COLBURN'S PUFFERY. 189 and successful books, within these few years, and I wish him that success in his trade which his enterprising spirit deserves. North. So do I, and here's "The Trade," if you please, in a bumper. Shepherd. The Tread-The Tread-The Tread-Hurrawhurraw-hurraw! North. But if he persists in that shameful and shameless puffery, which he has too long practised, the public will turn away with nausea from every volume that issues from his shop; and men of genius, scorning to submit their works to the pollution of his unprincipled paragraph-mongers, will shun a publisher who, contrary to his natural sense and honour, has been betrayed into a system that, were it to become general, would sink the literary character into deep degradation, till the name "Author" would become a byword of reproach and insult, and the mere suspicion of having written a book be sufficient ground for expulsion from the society of gentlemen. Tickler. Colburn, James, must have sent puffs of Vivian Grey to all the newspapers, fastening the authorship on various gentlemen, either by name or inuendo; thus attaching an interest to the book, at the sacrifice of the feelings of those gentlemen, and, I may add, the feelings of his own conscience. The foolish part of the public thus set agoing after Vivian Grey, for example, puff after puff continues to excite fading curiosity; and Colburn, knowing all the while that the writer is an obscure person, for whom nobody cares a straw, chuckles over the temporary sale, and sees the names of distinguished writers opprobriously bandied about by the blackguards of the press, indifferent to everything but the "Monish" which he is thus enabled to scrape together from defrauded purchasers, who, on the faith of puff and paragraph, believed the paltry catchpenny to be from the pen of a man of genius and achievement. North. As far as I know, he is the only publisher guilty of this crime, and, "If old judgments hold their sacred course," there will come a day of punishment. Tickler. Among the many useful discoveries of this age, 1 The Book-trade is the trade par excellence. 2 Vivian Grey was the juvenile production of the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852. 190 PROSE-POETRY ADVOCATED. none more so, my dear Hogg, than that poets are a set of very absurd inhabitants of this earth. The simple fact of their presuming to have a language of their own, should have dished them centuries ago. A pretty kind of language to be sure it was; and, conscious themselves of its absurdity, they palmed it upon the Muses, and justified their own use of it on the plea of inspiration! North. Till, in course of time, an honest man of the name of Wordsworth was born, who had too much integrity to submit to the law of their lingo, and, to the anger and astonishment of the order, began to speak in good, sound, sober, intelligible prose. Then was a revolution. All who adhered to the ancient regime became in a few years utterly incomprehensible, and were coughed down by the public. On the other hand, all those who adopted the new theory observed that they were merely accommodating themselves to the language of their brethren of mankind. Tickler. Then the pig came snorting out of the poke, and it appeared that no such thing as poetry, essentially distinct from prose, could exist. True, that there are still some old women and children who rhyme; but the breed will soon be extinct, and a poet in Scotland be as scarce as a capercailzie. North. Since the extinction, therefore, of English poetry, there has been a wide extension of the legitimate province of prose. People who have got any genius find that they may traverse it as they will, on foot, on horseback, or in chariot. Tickler. A Pegasus with wings always seemed to me a silly and inefficient quadruped. A horse was never made to fly on feathers, but to gallop on hoofs. You destroy the idea of his peculiar powers the moment you clap pinions to his shoulder, and make him paw the clouds. North. Certainly. How poor the image of "Heaven's warrior-horse, beneath his fiery form, to one of Wellington's aid-de-camps, on an English hunter, charging his way through the French Cuirassiers, to order up the Scotch Greys against the Old Guard moving on to redeem the disastrous day of Waterloo! Tickler. Poetry, therefore, being by universal consent exploded, all men, women, and children are at liberty to use SHEPHERD DEFENDS VERSE-POETRY. 191 what style they choose, provided it be in the form of prose. Cram it full of imagery, as an egg is full of meat. If caller,1 down it will go, and the reader be grateful for his breakfast. Pour it out simple, like whey, or milk and water, and a swallow will be found enamoured of the liquid murmur. Let it gurgle forth, rich and racy, like a haggis, and there are stomachs that will not scunner. Fat paragraphs will be bolted like bacon; and, as he puts a period to the existence of a lofty climax, the reader will exclaim, "O, the roast beef of Old England, and, oh! the English roast beef!" North. Well said, Tickler. That prose composition should always be a plain, uncondimented dish, is a dogma no longer endurable. Henceforth I shall show, not only favour, but praise, to all prose books that contain any meaning, however small; whereas I shall use all vampers, like the great American shrike, commemorated in last Number, who sticks small singing-birds on sharp-pointed thorns, and leaves them sticking there in the sunshine, a rueful, if not a saving spectacle to the choristers of the grove. Shepherd. Haver awa, gentlemen-haver awa,-you’se hae a' your ain way o't, for onything I care-but gin either the tane or the tither o' you could write verses at a' passable, you would haud a different theory. What think you o' a prose sang? What would Burns's "Mary in Heaven" be out o' verse? or Moore's Melodies-or Tickler. The Queen's Wake. Shepherd. It's no worth while repeatin a' the nonsense, Mr North, that you and Tickler 'll speak in the course o' an afternoon, when your twa lang noses forgather ower a bowl o' punch. But I've a poem in my pouch that'll pull down your theories wi' a single stanza. I got it frae ▲ this forenoon, wha kent I was gaun to the Lodge to my denner, and I'll read it aloud whether you wull or no;-but, deevil tak it, I've lost my specs! I maun hae drawn them out, on the way doun, wi' my hankercher. I maun hae them adverteesed. Tickler. There, James, mine will suit you. Shepherd. Yours! What, glowerin green anes! Aneuch to gie a body the jaundice! North. Feel your nose, James. Shepherd. Weel, that's waur than the butcher swearing 1 Caller-fresh. through his teeth for his knife, wi' hit' in his mouth a' the while. Hae I been sittin wi' specs a' the afternoon? North. You have, James, and very gash have you looked. Shepherd. Oo! Oo! I recollec noo. I put them on when that bonny dark-haired, pale-faced, jimp-waisted lassie came in wi' a fresh velvet cushin for Mr North's foot. And the sicht o' her being gude for sair een, I clean forgot to tak aff the specs. But wheish-here's an answer to your theories! A DIRGE.2 Weep not for her!-Oh she was far too fair, Of Zion, seem'd to claim her from her birth: Weep not for her !-Her span was like the sky, Weep not for her!-She died in early youth, Weep not for her! Weep not for her!-By fleet or slow decay, She pass'd as 'twere in smiles from earth to Heaven: 1 Wi' hit-with it. 2 By D. M. Moir, the well-known A of Blackwood's Magazine. A FULL-LENGTH OF TICKLER. Weep not for her!-It was not hers to feel The miseries that corrode amassing years, As whirl the wither'd leaves from Friendship's tree, Weep not for her!-She is an angel now, Weep not for her !-Her memory is the shrine Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers, Weep not for her!-There is no cause for woe; And from earth's low defilements keep thee back: 193 Omnes. Beautiful-beautiful-beautiful-beautiful indeed! North. James, now that you have seen us in summer, how do you like the Lodge? Shepherd. There's no sic anither house, Mr North, baith for elegance and comfort, in a' Scotland. North. In my old age, James, I think myself not altogether unentitled to the luxuries of learned leisure-Do you find that sofa easy and commodious? Shepherd. Easy and commodious! What! it has a' the saftness o' a bed, and a' the coolness o' a bank; yielding rest without drowsiness, and without snoring repose. Tickler. No sofa like a chair! See James, how I am lying and sitting at the same time! carelessly diffused, yet VOL. I. N |