The herald., 1896-05-31
THE NEGRO IN VERSE
A Review Of The Poems Of Irwin Russell by
John Shirley Ward

In 1888 the Century of New York
issued a small volume of negro dialect
poems. by the late Irwin Russell of Mis-
sissippi. This volume was prepared as
a memorial volume by the friends or MT.
Russell. In the avalanche of books
daily thrust on the world. this small
volume was soon lost in the whirling
tide and only few thousand ever saw
it. though 1t was lovingly introduced to
the world by Joel Chandler Harris. IT.
win Russell, the author, died in very boy
hood, having been born at Port Gibson,
In Mississippi in 1853, and dying at New
Orleans in 1879, being only rs years old
at the time of his death, having gradua-
ted at the university of st. Louis at l6
and being admitted to the bar at 10.
Irwin Russell was the oldest son of
family born and reared in the north.
but born himself in Mississippi, the
adopted home of the family Like the
sons of the gifted orator. S. 8. Prentiss,
of Maine, and the not less gifted jour
nalist, George d. Prentice. born New
England man, their sons, born and edu-
ated in the south. became her warmest
and most determined defenders. The
sons of 8. 8. Prentiss and those of Geo.
d. Prentice of the Louisville Journal.
stood throughout the civil war for the
south. and SO did the Russell family.
Born under southern sky and sun. and
not far from the home of Jefferson
Davis. young Irwin drank in the inspir-
alton Of magnolia and crepe myrtle as
he did an admiration for the political
sentiments of his section. Having been
associated in his childhood and boy
hood with negroes and negro children,
he learned all their ways, their peculiar
dialect, their simplicity as well as their
cunning, their loyalty and still their de-
sire to test what freedom meant. and
this small volume tells in their own dia-
nh of hof
doom of genius seems to have followed
young Russell. Poor Chatterton, at the
age Of II slipped out of life rather than
meet its ordinations and disappoint-
ments, and Shelley, the most exquisite
genius Of the present century, found his
"surcease from sorrow" in the waves of
the gulf Of Spezzia; Byron, after the
most brilliant career as poet and scholar
and statesman, tired of life, flung him
self on his own passion-pyre" and was
consumed, and Kirke White dying in
early manhood of consumption, i'm
PEELED the disease by his arduous labors
which let out his life and poor Irwin
Russell at the age of 26 burned out by
the combustion of his own genius,
passed through the portals to the other
land, and the world lost to its litera-
ture one Of the best delineators of the
negro dialect, in verse, yet produced
since the war.
dSc tIduSidttu WItH perfect truth
the negro dialect of Virginia, Joel Chan
dler Harris gives us the droll accent of
the negro Of Georgia and Carolina, but
1t is left to Irwin Russell to give us the
tone as well as the rich dialect Of the
negro of Mississippi and other southern
states The reader can form no just idea
of the richness of the negro lore with
out reading this small volume. but
careful reading will satisfy him that but
few writer's have woven into verse the
quaint conceits and superstitious fan
cies of the negro with such humor and
pathos as has Irwin Russell.
In his Christmas in the Quarters, the
Blessing on the Christmas Dance has Il
weird pathos which will attract any
reader and in the same poem, The
Origin of the Banjo forever fixes the ne
gro and the possuin as the author Of that
instrument
To give hint of the purest type of
negro life SO effervescent in these poems