Part 21 (1/2)

Cloven froht The banners dip and mount Like masts at sea_”

Or consider the fancifulin _An Unhistorical Pastoral_--

”Weave the dance and sing the song; _Subterranean depths prolong The rainy patter of our feet;_ Heights of air are rendered sweet By our singing Let us sing, Breathing softly, fairily, Swelling sweetly, airily, Till earth and sky our echo ring

Rustling leaves chi, ding-dong”

--Or the closely-packed wit in such passages as these--

_Brown_: ”This world, This oyster with its valves of toil and play, Would round his corners for its own good ease, And e in

_Jones_: And in this s, truly I would rather be A shred of glass that sparkles in the sun, And keeps a lowly rainbow of its own, Than one of these so trim and patent pearls With hearts of sand veneered, sewed up and down The stiff brocade society affects”

I have opened the book at randoood Nor will any but the least intelligent reviewer upbraid Mr Davidson for deriving so much of his inspiration directly fro man; but the first of these plays, _An Unhistorical Pastoral_, was first printed so long ago as 1877; and the last, _Scaramouch in Naxos; a Pantohis way to a style and method of his own

Lack of ”Architectonic” Quality

But--there is a ”but”; and I ath to h, this difficulty may be referred to the circureat circle at a second point Wordsworth, it will be remembered, once said that Shakespeare _could_ not have written an Epic (Wordsworth, by the as rather fond of pointing out the things that Shakespeare could not have done) ”Shakespeare _could_ not have written an Epic; he would have died of plethora of thought”

Substitute ”wit” for ”thought,” and you have iven to few reat wit lightly In Mr Davidson's case it luxuriates over the page and seeests another, one phrase springs under the very shadow of another until the fabric of his poem is completely hidden beneath luxuriant flowers of speech Either they hide it from the author himself; or, conscious of his lack of architectonic skill, he deliberately trails these creepers over his ill-constructed walls I think the former is the true explanation, but am not sure

Let me be cautious here, or some remarks I made the other day upon another poet--Mr Hosken, author of _Phaon and Sappho_, and _Verses by the Way_--will be brought up against ainst certain critics who had coedies, I said, ”Be it allowed that he has little draedy) dramatic pohat you reasonably looked for But an alert critic, considering the work of a beginner, will have an eye for the bye-strokes as well as thethe main, prove effective with the bye--if Mr Hosken, while failing to construct a satisfactory draes--then at the worst he stands convicted of a youthful error in choosing a literary forht”

Not in the ”Plays” only

These observations I believe to be just, and having entered the _caveat_ in Mr Hosken's case, I should observe it in Mr Davidson's also, did these five youthful plays stand alone But Mr Davidson has published much since these plays first appeared--works both in prose and verse--_Fleet Street Eclogues_, _Ninian Jamieson_, _A Practical Novelist_, _A Random Itinerary_, _Baptist Lake_: and because I have followed his writings (I think froreatest interest, II am quite certain that Mr Davidson will never bore me: but I wish I could be half so certain that he will in ti in true perspective; a fabric duly proportioned, each line of which frouide the reader to an end which the author has in view; so which

”_Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet_”

_Sibi constet_, be it remarked A work of art may stand very far from Nature, provided its own parts are consistent Heaven forbid that a critic should decry an author for being fantastic, so long as he is true to his fantasy

But Mr Davidson's wit is so brilliant within the circles of its temporary coruscation as to leave the outline of his work in a constant penumbra Indeed, when he wishes to unburden his mind of an idea, he seems to have less capacity than many men of half his ability to deter can be certain which has not been tried, it is that his story _A Practical Novelist_ should have been cast in dramatic form His vastly clever _Perfervid: _or_ the Career of Ninian Jamieson_ is cast in two parts which neither unite to make a whole, nor are sufficiently independent to stand complete in themselves I find it characteristic that his _Randoreeable narrative of suburban travel--should conclude with a crashi+ng poenificent in itself, but utterly out of key with the rest of the book Turn to the _Cos quoted by Walton with the prose in which they are set, and the difference will be apparent at once Fate see Mr Davidson even into his illustrations _A Random Itinerary_ and this book of _Plays_ (both published by Messrs Mathews and Lane) have each a conspicuously clever frontispiece But the illustrator of _A Random Itinerary_ has chosen as his subject the very poem which I have mentioned as out of harmony with the book; and I must protest that the vilely sensual faces in Mr Beardsley's frontispiece to these _Plays_ are hopelessly out of keeping with the sunny paganis Greek about Mr Beardsley's figures: their only relationshi+p with the Olyeia

With all this I have to repeat that Mr Davidson is in soer poets The grand manner comes more easily to him than to any other: and if he can cultivate a sense of form and use this sense as a curb upon his wit, he has all the qualities that take a poet far

Nov 24, 1984 ”Ballads and Songs”

At last there is no mistake about it: Mr John Davidson has come by his own And by ”his own” I do not h of this and to spare--but mastery of his poetic s” (London: John Lane) justifies our hopes and removes our chief fear You remember Mr TE Brown's fine verses on ”Poets and Poets”?--

He fishes in the night of deep sea pools: For hi; the silver-glea schools Come with the ebb and flow Of universal tides, and all the channels glow

Or holding with his hand the weighted line He sounds the languor of the neaps, Or feels what current of the springing brine The cord divergent sweeps, The throb of what great heart bestirs the middle deeps

Thou also weavest uer'st all the forest ways; But of that sea and the great heart therein Thou knowest nought; whole days Thou toil'st, and hast thy end--good store of pies and jays

Mr Davidson has never allowed us to doubt to which of these two classes he belongs ”For hih it may satisfy the Pus, we shall find it more salutary to re in the thicket of his own fancies, and saw him too often break his shi+ns over his oit We asked: Will he in the end overcome the defect of his qualities? Will he remain unable to see the wood for the trees? Or will he so us poems of which the whole conception and structure shall be as beautiful as the casual fragle line? For this architectonic quality is just that ”invidious distinction” which the fabled undergraduate declined to draeen the major and minor prophets