By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects. Adams William Henry Davenport
assumed, from the rhythmic character of Mr. Ruskin’s prose, that he had at one time ‘dropped into poetry.’ Such a master of rhetoric could hardly have gone through life without wooing the Muse of Song, however temporarily or unsuccessfully. It would not have been natural for him to have done so. And, indeed, it is probable that no great prose rhetorician has failed to pay the same homage to the charm of verbal melody and cadence. In all the most sonorous prose turned out by English authors there will be found a lilt and a swing which would without difficulty translate themselves into verse. ‘Most wretched men,’ says Shelley, ‘are cradled into poetry by wrong.’ Most literary men have been cradled into it by their irresistible feeling and aptitude for rhythm, together with that general poetic sensibility which is rarely absent from the nature of the literary artist. Certain it is that practice in verse has always been recognised as the best of all preparation for work in prose, and no doubt much of Mr. Ruskin’s success as prose-producer has been owing to his early devotion to the Muse.
He himself tells us, in the course of his tribute to his ‘first editor’ (W. H. Harrison), that
‘A certain capacity for rhythmic cadence (visible enough in all my later writings), and the cheerfulness of a much-protected but not foolishly-indulged childhood, made me early a rhymester.’
And he adds – the tribute was paid in 1878 —
‘A shelf of the little cabinet by which I am now writing is loaded with poetical effusions which were the delight of my father and mother, and which I have not got the heart to burn.’
A much fuller account of the poetic stages through which he passed in childhood is given by Mr. Ruskin in his ‘Præterita,’ where he tells us of the six ‘poems’ he brought forth in his seventh year (1826), one of them being on the subject of the steam-engine, and rejoicing in such couplets as:
‘When furious up from mines the water pours,
And clears from rusty moisture all the ores.’
Another, on the rainbow, was in blank verse and impressively didactic in its tone. Then, when he was nine years old, he broke out with yet another effusion, called ‘Eudosia;’ and when only eleven he began the composition of an elaborate ‘poetical’ description of his various journeyings, under the title of ‘Iteriad.’
It is easy to understand how this fondness for the rhythmical was fostered by the aforesaid parental admiration, and how it was still further increased by the boy’s admiration, successively, for Scott and Byron. Certain early friendships held out to the young versifier the prospect of publication, and thus it is that we find him, in his sixteenth year, figuring as a contributor to ‘Friendship’s Offering and Winter’s Wreath: a Christmas and New Year’s Present’ for 1835. This was the era of the old-fashioned ‘annuals,’ and ‘Friendship’s Offering’ was one of the most notable of its kind. In the issue for the year named we note Barry Cornwall, John Clare, William Howitt, and H. F. Chorley among the writers of whom the youthful Ruskin was one. Here, by the side of really excellent steel-engravings, portraying languishing ladies in corkscrew curls, and illustrating literary matter not always unworthy of the embellishment given to it, we discover Mr. Ruskin’s first published verses – ‘Salzburg’ and some ‘Fragments’ of a poetical journal, kept on tour. In the former we seem to detect the influence of Rogers, rather than that of Scott or Byron. It opens thus:
‘On Salza’s quiet tide the westering sun
Gleams mildly; and the lengthening shadows dun,
Chequered with ruddy streaks from spire and roof,
Begin to weave fair twilight’s mystic woof;
Till the dim tissue, like a gorgeous veil,
Wraps the proud city, in her beauty pale.’
A little further on we read:
‘Sweet is the twilight hour by Salza’s strand,
Though no Arcadian visions grace the land;
Wakes not a sound that floats not sweetly by,
While day’s last beams upon the landscape die;
Low chants the fisher where the waters pour,
And murmuring voices melt along the shore;
The plash of waves comes softly from the side
Of passing barge slow gliding o’er the tide;
And there are sounds from city, field, and hill,
Shore, forest, flood; yet mellow all, and still.’
Herein, it will be seen, is something of the power of description which the writer was afterwards to exhibit so much more effectively in prose.
Four years later Mr. Ruskin’s initials were to be seen appended to a couple of pieces in verse contributed to ‘The Amaranth,’ an annual of much more imposing presence than the ‘Offering’ – edited by T. K. Hervey, admirably illustrated, and happy in the practical support of such literary lights as Horace Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Sheridan Knowles, Thomas Hood, Praed, and Mrs. Browning. One of the two pieces in question is ‘The Wreck,’ in which Mr. Ruskin’s poetic capability, such as it is, is visible in one of its most attractive moods. The last verse runs:
‘The voices of the night are mute
Beneath the moon’s eclipse;
The silence of the fitful flute
Is in the dying lips!
The silence of my lonely heart
Is kept for ever more
In the lull
Of the waves
Of a low lee shore.’
To the same year belong contributions to the London Monthly Miscellany and the prize poem (‘Salsette and Elephanta’) before-mentioned. In the Miscellany appeared some lines which, in certain respects, are a species of anticipation of the Swinburnian manner; as, for example:
‘We care not what skies are the clearest,
What scenes are the fairest of all;
The skies and the scenes that are dearest
For ever, are those that recall
To the thoughts of the hopelessly-hearted
The light of the dreams that deride,
With the form of the dear and departed,
Their loneliness, weary and wide.’
It may be assumed that ‘Salsette and Elephanta’ has been read by all who care about the undertaking. It was recited in the theatre at Oxford, printed in the same year (1839), and reprinted exactly forty years afterwards. It is a by no means unattractive piece of rhetoric.
Another of the annuals to which Mr. Ruskin contributed in those days was the Keepsake, in which he figured in 1845, under the editorship of the Countess of Blessington, with Landor, Monckton Milnes, Lord John Manners, and the future Lord Beaconsfield as fellow-contributors. He was also welcomed to the pages of Heath’s Book of Beauty. Five years later he collected his fugitive pieces, and, adding a few new ones, included the whole in a volume privately circulated in 1850. Copies of this book are said to have been bought at sales, at different times, for £31 and 41 guineas. Six years ago, a selection from the ‘Annual’ verses was published, together with the prize poem and other matter, in America.
Glancing through Mr. Ruskin’s verse, one is forced to admit that it has no special individuality or charm. It deals with conventional subjects in a more or less conventional manner. There is a classical element, and a flavour of foreign scenery, and an occasional excursion in the direction of such topics as ‘Spring,’ ‘The Months,’ ‘The Old Water Wheel,’ ‘The Old Seaman,’ ‘Remembrance,’ ‘The Last Smile,’ and the like. The rhythm is always regular and flowing, and the descriptive passages have light and colour; but the ‘lyric cry’ has no particular tone that could attract the public. The longest piece ever written by Mr. Ruskin