POETICAL IMITATION.
It has always been a pleasing office of criticism, to observe how often an excellent thought, having sprung from some master mind, or from some inferior mind in a happy moment, has been used by succeeding writers.
Homer,
"à quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis,"
has, in Il. v. 406. et seq., the following lines:
"Νήπιος, οὐδὲ τὸ οἶδε κατὰ φρένα Τυδέος υἱὸς
Ὅττι μάλ' οὐ δηναιὸς, ὃς ἀθανάτοισι μάχοιτο,
Οὐδέ τί μιν παῖδες ποτὶ γούνασι παππάζουσιν,
Ἐλθόντ' ἐκ πολέμοιο καὶ αἰνῆς δηϊοτῆτος."
"The son of Tydeus is foolish and rash, nor is aware that he who fights with the immortals is not long-lived, and that no children, as he returns from war and strife, gather round his knees to call him father."
The idea of children saluting their parent at his knees, has been adopted, and accompanied with various additions, by several subsequent authors. Among the writers in Homer's language, however, we find no imitation of it, unless the following lines of Callimachus can be regarded as taken from it:
"Πατρὸς ἐφεζομένη γονάτεσσι
Παῖς ἔτι κουρίζουσα, τάδε προσέειπε γονῆα,
Δός μοι παρθενίην αἰώνιον, ἄππα, φυλάσσειν."
"She (Diana), yet a child, sitting sportively on the knees of her father, said to him, Allow me, dear parent, to preserve a perpetual virginity."
In the Latin writers the thought occurs several times. The first in whom it is found is Lucretius:
"At jam non domus adcipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optuma, nec dulces obcurrent oscula natei
Præripere, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."
III. 907.
"But thy cheerful home shall no more receive thee, nor thy excellent wife; nor shall thy sweet children run to snatch kisses from thee, and touch thy breast with secret delight."
In whose steps Virgil treads:
"Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati;
Casta pudicitiam servat domus."
Geo. II. 523.
"His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;
His little children climbing for a kiss,
Welcome their father's late return at night;
His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight."
Dryden.
(Virgil liked the expression dulces nati. He has
"Nec mihi jam patriam antiquam spes ulla videndi,
Nec dulces natos exoptatumque parentem."
Æn. II. 137.
"Nec dulces natos, Veneris nec præmia nôris?
Æn. IV. 33.
"Sed tota in dulces consument ubera natos."
Geo. III. 178.)
Statius, doubtless, had both Lucretius and Virgil in his view, when he wrote,
"Rursus et ex illis soboles nova; grexque protervus
Nunc humeris irreptet avi, nunc agmine blando
Certatim placidæ concurrat ad oscula Pollæ."
Silv. III. i. 179.
"Again from them springs a new race; a forward little troop, which sometimes climb on the shoulders of their grandfather, and sometimes, in pleasing congress, run to catch a kiss from the gentle Polla."
Seneca, Thyest. I. 145., has another imitation:
"Exceptus gladio parvulus impio,
Dum currit patrium natus ad osculum,
Immatura focis victima concidit."
"The little Pelops, met by the impious sword, while he was running to receive his father's kiss, fell a premature victim on the hearth."
Claudian, Rapt. Proserp. III. 173., has another:
"Hæc post cunabula dulci
Ferre sinu, summoque Jovi deducere parvam
Sueverat, et genibus ludentem aptare paternis."
"She was accustomed to bear the little infant, after it had slept in its cradle, in her fragrant bosom, to present it to almighty Jove, and to place it sporting on its father's knees."
But the best adaptations and expansions of the thought have been among the writers of our own country. The earliest allusion to it, I believe, occurs in Thomson's description of the traveller lost in the snow:
"In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence! Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home.
Winter, 311.
But this is a less pointed imitation than that of Gray, which succeeded it. Gray had his eye on Lucretius:
"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share."
Next followed Collins, in his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands, who, however, seems to have had Thomson chiefly in view:
"For him, in vain, his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him, in vain, at to-fall of the day,
His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate:
Ah! ne'er shall he return."
To him succeeded Dyer:
"The little smiling cottage, when at eve
He meets his rosy children at the door,
Prattling their welcomes, and his honest wife,
———————————————— intent
To cheer his hunger after labour hard."
Fleece, Book I. 120.
Burns has a picture equal to any of these:
"At length his lonely cot appears in view
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree:
Th' expectant wee things, todlin', stacher through
To meet their dad with flichterin' noise and glee:
His wee-bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil."
Cotter's Saturday Night.
Burns may have taken the thought from Gray, or some other English source. But he has not disgraced it by his mode of treating it.
Allen Ramsay, in his Gentle Shepherd, has a very pretty allusion to children, which I have not at hand to consult, but which concludes with,
"While all they ettle at, their greatest wis',
Is to be made o', and obtain a kiss."
J. S. W.
Stockwell.
A GLOUCESTER DITTY.
(From an Old Broadside without date.)
Come, my very merry gentle people, only list a minute,
For tho' my song may not be long there's something comic in it;
A stranger I, yet, by the bye, I've ventured in my ditty,
To say a word at parting, just in praise of Gloucester city.
The Romans they this city built, and many folks came down here,
Kings Richard, Henry, John, and Ned, did visit Glo'ster town here;
King William dined each Christmas here, and Glo'ster folks it pleases,
To know the food he relished most was double Berkeley cheeses.
The ladies, Heaven bless 'em all! as sure as I've a nose on,
In former times had only thorns and skewers to stick their clothes on;
No damsel then was worth a pin, whate'er it might have cost her,
Till gentle Johnny Tilsby came, and invented pins in Glo'ster.
Your fine cathedral when I saw, tho' much I was delighted,
Yet in the whisp'ring gallery I got most sadly frighted;
Some question there I asked myself, when not a soul was near me,
And suddenly an answer came, as if the walls could hear me.
The Severn full of salmon fine enriches low and high land,
And then, for more variety, you've got a little island;
Of which I've read a Taylor's Tale, a dozen verses long, sirs,
And may I go to Old Harry, if it's not a clever song, sirs.
George Ridler's oven, I've been told, contains some curious jokes, sirs,
And much of it is said by many Glo'ster folks, sirs;
But ovens now are serious things, and from my soul I wish, sirs,
Your ovens here many ne'er want bread to fill the poor man's dish, sirs.
Now if you will but all forgive this slight attempt at rhyme, sirs,
I'll promise, like the little boys, to mend another time, sirs;
May health, with every blessing, join this company to foster,
Till, with your leave, some future time I come again to Glo'ster.
GEORGE RIDLER'S OVEN.
(From a Broadside.)
The stwons that built George Ridler's oven,
And thauy keum from the Bleakeley's Quaar;
And George he wur a jolly old mon,
And his yead it grawed above his yare.
One thing of George Ridler I must commend,
And that wur vur a notable theng;
He meud his braags avoore he died,
Wi' ony dree brothers his zons should zeng.
There's Dick the Treble and John the Mean,
(Let ev'ry mon zeng in his auwn pleace)
And George he wur the elder brother,
And therevoore he would zeng the Beass.
Mine Hostess' moid (and her neaum 'twur Nell),
A pretty wench, and I loved her well;
I loved her well, good reazun whoy,
Because zhe loved my dog and I.
My dog is good to catch a hen,
A duck or goose is vood vor men;
And where good company I spy,
O thether gwoes my dog and I.
My mother told I when I wur young,
If I did vollow the strong beer pwoot,
That drenk would pruv my auverdrow,
And meaak me vear the thread bare cwoart.
My dog has gotten sich a troick,
To visit moids when thoiy be zick;
When thoiy be zick and loik to die,
O, thether gwoes my dog and I.
When I have dree zixpences under my thumb,
O, then I be welcome wherever I keum;
But when I have none, O then I pass by,
'Tis poverty pearts good company.
If I should die as it may hap,
My greauve shall be under the green yeal tap;
In voulded earmes there wool us lie,
Cheek by jowl, my dog and I.
The foregoing is a very famous old Gloucestershire ballad, corrected according to the fragments of a MS. found in the Speech-house of Dean several centuries ago, and used to be sung at the meetings of the Gloucestershire Society, a charitable institution held at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand.
Both these ballads are literally copied from the Broadsides.
H. G. D.