As mere boys they both began to write verse. They both made use of a medium other than mother tongue. Chatterton manufactured for himself a speech we cannot do better than describe as the Rowley dialect; Russell put into form the rude speech of the negro with whom he had grown up; yet he had no help in the difficult work of transcriber.
Chatterton found the tasks set for him in a lawyer's office unbearable while there was poetry in his mind to be written down; Russell was actually admitted to the bar but the Muse of Letters had marked him for her own and the courtroom knew him no more. Breaking away from the bondage of legal drudgery, Chatterton went with high hopes from Bristol to London where for a few short months "the unhappy boy" strove against starvation only at last to be overcome in the struggle for living.
Russell left Port Gibson and went to New York to enter upon a literary life but after buffetings not a few, he at last entered into the eternal rest not vouchsafed on earth to that weary, outworn body.
Chatterton may be granted place as forerunner of that noble body of poets who have had part in making the poetry of the Nineteenth Century as distinct contribution to English literature. Before Irwin Russell there were, indeed, fore-gleams of the day that was to dawn, but it may not unfairly be urged that he was the first to turn his camera on one section of our Southern life and give us a picture that has cause to be enumerated among the monuments which must be consulted as primary authorities by the historian who will picture the life and thought of the Southern people.
[WILLIAM WARD, A MISSISSIPPI POET ENTITLED TO DISTINCTION.]
BY DABNEY LIPSCOMB
A gentleman of advanced age, ripe culture, and extensive knowledge of the literature of the State, was asked, "Who is the best poet Mississippi has produced?" Promptly he replied, "William Ward of Macon." Respect for the opinion of the one who so unhesitatingly adjudged this pre-eminence among the poets of the State led to a study of William Ward's life and poetry, the result of which is now presented.
At the outset, however, let it be understood that the purpose of this essay is not to establish Mr. Ward's supremacy as a poet. Classifications of this kind in literature and elsewhere are generally unsatisfactory and often invidious, for excellencies that vary greatly in kind are not to be measured in degree. Some would doubtless accord pre-eminence to Irwin Russell for his humorous, sympathetic pictures of the quaintly sage and irrepressibly happy old-time plantation negro. Others would as likely claim this honor for James D. Lynch of West Point, who, against over two hundred poets of America, won for himself and his State, by unanimous vote of the committee of awards, the proud distinction of welcoming the nations of the world to the great Columbian Exposition, and afterward of having his salutation ode adopted as the Press Poem of America. Of him and his works more will be said on another occasion. Other classes in attempts at gradation would prefer this one or that one for reasons as different as the peculiar merits of the poet or the tastes of the admirers.
Panegyric cannot perpetuate a reputation. If so, Tupper, whose fame was predicted, would live as long as the language, would now be more than a name. Joanna Baillie, too, whom even Sir Walter Scott describes as sweeping her harp