JOHN JOHN GODFREY SAXE. OHN GODFREY SAXE was born at Highgate, Franklin County, Vermont, on the second day of June, 1816. From nine to seventeen he worked on his father's farm and went to school. Wishing then to study one of the liberal professions, he entered the grammar-school of St. Albans, and, after the usual preparatory studies, the college at Middletown, Conn., where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in the summer of 1839. He had no reputation while at college either as a writer or speaker, but was considered a fine scholar, especially in the languages, a very pleasant fellow, and the best talker in the place. Good talkers are seldom anything else, or seldom succeed as well in anything else-so much and so inVOL. II, No. 5.-CC stantaneously are they appreciated by society, and so easy does talking at last become to them. Many a fine writer, like Coleridge, has eventually subsided into a merely good conversationalist. With Saxe it has happily proved otherwise. What is rather odd, though, considering the immemorial custom of all collegians, and the literary aspirations of most young men, he wrote nothing at college, nor until several years after he had graduated, when he was in apparently unpropitious circumstances, viz., in the holy bonds of matrimony, and the tedious study of the law. Among his college friends was Thos. B. Thorpe, now of New-Orleans, the author of many admirable western stories. To him Saxe has addressed a rhyming epistle full of college reminiscences: "Ah those were memorable times, Of chapel-bell, we left our sport, After alluding to Thorpe's talent for drawing and painting, whereby "People very thin and flat, Like aldermen, grew round and fat he says: "Ah, we were jolly youngsters then ; But now we're sober-sided men, Half through life's journey: And you 've turn'd author too, I hear, And I, you 'll think it very queer, Have turn'd attorney." Saxe's first movement toward the "turning" alluded to was to read law at Lockport, in the State of New-York, and afterward at St. Albans, his old schoolplace. In 1843 Saxe was admitted to the bar at St. Albans, and commenced practice as an attorney. When he was twenty-five he began to write verses, and his first published piece-(it was published in "The Knickerbocker Magazine," then, as now, under the management of our good friend, Lewis Gaylord Clarke)-his first piece, we say, not only related the story of his life at that time, as is the case with the poems of all true poets, if the world has the art to read them aright; but demonstrated that a new poet had appeared, and indicated the school of verse in which he was to be most successful. The reader will bear in mind the law-studies of Saxe; imagine, if he pleases, his want of practice; and then proceed to read and enjoy "The Briefless Barrister." "THE BRIEFLESS BARRISTER. "An attorney was taking a turn, In shabby habiliments dress'd; His coat it was shockingly worn, And the rust had invested his vest. "His breeches had suffer'd a breach, His linen and worsted were worse; He had scarce a whole crown in his hat, And not half-a-crown in his purse. "And thus as he wander'd along, A cheerless and comfortless elf, "Unfortunate man that I am! And, in brief, I've ne'er had a brief! ""Tis not that I'm wanting in law, Or lack an intelligent face, That others have cases to plead, While I have to plead for a case. "O, how can a modest young man E'er hope for the smallest progression, The profession's already so full Of lawyers so full of profession.' "While thus he was strolling around, His eye accidentally fell On a very deep hole in the ground, And he sigh'd to himself, 'It is well!' "To curb his emotions he sat On the curb-stone the space of a minute; Then cried,Here's an opening at last!" And in less than a jiffy was in it! "Next morning twelve citizens came, ('T was the coroner bade them attend,) To the end that it might be determined How the man had determined his end! "This man was a lawyer, I hear,' Quoth the foreman who sat on the corse; A lawyer? alas!' said another, Undoubtedly died of remorse!" "A third said, 'He knew the deceased, no doubt from the want of a cause. "The jury decided at length, After solemnly weighing the matter, After the "Briefless Barrister," and one or two smaller poems, came 66 Progress," a satire, which was spoken before the associated alumni of Middlebury College in 1846, creating a decided sensation. It was published in New-York shortly after its delivery, and immediately became popular. It has been more quoted than any satire printed in the last twenty years. "In skillful felicities of language and rhythm," says Dr. Griswold, "general clear and sharp expression, and alternating touches of playful wit and sharp sense, there is nothing so long that is so well sustained in the one hundred and one books of American satire." In 1847 he wrote "The New Rape of the Lock," and in 1848 "The Proud Miss M'Bride." For the last seven or eight years he has been practicing in the courts, writing verses occasionally, attending to the interests of his party in that part of the world-for Saxe is something of a politician-editing "The Burlington Sentinel," running for the office of district attorney, which he was talented and popular enough to gain, and writing and delivering college and anniversary poems. In this last item sity, the enthusiasm of poetry, and are not of business he has done more service than impelled by their nature into musical utany other man, reciting more verses and terance. They may call in the aid of oftener, than all our lecturers together, verse to sharpen their effect, but it will Park Benjamin, perhaps, excepted. If never be of any high or inspired order. he has won applause by his lectures, It will be pipe and tabor music, and not and he certainly has, something is due that of the organ or the orchestra. Juveto his nice adaptation of them, and to nal sometimes gives us stately hexamehis voice and manner of speaking. Few ters; but then he was a very serious satirpoets can read well, either their own ist, and worked himself up into a very verses, or those of other people; hence lofty indignation." And yet wit and hutheir want of success in the lecture-room. mor possess one of the great requisites of But both Saxe and Park Benjamin are poetry-fancy: without that vague somefine readers, and, by their reading alone, thing which we call the fanciful, there can can make bad poems seem good ones. In be nothing truly comic. That which leads 1849 Saxe read another satire, entitled the poet to compare, which links together "The Times," before the Boston Mercan- opposites, and creates harmony from seemtile Library Association; in 1850“ Carmen | ing discord, is that which makes the wit Lætum," an after-dinner poem, before the and humorist in whatever manner he manalumni of Middlebury College; and in 1851, | ifests himself. Dickens, in the matter of before the New-York University, a poem comparison, is as fine a poet as Longfelcalled "New-England." This last re- low, only that his comparisons are differmains unprinted, and will for some time to ent, and witty instead of poetical. “Wit," come, the poet being still engaged in re- says Hunt again, "may be defined to be citing it in different parts of the country. the arbitrary juxtaposition of dissimilar Saxe's present residence is at Burlington, ideas, for some lively purpose of assimiVermont. For his personal appearance lation or contrast, or both. It is fancy in we refer to the portrait prefixed to our its most willful, and, strictly speaking, its article: we can vouch for its thorough least poetical state; that is to say, wit correctness; but it gives no idea of one does not contemplate its ideas for their peculiarity of Saxe-how indeed could own sakes in any light apart from their it?—of his height and robust build. In ordinary prosaical one, but solely for the his epistle to the editor of "The Knick- purpose of producing an effect by their erbocker," he thus describes himself:- combination. Poetry may take up the combination, and improve it; but then it divests it of its arbitrary character, and converts it into something better." Humor and fun are more poetical than wit and satire, because there is more breadth and depth about them. They spring from, and affect the heart and soul of man, that part of him which is inherent and everlasting, not the work of colleges and schools, with a due infusion of tailors and perfumers, while satire and wit are in most cases the result of education, and chiefly affect educated minds. The wit of Sheridan and Congreve would be lost upon many a man who would split his sides with laughter at the buffoonery of a mere circusclown. "I am a man, you must learn, Less famous for beauty than strength; I'm a perfect Colossus of roads!" The ancestors of Saxe were, we believe, originally Germans, the name “Saxe" being the English of " Sachs," Hans Sachs, the old ballad-writer of Nuremberg. With the exception of Holmes, and perhaps Lowell, Saxe is the only one of our writers who has cultivated comic poetry with any degree of success. Indeed, they all steer clear of it, and the only thing comic about many of them is their most serious verse. How far the comic element, how far wit and humor in the abstract, can be considered poetry in the abstract, is a matter of endless dispute. "Wit and satire," says Hunt," and the observation of common life, want, of neces Judging them by their ideals, and by their effect upon ourselves, Saxe's truest poems are "The Old Chapel Bell" and "The Lady Ann." In the first, the bell speaks to a little boy who sits beside it in a half-dream, relating the incidents which have passed around it in other years, its 388 "Years roll'd away-and I beheld "I never rang a merrier peal, Than when, a joyous bride, And plighted him her maiden troth "I never toll'd a deeper knell, Than when, in after years, They laid her in the church-yard here Where this low mound appears(The very grave, my boy, that you Are watering now with tears!) "It is thy mother! gentle boy, That claims this tale of mine; A precious flower art thou, my child- "One was thy sainted mother's, when Thy life's exceeding worth! Half-hidden in the ground!" Totally dissimilar, yet creating the same emotions of quaint melancholy and pathos, is "The Lady Ann." There is an indescribable sweetness about the story of her misfortune, and its effects upon her wandering wits. So would Ophelia, "that royal flower," have mourned for the death of Hamlet, had not the willow broke, and precipitated her into the brook with her chaplet of wild flowers. And yet there is an air of bonhomie and good-humor about it, which perpetually remind us of Goldsmith. It does not read like a poem of this century at all. "THE LADY ANN. "She'll soon be here, the Lady Ann,' The children cried in glee; 'She always comes at four o'clock, And now it's striking three.' "At stroke of four the lady came, "The mail! the mail!' the idlers cried, The mail! the mail!' and at the word "Up sprang in haste the Lady Ann, He'll come to-morrow, then,' she sigh'd, "'Tis passing odd, upon my word,' A strange romance!-that woman, sirs, "She dwells hard by, upon the hill, Who died abroad, come August next, "A hearty neighbor, sirs, was he, And a fonder pair were seldom seen "They scarce had been a twelve-month When, ill betide the day! Some hundred miles away. A truer love could boast, When by the post came down There only came instead That good Sir John was dead! "We raised her up; her ebbing life "T was plain her wits were gone. "Ah! since that hour she little wots "But each returning day she deems The hour he fix'd to come; "And when the coach is at the door, "Alack!' she cried, in plaintive tone, With the exception of some of the smaller poems, which, not being long, are more easily quotable, "Progress" is the most popular poem that Saxe has yet written, and the one by which he is best known to the mass of readers. Of the sages. Among other things satirized is Socialism, "That matchless scheme, ingeniously design'd From half their miseries to free mankind;" and it affords Saxe the opportunity to let off the following good-natured squib : "Association' is the magic word From many a social 'priest and prophet' heard; To render earth a sublunary heaven! 'No moral ill is natural or fix'd Which of all choice ingredients partook, to A passage from "The Times," and we have done with our extracts from Saxe's satires. From what we have seen of the class of ladies he alludes to, the satire seems to us just and fair : "What hinders then, when every youth may entire poem, consisting of four hundred and eighty verses, more than four hundred different lines have been quoted, with expressions of approbation in specimen pas-Men only err by being badly mix'd!' To them the world a huge plum-pudding seems, Six or seven years have passed Made up of richest viands, fruits, and creams, since its first appearance, but it is still going the rounds of the papers and magazines. We cannot at present follow the poet over the whole field of modern "progress," for in this marvelous age of spiritual rappings and mesmeric revelations, some new science and wonder may arise before we can finish the paper. They come like shadows; may they so depart! The following hits at our boy-philosophers and our smart young ladies are well-deserved : "Room for the sages!-hither comes a throng Of blooming Platos trippingly along, In dress how fitted to beguile the fair! What intellectual, stately heads—of hair! Hark to the oracle-to wisdom's tone Breathed in a fragrant zephyr of Cologne. That boy in gloves, the leader of the van, Talks of the outer' and the inner man," And knits his girlish brow in stout resolve Some mountain-sized idea' to 'evolve.' Delusive toil-thus in their infant days, When children mimic manly deeds in plays, Long will they sit, and, eager, bob for whale,' Within the ocean of a water-pail! Nor less, O Progress, are thy newest rules By cruel parents here condemn'd to wrench choose As fancy bids, a musket or a muse, And shows his head among his fellow-men, Ply ceaseless quills that, true to ready use, |