My Life as an Author

by Martin Farquhar Tupper

PRIZE POEMS, ETC.

In the course of my Oxford career I tried for two Newdigate Prize poems, "The Suttees" and the "African Desert," won respectively by Claughton, now Bishop of St. Albans, and Rickards, whose honours of course I ought to know, but don't. A good-looking and well-speaking friend of mine, E. H. Abney, now a Canon, was so certain that the said prizes in those two successive years were to fall to me, that he learnt my poems by heart in order to recite them as my speech-substitute in the Sheldonian Theatre at Commemoration, and he used frequently to look in upon me to be coached in his recital. It was rumoured that I came second on both occasions,—one of them certainly had a 2 marked on it when returned to me, but I know not who placed it there. However, my pieces were afterwards printed; both separately, and among my "Ballads and Poems," by Hall and Virtue, and are now before me. As an impartial and veteran judge of such literaria, I am bold to say they are far better than I thought, and might fairly have won Newdigate prizes, even as friend Abney & Co. were sure they would.

At the close of my University career came, of course, the Great Go, which I had to do as I did the Little Go, all on paper; for I could not answer vivâ voce. And this rule then, whatever may be the case now, prevented me from going in for honours, though I had read for a first, and hoped at least to get a second. Neither of these, nor even a third class, was technically possible, if I could not stand a two days' ordeal of vivâ voce examination, part of the whole week then exacted. However, I did all at my best on paper, specially the translations from classic poets in verse: whereof I'll find a specimen anon. The issue of all was that I was offered an honorary fourth class,—which I refused, as not willing to appear at the bottom of the list of all, alphabetically,—and so my tutor, Mr. Biscoe, not wishing to lose the honour for our college, managed to get it transferred to another of his pupils, Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose father wrote to thank me for this unexpected though not unmerited luck falling to his son.

One short presentable piece of verse-making in the schools is as below from Virgil: there were also three odes of Horace, a chorus from Æschylus, and more from other Greek and Latin poets.

"Sicilian Muses, sing we loftier strains!
The humble tamarisk and woodland plains
Delight not all; if woods and groves we try,
Be the groves worthy of a consul's eye.
Told by the Sibyl's song, the 'latter time'
Is come, and dispensations roll sublime
In new and glorious order; spring again
With Virgo comes, and Saturn's golden reign.
A heavenly band from heaven's bright realm descends,
All evil ceases, and all discord ends.
Do thou with favouring eye, Lucina chaste,
Regard the wondrous babe,—his coming haste,—
For under him the iron age shall cease,
And the vast world rejoice in golden peace," &c. &c.

I select this bit, famous for being one of the places in Virgil which goes to prove that the Sibylline books (to which the Augustan poets had easy access) quoted Isaiah's prophecies of Christ and the Millennium. It will be considered that my public versifying was quite extempore, as in fact is common with me. For other college memories in the literary line, I may just mention certain brochures or parodies, initialed or anonymous, whereto I must now plead guilty for the first time; reflecting, amongst other topics, on Montgomery's Oxford, St. Mary's theology, Mr. Rickard's "African Desert," and Garbet's pronounced and rather absurd aestheticism as an examiner. Here are morsels of each in order:—

"Who praises Oxford?—some small buzzing thing,
Some starveling songster on a tiny wing,—
(N.B. They call the insect Bob, I know,
I heard a printer's devil call it so)—
So fondly tells his admiration vast
No one can call the chastened strains bombast,
Though epitheted substantives immense
Claim for each lofty sound the caret sense," &c. &c.

Next, a bit from my Low Church onslaught on St. Mary's in the Hampden case, being part of "The Oxford Controversy":—

"Though vanquished oft, in falsehood undismayed,
Like heretics in flaming vest arrayed
Each angry Don lifts high his injured head,
Or 'stands between the living and the dead.'
Still from St. Mary's pulpit echoes wide
Primó, beware of truth, whate'er betide;
Deinde, from deep Charybdis while you steer
Lest damned Socinus charm you with his sneer,
Watch above all, so not Saint Thomas spake,
Lest upon Calvin, Scylla's rook, you break," &c. &c.

These forgotten trivials, wherein the allusions do not now show clear, are, I know, barely excusable even thus curtly: but I choose to save a touch or two from annihilation. Here is another little bit; this time from a somewhat vicious parody on my rival Rickard's prize poem: it is fairest to produce at length first his serious conclusion to the normal fifty-liner, and then my less reverent imitation of it. Here, then, is the end of Rickard's poem:—