The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-27
FAMOUS POETS WE'RE
OFTEN COMPETITORS
Keats Endymion and Shelley's "Re-
volt of Islam" Were Penned
in Friendly Rivalry

1T might be thought that first rate poets
would not indulge in competitive efforts
in their great art. But such is by no
means the case, says Tit-Bits. For in
stance, two of the greatest poems in the
language. Keats's "Endymion" and Shell
ley's 'Revolt of Islam.' were written in
friendly competition by their famous au-
thors, the one going to the Isle of Wight
and the other to the lovely upper Thames
to complete their respective tasks.
Cowden Clarke tell in his "Recollec-
tions," how on December 80 1916, he ac-
companied Keats on visit to Leigh Hunt
at the latter's cottage on Hampstead
heath, and how Hunt challenged Keats
to write then, there, and to time"
sonnet on "The Grasshopper and the
Cricket" Keats gained the victory over
his rival in point of time. but critics are
agreed that Hunt wrote a better sonnet.
Strangely enough. the finest sonnet
Leigh Hunt ever wrote, and certainly one
of the finest in the language his splendid
Nile sonnet, was the result of friendly
competition between him and two infin-
itely greater poets, Keats and Shelley.
1t is one of the curiosities of literature
that the three sonnets on the same sub-
ject should be, in quality, in inverse ra-
ton to the genius of the writer's. for
Hunts is unmistakably the best Keats
second and Shelley's bad third.
Oliver Goldsmith was defective in con-
versational powers, and was occasionally
made the butt of the witticsms of the
famous club of which he was member,
and which included such men as Johnson.
Garrick, Burke and Reynolds. One night
it was proposed to write mock epitaphs
on him, his country, dialect and person
furnishing subjects of sarcastic com-
ment.
These efforts We're read aloud In Gold
smiths hearing, and he was challenged
to retaliate. The next evening he came
TO the club and read his famous satirical
poem. entitled Retaliation" in which he
mas put all his great contemporaries in
pickle till the crack of DOOM 1t is a se-
lies of brilliant portraits in words, as re-
piete with we'll known Quotations" as
Hamlet one of the best being that on
Garrick:
He cast off his friends as a huntslnan his
pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could
whistle them back.
= When Robert Burns was little known
beyond the circle of his village cronies.
there came to the tavern which he patron-
lzed man named Andrew Horner, who
was on his way to Edinburgh to try to get
volume of verse published of which he
was very vain. Burns friends pitted the
two poets against each other. heavily
backing their comrade to win
Out of respect for his age Burns gave
Horner first innings, and he started with
the line;
in seventeen hundred and thirty-nine,
explaining that as that was the year of
his birth, it made good beginning But
he hummed and hawed and scratched his
pate and not another line would follow.
Then Burns got impatient and sent the
jovial company into roars of delighted
applause by declaiming the following,
taking his rivals own first line out of his
mouth:
In seventeen hundred and thirty-nine
The Devil got stuff to make swine,
And set it in a corner.
But very soon he changed his plan,
Made it to something like a man.
And cal it Andrew Horner!