Part 10 (1/2)

That was a viehich reed, but with his kindly wisdom he never attempted to condemn or dispute my opinions He left me to find out the true Shakespeare forwhat, as a rule, is wrong in literature, but, I think, right in the case of Shakespeare, a coh hand-in-hand with Charles Lahts, I by no hteenth Century Quite early I becaot the _Ode to the Unfortunate Lady_ by heart I dipped into _The Rape of the Lock_, gloried in the Moral Essays, especially in the _Characters of Women_ and the epistle to Bathurst on the use of riches Gray, as a special favourite of Leaker's, soon became a favourite of mine, and I can still remember how I discovered the _Ode to Poesy_ and hoent roaring its stanzas through the house Such lines as

Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breathes around

or

Hark, his hands the lyre explore,

were y in a Country Churchyard_ quickly seizedwhen I had made a poetic discovery I was as noisy as a hen that has laid an egg, or, to be more exact, I felt and behaved like a man who has come into a fortune For me there were no coteries in Literature, or if there were, I belonged to theood lines in the poems of some obscure author or other, I did not rest satisfied till I had got hold of his _Complete Works_ For exaht to _The Tales of the Hall_ and thoroughly enjoyed el in the House_ when I heard that Rossetti and Ruskin, and even Swinburne, adely disappointed, I even extracted honey froetting honey out of the artificial flowers in the case in a parlourStill, if I could only find two lines that satisfied ht myself amply rewarded for the trouble of a search It is still a pleasure to repeat

And o'er them blew The authentic airs of Paradise

I felt, I remember, about the epithet ”authentic” what Pinkerton in _The Wrecker_ felt about Hebdomadary--”You're a boss word”

I have no recollection of whatverse myself It was the old story ”I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came” My first lisp--the first poes in the world was a dihout my boyhood I was an intense ros

and even melancholies--I use the word, of course, in the sense of Burton, or of Shakespeare Yet all the time I read masses of Pope The occasion for my satire was one which er to try his hand at imitations of Pope By this I mean that the satiric outburst was not provoked by any sort of anger I merely found in soood copy One of the things I liked particularly in Pope was the Epistle describing the Duke of Chandos's house, the poeins--

At Timon's villa let us pass a day, Where all cry out what suht in front of randiose country-house I heard plenty of criticism of the house Its nucleus was a Carpenter's Gothic villa, built originally by a Dean of Wells, bought by Lord Waldegrave in the 'thirties or 'forties, and then gradually turned by Frances, Lady Waldegrave, into a big country-house, but a house too big for the piece of ground in which it was set The skeleton of the roadside villa was alleged by the local critics to show through the swelling flesh that overlaid it Here was a chance for the satirist, and so I sharpened an:

Oh, stones and lade,-- A Gothic mansion where all arts unite To forht

The rest is lost! Considering that I was only twelve, and that Pope was little read by the youth of the 'seventies, nised as a literary curiosity

It is hardly necessary to say that the moment I found I could write, and that metre and rhyme were no difficulty to me, I went at it tooth and nail The more I wrote the more interested did I become in metre, and it is not too much to say that within a couple of years from my first attempt, that is by the time I was about fourteen and a half, I had experimented not only in most of the chief lish poets To these, indeed, I added so In this way Prosody early became for ht in itself I liked discoveringthe experiments for myself The result of this activity was that I had soon written enough verse to make a little pamphlet With this pamphlet inof the poets are as shy as the young of the saled off to Wells, the county town, five miles distant across Mendip How I discovered the name of the local printer I do not know, but I did discover it, and with beating heart approached his doors After swearing him to secrecy, I asked for an estimate He was a sympathetic man, and named a price which even then seemed to me low, and which was in reality so small that it would be positively unsafe to name to a master-printer nowadays

As far as I re my verses come back in print was beyond words I re note fro success for future poetic ventures But, though very happy, I believe, and aoing to becoht the trade was a bad one for a second son who must support himself It is h it was so great a source of joy to me, poetry was not un to note the voice of pessimism raised by the poets of the 'seventies, and to feel that they did not believe in themselves I distinctly remember that Tennyson's ”Is there no hope for modern rhyme?” was often on my lips and in my mind His question distinctly expected the answer ”No”

It is little wonder, then, that I did not want to be a poet, and I never envisagedthat strikesback at my little volume of verse, is its uncanny competence, not y and what I may almost term scholarshi+p The poems did not show much inspiration, but they are what 18th-century critics would have called ”well-turned” That would not be astonishi+ng, in the case of a boy who had been well-educated and had acquired the art of expression But I had not been well-educated Owing to my ill-health my teachers had not been allowed to press me, and I was in a sense quite illiterate I could hardly write, I could not spell at all, and nobody had ever pruned hts to language, as one is shown, or ought to be shohen one learns the Greek and Latin gra in this direction had been more than sketchy The only schoolroom matter in which I had ebra fascinated h I did not know till oras discovered the forty-seventh proposition he sacrificed a yoke of oxen, not to Pallas Athene but to the Muses, I was instinctively exactly of his opinion I can remember to this day hoorked out the proof of the forty-seventh proposition with Mr Battersby, a young Cae man as curate to Mr Philpott and who took us on in mathematics The realisation of the absolute, unalterable fact that in every right-angled triangle the square of the side subtending it is equal to the squares of the sides containing it, filledfor the first ties in Shakespeare

I saw the genius of delight unfold his purple wing I was transfigured and seemed to tread upon air For the first time in my life I realised the deterreathad been opened before s new My utter satisfaction could not be spoiled by feeling, as one does in the case of the earlier propositions of Euclid, that I had been proving what I knew already-- so about which I could have made myself sure by the use of a foot-rule or a tape- and not h the senses I felt belowcould shake Coht, a2 = b2 + c2 No one could ever deprive me of that priceless possession

At that time I did not see or dream of the connection which no doubt does exist between mathematics and poetry--the connection whichof a mathematician Needless to say, my teachers did not see the connection

They were sieoebra as with poetry Probably they consoled theht that I was one of the people who could persuade the!

It is of iuage, frorowth of my mind It will, I think, also amuse those of my readers who have written poetry for themselves in their youth (that, I suppose, is the case with most of us) to observe my hardihood in the way of metrical experiment Here is the Invocation to the Muses which served as an Introduction to my little book It will be noted that I have here tried my hand at my favourite measure, the dactylic Towards anapaests I have always felt a certain coldness, if not indeed repulsion

TO THE MUSES

(1874)

Come to ic, Satirical

Come and breathe intolyre, Strains such as Shelley's, which never can tire

Co , Passionate, love-stirring, quick to begin

Why come you not to me?

Then must I write lyrics after vile rules Made by some idiot, used by worse fools-- Then the deuce take you all!