FRANCIS THOMPSON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 41

FRANCIS THOMPSON.

The New Poet— An Extraordinary Career. " England's new poet," so the phrase runs. ■ His name is Francis Thompson, and he has published a little book of poems, a dainty volume of 81 pages, a volume which is making a great slir among the appreciative and the critical. Coventry Patmore prints a panegyric in one of the reviews, and he hails Francis Thompson as one of the great poets. H. D. Trail, in the Nineteenth Century for February, after making all deductions, comes to the opinion that Toompson is " a poet of the first rauk."

Francis Thompson is 32 years of age. He is the son of aa English physician, who lives in a country town not more than 500 miles from London.

Francis was educated at the Catholic college at Ushaw, in the North of England. He was a splendid scholar in Greek and Latin and French. His acquaintance with classic poetry, as well as with modern, was intimate. He seemed to care only for books.

The paternal desire was that Francis should become a physician, and to London the young man was one day sent. But instead of studying medicine he spent his time in reading at one or two of the great public libraries. When his father discovered this he cut off

THE YOUNG MAN'S ALLOWANCE, declining to support him in "idleness." Francis at that time (he was then 24) had written nothing. He had not even shown an inclination to write. He passed his time wholly among books, letting his mind soak in the poetic vats of the ages. Coercion was of no avail. He refused to study medicine. He had a love for poetry, and only for poetry, and he determined to remain in London and become absolutely independent. If his allowance was to be cut off, no matter. He would endeavour to live on next to nothing, and if the worst came to the worst, ou nothing. The worst came. Everyone is familiar with the stories of poets who have lived in attic 3, and who have found inspiration in crusts. But Thompson had not even an attic after a while, and for days together not so much as a crust. When his little stock of money was exhausted he took to the streets by night, and by day he lived AMONG THE BOOKS AT THE G.UIL.DHALL LIBRARY. The worldly wise will ask : •■ Why did not the young fellow seek employment 1 " The only answer is that Francis Thompson is not worldly wise. In the first place he did not care for employment — money-making employment. He did not even care far comfort. He only cared for the opportunity to read and dream. For three weeks, it is true, Thompson worked in a shoe shop, and during that tims he manifested a glorious inoapuoity for fortune. He was wholly unfit for that sort of thing. Besides, he bad no thought for money, and the few penoe that were required to buy a night's shelter in a common lodging house, or to bay an apple now and then, or a bit of fieb, ha could get by selling matches or news* papers, or by blaoking boots. He went for fonr years without anything that remotely resembled a square meal. Ho beoame Beedy in appearance, then shabby, and finally i UNKEMPT AND RAGGED. He had but one luxury— his dream— and he kept himself from suffering the pangs of starvation and the pains of exposure to storms and frosts by the aid 'of a singular friend — laudanum. This man, though at the lowest deDths of pitiable poverty, asked for no' pity, nor did he fall into degradation. He was as ragged and forlorn an object as you could see in all gutterdom. But he kept his spirit pure, his soul untainted, and he was absolutely innocent of dissipation. His laudanum habit was a necessity of life. He would have starved or frozen had he not rendered himself insensible to pain. Wnen he grew in appearance too disreputable to gain admission to the public libraries, ha spant his days ia places where men aa wretched as himself were wont to gather. Then, on euch scraps of paper as he could find, he began to POUR OUT HIS SOUL IX VEBSE. At night he would sell matches ; and when the theatres were lettiog out their crowds he earned a few precarious pennies as a cab tout. If the pennies were not forthcoming, he had no shelter that night ; but he would sleep in obscure corners until routed out by the p»licc. During all those miserable years he felt no,

resentment, was In no sense conscious that wroDg was being done to him ; he did not regard himself as being abused or neglected by the world. He ignored the world. What efforts he made to attain salvation by print are not yet known.

There was dropped one morning in the box of the editor of Morrie England, a Roman Catholic magazine, a bundle of tattered and dirty manuscript, so

TATTERED AND DIBTY that for six months it lay neglected in a heap of dusty papers, from which, more by accident than by design, it was one day extracted, and opened for editorial inspection. The bundle contained two contributions a* poem and an essay. The essay dealt with Paganism and Christianity. The article showed original treatment, a remarkable style, and an extraordinary knowledge. The editor was so impressed by its merit that he communicated with the writer at an address indicated on the " copy." After great difficulties and hours of search the editor found him. Thompson was

SAVED PROM THE SLUMS, was housed and cared for. Privation seemed to have made of him a physical wreck. Ho was taken to an eminent physician, who said to the friendly intercessors: "There's no use in doing anything for this man ; he will die within two months." Medical sagacity was fault. Thompson wa3 taken to the country, where fresh air and tender care restored him

To shorten a long story, it is merely necessary to mention the obvious. The young man's chance had come. For the next four years he contributed to the pages of the magazine. But

THE CIRCULATION OF MERRIE ENGLAND is not great. Thompson and his works remained practically unknown to the general public and to the critics.

But in his country retreat he was gathering strength and confidence in his strength, and a little while ago his friend and discoverer, Wilfrid Meynell, the editor, persuaded him to select poems sufficient for a little volume. The book was published in December ; it has passed through

THREE EDITIONS INT TWO MONTHS, and Thompson's praiee is sung in every quarter.

Thompson is now living at a Capuchin monastery in Wales, the guest of a saintly and wise brotherhood, who are greatly attached to him and who appreciate his geniu3. — Boston Herald.