Caliban Upon Rudiments[1] Or Autoschediastic Theology In A Hole. Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments!‘Thinketh one made them i’ the fit o’ the blues. ‘Thinketh one made them with the ‘tips’ to match,But not the answers; ‘doubteth there be none,Only Guides, Helps, Analyses, such as that:Also this Beast, that groweth sleek thereon,And snow-white bands that round the […]

Adown the torturing mile of streetI mark him come and go,Thread in and out with tireless feetThe crossings to and fro;A soul that treads without retreatA labyrinth of woe. Palsied with awe of such despair,All living things give room,They flit before his sightless glareAs horrid shapes, that loomAnd shriek the curse that bids him bearThe […]

O waly, waly, my bonnie crewGin ye maun bumpit be!And waly, waly, my Stroke sae true,Ye leuk unpleasauntlie! O hae ye suppit the sad sherrieThat gars the wind gae soon;Or hae ye pud o’ the braw bird’s-e’e,Ye be sae stricken doun? I hae na suppit the sad sherrie,For a’ my heart is sair;For Keiller’s still […]

By E. A. P. In the sad and sodden street,To and fro,Flit the fever-stricken feetOf the freshers as they meet,Come and go,Ever buying, buying, buyingWhere the shopmen stand supplying,Vying, vyingAll they know,While the Autumn lies a-dyingSad and lowAs the price of summer suitings when the winter breezes blow,Of the summer, summer suitings that are standing […]

Plain Language from truthful James[1]. Do I sleep? Do I dream?Am I hoaxed by a scout?Are things what they seem,Or is Sophists about?Is our “to ti en einai” a failure, or is Robert Browning playedout? Which expressions like theseMay be fairly appliedBy a party who seesA Society skiedUpon tea that the Warden of Keble had […]

By Sir W. S. Written on the occasion of the visit of the United Fire Brigades to Oxford, 1887. I. St. Giles’s street is fair and wide,St. Giles’s street is long;But long or wide, may naught abideTherein of guile or wrong;For through St. Giles’s, to and fro,The mild ecclesiastics goFrom prime to evensong.It were a […]

Unity Put Quarterly[1]By A. C. S. The Centuries kiss and commingle,Cling, clasp, and are knit in a chain;No cycle but scorns to be single,No two but demur to be twain,‘Till the land of the lute and the love-taleBe bride of the boreal breast,And the dawn with the darkness shall dovetail,The East with the West. The […]

Designed to show that the practice of lying is not confined to children. By the late W. W. (of H.M. Inland Revenue Service). And is it so? Can Folly stalkAnd aim her unrespecting dartsIn shades where grave Professors walkAnd Bachelors of Arts? I have a boy, not six years old,A sprite of birth and lineage […]

March 17, 1894. Professor Skeat’s Chaucer. After twenty-five years of close toil, Professor Skeat has completed his great edition of Chaucer.[A] It is obviously easier to be dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitæ meæ at the conclusion of […]

January 5, 1805. “The Passionate Pilgrim.” The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). Reprinted with a Note about the Book, by Arthur L. Humphreys. London: Privately Printed by Arthur L. Humphreys, of 187, Piccadilly. MDCCCXCIV. I was about to congratulate Mr. Humphreys on his printing when, upon turning to the end of this dainty little volume, I discovered […]

April 13, 1895. Robinson Crusoe. Many a book has produced a wide and beneficent effect and won a great reputation, and yet this effect and this reputation have been altogether wide of its author’s aim. Swift’s Gulliver is one example. As Mr. Birrell put it the other day, “Swift’s gospel of hatred, his testament of […]

Dec. 10, 1891. Sterne and Thackeray. It is told by those who write scraps of Thackeray’s biography that a youth once ventured to speak disrespectfully of Scott in his presence. “You and I, sir,” said the great man, cutting him short, “should lift our hats at the mention of that great name.” An admirable rebuke!–if […]

April 21, 1894. William Browne of Tavistock. It has been objected to the author of Britannia’s Pastorals that their perusal sends you to sleep. It had been subtler criticism, as well as more amiable, to observe that you can wake up again and, starting anew at the precise point where you dropped off, continue the […]

July 28, 1894. A Note on his Name. Even as there is an M alike in Macedon and Monmouth, so Thomas Carew and I have a common grievance–that our names are constantly mispronounced. It is their own fault, of course; on the face of it they ought to rhyme with “few” and “vouch.” And if […]

August 25, 1894. Shakespeare’s Lyrics. In their re-issue of The Aldine Poets, Messrs. George Bell & Sons have made a number of concessions to public taste. The new binding is far more pleasing than the old; and in some cases, where the notes and introductory memoirs had fallen out of date, new editors have been […]

February 24, 1894. Samuel Daniel. The writings of Samuel Daniel and the circumstances of his life are of course well enough known to all serious students of English poetry. And, though I cannot speak on this point with any certainty, I imagine that our younger singers hold to the tradition of all their fathers, and […]

Dec. 5, 1891. Cambridge Baras. What I am about to say will, no doubt, be set down to tribal malevolence; but I confess that if Cambridge men appeal to me less at one time than another it is when they begin to talk about their poets. The grievance is an old one, of course–at least […]

Feb. 9, 1895. Henry Kingsley. Mr. Shorter begins his Memoir of the author of Ravenshoe with this paragraph:– “The story of Henry Kingsley’s life may well be told in a few words, because that life was on the whole a failure. The world will not listen very tolerantly to a narrative of failure unaccompanied by […]

January 10, 1891. His Life. Alexander William Kinglake was born in 1812, the son of a country gentleman–Mr. W. Kinglake, of Wilton House, Taunton–and received a country gentleman’s education at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. From college he went to Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1837 was called to the Chancery Bar, where he practised with […]

Nov. 12, 1892. Mr. Gilbert Parker. Mr. Gilbert Parker’s book of Canadian tales, “Pierre and His People” (Methuen and Co.), is delightful for more than one reason. To begin with, the tales themselves are remarkable, and the language in which they are told, though at times it overshoots the mark by a long way and […]