"Folk say, a wizard to a Northern King
At Christmastide such wondrous things did show
That through one window men beheld the Spring,
And through another saw the Summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines arow,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day."
William Morris has not seldom been confused with a writer with whom he had nothing in common but the name. Sir Lewis Morris1833-, a Welsh squire, and candidate for Parliament, has stood for convention as decisively as William Morris has stood against it. His "Songs of Two Worlds" (1871-5), and "Epic of Hades" (1876), brought him a considerable popularity, which "A Vision of Saints," and later books have not been able to maintain. Another literary knight of our time who has secured a large share of public attention through his verse is Sir Edwin Arnold1832-, whose "Light of Asia" interpreted to many the story of Buddha's career. A poem upon Christ and Christianity "The Light of the World," owed the fact of its smaller success to the greater familiarity of the public with its main incidents. Sir Edwin Arnold has won other laurels as a traveller and as a journalist.
Some of the best poetry of the era has been produced by writers whose principal achievements are in the realm of prose. The Brontës, Charles Kingsley, George Meredith, and George Eliot—to name but a few—all wrote verse which must ultimately have secured attention had they not made great reputations as novelists.
Assuredly, the three most successful poems in Victorian literature, of that portion of it which is already passing into oblivion, are "Proverbial Philosophy," "Festus," and "Philip Van Artevelde." The "Proverbial Philosophy" of Martin Farquhar Tupper1810-1889 created an excitement in literary and non-literary circles, which it is difficult for the present generation to comprehend. It is true that when it was first published, in 1838, it was greeted by the Athenaeum as "a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's." In spite of this, it sold in thousands and hundreds of thousands; it went through over nine hundred editions in England, and five hundred thousand copies at least were sold in America. It was translated into French, German, and many other tongues; its author was a popular hero, although of his later books, including "Ballads for the Times," "Raleigh, his Life and Death," and "Cithara," the very names are by this time forgotten. Of "Proverbial Philosophy" itself there are few enough copies in demand to-day, and it is difficult for us to place ourselves in the position of those who felt its charm. What to the early Victorian Era was counted for wisdom, and piety, and even for beauty, counts to the present age for mere commonplace verbiage. Tupper's name has taken a place in our language as the contemptuous synonym for a poetaster. "Festus," on the other hand, although not read to-day, has always commanded respectful attention. Its author, Philip James Bailey1816-, wrote "Festus" in its first form, at the age of twenty, and it was published in 1839. The book was enlarged again and again, till it reached to three times its original length. It may be that this enlargement has had something to do with its fate. "Festus" was frequently compared to the best work of Goethe and of Mr Browning. Even a more pronounced recognition accrued to the dramatic poems of Sir Henry Taylor1800-1886, and more particularly to "Philip Van Artevelde" (1834), which was described by the Quarterly Review as "the noblest effort in the true old taste of our English historical drama, that has been made for more than a century," and which attracted the keenest attention of all Sir Henry Taylor's contemporaries. His entertaining "Autobiography" has told us that Taylor, who was an important official at the Colonial Office, knew all the famous men of his time.