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039 - Miner and Minor Poets · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty eight of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For my information not a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by a Lizzie Driver, Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited
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  Speaker 1: by Robert Ross. Section thirty eight Minor and Minor Poets,
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  Speaker 1: Paarl mart Gazette, February first, eighteen eighty seven. The conditions
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  Speaker 1: that precede artistic production are so constantly treated as qualities
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  Speaker 1: of the work of art itself that one sometimes is
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  Speaker 1: tempted to wish that all art were anonymous. Yet there
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  Speaker 1: are certain forms of art so individual in their utterance,
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  Speaker 1: so purely personal in their expression, that for a full
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  Speaker 1: appreciation of their style and manner, some knowledge of the
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  Speaker 1: artist's life is necessary. To this class belongs mister Skipson
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  Speaker 1: Carols from the Coalfields, a volume of intense human interest
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  Speaker 1: and high literary merit, And who were consequently glad to
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  Speaker 1: see that doctor Spence Watson has added a short biography
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  Speaker 1: of his friend to his friend's poems. For the life
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  Speaker 1: and the literature are too indissolubly wedded, ever, really to
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  Speaker 1: be separated. Joseph Skipsey, doctor Watson tells us was sent
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  Speaker 1: into the coal pits at Percy, Maine, near North Shields
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  Speaker 1: when he was seven years of age. Young as he was,
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  Speaker 1: he had to work from twelve to sixteen hours in
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  Speaker 1: the day, generally in the pitch dark, and in the
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  Speaker 1: dreary winter months. He saw the sun only upon Sundays
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  Speaker 1: when he went to work. He had learned the alphabet
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  Speaker 1: and to put of two letters together, but he was
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  Speaker 1: really his own schoolmaster, and taught himself to write, for
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  Speaker 1: example by copying the letters from printed bills or notices
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  Speaker 1: when he could get a candle end, his paper being
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  Speaker 1: the trap door which it was his duty to open
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  Speaker 1: and shut as the wagons passed through, and his pen
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  Speaker 1: a piece of chalk. The first book he really read
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  Speaker 1: was the Bible, and not content with reading it, he
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  Speaker 1: learned by heart the chapters, which specially pleased him. When
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  Speaker 1: sixteen years old, he was presented with a copy of
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  Speaker 1: Lindley Murray's Grammar, by the aid of which he gained
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  Speaker 1: some knowledge of the structural rules of English. He had
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  Speaker 1: already become acquainted with Paradise Lost, and was another proof
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  Speaker 1: of Matthew Pryor's axiom, who often reads, was sometimes wont
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  Speaker 1: to write, for he had begun to write verse when
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  Speaker 1: only a bonny pit lad. For more than forty years
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  Speaker 1: of his life he labored in the cold, dark underground,
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  Speaker 1: and is now the caretaker a board school in Newcastle
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  Speaker 1: upon Tyne. As for the qualities of his poetry, they
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  Speaker 1: are its directness and its natural grace. He is an
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  Speaker 1: intellectual as well as metrical affinity with Blake, and possesses
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  Speaker 1: something of Blake's marvelous power of making simple things seem
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  Speaker 1: strange to us, and strange things seem simple. How delightful,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, is this little poem Get up, the caller cries,
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  Speaker 1: Get up, and in the dead of night to win
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  Speaker 1: the bairns their bait, and sup I rise, a weary wight,
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  Speaker 1: my flannel dud and donned thrice my birds are kissed.
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  Speaker 1: And then I, with a whistle, shut the door. I
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  Speaker 1: may not ope again. How exquisite and fanciful this stray lyric.
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  Speaker 1: The wind comes from the west to night, so sweetly
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  Speaker 1: down the lane he bloweth upon my lips with pure delight.
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  Speaker 1: From head to foot my body gloweth. Where did the wind?
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  Speaker 1: The magic find to charm me. Thus say hard that
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  Speaker 1: knoweth within a rose on which he blows before upon
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  Speaker 1: thy lips he bloweth. We admit that mister skipp work
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  Speaker 1: is extremely unequal, but when it is at his best,
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  Speaker 1: it is full of sweetness and strength. And though he
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  Speaker 1: is carefully studied the artistic capabilities of language, he never
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  Speaker 1: makes his form formal by over polishing. Beauty with him
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  Speaker 1: seems to be an unconscious result rather than a conscious aim.
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  Speaker 1: His style is all the delicate charm of chance. We
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  Speaker 1: have already pointed out his affinity to Blake, but with
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  Speaker 1: Burns also he may be said to have a spiritual kinship.
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  Speaker 1: And in the songs of the Northumbrian Minor we meet
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  Speaker 1: with something of the asia peasants, wild gaiety, and mad humor.
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  Speaker 1: He gives himself up freely to his impressions, and there
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  Speaker 1: is a fine, careless rapture in his laughter. The whole
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  Speaker 1: book deserves to be read, and much of it deserves
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  Speaker 1: to be loved. Mister Skipsy can find music for every mood,
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  Speaker 1: whether he is dealing with the real experiences of the
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  Speaker 1: pitman or with the imaginative experiences of the poet, and
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  Speaker 1: his verse is a rich variety about it. In these
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  Speaker 1: latter days of shallow rhymes, it is pleasant to come
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  Speaker 1: across some one to whom poetry is a passion, not
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  Speaker 1: a profession. Mister F. B. Doveton belongs to a different school.
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  Speaker 1: In his amazing versatility, he reminds us of the gentleman
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  Speaker 1: who wrote the Immortal Handbills for Missus Jarley. For his
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  Speaker 1: subject's range from Doctor Cartermerfat and the Ammonia Phone to
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  Speaker 1: mister Whitley, Lady Bicyclists and the immortality of the soul.
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  Speaker 1: His verses in praise of Zoedone are a fine example
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  Speaker 1: of diadactic poetry. His elergy on the death of Jumbo
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  Speaker 1: is quite up to the level of the subject. And
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  Speaker 1: the standzas on a watering place, who of its merits
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  Speaker 1: can e'er think meanly? Scattering Ozone to all the land,
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  Speaker 1: are well worthy of a place in any shilling guide book.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Doveton divides his poetry into grave and gay. But
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  Speaker 1: we like him least when he is amusing, For in
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  Speaker 1: his merriment there is but little melody, and he makes
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  Speaker 1: his muse grin through a horse collar. When he is serious,
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  Speaker 1: he is much better and his descriptive poems show that
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  Speaker 1: he is completely mastered the most approved poetical phraseology. Our
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  Speaker 1: old friend Boreas is as burly as ever, Zephyrs are
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  Speaker 1: consistently amorous, and the welking rings upon the smallest provocation.
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  Speaker 1: Birds are the feathered host or the Sylvian throng, the
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  Speaker 1: wind wantons o'er, the lee ernial gaze murmur to crystal rills.
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  Speaker 1: And Lampier's dictionary supplies the Latin names for the sun
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  Speaker 1: and the moon. And with these daring and novel expressions,
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  Speaker 1: mister Dovedon indulges in fierce moods of nature worship, and
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  Speaker 1: botanizes recklessly through the provinces. Now and then, however, we
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  Speaker 1: come across some pleasing passages. Mister Dufton apparently is an
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  Speaker 1: enthusiastic fisherman, and sings merrily of the enchanting graylling and
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  Speaker 1: the crimson and gold trout that rise to the craft
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  Speaker 1: of the anglers feathered. While still we fear that he
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  Speaker 1: will never produce any real good work till he has
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  Speaker 1: made up his mind whether Destiny intends him for a
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  Speaker 1: poet or for an advertising agent. And we venture to
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  Speaker 1: hope that should he ever publish another volume, he will
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  Speaker 1: find some other rhyme to vision than Elysian, a dishoniscence
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  Speaker 1: that occurs five times in this well meaning but tedious volume.
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  Speaker 1: As for mister Ashby's sterry, those who object to the
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  Speaker 1: new denart should at once read his lays of the
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  Speaker 1: Lazy Minstrel and be converted over these poems. The milliner,
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  Speaker 1: not the muse, presides, and the result is a little alarming.
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  Speaker 1: As the Chelsea Age investigated the philosophy of clothes, so
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  Speaker 1: mister Ashby's Terry has set himself to discover the poetry
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  Speaker 1: of petticoats, and seems to find much consolation in the
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  Speaker 1: thought that though art is long, skirts are worn short.
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  Speaker 1: He is the only peddler who has claimed Parnassus since
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  Speaker 1: Otolicus sang of lorn As white of driven snow, Cyprus
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  Speaker 1: black as air was crow, and his details are amazing
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  Speaker 1: as his diminutives. He is capable of pending a canto
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  Speaker 1: to a crinoline, and has a pathetic menady on a mackintosh.
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  Speaker 1: He sings are pretty pluckers and pliant pleats, and is
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  Speaker 1: eloquent on frills, frocks and camisets. The latest French fashions
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  Speaker 1: stir him to a fine frenzy, and the sight of
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  Speaker 1: a pair of bellmoral boots thrills him with absolute ecstasy.
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  Speaker 1: He writes Rondel's on ribbons, lyrics on linen and lace,
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  Speaker 1: and his most ambitious ode is addressed to a Tomby
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  Speaker 1: and trouseeretsy. His verse is often dainty and delicate, and
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  Speaker 1: many of his poems are full of sweet and pretty conceits. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: of the tens at summer time. He writes so charmingly
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  Speaker 1: and with such felicious grace of epithet, that we cannot
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  Speaker 1: but regret that he has chosen to make himself the
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  Speaker 1: poet of petticoats and the troubadour Trouserets. One Carols from
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  Speaker 1: the Coalfields and other Songs and Ballads by Joseph Skipsey
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  Speaker 1: Walter Scott. Two Sketches in prose and verse by F. B. Doveton, Sampson,
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  Speaker 1: Low Marston and Co. Three The Lazy Minstrel by j
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  Speaker 1: Ashby Sterry Fisher Unwin end a section thirty eight Minor
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  Speaker 1: and Minor Poets. M.