The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-01-13
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Brief Reviews and Notices

Life of Francis Thompson: Edition
uniform with his works. By Everard
| Meynell. Published by Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York.
Few characters in the literary his.
tory of the world have equalled the
lamented Thompson in genius and
misfortune together. Thompson was
endowed by nature with most sensi-
tive soul which seemed ever to shud-
der when brought in contact with ma
terial things, and yet which is doomed
| to grovel in the depths of the direst
misfortune and poverty. He was born
December Is, 1859, in England. He
early became vOracious reader. His
pensive melancholy gave, some indica-
tons of an retrospective mind which,
if coupled with poetic talent, would
doubtless place its possessor in the
highest circle of the small poetic band.
But this after development in reality
was a thing entirely part from his
childhoodS life. Like Lafcadio Hearn,
he was sent to Ushaw College to see
IL ulo luSIAudC1Ol1O 10y SAlO uAA SSIAOAA
of the priesthood. After seven years
spent at Ushaw he left, like Hearn,
and drifted to London. Realizing the
necessity of adopting a professional
career he, who seemed unfit for a
career in any of the professions
matriculated at Owens Medical College
in Manchester, where he remained for
six years. He tells us himself that he
seldom attended the lectures, that the
work as repugnant, although he
claimed that the little knowledge he
did acquire there he considered in
later life priceless. During this period
of his life, he was shy and timid, a
dreamer of dreams, a man whose life
was centered in intellect dominated
and guided by imagination. After
failing in his examinations his home
became irksome to him. He left home
and fed to Manchester and, eventu-
ally, to London. While in the former
city he became addicted to the use
of opium. His constitution, never the
most robust, was gradually under
mined. But De Quinceys glorification
of opium entirely possessed him. This
habit, coupled with his constitutional
| indifference, untitled him for any
serious work: he became veritable
outcast living at odd jobs much in
the same way as did another famous
English poet of our own day.
The turning point in his life dates
from his meeting the Meynells. The
elder Meynell was editor of the
Merry England Magazine Several
of his manuscripts were accepted and
published in this periodical and
Thompson, though still derelict was
soon inquired about in the clubs and
in literary circles. His work brough,
him in contact with the great men oil
the day such as Cardinal Manning, w
T. Stead, Henley, and many others
His lot, however, was cast in a diff
ferent mold from that of Burns, who
was taken up to the heights on the
crest of fame and then cast back tC
his original poverty. Thompson die
not enjoy even the fleeting pleasures
that usually follow wealth and fame
He still drifted about sad, shiftless, il
poverty.
His works, now published in three
volumes, were written at odd mo
ments on scraps of paper and i'll penny
exercise books Intellectually he
Lived on the heights, while physically
and materially he wallowed in the
mire Finally, with one lung entirely
gone and the other partly diseased
he returned to the use of opium ano
died in London hospital, November
Is, 1907.
During Thompson's life he ever re
tanned the strongest faith in his
Catholic teaching and his finest worl
lis a credit to his early training in
Catholic college. His best known
work, perhaps, is the incompatible
Hound of Heaven" This has beer
declared by many critics to be the
most perfect lyric ever penned. 1t has
not only been admired by the genera
reader but has also formed the in
tellectual pastime of great minds. As
one critic says, it is not too much tt
say that two hundred years hence
college pupils will still be memorizlns
this wondrous poem. Thompson was
misrepresented and maligned by re
views and critics who measured his
work by his waywardness of his life
He ever fed and recoled from thu
company of men, #tt
"Adown Titanic gloom Of chasmet
fears
This Life which is a credit t.
both the author and the publisher
gives the most intimate account OF thu
life of the poet written by one of thu
Meynells who befriended him in man!
ways, and who retained to the end o
his life the admiration, respect. ant
gratitude of the unfortunate Francis
Thompson.