Now with a yell and a spring the cads came up to the onset, Cursing and swearing amain, and throwing their arms out like thunder. Stopping before All Saints' the hideous work of Dean Aldrich, Stopping De Whyskers made emphatic the sign for the battle, Thereon he let fall a blow swift like an armourer's hammer, Down on his face fell a cad as falls an oak on the moun. tains, Forth from his nose came "the red " as oft in the vintage the dresser Squeezes the blushing grape on the plains of Estremadura. Now from the end of the High a rush of the cads overwhelming Sweeps as the sea sweeps on in the long dark nights of the winter, Howling as howl the wolves through the snow in the forests of Sweden; Blow after blow is struck, as the flakes come down in the snowstorm. Now from the Turl to the Broad, and St. Giles's, abode of the peaceful, Even to Worcester the slow, or Botany Bay, as they call it, Down by Trinity Gates, and Ralliol beloved of the scholar, Down by the temple of Tom, whence the Curfew rings in the gloaming Thundered the fray till the rain came down on the scene as a damper. College Rhymes (T. and G. Shrimpton, Oxford, 1865.) The great "Town and Gown" rows that used to occur annually on the Fifth of November, between the undergraduates and the townspeople, have been gradually dying out, but the memory of them still lingers in many old College Rhymes and traditions. They are most vividly described in Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, a light-hearted clever little work, by the Rev. E. Bradley, Rector of Lenton, better known under his pseudonym of Cuthbert Bede. Mr. Bradley, although himself a Cambridge man, was intimately acquainted with Oxford. A VOICE FROM THE FAR WEST, Happy thy name, O BURNS! for burns, in thy native Doric, Meaneth the free bright streams, exhaustless, pellucid, and sparkling, Mountain-born, wild and erratic, kissing the flow'rets in passing, Type of thy verse and thyself-loving and musical ever ; And the streams by thy verse made immortal are known by our giant rivers, Where the emigrants sing them to soothe the yearnings for home in their bosoms, And the Coila and gentle Doon, by the song of the Celtic wanderer, Are known to the whispering reeds that border the great Mississippi. Thou wert the lad for the lasses! lasses the same are as misses; And here we have misses had pleased you-Missouri and the Mississippi. And "green grow the rushes" beside them-as thy evergreen chorus would have them. Thou wert the champion of freedom!-Thou didst rejoice in our glory! When we at Bunker's Hill no bunkum display'd, but true courage! Jubilant thou wert in our Declaration of Independence! More a Republican thou than a chain-hugging bow-andscrape Royalist! Even the Stars and the Stripes seem appointed the flag of thy destiny ; The stars are the types of thy glory, the stripes thou didst get from Misfortune. Rival Rhymes, in honour of Burns. Edited by Ben Trovato (Routledge, Warnes & Routledge. London, 1859.) There are several excellent parodies in Lays of the Saintly, amongst them the following, which is given here as it is also in the style of Longfellow's Evangeline :— SISTER BEATRICE (A.D. uncertain). THIS is the metre Columbian. The soft-flowing trochees and dactyls, Blended with fragments spondaic, and here and there an iambus, Syllables often sixteen, or more or less, as it happens, Difficult always to scan, and depending greatly on accent, Being a close imitation, in English, of Latin hexametersFluent in sound, and avoiding the stiffness of commoner blank verse, Having the grandeur and flow of America's mountains and rivers, Such as no bard could achieve in a mean little island like England; Oft, at the end of a line, the sentence dividing abruptly Breaks, and in accents mellifluous follows the thoughts of the author. I. In the old miracle days, in Rome the abode of the saintly, To and fro in a room of her sacred conventual dwelling, Clad in garments of serge, with a veil in the style of her Order, Mass-book and rosary too, with a bunch of keys at her girdle, Walk'd, with a pensive air, Beatrice the Carmelite sister. Fair of aspect was she, but a trifle vivacious and worldly, And not altogether cut out for a life of devout contemplation. More of freedom already had she than the rest of the sisters, For hers was the duty to ope the gates of the convent, and take in Messages, parcels, et cetera, from those who came to the wicket. Ever and often she paused to gaze on the face of Our Lady, Limn'd in a picture above by some old pre-Raphaelite Master; Then would she say to herself (because there was none else to talk to), "Why should I thus be immured, when people outside are enjoying Thousands of sights and scenes, while I'm not allowed to behold them, Thousands of joys and of changes, while I am joyless and changeless? No, I can bear it no longer. I'll hasten away from the Convent : Now is the time, for all's quiet; there's no one to see or to catch me." So resolving at length, she took off her habit monastic, And promptly array'd herself in smuggled secular garments; Then on the kneeling-desk she laid down the keys, in a safe place, Where some one or other, or somebody else, would certainly find them. "Take thou charge of these keys, blest Mother," then murmured Beatrice, "And guard all the nuns in this holy but insupportable building." And as she spoke these words, the eyes of the picture were fasten'd With mournful expression upon her, and tears could be seen on the canvas; Little she heeded, however, her thoughts had played truant before her, Then stole she out of the portal, and never once looking behind her, Wrapp'd in an ample cloak, and further concealed by the darkness, Out through the streets of the city Beatrice quickly skedaddled. II. Out in the world went Beatrice, her cell was left dark and deserted; Scarce had she gone, when lo! with wonderment be it related Down from her canvas and frame, there stepp'd the blessed Madonna, Took up the keys and the raiment Beatrice had quitted, and wore them, Also assuming the face and figure of her who was absent; Became in appearance a nun, so that none could discover the difference. Save that the sisters agreed that Beatrice the portress was growing Better and better, as one who aspired to canonization; That, when too good for this world, she might fly away to a better. Her post was below her deserts, and so by promotion they made her Mistress of all the novices seeking religious instruction. Such was her great success in that tender and beautiful office, Her pupils all bloomed into saints, and some of the very first water. III. Many a day had pass'd since Beatrice escaped from the convent, Much had she seen of the world, and its wickedness greatly distress'd her; Oft she repented her act, and long'd to return, yet she dared not; Oft was determined to go, still she "stood on the order of going." Thus it at last occurr'd that her convent's secular agent Entered one day, in the house where the truant sister was staying, But changed as she was in appearance, he did not know her from Adam; Whilst he in his clerical garb was to her a familiar figure. "Now I shall learn," thought she, "what they say of my flight and my absence." And so she eagerly asked of the nuns and of sister Beatrice, As of a friend she had known when living near to the convent. "Truly," the factor replied, "She is still the pride of our sisters, Favourite too of the abbess, and worthy of all our affection. Would there were more of her kind in some houses monastic I know of," Puzzled and rather distress'd, then answer'd the truant religieuse, "She whom I speak of, alas! was less of a saint than a sinner, She fled from the veil and the cell, so surely you speak of another ?" "Not in the least, my child," the secular agent responded; "Sister Beatrice, the saint-like, did not run away from the cloister, Mistress is she of the novices. Why should she go? Stuff and nonsense!" "What can it mean?" thought Beatrice, "and who is my double and namesake?" So when the agent was gone, resolved she would settle the question, Off to the convent she went, and knocked at the portal familiar, Ask'd for the sister Beatrice, was shown to the parlour and found a Counterpart of herself, as she was in her days of seclusion. Down on her knees went Beatrice- the why and the wherefore she knew not. "Welcome, my daughter, again," said her double, the blessed Madonna ; "Now I restore you your keys, your robe, and your other belongings, Adding the excellent name and promotion I've won in your likeness; Be you a nun as before, but more pious; farewell, take my blessing.' Speaking, she melted away in the holy pre-Raphaelite picture. Again was Beatrice "herself," like Richard the third, à la Shakespeare, Growing in grace from that day, and winning the glory of Saintship; While each of the pupils she taught, went to heaven as surely as she did. Such is the metre Columbian, but where is the bard who devised it? Tenderest he of the poets who wrote in the tongue of (New) England, The Reverend Charles Wolfe, who was born in Dublin in 1791, has earned literary immortality by one short poem, and that copied with considerable closeness from a prose account of the incident to which it refers. Reading in the Edinburgh Annual Register a description of the death and burial of Sir John Moore, the young poet turned it into verse with such sublime pathos, such taste and skill, that his poem has obtained imperishable fame in our literature. Mr. Wolfe also produced a few other poems of unquestionable grace and pathos, but nothing approaching the beauty of his immortal ode. He was, for a time, curate of Ballyclog, in Tyrone, and afterwards of Donoughmore. His arduous duties in a large, wild, and very scattered parish left him little leisure to cultivate the muses, and soon told on his delicate constitution. He died of consumption on 21st February, 1823, at the early age of 32, and thus the assertion of his detractors that he produced nothing else of sufficient merit to show that he could have written the ode in question, may be easily met by the two pleas-firstly, that he had other duties to perform; and, secondly, that his career was too brief to admit of many, or great, performances. The battle of Corunna was fought on January 16, 1809, by the British army, about 15,000 strong, under Sir John Moore, against a force of about 20,000 Frenchmen. The British troops had just safely accomplished a retreat to the coast in the face of a superior force, and were on the point of embarking, when the French attacked; the enemy was repulsed, but the British loss was very great, and Sir John Moore, who was struck on the left shoulder by a cannon ball, died, much lamented by his troops. His body was removed at mid night to the citadel of Corunna, and a grave was dug for him on the ramparts by a party of the 9th Regiment. No coffin could be procured, and the officers of his staff wrapped the body, dressed as it was, in a military cloak and blankets. The interment was hastened, for firing was heard, and the officers feared that if a serious attack were made, they should be ordered away, and not allowed to pay him their last duty. The embarkation of the troops took place next day, under the command of Sir David Baird, who had also been wounded in the fight. The following is what Lord Byron correctly termed, "The most perfect Ode in the language" : THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. "The following lines were written by a Student of Trinity College, on reading the affecting account of the Burial of Sir John Moore, in the Edinburgh Annual Register':— Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; The sods with our bayonets turning. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him ; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. And we spoke not a word of sorrow; We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; The ode was first published in Currick's Morning Post (Ireland) in 1815, with the signature "W. C.," and the Rev. J. A. Russell, in his "Remains of C. Wolfe" (London, 1829), states that a letter is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, addressed by the Rev. C. Wolfe to John Taylor, Esq., at the Rev. Mr. Armstrong's Clononty, Cashel, in which he says: "I have completed the Burial of Sir John Moore,' and will here inflict it upon you." This letter bears the post mark "September 9, 1816." Yet although the poem was quickly copied into all the newspapers, and at once became widely popular, its authorship long remained the subject of controversy. By some it was ascribed to Lord Byron, whilst Shelley was inclined to name Thomas Campbell as its author. In 1841, long after the death of Wolfe, it was dishonestly claimed by a Scotch teacher, Mr. Macintosh, who ungenerously sought to pluck the laurel from the grave of its owner. The friends of Wolfe came forward, and established his right to the poem; the impostor was compelled to withdraw his claim, and apologise for his misconduct. Of the numerous claims to the authorship of these lines the most striking was that advanced by the Rev. Francis Mahony ("Father Prout") in "Bentley's Miscellany," Vol. 1, p. 96, 1837 : "The Rev. Mr. Wolfe is supposed to be the author of a single poem, unparalleled in the English language for all the qualities of a true lyric, breathing the purest spirit of the antique, and setting criticism completely at defiance. I say supposed, for the gentleman himself never claimed its authorship during his short and unobtrusive lifetime. who could write the "Funeral of Sir John Moore "must have eclipsed all the lyric poets of this latter age by the fervour and brilliancy of his powers. Do the other writings of Mr. Wolfe bear any trace of inspiration? None. He "I fear we must look elsewhere for the origin of those beautiful lines; and I think I can put the public on the right scent. In 1749, Colonel de Beaumanoir, a native of Brittany, having raised a regiment in his own neighbourhood, went out with it to India, in that unfortunate expedition, commanded by Lally-Tolendal, the failure of which eventually lost to the French their possessions in Hindostan. The colonel was killed in defending against the forces of Coote, PONDICHERRY, the last stronghold of the French in that hemisphere. "He was buried that night on the north bastion of the fortress by a few faithful followers, and the next day the fleet sailed with the remainder of the garrison for Europe. In the appendix to the "Memoirs of LALLY-TOLENDAL" by his son, the following lines occur, which bear some resemblance to those attributed to Wolfe. Perhaps Wolfe Tone may have communicated them to his relative, the clergyman, on his return from France. Fides sit penes lectorem." PADRE PROut. II. De minuit c'était l'heure, et solitaire et sombre- D'inutile cercueil ni de drap funéraire Nous ne daignâmes point entourer le HEROS ; La prière qu'on fit fut de courte durée : Mais avec amertume on songeait au demain. V. Au demain! quand ici ou sa fosse s'apprête, Et nous, ses vétérans, serons loin sur les flots! Ils terniront sa gloire .. on pourra les entendre L'œuvre durait encore, quand retentit la cloche VIII. Et dans sa fosse alors le mîmes lentement ... Près du champ où sa gloire a été consommée : Ne mimes à l'endroit pierre ni monument Le laissant seul à seul avec sa Renommée ! This "Father Prout," whom Mr. G. A. Sala terms "the wittiest pedant, the most pedantic wit, and the oddest fish he ever met with," was well known as an inveterate jester, as well as an accomplished linguist, so that the above effusion did not deceive his associates, especially as the documents referred to in it, as evidence, had no existence save in the fertile brain of "Father Prout." In the recent edition of the "Maclise Portrait Gallery," by Mr. William Bates, M.A. (Chatto and Windus, 1883), is an interesting biography of this eccentric genius, in which will be found all that is known about his French imitation of Wolfe's Ode. Mr. Bates truly remarks that, notwithstanding Padre Prout's skill in French versification, there are internal evidences that the poem was not written by a Frenchman, and further that it has the unmistakable air of a translation. Unfortunately, however, the mischief was done, and what Mahony may have intended for a harmless pleasantry, has raised a literary controversy of wide dimensions. His verses were copied into serious French journals, and many well-informed foreigners believe the lines to have originated from a French source. Thus M. Octave Delepierre, in his Essai sur la Parodie (Trübner and Co., London, 1870), seems to have been entirely misled by the hoax. He gives part of the French version, and whilst stating that it is not a settled point, which was first written, he does not mention Father Prout's article, and seems entirely ignorant of the fictitious and humorous origin of the French imitation. Singularly enough, The Athenæum, of July 1, 1871, in reviewing M. Delepierre's work, fell into the same error, and seriously argued against the French claim, forgetting all about Father Prout. M. Delepierre's statement is (Essai sur la Parodie, p. 163) :—“ Lorsqu'elle fut publiée en 1824, elle parut assez belle pour que le Capitaine Medwin suggérat qu'elle était due à la muse de Byron. Sydney Taylor réfuta cette supposition, et restitua l'ode à son véritable auteur, le Rev. Charles Wolfe." "Ce n'est pas seulement en Angleterre qu'on a discuté la paternité de cette ode célèbre. On trouve à ce sujet toute une discussion littéraire dans le journal L'Intermédiare des Chercheurs et Curieux, 5 année, page 693, et 6e année, pages 19 et 106." 'D'après ces détails, il paraîtrait que cette pièce n'est que la traduction d'une ode Française, composée à l'occasion de la mort du Comte de Beaumanoir, tué en 1749, à la défense de Pondichery. L'une de ces deux odes est évidemment une traduction de l'autre; mais quel est l'original?" The following is the note in the Intermediare, to which M. Delepierre refers: "The well-known verses on the death of Sir John Moore, attributed to the Rev. Charles Wolfe, but never acknowledged by him, are so similar to the above, that it is supposed Mr. Wolfe may have received the French stanzas from his relative, Mr. Wolfe Tone, after his return from France." The best answer to which is, that the French have never yet produced a genuine and authentic copy of the original version, of a date earlier than that of Wolfe. The ode has been translated into German (by the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey); into Latin Elegiacs (by the Rev. J. Hildyard); and there is a Greek translation of it "By a Scottish Physician" in the Arundines Deva (Edinburgh, 1853); there is also a parody of it bythe late Mr. J. H. Dixon, which is highly spoken of, but, up till now, this has eluded the editor's researches. 66 The Rev. R. H. Barham's well known parody in The Ingoldsby Legends" is especially notable for its close imitation of the original; thus not only is the metre closely followed, but nearly all the lines are made to end with similar rhymes to those in the original. Barham had a good excuse for this comical effusion, in the wish to expose and ridicule the pretensions of a certain soi-disant "Doctor," a Durham veterinary surgeon of the name of Marshall, on whose behalf a claim had been made, in 1824, for the authorship of the "Ode." But this was afterwards said to have been a mere hoax, as this Marshall was more remarkable for convivial, than literary tastes. NOTE. In the autumn of 1824, Captain-Medwin having hinted that certain beautiful lines on the burial of this gallant officer might have been the production of Lord Byron's muse, the late Mr. Sydney Taylor, somewhat indignantly, claimed them for their rightful owner, the late Rev. Charles Welte. During the controversy a third claimant started up in the person of a soi-disant "Doctor Marshall," who turned out to be a Durham blacksmith, and his pretensions a hoax. It was then that a certain "Doctor Peppercorn" put forth his pretensions to what he averred was the only true and original" version, viz. :— Not a sous had he got, not a guinea or note, We saw him again at dead of night, When home from the Club returning, All bare, and exposed to the midnight dews, "The Doctor's as drunk as the d-," we said, We raised him, and sigh'd at the thought that his head We bore him home, and we put him to bed, Loudly they talk'd of his money that's gone, |