TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19942, 31 May 1930, Page 13

TRIVIA.

In his amusing introduction to "The Stuffed Owl," Mr D. B. Wyndham Lewis spends some time and wit on the distinction between bad Bad Verse and good Bad Verse; and he draws it pretty sharply in the sentence, "Bad v erse of the good kind is innocent of faults of craftsmanship." Not only sharply, but arbitrarily, as he shows in a less academic sentence half an inch higher up the same page: "We ivill merely assert here that good Bad Verse ... is devilish pleasing." The utiier distinction is not funuamental. It only squints at the fact that uad Verse may be either literate or illiterate, illiterate including semi-literate and other fractions, 'i'lio flavour of good literate Bad Verse is finer, subtler, more aromatic, more elusive and beguiling, than that of good illiterate Bad Verse. But both are ' devilish pleasing" indeed, both good. So Air Lewis recognises, for, having drawn his precise frontier, he skips across it into Illiteracy and comes back laden with plunder from Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan. The richest trophy is the poem on Lord Byron, which opens with a broad and impartial summary of his career:

"Lord Byron" was an Englishman A poot I believe, His first works in old England Was poor'.y received. Perhaps it wus "Lord Byron's" fault And perhaps it was not. His lifo was full of misfortunes, Ah, strange was liis lot.

The closing stanzas are

Sometimes again "Lord Byron" Was censured by the Press, Such obloquy, he could not endure, So he done what was the best. He left his native country. This great unhappy man; The only wish he had, " 'tis said/' He might die, sword in hand.

lie had joined tho Grecian army, This man of delicate frame; And there ho died in a distant land, And left on earth his farae. "Lord Byron's" age was 36 years, Then closed the sad career, Of the moat celebrated "Englishman" Of tho nineteenth century.

This, which is indubitably good Bad Verse, waddles right over and obliterates Mr Lewis's careful distinction. What is more, there roll in behind it the accidental comic masterpieces of "tho illiterate, the semi-literate, the Bnbu. the nature-loving contributor to the county newspaper, the retired stationmastor, the spinster lady coyly attuned to Life and Spring, the hearty hut ill-equipped patriot, the pudibond yet urgent Sappnos of endless 'Keepsakes' anch 'Lady's Magazines,'" and it is not a bit of use to play Mrs Partington and try to hoosh them back with a schedule of rules. "Good Bad Verse is grammatical, it is constructed according to the Rubrics, its rhythms, rimes, and metres are impeccable": is it and are they? No no. The whole published work of "Bellerive"—does he frtill ply the "Bulletin" week by week, is he siill spurned, and does he still snatch out of contumely the rewnrd of regular quotation?—the whole published work of "Bellerive" exists to declare an emphatic, an uproarious Nay. Again, no, no; for good Bad Verse can laugh at grammar, and buret the Rubrics, and exhibit rhythms, rimes, and metres deliciously peccable. As witness the noble lines on tho death of King Edward VII.:

The will of God wo must obey. Dreadful—our King taken away! The greatest friend of tho nation, Mighty monarch ,nnd protection!

Heavenly Father, help in sorrow Queen-Slother and thorn to follow, What to do without him who has gone! Pray hclpl help! and do load us on.

Greatest sorrow England ever had Whon death took away our dear Dad; -A King he was from head to sole. Loved by his people one and all.

His mighty work for the Nation. Making peace and strengthening Union— Always at it since on the throne; Saved the country more than one billion.

It is true, nevertheless, that cultivated taste finds a purer joy in the correct deportment of poets engaged in letting themselves down. There is no absolute purity, of course. The happy reader thinks he owes his pleasure entirely to his critical faculty; it may very well be due just as much to relief from the necessity of being respectful to those imposing persons the eminent poets, before whom he has put on a strained humility. But there it is. The mannerly poets are more exquisitely and memorably ludicrous than the clowns and the simpletons and the village idiots. They givo us what even the luckiest blundering never can, the charm of an elaborate disparity. Convention so strict, and such fly-away absurdity; the carriage so stately, the cargo so silly; the manner so precisely humdrum, ecclesiastical almost, a dull, truth-telling manner, and tho thing spoken so grotesque. Mr Charles Lee fastens on this in his Proem, invoking Cacohymnia:

She comes 1 she corneal Like castanets of Spain, Olip-clop, clip-clop, her slippers strike the plain. While from her lips proceeds th* oracular hum; "De dum, de-dum, de-dumty, dum ae-dom.

So Isaac Watts, inspired by the Dear Memory of Thomas Gunston, Esq., sees in a vision this deceased architect exploring under capable guidance the heavenly mansions: x

Gentle Itlmriel led him round the skicß, The buildings struck him with immense surprise.

Or James Grainger describes tho sugarplanter's entomological troubles. The canes First pallid, sickly, dry, and wither'd show; Unseemly stains succeed; which, nearer view'd By microscopic arts, Small eggs appear. Dire fraught with reptile life; alas, too soon They burst their filmy gaol, and crawl abroad, Bugs of uncommon shape. The clodhopper bards canhot do this fotehing stuff. itThere are some admirable passages in "The Stuffed Owl" from T. Baker, a poet "inexhaustibly impressed by the powers of steam." He describes, for example, the Railway Boom of 1845: New schemes, not even dream'd of once before, Were lauded loudly, puff'd off even Mors Than e'en the grand trunk-system that imparts Connection to our chief commercial marts. Nor was this MANIA, this eccentric roar, Confined alone within Britannia's shore; It made its way at that eventful time To every land wjthout respect to clime. Vast were the schemes that now came forth in France, Though not so wont in Britain's wake t'advance. Europe was smitten to the very core, And thence the MANIA raged from shore to shore; East and West Indies groan'd 'neath the disease. Its virulenoo unolieek'd by rolling seaa. Nay, e'en Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales Determined, like the rest, to have their rails. How like Lambkin! . Who was Lambkin? Mr Lambkin wrote a poem for the Newdigate Prize, in 1893, on the set subject of "The Benefits of the Electric Light." Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode, To Osney. on the Seven Bridges Road; For under Osnoy'e solitary shade The bulk of the Electric Light is made. Here are the works;—from hence the current flow* Which (so the Company's prospectus goes) Can furnish to subscribers hour by hour No less than sixteen thousand candle power, All at 8 thousand volts. (It is essential TVs keep the current at this high potential In spite of the considerable expense.) •

Arouse thee. Muse I and chaunt in accents rich The interesting processes by whioli The Electricity is passed along: These are my tlieme: to these I bend toy song. It runs encased In wood or porous brick Through copper wires two millimetres thick. And insulated on their dangerous mission By indiarubber, silk, or composition. Here you may put with critical felicity The following question: "What is Electricity?" I "Mdlecular Activity," say some, Others when asked say nothing, and are dumb. Whatever be its nature, this is clear: The rapid current checked in its career. Baulked in its race and halted In its course Transforms to heat and light its latent force: It needs no pedant in the lecturer's chair To prove that light and heat are present there. The peav-sliaped vacuum globe, X understand, Is far too hot to fondle with the hand. While, as is patent to the meanest sight, The carbon filament is very bright . . . Hail, Britain, Mistress of the tAxure Main, Ten thousand Fleets sweep over thee in vain I Hail, Mighty Mother of the Bravo and Free, That beat Napoleon, and gave birth to me! Thou that canßt wrap in thine emblazoned robe One quarter of the habitable globe. Thy mountains, Wafted by a favouring breeze, Like mighty rocks withstand the stormy seas. Thou art a Christian Commonwealth; and yet Be thou not all unthankful—nor forgit, A 4 thou exultest in Imperial Jfight, The Benefits of the Electric Light. Lambkin was invented by Mr Hilaire Belloc, and is pretty. But he cannot approach T. Baker's celebration of Rennie's conoidal triple-bladed screw, or the account of Lord Stanhope and his paddle-steamer: Lord Stanhope hit upon a novel plan Of bringing forth this vast Leviathan (This notion first Genevois' genius struck); His frame was made to emulate the duclc; Webb'd feet had he, In Ocean's brine to play; With whale-like niight he whiri'd aloft the spray; But made with all this splash but little speed; Alas! the duck was doom'd not to sticceedl His Lordship's butler, Mr Banks, communicated to "The Times," January Cth, 1858, some personal information which clears up the reader's uncertainty about the precise subject of some descriptive lines. "His Lordship's feet and frame," wrote Mr Banks, "were most agreeably formed, and perfectly adapted to meet every obligation of the high rank and privi 1 -;o *o which it pleases God to call an English nobleman." Sceptics may search the files, to s6e whether Mr 1). B. Wyndham Lewis and Mr Lee are embroidering or not; for my part, I gladly trust them, and I see no reason to doubt Mr Banks's testimony either. —J.H.E.S.