" Canterbury Rhymes."

Temuka Leader, Issue 3669, 27 November 1900, Page 2

" Canterbury Rhymes."

We have received a copy of the Jubilee Book of " Canterbury Ehymes/'published by Messrs Whitcombe .t Tombs, Christchurch. The rhymes have been edited by Mr O. T. J. Alpers, author of the Canterbury Jubilee ode, and the price is 2s Gd, which, as a memento of the early settlement of the province, must be regarded as cheap. The volume opens with the night-watch song of (he Charlotte Jane, one of the first four ships, and was written on board the ship by the late Mr J. E. Fitzgerald on November 1, ISoO. Selections are given from Canterbury poets down to November 1, 1900, the date on which Mr Alpers wrote his jubilee ode. The authors are Mr J. E. Fitzgerald, the Hon. C. C. Bowen, the Very Rev. Dean Jacobs, the Hon. Major Steward, tho Hon. W. P. Reeves, Mr G. P. Williams, Miss Jessie Mncfcay, and Miss Colbourne Voeil, while there are several pieces the authors of which are not known, besides many amusing and racy verses by the late Mr Crosbie Ward, certainly the most humorous poet the province has seen. One of the anonymous pieces has had a peculiar interest for us. - ** Tho subject is a condemnation of tobacco smoking, and the concluding verse is as follows : "May never lady press his lips, His proffered love returning, "Who makes a furnace of his mouth And keeps its chimney burning ; May all true women shun his"'sight For fear his fumes might choke her, And none but hags who smoke themselves Have kisses for a smoker."

About 27 years ago this verse appeared in a paper in the city of Cork, Ireland. There were a good many more verses, but this is the only one of them we remember, and whether it was all the same as the Canterbury rhyme we cannot say just now. The author of the Cork version "was a travelling lecturer or showman of some kind, named T. N. Stack, but whether he had been in New Zealand or not we do not kuow. We should like to give specimens of tho poetry of early Canterbury, but space will not permit. The verses deal almost exclusively with the thoughts, the feelings, the aspirations, and the hopes of the early settlers, and are racy, clever, and sometimes very amusing. Many of them are hits on politicians, tho givatvst iu this respect being' Messrs E. .1. Wakefield and Orosbie Ward. On the whole the volume is very interesting, aud being a jubilee edition ought to sell very freely. Mr Wightman is the Teruuka agent for tb* sale of. the book.