FLOTSAM

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6314, 14 September 1907, Page 7

FLOTSAM

NOTES ON THIS AND THAT. I do not suppose that Wellinffton lost its appetite for breakfast when it read the other morning in tho " Now Zealand Times": "Death of a poet-M. ; Sully Brudhomme, French poet, aotat •68 "; any more than the appetite of Noumea was disturbed when it hoard of the death of Tennyson, if hear it did. But, to be quite ingenuous, were tho two cases quite analogous? Hardly. Eminent poets are more plentiful in France than in England, and since the dwarfing and overmastering presence of Victor Hugo vanished, there has been no poet who lias occupied the universal French heart as Tennyson filled tho English heart. They do things differently in Groat Britain and in France. Each English poet is no doubt the creature of his antecedents and environment. but, though ho may imitate, he still “goes on his own,” is responsible to himself alone, and attaches himself to no school. English poets do not poetise in packs. In Franco, on th© other hand, poets oomo in shoals, or schools, like herrings or mackerel, and almost as numerous. In the beginning of th© last century, our Byronic period, there was the Homan tic Sthool, consisting of rebellious young bloods, to whom tho breath of life was to defy the rigid canons laid down by their frigid predecessors. Frenchmen, however, rebej as they may, are never long satisfied with licence in literature. A reaction set in during tho Second Empire, and tho free-and-easy, go-as-you-please Bomantic School yielded in turn to the Parnassians —a numerous shoal—of whom one of the most distinguished, though not the most typical, was Sully Prudhomme, who died on Monday last.

Catullo Mendes,. one of the two founders of the school, tells in his “Legend© j du Parnaeßo Contemporain” the whole story of its origin. A group of young poets, bound together in mutual admiration, published their effusions in a publication called “Le Parnasse Contemporain.” which appeared in parts. The Pamaase had not a long life, the first part appearing in March, 1866, and the eighteenth and last in June of the same year. But the name stuck; thenceforth those young poets were the Parnassians. There were thirty-nine of them. Just think of it 1 Thirty-nine young poets in one country in on© year! Some of them, one concludes, must have been very small beer. Yes, no doubt; but when you have strained off the small beer, what a fermenting vat of genius there was left. There were Gautier, de Banville, Heredia, Leconte de Lisle, Coppee, Gatulle Mendes, Baudelaire, and not least Sully Prudhomrae, beside© many others known to subsequent fame. It is, to be sure, difficult to conceive any bond that could have united in one school Baudelaire and Coppee, Heredia and Paul Verlaine, except the bond of common youth and - animal spirits, of which latter commodity i some of them, judged by their verse, seem to have had a tolerable lack. Sully Prudhomme and Coppee are amongst the Parnassians who lived longest (Coppee is still living), produced the largest amount of work, and have had the largest vogue in France. Sully Pmdhomn < has written many volumes of verse of fin© quality, bbt, as Edmond Scherer says, he succeeded far too well at the first go-off. As Longfellow had the misfortune to have his name identified chiefly with “Excelsior” and the “Psalm of Life,” so to the popular mind Prudhomme is a poet of one poem, the exquisite “Broken Vase,” which appeared in his first published collection. The secret friends of the author, says Scherer, are indignant at this; or, rather, no, they are (comforted. They keep for themselves, in the treasury of their heart, those strong and original poem©—“On an Old Picture,” “The Milky Way,” “Thf Grande Chartreuse,” and “The Deathbed.”

It is possibly from recollection of wharf; took place in the Porteous and Gordon riots that some people have such erroneous notions about what is called the reading of the Riot Act, As a matter of fact the Biot Act is not read when it is found desirable to disperse a dangerous mob. Only a very short proclamation of four or five lines is enjoined by the Act to he read, to wit—" Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habited tions, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the Act, etc., etc/* There is nothing about shooting in the Act from beginning to end, though it is quite true that persons who '"being unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together/* refuse to dispense within an hour after the reading of the Act, or who offer forcible or armed resistance to the authorities charged with maintaining order, may, if the offence is sufficiently serious, be adjudged guilty of felony and suffer death "without benefit of clergy.** The magistrate, however, whose duty it is to maintain order is empowered only "to seize and apprehend such persons, and forthwith to carry the persons so apprehended before one or more of hie Majesty's Justices of the Peace, in order to their being proceeded against for such their offences according to law/* The proceeding is exactly the same as that followed in the apprehension, of anyone who breaks the law; the persons concerned are seized and brought before the beak. Until the proclamation is read, however, and for one hour after the reading, such persons can not legally be seized. The point is that the reading of the proclamation constitutes such assembling together an illegal act.

It may be that tbe "Sturm uud Drang” of the Lower House leaves no time for what used to be called "oratory'—hut certainly one may haunt its precincts pietty constantly without hearing any, except it may be an occasional roulade from Mr Laurenson or a bit of Irish bravura from Mr Poole. X am not complaining; quite the contrary. I know* as well as another how to be thankful for my mercies. It is only* by way of considering the matter curiously that I mention the fact that if you desire to hear the genuine, old-fashioned, impassioned, round-mouthed kind of oratory you must visit the Upper House 'some afternoon when the duello is on between tbe Attorney-General and the Hon. T. K. Macdonald. It is, indeed, an impressive experience, and makes one think of those stirring times when "the drum ecclesiastic was beat with fist instead of a stick." Mr Macdonald may be heard sounding the diapason of the passions from the topi notes of withering invective to the profundo of the pathetic; when, for instance, he expatiates on the haggard

visage ot Dr Ewart and nerves unstrung by tho haunting horror of scarlet fever, and so draws iron tears down Hr Luke’s cheeks. Mr Macdonald, on the subject of a hospital site, has. it must bo confessed, a subject to suit him, since it gives him the double role of advocate and accuser. It will be easily understood that Mr Macdonald, being a man of large heart and generous sentiments, does his advocacy with a will, but his impeachment of some body for having neglected a plain Christian duty for the last 20 years was even better. As to the body impeached, Mr Macdonald and Dr Findlay cannot agree. Mr Macdonald thought he was impeaching the Government. Dr Findlay took Mr Macdonald’s speech to bo a serious indictment against Wellington, and, so regarding it, gave it tho warmest praiso as a successful piece of oratory. The whole question seoms to be, who ought to provide tho Fever Hospital—the Government or Wellington? So the matter remains at present hung up. He would deserve to be soundly knocked on the sconce who should rush in between two such combatants, and attempt to settle tho dispute.

However, one may be allowed, I suppose, to have one's notions of what constitutes a trust. There is much talk of a trust in connection with this matter of a hospital site —and a trust is a solemn thing. Land that is in trust for one object you cannot divert to another object, however worthy—not without an Act of Parliament, which is above morality. Otherwise trusts would be very unstably things; whereas it is very necessary for our comfort and peace of mind that wo should bo able to regard a trust as the most sacred of bonds, any breach of which is to bo reprobated.. This w-e all recognise, Mr Macdonald, no doubt, as much as anybody. But Governments make trusts, and Governments can unmake, ho thinks. Tho Government now in office could set aside this trust if it only chose, and it ought to choose, seeing that Wellington very much wants an Infectious Diseases Hospital. It is true that the Government, if it did what is required, would not be acting quite on the square: but, after all, the wrong would be a little one, hardly worth mentioning, whereas the boon to Wellington would be immense. If the At-torney-General had the civic spirit which it became him to have as a citizen of Wellington, he would not trouble , himself with uncleanly scruples over such a trivial wresting of the right. How old is this line of argument!—As old as eloquence itself. You may find it in the Provincial Letters passim, and an older than Pascal tells ns how one, Basis unio, urged a young judge to tear up j a hateful bond, the observance ot which would have been more infamous than the breach — I beseech you Wrest once tho law to your authority; To do a great right, do a little wrong 1 But it is to be observed that the learned judge found another way out of the difficulty. So may the Attorney-General. History repeats itself.