The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe Part 113

Jove, with all his loudest thunder, When I'm vexed can't keep me under, Yet so tender is my ear, That the lowest voice I fear; Much I dread the courtier's fate, When his merit's out of date, For I hate a silent breath, And a whisper is my death.

ON THE VOWELS.

We are little airy creatures, All of different voice and features; One of us in gla.s.s is set, One of us you'll find in jet.

T'other you may see in tin, And the fourth a box within.

If the fifth you should pursue, It can never fly from you.

ON A PAIR OF DICE.

We are little brethren twain, Arbiters of loss and gain, Many to our counters run, Some are made, and some undone: But men find it to their cost, Few are made, but numbers lost.

Though we play them tricks forever, Yet they always hope our favor.

ON A SHADOW IN A GLa.s.s.

By something form'd, I nothing am, Yet every thing that you can name; In no place have I ever been, Yet everywhere I may be seen; In all things false, yet always true, I'm still the same--but ever now.

Lifeless, life's perfect form I wear, Can show a nose, eye, tongue, or ear, Yet neither smell, see, taste, nor hear.

All shapes and features I can boast, No flesh, no bones, no blood-no ghost: All colors, without paint, put on, And change, like the chameleon.

Swiftly I come, and enter there, Where not a c.h.i.n.k lets in the air; Like thought, I'm in a moment gone, Nor can I ever be alone: All things on earth I imitate Faster than nature can create; Sometimes imperial robes I wear, Anon in beggar's rags appear; A giant now, and straight an elf, I'm every one, but ne'er myself; Ne'er sad I mourn, ne'er glad rejoice, I move my lips, but want a voice, I ne'er was born, nor ne'er can die, Then, pr'ythee, tell me what am I?

ON TIME.

Ever eating, ever cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.

CATALOGUE OF SOURCES

ADDISON, JOSEPH--The Essayist of the "Spectator;" born 1632 died 1708.

Addison, though one of the most celebrated of English humorists, wrote scarcely a line of humorous verse.

ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM--An American writer; contributor to "Putnam's Magazine;" author of a volume of poems recently published in Hartford.

ANONYMOUS--To Punch's Almanac, for 1856, we are indebted for an account of this prolific writer:

"Of Anon," says Punch, "but little is known, though his works are excessively numerous. He has dabbled in every thing. Prose and Poetry are alike familiar to his pen. One moment he will be up the highest flights of philosophy, and the next he will be down in some kitchen garden of literature, culling an Enormous Gooseberry, to present it to the columns of some provincial newspaper. His contributions are scattered wherever the English language is read. Open any volume of Miscellanies at any place you will, and you are sure to fall upon some choice little bit signed by 'Anon.' What a mind his must have been! It took in every thing like a p.a.w.nbroker's shop. Nothing was too trifling for its grasp. Now he was hanging on to the trunk of an elephant and explaining to you how it was more elastic than a pair of India-rubber braces; and next he would be constructing a suspension bridge with a series of monkey's tails, tying them together as they do pocket- handkerchief's in the gallery of a theater when they want to fish up a bonnet that has fallen into the pit.

"Anon is one of our greatest authors. If all the things which are signed with Anon's name were collected on rows of shelves, he would require a British Museum all to himself. And yet of this great man so little is known that we are not even acquainted with his Christian name. There is no certificate of baptism, no moldy tombstone, no musty washing-bill in the world on which we can hook the smallest line of speculation whether it was John, or James, or Joshua, or Tom, or d.i.c.k, or Billy Anon. Shame that a man should write so much, and yet be known so little. Oblivion uses its snuffers, sometimes, very unjustly. On second thoughts, perhaps, it is as well that the works of Anon were not collected together. His reputation for consistency would not probably be increased by the collection. It would be found that frequently he had contradicted himself---that in many instances when he had been warmly upholding the Christian white of a question he had afterward turned round, and maintained with equal warmth the Pagan black of it.

He might often be discovered on both sides of a truth, jumping boldly from the right side over to the wrong, and flinging big stones at any one who dared to a.s.sail him in either position. Such double-sidedness would not be pretty, and yet we should be lenient to such inconsistencies. With one who had written so many thousand volumes, who had twirled his thoughts as with a mop on every possible subject, how was it possible to expect any thing like consistency? How was it likely that he could recollect every little atom out of the innumerable atoms his pen had heaped up?

"Anon ought to have been rich, but he lived in an age when piracy was the fashion, and when booksellers walked about, as it were, like Indian chiefs with the skulls of the authors they had slain, hung round their necks. No wonder, therefore, that we know nothing of the wealth of Anon. Doubtless he died in a garret, like many other kindred spirits, Death being the only score out of the many knocking at his door that he could pay. But to his immortal credit let it be said he has filled more libraries than the most generous patrons of literature. The volumes that formed the fuel of the barbarians' bonfire at Alexandria would be but a small book-stall by the side of the octavos, quartos, and duodecimos he has pyramidized on our book-shelves. Look through any catalogue you will, and you will find that a large proportion of the works in it have been contributed by Anon. The only author who can in the least compete with him in fecundity is Ibid."

ANTI-JACOBIN, THE---Perhaps the most famous collection of Political Satires extant. Originated by Canning in 1797, it appeared in the form of a weekly newspaper, interspersed with poetry, the avowed object of which was to expose the vicious doctrines of the French Revolution, and to hold up to ridicule and contempt the advocates of that event, and the sticklers for peace and parliamentary reform. The editor was William Gifford, the vigorous and unscrupulous critic and poetaster the writers, Mr. John Hookham Frere, Mr. Jenkinson (afterward Earl of Liverpool); Mr. George Ellis, Lord Clare, Lord Mornington (afterward Marquis Wellesley), Lord Morpeth (afterward Earl of Carlisle), Baron Macdonald, and others. These gentlemen spared no means, fair or foul, in their attempts to blacken their adversaries. Their most distinguished countrymen, if opposed to the Tory government of the time being, were treated with no more respect than foreign adversaries, and were held up to public execration as traitors, blasphemers, and debauchees. The period was one of great political excitement, a fierce war with republican France being in progress, the necessity for which divided the public into two great parties; national credit being affected, the Bank of England suspending cash payments, mutinies breaking out in the fleets at Spithead and the Nore, and Ireland at the verge of rebellion. Spain, also, had declared war against Britain, which was thus left to contend singly against the power of France.

Party feeling running very high, the anti-Jacobins were by no means discriminating in their attacks, a.s.sociating men together who really had nothing in common. Hence the reader is surprised to find Charles Lamb and other non-intruders into politics, figuring as congenial conspirators with Tom Paine. Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, and other eloquent liberals of the day, with Tierney, Home Tooke, and Coleridge were at the same tune writing and talking in the opposite extreme, and little quarter was given--certainly none on the part of the Tory wits. The poetry of the "Anti-Jacobin," however, was not exclusively political, comprising also parodies and burlesques on the current literature of the day, some being of the highest degree of merit, and distinguished by sharp wit and broad humor of the happiest kind. In these, Canning and his coadjutors did a real service to letters, and a.s.sisted in a purification which Gifford, by his demolition of the Delia Cruscan school of poetry had so well begun. Perhaps no lines in the English language have been more effective or oftener quoted than Canning's "Friend of Humanity and the Knife Grinder." Many of the celebrated caricatures of Gilray were originally designed to ill.u.s.trate the Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. It had, however, but a brief, though brilliant existence. Wilberforce and others of the more moderate supporters of the ministry became alarmed at the boldness of the language employed.

Pitt (himself a contributor to the journal), was induced to interfere, and after a career of eight months, the "Anti-Jacobin" (in its original form), ceased to be.

AYTOUN, WILLIAM--Professor of Polite Literature in the Edinburg University: editor of "Blackwood's Magazine:" son-in-law of the late Professor Wilson. Professor Aytoun was bred to the bar but, we believe, never came into practice. He is tha author of several humorous pieces, and of many in which the intention to be humorous was not realized. He is what the English call a very CLEVER man. Like many others who excel in ridicule and sarcasm, he is devoid of that kind of moral principle which makes a writer prefer the Just to the Dashing. Aytoun is a fierce Tory in politics--a sn.o.b on principle. The specimens of his humorous poetry contained in this collection were taken from the "Ballads of Bon Gaultier," and the "Idees Napoleoniennes," editions of both of which have been published in this country.

BARHAM, REV. RICHARD HARRIS--Author of the celebrated "Ingoldsby Legends," published originally in "Bentley's Miscellany," afterward collected and published in three volumes, with a memoir by a son of the author.

Mr. Barham was born at Canterbury, England, December 6th, 1788. His family is of great antiquity, having given its name to the well-known "Barham Downs," between Dover and Canterbury. He was educated at St.

Paul's School in Canterbury, where he made the acquaintance of Richard Bentley, who afterward became his publisher. From this school, he wont to Oxford, entering Brazennose College, as a gentleman commoner, where he met Theodore Hook, and formed a friendship with that prince of wits which terminated only with Hook's life. At the University, Barham led a wild, dissipated life--as the bad custom then was--and was noted as a wit and good fellow. Being called to account, on one occasion, by his tutor for his continued absence from morning prayer, Barham replied,

"The fact is, sir, you are too LATE for me."

"Too late?" exclaimed the astonished tutor.

"Yes, sir," rejoined the student, "I can not sit up till seven o'clock in the morning. I am a man of regular habits, and unless I get to bed by four or five, I am fit for nothing the next day."

The tutor took this jovial reply seriously, and Barham perceiving that he was really wounded, offered a sincere apology, and afterward attended prayers more regularly.

Entering the church, he devoted himself to his clerical duties with exemplary a.s.siduity, and obtained valuable preferment, rising at length to be one of the Canons of St. Paul's Cathedral. This office brought him into relations with Sydney Smith, with whom, though Barham was a Tory, he had much convivial intercourse.

Very early in life Mr. Barham became an occasional contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, then in the prime of its vigorous youth. The series of contributions called "Family Poetry," which appear in the volumes for 1823, and subsequent years, were by him. Most of those humorous effusions have been transferred to this volume. In 1837 Mr.

Bentley established his "Miscellany," and secured the services of his friend Barham, who, up to this time was unknown to the general public, though he had been for nearly twenty years a successful writer. The "Ingoldsby Legends" now appeared in rapid succession, and proved so popular that their author soon became one of the recognized wits of the day. A large number of these unique and excellent productions enrich the present collection, "As respects these poems," says Mr. Barham's biographer, "remarkable as they have been p.r.o.nounced for the wit and humor which they display, their distinguishing attractions lies in the almost unparalleled flow and felicity of the versification. Popular phrases, sentences the most prosaic, even the cramped technicalities of legal diction, and s.n.a.t.c.hes from well-nigh every language, are wrought in with an apparent absence of all art and effort that surprises, pleases, and convulses the reader at every turn. The author triumphs with a master hand over every variety of stanza, however complicated or exacting; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced; syllables the most intractable, and the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of language are coupled together as naturally as those kindred spirits which poets tell us were created pairs, and dispersed in s.p.a.ce to seek out their particular mates. A harmony pervades the whole, a perfect modulation of numbers, never, perhaps, surpa.s.sed, and rarely equaled in compositions of their cla.s.s. This was the forte of Thomas Ingoldsby; a harsh line or untrue rhyme grated on his ear like the Shandean hinge." These observations are just. As a rhymer, Mr. Barham has but one equal in English literature--Byron.

Mr. Barham died at London on the 17th of June, 1845, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was an extremely amiable, benevolent character. It does not appear that his love of the humorous was ever allowed to interfere with the performance of his duties as a clergyman. Without being a great preacher, he was a faithful and kindly pastor, never so much in his element as when ministering to the distresses, or healing the differences of his parishioners. Unlike his friend, Sydney Smith, he was singularly fond of the drama, and for many years was a member of the Garrick Club. He was one of the few English writers of humorous verse, ALL of whose writings may be read aloud by a father to his family, and in whose wit there was no admixture of gall.

"BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY"--A London Monthly Magazine, founded about twenty years ago by Mr. Bentley, the publisher. Charles d.i.c.kens, and the author of the Ingoldsby Legends were among the first contributors.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE--First appeared in April, 1817 Founded by William Blackwood, a shrewd Edinburgh bookseller. Its literary ability and fierce political partisanship, soon placed it fore-most in the ranks of Tory periodicals. Perhaps no magazine has ever achieved such celebrity, or numbered such a host of ill.u.s.trious contributors. John Wilson, the world-famous "Christopher North," was the virtual, though not nominal editor, Blackwood himself retaining that t.i.tle. It would be a long task to enumerate all, who, from the days of Sir Walter Scott and the Ettrick Shepherd, to those of Bulwer and Charles Mackay, have appeared in its columns. Maginn, Lockhart, Gillies, Moir, Landor, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Bowles, Barry Cornwall, Gleig, Hamilton, Aird, Sym, De Quincey, Allan Cunningham, Mrs. Hemans, Jerrold, Croly, Warren, Ingoldsby (Barham), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Milnes, and many others, of scarcely less note, found in Blackwood scope for their productions, whether of prose or verse. In its early days much of personality and sarcasm marked its pages, savage onslaughts on Leigh Hunt, and "the c.o.c.kney School of Literature," alternating with attacks on the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly, and all Whigs and Whig productions whatever. The celebrated Noctes Ambrosianae, a series of papers containing probably more learning, wit, eloquence, eccentricity, humor, and personality than have ever appeared elsewhere, formed part of the individuality of Blackwood. They were written by Wilson, Maginn, Lockhart, and Hogg, the two first named (and especially Wilson), having the pre-eminence. To the New York edition of this work, by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie (whose notes contain a perfect mine of information), we refer the reader for further particulars relative to Blackwood.

BROUGHAM, LORD--The well-known member of the English House of Peers. It seems, from some jocularities attributed to his lordship, that he adds to his many other claims to distinction that of being a man of wit.

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN--The most celebrated of American poets. Editor of the "New York Evening Post." Born 1794.

BURNS, ROBERT--Born 1750, died 1796. The best loved, most national, most independent, truest, and greatest of Scottish poets, of whom to say more here were an impertinence.

BUTLER, SAMUEL--Born in 1612; the son of a substantial farmer in Worcestershire, England. Very little is known of the earlier portion of his life, as he had reached the age of fifty before he was so much as heard of by his contemporaries. He appears to have received a good education at the cathedral school of his native county, and to have filled various situations, as clerk in the service of Thomas Jeffries of Earl's Croombe, secretary to the Countess of Kent, and general man of business to Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople Hoo, Bedfordshire, who, it is said, served as the model for his hero, Hudibras. The first part of this singular poem was published at the close of 1662, and met with extraordinary success. Its wit, its quaint sense and learning, its pa.s.sages of sarcastic reflection on all manner of topics, and above all, its unsparing ridicule of men and things on the Puritan side, combined to render it a general favorite. The reception of Part II., which appeared a year subsequent, was equally flattering. Yet its author seems to have fallen into the greatest poverty and obscurity, from which be never was enabled to emerge. It appears to have been his strange fate to flash all at once into notoriety, which lasted precisely two years, to fill the court and town during that time with continuous laughter, intermingled with inquiries who and what he was, and then for seventeen long years to plod on unknown and unregarded, still hearing his Hudibras quoted, and still preparing more of it, or matter similar, with no result. He died, in almost absolute dest.i.tution, in 1680, and was buried at a friend's expense, in the church-yard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

BYROM--A noted English Jacobite. Born 1691.

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON NOEL--Born 1788, died in Greece, 1824. Respecting his celebrated Satire on the poet Rogers, which appears in this collection, we read the following in a London periodical:--"The satire on Rogers, by Lord Byron, is not surpa.s.sed for cool malignity, dexterous portraiture, and happy imagery, in the whole compa.s.s of the English language. It is said, and by those well informed, that Rogers used to bore Byron while in Italy, by his incessant minute dilettantism, and by visits at hours when Byron did not care to see him. One of many wild freaks to repel his unreasonable visits was to set his big dog at him. To a mind like Byron's, here was sufficient provocation for a satire. The subject, too, was irresistible. Other inducements were not wanting. No man indulged himself more in sarcastic remarks on his cotemporaries than Mr. Rogers. He indulged his wit at any sacrifice. He spared no one, and Byron, consequently did not escape. Sarcastic sayings travel on electric wings--and one of Rogers's personal and amusing allusions to Byron reached the ears of the poetic pilgrim at Ravenna. Few characters can bear the microscopic scrutiny of wit. Byron suffered. Fewer characters can bear its microscopic scrutiny when quickened by anger, and Rogers suffered still more severely.

"This, the greatest of modern satirical portraits in verse, was written before their final meeting at Bologna. Rogers was not aware that any saying of his had ever reached the ear of Byron, and Byron never published the verses on Rogers. They met like the handsome women described by Cibber, who, though they wished one another at the devil, are 'My dear,' and 'My dear,' whenever they meet. One doubtless considered his saying as something to be forgotten, and the other his verses as something not to be remembered. These verses are not included in Byron's works, and are very little known."

CHAUCER lived in the thirteenth century, dying in 1400. He is designated the father of English poetry. The obsolete phraseology of his writings, though presenting a barrier to general appreciation and popularity, will never deter those who truly love the "dainties that are bred in a book" from holding him in affection and reverence.

His chief work, the "Canterbury Pilgrimage," "well of English undefiled" as it is, was written in the decline of life, when its author had pa.s.sed his sixtieth year. For catholicity of spirit, love of nature, purity of thought, pathos, humor, subtle and minute discrimination of character and power of expressing it, Chaucer has one superior--Shakspeare.

CHESTERFIELD, LORD--Born in 1694; died 1773. Courtier, statesman, and man of the world; famous for many things, but known to literature chiefly by his "Letters to his Son," which have formed three generations of "gentlemen," and still exert great influence.

Chesterfield was a noted wit in his day, but most of his good things have been lost.

CLEVELAND, JOHN--A political writer of Charles the First's time; author of several satirical pieces, now known only to the curious.

He died in 1659.