“ALLITERATION’S ARTFUL AID”

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12181, 4 July 1925, Page 12

“ALLITERATION’S ARTFUL AID”

“AN AUSTRIAN ARMY.’i AWTJLLY ARRAY’D.” I am asked (writes “Jackdaw” in ••John o’ London’s Weekly”), not for ilie first time, to supply famous alliterative lines beginning: Cf An Austrian array, awfully arrayed.” Perhaps 1 had better reprint them:— An Austrian army, awfully array’d, Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade; Cossack commanders cannonading come. Deal devastation’s dire destructive doom; Ev’ry endeavour engineers essay, For fame, for freedom, fight, fierce, furious fray. Gon’rals ’gainst gen’rals grapple—gracious God! How honours Heav’n heroic hardihood! Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill, Just Jesus, instant innocence instil! Kinsmen kill kinsmen, kindred kindred Kill. Labour low levels longest, loftiest lines; Men inarch ’midst mounds, motes, mountains, murd’rous mines. Now noisy noxious numbers notice nought, Of outward obstacles o’ercoming ought; Pool patriots perish, persecution’s pest ? Quite biiiet Quakers “Quakers quarter” quest; Reason returns, religion, right, re donnds, Suwarrow stop such sanguinary sounds! Truce to thee, Turkey, terror to thy train! Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine! Vanish vile vengeance, vanish victory vain! Why wish we warfare? wherefore welcome won. Xerxos, Xantippus, Xavier, Xenophon? Yield, ye young Yaghier yeoman, yield your yell! Zimmerman’s, Zoroaster’s, Zenols zeal Again attract; art against arms appeal. All, all ambitious aims, avaunt away! Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.This oft-quoted clever, but not too lucid screed is more than a century old. Its authorship has been claimed for many writers, particularly for Alario A. Watts (17(17-1864), the miscellaneous writer and lightweight poet who, according to- his son and bio* grapher, contributed the lines to the “Literary Gazette” in 1820. But there is good evidence that they had appeared three years earlier in quite another quarter —i.e., in the “Trifler,” a periodical written by the boys of Westminster School, and it it. suggested that they were the joint work of some of these boys. They appeared, it is stated, in the issue of May 7th, 1817, and wer thu i introduced: “The following curious specimen of poetry, presented to us by a friend, is dedicated to lowers of Alliteration.” Even on Thomas Hood “An Austrian army. . . < . haa been _ fathered. Thb Westminster -School origin seems to hold the field.