HOMO SAPIENS.
(A Question for the next Anthropological Assembly.)
["When we consider the vast amount of time comprised in the Tertiary period ... the chances that man as at present constituted, should be a survivor from that period seem remote, and against the species Homo Sapiens having existed in Miocene times almost incalculable."—Address of the President of the Anthropological Section, Dr. John Evans, at the Leeds Meeting of the British Association.]
When then did Homo Sapiens first appear?
Upon whose speculations shall we bottom us?
Contemporary he with the cave bear,
But hardly with the earliest hippopotamus.
The happy Eocene beheld him not;
That cheerful epoch when a morning ramble
Among the mammoths, without gun or shot,
Must have been such a truly sportive scramble.
The pleasant Pliocene preceded him.
Apparently, poor bare, belated Homo;
His spectre seems to haunt, despondent, dim,
Lakes—how unlike Killarney, Wenham, Como!—
Where dens called Dwellings may have left some trace.
Before "quarternary times "—whatever they were—
Homo appears not to have shown his face.
And then its features far from gracefully gay were.
So EVANS, who the mystery of Man's birth
Into our Cosmos carefully unravels.
He seems to view with sceptical calm mirth,
Remains of Man among the river gravels.
Well, we'll relinquish Tertiary man,
Without immoderate grief, or lasting anguish.
The Pliocene, if we can grasp its plan,
Would seem an epoch when our race would languish.
The skeletons, cut animal bones, and flints,
Supposed to prove his presence, let's abandon;
But on some subjects we should like some hints;
When did he come, and what has Sapient Man done
To justify his advent? Take him now,
Apart from retrospection prehistoric,
What is the being of the lifted brow
Doing at present? Strange phantasmagoric
Pictures of his proceedings flit before
The vision of alert imagination;
Playing the brute, buffoon, "bounder," or bore,
In every climate, and in every nation!
Homo—here wasting half his hard-earned gains
Upon Leviathan Fleets and Mammoth Armies,
Spending his boasted gifts of Tongue and Brains
In Party spouting. Swearing potent charm is
In grubbing muck-rake Money on the Mart,
Or squandering it on Turf, or Gambling Table.
Squabbling o'er the Morality of Art,
Or fighting o'er the Genesis of Fable.
You'll find him—as a Frank—in comic rage,
Mouthing mad rant, fighting preposterous duels,
Scattering ordures o'er Romance's page,
And decking a swine's snout with Style's choice jewels.
You'll see him—as a Teuton—trebly taxed,
Mooning 'midst metaphysical supposes;
Twirling a huge moustache, superbly waxed,
And taking pride in slitting comrades' noses.
You'll meet him—as a Muscovite—dead set
On making civic life a sombre Hades,
Shaking a knife with tyrant's blood red-wet,
Or—aping "Paris-goods" in art, dress, ladies.
You'll spy him—as a Yankee—gassing loud
About his pride, and yet chin-deep in snobbery;
Leaving State matters to corruption's crowd,
And justifying (literary) robbery.
Whilst as a Briton! Bless us, 'twould take time
To picture Homo in his guise Britannic.
Here he is making a fine art of crime,
There he is fussing in a Puritan panic;
Here with MCMUCK he plays the prurient spy,
And there with OSCAR in a paroxysm
Of puerile paradox spreads to Cultchaw's eye
The fopperies of "Artistic Hedonism"!
Oh, EVANS, noting Man (not Tertiary)
In Church or State, the Studio or the Tavern,
One wonders—not was he contemporary
With Danish Kjökkenmöddings or Kent's Cavern,—
No, thinking of his work with Swords, Tongues, Pens,
Of most of which Wisdom would make a clearance,
One wonders whether Homo Sapiens
Has really truly yet made his appearance!
