Chapter IV.
“Poeta nascitur non fit,” is a trite but wise aphorism. Few men have selected such varied subjects as my friend Rivers, and few have dealt with their choice so successfully. Unlike your modern writers, who put on one suit of similes and wear it threadbare (such as Alessandro Smiffini, for instance, who is never tired of gazing at the moon or dipping in the sea), Pellucid’s kindly nature immortalises even the most trivial occurrences of his life. The following extract from his works will show what I mean. Unblessed with riches, he had incurred a small bill at a restaurant, in the neighbourhood of his lodgings, and one night the proprietor of the hostelry effected an entrance into his apartment, and refused to quit until the claim was settled. This circumstance, which would have discomposed a less happy mind, gave him the idea for a set of verses, which he named “The Tankard,” and which he calls, “A Domestic Scene turned into Poetry.” Again, on this manuscript is a pencilled query (in the same writing to which I have before alluded), “Does he mean Edgar Poe—try?” I confess this joke is beyond my poor powers of brain. Perhaps my readers will be able to interpret it, when they read the verses, which run thus:—
THE TANKARD.
Sitting in my lonely chamber, in this dreary, dark December,
Gazing on the whitening ashes of my fastly-fading fire,
Pond’ring o’er my misspent chances with that grief which time enhances—
Misdirected application, wanting aims and objects higher,—
Aims to which I should aspire.
As I sat thus wond’ring, thinking, fancy unto fancy linking,