prout's

Here Rogers sat, and here forever dwell,
To me, those "Pleasures" that he sang so
well.

One of Luttrell's efforts was a tour de

force in rhyming on "Burnham Beeches."

Some of the stanzas run as follows:

What though my tributary lines

Be less like Pope's than Creech's,
The theme, if not the poet, shines,
So bright are Burnham beeches.
O'er many a dell and upland walk,
Their sylvan beauty reaches;
Of Birnam wood let Scotland talk,
While we've our Burnham beeches.

If sermons be in stones, I'll bet
Our vicar, when he preaches,
He'd find it easier far to get

A hint from Burnham beeches.

Here bards have mused, here lovers true
Have dealt in softest speeches,
While suns declined, and, parting, threw
Their gold o'er Burnham beeches.

O ne'er may woodman's axe resound,
Nor tempest, making breaches

In the sweet shade that cools the ground
Beneath our Burnham beeches.

Hold! though I'd fain be jingling on,
My power no further reaches -
Again that rhyme? enough - I've done :
Farewell to Burnham beeches.

It would be idle to recapitulate what,
Moore has accomplished in the way of
light lyrical verse, seeing that his songs
are almost as widely known as the lan-
guage itself.
Other poets must be
passed over who do not depend upon the
lighter achievements for their fame -
as Pope, Cowper, Mrs. Browning, Lord
Byron, Campbell, Coleridge, Hood, Sher-
idan, and Rogers. Two names, never-
theless, warrant a slight pause - those
of Thackeray and Walter Savage Landor.
The former has bequeathed to us two or
three pieces of light verse, exquisite of
their kind. One is "The Cane-bottomed

66

Bells of Shandon ; " and it has the manifest advantage over the latter in that it possesses a human interest, whilst Prout's lines are simply musical

almost nonsensical and nothing more. But of all Thackeray's lyrics commend us to the one " At the Church Gate," for simplicity, beauty, and sweet

ness:

Although I enter not,

Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover!
And near the Sacred Gate
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.

My lady comes at last,
Timid, and stepping fast,

And hastening hither
With modest eyes downcast :
She comes she's here-she's past —
May Heav'n go with her.

Kneel undisturb'd, fair Saint!
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly:

I will not enter there,
To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.

But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,
Lingering a minute,
Like outcast spirits who wait
And see through Heaven's gate
Angels within it.

In a somewhat similar vein of refined feeling with a genuine classical grace Walter Savage Landor wrote:

The maid I love ne'er thought of me
Amid the scenes of gaiety;

But when her heart or mine sank low,
Ah, then it was no longer so.

From the slant palm she raised her head,
And kissed the cheek whence youth had fled.
Angels! some future day for this,
Give her as sweet and pure a kiss.

Amongst the best living writers of this kind of verse must indisputably be placed Mr. Frederick Locker; and for this reason it will be well to give his work a somewhat closer inspection. There are two distinct sides to his talent, both of which find adequate representation in his "London Lyrics." In a note appended to these lyrics, which is one of the smartest pieces of writing in the volume, the author has given a faithful summary of the requirements of that branch of the There is something glowing, soft, and poetic art to which he is devoted. He Oriental about Landor's genius. He says and his words will help to find stands alone in his gifts as clearly as any the clue for understanding his own claims poet. Some of his minor works are upon us — “ Light lyrical verse should be worthy of a place in the Greek anthology. short, elegant, refined, and fanciful, not Lord Houghton is another poet who seldom distinguished by chastened senhas translated into graceful verse the timent, and often playful. The tone impressions gained from society; but should not be pitched high, and it should he possesses a stronger and a fresher air be idiomatic, the rhythm crisp and sparkthan belongs to the poets of society gener-ling, the rhyme frequent and never ally. Music and thought are what he forced, while the entire poem should be gives us rather than point and dashing marked by tasteful moderation, high description. In his quiet strains we come sometimes upon reflections of considerable depth, and the shadow of the literary devotee always falls athwart his pages. We like his utter freedom from artificiality; his range of poetic powers is not of the highest order, but there is scarcely a poet who could be named who has done so uniformly well in all themes selected for treatment. Those who attach no merit to dealing with ordinary and every-day subjects, might attempt to detract from Lord Houghton's praise by affirming that he too often recurs to such topics; but it ought to be recognized fully by this time that it requires no ordinary gift to treat of homely things in a successful manner. And he has the especial merit of looking beneath the surface of things and touching the springs of life and thought which are in his heart.

A sense of an earnest will,
To help the lowly living,
And a terrible heart-thrill
If you have no power of giving:
An arm of aid to the weak,
A friendly hand to the friendless,
Kind words, so short to speak,
But whose echo is endless.

Every one is acquainted with the song "I wandered by the brookside," which is a happy specimen of the minor lyric; but many others could be cited of equal value, including the pretty pastoral verses commencing "When long upon the scales of Fate."

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 should be strictly enforced. Each piece cannot be expected to exhibit all these characteristics, but the qualities of brevity and buoyancy are essential." But he concludes these remarks by a confession that his volume may contain a few pieces which "ought to have been consigned to the dust-bin of immediate oblivion." That is possible; we cannot commend all alike. The writer of these trifles is in constant danger of falling into triviality or childishness. But if he amuses us we are not disposed to put butterflies on the rack, or to ask of him more than he aspires to give. Mr. Locker is not quite so elegant, perhaps, as his forerunner Praed; he is more sprightly and humorous. Liveliness, and what we should call the humour of surprise, are two of his distinguishing features. These qualities shine in the verses entitled "Episode in the Story of a Muff." The reader is kept on the tiptoe of expectation till the very last line and the revulsion of feeling then experienced is due to a very unexpected stroke of drollery.

She's jealous! Am I sorry? No!
I like to see my Mabel so,
Carina mia!

Poor Puss! That now and then she draws
Conclusions, not without a cause,
Is my idea.