Edmund Waller was the son of a country gentleman. He attended Cambridge and was sent to Parliament before he was twenty. Rich by birth, he added to his wealth by marrying an heiress who died young and left him free to marry again, which he did. He lived among people of fashion and wealth, and though he was sent into exile for a short time because of a treasonable conspiracy in which he engaged, he was soon restored to general favor. He died in good circumstances of old age.
Thomas Otway was the son of a rector. He left college without a degree. He went into gay society and mingled his literary labor with dissipation. He was, for a short time, an officer in the army. He fell upon evil days, and when threatened with starvation, borrowed a guinea from a total stranger. With this he bought himself a roll, but he was so ravenous that he attempted to bolt it at one mouthful and so choked himself to death.
Which one of these men might properly be said to have led the literary life?
You need not be surprised to find in your paper some morning an advertisement to this effect: “Wanted—Some definite information concerning the character and habitat of the Literary Life.” But if you know anything about it, don’t wait for the advertisement, but send on your information at once. I think maybe I would be willing to try it myself. Certainly somebody ought to live it.
I am, Sir,
A. J. Penn.
THE POETIC LICENSE
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: Your recent strictures upon a certain poem by John Masefield, and the general tenor of several other volumes of verse recently published, have moved me to address you upon a subject which holds considerable interest for me; and that, Sir, is the scope and legitimacy of what is commonly called “the poetic license”. To what does this license extend and by whom is it granted? Is there no way in which it may be regulated by law?
This matter of the poetic license is a source of continual annoyance to me. I find it invoked upon all occasions. I find that it is considered a sufficient answer to any criticisms or charges that may be brought against a poet. I am curious to know if there is any real authority for it; if it is not, in fact, a mere figment of the imagination, a polite fiction of letters invented by men of letters for the purpose of confounding the layman and depriving him of his natural right to pass an opinion upon all that he reads?