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ОглавлениеTHE LATIN POEMS OF VINCENT BOURNE
(1831)
A complete translation of these poems is a desideratum in our literature. Cowper has done one at least, out of the four which he has given us, with a felicity almost unapproachable. Few of our readers can be ignorant of the delightful lines beginning with:—
"There is bird, which by its coat——"
A recent writer has lately added nine more to the number; we wish he would proceed with the remainder, for of all modern Latinity, that of Vincent Bourne is the most to our taste. He is "so Latin," and yet "so English" all the while. In diction worthy of the Augustan age, he presents us with no images that are not familiar to his countrymen. His topics are even closelier drawn; they are not so properly English, as Londonish. From the streets, and from the alleys, of his beloved metropolis he culled his objects, which he has invested with an Hogarthian richness of colouring. No town picture by that artist can go beyond his Ballad-Singers; Gay's Trivia alone, in verse, comes up to the life and humour of it.
Quæ septem vicos conterminat una columna,
Consistunt nymphæ Sirenum ex agmine binæ;
Stramineum capiti tegimen, collumque per omne
Ingentes electri orbes: utrique pependit
Crustato vestis cœno, limoque rigescens
Crure usque a medio calcem defluxit ad imum.
Exiguam secum pendentem ex ubere natam
Altera; venales dextrâ tulit altera chartas.
His vix dispositis, pueri innuptæque puellæ
Accurrunt: sutor primus, cui lorea vitta
Impediit crines, humili, quæ proxima stabat,
Proruit è cellâ, chartas, si forte placerent,
Empturus; namque ille etiam se carmine multo
Oblectat, longos solus quo rite labores
Diminuit, fallitque hybernæ tædia noctis.
Collecti murmur sensim increbrescere vulgi
Auditi, et excurrit nudis ancilla lacertis.
Incudem follesque et opus fabrile relinquens,
Se densæ immiscet plebi niger ora Pyracmon.
It juxta, depressum ingens cui mantica tergum
Incurvat, tardo passu; simul ille coronam
Aspectat vulgi, spe carminis arrigit aures;
Statque moræ patiens, humeris nec pondera sentit.
Sic ubi Tartareum Regem Rhodopeïus Orpheus
Threiciis studuit fidibus mulcere, laboris
Immemor, Æolides stupuit modulamina plectri,
Nec sensit funesti onera incumbentia saxi.
Sæbe interventus rhedæ crepitantis, ab illo
Vicorum, ant illo, stipantem hinc inde catervam
Dividit; at rursus coëunt, ubi transiit illa,
Ut coëunt rursus, puppis quas dividit, undæ.
Canticulæ interea narraverat argumentum
Altera Sirenum, infidi perjuria nautæ,
Deceptamque dolo nympham; tum flebile carmen
Flebilibus movit numeris, quos altera versu
Alterno excepit: patulis stant rictibus omnes:
Dextram ille acclinat, lævam ille attentius aurem,
Promissum carmen captare paratus hiatu.
Longa referre mora est, animum quâ vicerit arte
Virgineum juvenis. Jam poscunt undique chartas
Protensæ emptorum dextræ, quas illa vel illa
Distribuit, cantatque simul: neque ferreus iste
Est usquam auditor, dulcis cui lene camæna
Non adhibet tormentum, et furtivum elicit assem.
Stat medios inter baculoque innititur Irus;
Nec tamen hic loculo parcit, sed prodigus æris
Emptor adest, solvit pretium, carmenque requirit.
Fors juxta adstabat vetula iracundior æquo;
Quæ loculo ex imo invitum, longumque latentem
Depromens vix tandem obolum, Cedo, fœmina, chartam,
Inquit; ut æternum monumentum in pariete figam,
Cum laribus mansurum ipsis, quam credula nymphis
Pectora sint; fraudis quam plena, et perfida nautis.
Where seven fair Streets to one tall Column[62] draw, Two Nymphs have ta'en their stand, in hats of straw; Their yellower necks huge beads of amber grace, And by their trade they're of the Sirens' race. With cloak loose-pinn'd on each, that has been red, But long with dust and dirt discoloured Belies its hue; in mud behind, before, From heel to middle leg becrusted o'er. One a small infant at the breast does bear; And one in her right hand her tuneful ware, Which she would vend. Their station scarce is taken, When youths and maids flock round. His stall forsaken, Forth comes a Son of Crispin, leathern-capt, Prepared to buy a ballad, if one apt To move his fancy offers. Crispin's sons Have, from uncounted time, with ale and buns Cherish'd the gift of Song, which sorrow quells; And, working single in their low-rooft cells, Oft at the tedium of a winter's night With anthems warbled in the Muses' spight. Who now hath caught the alarm? The Servant Maid Hath heard a buzz at distance; and, afraid To miss a note, with elbows red comes out. Leaving his forge to cool, Pyracmon stout Thrusts in his unwash'd visage. He stands by, Who the hard trade of Porterage does ply With stooping shoulders. What cares he? he sees The assembled ring, nor heeds his tottering knees, But pricks his ears up with the hopes of song. So, while the Bard of Rhodope his wrong Bewail'd to Proserpine on Thracian strings, The tasks of gloomy Orcus lost their stings, And stone-vext Sysiphus forgets his load. Hither and thither from the sevenfold road Some cart or wagon crosses, which divides The close-wedged audience; but, as when the tides To ploughing ships give way, the ship being past, They re-unite, so these unite as fast. The older Songstress hitherto has spent Her elocution in the argument Of their great Song in prose; to wit, the woes Which Maiden true to faithless Sailor owes— Ah "Wandering He!"—which now in loftier verse Pathetic they alternately rehearse. All gaping wait the event. This Critic opes His right ear to the strain. The other hopes To catch it better with his left. Long trade It were to tell, how the deluded Maid A victim fell. And now right greedily All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy, That are so tragical; which She, and She, Deals out, and sings the while; nor can there be A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back His contribution from the gentle rack Of Music's pleasing torture. Irus' self, The staff-propt Beggar, his thin-gotten pelf Brings out from pouch, where squalid farthings rest, And boldly claims his ballad with the rest. An old Dame only lingers. To her purse The penny sticks. At length, with harmless curse, "Give me," she cries—"I'll paste it on my wall, While the wall lasts, to show what ills befal Fond hearts, seduced from Innocency's way; How Maidens fall, and Mariners betray."
[62] Seven Dials.
In the same style of familiar painting, and replete with the same images of town life, picturesque as it was comparatively in the days of Gay, and of Hogarth, are the various Poematia—to the "Bellman"—"Billinsgate"—the "Law Courts"—the "Licensed Victualler"—the "Quack"—the "Quaker's Meeting" cum multis aliis—of this most classical of Cockney Poets. In a different strain is the following piece of tenderness:—
IN STATUAM SEPULCHRALEM INFANTIS DORMIENTIS
Infans venuste, qui sacros dulces agens
In hoc sopores marmore,
Placidissimâ quiete compôstus jaces,
Et inscius culpæ et metûs, Somno fruaris, docta quem dedit manus Sculptoris; et somno simul, Quem nescit artifex vel Ars effingere Fruaris Innocentiæ.
Beautiful Infant, who dost keep
Thy posture here, and sleep'st a marble sleep,
May the repose unbroken be,
Which the fine Artist's hand hath lent to thee!
While thou enjoy'st along with it
That which no Art or Craft could ever hit,
Or counterfeit to moral sense,
The Heav'n-infused sleep of Innocence.
We have selected these two versions from a little volume lately published by Mr. Lamb, to which he has strangely given the misnomer of "Album Verses."
Album Verses! why, in the whole collection there are not twenty pages out of one hundred and fifty (and cast the acrostics in, to swell the amount) that have the smallest title to come under this denomination. There is a Tragic Drama, filling up more than a third of the book. The rest is composed of—Translations from V. Bourne, nine in number—just so many Verses, and no more, expressly written for Albums—and the rest might have been written any where. But Mr. L. will be wiser another time, than to stand Godfather to his own poetry. A sensible Publisher is always the best names-man on these occasions.
But if to write in Albums be a sin, Lord help Wordsworth—Coleridge—Southey—Sir Walter himself—who have not been always able to resist the solicitations of the fair owners of these modern nuisances. Southey has owned to some score, and Mr. L.'s offences in this kind, we have said, do not exceed the number of the Muses. This may be said even of them, that they are not vague verses—to the Moon, or to the Nightingale—that will fit any place—but strictly appropriate to the person that they were intended to gratify; or to the species of chronicle which they were destined to be recorded in. The Verses to a "Clergyman's Lady"—to the "Wife of a learned Serjeant"—to a "Young Quaker"—could have appeared only in an Album, and only in that particular person's Album they were composed for.
We are no friend to Albums. We early set our face against them in a short copy of verses, which we publish only for our own justification. To the question:—
WHAT IS AN ALBUM?
'Tis a Book kept by modern young Ladies for show,
Of which their plain Grandmothers nothing did know;
A Medley of Scraps, half verse, and half prose,
And some things not very like either, God knows;
Where wise folk and simple alike do combine,
And you write your nonsense, that I may write mine. Throw in a fine Landscape, to make it complete— A Flower-piece—a Foreground—all tinted so neat, As Nature herself, could she see it, would strike With envy to think that she ne'er did the like. Next forget not to stuff it with Autographs plenty, All writ in a style so genteel, and so dainty, They no more resemble folk's ord'nary writing, Than lines, penn'd with pains, do extemp'ral enditing; Or our every day countenance (pardon the stricture) The faces we make when we sit for our picture. Thus you have, dearest—, an Album complete—
We forget the rest—but seriously we deprecate with all our powers the unfeminine practice of this novel species of importunity. We have known Young Ladies—ay, and of those who have been modest and retiring enough upon other occasions—in quest of these delicacies, to besiege, and storm by violence, the closets and privatest retirements of a literary man, to whom they have had an imperfect, or, perhaps, no introduction at all. But the disease has gone forth. Like the daughters of the horseleech in the Proverbs, the requisition of every female now is, Contribute, Contribute. "From the Land's End to the Farthest Thule the cry has gone out, and who shall resist it? Assuming then, that Album Verses will be written, where was the harm, if Mr. L. first taught us how they might be best, and most characteristically written?"
Amid the vague, dreamy, wordy, matterless Poetry of this empty age, the verses of such a writer as Bourne (who was a Latin Prior) are invaluable. They fix upon something; they ally themselves to common life and objects; their good nature is a Catholicon, sanative of coxcombry, of heartlessness, and of fastidiousness. Vale, Lepidissimum Caput. [63]
[63] Of this writer we only know, that he was an usher some seventy years since at Westminster School; and that Dr. Johnson (who knew him) speaks of him always affectionately as "poor Vinny Bourne."
