The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-11 00:00:00

LITER AT URE.

Wit and Humour. Poems by the Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table. 1 Vol. Pp. 192. John

Camden Hotten.

We are again indebted to Mr. Hotten for a
new collection of some of the scattered treasures
of transatlantic wit and humour. In this volume
he presents to us some very delightful con-
tributions of that very delightful writer, Dr. Wen-
dall Holmes. Prefixed to the poems is an in-
teresting introduction from the pen of the indefa-
tigable publisher, giving a brief biography of Dr.
Holmes, and au enumeration of his principal com-
positions. Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in
1809, Oliver Wendall Holmes, after dallying awhile
with Law and Literature, ultimately selected the
profession of Medicine, studied for three years at
Paris, and in 1836 returned home to take his me-
dical degree at Cambridge. "It was on this occa-
sion," says Mr. 'Totten, that
Ho delivered "Poetry, a Metrical Essay," before the
Harvard Phi Beta Kappa, which he published the same
year, in the first acknowledged volume of his poems. In
"Poetry" he describes four stages of the art,—the pasto-
ral, martial, epic, and dramatic; successfully illustrating
the two former by his lines on "The Cambridge Church-
yard" and " Old Ironsides," which last became a national
lyric, having first been printed in the Boston Daily Adver-
tiser, when the frigate "Constitution" lay at the Navy
Yard in Charlestown, and the department had resolved
upon breaking her up,—a fate from which she was pre-
served by the verses, which ran through the newspapers
with universal applause, and were circulated in the city of
Washington in handbills.

Medicine and Poetry appear with equal success to
have shared the thoughts and contributed to the
popularity of , this American writer. Mr. Hotten
quotes a brief comment from the pen of Alexander
Smith, which at this moment possesses a painful in-
terest, now that the hand of that gifted writer has
been so suddenly and prematurely arrested by death :
There is one author in this country whose whose lite-
rary and social standing amongst us offers many points of
resemblance to the career of the American author. Mr.
Alexander Smith thus compares the two men : " Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes seems to occupy much the same position
in Boston that Dr. John Brown occupies in Edinburgh.
He is a physician, and a skilful one ; he is beloved by all
men ; he is fond of society ; ho is a humorist, and rejoices
over a joke or a characteristic anecdote as over found trea-
sure ; and he excels all his countrymen as a writer of
verses of society. Of such verses the basis is good sense,
but the good sense must be saved from dulness by akindly
satire, a pleasant music, unexpected rhymes, and a con-
stant flow of witty and fanciful illustrations. It is not ne-
cessary that verses of society should be poetry all corn
pact,' but it is absolutely necessary that poetry should be
there,—like a flower in the button-hole, like perfume in
the handkerchief. And for success in compositions of that
class Dr. Holmes has all the good sense, all the music, all
the unexpected thyrnes, all the wit and fancy, and just the
exactest proportion of poetry. Since Praed, no one, per-
haps, on this side of the water, has cultivated that diffi-
cult branch of writing—in which the knowledge of the man
of the world and the art of the poet are required in pretty
nearly equal proportions—with more success. His ' Old
Punch Bowl' is one of his best pieces, and exhibits his
best qualities."
Equally eulogistic and equally delightful comments
from the friendly hand of Mary Russell Mitford,
are also contained in this very interesting introduc-
tion. Commending it to the attention of our readers,
let us pass on to the poems themselves. Between
40 and 50 of these poems, rightly entitled

" Humorous," are here collected. They are, of
course, of very different character and of various
merit. Some familiar friends at once arrest our
attention. Who, for example, remembers withou t
a laugh that plaintive commemoration of the horrors
of a certain " September Gale ?"---

•' Oh! how the ponds and rivers boiled,
And how the shingles rattled !
And oaks were shattered on the ground,

As if the Titans battled."
And then, alas ! comes the wof ill catastrophe, thus
feelingly remembered :
It chanced to be our washing-day,
And all our things were drying ;
The storm came roaring through the lines,
And set them all a-flying;
1 saw the shirts and petticoats
Go riding off like witches ;
I lost - ah , bitterly I wept
I lost my Sunday breeches!

I saw them straddling through the air,
Alas ! too late to win them ;
I saw them chase the clouds, as if
The devil had been in them;
They were my darlings and my pride,
My boyhood's only riches,—
"Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,—
"My breeches ! omy breeches !"
Never again is that painful bereavement effaced from
the recollection of the sufferer :

I have had many happy years,
And tailors kind and clever,
But these young pantaloons have gone
For ever and for ever!
And not till Fate has cut the last
Of all my earthly stitches,
This aching heart shall cease to mourn
My loved, my long-lost breeches!
Occasionally more serious reflections are mingled
with the humour of these verses, as where, after cele-
brating the marvels of an old silver punch bowl, he
writes—
I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old Eng-
lish cheer ;
I tell you, 'twas a pleasant thought to bring its symbol
here.
'Tis but the fool that loves excess ;—hast thou a drunken
soul ?
Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in thy silver bowl!
I love the memory of the par,—its pressed yet fragrant
flowers,—
The moss that clothes its broken walls,—the ivy on its
towers ;
Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed,—my eyes grow moist
and dim
To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its
brim.

Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me ;
The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be;
And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin
That dooms one to those dreadful words, —"My dear,
whore have you been ?"
Very pleasant also is the moral of " The Old Man's
Dreams." As the young sigh for the independence
of manhood, so the old man longs to be a boy again.
" Oh, for one hour of youthful joy !
Give back my twentieth spring ;
I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
Than reign a grey-beard king."
A listening angel hears his prayer, and offers to
realise his wish—.

" But is there nothing in thy track,
To bid thee fondly stay,
While the swift seasons hurry back
To find the wished-for day 2"
The old man hesitates, he could not leave his wife;
and then when again appealed to exclaims--
Why, yes ; for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;
I could not bear to leave them all ;
I'll take—my—girl—and—boys!

Tho smiling angel dropped his pen,—
"Why, this will never do;
The man would be a boy again,
And be a father too!"

And s.) I laughed,—my laughter woke
The household with its noise,—
And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
To please the grey-haired boys.
The most laughter-moving of all Dr. Holmes'
productions is, happily for the peace of mankind,
hidden from th© light. llere is the delightful ac-
count of how that masterpiece came to be written,
and, having been written, came to be judiciously
withheld from publication.
I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, iu the general way,
A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came ;
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb !

"These to printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added (as a trifling jest),
" There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I 'watched
And saw him peep within ;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next—the grin grew broad,
Aud shot from ear to ear;
He read the third—a chuckling noise
1 nolt began to hear.