The Lady of Lynn. Walter Besant
he was flogged for taking a volume of miscellany poems into church instead of the Book of Common Prayer. The boys were astonished at the crime, because certainly one would much rather read the Book of Common Prayer, in which one knows what to expect, than a book of foolish rhymes.
I myself was the first to find out his ambition. It was in this way. Coming out of school one day I picked up a paper which was blown about the square. It was covered with writing. I read some of it, wondering what it might mean. There was a good deal and not a word of sense from beginning to end: the writing was all scored out and corrected over and over again. Thus, not to waste your time over this nonsense, it ran something like this:
When the refulgent rays of Sol began prevail
early Day Morn
To Awakened all the maidens of the dale
Lawn
Drove Morpheus shrieking from the beds away
– from the maids and swains.
and so on. One is ashamed to repeat such rubbish. While I was reading it however, Sam Semple came running back.
"That paper is mine," he cried, with a very red face, snatching it out of my hands.
"Well – if it is yours, take it. What does it mean?"
"It's poetry, you fool."
"If you call me a fool, Sam, you'll get a black eye." He was three inches taller than myself as well as two years older – but this was the way all the boys spoke to him.
"You can't understand," he said, "none of you can understand. It's poetry, I tell you."
I told my father, who sent for him and in my presence admonished him kindly, first ordering him to submit his verses for correction, as if they were in Latin. It was after school hours: the room was empty save for the three of us – my father sat at his desk where he assumed authority. Outside the schoolroom he was but a gentle creature.
"Boy," he said, "as for these verses – I say nothing. They are but immature imitations. You would be a poet. Learn, however, that the lot of him who desires that calling is the hardest and the worst that fate can have in store for an honest man. There are many who can write rhymes: for one who has read Ovid and Virgil, the making of verse is easy. But only one or two here and there, out of millions, are there whose lips are touched with the celestial fire: only one or two whose verses can reach the heart and fire the brain of those who read them."
"Sir, may not I, too, form one of that small company?" His cheek flamed and his eyes brightened. For once Sam was handsome.
"It may be so. I say nothing to the contrary. Learn, however, that even if genius has been granted, much more will be required. He who would be a great poet must attain, if he can, by meditation and self-restraint, to the great mind. He must be sincere – truthful – courageous – think of that, boy; he must meditate. Milton's thoughts were ever on religious and civil freedom; therefore he was enabled to speak as a prophet."
He gazed upon the face of his scholar: the cheek was sallow again; the eyes dull; upon that mean countenance no sign of noble or of lofty thought. My father sighed and went on.
"It seems, to a young man, a great thing to be a poet. He will escape – will he? – the humiliations of life. He thinks that he will be no man's servant; he will be independent; he will work as his genius inclines him. Alas! he little knows the humiliations of the starveling poet. No man's servant? There is none – believe me – not even the African slave, who has to feel more of the contempts, the scorns, the servitude of the world. Such an one have I known. He had to bend the knee to the patron, who treated him with open scorn; and to the bookseller, who treated him with contempt undisguised. One may be a poet who is endowed with the means of a livelihood. Such is the ingenious Mr. Pope; or one who has an office to maintain him: such was the immortal John Milton; but, for you and such as you, boy, born in a humble condition, and ordained by Providence for that condition, there is no worse servitude than that of a bookseller's hack. Go, boy – think of these things. Continue to write verses, if by their aid you may in any way become a better man and more easily attain to the Christian life. But accept meanwhile, the ruling of Providence and do thy duty in that station of life to which thou hast been called."
So saying he dismissed the boy, who went away downcast and with hanging head.
Then my father turned to me. "Son," he said, "let no vain repinings fill thy soul. Service is thy lot. It is also mine. It is the lot of every man except those who are born to wealth and rank. I do not envy these, because much is expected of them – a thing which mostly they do not understand. And too many of these are, truth to say, in the service of Beelzebub. We are all servants of each other; let us perform our service with cheerfulness and even with joy. The Lord, who knows what is best for men, hath so ordained that we shall be dependent upon each other in all things. Servants, I say, are we all of each other. We may not escape the common lot – the common servitude."
Let me return to Sam. At the age of fourteen he was taken from school and placed in a countinghouse where his duty was to clean out, sweep, and dust the place every morning; to be at the beck and call of his master; to copy letters and to add up figures. I asked him how he liked this employment.
"It is well enough," he said, "until I can go whither I am called. But to serve at adding up the price of barrels of tarpaulin all my life! No, Jack, no. I am made of stuff too good."
He continued for three years in this employment. We then heard that he had been dismissed for negligence, his master having made certain discoveries that greatly enraged him. He then went on board ship in the capacity of clerk or assistant to the supercargo, but at the end of his first voyage he was sent about his business.
"It is true," he told me, "that there were omissions in the books. Who can keep books below, by the light of a stinking tallow candle, when one can lie on the deck in the sun and watch the waves? But these people – these people – among them all, Jack, there is not one who understands the poet, except your father, and he will have it that the poet must starve. Well, there is another way." But he would tell me no more.
That way was this. You know, because it led to the basting. The day after the adventure in the captain's garden, Sam put together all he had, borrowed what money his mother would give him and went off to London by the waggon.
After a while a letter came from him. It was addressed to his mother, who brought it to the school because she could not understand what was meant. Sam (I believe he was lying) said that he had been received into the Company of the Wits; his verse, he said, was regarded with respect at the coffee house; he was already known to many poets and booksellers; he asked for a small advance of money and he entreated his mother to let it be known in the town that he was publishing a volume of verse by subscription. His former patrons, he said, would doubtless assist him by giving their names and guineas. The book, he added, would certainly place him among the acknowledged poets of the day – even with Pope and Gay.
There was much difference of opinion as to sending the guineas: but a few of the better sort consented, and in due course received their copies. It was a thin quarto with a large margin. The title page was as follows:
"Gentleman!" said the vicar. "How long has Sam been a gentleman? He will next, no doubt, describe himself as esquire. As for the verses – trash – two-penny trash! Alas! And they cost me a guinea!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE OPENING OF THE SPA
The wonderful letter from Sam Semple was received in April. No one from the outset questioned his assertions. This seems wonderful – but they could only be tried by a letter to London or a journey thither. Now our merchants had correspondents in the city of London, but not in the fashionable quarters, and nothing is more certain than that the merchants of this city concerned themselves not at all with the pursuits of fashion or even with the gatherings of the wits in the coffee house. As for the journey to London no one will willingly undertake it unless he is compelled – You may go by way of Ely and Cambridge – but the road nearly all the way to Cambridge lies through the soft and treacherous