TWO VOLUMES OF LIGHT VERSE.*

A VOLUME like this of Mr. Godley's is a perfect godsend to the indolent ,reviewer. It is so slim that it can be read through in half an hour, it is full of good things, and lends itself excellently to quotation. It is hardly necessary to insist on the writer's fortunate equipment. He is a scholar, a dexterous, if not always a fastidious, tech- nician, and an Irishman,—though we regret to observe that, possibly owing to long contact with the Sassenach, he has allowed an occasional Cockney rhyme to mar the euphony of his otherwise finished versification. His point of view is, in II sense, academic. It might occasionally give pain, say, to Professor Armstrong. But while in the main a defender of the status quo, his love for his alma mater is tempered by a shrewd sense of her imperfections. The spectacle of the "young barbarians all at play" moves him to genial satire at the expense of record-worship and the apotheosis of the Blue : "In those old monastic cloisters where the learned meet to dine He's the theme of envious tutors while they sit beside their wine ; They neglect their ancient studies, and the books upon their shelves

Are the latest works on cricket—which they do not play themselves.

Yes! the Don no more dilates On the facts and on the dates

Which will benefit his pupils when he sends them in for Greats; For the columns of the Sportsman are the only thing he knows, And he sets them to his scholars as a piece for Latin Prose.

• (1-) —(2.) Smith.

Second Strings. By A. D. Godley. London : Methuen and Co. [2s. 6d.] Baliehis of the Boer War : Medal from the Haversack of Sergeant By " Coldstresuner." London: Grant Richards. [3s. 641.)

• Ye magnificent young athletes ! whom we contemplate with awe, Whose behaviour is our model and whose wishes are our law—

Who to honour your successes burn our chairs and tables, while E'en the owner acquiesces with a simulated smile, Simply asking now and then If you're ordinary men, Or phenomena celestial who are granted to our ken, Take this humble little lay From a reverent M.A.

As the only act of homage he is competent to pay—

For the truth's as old as Pindar, that the only thing to do Is to court the approbation and indulgence of a Blue!"

On the other hand, Mr. Godley does not spare the zealots for efficiency who clamour for revolutionary reorganisation. His delightful "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Oriel College "— that

"Blest spot where childlike Learning sits

Remote from worldly cares, And leaves to skilled financiers its Pecuniary affairs "—

foreshadows, with the exaggeration permitted to a humourist, the dangers of the cosmopolitan invasion engineered by Mr. Rhodes's Trust, and of the novel conditions under which his scholars are to be elected :— " Then though they come in shoals and scores

From lands of various names, Though MiuTumbidgee daily pours His waters in the Thames : Though ' Cornstalks ' stalking in the Corn Affright th' unwonted don, And men in Patagonia born Surprise the Bursch from Bonn : Though from each state Columbia's soil Supply an undergrad., And all Australia come to boil Its billy in the quad :— Not mine decanally to cope With students from thy Cape, Good Hope, Or Germans on the Spree : Britannia's youth supplies a scope Sufficient quite for me : —Or if compelled for Mods. or Greats Colonial undergraduates With classic lore to cram, Full blest I'll deem their humble lot Who by capitalists forgot Inhabit some sequestered spot

Beside the waves of Cam !"

Dons are not always sympathetic towards schoolmasters. and Mr. Godley is perhaps a little unkind to the pedagogue who "is spending his Easter vacation with Lunn and Perowne." But the satire, if slightly cruel, is most felicitously expressed :--

"From Harrow and Rugby and Clifton, Released from the birch and the boy,

The teachers of youth are adrift on The waves that will waft them to Troy,

To Athens of cities the fairest, /Egina, bright gem of the sea,—

Dear land of the augment and aorist, Of 01,, and of Mi !

• . • Whene'er o'er the spaces of Ocean From Cyclad to Cyclad they gad (Still mindful that phrases of motion Omit, with an island, the ad), In fancy they'll dream of the classes At home which they nurture with tips, And voAvooiallow OaAdocrnr

Will leap to their lips!"

Mr. Godley is at times inclined to choose hackneyed models --e.g., "If you're anxious for to shine "—one or two of the pieces are almost too parochial in their subjects, and others- e.g., the retaliatory verses addressed to the Daily Chronicle— have lost their point owing to the altered attitude of that journal. But these are trifling blemishes in a singularly enjoyable little book. We hope that none of our readers will run away with the idea that we have discounted the pleasures of perusal by taking toll too freely of its contents. Further acquaintance will probably induce them to wonder at our

moderation.

Beyond the possession of fluency and wit, there is nothing in common between the detached Academicism of Mr. Godley and the shrewd but somewhat savage Philistinism of " Coldatreamer's " Ballads of the Boer War. We may not like the tone of some of the pieces, but they undoubtedly illustrate the point of view of a certain class of " Tommy " with consistency and force. The attitude of "Sergeant J. Smith" towards the Irish and Highland regiments and the Auxiliary Forces is not magnanimous—the sneers at the C.I.V. might well have been spared—but it is intelligible. As he puts it:7-

"For if you ain't a Volunteer, Or in some long-legged 'Ighland corps, Nor yet a Dublin Fusilier, You won't get wrote about no more Than h'if 'twas jam, not blood, you'd spilt ;— My ! 'ow the Public loves a Kilt!"

The vigorous and powerful poem on "The Native" is not

pleasant reading, but d propos of the high payment of the Kaffirs the writer scores a point :— " I ain't no grumbler, 'Eaven knows, Nor yet I doesn't 'old with those As sees the darkest side;

But when I finds I'm h'earning less Than 'eathen niggers, H'I confess As 'ow it 'urts my pride.

I'm 'anged if H'I'll be 'number two' To Golly Belly Black man Boo!

I lay as I can gauge the worth 0' h'any niggerma,n h'on earth ; I know 'e don't possess The manners of a h'indoor dog, Nor yet th' morals of a 'og, Nor no ideas o' dress.

An' when I sees 'im pouch 'is tin I wonders where do I come in ! "

The defence of the "stupid officer" and "The Queen's Chocolate" show Sergeant Smith in a more genial and engaging mood; while the tedium of life in a blockhouse— "like a 'ornet under a glass "—is vividly described in a really humorous set of verses. The incongruity of the literature supplied is hit off in some excellent doggereL The narrator tells us how a sack of papers arrived, and proceeds to catalogue its contents :—

"A couple o' Daily Graphics,

Which was good, if they wasn't new, An' a 'opeless sort of a magazine With the longest words as h'ever I seen, Called the National Review.

Still I was fairly lucky,

For Dick,—'e's our 'envy-weight,-- 'Ad a dozen copies o' Woman's Chat, With Seven ways for to trim a 'at' An' a 'Supplement Fashion Plate ' !

Joe got a WAthzmaeum, Which 'e never even tried,

A couple o' numbers of Sporting Tips, A Weekly Times an' a 'Alfpenny Snips,

And a Bradshaw's Monthly Guide.

Bless you! I ain't no grumbler, I'm only a-'aving my fun ;

I'm grateful enough, Gawd knows, an' yet I misses my weekly Plies Gazette

An' my h'extry special Sun."

What Sergeant Smith would have said of the Spectator we tremble to think. One is reminded of John Finsbury's ex- clamation in The Wrong Box, "Golly! what a paper," when his brother Morris sent him a literary weekly. There is. in short, unquestionably a good deal of human nature in this book, and as an expression of sentiments which have remained hitherto inarticulate, or have only been hinted at by more serious or more pretentious writers,—as a revelation not always edifying, but often illuminating, of the heart of the man in the ranks, this little volume is a distinct

addition to the literature of the war.