THE LITERARY REMAINS OF CHARLES 
 STUART CALVERLEY
 
 THE WORKS OF C. S. CALVERLEY. 
 
 NEW AND CHEAPER ISSUE OF THE 
 COLLECTED EDITION. 
 
 Four vols, crown 8vo, in a new binding designed 
 by Gleeson White, $s. each. 
 
 Vol. I. LITERARY REMAINS. With a 
 Memoir by SIR WALTER J. SENDALL, 
 K.C.M.G., and Portrait. 
 
 Vol. II. VERSES AND FLY LEAVES. 
 
 Vol. III. TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH 
 AND LATIN. 
 
 Vol. IV. THEOCRITUS. Translated into Eng- 
 lish verse. 
 
 Original Editions. 
 FLY LEAVES. i;th edition. Fcap. 8vo, 3^. 6d. 
 
 VERSES AND TRANSLATIONS. 1 5th edition. 
 Fcap. 8vo, $s. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS.
 
 London G. Bell and Sons.
 
 CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY 
 
 LITERARY REMAINS 
 
 WITH A MEMOIR BY SIR WALTER 
 J. SENDALL, K.C.M.G. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON BELL AND CO. 
 MDCCCXCVI
 
 First edition, September, 1885. 
 Reprinted December, 1885, 1891. 
 Cheaper edition, 1896.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Editor's thanks and acknowledgments are 
 due to the Rev. Dr. Butler, to Professor J. R. 
 Seeley, and to Mr. Walter Besant, for the in- 
 teresting contributions included under their re- 
 spective names in the following pages. 
 
 Many others of Calverley's old friends and school- 
 fellows have also come forward with offers of as- 
 sistance, in the shape of information and valuable 
 suggestions ; amongst whom should be specially 
 mentioned Sir Robert Herbert, the Rev. H. N. 
 Oxenham, the Rev. Charles Stanwell, Professor 
 Lumby, and Mr. Austin Leigh. 
 
 LONDON, May, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. I. School and College .... 1 
 
 CHAP. II. Recollections ..... 55 
 
 CHAP. III. Calverley as a Writer .... 80 
 
 CHAP. IV. The End 91 
 
 POEMS. 
 Lupus et Canis . . . . . . .119 
 
 4 
 
 Hymn to the Morning (Coleridge) .... 122 
 
 Idem Latine Redditum . . . . . .123 
 
 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll! . . 128 
 Painting . . . . . . . . 129 
 
 Parthenonis Ruinse . . . . . . 132 
 
 Australia ........ 145 
 
 Carmen Graecum . . . . . . .150 
 
 Loca Sacra apud Hierosolymam . . . .156 
 
 Song. " Faithless Swallow " .... 162 
 
 Idem Latine Redditum . 163
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " John Anderson, my Jo, John " . . . . 166 
 
 Idem Graece Redditum . . . . . 167 
 
 On Metrical Translation . . . . . 172 
 
 The JEneid of Virgil 186 
 
 " Horse Tennysonianse "..... 193 
 
 Iliad VIII. 11. 555-65 204 
 
 Sonnet . . . ..-..'. . . 206 
 
 The Bottling of the Wasp 207 
 
 A Life in the Country . , ' . . 209 
 
 April : or the New Hat 212 
 
 The Cuckoo . . . ..... . 215 
 
 The Poet and the Fly . . '. . . . 220 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 I. FROM HEINE . . ! . . . 228 
 
 13. FROM J. F. CASTELLI. At Beethoven's Grave 230 
 
 III. FROM J. F. CASTELLI. At Beethoven's Funeral 232 
 TRANSLATIONS or HYMNS (from the " Hymnary ") : 
 
 Easter 234 
 
 Easter . . . . . . . 237 
 
 Easter 239 
 
 The Transfiguration . . . . . 241 
 
 The Transfiguration ..... 243 
 
 Ascension ....... 245 
 
 Ascension . . . , . . . 247 
 
 Whitsuntide 250 
 
 Whitsuntide 253 
 
 Whitsuntide 255
 
 CONTEXTS. ix 
 
 PAQK 
 
 Whitsuntide ...... 259 
 
 The Vigil of Whitsuntide . . . . 261 
 
 Whitsuntide ...... 263 
 
 Trinity 265 
 
 S. John Baptist .... . 268 
 
 Martyrs ....... 271 
 
 Festivals of Apostles ..... 273 
 
 Bethany ....... 275 
 
 De Die Judicii . . 277
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 
 
 CARCELY had the grave closed over the head 
 of Charles Stuart Calverley, when there began 
 to be expressed, amongst those who had known 
 him, a very general desire that some brief account 
 of his character and career should be given to the 
 world. It was thought, we may suppose, that the 
 memory of one whose natural powers had made so 
 extraordinary an impression upon his contempora- 
 ries, and whose published writings had given evi- 
 dence of so very distinct and striking an indivi- 
 duality, should not be suffered to pass into oblivion, 
 without some more enduring record than a para- 
 graph in the newspapers, or an article in a 
 magazine. 
 
 J. B
 
 2 MEMOIR. 
 
 It is in the belief that this was a well-grounded 
 sentiment, and that those who have hitherto known 
 " C. S. C." only as a writer of polished and epi- 
 grammatic verse, would be glad, now that he is 
 gone, to learn something of the personality which 
 lay behind those familiar letters, that the present 
 task has been undertaken; and it may be per- 
 mitted here to express a wish that the work, though 
 truly in this case a labour of love, of delineating a 
 character so unique, might have been committed 
 into hands more practised than those of one, whom 
 circumstances have long since consigned to the 
 pursuit of avocations quite other than literary. 
 
 There are, indeed, in the uneventful record of 
 Calverley's life, scanty materials for a full and 
 lengthened biography ; all that can be attempted 
 is to place before the reader's mind some slight 
 sketch of the man, as he appeared in the eyes of his 
 familiar friends; employing for this purpose such 
 personal reminiscences as those who knew him best 
 may be able or willing to contribute. 
 
 A bright, sunny boyhood, fearless and careless ; 
 a youth full of brilliant promise, and studded with
 
 SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE. 3 
 
 intellectual triumphs ; a manhood marked by no 
 stirring incidents, no ambitious struggles, no alter- 
 nations of failure and success darkened, alas ! in 
 later years, and brought to an untimely close by 
 the ravages of a fatal and insidious malady .-such 
 are in brief the outlines of a career, which in itself 
 would seem to present little that is worthy of 
 record, and to possess but scanty claims upon the 
 attention of the general observer. But if the inci- 
 dents and events of his life were thus trite even to 
 commonplace, yet his own bearing amongst them, 
 and the physical and intellectual personality which 
 marked each successive stage, would be found, if 
 accurately and adequately portrayed, to present a 
 striking and an interesting picture. From child- 
 hood upwards there never was a time when he failed 
 to impress in some enduring manner those amongst 
 whom he moved. His boyhood was distinguished 
 by feats of physical activity and daring, which 
 almost eclipsed even his marvellous precocity of 
 mind, and have already passed in school traditions, 
 like the deeds of ancient heroes, into the region of 
 myth and legend.
 
 4 MEMOIR. 
 
 At a later period, though he was still remarkable 
 for bodily strength and agility, it was the excep- 
 tional quality of his intellect which fascinated and 
 enchained his associates. And as to this, there can 
 be but one verdict amongst all who were even 
 slightly acquainted with him. As an intellectual 
 organism of the rarest and subtlest fibre, he stood 
 altogether apart from amongst his contempora- 
 ries. And this not by virtue of any predomi- 
 nant excellence in one or other of the acknow- 
 ledged lines in which men of talent or genius 
 show themselves above their fellows. Brilliant 
 and incisive in speech sparkling with epigrams, 
 he was still neither a great talker nor a pro- 
 fessed wit ; capable of reasoning closely, he neither 
 sought nor achieved reputation in debate ; nor 
 could he at any time have claimed precedence upon 
 the score of acquired knowledge. Yet those who 
 consorted with him derived from his conversation 
 an impression which the most accomplished and 
 encyclopaedic of talkers might fail to produce. I do 
 not know how better to express this phenomenon 
 than by describing it as due to the spontaneous
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 5 
 
 action of pure intellect. Without conscious effort, 
 without the semblance of a desire for display, his 
 mind appeared to act upon the matter in hand, like 
 a solvent upon a substance. The effect of this was 
 often as the revelation of an unknown force. A few 
 words casually spoken became, as it were, a, fiat lux, 
 an act of creation. Let those who knew him at 
 bis best endeavour to account to themselves for the 
 sense of power with which his conversation affected 
 them, and they will, I think, be compelled to 
 admit, that though his talk was often witty, always 
 scholarly, and not seldom wise, yet what they mar- 
 velled at in him was neither the wit nor the wisdom 
 nor the scholarship, but the exhibition of sheer 
 native mind. 
 
 4 
 
 And herein, I think, to those who really knew 
 him, will be found the all-sufficient explanation of 
 that nameless excellence which all agree to dis- 
 cover in his writings, and which constitutes the 
 key-stone of his reputation. About his most 
 trifling, as about his most serious work, there is 
 an inimitable and indescribable something, which 
 is neither gracefulness only, nor is it merely finish
 
 6 MEMOIR, 
 
 or polish or refinement, while at the same time it is 
 each and all of these, and still defies analysis as 
 securely as the scent and hue of a flower. 
 
 But whatever theory be accepted as true respect- 
 ing the intellectual side of Calverley's character, 
 this view of him alone will not sufficiently account 
 for his personal ascendancy, nor for the unique 
 place which he occupied in the estimation and in 
 the affections of his friends. For he was fully as 
 much and as deservedly loved as he was admired ; 
 and if he owed the one distinction to his natural 
 gifts of reason unalloyed, he was indebted for the 
 other, in no less degree, to that singleness and sin- 
 cerity which were his most conspicuous characteris- 
 tics upon the ethical side. 
 
 That he was absolutely free from all taint of 
 littleness or doublemindedness, was manifest, it 
 may be assumed, to the most careless observer ; 
 that he was an ardent lover of and seeker after truth 
 for its own sake, that the windows of his soul were 
 open to all the airs of heaven, and his heart waxen 
 to the impress of whatsoever things are true, lovely, 
 and of good report, was discernible by whosoever
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 7 
 
 had eyes to see behind the very ill-fitting mask of 
 seeming recklessness and indifference, with which 
 it sometimes pleased him to disguise himself for 
 the mystiBcation of the overwise ; but there was 
 yet more in him than this, and to the few who 
 penetrated into the inmost recesses of his nature, 
 there was revealed a depth of tenderness, humility, 
 and trust, the existence of which, even those who 
 had a right to think they knew him well, might be 
 pardoned if they never had suspected. 
 
 And it is doubtless here, in these central well- 
 springs of his being, that the true secret of his 
 influence is to be sought. Under whatever crust 
 of indifference or reserve, behind whatever veil of 
 inconsistencies, wilful or unintended the beautiful 
 
 * 
 
 real nature of the man shone or glimmered irre- 
 pressibly, winning all hearts by the power of 
 sympathy and truth. 
 
 Endued, however, as he was, with infinite capa- 
 cities of faith, in the matter of beliefs he was an 
 incarnation of the principle of private judgment; 
 and to mere dogmatic teaching, always and for 
 ever impervious. " Unsanctified intellect," was, I
 
 8 MEMOIR. 
 
 believe, the term applied to him by a certain school 
 at the University ; unsophisticated intellect, would, 
 I think, more fitly have expressed the fact, if it 
 wanted to be expressed by an epithet. 
 
 An extraordinary carefulness and consideration 
 for others was always a conspicuous characteristic 
 in Calverley j and he endeared himself, particularly 
 amongst his poorer friends and neighbours, by a 
 hundred acts of unaffected kindness. In the Somer- 
 setshire village in which, previous to his marriage, 
 his home life was chiefly spent, many stories are 
 current, illustrating his active and sympathetic 
 good-nature ; and when the news of his untimely 
 death passed like an electric shock through the 
 circle of his acquaintance, nowhere was there 
 awakened a feeling of sorrow more deep and true, 
 than amongst the cottages of his old home. 
 
 Let it not be for a moment supposed that by 
 these imperfect touches I am picturing to myself, 
 or attempting to convey to the reader, the outlines 
 of a faultless character. Calverley had important 
 shortcomings, of which no one was more sensible 
 than himself; and amongst these was an infirmity
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 9 
 
 of will. It is true that he was never subjected to 
 the bracing stimulus of poverty, and that he was 
 without those promptings of personal ambition 
 which might have supplied its place; still some 
 natural deficiency must be recognized here, and it 
 must be confessed that, had he been endowed with 
 a strength of purpose at all commensurate with his 
 intellectual gifts, he would certainly have achieved 
 work more truly worthy of his genius. 
 
 In his undergraduate days, though capable at 
 times of the intensest application, he was somewhat 
 prone to self-indulgence, and was a grievous sinner 
 in the matter of lying late in bed. During the 
 months when he was (or ought to have been) reading 
 for his degree, it was the daily task of one or two 
 faithful friends to effect* his dislodgment from his 
 couch, before the precious morning hours should be 
 wholly lost. Upon these occasions, his chamber 
 became the scene of a conflict, which reduced it to 
 a condition resembling that of a ship's cabin at sea 
 in a hurricane. He, with his sturdy frame and 
 resolute countenance, clinging, like " Barbary's 
 nimble son "
 
 10 MEMOIR. 
 
 " By the teeth, or tail, or eyelid," 
 
 to each successive covering, as one by one they 
 were ruthlessly torn from him, amid a storm of 
 good-humoured objurgation, charged with exple- 
 tives of every shape and size, ancient and modern, 
 of which he had a perfect arsenal on hand so the 
 battle raged until, having conscientiously removed 
 every portable article of bed-clothing, his assailants 
 retired victorious, only to return in half an hour 
 and find him peacefully sleeping between the 
 mattresses. 
 
 " C. S. C." came of a good old English stock. He 
 was born at Martley, in Worcestershire, on the 
 22nd December, 1831 ; his father, then known as 
 the Rev. Henry Blayds, removing afterwards to the 
 Vicarage of South Stoke, near Bath. The family, 
 who had borne the name of Blayds from the begin- 
 ning of the century, in 1852 resumed their proper 
 name of Calverley, under which they had flourished 
 from before the Norman conquest in their native 
 county of York having indeed a collateral con- 
 nection with that Walter Calverley, the story of 
 whose ferocious deeds, and still more ferocious
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. , 11 
 
 punishment, is preserved in the pages of "A York- 
 shire Tragedy," one of the many spurious plays 
 attributed in an uncritical age to Shakespeare, and 
 included in some of the earliest editions of his 
 works. It was as Blayds that Charles Stuart won 
 his reputation at Harrow and Oxford ; at Cambridge 
 he was known as Calverley. 
 
 Upon his mother's side, Calverley belonged to a 
 branch of the ancient and honourable family of 
 Meade ; Thomas Meade, Esq., of Chatley, in Somer- 
 setshire, having been his maternal grandfather; 
 and to those who are interested in such speculations, 
 a further examination of his ancestry, on both sides, 
 would probably yield ample and satisfactory proofs 
 of hereditary capacity. 
 
 * 
 
 Having passed through the hands of more than 
 one private tutor, and after a brief sojourn (of no 
 more than three months' duration) at Marlborough 
 School, Calverley entered Harrow in the autumn of 
 1846, and from that time forward never ceased to 
 be an object of interest and attention to a widening 
 circle of friends and acquaintances. He is described 
 as a curly-haired, bright-eyed boy, with a sunny
 
 12 MEMOIR. 
 
 smile and a frank, open countenance ; a general 
 favourite for his manliness and inexhaustible good- 
 nature, though already, it is said, distinguished for 
 a certain self-sufficing independence of character, 
 which remained with him through life, keeping him 
 always somewhat apart from his fellows, and in- 
 ducing him, even at this early age, to stand aloof 
 from the little cliques and coteries into which the 
 world of school divides itself as readily and naturally 
 as the world at large. He exhibited in an unique 
 degree, just that mixture of insouciance, reckless 
 daring, and brilliancy, which never fails to win the 
 unbounded applause and admiration of every genuine 
 schoolboy. 
 
 But it is only by an eye-witness that the story of 
 Calverley's school-days could be adequately told ; 
 and I am fortunate in being able to lay before the 
 reader the following sketch by Dean Butler, the 
 late head-master of Harrow, his early companion 
 and life-long friend : 
 
 " Charles Stuart Blayds was admitted at Harrow 
 by Dr. Vaughan on September 9th, 1846, being 
 then within four months of completing his fifteenth
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 13 
 
 year. He was placed in the Upper Shell, the 
 highest Form in which a new boy could then be 
 placed. He passed rapidly through the lower 
 Forms, which were not then very numerous, and 
 entered the Sixth Form in January, 1848. Here 
 he remained till the end of July, 1850. 
 
 " It is difficult to give even a tolerably clear 
 picture of a boyhood which was unlike any other 
 that I saw as a boy, or have had occasion to observe 
 since. He was unlike others in the absence of 
 certain interests as well as in the brilliant gifts 
 which were peculiarly his own. The Sixth Form 
 of his time was not wanting in ability and vigour. 
 Many of us were keenly interested in the politics 
 and literature of the day. The year 1848, especially, 
 was no ordinary year. I can remember the Head 
 of our House one morning in February brandishing 
 the ' Times ' over the bannisters, and announcing 
 that Louis Philippe had fled from Paris in disguise. 
 Then followed in dizzy succession revolutions, ab- 
 dications, our own 10th of April, the Italian war, 
 and the Hungarian revolt. 
 
 " Finally, at the end of the year, during the
 
 14 MEMOIR. 
 
 Christmas holidays, the two first volumes of 
 Macaulay's History were published, and received 
 all over the country, even by young people, with a 
 greediness of appetite still dear to the memory of 
 men of fifty. Wordsworth was still living. Tennyson 
 was on the point of mounting the Laureate's Throne. 
 Ruskin was just startling the world with the first 
 and second volumes of ' Modern Painters/ Dickens 
 and Thackeray were in their prime. Further, the 
 influence of Arnold's Life, lately published, was 
 perhaps then at its height. This book and Keble's 
 ' Christian Year,' so widely different and yet so 
 accordant in much of their spirit, came home to 
 the hearts of the more thoughtful boys. 
 
 " Once more, our Debating Society was a flou- 
 rishing institution, though I own to remembering 
 one debate on the ominous question whether it was 
 worth while to continue it any longer ! 
 
 " Now it must be confessed that in all the varied 
 life, intellectual and religious, indicated by these 
 books and events, Blayds had but little share. He 
 had not a particle of cant or affectation in him, and 
 he never pretended to be interested in either deep
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 15 
 
 intellectual problems or high moral ideals, which 
 probably rather bored him. 
 
 " Though, as the sequel has proved, he possessed 
 within himself a unique literary faculty which was 
 destined in its way to approach perfection, he never, 
 so far as I am aware, allowed it to peep out at 
 school. His reading seemed hardly to extend 
 beyond one or two favourites. A friend who saw 
 much of him in those days confirms my own im- 
 pression as to this. l As for his literary tastes/ he 
 writes, ' it always amazed me how much he seemed 
 to know without reading, so to speak, at all. I 
 should imagine that Virgil and Pickwick were, as 
 you rather suggest, his favourite studies/ 
 
 " But though he took but little interest in the 
 general intellectual life of the Sixth Form, he had 
 one gift all his own, his power of brilliant Verse 
 composition. He was a good Latin versifier when 
 he first joined the School; and by the time he 
 reached the Sixth Form, his work had attained a 
 rare finish. In his very first term in the Form 
 one of his exercises was thought worthy to be 
 written out in 'the Book/ a distinction greatly
 
 16 MEMOIR. 
 
 coveted, and hardly ever won so soon. Another of 
 his earliest Sixth Form compositions seems worthy 
 of special notice, a lively version, in the style of 
 Horace's ' Satires/ of the old fable of 'The Dog 
 and the "Wolf/ I do not think he ever wrote 
 again in this metre, but his version is full of verve 
 and lightness. 1 It was, however, in September of 
 that year, when he was still three months under 
 seventeen, that he first showed what he could do in 
 Latin Verse. His translation of part of Coleridge's 
 ' Hymn to Mont Blanc ' is printed at the end of 
 this Memoir. It may be safely said, that for 
 vigour, richness of rhythm, and sympathy with the 
 original, it will well bear comparison with any 
 verses written by a boy of his age. 
 
 " It is remarkable, therefore, that during his three 
 years in the Sixth Form he should only once, and 
 that in his last year, have won the regular prizes 
 for Hexameters and Alcaics. 3 In the two previous 
 
 1 The piece will be found below, see p. 119. 
 
 a The simplest explanation of this is likewise the most 
 probable, namely, idleness. Both at school and college, 
 Calverley needed to be spurred to exert himself. It is said 
 that one of the prizes which he did get, was only secured by
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 17 
 
 years both these prizes were won by F. Yaughan 
 Hawkins, who was a year and a half younger than 
 Blayds, and for two years beyond all comparison 
 the finest scholar among his comtemporary Harro- 
 vians, though he left the School a few days after 
 his sixteenth birthday. 
 
 "In the ' Prolusiones ' of 1850, his prize Hexa- 
 meters on ' Mare Mediterraneum ' end with a para- 
 phrase of Byron's 
 
 " ' Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! ' 
 
 which is full of feeling, and even eloquence. 
 
 "The extreme ease and rapidity with which he hit 
 off his verses may be illustrated by a story sent me 
 by his devoted friend, the Rev. H. G. Southwell. I 
 give it in Mr. SouthwelFs own words : 
 
 " ' You are a better judge of the following verses 
 than I am. I once asked Blayds to convert 
 
 ' " Raging beast and raging flood 
 Alike have spared their prey." 
 
 into Latin Elegiacs. We were walking towards 
 
 the determined intervention of friends, who locked him into 
 his room until the needful exercise was written. ED. 
 
 I. C
 
 18 MEMOIR. 
 
 the School. He asked me some ridiculous ques- 
 tion, which I forget now ; but just as I was leaving 
 him, he said, " I think this will do : 
 
 ' " Sospes uterque manet, talem qnia laedere prsedam 
 Nil furor aequoreus nil valet ira ferae." 
 
 You will know whether they are sufficiently 
 Ovidian to merit a notice. They were produced 
 in about three minutes/ 
 
 " One story not of his composition, but of his 
 construing in school may be worth recording 
 here. The lesson was from the beginning of the 
 Eighth u^Eneid. After a few minutes Blayds was 
 ' called up/ and speedily warmed to his work. 
 We soon awoke to the fact that he was doing 
 it beautifully, using simple but choice English 
 quite beyond our attainment. As he went on, there 
 was a hush of admiring sympathy, which seemed 
 to extend to the Head Master also. He was not 
 pulled up till he had finished the whole of the 
 lesson, probably some sixty or seventy lines. 
 
 " His appearance in those days was one of fresh- 
 ness and solidity. He always went by the name 
 of 'Bull/ possibly from his having a short neck
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 19 
 
 and a flat forehead. There was a thickset look 
 about him, and an easy, casual manner, which was 
 very attractive. 
 
 " One characteristic effusion may be mentioned, 
 which has already found its way into print. We 
 had just begun Russell's ' Modern Europe/ and 
 the lesson for the day was the first Letter. During 
 the few minutes of waiting in the lobby before 
 school we had been laughing over some of the 
 peculiarities of the style, but never dreamed that 
 they were to be reproduced in the presence of the 
 Master. 
 
 " The lesson began, and after a time Blayds 
 was ( called up/ The question was casually put, 
 ' How did the Gothic leaders conduct themselves 
 in Italy ? ' The answer was at once given with 
 pitiless accuracy, with due rhyming on * bear ' 
 and 'parterre/ and with perfect appreciation of 
 the central and the concluding cadences : ' They 
 hunted the bear on the voluptuous parterre, the 
 trim garden, and expensive pleasure-ground, where 
 effeminacy was wont to saunter, or indolence to loll/ 
 
 " Though I was at the time, as indeed for nearly
 
 20 MEMOIR. 
 
 three years, sitting next to the performer, and 
 though I have the liveliest recollection of his tone 
 and manner, strangely enough I cannot in the least 
 recall how the answer was received by the ques- 
 tioner. And yet much of the fun of the scene lies 
 in the fact that the Master and the Pupil were, 
 each in his own manner, two of the wittiest and 
 most humorous men of their time, unsurpassed 
 by any of their contemporaries in the keenest sense 
 both of the beauty and the absurdity of words. 
 
 " One friend who was sitting close to us, and who 
 had taken part in the previous chat in the lobby, 
 has a better memory than mine. His account is, 
 no doubt, correct. ' I do recollect Vaughan's re- 
 ception of " They hunted the bear." He suppressed, 
 but did not wholly conceal, his strong disposition 
 to burst out laughing, by resting his elbow on his 
 desk, and passing his right hand over his mouth. 
 Blayds had added to the effect of his recollection 
 of the passage by affecting to be a little uncertain 
 and hesitating about some of the words, some- 
 times looking down, and then looking straight at 
 Vauerhan/
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 21 
 
 " One of Blayds' most remarkable gifts was his 
 verbal memory. Probably it largely accounted for 
 his exquisite ear, and his power to reproduce, with 
 a grace perhaps unequalled, the metres I do not 
 say of Virgil and Horace, here he has been more 
 than rivalled but of Tennyson, Browning, and 
 most of the poets and versifiers of our day. 
 
 " One story illustrative of his memory, and per- 
 haps of his boyish character, is given me on the 
 authority of Mr. Southwell : 
 
 "'A master, whom we will call X, 1 went into 
 his room one night after the orthodox hour for 
 putting lights out, and found Blayds' candle burn- 
 ing. X, in his unemotional way, ordered Blayds 
 to learn the First Book of the Iliad, and say it in 
 
 4 
 
 a week's time. Immediately after X's exit from 
 the room Blayds relit his candle, and either learnt, 
 or, I must think, refreshed his memory by reading 
 what he already knew, the aforesaid First Book. 
 At any rate, after lessons were over at first school 
 on the following morning, Blayds presented him- 
 
 1 " X " was the late Mr. Harris, for whom Calverley enter- 
 tained the most affectionate regard. ED.
 
 22 MEMOIR. 
 
 self to X, and expressed his wish to say his task. 
 It is recorded that a slight trace of wonder passed 
 over X's countenance ; but he took the book, and 
 bade Blayds go on. Tried in divers places through- 
 out the book, he was found to have committed it 
 all to memory, and his fault was expiated.' 
 
 " If Mr. X ever learned the secret of this rapid 
 tour de force, he had quite enough shrewdness and 
 humour to enjoy it. 
 
 " Another of Blayds' gifts was that of sketching 
 in pen-and-ink. His caricatures were inimitable. 
 One, which long remained in my school copy of 
 the ' De Oratore,' and is, I hope, surviving some- 
 where under mountains of Harrow papers, repre- 
 sented Hannibal having just reached the top of the 
 Alps. The great general was perched on one 
 sharp peak of the Mont Cenis, ' chucking' a 
 javelin into the air, and skipping like a boy let 
 out of school ; while on a neighbouring peak might 
 be seen the upper moiety of a panting, flustered 
 elephant, with trunk erect, retaining just enough 
 presence of mind to ejaculate ' Hooroar ! ' 
 
 " No account of Blayds' Harrow days would be
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 23 
 
 even tolerably complete which left out of sight 
 his athletic reputation. He was not, indeed, a 
 distinguished player at cricket, or football, or 
 racquets, though he took an active part in all 
 these games, but his daring leaps were the wonder 
 of the School. It may be doubted whether, even 
 at the time, some of them did not, in Thucydidean 
 phrase, ' win their way to the fabulous.' 
 
 " One, I remember, was connected with a certain 
 high white gate which we had to go through in our 
 jumping parties to the Kenton brook. Blayds was 
 said to have 'gone at' this gate in cold blood, 
 and to have carried away some of the spikes from 
 the top ! 
 
 " Another of his jumps, which caused great 
 amusement at the time, cannot be appreciated with- 
 out a lively recollection of the locality. The ' Grand 
 Plateau ' of the School Yard stands some eight 
 feet above the historic ' milling-ground/ being 
 separated from it by a wall of about four feet 
 high. One day, while waiting for the 4 o'clock 
 Bill, Blayds casually went at the wall with his 
 hands in his pockets, just touched the top with his
 
 24 MEMOIR. 
 
 foot, and alighted on his head, twelve feet below. 
 All anxiety for his fate was soon set at rest by his 
 reappearing in the yard, and again going at the 
 wall, only this time with a little less insouciance. 
 The result was an easy victory. 
 
 " But his chef-d'oeuvre in audacious jumping, and 
 that by which his name will be chiefly remembered, 
 is his clearing the stone steps of the Old School 
 building a space of fully twenty-one feet, if 
 measured obliquely from top to bottom, the lowest 
 step, however, being about nine feet below the 
 highest. There was then one step less than at 
 present, and the paving of the yard was not, as 
 now, asphalte, but gravel. In the presence of the 
 School Gustos and a group of admiring comrades, 
 Blayds took a run from the door of the ' Governors' 
 Room/ and reached the bottom in safety, only just 
 touching the last step with one of his heels. 
 
 " This part of our subject may be not inap- 
 propriately illustrated by two stories of Oxford 
 and Cambridge days. They come to me from my 
 old Harrow friend, Alfred Blomfield, now Bishop 
 of Colchester, and from H. G. Southwell.
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 25 
 
 " ' In Christ Church meadows/ writes the Bishop, 
 1 there was a broad ditch, now, I think, covered, or 
 concealed by a wall : and on the bank of this ditch 
 grew a willow whose branches formed a Y or fork 
 some three feet above the ground, just wide enough 
 for a man's body to pass through. Blayds would 
 leap over the ditch and through the fork : a feat 
 requiring both strength and precision, and involving 
 serious damage in case of failure. I will not be 
 absolutely certain that I myself saw him do this, 
 though my recollection is that I did; but I am 
 quite certain that it was done, and I remember the 
 spot well/ 
 
 " Mr. Southwell's story is even more surprising. 
 
 " ' At Cambridge/ he says, f I remember an 
 instance of his activity *and indifference to danger. 
 He was walking with me in Green Street ; a horse 
 in a cart was drawn up on to the pavement, the 
 horse being on the pavement, the cart in the street. 
 With his cap and gown on, and his hands in his 
 pockets, and with a very short run he cleared the, 
 I should say, astonished steed, and alighted smiling 
 on the other side/
 
 26 MEMOIR. 
 
 " No one can feel more than I the superficial and 
 therefore unsatisfactory nature of the above sketch. 
 It contains no grave touches. It may be the fault 
 of the writer that he cannot with truth, or at least 
 with veracity, insert any. I had a warm affection 
 for my dear friend all through our Harrow days, 
 and we were constantly together; but somehow 
 grave topics did not seem to come natural to him, 
 and we instinctively avoided them. He was always 
 good-humoured, genial, full of fun, with something 
 of the ' Bohemian ' in him, only tempered intel- 
 lectually by an exquisite and severe appreciation of 
 classical form and rhythm, and socially by great 
 kindness of disposition and a very affectionate heart. 
 With the graver interests of School life he did not 
 appear to sympathize : his own life was blameless, 
 he got into no troubles, but he was never regarded 
 as one of the governing forces of the School. 
 
 " He was a sweet-tempered and most amusing 
 companion, with a prompt, terse, and finished wit 
 seldom found in boys. To think of him as he was 
 in those happy school days is to think of what is 
 keen and bright and sunny. It was reserved for
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 27 
 
 the noontide of his life to reveal fully the treasures 
 of delightful humour and satire that lay within him. 
 I speak only of what came to view in its charming 
 but unpretentious dawn." 
 
 The following reminiscences by another of his 
 earliest friends 1 may fitly close the records of his 
 School life. 
 
 " Just after he left Harrow he had a great escape, 
 from his habit of chancing what he jumped at. He 
 was staying at the King's Head, and went out before 
 breakfast on to the lawn at the top of the garden. 
 At the bottom was a hedge of some height, high 
 enough to conceal what there might be beyond, 
 except that it was clear there was a drop. This 
 was quite enough for him; he rushed at the jump, 
 
 * 
 
 cleared the hedge, and found himself dropping into 
 a well on the other side. With a strong effort he 
 managed to throw himself forward, and get a clutch 
 at the top of the well with his hands, and with 
 great difficulty draw himself out. 
 
 " The same absence of fear that he showed in this 
 way, he also showed in all his transactions with the 
 1 S. Austen Leigh.
 
 28 MEMOIR. 
 
 masters. When a monitor, he was playing at 
 stump-and-ball in his tutor's yard, and hit a ball to 
 leg, over the road, through the drawing-room win- 
 dow of a master who lived .there. His companions 
 were rather frightened at what had happened ; but, 
 without a moment's hesitation, just as he was (not 
 by any means a presentable object), he bounded on 
 to the wall, and down the drop, into the road, and 
 rang the front-door bell of the master's house. 
 The said master had been startled by the appear- 
 ance of the ball through his window, and answered 
 the door himself. Blayds quietly asked for his ball. 
 The master began to complain of his window being 
 broken, and also at the state of Blayds' dress and 
 appearance. Blayds only remarked that he was 
 sorry he had broken his window, but that he had 
 happened to make an uncommonly good leg hit, and 
 he wished to have his ball back ; and he got it. 
 
 " I remember one instance of his great powers of 
 versification. He came into my room one Tuesday 
 afternoon to ask me to go out jumping with him. 
 I told him I could not go because I had a set of 
 Greek Iambics that must be done that day. He
 
 SCHOOL AXD COLLEGE. 29 
 
 said, 'Nonsense, that won't take you long/ My 
 answer was that it certainly would, for at present I 
 had not arrived at understanding the English 
 some lines of Shakespeare. He took up a pen and 
 paper, sat himself down, and bade me read out the 
 English. I did so, and as I read, slowly, it is true, 
 but with hardly any stop, he wrote them down in 
 Greek Iambics, good enough at all events quite to 
 pass muster. 
 
 "He was always a most delightful companion, 
 never out of temper, and I need hardly say enter- 
 taining in the extreme, and though somewhat apt to 
 disregard school laws himself, I never remember his 
 having in any way attempted to make me do the 
 same. The last time I saw him was a good many 
 years ago at the Reading Station. We had not 
 met for years, and I only hope he was half as glad 
 to see me as I was to see him. At all events he 
 did not forget to make himself pleasant. My train 
 was due in fifteen minutes; he proposed a walk, 
 and so entertaining was he, that I gladly missed my 
 train, though at the cost of some inconvenience." 
 
 Calverley's career at Oxford, though a failure
 
 30 MEMOIR. 
 
 for academic purposes, was distinguished by a series 
 of tours de force, intellectual and physical, suffi- 
 cient to have furnished forth a dozen ordinary 
 reputations. He won the Balliol scholarship by 
 a marvellous copy of Latin verses, written off with 
 such rapidity as to be almost an improvisation. 
 His exploits in the way of daring and impossible 
 jumps were long talked of and pointed out, and 
 their memory may perhaps still linger amongst the 
 traditions of the place. Having, in common with 
 the other students, to prepare a Latin theme, to be 
 submitted on a given day at a viva voce lecture, 
 Calverley appeared in the lecture-room provided 
 like the rest with a neat manuscript book, the 
 pages of which were entirely blank. He had 
 trusted to luck, and hoped that he might escape 
 being " put on." Luck failed him, and in due 
 course the examiner called upon "Mr. Blayds." 
 Whereupon he stood up and, to the amazement of 
 those who knew the real state of the case, pro- 
 ceeded without the least hesitation, and in calm, 
 fluent tones, to read from his book the exercise 
 which he had not written, and of which not a word 
 had up to that moment been composed.
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 31 
 
 Among the academic functions established at 
 Balliol, and possibly also at other Oxford colleges, 
 was a ceremony known as tf Collections," for which 
 Cambridge experience furnishes no equivalent. It 
 appears to have consisted in a kind of intellectual 
 and moral stock-taking, at which the assembled 
 students were put through an examination upon a 
 variety of subjects, sacred and profane, receiving 
 praise or reprobation in accordance with their 
 deserts. The following episode occurred during 
 one of Calverley's appearances at "Collections," 
 the Master (Dr. Jenkyns) officiating. Question: 
 " And with what feelings, Mr. Blayds, ought we 
 to regard the decalogue ? " History relates that 
 Calverley, who had no very clear idea of what was 
 meant by the decalogue his studies not having 
 lain much in that direction but who had a due 
 sense of the importance both of the occasion and of 
 the question, made the following reply : " Master, 
 with feelings of devotion, mingled with awe ! " 
 " Quite right, young man, a very proper answer," 
 exclaimed the master. 
 
 It must indeed have been felt that a youth im- 
 bued with these just and admirable sentiments
 
 32 MEMOIR. 
 
 would guide his words with discretion, and might 
 even be trusted never to " speak disrespectfully of 
 the Equator/' 
 
 The good opinion which he thus obtained by 
 subtlety did not, however, avail him long, and 
 during his second year of residence his connection 
 with Balliol and with Oxford was brought to an 
 abrupt termination. His biographer, while chro- 
 nicling this fact, must at the same time not fail to 
 insist that the offences against discipline for which 
 he justly suffered, were due to an exuberance of 
 animal spirits rather than to any graver form of 
 delinquency. That at this period of his career he 
 vexed the souls of dons, and maintained a per- 
 petual warfare with constituted . authority, is to be 
 admitted and regretted. Into most of his esca- 
 pades, however, there entered an element of humour, 
 which, while it does not redeem them from censure, 
 invests them with an interest in relation to his 
 special cast of mind. Calverley's coolness, wari- 
 ness, and consummate dexterity of speech, rendered 
 him at all times a dangerous opponent in an en- 
 counter of wits; he had, moreover, when provoked,
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 33 
 
 a knack of employing words, in themselves most 
 artless and innocent, in such a way as to affect the 
 other side with an uncomfortable sensation of being 
 quizzed. 
 
 Of the numerous stories current respecting his 
 Oxford days, some of which went the round of the 
 newspapers at the time of his death, it will be 
 sufficient to notice one or two, the authenticity of 
 which can be vouched for. 
 
 The following incident is related rather on 
 account of the punning verses to which it gave rise, 
 than for its own intrinsic interest. The election 
 to scholarships at Balliol took place upon St. 
 Catharine's Day (November 25), and on the even- 
 ing of the same day the newly-elected scholars 
 
 4 
 
 received formal admission, in the college chapel, 
 at the hands of the Master and Fellows. When 
 Calverley's turn came to be presented to the 
 Master for the purpose of taking the customary 
 oath upon admission to the privileges of a scholar; 
 the fact that he had quite recently been indulging 
 in a pipe forced itself upon the attention of Dr. 
 Jenkyns, who had the strongest dislike to tobacco, 
 i. D
 
 34 MEMOIR. 
 
 On withdrawing from the chapel, the Master turned 
 to the Fellows who accompanied him, and said, 
 "Why, the young man is redolent of the weed, 
 even now ! " It was no doubt this remark of the 
 famous old Master of Balliol, which afterwards 
 suggested to their unknown author the following 
 lines, which, like the " Sic vos non vobis " of Virgil, 
 received their first publication in the form of a 
 mural inscription : 
 
 " freshman, running fast to seed, 
 O scholar, redolent of weed, 
 This motto in thy meerschaum put, 
 The sharpest Blades will soonest cut." 
 
 To which Calverley at once replied : 
 
 " Your wit is tolerable, but 
 The case you understand ill ; 
 The Dons would like their Blayds to cut, 
 But cannot find a handle." 
 
 Dr. Jenkyns was the most conspicuous figure in 
 the University of his day, and there was something 
 in his somewhat pompous (though in truth most 
 kindly) nature, which invariably struck sparks 
 when brought into collision with this audacious 
 and keen-witted undergraduate.
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 35 
 
 The keeping of dogs in college was, it is need- 
 less to say, strictly prohibited at Balliol, and was 
 especially reprobated by the Master ; it is almost 
 equally needless to add that the prohibition was 
 systematically evaded ; and one of the most incor- 
 rigible offenders in this respect was Calverley. 
 Meeting him one day on the way to his rooms, 
 with a tawny nondescript treasure trotting at his 
 heels, the Master exclaimed, " What ! another 
 dog, Mr. Blayds ! " " Master," was the wily re- 
 sponse, " they do tell me that some people think 
 it is a squirrel." This reply, while it committed 
 the speaker to nothing, was really calculated to 
 mystify the Master not, it may be guessed, 
 himself a very close observer of specific dis- 
 tinctions for the creature in question, though 
 undoubtedly a dog, did to an inattentive eye 
 bear no slight external resemblance to the other- 
 named animal. 
 
 He advanced at Oxford the reputation he had 
 brought with him from Harrow, of being one of 
 the best writers of Latin verse of his time j the 
 Hexameters, with which he obtained the Chan-
 
 36 MEMOIR. 
 
 cellor's prize in 185 1/ still remain one of the most 
 beautiful of his many beautiful compositions. 
 
 It is customary for these prize poems to be 
 printed and published, with the author's name and 
 that of his college attached. When Calverley's 
 manuscript was sent to the press, it bore, in anti- 
 cipation of his impending doom, the following 
 signature : 
 
 CAROLUS STUART BLAYDS, 
 6 COLL BALLIOL. 
 
 prope ejectus. 
 
 It was actually so printed, and it was only 
 through the opportune interference of one of the 
 college tutors that it was not so given to the world. 
 When called upon for an explanation, Calverley is 
 said to have declared that " those tiresome printers 
 would do anything ." 
 
 Calverley quitted Oxford in the beginning of 
 1852, and in the following October was admitted as 
 a freshman at Christ's College, Cambridge. It was 
 hero that the present writer first became acquainted 
 with him. He was then at the zenith of his powers, 
 
 1 Subject, Parthenonis miner.
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 37 
 
 mental and bodily. Short of stature, with a power- 
 ful head of the Greek type, covered thickly with 
 crisp, curling masses of dark brown hair, and 
 closely set upon a frame whose supple joints and 
 well-built proportions betokened both speed and 
 endurance he presented a picture of health, 
 strength, and activity. In disposition he was un- 
 selfish, and generous to a fault ; without a trace of 
 vanity or self-esteem ; somewhat reserved amongst 
 strangers, though bearing himself at all times with 
 a charming simplicity and frankness of demeanour ; 
 slow to form friendships, but most loyal and con- 
 stant to them when formed ; a faithful, affectionate, 
 whole-hearted, thoroughly lovable human soul ; 
 with an intellect as keen, swift, and subtle as any 
 that ever tenanted a human body. 
 
 It is not at all easy, indeed, it is hardly possible, 
 to convey by description an adequate idea of the 
 singular charm of his conversation. It must always 
 be understood that though he said many good 
 things, he was by no means an inventor and utterer 
 of Ions mots. Instead of expending itself in a 
 succession of flashes, his wit was, as it were, a
 
 38 MEMOIR. 
 
 luminous glow, pervading and informing his entire 
 speech, investing the thing spoken of with a novel 
 and peculiar interest, and not seldom placing it in 
 a vivid light, at once wholly unexpected and wholly 
 appropriate. There was also in him a great quick- 
 ness both of sympathy and of apprehension, enabling 
 him to seize upon your point of view with rapidity 
 and precision ; and when to this is added a perfect 
 honesty of intellect, free from any warpings of 
 prejudice, egotism, or other pregnant source of 
 self-mystification, the result is a set of conditions 
 for rational intercourse of a rare and very special 
 kind, the pervading feature of which is a whole- 
 some atmosphere of security, an almost physical 
 sense of comfort and bien-etre like the feeling of 
 warmth and good cheer which those who have 
 experienced it will acknowledge to be as attractive 
 as it is uncommon. 
 
 Cambridge discipline is, or is said to be, of a 
 more liberal and less coercive character than that 
 which obtains at the sister University, and Cal- 
 verley, who moreover had gathered wisdom from 
 experience, fell readily enough into the ways of
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 39 
 
 conformity and obedience to rules. Though not, 
 perhaps, exactly a favourite with the older and 
 severer type of Don, who never quite knew how to 
 take him, he was cordially appreciated by the 
 authorities of his own college, themselves mostly 
 men of a younger generation than the academic 
 petrifactions of an earlier school. At no time, 
 indeed, during the whole of his Cambridge course, 
 did Calverley evince the slightest inclination to 
 embroil himself with the ruling powers ; and it is 
 altogether a mistake to suppose that, careless as he 
 may have been of conventionalities, he had in his 
 nature anything of the real Bohemian. Nor was 
 he, either then or at any other period, a mere un- 
 profitable idler ; and if not what is usually termed 
 
 4 
 
 a reading man that, namely, and nothing else 
 he was emphatically a man of reading ; a genuine 
 lover of literature, and with a considerable know- 
 ledge of books. 
 
 Composition in Latin and Greek was his favourite 
 intellectual exercise, or, it might rather be said, 
 recreation; the famous "Carmen Sseculare," the 
 translation of Milton's " Lycidas " into Latin hexa-
 
 40 MEMOIR. 
 
 meters, a beautiful version of "John Anderson" 
 in Greek Anacreontics, and several other of his 
 most successful efforts, dating from this period. 
 At this time, too, he was developing that incom- 
 parable vein of humour, that inimitable compound 
 of serious irony and pure fun, blended with subtle 
 and delicate banter, by which afterwards, in "Verses 
 and Translations," and still more decisively in 
 " Fly-leaves/' he " took the town by storm/' and 
 affected the reading world with the enjoyment of a 
 new sensation. The Byronian stanzas in which he 
 celebrates the praises and the works of Allsopp 
 and of Bass, were in manuscript before he had 
 taken his degree ; and it is curiously characteristic 
 of his many-sided genius to note that at the very 
 time when, with keen appreciative insight, he was 
 penetrating the secret of Milton's majestic verse, 
 and was reproducing those mournful, tender, or 
 triumphant strains, in diction not less stately, and 
 in numbers not less harmonious than the master's 
 own, he could also let his sportive fancy play in airy 
 raillery around the same pathetic theme, depicting, 
 in a few telling strokes of mirthful mockery
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 41 
 
 " How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned 
 The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay, 
 And how rock told to rock the dreadful story 
 That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory." 
 
 Amongst his humorous compositions of this date, 
 the " Pickwick Examination Paper " has obtained 
 a notoriety which entitles it to a passing mention. 
 
 Probably no one amongst the Cambridge men of 
 that day (excepting, perhaps, the late James Lem- 
 priere Hammond) equalled Calverley in close and 
 comprehensive familiarity with the writings of 
 Dickens. The notion (conceived at first as a pure 
 joke) of making a great living author the subject 
 of a competitive examination, would suggest itself 
 naturally enough to one who had all his life been 
 winning prizes for proficiency in the lore of ancient 
 bards and sages, some of whom, perchance, held a 
 far lower place in his affections than did the creator 
 of the immortal Weller. The ingenious syllabus 
 of questions which has attracted so much attention, 
 is not, however, interesting only as a measure of 
 Calverley's curiously minute acquaintance with the 
 masterpiece of Dickens ; it deserves also to be
 
 42 MEMOIR. 
 
 noticed on account of the winners of the two prizes 
 which were offered to the successful candidates. 
 The first prize in the competition, which was open 
 to all members of Christ's College, was taken by 
 Mr. Walter Besant, the second by Mr. (now Pro- 
 fessor) Skeat. 
 
 Calverley's appetite for humour, and his faculty 
 of extracting it even from the most unpromising 
 material, are oddly illustrated by the following 
 " Notes," taken after he became a fellow of his 
 college, and accidentally preserved amongst his 
 papers : 
 
 NOTES TAKEN AT COLLEGE MEETINGS. 
 
 At Meeting, February 28th, Hi 2. 
 
 Remarked by the Master. That no people give you so 
 much trouble, if you try to extract money from them, as 
 solicitors. 
 
 By the Jun. Dean. Except, perhaps, parsons. 
 
 By the Senior Dean. The latter possibly because they 
 have not got the money. 
 
 By Mr. A. That a ton weight is a great deal of books. 
 
 By Mr. B. That it is just one o'clock. 
 
 By Mr. C. That that is likely, and that in an hour it 
 will be just two. 
 
 This record of the proceedings of a learned
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 43 
 
 deliberative body is worthy of a place beside Mr. 
 Punch's "Essence of Parliament." 
 
 To the above specimen of Calverley's humour 
 may be added the following jeu d } esprit which 
 appeared in the columns of the " Pall Mall Gazette" 
 in 1865, when middle-class examinations were in 
 their infancy : l 
 
 " BEEEIES PKOM THE TKEE OP KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " ' By all means let classics be retained : as the 
 handmaids of more useful branches of study. Value- 
 less themselves, they may be made a vehicle to 
 convey what is invaluable/ Thoroughly satisfied 
 of the truth of this principle, an Oxford M.A. of 
 eminence he took (he .mentions) high botanical 
 honours, though ' comparatively weak' in Latin 
 and Greek determined to test it at a recent middle- 
 class examination. The result was a paper in Latin 
 prose translation, of which he admits, the candi- 
 dates ' could make nothing/ but which he still 
 
 1 For this quotation I am indebted to a notice of Calverley 
 which was published in the same journal a few days after his 
 death "Pall Mall Gazette," 29 February, 1884.
 
 44 MEMOIR. 
 
 ' cannot but consider a move in the right direction.' 
 We subjoin it, adding also the interpretation, as 
 sent which, we may add, the words seem to us to 
 bear, ( vix aut ne vix quidem ' in some places for 
 the benefit of the mere classic. 
 
 " Translate : 
 
 " ' Morum te nigram juraveris : morum vero al- 
 bam fecisti. Solvi, vixdum rubum cgesium, vaccinium 
 tuum myrtillum : teste virgine berberin circumvoli- 
 tante, et bacca sambuci patre tuo. Dederas et 
 cheirographum : sed atramentum oxycoccus palus- 
 tris. Equidem non pendo unius fragarii ribes taxi 
 baccae simile : permittam tamen omnibus chiococcum, 
 te rubum Idgeum prorsus exstitisse : vaccinium 
 autem, senior, die/ 
 
 " ' You may swear yourself black, Berry ; but you 
 have made a mull, Berry. I paid your bill, Berry, 
 as soon as due, Berry j as the young woman in the 
 bar, Berry, and your father, the elder Berry, know. 
 I dont care a straw, Berry, for a goose, Berry, like 
 you, Berry ; but I'll let folks know, Berry, that 
 you've made yourself a regular ass, Berry ; and 
 whort'll Berry senior say ? '
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 45 
 
 " The style of the Latin is more or less that of 
 Cicero's letters; though we think we would cer- 
 tainly have expressed some of the ideas towards 
 the end especially in different language. We are 
 not altogether satisfied of the rectitude of the 
 ' move/ Surely it is pushing the Oxford theory 
 a little too far. We commend the English version 
 (fragments of which seem, unaccountably, familiar 
 to us) as a useful memoria technica to the notice of 
 mothers and governesses." 
 
 No account of Calverley's undergraduate life at 
 Cambridge would be complete without some allu- 
 sion to his musical talents. He had a remarkable 
 ear, and possessed a voice of great purity and 
 
 * 
 
 sweetness. The musical gatherings which from 
 time to time took place in his rooms, are amongst 
 the pleasantest of the many pleasant memories 
 which cluster round those cheerful and hospitable 
 quarters. When in the mood, he would take his 
 seat at the piano and rattle off a series of extrava- 
 ganzas, made up for the nonce out of the popular 
 airs and operas of the day, interspersed not unfre-
 
 46 MEMOIR. 
 
 quently with songs of his own composing ; he also 
 possessed the rare accomplishment of being able to 
 whistle a perfect accompaniment to the instrument. 
 
 A general election which took place during 
 Calverley's residence, and was the occasion of a 
 memorable outbreak amongst the younger members 
 of the University, deserves mention, although he 
 himself took no active part in it, on account of a 
 stirring episode, of which his college became the 
 scene, and which has never, so far as the present 
 writer is aware, been chronicled in prose or verse. 
 It would require the pen of a Thackeray and the 
 pencil of a Leech plena leporis Hirudo to do 
 justice to it, and it happened on this wise. 
 
 The contest for the representation of the Uni- 
 versity was keenly watched and debated in under- 
 graduate circles, by reason chiefly of the extraor- 
 dinary popularity enjoyed by the Liberal candidate, 
 Mr. (now Mr. Justice) Denman. So great was the 
 excitement, and so noisy were the demonstrations 
 with which, in those days of open voting, the sup- 
 porters of either party were greeted from the 
 thronging galleries, that the Vice Chancellor (Dr.
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 47 
 
 Whewell) deemed it prudent to order the exclusion 
 of all undergraduates from the Senate House during 
 the hours of polling. This invasion of their ancient 
 privileges was indignantly and violently resented 
 by the youthful champions of Liberalism. A bon- 
 fire was made of the hustings in front of the 
 schools. The intrepid and despotic Vice Chan- 
 cellor was himself threatened, and had to be es- 
 corted to his residence in Trinity by a strong 
 bodyguard composed of Masters of Arts. On the 
 morning following these events a decree was issued, 
 directing that in every college the gates should be 
 closed at an early hour, all persons in statu pupillari 
 being required to keep themselves within. The 
 effect of this sweeping and somewhat ill-advised 
 
 * 
 
 measure was, that when the appointed hour arrived 
 almost the entire undergraduate population was 
 found to be in the streets. Forming themselves 
 into a compact body, four or five abreast, they 
 marched from college to college, demanding that 
 the gates should be thrown open. In not a few 
 instances the demand, through the undisguised 
 sympathy of the garrison with the cause of the
 
 48 MEMOIR. 
 
 besiegers, was at once complied with. Service 
 was proceeding within the college chapel when the 
 wave of rebellion reached the massive oaken gates 
 of Christ's, and thundered for admission. The 
 sudden appearance of the college porter, pale and 
 trembling, apprised the congregation, consisting of 
 the fellows and a few scholars, of what was taking 
 place. The Master stopped the service, and, put- 
 ting himself at the head of his forces, marched in 
 an imposing procession of some ten or twelve sur- 
 pliced figures to the scene of action. Arrived at 
 the inner side of the barred and bolted gate, the 
 Master, having obtained a brief silence, proceeded 
 to remonstrate with the insurgents, desiring, in tones 
 of authority, to be informed whether they knew 
 " who he was ! " This display of vigour elicited 
 a storm of uncomplimentary replies, for, to speak 
 truth, the late Dr. Cartmell, though in every way a 
 most admirable Master of his college, was not so 
 generally popular in the University as he no doubt 
 deserved to be. Meanwhile, an unexpected diver- 
 sion was being effected by the enemy. Flanking 
 one side of the college buildings was Christ's Lane,
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 49 
 
 a private road belonging to the Society, into which 
 is a side door opening from the college kitchens. 
 Once in the year this road is closed to the public 
 by means of a strong oaken bar, which at other 
 times is hinged back and padlocked to a post. 
 Whilst the main body were parleying at the gates, 
 a strong force, guided by members of the college, 
 hastened round to the lane, unshipped the bar, and 
 employed it as a battering-ram against the kitchen 
 door. News of this second attack was speedily 
 conveyed to the Master. Taken thus in the rear, 
 Dr. Cartmell wheeled gallantly round, passed 
 rapidly across the quadrangle, and, traversing the 
 kitchens between grinning rows of scouts and 
 cooks, arrived at the precise moment when, its 
 panels battered in, the door flew violently open, 
 the victorious mob rushed by, bearing back Master, 
 fellows, scholars, and cooks in one undistinguish- 
 able mass, swept irresistibly through the court, 
 and, overwhelming the bewildered porter, opened 
 the gates, and vanished from the citadel almost 
 before its discomfited defenders had time to realize 
 what had happened, 
 i. E
 
 50 MEMOIR. 
 
 This incident brought hostilities to a close. 
 Owing chiefly to the good sense and forbearance 
 of the several college authorities, the ebullition 
 everywhere subsided as quickly as it had arisen; 
 the door in Christ's Lane was rebuilt more strongly, 
 and the University resumed the even tenor of its 
 way. 
 
 Of these great events Calverley, as has already 
 been said, was a spectator only ; a sufficient proof, 
 if proof were needed, that the freaks of insubordi- 
 nation of the Oxford days indicated a purely 
 transitory and evanescent aspect of his character. 
 Meanwhile his list of University honours was not 
 unworthy of his reputation and abilities. He gained 
 the Craven Scholarship, which is the blue ribbon of 
 undergraduate distinctions, in his second year ; the 
 Camden medal for Latin hexameters fell to him 
 twice, the Greek Ode (Browne's medals) once, and 
 he also took the Members' Prize for Latin prose. 
 He finally came out second in the first class of the 
 Classical Tripos of 1856, and within two years 
 afterwards was elected fellow of his college. 
 
 He continued for a year or two after this to reside
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 51 
 
 at Cambridge, taking private pupils and sharing in 
 the work of the college ; and in 1 862 he made his 
 first appearance in public with Verses and Transla- 
 tions. Three years afterwards he was admitted to 
 the bar as a member of the Inner Temple, and 
 joined the Northern Circuit ; having in the mean- 
 time vacated his fellowship by his marriage with 
 his first cousin, Ellen Calverley, of Oulton, in York- 
 shire. He now took up his abode permanently in 
 London, and applied himself to the work of his pro- 
 fession, attending circuit regularly until his active 
 career was interrupted by an accident which, though 
 little was thought of it at the time, was destined to 
 have far-reaching consequences. 
 
 Of this period of Calverley's life the writer of 
 these pages, being then and for some years after- 
 wards resident abroad, can give no account drawn 
 from personal recollections. There is reason to 
 believe that, brief as was the duration of his active 
 connection with the bar, it was long enough to 
 create an impression highly favourable to his pros- 
 pects of future distinction. As sometimes happens 
 with men endued with a powerful imagination, he
 
 52 MEMOIR. 
 
 found the study of law in itself sufficiently attractive 
 to render comparatively easy the acquisition of legal 
 knowledge, which his wit, resourcefulness, and acute 
 reasoning faculty would have enabled him to turn 
 to good account, had time and opportunity offered. 
 But this was not to be. 
 
 The accident of which mention has just been 
 made, occurred in the winter of 1866-7, about a 
 year and a half after his call to the bar. Calverley 
 was skating at Oulton Hall, near Leeds (the resi- 
 dence of his father-in-law), when he tripped and 
 was pitched heavily on his head, inflicting a severe 
 blow over the right eye. Although the injury was 
 sufficiently serious to need surgical treatment, no 
 other attention was paid to it, and no permanent 
 mischief was perceived or anticipated. When, how- 
 ever, he was induced, by symptoms which some 
 time afterwards supervened, to consult an eminent 
 London physician, he was declared to have sus- 
 tained a concussion of the brain, the effects of 
 which, though they might have been alleviated, and 
 possibly altogether counteracted, by a short period
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 53 
 
 of absolute rest taken at the time of the accident, 
 were then such as to render it necessary for him to 
 forego the strain of body and rnind inseparable from 
 the work of his profession. 
 
 From this time it may be said that for all the 
 active business of life Calverley was practically laid 
 upon the shelf. He had indeed still before him 
 many years of tranquil happiness and enjoyment, in 
 the society of wife, children, and friends, nor was he 
 debarred from the pursuit of his favourite studies; 
 still he chafed under the restriction from active 
 work laid upon him by his physical condition, and, 
 as has already been hinted, he was without the all- 
 mastering strength of will through which a sterner 
 or a more ambitious nature, if gifted with equal 
 intellectual endowments, might have found in a 
 forced period of leisure and retirement the path 
 to solid and enduring fame. Thus it has happened 
 that, although the work which he has left behind 
 him is indeed exquisite of its kind, it is, as to much 
 of it, unpurposed and fragmentary ; reaching no- 
 where to the full height of his genius, and leaving
 
 54 MEMOIR. 
 
 almost wholly unevidenced his deeper qualities of 
 mind and heart. 
 
 Engraved in facsimile from a pen-and-ink drawing.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 some of the readers of James Payn's charm- 
 ing volume of tc Literary Recollections," not 
 the least attractive of the many delightful pic- 
 tures which it contains will be found in a brief 
 notice of Calverley, dating from a long vacation 
 passed at Grasmere, in company with the present 
 writer, in the summer of 1857. Calverley had 
 already graduated, and was making holiday during 
 those well-remembered* months ; I myself, then 
 in my third year, was engaged in acquiring that 
 modicum of mathematics which the University in 
 those days exacted, as the price of a degree, from 
 all aspirants to classical honours. We two occupied 
 a small cottage 1 (often revisited since) upon the 
 
 1 Now expanded into Baldry's shop and lodgings, kept still 
 by the same kind and friendly hosts, whose first tenants we 
 were.
 
 56 MEMOIR. 
 
 road leading from the Bed Lion down to the lake. 
 Payn, who was just entering upon the career which 
 he has since pursued with such brilliant success, 
 had [taken house with his young wife and two (I 
 think it was then two) bright toddling bairns, about 
 the centre of the village. 
 
 My ' coach/ Wolstenholme, 1 then a fellow of 
 Christ's, was staying with a reading party at Ainble- 
 side. We were all good walkers (not excluding 
 Payn, who, I think, does something less than justice 
 to his own prowess in this respect), and in the 
 course of the summer had rambled over every 
 mountain and valley in the district. The ascent of 
 Scawfell was achieved from Wastwater by Wolsten- 
 holme, Payn, Calverley, and myself. We took 
 Great Gable on our way, descending thence upon 
 the Sty Head; and by the time we reached the 
 mile or so of rocky boulders leading directly to the 
 summit of Scawfell, had certainly taxed our staying 
 powers somewhat severely. It was here that Payn 
 lagged a little behind, and, on rejoining us, was 
 
 1 Now Professor of Mathematics at the Indian Civil Engi- 
 neering College, Cooper's Hill.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 57 
 
 greeted by Calverley with the ready jest, duly re- 
 corded in the " Recollections/' " The labour we 
 delight in physics Payn." The aspect of the Lake 
 District has changed considerably since those days. 
 The railway, which now encircles it from Keswick 
 to Windermere, had then no point of contact nearer 
 than Kendal. A single coach ran daily along the 
 road which is now traversed during the season by a 
 never-ending procession of crowded vehicles. The 
 number of those to whom our British Alps are 
 familiar ground has multiplied a hundred-fold, but 
 the friendly intercourse which subsisted between 
 the natives and their visitors of thirty years back, 
 can hardly be extended to the swarming holiday- 
 seekers of to-day. With this change of manners 
 much of the charm which year by year drew thither 
 a small but faithful band of pilgrims, has vanished. 
 But at the time of which I speak, the old simplicity 
 still prevailed; at feasts and wrestling-matches, in 
 farm-homesteads, and the parlours of old-fashioned, 
 unpretentious inns, the visitor was everywhere 
 welcomed as a friend ; and Calverley, whose easy 
 bearing and frank good-humour made him a general
 
 58 MEMOIR. 
 
 favourite, loved to brace his faculties and freshen his 
 sensations by contact with the kindly and strong- 
 natured dalesfolk. 
 
 For one who enjoyed life keenly, and who pos- 
 sessed both means and leisure, it is somewhat sur- 
 prising that Calverley should have travelled so little 
 abroad. Two journeys to Switzerland and one to 
 Norway comprise, I believe, the sum total of his 
 achievements in this direction. The first of these 
 tours, which took place before he quitted Cambridge, 
 was performed in company with a few college inti- 
 mates, one of whom was Mr. Walter Besant, whose 
 regard for his departed friend has prompted him to 
 furnish me with the following reminiscences of 
 college days, with notes of the foreign journey 
 which he and Calverley undertook together. 
 
 " Christ's College, which Calverley entered, has 
 of late years occupied a position somewhat different 
 from many of the so-called small Colleges it is 
 itself larger than any College at Oxford except one 
 or two in the good luck it has always enjoyed with 
 its men. No other College, for instance, has, for 
 its size, a nobler roll of ' worthies/ Of these Milton,
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 59 
 
 Darwin, Leland, Paley, and Bishops Porteous and 
 Kaye, are, perhaps, the best known. The entrance 
 of Calverley coincided with the commencement of a 
 long period, during which the College greatly distin- 
 guished itself, year after year, in the Honour Lists, 
 especially in the Classical Tripos. Among the men 
 who were undergraduates there in Calverley's time, 
 or soon afterwards, was, first, his own contempo- 
 rary, John Robert Seeley, now Regius Professor of 
 History, and the author of ' Ecce Homo/ In addi- 
 tion may be mentioned Ebden, now Chief Clerk of 
 the Colonial Office ; John Peile, Senior Classic in 
 1860, and afterwards Tutor of Christ's ; you your- 
 self, now governing West Indian Islands ; Hales, 
 now Professor of English Literature at King's Coll. 
 London; Skeat, now Anglo-Saxon Professor at Cam- 
 bridge ; Hensley, now Senior Physician at Bartholo- 
 mew's ; Robert Liveing, now in the first rank of phy- 
 sicians ; the present Bishop of Toronto ; Lee, trans- 
 lator of Virgil and Horace ; Wren, who stands at the 
 gate of the Indian Civil Service ; George Henslow, 
 Botanist, and many others who have shown intel- 
 lectual activity and made honourable mark in the
 
 60 MEMOIR. 
 
 world. Among the Dons were Gunson, the Tutor; 
 Gell, now Bishop of Madras; Archdeacon Cheetham, 
 then Lecturer in Classics ; and Wolstenholme, now 
 Professor at Cooper's Hill. 
 
 " There is no doubt in my own mind that the 
 taste or fashion for reading which certainly existed 
 among the undergraduates at Christ's at this period, 
 was largely due to the example of Calverley and 
 Seeley. They were both men who stimulated their 
 contemporaries and juniors, but in different ways 
 Calverley, perhaps, because he represented learning 
 and scholarship in its most graceful and attractive 
 form, aided by a delightful wit and genius of the 
 rarest kind and Seeley because he was in daily 
 life and character such an exemplar to his contem- 
 poraries as the continual exercise of high and 
 noble thought and pure aims can make a young 
 man. It was a rare chance indeed for one College 
 to possess these two men at the same time. 
 
 " The daily life of the men five-and-twenty years 
 ago, was considerably different from that which has 
 been, I am informed, more recently adopted. The way 
 of life was simpler, and in some ways much rougher.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 61 
 
 The dinner was served at four, which surely is the 
 most detestable hour ever invented. It was generally 
 a very bad dinner, and consisted wholly of joints, 
 not over well roasted, with potatoes and small beer. 
 Other things were to be had if you called for them, 
 but they were put down in the bills. Every College 
 then brewed its own ale. The Christ's brewer gave 
 us strong ale or ' College/ Bitter, and Small. No 
 one in those days pretended that he could only 
 drink claret indeed there was very little claret in 
 the College at all, and there was no wine put on the 
 table. 
 
 " After Hall the men divided into little sets and 
 went in turn to each other's rooms and drank port 
 and sherry till six. I dare say it was not good for 
 the boys to be drinking fiery port, but it generally 
 only amounted to one bottle between four or five 
 men, and if it was wrong it was pleasant. I hear 
 that now they drink little but Apollinaris, which 
 may be right, but cannot from any point of view be 
 considered pleasant. At six o'clock there was Chapel, 
 in those days much more of an institution than at 
 present. After Chapel the reading men generally
 
 62 MEMOIR. 
 
 shut themselves up till ten or so with tea and books, 
 and at ten there were other gatherings with pipes 
 and beer till midnight. Every afternoon all the year 
 round the boats went down the river in those days 
 Christ's had two in the first division and one in 
 the second. This carried off some seven-and-twenty 
 men; of the remaining fifty perhaps half walked 
 down the river on the banks to see the boats, and 
 the others went to play racquets or fives, or to walk 
 to Madingley or Grantchester. Two or three out 
 of the whole perhaps wasted their afternoons in 
 billiard-rooms. In summer of course there was 
 cricket. Calverley's favourite game was racquets, 
 which he played extremely well; he also played 
 fives, and he rode a good deal, but he never, I be- 
 lieve, went on the river. Once a week, on Saturday, 
 there was a Whist Club, at which he was sometimes 
 present, though he never played. It seems won- 
 derful, after all these years, to relate, that at mid- 
 night, when the whist was knocked off, we always 
 sat down to a great supper with copious beer, and 
 after supper to milk punch and talked till four ! And 
 yet some of us survive ! On Sunday morning, when
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 63 
 
 chapel was at half-past nine, there was always a break- 
 fast after chapel in someone's rooms a good honest 
 breakfast, with cold pie and beer and the ' Saturday 
 Review/ then a young and astonishingly lively paper 
 and after breakfast a long walk till Hall time. A 
 healthy life it was, with plenty of talk, plenty of 
 feasting, plenty of play, and for many of us plenty of 
 reading, besides the necessary work for the abomi- 
 nable Senate House. There was also plenty of enthu- 
 siasm. Perhaps you may remember one man who 
 could recite the whole of Tennyson's ' In Memoriam. 5 
 There was reading aloud, and we had gods. First 
 and foremost, we worshipped Carlyle. I worship him 
 still, although he has now been proved to have had 
 a temper as if that matters ! Maurice, whose 
 memory I love, though I have forgotten so much 
 of what he wanted to teach, was the second god ; 
 and Kingsley why does nobody now ever write 
 such a beautiful story as ' Westward Ho ! ' was 
 third favourite. But with him must be placed 
 Dickens and Tennyson. There were one or two who 
 had tried Browning, but his day was not yet come. 
 Other gods we had, but these were the chief, and
 
 64 MEMOIR. 
 
 among us moved Calverley, always finding out every 
 man who was clever, or amusing or interesting, and 
 always with something new, something that had 
 pleased him, and must therefore please everybody 
 and Seeley, always grave and serious, yet natu- 
 rally and without affectation, and because the pro- 
 blems of the world were already upon him. 
 
 " It was in the year 1860 that our walking tour 
 in the Tyrol took place. My recollections of the 
 expedition, now more than twenty-four years ago, 
 are by this time rather hazy. For instance, I do 
 not remember exactly how long it lasted, nor could 
 I follow our route on the map, nor have I any journal 
 or record, except a little note-book full of rough 
 sketches which I made on the way. Among these 
 there survived until quite lately a little pencil 
 sketch by Calverley himself, but I have now lost 
 it, to my great regret. 
 
 " The party consisted of Calverley, Peile (since 
 Tutor of Christ's), Walton of St. John's, and 
 myself. Walton, who unfortunately died of con- 
 sumption seven or eight years later, was then a 
 Fellow of St. John's, Fifth Wrangler in his year, and
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 65 
 
 was then, or immediately afterwards became, one of 
 Llewelyn Davies's curates at Marylebone. He was 
 a hard-working clergyman, and I have often gone 
 with him on his rounds about his parish, and seen 
 certain strangely-furnished upper and lower cham- 
 bers in the wilds of Marylebone. He gave me, in 
 fact, my first introduction to the London poor I 
 suppose those chambers have long since poisoned 
 all the poor I saw and I never tired of admiring 
 the way in which he continually ministered to them, 
 always cheerful, though always engaged in the clergy- 
 man's constant endeavour to divide half-a-crown 
 exactly and equally among thirteen deserving cases. 
 However, he left the cares of his poor behind him 
 when he took that holiday, and was as entirely happy 
 as if everybody in the world was rich and contented, 
 and as if Marylebone existed not even in imagi- 
 nation : at all events, everybody in the party, to 
 which the world was for the time narrowed, was 
 young, and we were all going to get rich some day : 
 and we were quite persuaded, whatever our own 
 personal ambitions might be, that Calverley, for his 
 part, had only to name the particular pinnacle on 
 
 I. F
 
 66 MEMOIR. 
 
 which he proposed to stand for the admiration of 
 the world, and that it would be at once set aside 
 and reserved for him like a stall at the theatre. 
 I do not think it does any harm for young men to 
 believe greatly in one a year or two older than 
 themselves, and very much cleverer. The year 
 was one of those when it rains without ceasing. 
 Somebody announced, for instance, when the rain 
 had gone on without stopping until the middle 
 of July, that there would be no summer that 
 year, because the Zodiac was taken up for repairs. 
 They took it up again, you remember, in the year 
 1879. 
 
 1 ' I joined Walton at Heidelberg, where he was 
 staying, and we got on by easy stages, and stopping 
 at a great number of places, as far as Innsbruck, 
 where we were joined by Calverley and Peile. The 
 verses in ' Verses and Translations/ on a Rhine 
 steamboat tour, commemorate the first part of the 
 journey, when he was with Peile. I have often 
 felt defrauded because nothing of the later wander- 
 ings found its way into the same little volume. 
 
 " We started on our walk from Innsbruck, and
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 67 
 
 I left the other three men some five or six weeks 
 later at Meran. "Where we wandered in the inter- 
 val I know not, but we wandered a good deal, 
 knapsack on back and staff in hand. Sometimes 
 we slept in huts on the mountain side, and 'break- 
 fasted off bad coffee and a dish of fried eggs ; 
 sometimes there were not enough beds to go 
 round, and we had to toss up for those that were 
 available ; sometimes we got wet through, and as 
 we carried no change, we had to robe ourselves 
 with blankets. Everywhere there was magnificent 
 scenery, with pine forests and mountain streams; 
 every day there was climbing, more or less ; every 
 night one was dog-tired. I have vague recollec- 
 tions of the Zillerthal, for example, and of a place 
 called Linz or Lienz ; and of a strange place beside 
 a lake, where there was a great hotel, and a steep 
 hill beside it, up which Walton made us all climb 
 before dinner. But these recollections are vague.. 
 One or two memories, however, stand out with 
 greater clearness. The first is of a certain evening 
 in the Zillerthal after dinner ; the now well-known 
 singers came in, a party of half-a-dozen peasants,
 
 68 MEMOIR. 
 
 and sat down and sang to us, accompanied by the 
 zither, the sweet Tyrolese songs which have since 
 become so popular ; but in these days they were 
 only known to a few ; the Tyrol was comparatively 
 unexplored, and I think none of us had ever heard 
 the songs before, or even so much as seen a zither. 
 I distinctly remember Calverley's face ; you know 
 how, when he was really pleased and interested, 
 his expression became grave, and his features set, 
 as if he was rapt and absorbed in the thing which 
 then engaged him. I have never seen him so 
 entirely pleased and interested as on that evening. 
 Presently, when the singers had finished, he broke 
 out in short ejaculations, railing upon the stupidity 
 of English people who do not teach their peasants 
 how to play or sing. Then, because Walton had the 
 sweetest and most musical voice possible, and Cal- 
 verley, as you know, could take his part, we tried 
 two or three simple English part-songs, in which Cal- 
 verley sang second and Walton bass. I forget what 
 they were ' Spring's Delights/ ' Care, thou canker 
 of our joys/ ' Oh ! who will o'er the downs/ and so 
 forth simple ditties all. After that, Walton sang
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 69 
 
 them a song, and Calverley followed with one, which 
 was at that time a great favourite with him. You 
 yourself wrote the words, to an air which he found 
 somewhere or other. They began, ' Fare thee well, 
 where thou art lying.' I remember the first verse 
 only, but I have never forgotten the air, which is 
 singularly sweet. 1 I have taught it to a good many, 
 since, but I have never met anyone yet who knew 
 it, or where it came from. The people were greatly 
 
 1 Respecting the air of which Besant here speaks, the fol- 
 lowing will be read with interest. It was in the May Term 
 of 1856 that a young man, with an accent and manner slightly 
 foreign, was paying a visit to the University, and was fre- 
 quently in Christ's College, where he had friends. He had a 
 wonderful gift of sketching, which he freely exercised for our 
 amusement, and he played and sang with a facility of execu- 
 tion less common then than it has since become amongst 
 educated Englishmen. This young man's name was George 
 Du Maurier. Among his favourite songs was the well-known 
 one of Byron's, beginning " There be none of Beauty's 
 daughters." This he sang, without notes, to a simple and 
 pathetic air, with which none of his hearers were acquainted. 
 The air took Calverley's fancy, who played it afterwards from 
 memory, and the score was written down from his playing. 
 Some verses, slight enough in themselves, but intended to 
 give expression to the peculiar pathos of the music, were, as 
 Besant says, composed for the occasion, and were adopted by
 
 70 MEMOIR. 
 
 pleased, not so much at the singing it was a small 
 thing compared with their own, though Walton's 
 voice was not one that you can hear every day but 
 at the strange thing that any young Englishman 
 
 Calverley, whose singing of them will be remembered by 
 many, and as they have not appeared in print they may be 
 quoted here. They were as follows : 
 
 " Fare thee well ! Where thou art lying ; 
 
 The clouds for ever weep, 
 And the breezes whisper, sighing, 
 
 In a soft dirge and a deep. 
 And the skies, that wont to love thee, 
 Are a folded shroud above thee ; 
 And the flowers, that blossom o'er thee, 
 Are bending to adore thee, 
 And all things fair deplore thee, 
 
 Where thou art laid to sleep ! 
 
 " But thy pure and gentle spirit, 
 
 That could no longer stay, 
 Doth a holy place inherit, 
 
 In a land far, far, away. 
 'Neath the cypress, dark and lonely, 
 Lies thy body buried only ; 
 Thou hast found a home for ever 
 There, where death no more shall sever, 
 And the golden light fades never 
 In the bright eternal day." W. J. S.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 71 
 
 should know how to sing. It was contrary to 
 their experience ; they thought that Englishmen 
 only paid and listened. 
 
 " Another day I remember. We slept in a shep- 
 herd's hut high on the mountains ; having got there 
 in the evening after a long climb up a steep hill, 
 from some place which I forget. There was not much 
 for dinner, I know, but there was something : in the 
 morning we rose at daybreak, still stiff and tired, 
 and found that the only thing for breakfast was a 
 dish of eggs, fried in a tin, and some bad coffee 
 nothing else, not even bread. We started, there- 
 fore, for the day's work in that condition in which, 
 according to the moralist, one ought to rise from 
 dinner, namely, hungry* The proposed work was 
 going to be very simple, only to cross over what was 
 described to be a low Pass ; we thought we should 
 probably manage it with great ease by ten o'clock or 
 so, and get a solid breakfast then. Illusory hopes ! 
 We started about five, and we began by losing our 
 way, which wasted three hours or so j then we struck 
 the right path, as we thought, and began again. 
 For forty days and forty nights, or thereabouts
 
 72 MEMOIR. 
 
 it seemed more to me we toiled up the steep face 
 of the mountain over turf. Whenever I go up a 
 mountain, I always experience exactly the same 
 sequence of emotions. First there comes a deadly 
 fatigue in the legs, which presently goes away of 
 its own accord, leaving a sort of limb sulkiness ; 
 then fellows a nightmare in which I am firmly per- 
 suaded that I have from the beginning of all things 
 been everlastingly going up a hill, everything else 
 having been a dream, and that there will never be 
 any cessation or rest from going up a hill for the 
 future in scecula sceculorum. In the midst of this 
 nightmare I become conscious, and it adds an in- 
 tensity to the present suffering that the whole 
 misery was voluntary : I need not have gone up this 
 hill. It was by my own deliberate choice. Why 
 did one choose ? What madness drove one up this 
 mountain ? I am quite certain that other people 
 have exactly the same sensations, and hate climbing 
 as much as I do, but they are too proud to say so. 
 Presently, on this mountain, one became aware that 
 the turf was covered with little drifts of snow; then 
 that the turf was disappearing altogether, and then
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 73 
 
 that the snow covered everything, and that it was 
 getting deeper. One would have liked, at this 
 point, to sit down and go to sleep, but you cannot 
 sit in snow up to your neck ; besides, Calverley and 
 the other men were stalking ahead with such dis- 
 gusting freshness and vigour. I do not know how 
 long the ' work/ as Alpine men very feelingly call 
 it, lasted, but we trudged on, mounting higher and 
 higher, and the snow getting continually deeper, 
 and it must have been long past midday when we 
 stood upon the summit of our ' low ' Pass. "We 
 found afterwards, on looking at the map, that 
 we had come the wrong way, and had climbed quite 
 needlessly over a Pass estimated at ten thousand 
 feet, instead of six thousand. I thought at the time, 
 and I still think, that the true altitude must have 
 been at least sixty thousand. I remember the scene 
 as we stood on the ridge and gazed around, per- 
 fectly well. Calverley, who looked as if he had not 
 turned a hair, stood, resting his hand on his alpen- 
 stock ; Walton, a little breathed, stood beside him ; 
 Peile, jealous for the honour of a Westmoreland 
 mountaineer, refused to confess himself tired ; and
 
 74 MEMOIR. 
 
 the fourth man, alas ! too far gone for pretence, 
 unreservedly sitting on his knapsack. Around us 
 the peaks rose, one behind the other, the summer 
 sun upon the snow, a miracle of wonder and of 
 beauty. Everybody, however, confessed to being 
 hungry, and there was nothing to eat. We had 
 with us a small flask filled with Kirschen schnapps, 
 about half a pint, which went round once or twice. 
 A spoonful of schnapps is not a bad thing on the 
 top of a low Pass. This despatched, we began to 
 descend. Some way down I feel that I am not 
 speaking scientifically we came upon a glacier, 
 whether a piece of a big glacier or a little one, I 
 know not ; it was dangerous, I suppose, but the 
 going was comparatively easy, except when one 
 had to jump a crevasse. These were fortunately 
 narrow, but they had a cold and steely look which 
 made one feel as if they were much broader. Pre- 
 sently we passed across the ice and got into snow 
 again, and after that we came upon the turf, and 
 then the mountain stream with its rapids and its 
 cascades, and then the pine forests, and so down, 
 down, down, while the sun sank lower, and at last
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 75 
 
 we hit upon a road, and presently, long after the 
 sun had gone down, and after walking in the shadows 
 of the evening along the dark rough track amid the 
 pine woods, we came to an inn where at nine o'clock 
 we got the most heavenly meal ever served, though 
 it consisted of nothing but veal cutlets. Fifteen 
 hours without food made even the Tyrolese bread 
 delicious. I was not and am not ashamed to own 
 that I was thoroughly and completely knocked up. 
 But Calverley did his last half-mile with as elastic 
 a tread as his first, and as cheerful a countenance 
 as he had shown at the beginning. One of the 
 things which made him the most delightful com- 
 panion in the world, was that his temper never gave 
 way, not even under little irritations of the moment, 
 which too often make weaker brethren use ' lan- 
 guage.' He was never put out by any of the acci- 
 dents of travel, by bad food, or by insufficient food, 
 or by fatigue, or by losing the way, or by bad beds, 
 or by anything. Possibly an ill-tempered member 
 of the party might have disturbed his serenity, but 
 I doubt it. 
 
 " A third day.
 
 76 MEMOIR. 
 
 " This time I remember the name of the place. 
 It was called Heiligen Blut, and there was a village 
 church, with a bone-house at the back of it full of 
 skulls and thigh-bones, once belonging to the rude 
 forefathers of the hamlet. It was from this place 
 that we were going to make our grand ascent of the 
 Gross Glockner, the great achievement for which 
 we had come all the way from England, an ascent 
 which was not made after all. The Gross Glockner 
 is a very big mountain, so big and so steep, that it 
 is creditable to have climbed it. I had, for my 
 own part, thoughts and ambitions concerning the 
 Alpine Club, to be attempted after the performance 
 of this feat. We had talked a great deal about it. 
 Two of us certainly had never done any Alpine 
 work before this, and in fact never seen the Alps 
 until that year, so that we were anxious to try the 
 perils of which we had read, the cutting of steps in 
 the ice, the cautious steps one after the other tied 
 together by a rope, and the passing of one night 
 at least upon a ledge. There is always a ledge, and 
 generally a man who walks in his sleep, but does 
 not tumble over, though his friends are kept awake
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 77 
 
 by their anxiety on his account. Well, I have 
 never experienced these perils, and never slept on a 
 ledge, and now I suppose I never shall. Certainly, 
 when we really arrived at the foot of that moun- 
 tain, and had our first talk with the guides, and 
 learned what we should have to do, and how long 
 it would take, one of us began to feel very doubtful 
 whether the glory was worth the fatigue, and 
 whether mountains, as a rule, do not look better 
 from their lower slopes. But we did not attempt to 
 go up that mountain. The summer had been very 
 wet, and the guides decided, after talking the thing 
 over, that they would not venture to take us. So 
 that was settled for us, and I daresay the other 
 men were disappointed* in fact, I am quite sure 
 they were and the only other survivor besides 
 myself, will doubtless, if he remembers the thing at 
 all, remember that I was not disappointed. As for 
 the mountain itself, it was veiled in cloud during 
 the time of our stay at Heiligen Blut. We had, 
 however, one good view of the Peak : it was during 
 dinner, and after a long day of rain. A German 
 staying at the inn suddenly jumped up, left the
 
 78 MEMOIR. 
 
 table moved, I take it, with the prophetic instinct 
 and rushed into the open air, where we saw him, 
 to our great astonishment, solemnly raising his hat, 
 and bowing to the ground, as one that boweth low 
 to King or Kaiser, shouting, ' Er ist rein ! Der 
 Gross Glockner ist rein ! ' So it was, and a splendid 
 peak it looked, with the sunshine upon it, standing 
 out against the sky, steep and icy and inaccessible, 
 and as one that sayeth, 'You try to climb up my 
 sides ? You ? ' Then we made the acquaintance of 
 the parish priest of Heiligen Blut, and a very good 
 fellow he turned out. How we began to know him 
 and to talk with him I do not remember, but he 
 dined with us one evening, and the next evening 
 he invited us to his own house. We smoked pipes, 
 drank light wine, sang songs, and had a miscel- 
 laneous entertainment. Somebody found a zither, 
 and some of the village girls and men came to sing, 
 and we made a night of it, and ended with clasp- 
 ing hands all round and crying with enthusiasm, 
 ' Nieder mit Napoleon ! England and Deutschland ! ' 
 at least some of us did. Well : we were very 
 young. The next day was Friday and jour maigre.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 79 
 
 His Reverence appeared, but he gave us the coldest 
 of greetings and was absorbed in his Hours, which, 
 like the hours of the clock, lasted all the day. 
 
 " I believe this is the sum of my memories of 
 this summer holiday. I have had a great many 
 holidays since then, outre mer, and in many other 
 lands, but none quite so full of brightness and 
 happiness. It goes without saying that Calverley 
 was always the life and soul of the party ; that he 
 was always full of wit, pleasantness, and cheerful- 
 ness ; and that, whatever he did, or whatever he 
 said, or in whatever company he found himself, 
 he carried always his own fine taste and the grace 
 and charm of manner which was peculiarly his 
 own."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 CALVERLEY AS A WRITER. 
 
 TXTTEAT will be Calverley's permanent position 
 in literature, is a question which must be 
 settled by the critics. The present writer has no 
 pretensions to determine it, and must decline to 
 attempt the task. Satisfied as those who knew 
 him may be, that the full depth and extent of his 
 powers are very imperfectly manifested in his 
 writings, it is nevertheless by these that he will 
 be chiefly judged ; and this at least is certain, that 
 the world will never consent to form an estimate of 
 his merits more lowly than was his own, who was 
 at all times as little prone to see any excellence in 
 himself, as he was prompt and eager upon all occa- 
 sions to recognize it in others. 
 
 Assuming that all competent judges are agreed 
 as to the superlative goodness of his classical com-
 
 CALVERLEY AS A WRITER. 81 
 
 positions and translations, I will only observe in 
 this place, that in all such work his professed aim 
 and object were faithfully to represent, not the 
 sense merely of his author, but also the form and 
 expression. It is not sufficient, in his view, that 
 the thoughts and ideas of the original should be re- 
 produced, in language of itself however appropriate 
 and idiomatic, by the copy; this is indeed indis- 
 pensable, but this is not enough ; there must, in 
 addition to a wholly faithful sense-rendering, be 
 also to some extent a twrrf-rendering, and even if 
 possible a/orm-rendering. Wherever this path is 
 ventured upon by an unskilful or incompetent 
 workman, it is apt to lead him down a perilous 
 incline of merely verbal* resemblance, into a bathos 
 of doggerel and sheer nonsense; just as, on the 
 other hand, a given version may correctly enough 
 represent the bare meaning of the original, and yet 
 be in itself a mere tasteless paraphrase, of the Tate 
 and Brady order of merit. There is also this 
 danger of which I am reminded by a friend and 
 former pupil of Calverley's, himself an acute scholar 
 and an admirable translator that in working upon 
 
 I. G
 
 82 MEMOIR. 
 
 the method indicated above, the ingenuity of the 
 operator may be made too apparent, and the work 
 show too plainly the mark of the tool. Still, I 
 think, one sees that Calverley's method is in itself 
 the right one ; it certainly increases, almost indefi- 
 nitely, the translator's difficulties ; and proportion- 
 ately enhances the merit of success. 
 
 It must be understood that in speaking of form- 
 rendering as one of the objects aimed at in Calver- 
 
 ley's translations, I am as far as possible from re- 
 
 *. 
 ferring to any kind of metrical imitation . Calverley 
 
 totally disbelieved in all attempts to force modern 
 language (or at all events modern English) into the 
 mould of a classical metre; and even where this 
 appears to have been successfully accomplished, he 
 denied that the result was to reproduce the rhythm 
 (i.e., in the truest sense, the form) of ancient 
 poetry. His views upon this subject are expressed 
 at some length and with characteristic humour, in a 
 paper which he contributed to the " London Stu- 
 dent" (October, 1868). The whole article, which 
 will be found in the Second Part of this volume, is 
 extremely interesting, as an example of critical
 
 CALVERLEY AS A WRITER. 83 
 
 analysis ; and a perusal of it will, I think, be suffi- 
 cient to satisfy the reader that in Calverley's opinion 
 the business of a translator of classical poetry is to 
 preserve as much as possible of the rhythm of his 
 author's verses, and that this cannot be achieved 
 by any endeavour, however successfully carried out, 
 to imitate their scansion. 1 
 
 Calverley's own measure of success in translating 
 upon his own method is, I venture to think, almost 
 if not quite unrivalled, and constitutes the dis- 
 tinctive mark of his performances in this depart- 
 ment. The better to illustrate my meaning, I will 
 cite two short specimens of his translation, one 
 from Latin into English, and one from English 
 into Latin. A very few lines will suffice, and our 
 first example shall be the following stanza from an 
 ode of Horace : 
 
 1 Upon the contents of this paper the late Professor 
 Conington wrote to Calverley as follows : 
 
 " I read with great delight your paper on English Hexa- 
 meters and Alcaics in the ' London Student,' agreeing tho- 
 roughly with what was said, and enjoying greatly the manner 
 of saying it."
 
 84 MEMOIR. 
 
 " Audivere, Lyce, di mea vota, di 
 Audivere, Lyce. Fis anus, et tamen 
 Vis formosa videri, 
 Ludisque et bibis impudens ; &c." 
 
 which Calverley thus translates : 
 
 " Lyce, the gods have listened to my prayer : 
 The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey, 
 And still wouldst thou seem fair ; 
 Still unshamed drink, and play, &c." 
 
 Upon this translation it is to be observed, in the 
 first place, that it is pitched in the precise key of 
 the original neither higher, nor lower, nor other ; 
 and that besides adhering closely to the meaning of 
 the Latin, it also indicates with fidelity the swing 
 and rhythm, not merely of the particular metre, 
 but of the particular passage; reproducing with 
 wonderful exactness a certain effect of intensity and 
 compressed denunciatory force partly the result 
 of a skilful arrangement of words which is not 
 more apparent in Horace's Latin than in Cal- 
 verley's English. There is indeed in the latter 
 nothing at all of the endeavour (ambitiously aimed 
 at by some translators) conjecturally to represent 
 the manner or the phrase in which Horace, had he
 
 CALVERLEY AS A WRITER. 85 
 
 been an Englishman writing in English, might 
 have been expected to satirize the modern " Lyce; " 
 but it is a conscientious and supremely intelligent 
 attempt to recast in English both the sense and the 
 form of Horace's Latin words. 
 
 For our other example, we will select a single 
 couplet from the " Lycidas : " 
 
 " For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, 
 Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill." 
 
 There is before the world more than one Latin 
 version of these lines, by scholars of acknowledged 
 reputation ; that of Calverley's is as follows : 
 
 " Uno namque jugo duo nutribamur, eosdem 
 Pavit uterque greges ad fonteni et rivulum et uinbram." 
 
 Without claiming for the latter any special 
 superiority upon the ground of its perfect fidelity 
 to the meaning, I would venture to assert that no 
 other version that can be quoted, approaches it in 
 the exquisite precision with which it follows the 
 cadence and movement of Milton's stately measures. 
 
 The truth is that for work of this kind Calverley 
 was magnificently equipped, both by nature and 
 (so to speak) by art. He was saturated with
 
 86 MEMOIR. 
 
 Virgil before lie had left school ; he had a most 
 retentive memory, an inexhaustible command of 
 language, and a faultless ear ; and holding kinship, 
 as he did, with all forms of genius, his imagination 
 readily took fire at its touch, and burned with a 
 corresponding flame. 
 
 The qualifications needed in a translator who 
 should follow the high and uncompromising stan- 
 dard of excellence by which Calverley worked, 
 would seem, at first sight, to be somewhat incon- 
 sistent with those of a successful parodist, who may 
 be regarded as a kind of pseudo-translator, in so 
 far as what he aims at is a deliberately partial and 
 one-sided representation of his original; and if, as 
 common consent appears already to have decided, 
 Calverley is to be reckoned the first of English 
 parodists, the reason spontaneously suggested by 
 the view taken of him in this notice would be, that 
 his natural powers were greater than those of any 
 other modern writer who has cultivated this pecu- 
 liar talent. 
 
 And accordingly we find, I think, that the 
 element which chiefly distinguishes his work of
 
 CALVERLEY AS A WRITER. 87 
 
 this class is the element of mastery and strength. 
 " Lovers, and a Reflection," inimitable and unutter- 
 able nonsense though it be, is an extremely power- 
 ful piece of writing; while of "The Cock and the 
 Bull" I venture to say that it will stand for all 
 time, a monument of vigorous, effective, and most 
 justifiable satire. 
 
 The first-named of these two celebrated bur- 
 lesques is, indeed, little else beside pure fun. It is 
 too absurd to be satire, too ridiculous even to be 
 ridicule. If it is to be taken in the light of an 
 admonition, it is truly a loving correction, so empty 
 of censure, and so replete with kindly mirth, that 
 the accomplished authoress herself, who is its object, 
 may (and, indeed, does) *enjoy it and laugh at it as 
 heartily as all the rest of the world. What moved 
 Calverley to the perpetration of it I do not know, 
 but it was probably written without much pre- 
 meditation. He has been reading (we may con- 
 jecture) a well-known and deservedly popular 
 volume of poems ; his sense of humour is tickled 
 by certain seeming incoherences of thought and 
 expression, observable in the first poem of the
 
 88 MEMOIR. 
 
 series, called tf Divided ; " he ' ' spots " here and 
 there, with the eye of experience, sharpened by- 
 long practice on his own account, a too palpable 
 sacrifice of sense to the exigencies of sound ; and 
 while he is musing upon these things, a gentle 
 afflatus steals upon him, and the thing is done ; he 
 thoughtfully takes up his pen, and in a moment 
 
 " In moss-prankt dells \vliich the sunbeams flatter," 
 and all the rest of the inspired nonsense, is rattled 
 off without an outward symptom of emotion 
 stronger than a pensive chuckle. 
 
 It is pleasant to be able to record that the 
 cordial intercourse already subsisting between 
 poetess and poet was in no way disturbed by the 
 appearance of ''Lovers, and a Reflection;" and 
 that, to the last, the brilliant scholar and man 
 of letters possessed a valued and appreciative friend 
 in this variously gifted lady, with the creations of 
 whose graceful and womanly fancy such liberties 
 had been taken by his audacious muse. 
 
 Of Calverley's parodies of Browning and the so- 
 called mystical school, a somewhat different account 
 must, I think, be given. He here strikes in ear-
 
 CALVERLEY AS A WRITER. 89 
 
 nest, and with a purpose. The present writer, 
 who is himself a humble and sincere, though often a 
 sorely puzzled, admirer of Browning, feeling at the 
 first a little scandalized by the uncompromising 
 directness of Calverley's attack upon "The Eing 
 and the Book," once ventured to suggest remon- 
 strance, and, with a view of convincing him of the 
 error of his way, repeated to him those noble lines, 
 beginning " lyric Love, half angel and half 
 Bird " which form the conclusion to the opening 
 chapter of the story. Calverley said little, but his 
 face flushed, and his eye lit up, and it was easy to 
 see that no want of appreciation of the strength 
 and beauty of Browning's verse had prompted his 
 assault upon those mannerisms and obscurities of 
 style, which he looked upon as a grave literary 
 offence. His own clearness and, so to speak, 
 point-blank directness of mental vision, rendered 
 him especially impatient of all the crooked and 
 nebulous antics and vagaries of thought or speech 
 in which writers of the modern transcendental 
 school are pleased to indulge ; and his parodies of 
 this class must be regarded as a genuine and out-
 
 90 MEMOIR. 
 
 spoken expression of resentment that so much 
 genius should seem to take so much pains to be 
 unintelligible. I am aware that to speak of this 
 school of writers otherwise than in terms of respect- 
 ful panegyric, will savour of profanity in the eyes 
 of those amongst their admirers who are not so 
 much critics as votaries. To such it may not be 
 amiss to suggest, that in matters of literary taste, 
 as well as in graver matters, securus judicat ter- 
 rarum orbis ; and that if the common sense of 
 mankind had not long ago delivered judgment 
 upon the affectations and extravagances of style 
 against which Calverley's satire is directed, the 
 word mannerism would either not have been in- 
 vented, or would have acquired a different con- 
 notation. 
 
 See "Verses and Translations," p. 17,
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE END. 
 
 TN the second part of this volume will be found 
 all that remains of interest from Calverley's 
 pen, not included in the works already published 
 under his name. 
 
 Specimens of his really remarkable talent for 
 drawing will also be found in the frontispiece, and 
 here and there in other places. His readiness with 
 the pencil was well known to his friends, whom he 
 occasionally delighted with sketches, humorous or 
 otherwise, in which he displayed a fertility of in- 
 vention and a delicacy of execution such as would 
 have done credit to a professed artist. A few of 
 these have been reproduced in a manner to convey 
 some idea of the originals, though failing to do full 
 justice to the laborious minuteness of detail which 
 was a characteristic of his work in this kind.
 
 92 MEMOIR. 
 
 These desultory gleanings will, it is hoped, be 
 received with a welcome by his admirers, and, if 
 they do not add much to his reputation, will, at 
 least, be considered to be not unworthy of it. I 
 have little more to add to this imperfect and frag- 
 mentary sketch. To the world, the whole interest 
 of Calverley's life consists in what he was rather 
 than in what he achieved ; or, to put it otherwise, 
 his writings are chiefly valuable as the expression 
 and visible token of an unique personality. And 
 of the more conspicuous features of his mind and 
 character, his candour, his tolerance, and his inimit- 
 able humour, the writings which he has left us are 
 indeed the best and most adequate exponent. The 
 more serious side of his nature, unsuspected, per- 
 haps, by the majority of readers of his delightful 
 verse, was nevertheless familiar enough to those 
 who knew him, at all events, in his later years, 
 " He was as light-hearted and fond of mirth," 
 writes one, 1 "as any man who ever lived, but I 
 never heard one word from him that was either 
 
 1 Letter from Professor T. R. Lumby.
 
 THE END. 93 
 
 irreverent, profane, or ribald, or calculated to 
 wound the feelings of anybody. He cut his jokes 
 (and oh, how clever they were !), but they were 
 not at the expense of anybody or anything." 
 " Those who had the happiness of knowing him 
 personally," says another, " would need no literary 
 proof that C. S. C. was far indeed from being the 
 * idle trifler of a passing day/ Of sacred subjects 
 he spoke habitually with deep and unaffected reve- 
 rence, as one who recognized the essential limita- 
 tions of human faculties, and was content to wait in 
 faith for the clearer vision behind the veil." 1 One 
 who had visited him, during Cambridge days, at 
 his house in Somersetshire, says : " I mention this 
 visit, the memory of *which is full of pleasure, 
 because of the impression it left upon me of one 
 particular kind. It was this that there never 
 was a man more thoroughly, more truly domestic 
 in his tastes and habits, and more likely by dispo- 
 sition and habits to make a home bright. 
 Years passed of which I could say little. But in 
 
 1 Letter from the Rev. H. N. Oxenhsm.
 
 94 MEMOIR. 
 
 1870 I visited him in London. Days instead of 
 years might have been the intervening time. It 
 was plain enough that in his married life, as before 
 in his old home, the very simplest domestic plea- 
 sures were what he cared for most, but some of the 
 conversation we had at this time was grave enough. 
 I urged him, as doubtless other friends had done, 
 to set about some work that would engross him and 
 give his powers full play ; and I found that to be 
 unable to find the kind of work or the special 
 subject was a matter of real regret to him." To 
 these sketches by intimate friends may be added, 
 in conclusion, the following picture, for which I 
 am indebted to Professor J. E. Seeley : 
 
 " I made Calverley's acquaintance at Cambridge 
 in the Michaelmas Term of 1852, when we both 
 became members of Christ's College. We were of 
 the same year as undergraduates ; nevertheless we 
 did not take the degree at the same time, and those 
 who consult the Cambridge Calendar will not find 
 our names in the same Tripos list. Calverley fol- 
 lowed the ordinary course and took his degree in 
 1 Letter from the Rev. Charles Stanwell.
 
 THE END. 95 
 
 1856 ', I took mine in 1857, availing myself of a 
 privilege which belongs or did belong to those 
 who have entered at a bye-term. Both Calverley 
 and I remained in the College for some time after 
 graduating. He got his fellowship, if I remember 
 right, in 1858; I got mine in 1859. We held 
 college lectureships and took private pupils; in 
 fact, followed the ordinary routine of those 
 times. 
 
 " In 1861 I went to London, where I remained 
 till 1869. I fancy Calverley stayed a little longer 
 in Christ's ; but if so, no long time passed before he 
 too was living in London, married and called to the 
 Bar. Thus we were again within reach of each 
 other, and remained s for something like eight 
 years. Since 1869, when I returned to the Uni- 
 versity, we only met by accident, but in 1875 we 
 found ourselves for some weeks neighbours at 
 Grasmere. Again we took walks together and 
 talked over old times. Then, too, I made acquain- 
 tance with his boys. The eldest of these, now 
 ' called emphatically man/ presented himself to 
 us here at Cambridge in the autumn of 1883. I
 
 93 MEMOIR. 
 
 looked forward to many more pleasant messages 
 from my old friend, if not pleasant meetings with 
 him, when, a few months later, the sad intelligence 
 arrived which closed all such prospects. 
 
 " I put these facts and dates together in order to 
 show what degree of intimacy I had with Calverley. 
 As undergraduates we lived pretty near each other, 
 saw each other almost every day in hall and chapel 
 and lecture-room, and contended together in exami- 
 nations ; but for the greater part of those years we 
 were not intimate. My circle of acquaintance lay 
 chiefly outside Christ's, among old school-fellows or 
 the friends of my elder brother, who when I went 
 up had just taken his degree from Trinity. Cal- 
 verley, on the other hand, seemed to find his set in 
 the College. He seemed disposed to lead a quiet life. 
 The shock he had received at Oxford had made 
 him resolve, I suppose, to put a curb on his wilder 
 instincts. But with his wildness some of his energy 
 seemed to be lost. Like the cat that passes its life 
 in dozing before the fire, he seemed to hold in 
 abeyance and this was his characteristic ever after 
 energies which could only find play in a wild state,
 
 THE END. 97 
 
 a spirit which could not be tame without becoming 
 indolent as well. But the reputation he brought 
 with him to Cambridge, and the charm of his 
 character, made him, as a matter of course, the 
 centre of attraction in the College. I do not think 
 he laid himself out for anything of the kind, but the 
 clever fellows gathered round him and lived in his 
 rooms, which thus became the focus of all the socia- 
 bility of the place. At all this in the beginning I 
 looked on from a distance; but by the time that 
 Calverley and I were in our third year, and began 
 to look down upon a host of juniors, when Skeat, 
 Sendall, Hales, Walter Besant, Peile and others had 
 entered the College, I had approached nearer to 
 Calverley' s set and was on more familiar terms with 
 him, though even then we were not exactly 
 intimate. But society in a University is subject to 
 an annual transformation. The men of 1856 were 
 dispersed to the four winds, and Calverley, as can- 
 didate for a Fellowship, was left behind ; then went 
 the men of 1857, and I was left behind. Thus we 
 were thrown together in the end first as the only 
 representatives left of a certain college generation, 
 
 I. H
 
 98 MEMOIR. 
 
 and still more afterwards as the two junior Fellows 
 of Christ's. 
 
 " Then first we became real friends. I soon felt 
 the peculiar fascination that he exerted upon every- 
 one. Being both alike classical men, we had a good 
 many topics in common. We showed each other the 
 translations we made from Greek poets; we talked 
 about Tennyson. We often spent the afternoons 
 together at the raquet-court, and if we returned 
 home too late for hall, we would dine together at 
 his rooms or mine and afterwards spend the evening 
 together. It was a pleasant time, and I have often 
 thought of it since. 
 
 " But it came to an end ; and when some time 
 later we found ourselves again near enough to each 
 other in London to renew the old intercourse, the 
 habit was broken. It was always delightful to me 
 to meet him, and we met not unfrequently between 
 1863 and 1869. I can call to mind many evenings 
 spent in his company and some long rambles that 
 we made together in London streets and Hampstead 
 lanes. But the Cambridge days between 1857 and 
 1861 were the only period during which I lived in
 
 THE EXD. 99 
 
 unbroken intimacy with him. It was then I formed 
 the idea of him which now lives and will always 
 live in my mind. I took my farewell of him 
 (unconsciously) in a long walk from Grasmere up 
 Dunmail Eaise in the summer of 1875 : at least, I 
 cannot recollect that I ever saw him after that time. 
 " When I look back I see that his character 
 proved, when I came to know him well, more in- 
 teresting and more uncommon than I had imagined 
 it when I knew him but slightly. I had thought of 
 him as only the regulation prodigy of undergra- 
 duates, and I found him to be infinitely more than 
 that. He was not merely one of those young 
 fellows who can do equally well whatever they turn 
 their hand to, but who a fortunately for more ordi- 
 nary people, are lazy, and though they can do 
 great things, deliberately prefer to do little things 
 or nothing. The first rumour we heard of him 
 described him so. His high-jump, we heard, was 
 wonderful ; he could write most amusing squibs ; 
 but if you wanted graver aptitudes, his Latin verses 
 were almost cleverer than his comic rhymes, and he 
 would certainly be the first or among the first men
 
 100 MEMOIR. 
 
 of his year, if only he could be induced to take a 
 little trouble. Now all this that we heard was 
 perfectly true. It was not even, as in the case of 
 nine out of ten University prodigies it is, exag- 
 gerated. His rhymes have passed far beyond the 
 University public, are known to thousands after 
 twenty years, and seem likely to live as long as 
 Praed's. His Latin verses are not only clever, but 
 in their way quite a wonder. Nor did he break 
 down in the Senate House, but actually main- 
 tained his reputation for scholarship without for- 
 feiting his reputation for laziness. And no one 
 who knew him can doubt that he had a fund 
 of other gifts which he had never an opportunity 
 of using, and that he could have excited admiration 
 in other circumstances in quite other ways. That 
 kind of phoenix that we meet with so often in 
 sensational novels is no doubt impossible ; such all- 
 accomplished, invincible persons are not found in 
 real life ; but persons do appear surprising enough 
 to suggest these impossible imaginations, and Cal- 
 verley was one of them. He was clever in every 
 way ; whatever he did showed cleverness ; and at
 
 THE END. 101 
 
 one or two points lie was wonderful. At the same 
 time he was very indolent; and an indolent man 
 cannot, as the novelist would have us think, possess 
 universal and accurate knowledge. Calverley, no 
 doubt, gave the impression that if he cared to do so 
 he could acquire almost any kind of knowledge 
 rapidly; but he did not care to do it, and accordingly 
 his stock of acquired knowledge was at that time 
 not at all remarkable. 
 
 
 
 " Any one who came expecting merely to see a 
 prodigy might for a moment be disappointed, but 
 the next moment he would discover that he had 
 before him something much better and more in- 
 teresting than a prodigy. The phoenix of novelists, 
 
 * 
 
 if he appeared in real life, would be simply a 
 humbug, simply an ambitious pretender, keeping 
 up with great contrivance and labour an appear- 
 ance of more knowledge than he really had. Now 
 there never was a man more unpretending, more 
 unambitious than Calverley. Instead of uttering 
 oracles, or trying to stand up to specialists on their 
 own ground, he usually professed, with perfect 
 simplicity, when the conversation demanded special
 
 102 MEMOIR. 
 
 knowledge, to have no such knowledge. His modesty 
 was almost exaggerated. With a kind of humorous 
 frankness he stood before the world, in those days, as 
 he stands in his poems, a merry happy fellow who 
 knows just what he has been taught at school and 
 whom nobody will suspect of knowing more. He 
 did know a great deal more. He had a good 
 healthy memory, to which verses that took his fancy 
 readily stuck; he knew his Virgil with the same 
 thorough familiarity with which many men of his 
 generation knew their Tennyson. Still I do not 
 think he had that almost morbid trick of remembering 
 which has helped many a ' prodigy' to keep up an 
 appearance of universal knowledge. It was not his 
 way to astonish the company by producing out of the 
 store of his memory some piece of knowledge that he 
 was not expected to possess. Nor did he give him- 
 self much trouble even to sustain his character as a 
 wit. The University of Cambridge in old times used 
 to have a professional wit who was called the Tripos, 
 from the three-legged stool so I learn from Mr. 
 Wordsworth on which he used to sit on public 
 occasions ; a trace of his function still appears in
 
 THE END. 103 
 
 the copy of comic verses which annually appear 
 along with the honour lists and which being called 
 from him Tripos verses have now transferred his 
 name to the honour lists themselves. As Calverley 
 wrote the best copy of Tripos verses extant, so we 
 may say that he was in his time, in all but the 
 three-legged stool, the Tripos of the University in 
 the old sense of the word. He was the wit, the 
 jester, whose jokes were repeated through the whole 
 University and who also became, as it were, the 
 official father of all foundling jokes. Persons, 
 therefore, who came to his rooms came to hear 
 jokes and to carry them away. It would not 
 have been surprising, nay, it would have seemed 
 almost a matter of course, if the consciousness of 
 sustaining this part had made him somewhat arti- 
 ficial, if there had been something studied in his 
 conversation, if the jokes when they came had now 
 and then betrayed a little preparation or carried a 
 faint smell of the midnight oil. But, again, never was 
 there a man more free from such consciousness, such 
 artifice, than Calverley. I should say he never asked 
 himself the question how he appeared to his
 
 104 MEMOIR. 
 
 company or whether he was sustaining successfully 
 his reputation as a wit. Accordingly, though good 
 jokes were by no means wanting, yet there was no 
 incessant scintillation ; and a visitor who had heard 
 of him as a wit, and came to pick up good sayings, 
 might chance to be disappointed, when he found a 
 perfectly unaffected, rational person, who could talk 
 for a long time without betraying anything more 
 remarkable than that he certainly took a light- 
 hearted view of life. 
 
 " It took a longer acquaintance to recognize the 
 humourist. Gradually through all the Latin verses, 
 the squibs, the conversational jokes, and the practical 
 jokes, you began to see something more than mere 
 vivicity, namely, an original vein of humour. He 
 took an odd, a queer view of life ; he saw every- 
 thing in an unusual light ; but he saw things really 
 so, could not see them otherwise, and the same 
 eccentricity which gives their flavour to his writings 
 influenced his actions and his whole course of life in 
 a most serious manner. 
 
 " His favourite writer seemed to me to be 
 Thackeray, and I could understand that it should
 
 THE END. 105 
 
 be so. He resembled Thackeray in having 1 not 
 merely a keen sense of the ridiculous, but also 
 what I may call a comic philosophy of life. Only, 
 this philosophy was much lighter and more fantastic 
 in him than in Thackeray. He had the same per- 
 ception of the pompous hollowness of the ways of 
 men, but there was neither bitterness nor seriousness 
 in his perception. He could not, like Thackeray, 
 preach or moralize on the subject, nor could he even 
 
 be at the trouble to produce a continuous satire. He 
 f 
 
 is a caricaturist rather than a satirist. Neverthe- 
 less his comedy has generality in it. What he finds 
 ridiculous is not this thing or that thing, but the ways 
 of men in general. His laughter has not merely 
 boyish glee but elvish mockery, and his motto might 
 be the exclamation of Puck, ' Lord ! what fools these 
 mortals be ! ' I do not know whether the thousands 
 who now know and quote his witty rhymes perceive 
 this quality in them ; perhaps they will think I refine 
 too much. But those who knew Calverley know that 
 his humour lay actually in his character, that he is 
 not to be called a humourist because he wrote 
 humorously, but that he could not help writing
 
 106 MEMOIR. 
 
 humorously because he was a humourist. And 
 evidently every poem of his harps on the same 
 string 1 . That boy ' whom his familiar friends call 
 Tommy ' and who 'was what nurses call a limb' 
 appears in all of them, though in most he has ceased 
 to be a boy. He appears as a freshman, as a brief- 
 less barrister with ' a distant prospect of making a 
 fortune/ as a lover; he has always the same ini- 
 mitable pose, the same way of speaking. Well ! 
 we knew this person. Many a time have I walked 
 down Petty Cury and Eegent Street with him, and 
 noted the glee with which he entered into every- 
 thing. In every street he seemed to see a picture 
 by Leech. What is it Walt Whitman says ? 
 
 O, all ye men and women walking about in ordinary costume, 
 How curious you seem to me, and how I love you all ! 
 
 " To Calverley they seemed curious, but also ridi- 
 culous ! At least their airs of decorum and respecta- 
 bility seemed to him intolerably absurd. He chafed, 
 as he walked along, at every formal gesture, at 
 every conventional simper, and sometimes his spleen 
 showed itself in madcap pranks. Meanwhile he 
 treasured up, as Leech himself might have done,
 
 THE END. 107 
 
 every grimace of roguish impudence on the face 
 of a street urchin. 
 
 "An absolute rebellion againstrule, as of some wild 
 creature or some Robin Goodfellow, is the humour 
 of Calverley. At school he cannot put up with the 
 masters and the lessons. They are really too absurd ! 
 At College it is the Dons, the Chapels, the College 
 discipline. But he enters into and enjoys much of 
 what he ridicules. That is what makes him such a 
 consummate parodist. He has a natural talent for 
 language and a remarkable sense of rhythm. At 
 school he has had to write a great many Latin 
 verses, and has been led to think much about 
 diction and literary style. All this was much to 
 his taste. He assimilated Virgil in a wonderful 
 manner, and if anything among the products of 
 human civilization seemed to him really admirable, 
 or excited a feeling of genuine reverence, I suppose 
 it was Virgil's poetry. But even poetry and litera- 
 ture, however much he enjoys them, fall at last under 
 the ban of his uncontrollable humour. When he 
 has mastered all metrical forms, all delicacies of 
 poetic diction, the elvish mood comes on him again.
 
 108 MEMOIR. 
 
 ' Lord ! what fools these mortals be ! ' he thinks, 
 and sets himself to show what modern word-painting 
 can make of the St. John's Wood omnibus, and utters 
 a lofty apostrophe, with c tears in the voice/ to the 
 Beadles of the Burlington Arcade. Even Virgil 
 does not escape. In the Tripos verses we seem to 
 see the divine poet gone mad, and it produces the 
 strangest feeling to find all those inimitable, almost 
 sacred, refinements of language so ingeniously mis- 
 applied. 
 
 "But the elvish character lay so deep in Calverley 
 that he could not in the least control it. He was 
 always resorting to the practical joke, as the many 
 stories current about him testify. Nevertheless, as 
 far as I know, his practical jokes were always of the 
 innocent kind, and such as could injure no one but 
 himself. Almost the first time I ever met him in 
 society, when we were both freshmen, was at a grand 
 gathering at the Lodge at Christ's. Many of the 
 great Dons, the Whewells and Sedgwicks of that day, 
 had been dining with the Master, and in the evening 
 the drawing-room was thrown open to younger 
 people, among whom were some undergraduates.
 
 THE END. 109 
 
 There was music, and in due time Calverley was 
 seated at the piano giving us an Italian song. Soon 
 a murmur passed among us undergraduates that his 
 Italian was purely fictitious. So it was. Just as 
 in one of his parodies, there were all the recognized 
 forms of art, but if you listened attentively you 
 found the song a mere string of nonsense, made up 
 of some dozen Italian words that every Englishman 
 knows, contralto, sotto voce, impresario, &c. This 
 makes but a poor story, though indeed the cool 
 assurance of the young impostor in the midst of that 
 rather pompous assemblage was really laughable. 
 But it affords a specimen of his practical jokes, 
 which were only sudden outbreaks of uncontrollable 
 mutiny against everything formal or conventional. 
 They were perfectly harmless to other people, but 
 they were not always harmless to himself. It was a 
 misfortune that, with this irrepressible propensity, he 
 had to spend so many years in an ancient College, 
 where he was expected to conform to a routine 
 more formal than that of ordinary life, and where, 
 after he ceased to be an undergraduate, he found 
 not enough of incident or occupation to reconcile
 
 110 MEMOIR. 
 
 him to the monotony. His marriage and migration 
 to London came opportunely to rouse him out of a 
 condition which was unprofi table, and was begin- 
 ning to deserve the name of sloth. 
 
 " In truth, the routine of a college could produce 
 no other effect upon such a temperament. To 
 call out the wonderful powers that were dormant 
 in him, a more interesting mode of life, more variety 
 and adventure, were needed. The chapel-bell 
 stupefied him. I come back to my comparison of 
 the cat snoozing before the fireplace. I have seen 
 somewhere a description of La Fontaine, which 
 represents him as nursing all his life a silent grudge 
 against Louis XIV. and his civilization, as cherishing 
 within him the old ' esprit gaulois ' and watching with 
 ' sullen irony and desperate resignation ' all the 
 pompous routine of Court, Academy, and Salon. 
 Yet he said nothing and made himself a favourite 
 in that artificial society j the wild creature became 
 a sleek, sleepy, domestic pet. Does not his epitaph 
 betray the secret ? 
 
 Jean s'en alia comme il etait venu, 
 Mangea le fonds avec le revenu,
 
 THE END. Ill 
 
 Tint les tresors chose pen necessaire. 
 Quant a son temps, lien sut le dispenser ; 
 Deux parts en Jit, dont il soulait passer 
 L'une a dormir, et Vautre a ne rien fairs. 
 
 " Those last four lines are not inappropriate to 
 Calverley as he was at that time. 
 
 " Many of his friends have testified that his 
 character had a serious side, of which you became 
 aware on closer acquaintance. I can quite con- 
 ceive this, for never was there a character more 
 rational, mofe unaffected. His very humour was 
 but a kind of sincerity, a child-like simplicity pushed 
 to excess. His mind and imagination also were 
 pure. It was only natural that such a character 
 should acquire a fund of seriousness as life itself 
 became serious, and in particular after he made his 
 very happy marriage. But in those later days it 
 was not my fortune to see him very often. He 
 comes before me as he was a quarter of a century 
 ago, light-hearted, enjoying life from the moment 
 he rose to the moment when he went to sleep, not 
 noisy or foolish in his mirth, but almost always 
 mirthful. I think I never knew a man who was
 
 112 MEMOIR. 
 
 such pleasant company, for he was quite free from 
 vanity or any kind of self-consciousness, quite free 
 also from every kind of unreasonableness or angu- 
 larity. With all that irrepressible freedom there 
 was nothing harsh, but the most genuine good- 
 fellowship, and I was going to say, good temper, 
 but the word seems poor indeed to describe that 
 mixture of joyousness and sweetness ! 
 
 tc But I suspect he had also a talent for action, 
 which was not only little known, but which remained 
 undeveloped. His face and figure were not those 
 of a poet or artist ; and I well remember that when, 
 as a freshman at Christ's, I had just heard of him, 
 and of his wonderful qualities, and tried to pick him 
 out by guess among the faces at the freshmen's 
 table, I went quite wrong. He looked rather like 
 the typical English hero a solid muscular body, a 
 face full of animal spirits, careless good-humour, 
 and frolicsome daring. But there was no ambition 
 in it, there was the misfortune ! He was a hero 
 asleep ! If Nature commonly, where she gives 
 powers, gives also the restless desire to use them, 
 she had departed from her rule in this instance.
 
 THE END. 113 
 
 Only some great need would ever have drawn him 
 from his tent. And it was his lot to saunter along 
 the high road of life, where the cases do not arise 
 which call for such powers as his. We boast some- 
 times I wish I could think with justice that 
 Englishmen spring up wherever they are wanted 
 capable of ruling, of conquering, of mastering 
 difficulties. One of such Englishmen, who never 
 was wanted, I shall always suppose Calverley to 
 have been. 
 
 " As I lay down the pen, the recollection of that 
 last walk up Dunmail Eaise comes upon me. I 
 remember the last flash of his elvish humour. We 
 told each other what we had been doing in a literary 
 way. I asked him, did be ever write reviews ? He 
 had done so occasionally, he answered. He knew 
 an editor, who occasionally sent him new editions of 
 classical authors for review. He had lately re- 
 viewed an edition of Ovid's Hero'ides. On the line, 
 ' Nil mihi rescribas : attamen ipse veni ! ' he had 
 objected to attamen as evidently a false reading. 
 Why attamen ! He suspected that some term of 
 endearment was concealed under it. He would 
 
 i. i
 
 114 MEMOIR. 
 
 suggest attagen ! ' you duck ! come yourself/ 
 That the e in attagen was long was no sufficient ob- 
 jection to this conjecture ; for the case here was 
 vocative ! ' To my amazement/ he said, ' the editor 
 actually printed all this ! ' 
 
 ' Lord ! what fools these mortals be ! ' " 
 
 As the reader already knows, Calverley has 
 been taken from us in the very prime of his man- 
 hood. At what period were sown the seeds of that 
 cruel and treacherous malady 1 which ultimately 
 caused his death, can now only be matter of con- 
 jecture. All that can be stated with certainty is, 
 that long before the end came how long it is im- 
 possible to say he had been suffering from its 
 unknown and unsuspected presence. 
 
 For some years his health had been gradually 
 declining j and though his mental powers remained 
 almost to the last intrinsically bright and clear, 
 and the charm of his society never ceased to delight 
 the few of us who had opportunities of enjoying it 
 such opportunities grew year by year rarer and 
 
 1 He died of Bright's disease.
 
 THE END. 115 
 
 rarer, giving place to intervals of physical uneasi- 
 ness and mental depression, -which slowly led to 
 his more and more complete withdrawal from work 
 and from the world. When at length the hopeless 
 and incurable character of his disorder became fully 
 apparent, his affectionate nature busied itself almost 
 exclusively with thoughts of those whom he was 
 leaving behind. A few short days before his death, 
 in a conversation with myself about the future 
 of his boys, his mind suddenly recurring to those 
 fields of classic lore from which it was never long 
 absent, he exclaimed, in tones rendered more pa- 
 thetic by an increasing difficulty of utterance, 
 
 In their name we may accept, and reverently 
 repeat the aspiration embodied in this line, but we 
 may surely also complete the prayer, by adding 
 
 N I/ \ \ fl I 2 
 
 TO. o a\\ o/iotoc ! 
 
 To pass through life, if so it may be, untouched 
 by the shadow of that melancholy destiny, which 
 clouded his days and brought his years to an end 
 
 1 Sophocles, Ajax, 1. 550. 2 Id. Ibid. 1. 551.
 
 116 MEMOIR. 
 
 as a tale that is told ; not hoping, for that may 
 hardly be, to rival him in powers of mind and 
 intellect; but in other respects in manliness and 
 native worth, in truthfulness, uprightness, and 
 simplicity of character to be even such as he 
 was ! 
 
 He died on Sunday, the 17th of February, and 
 was buried in the cemetery at Folkestone, by the 
 side of his infant daughter, laid there sixteen years 
 before. He had always liked the place, with its 
 breezy heights, and sunny slopes, and exhilarating 
 air ; and on the morning of the Saturday following 
 his death, we took him there. And there we left 
 him. 
 
 " And in our ears, till hearing dies, 
 One set slow bell will seem to toll 
 The passing of the sweetest soul 
 That ever looked with human eyes." 
 
 TENNYSON : In Mcmoriam.
 
 FEBRUARY I?TH, 1884. 
 
 " It was not, to restore thy flickering breath, 
 Or hold thee back, just nearing towards the Light, 
 But whilst that Sun of Life, whom we name Death, 
 Rose on thy closing, or thy opening sight 
 To catch some whisper of thy new delight, 
 Some earnest of thy fainting soufs surprise, 
 And see the radiance quickening through the veil 
 Of palsied speech and leaden-lidded eyes, 
 That we, bright Spirit! who stood and watched thee fail 
 And sink, and pass through gloom and utter night, 
 One instant, and no more, would fain have stayed thy flight! " 
 
 W. J. S.
 
 LUPUS ET CANIS. 
 
 ly/TAXIMA pars hominum vitio versatur eodern, 
 Qui quaerunt sibi nil aliud, quana cingere luxu 
 Sese, et divitiis : auro famam, decus, ipsas 
 Permutant vitas. " An ero locupletior," aiunt, 
 " Servus ? " " Eris." " Bene habet," respondent, 
 
 " servus ero. Quid ? 
 " Esse velim liber ; libertate at melior res." 
 
 Horum uti sermones Volvo, mini fabula quaedam, 
 Nota quidem, in mentem venit ; at, ne te morer, 
 audi. 
 
 In quadam fuit urbe Canis ; Canis inclytus, acer, 
 Atque domus custos locupletis. Viderat ilium 
 Forte lupus, macer esurie, visumque salutat. 
 " Qui fit, amice," rogat cupido ut miratur ocello 
 Corporis et decus et molem, perpastaque membra, 
 " Qui fit ita ut niteas ? Longe qui fortior, ipse
 
 120 LUPUS ET CANIS. 
 
 " Impastus nemora haec noctuque dieque peragro/' 
 Cui Canis arridens : "Vin nostris moribus uti ? 
 " Elige, namque potes." " Qui possum/' ait, " oh 
 
 bone ? Nam sum 
 
 " Aspera passus multa : cibi expers atque soporis 
 " Montivagum caput et nivibus pulsatur et imbri ; 
 " Die modo, quid faciam." " Domus est servanda : 
 
 latrones 
 " Arcendi a foribus." " Sum plane/' ait ille, " pa- 
 
 ratus, 
 lt Idque libenter again." Quid plura ? utrique 
 
 placebat 
 Propositum, et comites peragunt iter, ipsaque tan- 
 
 gunt 
 
 Moenia, cum subito aspexit detrita catena 
 Colla lupus socii. " Quidnam hoc/' ait ? " Est 
 
 nihil." " At tu 
 " Die mihi, die quaoso." " Sum nempe ferocior/' 
 
 inquit, 
 
 " Utque vigil sim nocte, quiescam luce, catena 
 " Alligor : at nihil est : gratus sopor iste diurnus ; 
 " Vespere ubique vagor, nullo retinente, per agros, 
 " Frusta mihi domino lautseque obsonia mensaB
 
 LUPUS ET CANIS. 121 
 
 " Per totam praebente diern ; Sic absque labore 
 " Vita beata fugit." " Si vis tamen effugere is- 
 
 stinc, 
 " Num. potes arbitrio ? " " Sane non id licet/' 
 
 inquit. 
 " Verum itaque est ? Equidem non tecum vivere 
 
 tali 
 
 " Conditione volo : tu, re meliore potitus, 
 " Utere sorte tua, ac valeas ! me libera semper 
 " Arva juvant : nocet empta jugo, mini crede, vo- 
 
 luptas." 
 
 July 4th, 1848.
 
 HYMN TO THE MORNING. (COLERIDGE.) 
 (Written in the Vale of Chamouni.) 
 
 A WAKE, my soul ! not only passive praise 
 3L 
 
 Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, 
 
 Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, 
 Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake 
 Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my song ! 
 
 Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale ! 
 struggling with the darkness all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of stars, 
 Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : 
 Companion of the morning star at dawn, 
 Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
 Co-herald : wake, wake, and utter praise ! 
 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 
 Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 
 Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?
 
 IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. 
 "DUMPE moras, mea mens ! non tantum laudibus 
 
 JLl 
 
 istis 
 
 Nunc opus ! haud lacrymis satis est turgescere, caeca 
 Fervere leetitia, ac tacitas persolvere grates : 
 Excute, cor, somnos ! vosque adspirate canenti 
 Gramineas valles, glacieque rigentia saxa ! 
 Incipe, vox arguta, melos ! 
 
 Te, maxime regum, 
 
 Te primum aggredior, rallis decus : humida cujus 
 Nox caput invadit tenebris ; quern plurima longas 
 Sidera per noctes, nunc sero orientia caalo, 
 Nunc obitura, petunt : rosei qui sideris instar, 
 Luciferi comes ipse, diem lucemque reportas, 
 Surge age, rumpe moras, laudesque effunde solutas ! 
 Quis tua, quis solida posuit fundamina terra, 
 Sol ubi semper abest ? roseo quis lumine tingens 
 Vultum fluminea fecit te prole parentem ?
 
 124 HYMN TO THE MORNING. 
 
 And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! 
 Who called you forth from night and utter death, 
 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
 Down those precipitous, black, jagged Eocks, 
 For ever shattered and the same for ever ? 
 Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
 Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your 
 
 Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ? 
 
 And who commanded and the silence came 
 
 " Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ? " 
 
 Ye icefalls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
 Adown enormous ravines slope amain 
 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
 And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge 
 Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
 Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven 
 Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
 Clothe you with rainbows ? Who with living 
 
 flowers 
 
 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? 
 GOD ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
 Answer ! and let the ice plains echo, GOD !
 
 IDEM LATIXE REDDITUM. 125 
 
 Vos etiam, quini qui flumina volvitis anmes 
 Turbida laetitia ! quis vos a noctis acerba 
 Sede, quis exitio, gelidisque excivit ab antris, 
 Pra3cipites inter scopulos, et scrupea saxa 
 Ire jubens, loca perpetua collapsa ruina ? 
 Quis vobis nullo violandara vulnere vitam 
 Laatitiamque alasque dedit ? vis unde, furorque, 
 Spumaeque insomnes, ac fulmina nescia sisti ? 
 Quis pelago dixit subeuntque silentia dicto 
 " Hie tumidi rigeant fluctus ; hie unda quiescat ? " 
 
 Lymplia gelu constricta ! fero quae vertice mentis 
 Devolvis rigidos per saxa horrentia fluctus 
 Quamque equidem voces credo agnovisse Potentis, 
 Et fremitum, atque omnem subito fraenasse furo- 
 
 rem 
 
 tacitee decursus aquaa ! sine gurgite torrens ! 
 Quis vobis fulgore dedit splendescere, quali 
 Sidereae portae, plenaa sub frigora lunae ? 
 Unde, precor, jussus vestras Sol Iride picta 
 Vestit aquas ? qua serta maim funduntur, et una 
 Caerulei flores, vivum decus ? Est Deus, alto 
 Torrentes clamore fremant, voxque insonet in gens, 
 Gentis opus ! vos arva gelu torrentia, plena
 
 126 HYMN TO THE MORNING. 
 
 GOD ! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice ! 
 Ye pine - groves, with your soft and soul - like 
 
 sounds ! 
 
 And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
 And in their perilous fall shall thunder, GOD !
 
 IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. 127 
 
 Reddite voce, "Deum !" vos prata recentia rivis, 
 Et pineta sacrum foliis spirantia murmur; 
 Hgec quoque, namque licet, nivea quee mole laborant 
 Saxa "Deum \" vasto revoluta a monte sonabunt. 
 September 27th, 1848.
 
 ROLL ON, THOU DEEP AND DARK BLUE 
 OCEAN, ROLL! 
 
 T70LVERE, caeruleis fundoque carentibus undis ! 
 Volvere ! regna yirum tua littora : regna, 
 
 quibus nil, 
 
 Te praeter, superesse astas dedit. ubi Persia 
 Assyriaeque vetus sedes ? ubi Grsecia, et ingens 
 Gloria Bomulidum ? Sopor urget ferreus omnes, 
 nines deperiere. Manes imraobilis, idem, 
 Tu, vitreis immensus aquis, nescisque reverti 
 Ponte ! tot humanos quanquam miscerier aestus 
 Vidisti, tot sceptra retro, tot praslia ferri 
 Nullas in fronte minas : liquido sed mollo susurro 
 Labere qualis eras primi sub origine mundi, 
 Qualis in asternum labere volubilis aevum. 
 
 1850.
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 1\/TAGNASartis opes,manibusque imitabile nostris 
 NaturaB decus, et partos sine Marte triumphos, 
 Aggredior cantare. Juvat revocasse parentum 
 Umbras, et simulacra modis splendentia miris 
 Exigua in tabula : juvat ardua cernere templa, 
 ^Estivumque nemus, fontesque et picta Lyaeo 
 Culta, vel ingentea hominum mirarier urbes. 
 Apparet lapsura nova nece Troja, ducesque 
 Argolici ; salit ecce ferox Romanus in hostem, 
 Et desolatas rursum aspectamus Athenas. 
 Non aliter persfepe trahunt sublustria sens us 
 Somnia sopitos, et imagine ludimur aurea : 
 Delinita tument dum pectora, voxque volentum 
 Dicere abest ; at mira, nova dulcedine captas, 
 Religio superat mentes, fruimurque priorum 
 Colloquio, immemoresque loci raptamur, et horaa. 
 
 I. K
 
 130 PAINTING. 
 
 Cernis ut iminensa se mole attollat in auras, 
 ^Edes inter humo aaquatas, avulsaque saxis 
 Saxa, Coliseum ? Sancta sub rupe morari 
 Musa jubet, saeclique animos revocare sepulti, 
 Astra ruinosas spectant ubi conscia turres, 
 Et campos ubi Eoma fuit. Sic omnia pictor 
 Eite memor servavit, inenarrabile pingens 
 Dextra opus, ac tabulae dans vitam ac verba silenti. 
 
 Hie vero instructas acie, medioque phalanges 
 Marte, vel in crasso revolutos pulvere currus, 
 Formarit, non arte rudis ; piceumque colorem 
 Addidit, ac multa texit formidine campum. 
 Ille canes, pecudumque laborantisque coloni 
 Pinxit opus, fecitque boves per prata vagari, 
 Serpere de sylvis fumum, aut sub margine rivi 
 Ludere ridentes pueros : aliusque domorum 
 Arcanos penetrat thalamos, vigilemque sub alta 
 Nocte senem jussit visu ardescente tueri 
 Argenti gazas, aurique talenta reposti. 
 Atque alius sacri profert miracula Libri, 
 Pastoris laudes, debellatumque gigantem, 
 Aut casum Babylonis, aquas ubi propter, inani 
 Fletu indulgebant, noctis per taBdia Icngae,
 
 PAINTING. 131 
 
 Isacidas. Atque alius supremi arcana reclusit 
 Luminis, instantemque Deum, trepidosque sub ipsis 
 Tartareis stantea portis denso agmine manes. 
 Nulli fas illis mortali excedere tectis. 
 Sed ne quaere prius, quae nocte teguntur acerba, 
 Neu scrutare Deum. Nobis sat pandere multae 
 Artis iter, quocunque ferat sacrata voluptas, 
 Concessamque viam coeli affectare futuri. 
 1850.
 
 PARTHENONIS RUIKE. 1 
 
 A TLANTEA feror trans sequora, transque so- 
 il. 
 
 norum 
 
 Nirnbis Ionium, pastoralesque recessus 
 Arcadige : apparent candentia marmore saxa, 
 Prataque olivifera, et rivorum argenteus error, 
 Speluncaeque, lacusque, et densi palmite clivi. 
 H09 tibi divitise, musis gratissima tellus, 
 Attica ! quas Asise frustra Libyseque colonus 
 Optat, et auratis Hermus mercetur arenis. 
 Non mirum veteres hsec fortunata locorum 
 Nobilioro choro, formisque implesse poetas 
 ^Etheriis ; ipsa aura Deum spirare videtur, 
 Nee mortale melos ad littora volvere fluctus. 
 Ergo cuique jugo data numina, quaque sub umbra 
 Surrexere arae : turn parva sacraria nasci, 
 
 1 Chancellor's Prize Poem, Oxford, 1851.
 
 PAETHENONIS RUIX^E. 133 
 
 Turn variaa paulatim artes. Didicere colorem 
 Saxa pati, nee fronde sua turgescere mariner, 
 Et sylvas niveis interlucere columnis. 
 
 Sed non lucorum tenebras artisque vetusta9 
 Prisca rudimenta, et latitantia numina sylvis, 
 Fert animus lustrare : vocant distantis Hymetti 
 Culmina, et assiduis decertans Sunion undis 
 Piniferum ostentat gremium camposque patentes. 
 Quippe hinc torva domus desolatumque videri 
 Palladis armatse solium, clypeataque quondam 
 Effigies ; hinc hasta tremens, galeseque coruscus 
 Apparebat apex, et rubrae in vertice cristse. 1 
 Illas seepe vagans ^Eggeo in marmore nauta, 
 Cum nimbi posuere, jubarque orientis Eoi 
 Trans (Etsee procul splendet juga, vidit aperta 
 Luce coruscantes, et remo innixus inerti 
 Substitit, optatas ut compellaret Athenas. 
 
 1 Soph. Aj., 1217. 
 
 " jf.voip.av "tv vXatv extort TTOVTOV 
 
 VTTO TrXctKO. 'S.ovviov, 
 rac tepaf OTTWC
 
 134 PARTHENONIS RUIX^E. 
 
 Namque ubi convulsam hanc molem, postesque 
 
 tueris 
 
 Avulso capite, et longge data saxa ruinee ; 
 Stabat aprico aodes de marmore, Candida partim, 
 Partim cseruleos ceeli mentita colores, 
 Gaudebatque die, et sese pandebat ad ortus 
 Luminis, eque jugis magnam spectabat in urbem. 
 Quales aeriis in cautibus Apennini, 
 Aut nimbis involvit ubi latera ardua Parnes, 
 Suspendere domes aquilas, plenoque tuentur 
 Solem oculo, nidosque fovent ingentibus alis. 
 Flore coronati postes, sertisque superbi 
 Auricomis ; varia lucebat taenia gutta, 1 
 Masandroque frequens circum color ibat amteno. 
 Quos supra, testata truces ancilia pugnas 
 Ordine pendebant tereti, caslataque in auro 
 Nomina, magnorum monumenta et munus avorum. 
 
 Necnon et varia signarat imagine frontem 
 Artificis manus, et lateri cselarat honores. 
 
 1 Vide Wordsworth's " Greece," description of the Metopes, 
 Triglyphs, &c., round the Parthenon, gnttae, festoons, and 
 golden shields.
 
 PARTHENONIS RUIN^. 135 
 
 Hie Centaurorum rabiem Lapitheiaque arma 
 
 Aspiceres, trepidasque nurus, et Thesea raptis 
 
 Mensarum exuviis non irrita bella moventem. 1 
 
 Illic in lucem matri non debita Pallas/ 
 
 Arma tenens, surgobat : earn chorus omnis Olympi 
 
 Spectabat, sobolemque pater Ia3tatus ab alto 
 
 Veram agnoscebat solio, juxtaque locabat. 
 
 Circum antiqua Ceres, Cythereaque, Mercuriusque, 
 
 Mulciber innixus ferro, Victoriaque alis 
 
 Ardua; nee virides texere Hyperiona fluctus, 
 
 Nee pallente Erebi latuit Proserpina luco. 
 
 Contra respondit tellus percussa tridenti, 3 
 
 Et sonipes, et sylva tumens, lymphaeque sequaces, 
 
 Ardentesque Deum facies. Ibi regia Virgo, 
 
 Neptunusque pater, neque adhuc data victima 
 
 Phoebo 
 
 Leucothea, et vitreis in curribus Amphitrite, 
 Herseque, Aglaurosqne, et semper inops Erisicthon. 
 Hgec inter tranquilla maris lucebat imago, 
 
 1 Library of Entert. Knowledge, British Museum, p. 139. 
 " Metopes." 
 
 2 E. Pediment, p. 237. 
 
 3 W. Pediment, p. 247.
 
 136 PARTHENONIS 
 
 Vivaque Callirhoe, gelidaque Ilissus in umbra, 
 Et nascens Erycina, fretis acclinis eburnis. 
 Talibus ingentem divaB splendoribus arcem 
 Phidiacus labor ornavit, saxoque caduco 
 Immortale dedit decus, et sacravit in sevum. 
 
 Quanquam, o magne parens artis, cui sculptile 
 
 marmor, 
 
 Cui niveum parebat ebur, gazaeque liquentes 
 Amnis Maeonii ; nunc o si regna revisas 
 Patria, dilectamque iterum spectaveris urbem, 
 Urbem reginam non amplius ! Exulat oris 
 Spirans saxum aliis, pulchri fugere colores : 
 Te quoque, divinae domus aagidis, alter Ulixes l 
 Polluit ; alter, agens rubrum ipsa in limina martem, 
 Avulsit praodam mediis altaribus Ajax j 2 
 Quot tua funeribus nutarint saxa, quot iras 
 Certantum populorum, et belli incendia norint, 
 Testatur via clausa situ, strataeque deorum 
 Effigies, portaeque feris hyemique patentes. 
 
 1 Demetrius Poliorcetes. (Vide JEn. i. 40, ii. 404.) 
 
 2 Sylla dragged Aristion from the altar. Brit. Mus. p. 56. 
 (Vide JEn. ii. 164.)
 
 PARTHENOXIS RUIX^. 137 
 
 Scilicet lianc sedem Venetorum, ac turbida Sullae 
 Agmina vastarunt ; hanc audivere cadentem, 
 Sulphuris impulsu Scythici, 1 Cephissides undee, 
 ^Eginseque latus niveum, distansque Caphareus. 
 Ilia nocte greges nemorosi ex arce Lycaei 
 Pastor agens, miro splendore rubescere coelum 
 Vidit, et ex adytis non thurea nubila ferri. 
 Vidit, et intremuit : paucisque volantibus horis, 
 Templum ingens qua stabat, erat csementa tueri, 
 Et tetros cineres, caligantemque ruinam. 
 
 Atqui saepe, cavum quo tempore sidera saxum 
 Frigida perspiciunt, quo rerum apparet imago 
 Maxima, densatseque cadunt e postibus umbrae ; 
 Desertis juvat ire jugis, #ulaque vagari 
 Sub vacua, et pronis in casum hserere columnis. 
 Infra reliquias urbis, prostrataque passim 
 Templa vides, murosque ; vides, Jovis atria quon- 
 dam, 
 
 Fragmina, Mavortisque jugum,lapidesque theatri : 
 At circa loca mille, decus confessa parentum, 
 
 1 The Turks set fire to some gunpowder which the Vene- 
 tians had left in the temple. Encycl. Brit. " Athens."
 
 138 PARTHENONIS RUIN^J. 
 
 Scena nitent varia : hie Salamis se tollit ab undis 
 Contemptorem Asiaa, Marathonis littora longe, 
 Portaque Thebarum apparet, materque Pelasgee 
 Ascra lyraa ; propior, sylvis aperitur Eleusin 
 In mediis, ac nigra quatit pineta Cithasron. 
 Turn flagrare faces in pectore, voxque volenti 
 Dicere abest ; sensusque haurit diffusa per onmes 
 Conscia fama loci, lapsas revocamur in horas, 
 Et venib in mentem, quorum cinis abditur infra. 
 
 At postquam adventum, paries ubi taxit opacus 
 Thesauros adytumque dese, senisque columnis 
 Interclusa domus ; turn vultuni atque ora parentura 
 Fas ipsa aspicere, et vivis miscerier umbris. 
 Namque hie : ingentem caBtum, matresque, virosque, 
 Effuses ad sacra, senes, pallisque puellas 
 Extuderat longis opifex : quaa pocula ferrent, 
 Quaaque faces, calathosque ; alias umbracula soli 
 Pandere, vel sacri miratas pondera pepli. 2 
 Has ad pacataa tendentes Palladis arcem 
 Turba sequebatur taurorum, et debita morti 
 
 1 The Panathenaic frieze. Libr. Brit. Mus. p. 182, &c. 
 
 2 Slabs, No. 17-25.
 
 PARTHENONIS RUIN^E. 139 
 
 Corpora : pars longo mugitu et fronte reluctans 
 Terribili ; tacita pars ruajestate superbos 
 Volvit ovans gressus, collique volumina in arcum 
 Colligit, imbelles ultro comitata magistros. 
 Proxima, queis gracilis testudo aut tibia curse, 
 Sortiti loca, queisque merum tutarier urnis ; 
 Efc velata silens capiebat dona sacerdos. 1 
 
 Ast 2 alia de parte citas ardere quadrigas 
 Fecerat, et pubem tunicatam, ardentiaque ossa 
 Bellatoris equi ; quern, dorso immotus, habenis 
 Flexit inauratis eques, instantemque retorsit. 
 Ollis dissimiles habitus, grandisve cothurnus, 
 Aut laenas undantes, aut Arcadis umbra galeri : 
 Atque alius 3 tunicam etgemmati pondera baltei 
 Nectit ovans, lauruque caput circumdat equinum, 
 Victricemque alius 4 merita cervice coronam 
 Accipit, aut, segnes gestu exhortatus 5 amicos, 
 Prona rapit spatia, et campo decurrit aperto. 
 
 1 Nos. 84-90. 
 
 a Nos. 26-81. Vide Libr. Brit. Mus. p. 165, &c. 
 
 3 No. 46. 4 Slab, No. 26. 6 No. 47.
 
 140 PARTHENONIS RUIKE. 
 
 Nee minus interea motus proceraque membra 
 Ipsorurn mirabere equum ; mirabere nares 
 Fulmineas, et cura modis luctantia miris, 
 Luminaque, osque fremens, et stantes sanguine 
 
 venas. 
 
 Partem, indignantum similem, certare videres 
 Arrectos in frena, jubasque atque agmina cauda3 
 Excutere, et celsas in frontes cogere martem. 1 
 Stare loco partem, 2 notamque micantibus escam 
 Auribus accipere/ aut gradientes agmine lento 
 Alternare pedem, plausove quiescere collo. 
 Talem Miltiades currum, talemve regebat 
 Armiger Automedon : tales invictus Achilles 
 Bello addebat equos, ubi Larissaea sub ipsis 
 Crista relucebat muris, flebantque Pelasgo 
 Hectora Trojanse revolutum in pulvere matres. 
 
 Quae vero integris species, quae gratia formis, 
 Artificisque manus quantam tractata per artem, 
 Turn sciat, avulsos lapides direptaque si quis 
 Fragmina post tanto videat, simulacraque vita 
 Fervida, vix summo simulacra exstantia saxo. 
 
 1 Nos. 32, 34, 36, &c. 2 No. 44, &c. 3 Xo. 58.
 
 PARTHENOXIS RUIN^. 141 
 
 Dicendum et peplus quales jactaret honores. 
 Illic arma Deum, debellatosque gigantas 
 Cernere erat, centum que manus sublime ferentem. 
 Enceladum, et rapto pugnantem monte Typhoea. 
 Hunc Pandionio de semine plurima virgo 
 Neverat, hunc gemmis, hunc interseverat auro 
 Multiplicem, et pictis dederat splendere figuris. 
 Qualiter Assyrii cum mercatoris ab alto 
 Effulgent vexilla man, gaudentque cole-res 
 Ad sol em reserare ; refert decora aureus setter, 
 Fictaque purpureis in fluctibus errat imago. 
 Talis erat species pepli lucentis aprico 
 Murice ; portantes pueri mollesque puellse 
 Ad sonitum citharaa gradiuntur, et inclyta Divse 
 Facta canunt. Ut nocte satos Titanas, ut orbes 
 
 A 
 
 Gorgona sanguineos volventem, anguesque tri- 
 
 lingues 
 
 Contuderit : tu, Diva, minas hominumque Deumque 
 Sprevisti pariter : Tityum testamur, et orsis 
 Vulcanum irrisis, poenamque audacis Arachnes. 
 Te Lariss89us juvenis, te novit amicam 
 Inachius Perseus j tibi balsama Gallus, et Afer 
 Suppeditat, fusamque cremant Phcenices olivam.
 
 142 PARTHEXONIS 
 
 Hue ades, regina ! tuis accingiinur una 
 Laudibus ; et proprios nunquam obliviscere Graios ! 
 
 Sic divam orabant varia prece. Jamque sub 
 
 ipsam 
 
 Portam adventantes, uno simul impete cuncti 
 Addunt in spatia, et laxis urgentur habenis. 
 Turn placidae apparent facies, circaque sedentum 
 Ora immota Deum ; Cereris turn apparet imago, 
 Latoneeque genus duplex, et regia Juno : 
 Fulgida pra8 cunctis solium Tritonis eburnum 
 Pallas habet ; non ense ferox, non asgida quassans, 
 Sed niveis radians vittis, risuque sereno. 
 
 Talia per muros et per laquearia pictor 
 Atticus extuderat, gaudens revocare priorum 
 Gesta virum, ac tabulse dare vitam et verba silenti. 
 
 Quanquam, asdes formosa, tibi non signifer ordo 
 Parietis, aut fuco diversum marmor honores 
 Prascipuos tribuit : tali petat arte triumphos 
 Barbarus, audaci attollens super aathera nisu 
 Pyramidum moles, et splendida mausolea.
 
 PARTHENONIS RUIN^J. 143 
 
 At tibi majestas, tibi simplex gratia formae ; 
 Te, dum cincta nites leviter spirantibus auris, 
 Et lucem simul ipsa refers, ipso aethere tractum 
 Visum ambire decus : circumque illustrior umbra, 
 Circum sancta quies, et non tua gloria fundi. 
 Religione nova perculsi haeremus, et alte 
 Evehimur : nee tantus amor percurrere visu 
 Singula, quam tota paulisper imagine pasci 
 Ardescentern animum, dum sensus impleat omnes 
 Nee percepta prius, nee jam intellecta voluptas. 
 
 Teque, sub auspiciis cujus jussuque secundo 
 Templorum redivivus honos, artesque per orbem 
 Surrexere novas ; te nota in sede morantem 
 Fingit adhuc amor, et dulcem desiderat umbram. 
 
 A 
 
 Si non inscriptis titulos et nomina regum 
 Marte occisorum, vivit tua fama tropseis ; 
 Fulmina si vocis, quam mirabantur Athenge, 
 Non sculpti servant lapides, non pagima chartse ; 
 At patrii colles, at strata jacentibus aris 
 Pascua, perque altas templorum fragmina sylvas, 
 Te memorant, artemque tuam ; tibi vivida virtus 
 Clara dedit monumenta, et non mortale tropaeum.
 
 144 PARTHENONIS 
 
 Jamque, licet vix ulla sibi monumenta vetustas 
 Servet adhuc, licet Italicis concesserit armis 
 Quisquis honos Graiorum, et nil nisi nominis umbram 
 Fas tanti superesse : manet tamen artis avita3 
 Saltern aliquid ; manet ilia patrum vestigia tardis 
 Passibus, et longo sectarier intervallo. 
 Forsitan et nostris aliquis spectarit in oris 
 Marmoreos apices, atque atria clausa columnis 
 Sole novo lucere : ast illi irrepit imago 
 Arcis Palladise ; labuntur verba per aurem 
 Muta diu, Graiosque juvat meminisse parentes. 
 
 CAROLUS STUART BLAYDS. 
 e COLL. BALLIOL.
 
 AUSTRALIA. 1 
 
 TNSULA Pacificis in fluctibus ilice multa 
 
 Tecta jacet, pontumque jugis intercipit albis. 
 Supra nube vacans et nostro purior aether : 
 Ingentes intus campi, sectaeque malignis 
 Tramitibus cautes, et ager non aequus aratro. 
 Hie ubi nunc lautas urbes, ubi rura juvenci 
 Fassa pedem, Isetosque vides in collibus agnos ; 
 Barbara nuper ibi ducebat lampade luna 
 Gens incompositas inter querceta choreas, 
 Corporaque exuviis circumdabat atra ferinis. 
 Tantum auri vesana potest mutare cupido. 
 
 Namque sub eluviem fluviorum et saxa repertum 
 Ingens pondus opum referunt : id fama per orbem 
 Detulit, ac resides populos accendit amore. 
 Hue Europaeaa gentes, hue Seres, et Indi 
 Convenere : novae si quern telluris imago 
 
 1 University Prize Poem. Cambridge, ] 853. 
 I. L
 
 146 AUSTRALIA. 
 
 Impulit, aut stimulis baud lenibus egit egestas. 
 
 Ut portum l tetigere rates, et, laeta peracti 
 -^Equoris, in terra graditur manus : ilicet aedes 
 Et vici apparent nivei, 2 simulataque priscaB 
 Anglia, et antique decoratae more tabernse. 
 Cernis equos, cernis currus ; partem Area, parteni 
 Scena trahit, magnumque forum, circusque theatri ; 
 Et cuidam nemorum lustranti devia Lugens 3 
 Monstratur Sinus ; hie patriis e finibus exsul 
 Plurimus inviso terrain tractabat aratro, 
 Foacundumque solum poenis, et non sua rura. 
 Credas littus adhuc tracta stridere catena ; 
 Sed fuit. Aversus petis urbem, et singula lustras ; 
 Praepes in aequoreas dum sol immittitur undas, 
 Tranquillumque nitent sub eburna carbasa luna. 
 
 Tu vero, desiderium cui suaserit ingens 
 Explorare sinum terras, et rem quaerere dextra, 
 Assurgis dum mane novum, dum flatus ab undis 
 Acrior, et lanas percurrunt vellera caelum. 
 Turn tauros traheamque pares : hue arma ferantur, 
 
 1 Portum, sc. Port Jackson, town of Sydney. 
 
 2 Nivei, the buildings being of white stone. 
 
 3 Lugens Sinus, sc. Botany Bay.
 
 AUSTRALIA. 147 
 
 Hue vestes et victus ; agit secum omnia fossor. 
 Quadrijugos alii currus, alii esseda duro 
 Submittunt oneri, et meritos meliora caballos : 
 Inde viam faciunt. Itur per rura, per urbes ; 
 Quaque inculta capraa mordent juga ; quaque 
 
 cadentes 
 Lymphae dulce sonant, et frondea procubat umbra. 
 
 Nee tamen abruptas cautes et fracta viarum 
 Offecere nihil. Ssepe acri in colle recusat 
 Taurus iter, nee voce potest nee verbere trudi. 
 Ergo alios addunt operi, gestuque minisque 
 Incendunt : hinc ilia bourn lamenta per agros, 
 Et gressus tenues, et noto longior ordo. 
 Multis auctumni pluviae tristisque November 
 Obfuit : ut calido descendens imber ab Euro 
 
 * 
 
 Ad ver usque fremit, debacchatusque per arva 
 Stirpes et pecora et pavidos vi rap tat agrestes. 
 Necnon asstivis in mensibus aridus aer 
 Ex Arcto venit, itque ferens morbosque sitimque : 
 Non umbras frigus pecori, non tecta colono 
 Suffecere ; furit campis equa, deque profundis 
 Auditur sylvis vox intempesta luparum. 
 Haec metuens, sub vere viam moliris, et acres
 
 148 AUSTKALIA. 
 
 Saspe memor recreas ad diversoria tauros. 
 Ni vocet hospitiis leeti te cultor agelli, 
 Qui lac, et tostas fruges, et poma ministret 
 Dulcia : multus enim placidis in vallibus 89vum 
 Degit adhuc, nee falcis amor, nee cessit aratri. 
 Atque ubi longa diu circurn deserta vaganti 
 Optati tandem incipient se prodere montes ; 
 Continue saxis via crebrior, auraque tenuis . 
 Signa dabit, clamorque virum, stridorque securis. 
 Mox immane vides agmen, tot moribus usos 
 Quot linguis armisque : riget coma, fronsque latro- 
 
 num 
 
 Instar habet ; sed mite genus, natumque labori. 
 Illi falce metunt, durisque ligonibus arvum ; 
 Cultro alius dirimit glebas, ac librat acerra ; l 
 Forsitan et puteos aliquis demisit in altum, 
 Statque inhians, si forte aurum, si forte recondant ; 
 Jamque solum digitis, jam forcipe prensat aheno. 
 Est quaedam tabulis et cratibus apta supellex, 
 Quam cunas dixere : ferunt hue uberis arvi 
 Pondus, et injecta cogunt per vimina lympha. 
 
 1 Acerra, sc. " an inspccting-pan."
 
 AUSTRALIA. 149 
 
 Udae eluctantur sordes ; quod restitit, aurum est ; 
 Signa palam dabit, ac digitis splendescet habendo. 
 
 Talia molitos propior sol admonet undis, 
 Quicquid agunt proferre vetans in majus : at illi 
 Addunt ligna focis, stratique in littore duro 
 Accipiunt oculis et toto pectore Doctem. 
 
 Felix, qui tantos potuit perferre labores ! 
 Quique procellarum furiis, asstuque, fameque 
 Majorem se fassus, iter patefecit habendi ! 
 Fortunatus et ille, sui qui dives, et utens 
 Sorte data, magnis non invidet ! Improbus ilium 
 Fors urget labor, arcta domus, rarique sodales : 
 At jucunda quies, at vivae in montibus auree, 
 Et vacuus curis animus, fecere beatum. 
 Patris amans illi soboles^ nee laeta laborurn 
 Uxor abest : non ille timet de nocte latrones, 
 Non auctumnalem maturis frugibus imbrem.
 
 CABMEN GE^ECUM. 1 
 
 COMITIIS MAXIMIS RECITATUM. 
 
 A.D. M.DCCC.LV. 
 'Effofrai 11 nap orav TTOT' oXwXy *l\tof tpjj. 
 
 A STEQN 7To/o0}rOjO, drtjOEC AIOJV, 
 Kjoa^' ortu Kicraoe Kvirapiamvoi re 
 lXav 8' o 
 
 >./. 5> / 
 
 atcrjc ot, 
 
 oarioig Xawv 7rt]3ae KOJUO 
 
 -yap 0varwv TW Trap' ouSfv 17761' 
 
 ylyverat aXica, 
 
 iravO' a/uL l^oXwXcv, orav Soicy trot, 
 
 XeUKOTTETrX' WVTTtp /OoS' V Tj/OOf 
 
 ^a' Vtoter' ai yEvea Tcufrott; Iv 
 
 1 University Prize Poem. Cambridge, 1855.
 
 CARMEN GILECUM. 151 
 
 july* 6Xj3ta TroXtc, corta TE 
 
 v/j.vov, 
 
 t'Soe jaiaQ rore icuSoe atvoiv' 
 1, $va$ai[j.ov TroXtCj ou tre Xl^w 
 airopBr)T(t)v' O.TTO yap KS 
 
 Xdtvov irvpywv err^avw/ua' KOU <TOI 
 
 T;|OK(T' a 0aXXoto-a TO JUT) ou 
 Sovpl 
 
 "\ O ^l ' T 
 
 oAptov o a t 
 
 7T/OIV [JLoXllV, Ta7T|O^OjLtv'' 6Xj3ta 
 
 6X/3ia, 7T7rra)Kvat, owS' tSftv TTW 
 SovXtov 
 
 aoru 0' rifjifjievov irvpt, icav ' 
 
 rtyyoiaav TT
 
 152 CARMEN GR^CUM. 
 
 aXXoe 6 Kpdu)v BajSuXwvtae 70? 
 erra TTOK' ev ae/jivy Qpovy' cfyiar' iv 
 ', oTvov 8' OTTO aiSdXw 
 
 t7T 8' OUK 
 
 yap ri 
 
 , />>' 5>^' /1\ ^> 
 
 fyvvai ; ou Travr a^u ecrErat ; TO pqutv o 
 
 OVK T'X(T(TV. 
 
 jap, 
 
 bfJLoia. JUEV jS/oory, oi 8' ojuot'a* 
 ot S' a/o' 0/ot^av rpr^a, KaXfXi^i} 
 youvara ra/oj3ff 
 
 tic S' ^a fJLavTi OeOJ' " ov juaXa 
 otc TTtTroi^aC) ffot JUEVEI' aXXa 
 
 trov Str/prjrat Kparoc;, a/nap ^ 
 
 f jj 
 
 VOTOTOV T)Kt. 
 
 ra o 
 
 SfV WV fTTTfV 00f' ri^CL 
 
 v avatraa, KEKEV^EV we vauv
 
 CARMEN GKECUM. 153 
 
 iravra TOL nivvvOaSi' oad t\t ya' 
 
 'PwjtXCl TTOKO, KaTTTTECTEV St 
 
 fJiarajp icroSeujUOvoe TE 
 
 fj.vpi(t)v 'EXXa? Ki6apu>v ayaX/za' 
 Nvjit^av ")(opoi f ac 'YJ 
 Tipipav, TTE^xXajutv' ate 
 
 t?rar', (5 Nvjit^av ")(opoi f ac 
 
 Trota 77 BaKpvaaTt, Tig KiOaipuv 
 
 VfJLfJLlV OV (TVfjHJHjJVOG, E7TEI VaTToToV 
 
 ' lOaTETTTOV XtTTEr', a/ij3|OOTOt 8' OUK 
 
 ttrtrav 'A0ava< ; 
 
 oa TTOU Ki)Vtt)v ap\t ; TTOU 
 vaaot At-yamc aXo^ ; atydirov filv 
 Bipoq, aXt'w 8' ou 
 TTW (j)BivaQ avja' 
 
 XOITTO S' O<T<T' aTravra VE 
 OUK EKEI \opoaraaiai K.OL 
 
 otc SaTT^ai TTOKO, X'? *X at / v
 
 154 CARMEN GR^CUM. 
 
 ripifji avB' oSonropog Ifjifi 
 va/zaru)v o\0ag y OTTO. 8' OVK anovtt 
 TT\rjv 
 
 ', (t<r//v roSe) KOU^ eicac 
 <J)Oiviv ore KCU a' avayica 
 ttuv, at vvv a^ivai TE <rti>7ra- 
 aovrai ayutat* 
 
 rof /iv %povov OVK q. TIV 
 iv Ovaruv Otos' Iv fjitpei 8' &v 
 Karrj07j(Tt ^aptfj wore fia 
 
 atXtVO? 8' tffCTft OTToSoC. l(T^tV Wf 
 
 iffTiv T/8rj yripaXia' KOL opfyva. 
 wpavv Kptytt TrXaica, ^aXto^ 8/00- 
 
 ' ou fyipu og KaXw? 
 TOUTOV ou rvjiov 8vo^)OCj ou 
 Ka.K\nrovTt;
 
 CARMEX GR^CUM. 155 
 
 t, KOtTTEjO jUOVOC, OW 
 
 /uvapomv yap rot Qpediv l 
 
 TraXaibv 
 
 OUK ajuaw/ow rtjcrovoe' " aAtoc yap 
 ou 8wcra* TrapeXtvGiTai ya 
 
 >og TTjOOTra?' TO 8' ijuov jucvet /oJ?jw' 
 
 , /i / 
 
 amt/trov
 
 LOCA SACRA APUD HIEROSOLYMAM. 1 
 
 f\ FORTUNATI colles, donms ipsius olim 
 
 Dicta Dei ; si vester honos alia exsulat ora, 
 Nati si periere, jacentque in pulvere turres : 
 At solitos circa saltus dilectaque dudum 
 Saxa, morantur adhuc Solymse queis gloria cordi : 
 SaBpe per anfractus nemorum exaudita querela 
 Virginis Hebraeso, dum trunco acclinis olivsa 
 Cantat bella patrum, residesque recalfacit ignes. 
 Quin 2 (si vera fides) sub arnica vesperis hora 
 Mira manus tangit citharam, neque cernitur ulli : 
 Nee carmen terrestre sonat : sed qualiter undee 
 ^Bquoris, aut, ventis ubi mota laborat, arundo. 
 Nunc in densa rapi palmis juga, nunc in apricis 
 
 1 University Prize Poem. Cambridge, 1855. 
 a Conf. Heber's " Palestine : " 
 
 " For oft 'tis said in Kedron's palmy vale 
 Mysterious harpings swell the midnight gale," &c.
 
 LOG A SACRA APUD HIEROSOLYMAM. 157 
 
 Ire videmur agris, fontesque haurire sacratos : 
 Apparet quee vallis aquam Cedronis opacat, 
 Et longasva micans inter querceta Siloe. 
 O ubi olivarum sedes, ubi clivus amatis 
 Accola relliquiis ! video jam rura recludi 
 Bethanieeque casas procul, et qua pastor ab umbra 
 Regnaturus iit populorum. Hac ille fugavit 
 Valle feras; haec antra loqui montesque docebat, 
 Dum labor unus oves, dum Pieris una voluptas. 
 Hinc persaepe Deus sera sub nocte redibat ; 
 Hinc ingens, Solyma, exitium, ac venientia sero 
 Fata tibi cecinit : tuque aspernata canentem ! 
 
 Ergo inter cineres platearum ac diruta templa 
 Grassari permissum Italis : ergo occidit ingens 
 
 Gloria, et Isacidas matres sua forma reliquit. 1 
 
 * 
 
 Tempore non alio spectatos sanguinis imbres 
 Dicunt, et simulacra rotis invecta coruscis, 
 Auditasque sonare tubas, inque ae're sudo 
 Fervere equum sonitus, atque arma minarier armis. 
 A gnovere quidem seri quid talia ferrent ; 
 
 1 Cf. Mace. i. 25, 26 : " Therefore there was great mourn- 
 ing in Israel .... and the beauty of women was changed."
 
 158 LOCA SACRA APUD HIEROSOLYMAM. 
 
 Tune, quum summa dies aderat, templuraque vora- 
 
 bant 
 
 Yivi ignes : quis Cyrus erit, qui fragmina rursus 
 Colligat, et patria extorres in sceptra reponat ? 
 
 Ex illo furor Europes exhaustus in urbem 
 Atque Asiaa : tu, Nile, truces in proelia turnias 
 Misisti : quid signa crucis, quid ut orbis in arma 
 Hesperius ruerit dicam ? Et nos fracta tuemur 
 Castella l in tumulis, famamque fovemus avorum. 
 
 Nunc in colle sacro TurcEe dominantur, et intra 
 Ire nefas ; clausa avertit sese advena porta. 
 Devenit et tandem qua sola in valle quiescunt 
 Ossa sepultorum vatum. Cape 2 missile saxum 
 Eite manu, ac tumulum nati exsecrator iniqui. 
 Ast ubi Gethsemanes lucos, ubi tristia calcas 
 Eura, et purpureos in opaco cespite flores, 
 Fama loci venit in mentem crimenque priorum. 
 His, credo, e latebris genitor natum egit ad aram 
 Chaldaeus ; jam ligna manu, jam ceperat ignes ; 
 
 1 Sc. some old castles built by Crusaders on the heights 
 near Bethany. 
 
 2 Alluding to the custom of casting a stone at the tomb of 
 Absalom.
 
 LOCA SACRA APUD HIEROSOLYMAM. 159 
 
 Ibat et hinc, torvo septus grege, sanctior illo 
 Victima, nee dubiam in caedem : perterrita tellus 
 Testis qui moreretur, et intempesta ruens nox, 
 Mota juga, et vivi passim per littora manes. 
 
 Est locus l haud procul e muris, ubi caerulus aer, 
 Gleba ferax, et rubra vocant pomaria falcem : 
 Non uvis auctumnus eget, non ficubus aestas. 
 Hue olim (ut perliibent) nurus altaa stirpis origo 
 Venit inops : illis errabat collibus, illic 
 Sedit propter aquam, gremiumve replevit aristis. 
 Multaque praaterea monstrat loca cognita famaa 
 Rusticus ; uxoris 2 SyrisD sub rupe sepulcrum, 
 Et vatis deserta domum, quseque unda, quod antrum 
 Regis erant desiderium, regisque latebras. 
 Dein loquitur nee genua pudet flexisse loquen- 
 
 * 
 
 tern 
 
 His ut in hospitiis, haac inter saxa, cubarit 
 Ipsa Dei soboles : quo tempore sidus Eoos 
 Praemonuit coeleste senes, volvique per auras 
 
 1 Bethlehem. 
 
 2 Uxoris latebrae. Rachel's tomb, the wilderness of St. 
 John the Baptist, the well for which David longed, the cave 
 in which he cut off Saul's skirt.
 
 160 LOCA SACRA APUD HIEROSOLYMAM. 
 
 Haud mortale melos pavidi sensere bubulci. 
 
 Inde, reliquit ubi frondentem Taboria arcem 
 Sol, et lordanis collucent stagna sub astris, 
 Vise silens thalamum l ingentem qua membra jace- 
 
 bant 
 
 Illius, jam passa necem, jam debita ccelo. 
 Cernis inauratas ut prgeterlapsa columnas 
 Ingens turba virum incedat, longa oscula figens 
 Ssepe solo, et lacrymis humectans grandibus aras ? 
 Fracto alios saxo videas inhiare, sedili 2 
 Quondam coelicolis ; alii interiora morantur 
 Circum adyta, et rupem vel adhuc mirantur hian- 
 
 tem, 3 
 Signaque 4 marmorea nondum deleta sub ara. 
 
 Tempus 5 erit (sic fama refert) quo nomine dicti 
 Illius, insuetas iterum per compita pompas 
 Ducent, inque novos solvet se terra triumphos 
 
 1 Sc. the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 2 The stone where the two angels sat. 
 
 3 The marks of the earthquake. 
 
 4 The holes where the three crosses stood are still exhibited 
 beneath the altar. 
 
 5 Alluding to a Turkish tradition, that the Christians will 
 one day enter the Golden Gate in triumph.
 
 LOCA SACRA APUD HIEROSOLYMAM. 161 
 
 Ad sonitum Pasanis, efc Aurea Porta patescet. 
 At, famae male credentes, ad moenia l nota 
 Saspe patres coeunt, et gentis quicquid ubique est 
 Judsese ; regnumque orant, regemquo morantem 
 Serius, atque umbra miseri oblectantur inani. 
 " Ternnis adhuc proprios ? si, Exspectate, redires 
 His oculis, hac templa dares aatate renasci ! " 
 Scilicet et veniet, quem speravere tot anni, 
 Tot vatum cecinere lyrae : non ille puella 
 Natus matre, caput stabulis in agrestibus abdens : 
 Nocte latens aderit nimborum, alisque procellge 
 Vectus ; eum rutila stipabunt astra corona, 
 Atque in fronte geret non enarrabile nomen. 
 Ille novam ostendet Solymam, templa altera fessis 
 Gentibus ; ipse dabit leges, ac sceptra tenebit ; 
 Agnoscetque suos, atque agnoscetur ab illis. 
 
 The Jews' place of mourning under the ruins of the 
 temple wall. 
 
 I. H
 
 SONG. 
 "FAITHLESS SWALLOW." 
 
 TjlAITHLESS Swallow, fly away, 
 To purer air and brighter day } 
 But when spring shall deck the plain, 
 Swallow, come again ! 
 
 Thou could'st not brook the changing sky, 
 Or Autumn winds that sadly sigh, 
 Too soon my fost'ring care forgot 
 And thou hast left my cot. 
 
 When, thy weary wand'rings o'er, 
 Shelter thou shalt claim once more, 
 Smiles alone shall greet thee here, 
 Swallow, do not fear !
 
 IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. 
 
 /^CELUM ubi candidius te, perfida, defer, hirundo ; 
 
 Coelum ubi candidius, splendidiorque dies : 
 Tempus erit tamen, arva redux quo pinget Aprilis ; 
 Illud ubi veniet, perfida, rursus ades. 
 
 Scilicet impatiens coeli mutabilis, et qui 
 
 Triste sub auctumnum ventus anhelat, eras : 
 
 Hsec metuens, oblita manus quaa fovit egentem, 
 A laribus nostris post breve tempus abis. 
 
 At cum fessa viaB, jam tandem erroribus actis, 
 Hospitis officium, qualiter ante, petes, 
 
 Hue redeas ! reducem nos excipiemus, hirundo, 
 Risibus assuetis ; exue quemque metum,
 
 164 "FAITHLESS SWALLOW." 
 
 Again I'll watch thy pinions light, 
 Around my head in airy flight, 
 Again thy faithless love forget, 
 And give thee welcome yet ! 
 
 Faithless Swallow, fly away, 
 To purer air and brighter day j 
 But when spring shall deck the plain, 
 Swallow, come again !
 
 IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. '165 
 
 Tecta levi rursus circumvectabere penna, 
 
 Aeriumque oculis rite tuebor iter : 
 Utque prius spretos ultro obliviscar amores, 
 
 TJtque prius dicam, Sit tua nostra domus. 
 
 Ergo aliis infida locis te transfer hirundo, 
 
 Lucet ubi coelo candidiore dies : 
 At cum prata, novum jam ver induta, nitescent, 
 
 Xe dubites nostrum rursus adire larem.
 
 "JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN." 
 
 John Anderson, my jo, John, 
 
 When we were first acquent 
 Your locks were like the raven, 
 
 Your bonnie brow was brent : 
 But now you're grawing auld, John, 
 
 Your locks are like the snow ; 
 Yet blessings on your frosty pow, 
 
 John Anderson, my jo ! 
 
 John Anderson, my jo, John, 
 
 I wonder what ye mean, 
 To rise sae early in the morn, 
 
 And sit sae late at e'en. 
 Yell blear out a' your e'e, John ; 
 
 And why should ye do so ? 
 Gang sooner to your bed at e'en, 
 
 John Anderson, my jo !
 
 IDEM GE&CE REDDITUM. 
 
 TO. TTpWTO. fJL 
 
 Kjoara 
 
 yspovrt vvv 
 
 Kapa SE O-QV vupapytc;' 
 ovaio KOI vuftapyovg, 
 
 TI &>} fj.aOa>v, avaorac 
 T' opupov, etra VUKTOC 
 
 ap oo-ffE y' 
 c wSe ^pav a', avayicj} ; 
 a/oay fjOTr' E
 
 168 JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN. 
 
 John Anderson, my jo, John, 
 
 When Nature first began 
 To try her canny hand, John, 
 
 Her masterwork was man. 
 And you amang them all, John, 
 
 Sae trig frae top to toe, 
 She proved to be nae journeywork, 
 
 John Anderson, my jo ! 
 
 John Anderson, my jo, John, 
 
 Ye were my first conceit ; 
 And ye need na think it strange, John, 
 
 Tho' I ca' ye trim and neat. 
 Though some folk say ye're auld, John, 
 
 I ne'er can think ye so : 
 Ye're aye the same kin' mon to me, 
 
 John Anderson, my jo ! 
 
 John Anderson, my jo, John, 
 We've seen our bairnies' bairns, 
 
 And yet, my ain John Anderson, 
 I'm happy in your airms :
 
 IDEM GR^CE REDDITUM. 169 
 
 TTOT 
 Zevg tK[i.a.Ou)v aKfjiaiov 
 
 ticatvjo-' tpyov 
 at S' t%i%ovTa icavSpwv 
 
 ffl TTav ro CTW^U' afi[i<p>i, 
 OVK eKTid tpyaTijg Tig 
 
 vOp vl^t yap a 
 
 Tt QaVfJLCL KCLV <T 
 
 <Tf S' fVTrpeirri vo//t^ 
 ytpovra d iiirov aXXot 
 t//ot Se y' oily I7j3ac* 
 
 r \ /A >-r 
 
 we ya/o TroAat /u tr fu 
 
 av^pwv, 
 
 TlKV(l)V 
 
 V aycaXatc o 
 
 / 
 jua
 
 170 JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN. 
 
 And sae are ye in mine, John, 
 
 I'm sure ye'll ne'er say no ; 
 Though the days are gone that we hae seen, 
 
 John Anderson, my jo ! 
 
 John Anderson, my jo, John, 
 
 We clamb the hill thegither, 
 And mony a canty day, John, 
 
 We've had wi' ane anither : 
 Now we maun totter down, John ; 
 
 But hand in hand we'll go, 
 And sleep thegither at the foot, 
 
 John Anderson, my jo ! 
 
 BURNS.
 
 IDEM GR^CE REDDITUM. 171 
 
 ^uaX' aafJLivoq (TV 
 
 > \ / 
 
 ov jU?) TOO a; 
 
 ICt <f>pOV$' O. Sri TTOT tCT/UV, 
 
 TroAX' <r^o/xv o-u 
 
 Kt
 
 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 1 
 
 O IR, A writer in a recent number 2 of this Maga- 
 zine, laid down that there could be no true 
 translation of a Greek or Roman poet which did not 
 reproduce his metre ; and that this had been suc- 
 cessfully done by the Poet Laureate and others. I 
 venture to think, on the contrary, that what resem- 
 blance there is between these modern experiments 
 and their originals, is a primd facie resemblance, 
 and vanishes upon inspection ; and that the speci- 
 mens which the Laureate gave us, whatever may 
 
 1 This and the two following articles afford a clear exposi- 
 tion of Calverley's views upon the subject of which he was 
 so great a master, classical translation. ED. 
 
 2 The article here commented on will be found in the 
 "London Student," for June, 1868, p. 149. (On Metrical 
 Translation. By Henry Ward Fortescue.) ED.
 
 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 173 
 
 be their value upon other grounds, are, as imita- 
 tions of metre, worthless. 
 
 That the likeness is not so perfect as it has been 
 assumed to be may, perhaps, appear thus. Let us 
 take Mr. Tennyson's alcaic stanzas the bestalcaics, 
 one may well suppose, which our language is capable 
 of producing and consider a single line : 
 
 " Calm as a mariner out in ocean." 
 
 This, it will be said, is a perfectly unexceptionable 
 English alcaic line. And such, no doubt, it is ; but 
 does it really reproduce Horace ? If so, then, sup- 
 posing we constructed a Latin line upon its model, 
 we ought to have a fac simile of the normal Hora- 
 tian line. Take 
 
 Sol tit in acre lucet alto : 
 
 Is this a fair sample of Horace ? It is a line which 
 any elementary lyric-book would tell us was bad ; a 
 line the like of which could not be found in all 
 Horace's Odes. The same experiment might be 
 tried on any other metre with the same result. 
 Coleridge's verse 
 
 " In the pentameter aye falling in melody back,"
 
 174 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 has been often quoted for its ingenuity and beauty, 
 and I do not presume to question either. I only 
 say that a /etc simile of it in Latin would be a pen- 
 tameter so execrable, that the student of Ovid and 
 Tibullus would hardly recognize it as a pentameter 
 at all. 
 
 The truth I take to be this : that we modern 
 experimentalists adopt and I dare say must adopt, 
 to make metrical composition possible at all in 
 English not merely a different, but a diametrically 
 opposite, principle to what our predecessors fol- 
 lowed. We study to produce such verses as it 
 shall be impossible to read without, at the same 
 time, involuntarily scanning them. They are to 
 " scan themselves," to quote Dr. Whewell's phrase ; 
 or, as Mr. Fortescue puts it, " The words, read as 
 they are spoken, should fall rightly into the metre." 
 The ancients, I contend, made it a special point 
 that their verses should not " scan themselves," and 
 every form of line which did so they held bad on 
 that account. We select, in other words, for our 
 standard precisely those lines which Horace or Ovid 
 carefully excluded, frame verse after verse upon
 
 OX METRICAL TRANSLATION. 175 
 
 their model, and call the result a reproduction of 
 Horace's or Ovid's versification. 
 
 My first proposition, as to the principle on which 
 the moderns work, I need hardly verify. As to the 
 second, it may of course be said, that we cannot 
 tell how the Greek and Roman poets read their 
 lines. 
 
 We have, however, this evidence as to how they 
 did not read them. There are in every metre certain 
 types of line which the writers in it manifestly 
 avoided. In an alcaic ode (for instance) such a 
 line as I propounded just now, or a line of the 
 forms, " Fortia corpora fudit Hector," " Foeda cada- 
 vera barbarorum." A pentameter, again, ending 
 with a monosyllable, would not be found in all 
 
 A 
 
 Latin literature. And so with other metres. This 
 avoidance is a simple fact, and one for which we 
 are bound to account in some way. 
 
 Now if we suppose they meant their verses to be 
 read as they are scanned, there is no apparent 
 reason I think I may say there is no conceivable 
 reason why any one of these types of line should 
 have been objected to. " Ausa mori mulier marito/'
 
 176 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 and " Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis " (read as 
 accented), are rhythmically identical with foeda 
 cadavera barbarorum, and with any other line which 
 scans. A pentameter ending with a monosyllable 
 is rhythmically identical with any other pentameter 
 scanned : e.g., there is surely no difference in sound 
 between " Sidera tangit equis," and " Sidera tan- 
 gite quis." On that supposition, I say, all these 
 lines, which were as a matter of fact rejected, 
 would be perfectly admissible. And in English, 
 where the supposition is true, they are all (as one 
 would expect) admitted freely. I appeal to Mr. 
 Fortescue himself whether 
 
 " Beautiful innocent, unrepining " 
 " Crocus, anemone, tulip, iris " 
 
 (which are identical in construction with two of my 
 model bad Latin lines) would not be thought 
 rather good than otherwise in English. As to any 
 objection to pentameters which end with a mono- 
 syllable, they do so almost uniformly. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we adopt the supposition 
 that the old poets (like the modern) read their 
 verses by an accent which was so far arbitrary that
 
 OX METRICAL TRANSLATION. 177 
 
 it was wholly independent of the scansion, and was 
 intended partially to conceal the scansion, then one 
 sees at once why all these lines might have been 
 disallowed. " Ausa mori mulier marito," and 
 "Mordet aqua taciturnus ananis" read as, rightly 
 or wrongly, I was taught to read them at school 
 are two different lines, and are both good because 
 they do not carry their scansion upon their face ; 
 and " Fortia corpora fudit Ajax " is bad because it 
 does. This hypothesis, and no other that I can 
 think of, would account for the condemnation of all 
 the lines, in what metre soever, which are actually 
 condemned. Why, for instance, would such a verse 
 as 
 
 be a bad iambic ? The books would of course say 
 that it has no caesura. But why is a verse bad 
 which has no caesura ? If all verses are to be 
 scanned in reading them, a verse without a caesura 
 sounds just the same as a verse, with any number. 
 
 What appears to me to be the almost universal 
 fallacy of metrical writers is the assumption that 
 when you have got the scansion of a line you have 
 
 i. N
 
 178 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 got its rhythm. Mr. Fortescue speaks of " metre 
 or rhythm" throughout as convertible terms. I 
 deny that the rhythm of the Propria quce maribus 
 is the same as the rhythm of the " .^Eneid." Any 
 metre may, no doubt, as he says, be imitated in 
 English : lines, that is, may be made in any metre 
 which scan. Even so intricate a one as Super alta 
 vedus Atys is, I am told, copied, and that correctly, 
 in the Laureate's " Boadicea." 
 
 " Adiitque opaca silvis redimita loca dese." 
 
 " Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a 
 
 wild confederacy." 
 " Soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, gentleman, apothecary." 
 
 What the metre of the second and third may be, 
 and how far they correspond with the first, I am 
 not competent to say. The last I had always mis- 
 taken for prose. However, the lines in "Andro- 
 meda " are (most of them) undeniable hexameters : 
 but what then ? The lines 
 
 " When little Samuel woke and heard his Maker's voice, 
 At every word He spoke, how much did he rejoice, " 
 
 are equally undeniable iambics : and the same 
 claim that Mr. Kingsley has to have reproduced
 
 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 179 
 
 the rhythm of Homer, Dr. Watts has to have re- 
 produced that of ^Eschylus. I do not suppose that 
 if Mr. Fortescue had to translate the "Prometheus 
 Vinctus," he would feel obliged to represent the 
 iambic lines by the " Little Samuel " metre, and 
 the anapeestic ones by the metre of Owen Mere- 
 dith's " Lucile : " but I do not see how, consistently 
 with his principles, he could do otherwise. 
 
 Perhaps I may be allowed to make some com- 
 ments on Mr. Fortescue's own versions, to which 
 indeed he invites criticism that is to say, on their 
 merits as imitations. As to the first 1 ode, I should 
 say that he was bound, on his own showing, to trans- 
 late it not only into sapphics but into Horatian sap- 
 phics. It would be no^imitation of Pope's metre, 
 for example, to write it as handled by Keats, or by 
 Mr. Morris. Now the " dactyl in the middle," on 
 which Mr. Fortescue's sapphic line is made to 
 hinge, is not, I submit, a characteristic of Horace's 
 line. It is there, of course, but it only appears 
 
 1 The three odes, the translations of which are here criti- 
 cized, are Hor. Lib. i. Od. ii. Lib. i. Od. xxxiv. Lib. i. 
 Od. xiv. ED.
 
 180 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 when you take the verse to pieces : and I confess 
 that my despised old friend, 
 
 " Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded " 
 seems to me more Horatian than any line in the 
 copy before me. Could Mr. Fortescue read the 
 ode he has translated into the metre into which he 
 has put it ? Of course he could if he scanned it all 
 through; and in that case I can only put my former 
 question in a different form. Why is it that we 
 never find in Horace such a line as 
 
 . Ense nudo terruit Hector arcem f 
 In an alcaic one naturally looks to the two final 
 lines. Of Mr. Fortescue's third lines, one seems to 
 me (for an obvious reason) really to resemble one 
 of Horace's : the remainder to be much less like it 
 than Mr. Jingle's fragment, 
 
 " In hurry poste-haste for a licence." 
 They are all exactly in the metre 
 
 " My brother Jack was nine in May," 
 if we substitute a dissyllable (" April" suppose) for 
 the monosyllable at the end. Can Horace's third lines 
 be read, by scanning them or otherwise, into this
 
 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 181 
 
 metre ? Some perhaps could, such as the first in 
 this ode ; but that is no more a fair sample of 
 Horace's versification than 
 
 " Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennaruin," 
 
 is a fair sample of Virgil's. Of the fourth lines, I 
 can only say that they scan too well ; the scansion 
 is (of course intentionally) pronounced in all of 
 them : and consequently they are all precisely like 
 each other, and none, to my ear, at all like Horace. 
 As to the remaining ode, I should imagine that to a 
 person unacquainted with Horatian metres (and it 
 is for the benefit, I presume, of such that these 
 translations are made) the first two lines of every 
 stanza would appear to be lax Alexandrines, the 
 third the metre of " When the British warrior- 
 queen " (or of " Over rivers and mountains " occa- 
 sionally, as in the case of the last stanza but two) ; 
 and the fourth no recognizable metre whatsoever. 
 
 One more criticism I would venture on upon a 
 different point. I submit that " Trembled the" 
 " Eomans be" "turn the helm" (though the next 
 word did not begin with a consonant) are not
 
 182 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 dactyls. Surely "helm" and "realm" are as dis- 
 tinctly long syllables as any can be. I do not 
 mean to say that we are to conform rigorously to 
 the Greek and Latin rules. I should admit that 
 the second syllable of words like u disallowed," 
 " warranted," or " organ-voiced " is short, and I 
 think Mr. Tennyson made a false quantity when he 
 placed " organ- voiced " where he did in the Milton 
 alcaics. He might plead that without the aid of 
 some actual Latin adjective such as " atlantean," 
 or some exceptional English compound, such as 
 " un-swan-like," for a central word, it seems im- 
 possible to imitate the most frequently recurring 
 form of the Horatian third line. But at least we 
 should remember that these rules were not arbitrary 
 ones : it was from conformity to them, or rather to 
 the theories of musical sound which they embodied, 
 that the Greek verse derived its character, its 
 melody and grace; and we cannot surely ignore 
 them utterly, as most metrical writers habitually do, 
 without sacrificing what really, much more than the 
 metre, constitutes the essence and the " rhythm " 
 of the verse. A Greek line is, in fact, a succession
 
 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 183 
 
 of vowels, separated by consonants introduced 
 sparingly, and under such restrictions that it flows 
 on uninterruptedly from syllable to syllable. The 
 flow of an English line is generally choked (so to 
 speak) by blocks of consonants thrown in ad 
 libitum. 
 Compare 
 
 " Silenced but unconvinced, when the story was ended, 
 the blacksmith," 
 
 or, 
 
 "Clasped each other's hand, and interchanged pledges 
 of friendship," 
 
 with the first line of the " Iliad." " Silenc'd but" 
 is a dactyl, encdb a short syllable. " Interchanged 
 pledges" is a reproduction of p.i]viv aciSe. Only 
 conceive the havoc that we should make in one of 
 Homer's lines if we inserted here and there such 
 encumbrances as ncdb, ndgpl, or even Mr. For- 
 tescue's dtli, nsb, &c., between two of the short 
 vowels. Compare again a pentameter by one of 
 the very best of our metrical writers : 
 
 " Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour 
 and strife "
 
 184 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 with 
 
 " Impia quid clubitas Deianira mori." 
 
 The Latin pentameter of which the former is really 
 a counterpart, is this : 
 
 Troius ni terrent ob cor, versat per labor et stryx. 
 
 Does this bear the faintest resemblance to one of 
 Ovid's pentameters ? I have a strong belief that 
 any line which obeys the same laws of euphony as 
 the Greeks and Eomans observed such a line as 
 " The moan of doves in immemorial elms," or as 
 many of Mr. Kingsley's own resembles and re- 
 minds one of their poetry far more than these con- 
 catenations of so-called dactyls and spondees, which 
 seem to me, even when they scan perfectly, to be 
 not so much verses as skeletons of verses. 
 
 Metre (if I may end with a metaphor) is, in my 
 view, a sort of framework whose office it is to sup- 
 port the verse. It is possible to train a rose or a 
 vine upon a trellis so that, while it adheres firmly, 
 it is still left to follow its own devices and form its 
 own pattern over the laths, which are only seen 
 here and there amongst the leaves and tendrils. It
 
 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION. 185 
 
 would also be possible to force every branch and 
 spray into strict conformity with the lines of the 
 frame, so that the outline of its squares should be 
 the only outline visible. The former method seems 
 to me to be the way in which Homer and Virgil, 
 and all poets ancient or modern, whose works I am 
 linguist enough to read, have dealt with metre; 
 and the latter the way it is dealt with by metrical 
 translators. 
 
 I am, Sir, yours very faithfully, 
 
 C. S. CALVEELEY.
 
 THE "^ENEID" OF VIRGIL. 1 
 
 A TRANSLATOR has two main duties to con- 
 sider his duty towards his original, and his 
 duty towards his readers. Translators of the old 
 school almost ignored the former consideration j 
 those of the new amongst whom Professor Coning- 
 ton's " Horace," and in a less degree his " u33neid," 
 justify us in classing him on the contrary hold it 
 paramount. Specimens of translation on the older 
 principle may be found of course in Pope and 
 Dryden passim : in Lord Derby not unfrequently, 
 as when he renders 
 
 " Dulces docta modes et citharse sciens " 
 
 " Skilled with trancendent ai*t 
 To touch the lyre and breathe harmonious lays." 
 
 1 " The" .ZEneid of Virgil translated into English Verse." 
 By John Conington, M.A. (London : Longmans and Co. 
 1866.)
 
 THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL. 187 
 
 This is Horace done into Johnsonese : or rather 
 into that smooth commonplace which is nobody's 
 style in particular, and Horace's least of all. Pro- 
 bably Brady and Tate went as far as it is possible 
 to go in this direction (though parallel instances 
 might be easily found in Pope) in transmuting the 
 single word " always " into 
 
 " Through all the changing scenes of life, 
 In trouble and in joy." 
 
 We may take that as the extreme case of the one 
 school ; and Milton's " storms unwonted shall 
 admire/' &c. (" procellas emirabitur insolens," 
 K. T. X.}, as the extreme case of the other. 
 
 Professor Conington has not, as we hinted above, 
 dealt with Virgil quite jas he dealt with Horace, 
 for reasons which he explains in his preface. An 
 ode of Horace, he says, is for close scrutiny, an 
 yEneid for rapid reading. Accordingly he has not 
 attempted to represent "the characteristic art of 
 Virgil's language." He has not sought for equiva- 
 lents of his words or turns of speech striving 
 rather to be readable, like Scott, than classical, like 
 Milton.
 
 188 THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL. 
 
 It may be said to this that Virgil's language is 
 Virgil. His diction is an essential part of him ; 
 and Milton has taken such pains to show how it 
 may be recast in English, that we cannot help 
 wishing Professor Conington had elected to take 
 more hints from him than he has taken; without 
 becoming absolutely Miltonic, which would ill 
 accord with Scott's metre. He has followed him 
 at times, though perhaps unconsciously ; wisely at 
 any rate ; as where 
 
 "Night invests the world." (Nox operit terras. .ZEn. iv. 
 352.) 
 
 cf. " Night invests the sea." Par. Lost, i. 208. 
 
 At others he has not, when he might have done so 
 with advantage; as in ^En. v. 113: " Et tuba 
 commissos medio canit aggere ludos : " 
 
 " And from a mound the trump' proclaims 
 The festal onset of the games." 
 
 This is good, but conventional compared with 
 
 Milton's 
 
 " To arms the matin trumpet sang." 
 Again, his 
 
 "Wallowing, unwieldy, enormous 
 She knew not, eating death "
 
 THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL 189 
 
 are happy representations, one of a rhythm, and 
 one of an idiom, so peculiar and characteristic as to 
 be worth preserving. His " hope conceiving from 
 despair " is palpably imitated from Virgil's 
 " Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem," 
 and expresses it perhaps more forcibly than Pro- 
 fessor Conington's rendering, which is neat enough 
 nevertheless. 
 
 But it is hardly fair to criticize Professor Coning- 
 ton for not having represented what he deliberately 
 declines to represent. As a fair specimen of what 
 he has done we will quote these lines (there are 
 plenty as good) from .ZEn. vii. : 
 
 " With measured pace they march along 
 
 And make their monarch's deeds their song ; 
 
 Like snow-white swansin liquid air, 
 
 When homeward from their food they fare, 
 
 And far and wide melodious notes 
 
 Come rippling from their slender throats, 
 
 While the broad stream and Asia's fen 
 
 Reverberate to the sound again. 
 
 Sure none had thought that countless crowd 
 A mail-clad company : 
 
 It rather seemed a dusky cloud 
 
 Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud, 
 Press landward from the sea."
 
 190 THE "^JNEID" OF VIRGIL. 
 
 This passage from Book ii. seems to us very 
 easy, and is most acurate : 
 
 " Meantime Heaven shifts from light to gloom, 
 And night ascends from Ocean's womb, 
 Involving in her shadow broad 
 Earth, sky, and Myrmidonian fraud : 
 And through the city, stretched at will, 
 Sleep the tired Trojans, and are still." 
 
 Here the third and fourth lines are absolutely literal. 
 We will add one ingenious rendering of a line 
 similar in character to the second, which latter, by 
 the way, we thought bore a different meaning to 
 that assigned to it : 1 
 
 " Now dews precipitate the night, 
 And setting stars to rest invite." (p. 35.) 
 
 These extracts will bear us out in saying that 
 Professor Conington has produced a version singu- 
 larly faithful (save in the point which he abandons) , 
 and pleasant and spirited withal, of a poem, as he 
 remarks, little known to English readers. He 
 apologizes for appearing in the field after Dryden, 
 and, we think, unnecessarily. Dryden was a great 
 
 1 [The line in question is in the original " Vertitur interea 
 coelum, et ruit Oceano nox." JEn. ii. 250. Ed.]
 
 THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL. 191 
 
 poet, but not a translator at all. His " Virgil " is 
 in no sense Virgil, but Dryden simply. We con- 
 ceive, with all deference to Professor Conington, 
 that there was a radical difference between the 
 Eoman and the ( ' Caroline " poet ; nay, more, that 
 the heroic couplet (though opinions differ as to 
 metres) is of its nature incapable of representing 
 hexameters or any Latin measure except elegiacs, 
 and perhaps Ovid's hexameters, which are elegiacs 
 in disguise. We admit the professor's plea for the 
 occasional use of "mote" (might), " eyne," &c., 
 on the strength of Virgil's archaisms; though we 
 protest against " treen," which appeared in one of 
 " Horace's Odes," and which seemed to us not 
 quite, but almost, as intolerable as " been " for the 
 plural of " bee." 
 
 We may notice in conclusion one characteristic 
 of Professor Conington's work which adds greatly 
 to its value that he never makes the vagueness of 
 poetic phraseology a means of escape from a diffi- 
 culty. A writer in ' ' Frazer's Magazine " of Sep- 
 tember, upon recent translations of Horace (who 
 ignores, by the way, Conington's " Horace " alto-
 
 192 THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL. 
 
 gether) , gives us incidentally several model trans- 
 lations of his own, of which the following is a 
 sample : 
 
 " Me the poetic doves in days far-gone 
 
 Covered with fresh-crop t leaves, when found, 
 
 A truant cnild that dared to pass 
 Beyond my own Apulia's bound, 
 
 Sleeping in Vultur's mountain grass, 
 Tired out with lonely play in that long summer noon." 
 
 The last two lines, it will be observed, are repre- 
 sented in the Latin by "ludo fatigatumque somno; " 
 except the one word " Vultur's." This we take to 
 be the worst translation possible; not so much 
 because the text is absurdly spun out, and has a 
 perfectly gratuitous tail appended to it to eke 
 out a needless Alexandrine, as because " fatigatum 
 somno," the only ambiguous expression, is shirked 
 entirely. We would advise the writer, if he intends 
 completing the Odes, to glance meantime at Pro- 
 fessor Conington's version of them, and if he is 
 preparing a criticism of recent translations of 
 Virgil, not to leave wholly unnoticed the very able 
 work we have just reviewed.
 
 TENNYSONIAN^E." l 
 
 those who still love occasionally to "brood 
 and live again in memory with those old faces 
 of their infancy" under whose supervision they 
 acquired the art and mystery of Latin versification, 
 and to try upon the corpus vile poetarum hodier- 
 norum if their hand retains aught of its ancient 
 cunning, the Laureate's works offer many attrac- 
 tions. Besides being, as Mr. Church proclaims 
 him to be, "poeta recentioris cetatis maximus" his 
 muse is pre-eminently classical. He often con- 
 sciously, often perhaps unconsciously, catches the 
 tone of some ancient bard of Greece or of Home. 
 
 1 " Horae Tennysonianae ; sive Eclogae e Tennysono Latine 
 Redditae." Cura A. J. Church, A.M. (London : Macmillan 
 and Co. 1869.) 
 
 I. O
 
 194 "HOR^: TENNYSONIANJ3." 
 
 He likes now and then to cull a phrase or a line 
 from one of them, and work it into his own poetry, 
 as 
 
 " This way and that dividing the swift mind." 
 
 Though he does not of course adopt the actual rules 
 of Latin prosody, his verse is framed always upon 
 the rhythmical principles of which those rules were 
 the embodiment; and in consequence there is the 
 same sort of grace and finish about it which dis- 
 tinguished the verse of Horace and of Virgil. 
 Between Horace especially, and the modern poet, 
 there exist, we think, in point of style and work- 
 manship, many similarities. A stanza of "In 
 Memoriam " is a thing compact teres atque rotun- 
 dum, as is a stanza in a Horatian ode. Both 
 writers are equally intolerant of any but the right 
 word, and both have the gift of making it fit into 
 its place apparently by a happy accident. The 
 condensed phraseology, the abruptness, the ease 
 (attained probably "per laborem plurimum," until 
 art became a second nature) which characterize the 
 odes of Horace characterize also the cantos, so to 
 call them, of " In Memoriam." Even Mr. Tenny-
 
 "HOR^i TENNYSONIAN^:." 195 
 
 son's compound epithets are paralleled, and more 
 than paralleled, in Horace, and indeed in Virgil. 
 " Zephyris agitata Tempe " is as much a compound 
 epithet as " wind-swept " in English, and f< Segnes- 
 que nodum solvere Gratice " is a three-barrelled com- 
 pound epithet for which our language can furnish 
 no equivalent. Latin literature is, in fact, far 
 richer in elaborate compounds than English is, or 
 ever could be, since the Latin tongue expressed 
 naturally, by means of its inflections, what ours, 
 barren of inflections, can only indicate in an arti- 
 ficial way by inserting a hyphen ; e.g. that " wind " 
 is an ablative governed by " swept," a participle. 
 The contributors to the present volume, however, 
 have chosen to translate the Laureate, when he 
 writes any metre other than blank verse, into 
 Ovidian Elegiacs, rather than Horatian Alcaics or 
 Asclepiads. Two only, the Editor and Professor 
 Seeley, have constructed each an Alcaic Ode out of 
 the pages of " In Memoriam." 
 
 Of Mr. Church's Ode, which opens the volume (as 
 in its original English it opened Mr. Tennyson's), 
 we may speak in almost unqualified praise, and the
 
 196 "HOIUE TENNYSONIAN^." 
 
 same may be said of his contributions generally. 
 He has constantly succeeded in expressing most 
 difficult English in Latin that is never forced and 
 always forcible, as only a true scholar could. In 
 only one case that we have noted he has made no 
 attempt, and as we think wisely, to find an equi- 
 valent for the phrase before him : 
 
 " Nocturna luce coruscans 
 Unda tuum molli geminabat murmure nomen," 
 
 does not of course pretend to represent 
 
 " And rapt in wreaths of glowworm light 
 The mellow breaker murmured Ida;" 
 
 but to intimate that it cannot be represented. 
 Should not " rapt " be " lap t/' by the way ? Else- 
 where "football" is printed for "footfall," and 
 " spirited " for " spirted " purple. How Mr. 
 Church can deal with English which is not abso- 
 lutely impossible, the following extracts may suffice 
 
 to show : 
 
 
 
 " And doubtless unto thee is given 
 A life that bears immortal fruit 
 In such great offices that suit 
 
 The full-grown energies of Heaven."
 
 "HOR^l TENNYSONIANJE." 197 
 
 " Tu quoque jam peragis, credo, felicius aevum, 
 Quodque facis nunquam mors abolebit opus ; 
 
 Tu quoque, caelicolum jam viribus auctus adultis, 
 Officio fungi nobiliore potes." 
 
 " This garden-rose that I found, 
 Forgetful of Maud and me,. 
 And lost in trouble and moving round 
 Here at the head of a tinkling fall, 
 And trying to pass to the sea." 
 
 *' Hanc equidem inveni oblitam dominaeque meique, 
 
 Hie ubi fit strepitus desilientis aquae. 
 Flos se perpetuos frustra volvebat in orbes, 
 
 Si jungi aequoreis forte daretur aquis." 
 
 What can be prettier ? Mr. Church's version of 
 King Cophetua we think inferior to the preceding 
 one by Mr. Hessey, except the last stanza, which is 
 excellent. Per contra,*we prefer his rendering of 
 " As through the land at eve we went" to the 
 " altera versio " subjoined. 
 
 We have devoted some space to the editor and 
 largest contributor. As we have mentioned Pro- 
 fessor Seeley's Ode, we may add that we have no 
 possible fault to find, except with the first line, and 
 perhaps with the last, which latter probably could 
 not be put into Latin as simple as the English
 
 198 " HOR^ TENNYSONIANJE." 
 
 within the space allotted. The first line looks, at 
 any rate, a terrific denunciation of the creature, 
 " the linnet born within the cage," which Mr. 
 Tennyson only says that he " envies not in any 
 mood." The accident of the first word being 
 printed in capitals gives to it a fictitious emphasis 
 and glare. One of the editor's most able coad- 
 jutors is Mr. Kebbel, of Lincoln. Notent tirones 
 how " sandy bar " and " babble " are skilfully dis- 
 posed of in the pentameter, 
 
 " Visus arenosas increpuisse moras." 
 
 Tesquis reminds one unfortunately of Bland. No. 
 xxxiii. by the same author is a masterly production ; 
 and take this extract from " Aylmer's Field : " 
 
 " The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast, 
 They cling together in the ghastly sack 
 The land all shambles." 
 
 " Stricta ducum procerumque ruentia pulvere colla ! 
 Scilicet in tetris capiti caput haeret acervis. 
 Csede fluit tellus." 
 
 There are two good versions of " Come down, O 
 maid," by Messrs. Kebbel and Sotheby. The latter, 
 in an attempt on " Tears, idle tears," has, we should
 
 "HOILE TENNYSONIAN^i." 199 
 
 say, like all his predecessors, signally failed. 
 " Vivax " is not " fresh," nor 
 
 " Forma fenestrarum sensim quadratior exstat " 
 
 anything like 
 
 " The casement slowly grows a glimmering square." 
 
 The thing altogether is untranslatable. And the 
 latter remark may possibly apply to 
 
 " Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white," &c, 
 
 At any rate lines like these give, surely, no idea of 
 the poetry and beauty of their original : 
 
 " Regali in xysto cessat nutare cupressus, 
 Et niveus dormit purpureusque calyx ; 
 
 Marmoreo nee pinna, vides ? micat aurea labro ; 
 Sed pyralis vigilat : tu mihi, cara, vaca ! " &c. 
 
 These and all the succeeding verses appear to us 
 worthless, till we come to the last four, which are 
 graceful and good. Recurring to No. xxv., is tamen 
 (on p. 83) used for " but " ? We remember only 
 one precedent, if so ; Ovid's line 
 
 " Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni," 
 
 which has been variously emended. The true 
 reading, which has lain hid from the interpreters,
 
 200 "HOKE TENNYSONIAN^:." 
 
 is, we have no doubt, " attagen," the attagen 
 lonicus of Horace, a bird whose name, dear to the 
 epicure, would naturally pass into an equivalent for 
 " deliciee," as our English word " duck " is said to 
 have done. The last syllable of attagen (vocative) 
 would be, of course, short, more Grceco. 
 
 Honourable mention ought to be made of Mr. 
 Day, for a most able version of part of the " Lotus- 
 eaters." The beginning of the poem is not done so 
 successfully by another contributor : 
 
 Eja ! agite, o socii, validis incumbite reinis ; 
 In manibus terrae 
 
 is no translation whatever of the original ; and the 
 " wandering fields of barren foam " are wholly 
 ignored, unless there is meant to be a glimpse of 
 them in the final verse. Nor do we like " Cha- 
 racter " and " The Blackbird " as they appear here, 
 from somewhat similar reasons, viz., that the Latin 
 is vague and spun out. Lines 4-6 of the former are 
 unintelligible without the English; and what the 
 construction or the meaning is of the three last on 
 the same page we have failed, even by the light of 
 the English, to discover. The opening line does
 
 " HOR^J TENNYSONIAK2E." 201 
 
 not scan at all, and the tenth from the end scans 
 only by the skin of its teeth. 
 
 All this time we have omitted to notice what, 
 considering the difficulty of the translator's task, 
 and the ease with which it has been surmounted, is, 
 perhaps, the gem of the volume a set of Hende- 
 casyllables, " Swallow, Swallow," by the late 
 Professor Conington. Every stanza is a feat of 
 scholarship, and the whole makes a charming little 
 poem. We quote one stanza all are equally 
 good : 
 
 " Procne nostra, volans volans ad Austrum. 
 Lautis incide tectulis, ibique 
 Quse dico tibi die meae puellae." 
 
 Of two or three other pieces by the same eminent 
 hand we need only say that they are there. 
 
 Mr. Brodribb's " Tithonus " abounds in beautiful 
 passages, which we would quote if we had space. 
 Is not " kindly " however (p. 132), used in the 
 sense of the " kindly fruits of the earth/' and does 
 not genialis mean something different ? " Meus 
 proprius/' again is, we think, only found in prose. 
 Turning back to Mr. Church's poem on p. 17, risu
 
 202 "HOILE TENNYSONIAN^E." 
 
 seems to be used for cum risu, " smilingly." Is 
 this legitimate ? Surely you could not say, " Lacry- 
 mis sic fatur," unless "obortis" followed. " Eisu 
 cognoscere," " solvuntur risu," &c., are accountable 
 enough. Then, is " Virgo inventrix " satisfactory 
 for St. Cecily ? does not inventrix want a genitive ? 
 We demur also to " male saucius," for " badly 
 wounded," and are prepared to distinguish Horace's 
 " male tussiit." Nor do we like " serrata " much 
 more than we should "serrated" in the English. 
 There are several words, such as ayystus, trichila, 
 and the prosaic pedetentim, which, it seems to us, 
 unnecessarily mar this volume. 
 
 From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that 
 we think highly of these translations as such. 
 Whether or no it is pure waste of time to translate 
 at all is a question upon which certainly much time 
 has been wasted, and which, after all, concerns 
 nobody except the translators. The title we con- 
 fess, puzzled us at first. The title-page hints that 
 Horce means here Eclogce Latine redditce, which 
 simplifies things ; but then what is Horce Paulince f 
 Does " Tennysonian hours " mean hours during
 
 TENNYSONIANJE." 203 
 
 which Tennyson was the presiding genius hours 
 spent (by the contributors) in analyzing Tennyson ? 
 Anyhow these pages contain several admirable 
 specimens of an art believed by many to be doomed 
 doomed, perhaps not even " after many a sum- 
 mer " to decay and fall and pass away.
 
 ILIAD VIII. LL. 555-65. 
 
 A S in the heights of heaven the moon gleams 
 
 clear, and around her 
 Shine in their beauty the stars, nor is one cloud 
 
 moving in ether ; 
 Shines forth every cliff, and the jutting peaks of 
 
 the headlands, 
 
 Forest and glen : then, as opens the rifting fir- 
 mament heavenwards, 
 Star is revealed upon star : and gay is the heart of 
 
 the herdsman : 
 Not in less number than they, from the Xanthus' 
 
 stream to the sea sands, 
 Glimmered the red watchfires that encompassed 
 
 Ilion alway ; 
 Glimmered amid Troy's host as a thousand stars; 
 
 and at each one
 
 ILIAD VIII. LL. 555-65. 205 
 
 There sat threescore and ten, their face lighted up 
 
 by the firebrand. 
 Meanwhile, each at his car, till crowned in her 
 
 glory the morning 
 
 Roused them, their good steeds stood, white oats 
 and barley before them.
 
 SONNET. 
 
 T1THEN o'er the world night spreads her mantle 
 dun, 
 
 In dreams, my love, I see those stars thine eyes 
 Lighting the dark ; but when the royal sun 
 
 Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies, 
 I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray, 
 
 And lo ! my world is bankrupt of delight : 
 Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day : 
 
 Hope- bringing day seems now most doleful night. 
 End, weary day, that art no day to me ! 
 
 Return, fair night, to me the best of days ! 
 But oh, my rose, whom in my dreams I see, 
 
 Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze ! 
 Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair, 
 Then what would sweet morn be, if thou wert there !
 
 THE BOTTLING OF THE WASP. 
 
 rPHE wasps were one morning obtrusively gay : 
 Said my true love, " I know whatfll speed 
 
 them away : 
 
 From a nail, or a chairback, a bottle hang down, 
 And they're ' tree'd ' the brave varmints that buzz 
 round your crown ! " 
 
 He hath found an old bottle, I cannot say where ; 
 He hath bound it with skill to the back of a chair ; 
 Full of mild ale so yellow and sugar so brown ; 
 And he " tree'd " them by dozens, I bet you a 
 crown. 
 
 They may talk of their hares, of their rabbits, and 
 
 all, 
 Such round-headed rascals, in Westminster Hall.
 
 208 THE BOTTLING OF THE WASP. 
 
 But tell legislators, the things to put down 
 Are those queer little imps that encircle one's 
 crown. 
 
 So here's to their health, when they next travel 
 
 here : 
 
 The sugar's unrivalled, resistless the beer : 
 And in peace may they leave us, themselves while 
 
 they drown 
 In the healthy malt liquor that's sold at the 
 
 " Crown."
 
 A LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 (Stanzas for Music.) 
 
 B. ! a life in the country how joyous, 
 
 How ineffably charming it is ; 
 With no ill-mannered crowds to annoy us, 
 
 Nor odious neighbours to quiz ! " 
 So murmured the beautiful Harriet 
 
 To the fondly affectionate Brown, 
 As they rolled in the flame-coloured chariot 
 
 From the nasty detestable town ; 
 Singing, "Oh, a life in the country how joyous, 
 How ineffably charming it is ! " 
 
 " I shall take a portfolio quite full 
 
 Of the sweetest conceivable glees ; 
 
 And at times manufacture delightful 
 Little odes to the doves in the trees. 
 
 i. p
 
 210 A LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 There'll be dear little stockingless wretches 
 In those hats that are so picturesque, 
 
 Who will make the deliciousest sketches, 
 Which Til place in my Theodore's desk ; 
 
 And Oh, &c. 
 
 " Then how pleasant to study the habits 
 
 Of the creatures we meet as we roam : 
 And perhaps keep a couple of rabbits, 
 
 Or some fish and a bullfinch at home ! 
 The larks, when the summer has brought 'em, 
 
 Will sing overtures quite like Mozart's, 
 And the blackberries, dear, in the autumn, 
 Will make the most exquisite tarts ! 
 
 And Oh, &c. 
 
 ' ' The bells of the sheep will be ringing 
 All day amid sweeted-scented flowers, 
 
 As we sit by some rivulet singing 
 
 About May and her beautiful bowers. 
 
 We'll take intellectual rambles 
 
 In those balm-laden evenings of June,
 
 A LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 211 
 
 And say it reminds one of Campbell's 
 (Or somebody's) lines to the moon ; 
 
 And Oh, &c. it is." 
 
 But these charms began shortly to pall on 
 
 The taste of the gay Mrs. Brown : 
 She hadn't a body to call on, 
 
 Nor a soul that could make up a gown. 
 She was yearning to see her relations ; 
 
 And besides had a troublesome cough ; 
 And in fact she was losing all patience, 
 
 And exclaimed, " We must really be off, 
 Though a life in the country so joyous, 
 So ineffably charming it is." 
 
 " But this morning I noticed a beetle 
 
 Crawl along on the dining-room floor. 
 If we stay till the summer, the heat '11 
 
 Infallibly bring out some more. 
 Now, few have a greater objection 
 To beetles than Harriet Brown : 
 And, my dear, I think, on reflection 
 I should like to go back to the town. 
 
 Though, &c."
 
 APRIL : 
 
 OK, THE NEW HAT. 
 
 [In deference to a prevalent taste this Poem is also a 
 Double Acrostic.] 
 
 Prologue. 
 IV/TY Boots had been wash'd well washed in a 
 
 show'r ; 
 
 But little I griev'd about that : 
 What I felt was the havock a single half-hour 
 Had made with my costly new Hat. 
 
 For the Boot, tho' its lustre be dimm'd, shall as- 
 sume 
 
 Fresh sprightliness after a while : 
 But what art may restore its original bloom, 
 
 When once it hath flown, to the Tile ?
 
 APRIL. 213 
 
 I clomb to my perch, and the Horses (a bay 
 And a brown) trotted off with a clatter : 
 
 The Driver looked round in his affable way 
 And said huskily " Who is your hatter ? " 
 
 I was pleas'd that he'd noticed its shape and its 
 shine, 
 
 And as soon as we reached the Old Druid 
 I begg'd that he'd drink to my new Four-and-nine 
 
 In a glass of his favourite Fluid. 
 
 A gratified smile sat, I own, on my lips 
 When the Landlady called to the Master 
 
 {He was standing hard by with his hands on his 
 
 hips) 
 To " look at the gentleman's Castor ! " 
 
 I laugh'd, as an Organ-man paus'd in mid-air 
 ('Twas an air that I happen'd to know 
 
 By a great foreign Maestro) expressly to stare 
 At ze gent wiz ze joli c'fiapeau. 
 
 Yet how swift is the transit from laughter to tears ! 
 Our glories, how fleeting are they !
 
 214 APRIL. 
 
 That Hat might (with care) have adorned me for 
 
 years ; 
 But 'twas ruin'd, alack, in a Day ! 
 
 How I lov'd thee, my Bright One ! I wrench in 
 Remorse 
 
 My hands from my Coat-tail and wring 'em : 
 " Why did not I, why, as a matter of course, 
 
 When I purchased thee, purchase a Gingham ! "
 
 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 T^ORTH I wandered, years ago, 
 
 When the summer sun was low, 
 And the forest all aglow 
 
 With his light : 
 
 'Twas a day of cloudless skies ; 
 When the trout neglects to rise, 
 And in vain the angler sighs 
 
 For a bite. 
 
 And the cuckoo piped away 
 How I love his simple lay, 
 O'er the cowslip fields of May 
 As it floats !
 
 216 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 May was over, and of course 
 He was just a little hoarse, 
 And appeared to me to force 
 Certain notes. 
 
 Since Mid- April, men averred, 
 People's pulses, inly stirred 
 By the music of the bird, 
 
 Had upleapt: 
 
 It was now the end of June ; 
 I reflected that he'd soon 
 Sing entirely out of tune, 
 
 And I wept. 
 
 Looking up, I marked a maid 
 Float balloon-like o'er the glade, 
 Casting evermore a staid 
 
 Glance around : 
 
 And I thrilled with sweet surprise 
 When she dropt, all virgin-wise, 
 First a courtesy, then her eyes, 
 
 To the ground.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 217 
 
 Other eyes have p'raps to you 
 Seemed ethereally blue, 
 But you see you never knew 
 
 Kate Adair. 
 
 What a mien she had ! Her hat 
 With what dignity it sat 
 On the mystery, or mat, 
 
 Of her hair ! 
 
 We were neighbours. I had doff'd 
 
 Cap and hat to her so oft 
 
 Thet they both of them were soft 
 
 In the brim : 
 
 I had gone out of my way 
 To bid e'en her*sire good-day, 
 Though I wasn't, I may say, 
 
 Fond of him : 
 
 We had met, in streets and shops ; 
 But by rill or mazy copse, 
 Where your speech abruptly stops 
 And you get
 
 218 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 Dithyrambic ere you know it 
 Where, though nothing of a poet, 
 You intuitively go it 
 Never yet. 
 
 So my love had ne'er been told ! 
 Till the day when out I strolled 
 And the jolly cuckoo trolled 
 
 Forth his song, 
 
 Naught had passed between us two 
 Save a bashful f How d'ye do ' 
 And a blushing ' How do you 
 
 Get along ? ' 
 
 But that eve (how swift it passed ! ) 
 Words of fire flew from me fast 
 For the first time and the last 
 
 In my life : 
 
 Low and lower drooped her chin, 
 As I murmured how I'd skin 
 Or behead myself to win 
 
 Such a wife.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 219 
 
 There we stood. The squirrel leaped 
 Overhead : the throstle peeped 
 Through the leaves, all sunlight-steeped, 
 
 Of the lime : 
 
 There we stood alone : a third 
 Would have made the thing absurd : 
 And she scarcely spoke a word 
 
 All the time. 
 
 Katie junior (such a dear !) 
 Has attained her thirteenth year, 
 And declares she feels a queer 
 
 Sort o shock 
 
 Not unpleasant though at all 
 When she hears a cuckoo call : 
 So I've purchased her a small 
 
 Cuckoo-clock.
 
 THE POET AND THE FLY. 
 PAET I. 
 
 13 OUND the Poet, ere he slumbered, 
 
 Sang the Fly thro' hours unnumbered ; 
 Sauntered, if he seemed to doze, 
 O'er the arch that was his nose, 
 Darting thence to re-appear 
 In his subtly-chambered ear : 
 When at last he slept right soundly, 
 It transfixed him so profoundly, 
 Caused him agony so horrid, 
 That he woke and smote his forehead 
 (It's the course that poets take 
 When they're trifled with) and spake : 
 
 " Fly ! Thy brisk unmeaning buzz 
 Would have roused the man of Uz ;
 
 THE POET AND THE FLY. 221 
 
 And, besides thy buzzing, I 
 
 Fancy thou'rt a stinging fly. 
 
 Fly who'rt peering, I am certain, 
 
 At me now from yonder curtain : 
 
 Busy, curious, thirsty fly 
 
 (As thou'rt clept, I well know why)- 
 
 Cease, if only for a single 
 
 Hour, to make my being tingle ! 
 
 Flee to some loved haunt of thine ; 
 
 To the valleys where the kine, 
 
 Udder-deep in grasses cool, 
 
 Or the rushy-margined pool, 
 
 Strive to lash thy murmurous kin 
 
 (Vainly) from their dappled skin ! 
 
 Round the steed's broad nostrils flit, 
 
 A 
 
 Till he foams and champs the bit, 
 
 And, reluctant to be bled, 
 
 Tosses high his lordly head. 
 
 I have seen a thing no larger 
 
 Than thyself assail a charger ; 
 
 He who unconcerned would stand 
 
 All the braying of the band, 
 
 Who disdained trombone and drum
 
 222 THE POET AND THE FLY. 
 
 Quailed before that little hum. 
 
 I have seen one flaunt his feelers 
 
 'Fore the steadiest of wheelers, 
 
 And at once the beast would bound, 
 
 Kangaroo-like, off the ground. 
 
 Lithe o'er moor and marish hie, 
 
 Like thy king, the Dragon-fly ; 
 
 With the burnished bee skim over 
 
 Sunlit uplands white with clover ; 
 
 Or, low-brooding on the lea, 
 
 Warn the swain of storms to be ! 
 
 Need I tell thee how to act ? 
 
 Do just anything in fact. 
 
 Haunt my cream ('twill make thee plump), 
 
 Filch my sugar, every lump ; 
 
 Round my matin-coat keep dodging, 
 
 In my necktie find a lodging 
 
 (Only, now that I reflect, I 
 
 Rather seldom wear a necktie) ; 
 
 Perforate my Sunday hat j 
 
 (It's a new one what of that ?) 
 
 Honeycomb my cheese, my favourite, 
 
 Thy researches will but flavour it ;
 
 THE POET AND THE FLY. 223 
 
 Spoil my dinner-beer, and sneak up 
 Basely to my evening tea-cup ; 
 Palter with my final toddy ; 
 But respect my face and body ! 
 Hadst thou been a painted hornet, 
 Or a wasp, I might have borne it ; 
 But a common fly or gnat ! 
 Come, my friend, get out of that." 
 
 Dancing down, the insect here 
 
 Stung him smartly on the ear ; 
 
 For a while like some cheap earring 
 
 Clung there, then retreated jeering. 
 
 (As men jeer, in prose or rhyme, 
 
 So may flies, in pantomine ; 
 
 A 
 
 We discern not in their buzz 
 Language, but the poet does.) 
 
 Long he deemed him at Death's door ; 
 Then sprang featly to the floor, 
 Seized his water-jug and drank its 
 Whole contents; hung several blankets 
 Round his lair and pinned them fast :
 
 224 THE POET AND THE FLY. 
 
 " I shall rest/' he moaned, " at last." 
 But anon a ghastlier groan 
 To the shuddering night made known 
 That with blanket and with pin 
 He had shut the creature IN. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 WHILE unto dawn succeeded day, 
 Unresting still the Victim lay ; 
 The many-limbed one had its way. 
 
 He heard the stair-clock's tranquil ticks ; 
 When it exultingly struck six, 
 He gave a score or so of kicks. 
 
 " Before to-morrow's sun up- climbs/' 
 He feebly said, " yon leafy limes, 
 I'll write a letter to the ' Times.' " 
 
 Haggard and wan, when noon was nigh, 
 He rose and flung his window high ; 
 He heard, beneath, an old man's cry.
 
 THE POET AND THE FLY. 225 
 
 He strove but idly strove to eat; 
 Till now, to see the potted meat 
 Vanish before him was a treat. 
 
 He strove to write, but strove in vain ; 
 Dark thoughts 'gan shape them in his brain ; 
 He listened to that old man's strain. 
 
 It rang out, maddeningly distinct ; 
 
 As he gave ear to it he winked ; 
 
 He dropped the pen that he had inked. 
 
 (SoNG OF OLD MAN BELOW.) 
 
 " Catch-'em-alive ! Gentlemen, Fve 
 Here such a dose as no fly can survive. 
 
 House-fly, blue-bottle, 
 
 Garden-fly what'll 
 
 Save him when once he's got this in his throttle ? 
 Let e'en a wasp dip his nose in the mixture, 
 Spread on a plate, and that wasp is a fixture. 
 
 Buy, buy ; give it a try ; 
 Don't be put down by a poor little fly. 
 i. Q
 
 226 THE POET AND THE FLY. 
 
 Who'll purchase any ? Only a penny 
 Kills you them all, if it's ever so many." 
 
 He bought^ he placed some on a plate ; 
 I wis, he had not long to wait ; 
 They ate it at a frightful rate. 
 
 But on his friend of yesternight 
 (He knew the animal by sight) 
 His baffled gaze could ne'er alight. 
 
 At last he noticed the unfeeling 
 Brute in a casual manner wheeling 
 Bound an excrescence in the ceiling. 
 
 Self-poised, it eyed the heaps of slain ; 
 
 But, that it did not entertain 
 
 A thought of joining them, was plain. 
 
 It winged that upper-air till ten, 
 The bard's retiring-hour ; and then 
 Descending, tackled him again.
 
 THE POET AND THE FLY. 227 
 
 Next morn the young man made his will ; 
 
 And either shot himself at drill 
 
 Or sucked slow poison through a quill. 
 
 The Thing accurst the Vaticide 
 All wiles for snaring him defied ; 
 And at a good old age he died. 
 
 This tale (I guarantee it true), 
 Reader, I dedicate to you. 
 If you can find its moral, do.
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 1 
 I. FROM HEINE. 
 
 " So far from agreeable were his [Heine's] recollections of 
 Hamburg, that when, in 1830, Mrs. Moscheles asked him to 
 write in her album, he treated her to a satire on her native 
 town, which we here give in the original, and an English 
 version of the same." Life of Moscheles, vol. i. p. 195. 
 
 T CEAVE an ampler, worthier sphere : 
 
 I'd liefer bleed at every vein 
 Than stifle 'mid these hucksters here, 
 These lying slaves of paltry gain. 
 
 They eat, they drink ; they're every whit 
 
 As happy as their type, the mole ; 
 Large are their bounties as the slit 
 
 Through which they drop the poor man's dole. 
 
 1 This and the two following translations were written for 
 A. D. Coleridge's "Life of Moscheles" (itself an adaptation 
 from the German).
 
 FROM HEINE. 229 
 
 With pipe in mouth they go their way, 
 With hands in pockets ; they are blest 
 
 With grand digestions : only they 
 Are such hard morsels to digest ! 
 
 The hand that's red with some dark deed, 
 Some giant crime, were white as wool 
 
 Compared with these sleek saints, whose creed 
 Is paying all their debts in full. 
 
 Ye clouds that sail to far-off lands, 
 
 O waft me to what clime ye will ; 
 To Lapland's snows, to Libya's sands, 
 
 To the world's end but onward still ! 
 
 * 
 Take me, clouds ! They ne'er look down ; 
 
 But (proof of a discerning mind) 
 One moment hang o'er Hamburg town, 
 The next they leave it leagues behind.
 
 II. FEOM J. F. CASTBLLI. 1 
 AT BEETHOVEN'S GRAVE. 
 
 T71BOM the high rock I marked a fountain breaking; 
 It poured its riches forth o'er glade and plain ; 
 Where'er they streamed I saw new life awaking, 
 
 The grandam world was in her prime again ; 
 To the charmed spot the tribes of earth came 
 
 thronging, 
 And stoopt to that pure wave with eager longing. 
 
 Yet of these hosts few only, keener-sighted 
 
 Than were their fellows, all its glamour knew : 
 
 The simple multitude surveyed, delighted, 
 Its diamond glitter and its changing hue; 
 
 But save unto those few that saw more clearly 
 
 That wondrous fountain was a fountain merely. 
 
 1 In " Life of Moscheles," vol. i. p. 167.
 
 FROM J. F. CASTELLI. 231 
 
 At last its source dried up, its torrent dwindled ; 
 
 And all mankind discerned its virtue then ; 
 In minstrel's breast and bard's a fire was kindled, 
 
 And brush and chisel vied with harp and pen : 
 But wild desire, and minstrelsy, and wailing, 
 To call it back to life were unavailing. 
 
 jfc % H: * * 
 
 Thou who sleep'st here, thy toil, thy bondage 
 ended ! 
 
 Lo ! in that fountain's tale is told thine own. 
 Marvelled at oft, more oft misapprehended, 
 
 By the few only thou wast truly known. 
 All shall exalt thee, now that low thou liest : 
 That thou may'st live, deathless one, thou dieat.
 
 III. FROM J. F. CASTELLI. 1 
 AT BEETHOVEN'S FUNERAL. 
 
 Tjl VRY tear that is shed by the mourner is holy ; 
 When the dust of the mighty to earth is 
 
 consigned, 
 
 When those he held dearest move sadly and slowly 
 To the grave of the friend in whose heart they 
 were shrined. 
 
 But our grief-stricken train is a wild sea that surges, 
 That spreads to yon starry pavilion overhead 
 
 And girdles the globe : for all nature sings dirges, 
 Where'er rings an echo, to-day o'er the dead. 
 
 But weep not for him : for yourselves sorrow only : 
 Though proud was his place in the hierarchy 
 here, 
 
 1 In " Life of Moscheles," vol. i p. 166.
 
 FROM J. F. CASTELLI. 233 
 
 This Earth might not hold him; his spirit was 
 
 lonely, 
 And yearned for a home in a loftier sphere. 
 
 So Heaven to the minstrel its portal uncloses ; 
 
 The Muse thither calls him, to sit by her side 
 And hear, from the throne where in bliss she reposes, 
 
 His own hallo w'd harmonies float far and wide. 
 
 Yet here, in our memories homed, he abideth ; 
 
 Round his name lives a glory that ne'er may grow 
 
 dim; 
 Time fain would o'ertake him, but time he derideth ; 
 
 The grisly Destroyer is distanced by him. 
 
 [Bey Ludwig van Beethoven's Leichenbegangniss (am. 29 
 Marz, 1827).]
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS. 
 (FROM "THE HYMNARY ."*) 
 
 EASTEK. 
 Concinet orbis cunctus, Alleluia. A Sequence. SARUM MISSAL. 
 
 A LLELUIA let the nations 
 
 Sing to-day from West to East ; 
 As they solemnize with praises 
 
 And with prayers the Paschal feast. 
 
 And ye little ones be joyful, 
 
 Whom the Holy Font hath made 
 
 White as snow : the lake that burneth 
 Shall not make your ranks afraid. 
 
 1 " The Hymnary ; a Book of Church Song ; " published 
 by Novello, Ewer, and Co. To each hymn the number in 
 " The Hymnary " is appended.
 
 EASTER. 235 
 
 We, with you, to measured music 
 
 Fain would tune the slackened string ; 
 
 And in subtly-cadenced anthems 
 Bid our voices rise and ring. 
 
 Since for us, a mute meek Victim, 
 Christ endured the cross and shame : 
 
 He, the Living Life, a captive 
 Unto death for us became : 
 
 For our sakes He deigned to carry 
 
 To His lips the cup of gall : 
 Nail and spear, and pain and wounding, 
 
 In our cause He braved them all : 
 
 So through suffering He descended, 
 
 Laden with our sins, to hell ; 
 Whence He comes with many a trophy, 
 
 Telling that He triumphed well : 
 
 Death overthrown, He brake the weapons 
 
 Of His ancient foe in twain ; 
 And the third day lo ! He riseth, 
 
 In His flesh, to life again.
 
 236 EASTER. 
 
 Sing we then to Him glad anthems, 
 Who spread wide the heavenly door, 
 
 And to man gave life eternal : 
 
 His be praise for evermore. [271.]
 
 EASTER. 
 
 Victimae paschali laudes immolent Christiani. A Sequence 
 of the 12th Century. 
 
 /^VUR salvation to obtain 
 
 Christ our Passover is slain : 
 Unto Christ we Christians raise 
 This our sacrifice of praise. 
 
 By the Lamb the sheep were bought ; 
 By the Pure the guilty sought : 
 With their God were made at one 
 Sinners by the sinless Son. 
 
 In a dark mysterious strife 
 Closed the powers of Death and Life, 
 And the Lord of Life was slain : 
 Yet He liveth and doth reign.
 
 238 EASTER. 
 
 " Say what saw'st thou, Mary, say, 
 As them wentest on thy way." 
 " Christ's, the Living's, tomb ; the throes 
 Earth was torn with as He rose : 
 
 And the angels twain who bare 
 Witness that He was not there ; 
 And the grave-clothes of the Dead, 
 And the cloth that bound His head : 
 
 Christ our Hope is risen, and He 
 Goes before to Galilee." 
 Trust we Mary : she is true ; 
 Heed we not the faithless Jew. 
 
 Conqueror, King, to Thee we raise 
 This our sacrifice of praise : 
 We believe Thee risen indeed ; 
 Hear us, help us in our need. [275.]
 
 EASTER. 
 
 Panditur saxo tumulus remote. JEAN BAPTISTS SANTEUIL. 
 Paris Breviary. 
 
 rTlHE stone is rolled away; 
 
 The grave is bid display 
 Her secrets ; through her charnel-chambers rings 
 
 A voice ; and lo, the dead 
 
 Lifts his awakened head, 
 Lo, the deaf hearkens to the King of kings. 
 
 wondrous sight ! Again 
 
 Life throbs in every vein : 
 Bound hand and foot and blindfold, on his way 
 
 The dead goes forth alive ; 
 
 Doomed haply to survive 
 The multitude who mourn for him to-day.
 
 240 EASTER. 
 
 Thus Death himself, our foe, 
 
 At last shall be laid low ; 
 His chains rent piecemeal, and his slaves set free. 
 
 That, which Thy Sovereign Power 
 
 Hath wrought, Christ, this hour 
 Is but an emblem of the things to be. 
 
 Now to the Father, Son, 
 
 And Spirit, ever One, 
 Be power ascribed by all things that have breath. 
 
 In Thee, O Christ, we trust : 
 
 When we return to dust, 
 Save us we pray Thee, from the second Death. 
 
 [622.]
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 Quam nos potenter allicis. JEAN BAPTISTE SANTEUIL. 
 Paris Breviary. 
 
 
 
 CHRIST, how potent is Thy grace ! 
 Ne'er doth Thy loving-kindness fail, 
 Whether we see Thee through a veil, 
 Or face to face. 
 
 Now his adopted sons are we 
 Who called Thee Son : our Surety thus 
 Gives His unfailing pledge to us 
 
 Of bliss to be. 
 
 Father, Son, what then was shewn, 
 Upon the Mount, the cloud dispelled ? 
 The types are gone ; the three beheld 
 
 Truth stand alone. 
 i. E
 
 242 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 feebly tracked by Faith's dim ray, 
 Lord, may we one day share Thy bliss ; 
 See Thee ; enjoy Thee ; bursting this 
 
 Our prison of clay. 
 
 To Him Who said, the bright cloud riven, 
 "This is My Son"; and, Son, to Thee; 
 To Thee, Blest Spirit ; One in Three, 
 
 All praise be given. [368.]
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 Coelestis formam gloriae. 14th Century. 
 
 rTlHE shadow of the glory which one day 
 
 Christ's church on earth stands waiting to put 
 
 on, 
 
 This morn did Christ upon the Mount display : 
 There as the sun He shone. 
 
 That tale shall ages yet unborn record, 
 
 How those three chosen gazed with awe-struck 
 eye, 
 
 While Moses and Elias with the Lord 
 Awhile held converse high. 
 
 The three great witnesses are gathered there 
 Of Grace, Law, Prophecy : and, hark, aloud 
 
 To God the Son doth God the Father bear 
 His witness from the cloud.
 
 244 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 His Face aglow, His garments glistering white, 
 So Christ foreshews what guerdon He prepares 
 
 For faith ; so tells them who in God delight 
 What glory shall be theirs. 
 
 That mystery supreme, which they beheld 
 
 Who saw the vision, lifts to heaven our gaze ; 
 
 And year by year, Lord, our hearts are swelled 
 With wonder and with praise. 
 
 Father, from Thy sole-begotten Son 
 And gracious Spirit separable ne'er ; 
 
 Dwell Thou within us, that, the battle won, 
 Thy glory we may share. [367.]
 
 ASCENSION. 
 
 Felix dies mortalibus. JEAN BAPTISTS SANTEUIL. 
 Paris Breviary. 
 
 aye shall mortals bless the day 
 When with His Blood Christ won the way, 
 Incarnate Grod, to Heaven, and passed 
 Through its bright gates unbarred at last. 
 
 We are the members, He the Head : 
 We follow where our Prince hath led 
 And, one with Him on earth in love, 
 Shall share His throne in heaven above. 
 
 Gone hence, His own yet deem Him near, 
 For by His Spirit He is here : 
 As on the head depend the parts, 
 So rules one influence all our hearts.
 
 246 ASCENSION. 
 
 But that Day, that dreadful Day ! 
 Whither shall sinners flee away 
 When, armed with vengeance, He shall come 
 Down from His throne to strike them dumb ? 
 
 The just One, by the guilty called 
 Unjust, shall see them stand appalled, 
 Who once condemned Him, and resume 
 His Judgeship to pronounce their doom. 
 
 Man to redeem, whose due was death, 
 Christ freely yielded up His breath : 
 And, ah, what woe must they sustain 
 For whom His Blood was shed in vain ! 
 
 Thou Who one day our Judge shalt be, 
 
 Jesu, all glory be to Thee : 
 
 All glory to the Father, Son, 
 
 And Holy Spirit, Three in One. [317.]
 
 ASCENSION. 
 
 Rector omnipotens die hodierno, HARTMAKN, 
 a Monk of St. Gall. 
 
 ORD of all power and might, 
 Mankind redeemed, Who dost this day 
 
 soar 
 Back to those realms of light 
 
 Where Thou satt'st throned before : 
 
 Ere skyward Tbou didst rise 
 Thou badst Apostles to the world proclaim 
 God's pardon, and baptize 
 
 All in the Triune Name. 
 
 Nor didst Thou let depart, 
 Lord, from the holy city Thine eleven, 
 Till poured into their heart 
 
 Was that last gift of heaven.
 
 248 ASCENSION. 
 
 " Lo ! but a few days hence 
 Ye shall no more be comfortless : I go 
 To heaven, to send you thence 
 
 One Who shall soothe your woe : 
 
 " And in Samaria ye, 
 And in Judaea and in Jerusalem, 
 My witnesses shall be." 
 
 So spake the Lord to them. 
 
 He spake : and as they gazed 
 A cloud received Him, marvellously bright ; 
 With wistful eyes upraised 
 
 They watched Him fade from sight 
 
 Behold, two men stood near 
 Arrayed in white apparel ; and they said 
 " Why stand ye gazing here 
 Into the heaven o'erhead ? 
 
 " This Jesus, to His Throne 
 
 Who this day riseth upon God's right hand, 
 
 Shall come again, His own 
 
 With usury to demand. "
 
 ASCENSION. 249 
 
 God of earth, sea, sky ; 
 
 Man, whom Thou madest, whom the Foe erewhile 
 From Eden forced to fly, 
 
 By craftiness and guile, 
 
 And dragged him to the night 
 Of death and darkness : and whom Thou, Lord, 
 With Thine own Blood to light 
 And freedom hast restored : 
 
 Man yet again may win 
 
 The bliss he fell from : Thou hast paid the price ; 
 Thou bidd'st him enter in 
 Once more to Paradise. 
 
 A 
 
 Thou shalt return : and men. 
 Hear from Thy lips their doom or their release. 
 Grant, we beseech Thee, then 
 
 To ua eternal peace. [305.]
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia. KING ROBERT OF 
 FRANCE, OH ST. XOTKER. 
 
 , Holy Ghost, within us; and, removing 
 
 by Thy grace 
 Every taint and tinge of evil, make our hearts Thy 
 dwelling place. 
 
 Be with us, quickening Spirit ; Thou canst pierce 
 
 the deepest night : 
 Cleanse our base imaginations, change our dark- 
 
 ness into light. 
 
 O Thou Holy One Who lovest wisdom always, be 
 
 Thou kind, 
 By Thy mystical anointing heal the blindness of our 
 
 mind.
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 251 
 
 Thou That purifiest all things, as none else beside 
 
 Thee can, 
 Purify the clouded eyesight, Spirit, of our inner man; 
 
 That by us our Heavenly Father may at last be seen 
 
 and known : 
 
 For the pure in heart shall see Him, and the pure 
 in heart alone. 
 
 Fired by Thee the holy Prophets sang, of old, 
 
 Messiah's birth ; 
 By Thee fortified, Apostles bore Christ's banner 
 
 o'er the earth. 
 
 When God spake, and as a fabric rose up earth and 
 
 sea and sky, 
 Thou wast brooding on the waters, Blessed Spirit, 
 
 fosteringly. 
 
 Still at thy command the waters bring forth life, to 
 
 quicken hearts ; 
 Still Thy sacred inspiration unto man new life 
 
 imparts.
 
 252 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Lord, Thou makest tongues of Babel one in worship 
 
 and in speech : 
 Truth to them who bowed to idols, mighty Master, 
 
 Thou dost teach. 
 
 Therefore when we kneel before Thee hear us, 
 
 gracious Spirit, hear ; 
 Prayers are all in vain without Thee, shall not reach 
 
 the Father's ear. 
 
 Spirit, Who through all the ages hast instructed in 
 
 Thy lore 
 Souls of saints that felt Thy presence like a shadow 
 
 hovering o'er, 
 
 Dwelling now in Christ's Apostles, in a new and 
 
 wondrous way, 
 And the gift of gifts bestowing, Thou hast glorified 
 
 this day. [322.]
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 Veni superne Spiritus. CHARLES COFFIN. Paris Breviary. 
 
 /^OME, Spirit, from on high; 
 
 Earth awaits Thee, parched and dry : 
 Dwell, Lord, these souls within, 
 Which Christ's Blood hath cleansed from sin. 
 
 redeem the pledge He gave 
 Ere the lustrous cloud He clave : 
 Dwell with us, no more to part, 
 And with fire baptize each heart. 
 
 For a Father lost we mourn ; 
 Look upon us, left forlorn ; 
 Heal our sorrows : only Thou 
 Canst give hope ; give it now.
 
 254 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Things that Christ in days of old 
 Did from simple babes withhold, 
 Things that they might hardly learn, 
 Let our riper minds discern. 
 
 Let the truths, which once a few 
 Priests and Prophets dimly knew, 
 Now be published by Thy grace 
 Freely among every race. 
 
 Let Thy holy influence draw 
 All men to Thee ; let the Law, 
 Once on dumb stones graven, be 
 In our hearts writ legibly. 
 
 To the Father, glory be, 
 
 And the Son eternally, 
 
 And the Spirit, ever One 
 
 With the Father and the Son. [320.]
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 Luxjucunda, lux insignis. ADAM OF ST. VICTOR. 
 
 PV AY all jubilant, all splendid, 
 
 When from heaven the fire descended 
 On the chosen of the Lord ! 
 Heart is full, and tongue rejoices : 
 Yea, our hearts invite our voices 
 
 To sing praise with one accord. 
 
 He who ne'er His promise breaketh, 
 Thus His chosen Bride retaketh, 
 
 On the Pentecostal day. 
 From the Rock, with honey teeming 
 Once, a gracious oil is streaming ; 
 
 Never shall that Rock decay. 
 
 Writ on stone, not preached by flamed 
 Tongues, the Law was once proclaimed
 
 256 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 From the mount in all men's view : 
 Hearts in Christ created newly, 
 Tongues in love united truly, 
 
 Here are granted to a few. 
 
 the joy, the exultation 
 
 Of that day when the foundation 
 
 Of Christ's Holy Church was laid ! 
 When she gave to God thanksgiving 
 For three thousand souls, her living 
 
 Firstfruits, as they kneeled and prayed ! 
 
 This the two wave-loaves portended 
 Of the Law : two peoples, blended 
 
 Into one One God adore. 
 They were twain : until united 
 By the Stone the builders slighted, 
 
 Never to be sundered more. 
 
 Not in vessels that are olden 
 Is the new wine meetly holden : 
 Like Elisha, to the brim
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 257 
 
 All the widow's vessels filling, 
 Christ with sacred dew is willing 
 To fill all who trust in Him. 
 
 Not to hearts by discord riven, 
 Shall these sacred gifts be given 
 
 Precious dew, nor oil, nor wine : 
 Ne'er the Paraclete abideth 
 Within hearts which sin divideth, 
 
 Shutting out the light divine. 
 
 Comforter, possess and cheer us ! 
 Venom then shall not draw near us ; 
 Hate shall flee before Thy face. 
 There is no delight, no sweetness, 
 
 * 
 
 Health, nor comfort, nor completeness, 
 
 Where Thou dost withhold Thy grace. 
 
 Oil of gladness, Lamp uplifted, 
 Heavenly Bread, by Whom are gifted 
 
 With strange power the springs and brooks ; 
 New- create and pure, we render 
 Thus our thanks, on whom with tender 
 
 Love, not hate, the Saviour looks, 
 i. s
 
 258 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Gift, and Giver of all blessing, 
 Evermore be we addressing 
 
 Praise, with lip and heart, to Thee ! 
 Cleanse our sins ; in Christ renew us j 
 And, when perfected, give to us 
 
 Our eternal jubilee. [324.]
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 Audimur; almo Spiritus. CHAELES COFFIN. Paris Breviary. 
 
 0, the father hears our prayer: 
 Unto failing hearts to bear 
 All Christ promised ere He rose, 
 Forth to-day the Spirit goes. 
 
 As the Lord of*Life draws nigh, 
 Signs and wonders multiply : 
 First through all the house there past 
 Sounds, as of a rushing blast ; 
 
 Flakes of fire fell fast, and hung, 
 Each one like a burning tongue, 
 In the pure thin air, and shed 
 Lustre upon every head.
 
 260 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Then the flames that lit each brow, 
 Passing thence we know not how 
 To their inmost spirit pour, 
 Light and strength unknown before. 
 
 Marvelling much the nations heard 
 Preached in every tongue the word ; 
 All that seers had e'er discerned, 
 Told again in words that burned. 
 
 On the hearers then was poured 
 Forth the Spirit of the Lord : 
 Thick as sheaves at harvest-tide 
 They arose and prophesied. 
 
 Praise the Father, praise the Son : 
 
 Equal honour, too, be done 
 
 Unto Him, Who can inspire 
 
 Human hearts with flaming fire. [321.]
 
 THE VIGIL OF WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 O Christe qui noster poli. Paris Breviary. 
 
 C\ CHRIST, Who dost, our herald, rise 
 
 Into the mansions of the skies : 
 Call, lift us, whom Thou here dost see 
 Prostrate and downcast, up to Thee. 
 
 Make us to haste with purest love 
 Unto the joys that are above, 
 Undreamed of by the earthly mind : 
 Faith can alone that treasure find. 
 
 There, the reward of labours past, 
 God gives His own Himself at last : 
 Their all in all is He, to bless 
 Their souls with perfect happiness.
 
 262 THE VIGIL OF WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Lord, from high heaven this holy tide 
 Send down Thy Spirit, Who shall guide 
 Us, by His all-prevailing grace, 
 To Thy most glorious dwelling-place. 
 
 Jesu, for ever glorified 
 
 Thou sittest by the Father's side ; 
 
 All glory be to Father, Son, 
 
 And Spirit, while the ages run. [318]
 
 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Supreme Rector coelitum. Paris Breviary. 
 
 G OVEREIGN of Heaven, Who didst prevail 
 O'er death, and with Thy life-blood dye 
 The path by which we hope to scale 
 Yon starry sky : 
 
 Look down in mercy from Thy throne 
 
 At God's right hand, Lord, and see 
 Us who are lingering here alone, 
 Orphaned of Thee. 
 
 Hear us, Christ, for we were born 
 
 Out of the travail of Thy soul ; 
 When by the spear Thy side was torn 
 To make us whole.
 
 264 WHITSUNTIDE. 
 
 Thy toils and anguish at an end, 
 
 Thou wearest now a glorious crown : 
 The hour is come ; send, Saviour send 
 Thy Spirit down. 
 
 O Jesu, glory be to Thee, 
 
 To God's right hand Who didst ascend 
 Glory to God, the One and Three 
 
 World without end. [319.]
 
 TRINITY. 
 Benedicta sit beata Trinitas. A Sequence. SAKUM MISSAL. 
 
 A LL blessing to the Blessed Three ! 
 
 Hail, co-eternal Deity, 
 In glory equal, Father, Son, 
 And Spirit ; ever Three in One. 
 
 Ruling o'er all things, One in Will, 
 Three Persons, yet One Substance still : 
 The Uncreated Unity, 
 In Godhead One, in Persons Three. 
 
 This faith can souls from sin release, 
 And bring them to that land of peace, 
 Where by the bright celestial throng 
 Is poured for aye triumphant song.
 
 266 TRINITY. 
 
 White-robed in Jesus' steps they tread, 
 Who sits enthroned above their head ; 
 Their day of suffering past and gone, 
 Lo, they have put new raiment on. 
 
 Let us, in whom God's grace doth glow, 
 Pay now to God the debt we owe : 
 So, when to this world we have died, 
 Our place may still in heaven abide. 
 
 So, peradventure, when the last 
 Fight hath been fought and overpast, 
 We shall behold fair mansions rise, 
 To be our dwelling, in the skies ; 
 
 Where evermore a wondrous Light 
 Shines, inextinguishably bright : . ' 
 It is the Vision of the blest, 
 The Lord Himself made manifest. 
 
 Its beams on angels' breasts it throws, 
 As on the Source from which it flows 
 They gaze, the Form of Him Who trod 
 Erewhile this earth, Incarnate God.
 
 TRINITY. 267 
 
 On Him they gaze with burning thirst : 
 So shall the righteous burn, when first 
 They see the infinite reward 
 Assigned them by their Judge, the Lord. 
 
 [336.]
 
 S. JOHN BAPTIST. 
 Praecursor altus luminis. VENERABLE BEDE. 
 
 TTAIL harbinger of Morn : 
 
 Thou that art this day born, 
 And heraldest the Word with clarion voice ! 
 
 Ye faithful ones, in him 
 
 Behold the dawning dim 
 Of the bright Day, and let your hearts rejoice. 
 
 John ; by that chosen name 
 
 To call him, Gabriel came 
 By God's appointment from his home on high 
 
 What deeds that babe should do 
 
 To manhood when he grew, 
 God sent His angel forth to testify. 
 
 Yet in his mother's womb, 
 To Him Who should illume
 
 S. JOHN BAPTIST. 269 
 
 With light the nations John his witness bore : 
 And when he came to birth, 
 John first proclaimed to earth 
 
 That witness, and is glorious evermore. 
 
 There hath none greater, none, 
 
 Than Zachariah's son 
 Ris'n among those that are of woman born ; 
 
 A prophet, he may claim 
 
 More than a prophet's fame ; 
 Sublimer deeds than theirs his front adorn. 
 
 Enough : can human speech 
 
 Unto his glory reach, 
 Meetly may mortals herald forth his praise, 
 
 For whom, in time of old, 
 
 God bade His seer unfold 
 The mighty work ordained in after-days ? 
 
 " Lo, to prepare Thy way/' 
 Did God the Father say, 
 " Before Thy face My messenger I send,
 
 270 S. JOHN BAPTIST. 
 
 Thy coming to forerun; 
 As on the orient sun 
 Doth the bright daystar morn by morn attend." 
 
 Praise therefore God most High ; 
 
 Praise Him Who came to die 
 For us, His Son That liveth evermore ; 
 
 And to the Spirit raise, 
 
 The Comforter, like praise, 
 While time endureth and when time is o'er. 
 
 [361.]
 
 MARTYRS. 
 Supernae matris gaudia. ADAM or ST. VICTOR. 
 
 /CHRIST'S Church in heaven to-day 
 \J 
 
 Rejoiceth : and rejoice, Christ's Church on earth. 
 
 We have our times of mourning and of mirth ; 
 Their tears are wiped away. 
 
 Succour Thy children, Lord, 
 Thy Church that in this joyless valley dwells : 
 Peopling the air, let angel sentinels 
 
 Keep o'er her watch and ward. 
 
 The world, the flesh, hell's powers 
 Wage differing war around us ; aye upstart 
 New phantom-hosts ; the sabbath of the heart, 
 
 Lord, it is not ours.
 
 272 MARTYRS. 
 
 On earth we know no calm : 
 Fear succeeds Hope, Grief banishes Delight ; 
 In heaven they sing, and pause not day or night, 
 
 Their never-ending psalm. 
 
 happy City ! Life 
 Is there but one long day of jubilee ! 
 happy citizens, for ever free 
 
 From turmoil and from strife ! 
 
 They wax not old, nor faint : 
 They fear no treachery, flee before no foe ; 
 Gladness alone doth in each bosom glow ; 
 
 One joy fills every saint. 
 
 The blest one whom we sing 
 This day, now into Paradise received, 
 Beholds His Face in Whom he has believed ; 
 
 He sees, unveiled His King. 
 
 May we too find a place 
 Among the habitations of the just, 
 This hour of anguish over ; as our trust, 
 
 Lord, is in Thy grace. [403.]
 
 FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES. 
 
 Supreme, quales, Arbiter. JEAN BAPTISTS SANTEUIL. 
 Paris Breviary. 
 
 /~\ LORD, through instruments how weak 
 Thou workest out Thy sovereign will ! 
 Frail earthen vessels Thou dost seek, 
 And with Thy choicest treasure fill. 
 
 And in due time the pitchers, charged 
 With light, Thou dost in pieces dash ; 
 
 And thence the light breaks forth, enlarged, 
 As from the cloud the prisoned flash. 
 
 O'er earth Thy messengers are heard ; 
 
 They haste like clouds before the gale ; 
 Fraught with the Word, the sacred Word, 
 
 They pour forth thunder, lightning, hail.
 
 274 FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES. 
 
 Christ is their war- cry : at its sound 
 Are hell's proud citadels laid low : 
 
 So, while the trumpets clanged around, 
 Fell once the walls of Jericho. 
 
 Lord, let these trumpet blasts divine 
 
 From treacherous sleep awake mankind ; 
 
 And let these lights, erst lit at Thine 
 Disperse the darkness of our mind. 
 
 To Thee, on Thy Apostle's day, 
 
 We pay all worship, God of might : 
 
 For thou hast called us that lay 
 
 In darkness to Thy Glorious light. [389.]
 
 BETHANY. 
 
 Intrante Christo Bethanicam domum. Paris Breviary. 
 
 Bethany Christ comes, the leper's guest. 
 Speed we then thither : Simon spreads for all 
 The banquet : with the rest 
 
 We flock to Simon's hall. 
 
 While Lazarus feasts, and Martha decks the board, 
 A box of odorous oil doth Mary take, 
 Right costly ; to be poured 
 
 Forth for her Master's sake. 
 
 She bathes His feet, and wipes th em with her hair ; 
 She breaks the box, and all the oil is spilled 
 Over His head : the air 
 
 Seems with new fragrance filled.
 
 276 BETHANY. 
 
 why do scornfiil hands at Mary point? 
 Proud was her task ; this treasure did she save, 
 Beforehand to anoint 
 
 Christ's Body for the grave. 
 
 And, as His Faith is preached in every tongue, 
 And far-off lands to His allegiance won, 
 Still shall o'er earth be sung 
 
 This deed which she hath done. 
 
 Now to the Father and the Son uplift 
 High praise for ever ; Praise, and never cease, 
 The Spirit ; through whose gift 
 
 Christ's Bride hath perfect peace. 
 
 [625.]
 
 DE DIB JUDICII. 1 
 
 (Translated almost literally into the same metre as the origi- 
 nal, with a rhyme added to make it an English metre, from an 
 alphabetical hymn by Thomasius, published in Archbishop 
 Trench's " Sacred Latin Poetry") 
 
 CONCERNING THE DAY OP JUDGMENT. 
 
 A S a thief, who falls at midnight on his unsus- 
 pecting prey, 
 
 When we think not shall o'ertake us the Al- 
 mighty's Judgment Day. 
 Brief shall seem to men the pleasures that they 
 
 prized in times of yore, 
 
 When they know that as a moment Time hath 
 past, and is no more. 
 
 1 This Translation is the last thing Calverley wrote for 
 the press. It was finished a few weeks before his death. ED. 
 
 T2
 
 278 DE DIE JUDICH. 
 
 C langing over Earth's four quarters shall the sud- 
 den trumpet-call 
 Summon unto Christ's tribunal, dead or living, 
 
 one and all : 
 D own from highest heaven descended, shining 
 
 angels hovering near, 
 Shall the Judge in all the brightness of His 
 
 majesty appear. 
 E arth from pole to pole shall tremble, paling stars 
 
 shall shrink from sight; 
 And the sun himself be darkened, and the round 
 
 moon lose her light. 
 Fire shall execute, unbidden, his all-righteous 
 
 Lord's decree, 
 Sky and lands in flame devouring, and the great 
 
 unfathomed sea. 
 G lorious shall the King be seated then upon His 
 
 throne on high, 
 The attendant choirs of angels standing awed and 
 
 trembling by : 
 H is elect upon His right hand shall He bid their 
 
 station take ; 
 
 While as goats of evil savour on His left the 
 wicked quake.
 
 DE DIE JUDICH. 279 
 
 " I nto heavenly mansions enter," to the first shall 
 
 say the Son, 
 " Which My Father's love prepared you ere the 
 
 ages had begun ; 
 K indly ye did once as brethren succour in His 
 
 need your Lord ; 
 Of your kindness of aforetime take ye now the 
 
 rich reward." 
 " L ord," they shall exclaim, all joyous, " when 
 
 beheld we thee in need ? 
 When to us didst thou for succour, thou the King 
 
 most mighty, plead ? " 
 M ark the Judge Almighty's answer : " When 
 
 ye heard the poor man's plea ; 
 Fed, clad, housed him ; lo, ye did it in your low- 
 liness to Me." 
 N ext to those upon His left hand the All- Just their 
 
 doom shall tell : 
 " Hence ye cursed from My presence to the fiery 
 
 flames of hell ! 
 O nee I craved your ear a beggar, and ye mocked 
 
 at My hard lot ; 
 
 I was sick, and ye forsook Me ; naked, and ye 
 clothed Me not."
 
 280 DE DIE JUDICII. 
 
 P iteously shall ask the wicked : " Lord, when dealt 
 
 we with Thee thus ? 
 Sick or poor, when wast Thou mocked at, most 
 
 mighty King, by us ? " 
 Q uickly shall reply the High One : " When ye 
 
 scorned the beggar's cry, 
 Lo, the man whom ye thought scorn of in your 
 
 wantonness was I." 
 R eeling back, shall then the wicked sink into the 
 
 fiery glare, 
 Where abides the worm that dies not, and the 
 
 flames are quenched ne'er. 
 
 S atan with his servants lieth chained those dark- 
 some depths beneath, 
 Where for ever must the damned weep, and wail, 
 
 and gnash the teeth. 
 Then on wings shall mount the faithful, led by many 
 
 an angel-band, 
 
 To the realm of joy and gladness, to their hea- 
 venly Father-land : 
 U pon them in perfect brilliance Light and Peace 
 
 shall shine ; from them 
 
 Veiled no more shall be that City, that supreme 
 Jerusalem :
 
 DE DIE JUDICII. 281 
 
 1 X l the King, in all the brightness of His 
 
 Father's splendour decked, 
 Face to face shall then be gazed on by the hosts 
 
 of His elect. 
 
 Y e beware then of the Serpent and his wiles : up- 
 hold the weak, 
 Heed not gold, and flee vain pleasures, if the stars 
 
 ye fain would seek : 
 Z one with Chastity's pure girdle day by day your 
 
 loins, and turn, 
 
 When the Master comes, to meet Him, bearing 
 with you lamps that burn. 
 
 1 There is an apparent hiatus in the alphabet of Thomasius 
 here, TJ and V, like I and J, being treated as one letter. The 
 claim, however, of V to be "& distinct letter is so far recog- 
 nized that it begins the next line in the couplet in the original 
 as in the translation. There is no W in Latin, and no avail- 
 able X : so the author had to content himself with X tus , and 
 the translator has followed him.
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE.
 
 University of California Library 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 eTI ^^ V% f\ ^^| 
 
 '" Mn0W3lc 
 
 310/8^5-9188 
 
 1 n ^i 
 
 FEB 1 2 ZOt