MR. LANGBRIDGE'S POEMS.*

Mn. LANGIBRIDGE has plenty of humour and pathos, and a very genuine appreciation of beauty too. Moreover, he can tell a story well and dramatically,—sometimes rather melodramati- cally, in a style that reminds us of the old Adelphi melo- drama, as, for instance, in "After Ten Years,"—but he is

almost always at his best with children's fancies and the pathetic simplicity of their love. Such ballads as "Exit Tommy," the account of the little fellow's farewell on his death-bed to all his favourites, his toys and his animals, especially his pet rabbit ; or," Sammy," the crippled child, who sells his go-cart to get the means of providing his sick, in- temperate father with something that would tempt his

appetite after one of his fits of delirium tremens ; or "The Demon of the Pit," the simple little girl who acts "the demon of the pit" every night, though in the daytime she is the most natural and childish of children, are admirable specimens of the mingled pathos and humour of which Mr. Langbridge is master, We must say, however, that he seems to us to be over-fond of the use of slang in his " dialect " sketches,—for example, in" Job Sanderson's Mind," "Seth Baker," and others, where he uses it a great deal too lavishly, and with apparent delight in the mere grotesqueness of slang as slang, when it more or less injures the effect of either the pathos or the tragedy, and makes the reader dwell more on the coarseness and poverty of the material out of which the

effects of pathos or of tragedy are carved, than even on the pathetic or tragic effect itself. Two of the ballads which had a good deal to answer for in popularising this use of slang for poetical purposes were Mr. John Hay's" Little Breeches" and "Jim Bludso," which are written in very effective American slang, the use of which undoubtedly enhances the con- trast between the profane familiarity of the narrator's attitude of mind and language, and the depth of reli- gious conviction which they are made to express. -Our readers will doubtless recollect the story of the frightened team which dashed off into the deep snow of the prairie with the four-years-old child, and how the father falls on his knees in the snow to pray for help :—

"By this the torches was played out, And me and Isrul Parr

Went off for some wood to a sheepfold That he said was somewher than

• A Crpokad Fiddle : being a Selection from the Poems of Frederick Langbricive. Limerick : G. MoKorn and gone. London; Methuen and co. •

We found it at last, and a little shed Where they shut up the lambs at night ; We looked in and seen them huddled thar, So warm and sleepy and white ;

And thar sot little Breeches, and chirped As peart as ever you see, I want a chaw of terbacker, And that's what's tho matter of me.'

How did he get thar ? Angels,— He could never have walked in that storm,—

They jest scooped down and toted him To whar it was safe and warm.

And I think that saving a little child, And bringing him to his own, Is a domed sight better business Than loafing around the Throne."

We suspect that that very effective American slang is responsible for a good deal of the prodigality with which slang has been used in the ballads of recent years, and that it has tempted Mr. La,ngbridge into a much more ostentatious use of it than the subject of his stories justifies. For example, Job Sanderson expresses, in something like the coarse degraded language of the London rough, the disgust with which he looks on the modern atheism, and here is hia climax :— "It's a gospel of Dirt and Nothing

They preach in those thinking days;

But the lessons I got as a tiny tot—

Well, somehow, they sticks and stays.

To me them skies (whatever they tells)

Is still the home where Our Father dwells, And still, when I kneels and says my prayers, I think as Our Father hears and cares.

I couldn't—I won't believe it !

Old feller, my soul would bust—

What, hold in my heart, as my friends depart, That they ends in the churchyard dust ? Believe that the one as in yearning love First taught me to pray to the God above, Instead of watching from yonder skies, Is gono into gases !—Get out! it's lies.

When I looks on this Wale of Weeping (It's David as calls it so), With its heads that ache, and its hearts that break, Its hopes as is all no go; Where one to the primest cuts is born, And one to the 'tater-peels and scorn ; Where youngsters thieve for their daily crust, And women go wrong because they must ;- If there isn't no great Hereafter, Unravling the tangled thread, No Trumpet blown, and no Great White Throne, No Judge of the quick and dead ;— If there isn't a Hand as holds the clue, And runs His purpose the jumble through ;— If it isn't God's world (and He'll see things square) Why, it is the Devil's, and that I'll swear."

But we deny that the slang there,—the "get out ! it's lies," the "hopes as is all no go," the " primest outs," the " 'tater- peels,"—are effective in drawing the contrast between the London rough and his rude but energetic faith. The style fails, to some extent because the alternate layer of good natural English, which is sandwiched-in between the slang, makes the slang look artificial, and as if dragged in by head and shoulders. To some extent, also, the slang repels because it is not, like the American slang we have quoted, or like Lord Tennyson's Northern Farmer's speech, a vernacular racy of the soil, but is rather a degraded dialect that has lost all vividness of effect. Such expressions as "get out," "no go," " primest cuts," and so forth, are not significant of any particular kind of life and experience. They are specimens of the dreary meaninglessness into which speech gets rubbed. down by the vulgar haste and impatience of squalid life. They are not graphic, they are not imaginative vulgarisms. They are simply vulgarisms which represent the poor precipi- tate of speech, when all form and colour have been rubbed out of it. It is the same with "Seth Baker." This is a tale of an heroic determination to die in place of a man whose wife Seth Baker had loved. It is told by the murderer, who takes advantage of this heroism, and lets his innocent comrade die for him. He confesses his guilt on his death-bed, and concludes

thus :—

"I've told it you, parson, straight and fair,

With devil a slur or lie; And I stood there, in the death-still square, And saw Seth Baker die !

I know of the Blood for sinners shed, And the pardon full and free ; But the Grace that washes snow-white the rod, It isn't no go for me ! A lifer in Hell is the sentence spoke On a soul so mean and grim . . . . . Yet tell us the tale of that dying bloke, And Christ as went bail for him Just mutter a prayer I know it well, This here is the grip of death It ain't as I want to beg off Hell I'm sorry I done it Seth "

Now, there again the slang,—the "no go" and the " dying bloke,"—utterly repels us. It is not the natural speech of the man, for he can speak, and does speak, with- out all this slang ; and, further, the slang, as in the other case, is not expressive sling, it is not a homely vernacular speech that fixes itself in the mind as a sort of sculptured image of the rude life it depicts, but is the bare remnant left of speech when it has been worn down to a formless and noisome cant.

Mr. Langbridge uses the medium of a vernacular " brogue " far more effectively than he uses the medium of "slang." For example, take a specimen from "The Black Coach of Dunmoyle." Nothing could be better than the Irishisms of the following :— " I disrimimber the date, thin, but toward the dead o' the year, The rumour wint t'rough the counthry that things at Dunmoyle was queer—

That some black-hearted attorney, by manes of a deed he got, Was schamin' agin the Master—the divle chastise the lot.

'Twas known there was mortgages lying, for, shure, on an ould estate, Thim things is the coorse o' nater, like jewuls, an' arms, an' plate ; But that iver a scrap o' parchment should harden a low-bred thief, To shpake short to the rale ould ginthry was past all dhrame o' belief.

Begorra, the tale was thrue, thin, an' next that iver I heard Was, Master Richard in Dublin comes down by his honour's word—

For the thing should be, God save him! but, murther, it hurts me now- Six-fut an' his rigimint's glory, an' sold like a horse or cow !

There was now folks come to Kilmurry, maiiatainin' a great parade, An' plottin' to pass for ginthry—but, faix, they was only thrade ; An' the lady was short and sailer, an' hard in manner an' face— But there I it was fixed betune 'em to rescue the fine ould place.

So, thin, there was great rejoicings, but sorra a wan but knew His heart was acrass the counthry wid sweet Misa Annie Carew. If he seen 'em but wand tegedder, begorra, the child should

swear That naters is made like stockin's, an' they was the proper

And the Irish manner is the very life of "Teddy O'Teague" and 4' Andy Byrne," which, we believe, originally appeared in these 'columns. In the pieces "in brogue," Mr. La.ngbridge gives us consistent deviations from ordinary English, all agreeing with each other, and all suggesting a more vivid and imaginative life, instead of that far less vivid and imaginative life which his slang or cant terms often suggest, and the result is that lie really paints us a picture of the country-side, in the language best adapted to give expression to its humble thought and feeling.

As regards Mr. Langbridge's sentiment, it is often very genuine and pure, but sometimes a little melodramatic and 'conventional. For example, Mike Baldwin" scorns to us a failure, and a rather ambitious failure ; and "Saturday Night" has a very conventional ring about it which has not to us the genuine ring, but rather the ring of the clerical idea of the working man's feelings. So, too, "Doctor Dan's Secret" is merely conventional pathos. On the other hand, A Regular Bad 'Un " is a very true and pathetic picture of the contrast between the irritable feelings of an impatient mother, and the longing of that mother, after her mischievous child is gone, for the opportunity of retracting all her old impatient speeches, and of thanking God for that for which she had at the time seemed so ungrateful.

There is no section of the book which exhibits Mr. Lang- bridge's poetical gift more clearly than the last, which he tails "Landscapes, Seasons, and Flowers." This trifle, for instance, is surely excellent of its kind :— "THE DARLING OF THE YEAR. April, my April,

Ever fresh and dear, Sweet sixteen among the months, Darling of the year ! Ere your smile can flash and die, Lo, a tear o'ertakes it ; Ere the tear is fully globed

Dainty laughter shakes it. Loose your curls upon the wind—

That shall 'tics the swallow ; Press your lips upon the spray And the rose shall follow."

And the following piece would be so also but for one word

DAYS OF DREAM.

Roses, roses, everywhere !

Bare and burnished sky ; Lovely languors in the air—. That's July.

Cherries tepid in the sun, Slow bees droning by ;

All rich perfumes merged in one—

That's July: Golden glamour, gauzy steam ! Hearts that ask not why All is sweet and all a dream— That's July."

There the word " gauzy " jars. It is always a descent into prose to take a metaphor for Nature from the imitative arts.

But, on the whole, Mr. La.ngbridge's volume will give great pleasure. We think that perhaps a better selection might have been made. Mr. Langbridge is too fond of city slang, and of conventional love-pieces. But most of his ballads, and all his little Nature-pictures, are of a kind to take fast hold of the fancy, and keep their hold.