JAMES BROWN.
(“Baron” Brown, the Durham Poet.)
Hone’s Every Day Book, (Vol. II, p. 1218) contains a record of the career, and a portrait of this eccentric individual, who lived in Newcastle-on-Tyne during the first quarter of the present century, when he published a series of extraordinary writings which he considered Poems, and assumed the title of Poet-Laureate. Brown was known to be inordinately vain, and many letters were sent him purporting to come from the leading poets and authors of the day. All of these he believed to be genuine, and would show them to his friends, (who were frequently the real authors) with much pride. These letters, which were chiefly in verse, were produced by the law and medical students of Durham and Newcastle, and of the Catholic College of Ushaw. In 1821, Brown received a large parchment signed G.R. attested by Messrs. Canning and Peel, to which was suspended a large unmeaning seal, which he believed to be the great seal of Great Britain, conferring upon him the title of Baron Brown of Durham, in the County Palatine of Durham, in consequence of a translation of his works having been the means of converting the Mogul empire. From that moment he assumed the name and style of “Baron Brown,” and had a wooden box made for the preservation of his patent. Of the poems that were sent to him only the following fragments have been preserved:—
The first is an imitation of Wilson’s Isle of Palms.
Poetic dreams float round me now,
My spirit where art thou?
Oh! art thou watching the moonbeams smile
In the groves of palm in an Indian isle;
Or dost thou hang over the lovely main
And list to the boatswain’s boisterous strain;
Or dost thou sail on sylphid wings
Through liquid fields of air,
Or, riding on the clouds afar,
Dost thou gaze on the beams of the evening star
So beautiful and so fair.
Oh no! oh no! sweet spirit of mine
Thou art entering a holy strain divine
A strain which is so sweet,
Oh! one might think ’twas a fairy thing,
A thing of love and blessedness,
Singing in holy tenderness,
A lay of peaceful quietness,
Within a fairy street!
But ah! ’tis Brown. &c., &c.
The next was supposed to be written by Sir Walter Scott. (Lady of the Lake.)
The heath-cock shrill his clarion blew
Among the heights of Benvenue,
And fast the sportive echo flew,
Adown Glenavin’s vale.
But louder, louder was the knell,
Of Brown’s Northumbrian penance-bell,[46]
The noise was heard on Norham fell,
And rung through Teviotdale.
There was also a respectable burlesque of The Ancient Mariner, commencing:—
“It is a lion’s trumpeter,
And he stoppeth one of three.”
It is a pity that only these few extracts were preserved by Mr. John Sykes in his “Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events,” 1824.
The Bishop’s Wish.
(After Robert Bloomfield.)
Be mine a modest pension clear
Of just six thousand pounds a-year;
And to complete my humble lot,
Give Fulham Palace for my cot.
Let me enjoy a quiet life,
Away from controversial strife;
My daily meal should ne’er disturb
My tranquil mind! for meat or herb,
Or fish or fowl, I ne’er would look,
But leave it to my foreign cook.
My drink—I ask no better sort,
A bin of six-and-twenty port;
With now and then, to warm my veins,
Some Burgundy or brisk Champagnes.
Of cash I need no large amount,
But at the Bank a good account,
On which—(my tradesmen not to vex)—
To draw from time to time my cheques.
My simple wishes thus supplied,
I into privacy will glide;
My Bishop’s mitre I’ll resign,
And calm contentment shall be mine,
If they will only give me clear
For life—six thousand pounds a-year.
Punch. August 9, 1856.
The Pot-Boy.
Let poets sing the high-flown praise
Of shepherds and of rural joys,
Whilst I direct my humbler lays
To town, its bustle and its noise.
The Pot-boy’s joys shall be my theme,
Nor shall a barren subject be,
When rising from some lightsome dream,
Whitechapel streets he treads with glee.
Bliss is not always join’d to wealth,
Nor dwells beneath the gilded roof;
For poverty is bliss with health,
Of that my Pot-boy stands a proof.
See him with steady footsteps here,
How straight he bears the brimful jug,
And sips with thirsty lips the beer,
Which high o’ertops the pewter mug.
When night resumes her gloomy sway,
The object of his fond desire;
How happy then he’ll sport and play,
Around the blazing kitchen fire.
Then to beguile away the time,
He tells the kitchen nymphs his tale;
His left hand bears some doggrel rhyme,
And in his right—a pot of ale.
And hard must be that kitchen fair,
Who could his am’rous tale neglect;
And often Moll or Jenny dare,
For him some stouter swain reject.
Then weary to his garret hies,
Or if perchance the beds be spare,
Upon the straw he’ll close his eyes,
And sleep with Dapple or the mare.
These lines were written in August, 1808, by Connop Thirlwall, a precocious youth of eleven years of age, on the occasion of receiving the present of a copy of Bloomfield’s poem, “The Plough Boy.” The little work from which “The Pot-boy” is extracted, is entitled “Primitiæ; or Essays and Poems,” by Connop Thirlwall, with a preface by his father, the Rev, Thomas Thirlwall, M.A., who asserts that these Essays and Poems were entirely composed by his son before he was eleven years of age, a statement which requires considerable credulity from the reader.
