IBID. Miscellaneous Poems. Verses on Various NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY. Occasions. London: Burns, Oates & Co., 1880. 12m0, pp. xiv and 378. Werner, AliCE. The King of the Silver City, and Other Poems. London: Women's Printing Society, Limited. 12m0, pp. vi and 87. IBID. A Time and Times: Ballads and Lyrics of East and West. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1886. 12mo, pp. vii and 158. LOCKER-LAMPSON, FREDERICK. Poems. Authorized edition. New York: White, Stokes & Allen, 1884. 12mo, pp. vii and 262. IBID. London Lyrics. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co., 1870. 16mo, pp. ix and 194. BAXTER, JAMES PHINNEY. Idyls of the Year. Portland, Me.: Hoyt, Fogg & Donham, 1884. 16mo, pp. 73. KETCHUM, JOHN B. Stray Melodies and Songs of Sentiment. New York: American Literary Agency, 1884. 16m0, pp. 136. MASON, MARY AUGUSTA. Fancies. Binghamton, N. Y.: Privately printed. 16m0, pp. 40. WILLIAMS, SELINA TARPLEY. Miscellaneous Scott, CLEMENT. Lays of a Londoner. London. IBID. Lays and Lyrics. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1889. 16mo. Bellamy, ORLANDO R. Songs by the Wayside. Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, 1891. 12mo, pp. 356. INGELOW, JEAN. Poetical Works. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 12m0, pp. 521. BURNS, ROBERT. Poetical Works. Edited by Alexander Smith. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1887. Svo, pp. xxxiii and 362. NOTES. COOPER. In a letter to the editor, Mr. Cooper states that he has written numberless song-words for the musical composers, 66 'Beautiful Isle of the Sea," "Sweet Genevieve" and "Must We Then Meet as Strangers?" being, probably, the best known. "As a writer for the children I have gained some praise, which is very gratifying. Most of my things are written out of doors, with a wayside stone for a desk, and of many of them I have kept no copy. I took a prize for a 'Ballad of Stony Point,' (Oliver Wendell Holmes being the judge), and also for a song or two. I never made a collection of my verses; but many of them are printed in the various published volumes of poetry." DORR. In selecting her favorite poems, Mrs. Dorr names "The Clay to the Rose," "Quickness," "Fire," "At Rest," "When Lesser Loves," "The Fallow Field," "O Wind That Blows Out of the West, "Foreshadowings" and "An OldFashioned Garden." SHERWOOD. "Albert Sidney Johnston" was a Memorial Poem, written by invitation of the Executive Committee for the Unveiling Ceremonies of the General Albert Sidney Johnston Equestrian Statue, held under the auspices of the Army of the Tennessee, Louisiana Division (Ex-Confederate), at New Orleans, April 6, 1887, Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh and of General Johnston's death. Mrs. Kate B. Sherwood received the following letter, beautifully engraved and printed on white satin : HEADQUARTERS ASSOCIATION OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE, Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood, Toledo, O.: the memorial day of the association of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, your poem sent us from your Northern home, a graceful tribute to him and our heroic dead, was read to an appreciative and admiring throng. In grateful response the Association returns, with its greeting, its accompanying badge. The center bears the Confederate Cross, and the Pelican is of metal taken from a rivet of the statue itself. As "Peace hath her victories no less than War," we join heart with hand in reciprocating the cordial and fraternal sentiments set in those sweet and stirring strains, in which a woman's true soul, giving all honor to the knightly men and the gallant deeds on either side, in that "Great war that made ambition virtue," commemorates in charming numbers our day of reunion when veterans of the Blue and the Gray met. "But not as rivals, nor as foes, as brothers reconciled. To twine love's fragrant roses where the thorns of hate grew wild." We greet you in your own fitting words: "Our Country's Future. IBID. "Ulric Dahlgren." Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, son of Admiral Dahlgren, U. S. Navy, distinguished himself by his dashing exploits with the Army of the Potomac, while serving on the staff of Generals Sigel, Hooker and Meade, and lost a leg at Gettysburg. While still on crutches, he led an expedition to free the Union prisoners in Libby Prison at Richmond, and fell in a midnight ambush March 2, 1864, at the age of twenty-two years. F. F. B. IBID. The "Army of the Potomac" was written for the Unveiling of the Memorial Urn, to be placed in Memorial Hall, Toledo, Ohio, Memorial Day, May 30, 1890, by the Toledo Branch Army of the Potomac. NEWMAN. The hymn "The Pillar of the Cloud" is generally published with the popular title of "Lead Kindly Light." In the author's collected poems it bears date, “At Sea, June 16, 1833." In that year he visited Sicily. There, at Leonforte, he was very ill with malarial fever. 'My servant," he says, "thought I was dying, and begged for my last directions. I gave them as he wished; but I said: 'I shall not die, for I have not sinned against light.' I never have been able to make out at all what I meant." Later on, in the course of the disease he became much depressed and sobbed bitterly. His servant, asking what ailed him, could only obtain the reply: "I have a work to do in England." At last he was able to "get off in an orange boat," but was becalmed a full week in the Straits of Bonifacio, between Corsica and Sardinia. Here it was that this hymn-the most famous of all his productions-was written. Its sincerity of feeling and purity of expression have made it universally acceptable. Its original title was "The Pillar of the Cloud." It was first published in the British Magazine, and then in Lyra Apostolica, 1836, in three stanzas, with the motto, "Unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness." The statement of Dr. Newman himself fixes the date of composition as June 16, 1833, and the voyage, begun at Palermo, terminated at Marseilles. The circumstances can be read by any inquirer in the "Apologia pro Vita Sua," 1864, pp. 35-119 (London edition of 1875). "I was writing verses," he there says, "the whole time of my passage." There is a further reference to the same facts in the “Parochial Sermons,” Vol. II., Sermon 2. The additional verse sometimes printed is given below: Meanwhile, along the narrow, rugged path Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith, To rest forever after earthly strife, In the calm light of everlasting life." IBID. The piece on "Warnings" was cited long ago by one of the British reviews to prove that Newman could have been a great poet if he had chosen. It was written near Palermo, February 12, 1833. IBID. "A Voice from Afar" bears date Horsepath, September 29, 1829. "Vexations" bears date, "Off Sardinia, June 21, 1833." "Flowers Without Fruit" bears date, "Off Sardinia, June 20, 1833." "Seeds in the Air" bears date, "Dartington, July 18, 1831." LOCKER-LAMPSON. In the American edition of Mr. Locker's poems the introduction to "A Nice Correspondent" is, "An angel at noon, she's a woman at night, All softness, all sweetness, and love, and delight.” MASON. "Stars in the Well" is from The Independent. "For All" is from The American Rural Home. "If Love Were Life" was originally published in The Independent. "A Belated Blossom" was originally published in The Independent. WILLIAMS. "Hidden" was originally printed in the Chicago Current. BADGER. "The Veterans was originally published in the New York Home Journal under the title of "Memorial Day, 1890." "The Burns Rescue" and "Be True to the Dreams of Thy Youth" were originally published in The Christian Messenger. "God's Almoner" bears date, "Mountain House, August 23, 1879," and is from The Cornwall Mirror, September 4, 1879. WOOLSON. "Two Women was originally published in Appleton's Journal. CROFTON. Most of the verses following the prelude of "The Battle-Call of the Antichrist" appeared, but with many differences, in The Canadian Monthly.-Deeming rhyme unsuited to the solemnity of the subject, the writer has acted on a suggestion made by Sir E. B. Lytton in the preface to his "Lost Tales of Miletus," and has adopted an unconventional blank verse stanza.-Some of the Fathers held that the Antichrist will be an archfiend, either an incarnation of Satan himself, or the son of Satan and "the counterpart of Christ." To conceive him to be the Spirit of War, the exact antithesis to the Prince of Peace, does not seem to be more fanciful.-"I am the scorn of God" is the pregnant expression put by Alfieri in the mouth of the first Napoleon: "Son lo sdegno di Dio; nessun mi tocchi!"-The other allusions (to the author of the "Marseillaise," etc.), will be apparent to the average reader. IBID. "The Cry of Cain" is from The Canadian Monthly, July, 1880. WETHERBEE. The elm of which "The Old Elm" was written is an ancient landmark in Lawrence, Mass., being over a hundred years old, and the largest of its kind in Essex county. SPENCER. The authorship of "A Hundred Years To Come" has been claimed by several authors, and Mr. Spencer suggested that it might be omitted from the selections from his pen, but as he asserts that he is the author of the poem it is but fair that it should be included in the study of his verse productions. BURNS. The biographical sketch of Robert Burns is from Cathcart's Literary Reader. IBID. Compare quotation from "Green Grow the Rashes," with quotation from "Cupid's Whirligig" (1607): Man was made when Nature was Compare quotation from “To a Mountain Daisy," Compare quotation from "I Hae a Wife o' My Ain," with Bickerstaff's "Love in a Village," Act i, Scene 2: Compare first quotation from "For a' That," with Wycherly, "The Plaindealer," Act i, Scene 1. "I weigh the man, not his title; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better." Compare second quotation from "For a' That," with Southerne, "Sir Anthony Love," Act ii, Scene 1: "Of the king's creation you may be: but he who makes a Count ne'er made a man." KROUT. Miss Krout is a native of Crawfordsville, Ind., and now resides in Chicago, Ill. Her first published poem appeared in the Crawfordsville Journal when she was eleven years of age. "Little Brown Hands" was written four years later, in the summer of 1868, during intervals of house-work and the care of several invalid members of the family, there being sickness in the house at the time. Her especial retreat was a corner on the parlor floor behind the heavy window curtains. Here the poem was written to become "familiar as household words." MCMASTER. There died at Bath, Steuben county, N. Y., recently, at the age of fifty-eight, a man who wrote one celebrated poem, and, as far as the public knew, never did anything else that was remarkable. The man was Judge G. H. McMaster, and his one poem, doubtless familiar to many readers of THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY, since it is included in many of the current collections of verses, is given in this number of the magazine. Of this poem, Edmund Clarence Stedman wrote in the Galaxy Magazine, many years ago: "There is nothing like it in our language; 'tis the ringing characteristic utterance of an original man. There is a perfect blending of sense to sound, and of both to the spirit of the theme. To include a picture often ruins a song; but here we have the knot of patriots clustered upon a battle hillside, the powder cracking again, the old-fashioned colonel galloping with drawn sword, and as Rounder, rounder, rounder roared the iron six-pounder, it seems a heavier piece of ordnance, and charged with weightier issues than a whole park of artillery in a modern armament. This song will last with the memory of Revolutionary days." It was written when the author was but twenty years old, and first appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine for February, 1849, over the signature "John McGrom." McMaster became a lawyer, and at one time was county judge of Steuben county. FRENEAU. Philip Freneau was born in New York City January 2, 1752, and died near Freehold, N. J., December 18, 1832. HARTE. "Plain Language from Truthful James," frequently printed under the title of "The Heathen Chinee," was Harte's first decided hit. It originally appeared in the Overland Monthly. RANDALL. "My Maryland" was written by James R. Randall, a native of Baltimore, where he now resides. The poet was a professor of English literature and the classics in Poydras College at Pointe Coupée, on the Fausse Rivière, in Louisiana, about seven miles from the Mississippi; and there in April, 1861, he read in the New Orleans Delta the news of the attack on the Massachusetts troops as they passed through Baltimore. "This account excited me greatly," Mr. Randall wrote in answer to a request for information; "I had long been absent from my native city, and the startling events there inflamed my mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss what I had read in the paper from my mind. About midnight I rose, lit a candle, and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded to write the song of 'My Maryland.' I remember that the idea appeared to first take shape as music in the brain-some wild air that I cannot now recall. The whole poem was dashed off rapidly when once begun. It was not composed in cold blood, but under what may be called a conflagration of the senses, if not an inspiration of the intellect. I was stirred to a desire for some way of linking my name with that of my native state, if not 'with my land's language.' But I never expected to do this with one single, supreme effort, and no one was more surprised than I was at the widespread and instantaneous popularity of the lyric I had been so strangely stimulated to write." Mr. Randall read the poem the next morning to the college boys, and at their suggestion sent it to the Delta, in which it was first printed, and from which it was copied into nearly every Southern journal. "I did not concern myself much about it, but very soon, from all parts of the country, there was borne to me, in my remote place of residence, evidence that I had made a great hit, and that, whatever might be the fate of the Confederacy, the song would survive it." Published in the last days of April, 1861, when every eye was fixed on the border states, the stirring stanzas of the Tyrtæan bard appeared in the very nick of time. There is often a feeling afloat in the minds of men, undefined and vague for want of one to give it form, and held in solution, as it were, until a chance word dropped in the ear of a poet suddenly crystallizes this feeling into song, in which all may see clearly and sharply reflected what in their own thought was shapeless and hazy. It was Mr. Randall's good fortune to be the instrument through which the South spoke. By a natural reaction his burning lines helped to fire the Southern heart. To do their work well, his words needed to be wedded to music. Unlike the authors of the "Star-spangled Banner" and the "Marseillaise," the author of "My Maryland" had not written it to fit a tune already familiar. It was left for a lady of Baltimore to lend the lyric the musical wings it needed to enable it to reach every camp-fire of the Southern armies. To the courtesy of this lady, then Miss Hetty Cary, and now the wife of Professor H. Newell Martin, of Johns-Hopkins University, I am indebted for a picturesque description of the marriage of the words to the music, and of the first singing of the song before the Southern troops. The house of Mrs. Martin's father was the headquarters of the Southern sympathizers of Baltimore. Correspondence, money, clothing, supplies of all kinds went thence through the lines to the young men of the city who had joined the Confederate army. "The enthusiasm of the girls who worked and of the 'boys' who watched for their chance to slip through the lines to Dixie's land found vent and inspiration in such patriotic songs as could be made or adapted to suit our needs. The glee club was to hold its meeting in our parlors one evening early in June, and my sister, Miss Jenny Cary, being the only musical member of the family, had charge of the programme on the occasion. With a schoolgirl's eagerness to score a success, she resolved to secure some new and ardent expression of feelings that by this time were wrought up to the point of explosion. In vain she searched through her stock of songs and airs—nothing seemed intense enough to suit her. Aroused by her tone of despair, I came to the rescue with the suggestion that she should adapt the words of 'Maryland, My Maryland,' which had been constantly on my lips since the appearance of the lyric a few days before in the South. I produced the paper and began declaiming the verses. 'Lauriger Horatius,' she exclaimed, and in a flash the immortal song found voice in the stirring air so perfectly adapted to it. That night, when her contralto voice rang out the stanzas, the refrain rolled forth from every throat present without pause or preparation; and the enthusiasm communicated itself with such effect to a crowd assembled beneath our open windows as to endanger seriously the liberties of the party." B. M. WAKEFIELD. Nancy Amelia Woodbury Priest Wakefield was born in Royalston, Mass., in 1834, and died in 1870. "Over the River" has been set to music by several composers. MCCREERY. "There is No Death" was first printed in Arthur's Home Magazine some twentyfive years ago, with the author's name attached; they were stolen hence by one, E. Bulmer, and sent as his own to the Farmer's Advocate, of Chicago, by which they were printed again. They were copied from the latter journal by the scissors-man of some Wisconsin paper, who divined in the depths of his inner consciousness that "E. Bulmer' was a misprint for "E. Bulwer," so they were credited to Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, and sent adrift on the sea of newspaperdom. Copies of the poem, with the name of Bulwer as the author, were sent to Mr. McCreery from all parts of the habitable globe, now in the shape of newspapers, and now in orthodox and spiritual hymn books, in at least one reader, and in a score of bound volumes and selections. On January 31, 1880, Mr. McCreery heard his poem, or, more exactly speaking, a portion of it, recited in the House of Representatives by the Hon. Mr. Coffroth, Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, who was orating upon the death of the Hon. Rush Clark, Member of Congress from Iowa. It was delivered as Bulwer's poem, and as such was printed in the Congressional Record. Mr. McCreery published a volume of poems some years since under the title of "Songs of Toil and Triumph." FISHER. Frances C. Fisher, the well-known author, is a native of Salisbury, N. C. She has written a score of novels under the pen name of "Christian Reid." CROUCH. F. Nicholls Crouch was born July 30, 1808. At nine years of age he played the bass at the Royal Coburg Theatre, which was erected in honor of the marriage of the Princess Charlotte, only daughter of George IV. Working his way among the minor theatres he finally became attached to His Majesty's, where he played a solo on the violoncello before the composer Rossini. The conductor was Rochsa, then in the height of his glory, and he invited young Crouch to become his pupil. As his voice indicated shorty after this that he had capabilities as a vocalist he was installed as one of the Chapel Royal boys in Westminster Abbey, and when the Royal Academy of Music was established in 1822, under the patronage of George IV, he was admitted as a student. After his graduation he was made principal violoncellist at Drury Lane Theatre. He had at all times a decided literary taste, and later became musical critic of the Metropolitan Magazine, of which Capt. Marryatt, the novelist, was editor, and for nine consecutive years he was a writer of musical works and a contributor to various periodicals. In addition to his songs he wrote the operas of "The Fifth of November" and "Sir Roger de Coverly." His companions were the leading literary men of the day, including Thackeray. In 1840 he came to America with Max Maretzek. They had previously been engaged in Her Majesty's Opera House, Haymarket, London. Maretzek's operatic venture proved a failure, and the company was disbanded, after performing in New York and Boston. Crouch went to Maine, lectured on music, directed several concerts and then taught in that state for seven years. In 1851 he moved to Philadelphia, and a year later he undertook to go to California to try his fortune in gold digging, but his wife was taken very ill and he gave up the plan. He next removed to Washington and was the organist during Buchanan's administration at St Matthew's church, and went thence to Richmond to lead a church choir. When the war broke out he was one of the first to shoulder a musket, enlisting in the Richmond Grays and afterwards in the Richmond Howitzers. He served all through the war. At its close he made his way to Buckingham Court House, Virginia, and worked on a farm as a laborer and gardener. He is now living in Baltimore, Md. The editor of the Baltimore Sun finds a conversation with the composer interesting enough to publish, and we quote a paragraph to give our readers a graceful description of the circumstance under which "Kathleen Mavourneen" was composed. "The words had been sent me by Mrs. Crawford from London," said the author, "and as I was riding one day in West England on the banks of the Tamar, thinking of the poem, the melody suddenly came to me. I was so infatuated with it that I sung it to a large audience in the assembly rooms at Plymouth, Devonshire, immediately that I had written it down, and within a week its fame had spread. Thus was my offspring begotten and so became a child of the world." None of the songs that Crouch composed earlier or later, became so popular as "Kathleen Mavourneen," though some of our readers may be familiar with "Would I Were with Thee," "We Parted in Silence,' "Sing to Me, Nora," "The Widow and Her Child," and others. Each of these is characterized by the pathetic element which pervades the gem of his compositions and make it strike a responsive chord in the hearts of either musical or unmusical listeners. BOURDILLON. While yet an undergraduate at Worcester College, Oxford, Bourdillon, born in 1852, won reputation as a poet by the two graceful stanzas entitled "Light." They were speedily translated into the principal languages of Europe. Rarely has a poet won his spurs on so small a venture in verse. E. S. WARTON. Hazlett considered some of Warton's sonnets "the finest in the language;" but this is wholly unmerited praise. The sonnet to Gray, the poet, is among the best from his pen. |