{i} 

{ii} 

{iii} 

CONTENTS.

{7} 

Introductory Notice.

F all literary reputations, that of the Society Poet is probably enjoyed upon the most hazardous and uncertain of tenures. To be successful at all, he must win the instant recognition of his immediate contemporaries; he must be in touch with the thought of his own generation; he must reflect its sentiments, chime with its humour, and satirise its manners; and in proportion to the popularity of his productions with the public of his own day, will probably be the neglect with which they are treated by the public of a generation later. This neglect on the part of posterity is to some extent comprehensible, even reasonable, for the poem of manners is often nothing more than purely ephemeral in character, and indebted to accident for even its contemporary success, the{8} measure of which is not to be relied upon as a fair criterion of its intrinsic excellence. Still posterity is apt to be careless and indiscriminating in its neglectfulness. True wit, true humour, true grace and refinement are qualities that should command something more than a fleeting popularity; but even where the public is content, on the strength of the critical verdict of a past generation, to admit that, beyond his fellows, So-and-So was graceful, humorous, and witty, it is often content to let the matter rest there, and not trouble itself with inquiring into the evidence upon which such verdict was founded. Our own century can count not a few poets of barren reputation, much admired, on the strength of old tradition, but very little read. George Canning’s wit was, and is, proverbial. Most people have heard of the “Anti-Jacobin Review,” and have some slight knowledge of the “Needy Knife-grinder;” beyond that it would puzzle most people to supply any specific information as to anything that he wrote that justifies his reputation. Captain Charles Morris, of the First Life Guards and The Beefsteak Club, wrote enough verse (and very delightful verse it is) to fill a bulky volume, in addition to much more that for sufficient reasons was not re-published in volume form. Part of one line of one poem, “The sweet shady side of Pall Mall,” alone survives, apparently for the{9} especial benefit of leader-writers in the daily papers. Winthrop Mackworth Praed, most precocious and most prolific of the poets of society, began his literary career as a schoolboy, and for twenty years flooded the periodical literature of his day with songs and satires, ballads and legends innumerable, all of which are forgotten. It is not quite fair, perhaps, to say all, for some half-dozen pieces at most survive, and have done duty with monotonous regularity, as representative specimens of his verse, in every volume of poetical selections of the Vers de Société order that has seen the light for the last quarter of a century. Thus, Praed’s “Good Night to the Season” has become a well-known poem; it is witty, full of brilliant antithesis and word-play, a fairly typical example of Praed’s style; still it palls by too frequent repetition, and Praed did much work that is quite equal to it, and some that is even better, and better worth quoting. That Praed’s contemporaries thought too highly of him is not, I think, open to question; that he has, since his death, been unreasonably neglected is, at least, equally true. Of his earlier work much is very weak. Youthful poems, if noticeable for the precocity of their writers, are not usually remarkable for their strength or originality. In his more mature days he perpetrated a good deal of verse that is not much above the standard{10} of the “Keepsake” and “Book of Beauty,” in the pages of which polite publications one is quite content to let it rest undisturbed; but beyond all this he wrote a great deal that deserves to live, and that, so far, has hardly had a fair chance of life given to it. In the first instance, Praed was himself responsible for the smothering of his offspring. He seems to have been very indifferent about the ultimate fate of his productions, or about the permanence of his own literary reputation. Everything that he wrote was contributed to periodicals; he never published a book of his own, nor apparently contemplated the collection of any of his poems into a volume, with the exception of some of his political squibs, which, in the last year of his life, he had printed for private circulation among friends. When he died, there was a scheme set on foot for collecting and publishing his poems, and the editorial work was entrusted to his early friend, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Four-and-twenty years after, Mrs. Praed being then dead also, the editor completed his labours, and the book was at length given to the world. Mr. Coleridge did his work only too well. Every fragment of childish verse, all the boyish contributions to the Etonian, every school exercise, every bit of inane, cut-and-dried sentimentality that could be hunted up and identified{11} in the pages of Friendship’s Offerings, and the like, were rigorously printed, and poor Praed’s handfuls of corn were ruthlessly smothered under his bushels of chaff. One merit was claimed for the book—that of being complete. That merit, unfortunately, did not belong to it, as, for some unexplained reason, the political poems, which are numerous and witty, were altogether excluded. This book, in two volumes, was published in 1864. In 1866 Sir George Young, Praed’s nephew, edited a small volume of selections, which was compiled with taste and judgment, as far as it went; but the book was as meagre and insufficient as its predecessor had been bulky and redundant. Both these books have long been out of print and unattainable, and in offering what claims to be a fairly representative selection of the best work of the poet, of whom the most finished literary artist of our day, Mr. Frederick Locker, remarks, that “in his peculiar vein he has never been equalled, and, it may safely be affirmed, can never be excelled,” it is believed that the present volume of “The Canterbury Poets” will supply a sensibly-felt want in modern English poetic literature.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed was the third and youngest son of William Mackworth Praed, serjeant-at-law, who was the first chairman of the Audit Board, a post which he filled for many years.{12} He was born on the 26th July 1802, at 35 John Street, Bedford Row, his father’s London residence, although Bitton House, at Teignmouth, the country seat of the family, was always regarded as his paternal home. The original surname of the family was Mackworth, the additional name of Praed having been assumed some generations earlier. Praed’s mother was a Miss Winthrop, a member of a family descended from the same stock as the American Winthrops. He had the misfortune to lose her while he was yet very young, but her place was, so far as a mother’s place can be filled, worthily taken by an elder sister, to whom he was all his life sincerely attached, and who seems to have been the inspiring genius of his earliest poetical efforts. Young Praed was always, it appears, a constitutionally delicate lad, with a strong taste for studious pursuits, and small inclination, comparatively, for the rougher pleasures of a schoolboy,—although he was not altogether without mark in the cricket-field and on the river. The fancy for verse-writing developed itself in him at a very early age, and Mr. Derwent Coleridge has preserved from oblivion several of his precocious efforts. There is nothing particularly remarkable in these early verses, beyond those of other juvenile poets, so far at least as the thought is concerned: the best of them is, perhaps, a letter addressed to{13} his elder sister Susan, “The Forget-me-not,” in which Praed’s fine sense of form is conspicuously evidenced. This was, no doubt, to a great extent instinctive, but his singularly finished style owed a great deal to his father’s severe criticism, Serjeant Praed being a man of sound literary taste, and a great stickler for form.

In 1814 young Winthrop went to Eton, where his poetical proclivities were yet further encouraged by his tutor, Dr. Hawtrey. Two Eton periodicals, The College Magazine and Horæ Otiosæ, were conducted by some of the boys in the year 1819, and circulated in MS. It does not appear that Praed contributed to either of these, but when they were dropped in 1820, he brought out a MS. journal of his own, the Apis Matina, of which six numbers were published in the months of April, May, June, and July. About half the contents of these papers were written by Praed himself, the other contributors being the Honourable Francis Curzon and Walter Trower, afterwards Bishop of Gibraltar. About this time Charles Knight printed at Windsor a selection of the poetry of the College Magazine, and Praed and some other ambitious spirits set on foot a project for a regularly published College Magazine. Knight agreed to undertake the printing, subject to certain guarantees, which were obtained, and in{14} October 1820 appeared the first number of the Etonian, perhaps the most remarkable schoolboy magazine ever produced. Praed and Walter Blunt were joint editors, the bulk of the contents of the Magazine being supplied by the former. His literary fecundity at this time was, considering his age, remarkable. The contributions to the Magazine were supposed to be supplied by the members of an association called “The King of Clubs.” They were known by noms de plume, Praed’s being that of Peregrine Courtenay, the President of the Club. There was a prose introduction to each number, describing the proceedings of the Club, the whole of which was in every case written by Praed. During the ten months’ existence of the Magazine he also contributed to it the following poems, all of some length:—“The Eve of Battle,” “Changing Quarters,” “The County Ball,” “Gog,” “Surly Hall,” “Reminiscences of my Youth,” “To Julia,” “To Julio,” “To Florence,” “The Bachelor,” “How to Rhyme for Love,” etc., as well as several smaller poems. The staff of the Etonian otherwise comprised a good array of names. Among them were the Honourable William Ashley, Edmond Beales, William Chrichton, Honourable Francis Curzon, R. Durnford, William Henry Ord, Thomas Powys Outram, Walter Trower—all boys then at Eton. One Oxonian—Henry Neech—con{15}tributed, and five Cantabs—Henry Nelson Coleridge, John Moultrie, John Louis Petit, William Sydney Walker, and another. Among the anonymous contributors were R. Streatfield and J. A. Kinglake.

The Etonian appeared regularly every month until July 1821, when it was discontinued in consequence of the editor and principal contributor going up to Cambridge. In Charles Knight’s “Passages of a Working Life” there occur, about this date, many references to his first connection with Praed and his friends in the conduct of the Etonian. He says:—“The character of Peregrine Courtenay, given in an ‘Account of the proceedings which led to the publication of the Etonian,’ furnishes no satisfactory idea of the youthful Winthrop Mackworth Praed, when he is described as one ‘possessed of sound good sense rather than of brilliancy of genius.’ His ‘general acquirements and universal information’ are fitly recorded, as well as his acquaintance with ‘the world at large.’ But the kindness that lurks under sarcasm; the wisdom that wears the mask of fun; the half melancholy that is veiled by levity—these qualities very soon struck me as far out of the ordinary indications of precocious talent. It is not easy to separate my recollections of the Praed of Eton from those of the Praed of Cambridge. The Etonian of 1820 was natural and unaffected in his{16} talk, neither shy nor presuming; proud, without a tinge of vanity; somewhat reserved, but ever courteous; giving few indications of the susceptibility of the poet, but ample evidence of the laughing satirist; a pale and slight youth, who had looked upon the aspects of society with the keen perception of a clever manhood; one who had, moreover, seen in human life something more than follies to be ridiculed by the gay jest, or scouted by the sarcastic sneer. His writings then, especially his poems, occasionally exhibited that remarkable union of pathos with wit and humour which attested the originality of his genius, as it was subsequently displayed in maturer efforts.”

During Praed’s second year at Cambridge he wrote to Charles Knight (who was then contemplating establishing himself in London), to the effect that he should take up no periodical work until Knight started a publication of his own. In consequence of this communication Knight visited Cambridge in December 1822, where he spent a pleasant week with Praed and his friends, making the acquaintance of Macaulay, Maiden, and Derwent Coleridge, and there and then settled the general plan of Knight’s Quarterly Magazine, the first number of which was shortly afterwards brought out.

Praed wrote “Castle Vernon,” the introductory{17} portion of the new Magazine, of which, for some numbers, he may be considered to have been the guiding spirit, although the responsible editorship was vested in Knight himself. The principal contributors were Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who used two noms de plume (Peregrine Courtenay, and Vyvyan Joyeuse), Thomas Babington Macaulay (Tristram Merton), John Moultrie (Gerard Montgomery), Derwent Coleridge (Davenant Cecil), William Sidney Walker (Edward Hazelfoot), Henry Maiden (Hamilton Murray), and Henry Nelson Coleridge (Joseph Haller). Praed’s prose style is bright and lively. The “Castle Vernon” papers show it at about its best, but their interest generally is very local and ephemeral. There are some clever little caricatures of some of the principal contributors sketched in here and there, one of which, as an early portrait of Macaulay, it may be worth while to reproduce:—

“‘Tristram Merton, come into court!’ There came up a short, manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one hand in his waist-coat pocket. Of regular beauty he had little to boast; but in faces where there is an expression of great power, or great good-humour, or of both, you do not regret its absence.

“‘They were glorious days,’ he said, with a bend and a look of chivalrous gallantry to the circle{18} around him, ‘they were glorious days for old Athens when all she held of witty and of wise, of brave and of beautiful, was collected in the drawing room of Aspasia. In those, the brightest and noblest times of Greece, there was no feeling so strong as the devotion of youth, no talisman of such virtue as the smile of beauty. Aspasia was the arbitress of peace and war, the queen of arts and arms, the Pallas of the spear and the pen; we have looked back to those golden hours with transport and with longing. Here our classical dreams shall in some sort wear a dress of reality. He who has not the piety of a Socrates may at least fall down before as lovely a divinity; he who has not the power of a Pericles may at least kneel before as beautiful an Aspasia.’

“His tone had just so much of earnest, that what he said was felt as a compliment, and just so much banter that it was felt to be nothing more. As he concluded he dropped on one knee and paused.

“‘Tristram,’ said the Attorney-General, ‘we really are sorry to cramp a culprit in his line of defence; but the time of the court must not be taken up. If you can speak ten words to the purpose’———

“‘Prythee, Frederic,’ retorted the other, ‘leave me to manage my own course. I have an arduous journey to run; and, in such a circle, like the poor{19} prince in the Arabian Tales, I must be frozen into stone before I can finish my task without turning to the right or the left.’

“‘For the love you bear us, a truce to your similes: they shall be felony without benefit of clergy; and silence for an hour shall be the penalty.’

“‘A penalty for similes! horrible! Paul of Russia prohibited round hats, Chihu of China denounced white teeth, but this is atrocious!’

“‘I beseech you, Tristram, if you can for a moment forget your omniscience, let us——’

“‘I will endeavour. It is related of Zoroaster that——’”

. . . . . . . .

Knight’s Quarterly was started with much spirit, and promised to become a great success. Much was hoped for from the co-operation of Macaulay, but after the appearance of the first number he was compelled to withdraw his name from the list of contributors, although with much regret, in deference to the wishes of his family, whose religious scruples, it is to be presumed, were alarmed at the frivolous character of the publication. The difficulty was subsequently surmounted, and Macaulay resumed his connection with the Magazine with the third number. His contributions to it were noteworthy, and included his fine poems of{20} “Ivry” and “Moncontour,” and the “Songs of the Civil War.” In the interval, Praed worked hard to fill the void caused by Macaulay’s defection, and his contributions in prose and verse make up about one-third of the contents of the second number of the Magazine. In this number was published the first canto of his unfinished poem, “The Troubadour.” With De Quincey and Barry St. Leger added to the staff of the Magazine, its prospects appeared bright enough, but dissensions arose among the contributors, which finally led to its being discontinued. It is impossible to say now what were the exact grounds of quarrel. It appears evident, however, that Knight was properly tenacious of his position as responsible editor, and declined to admit the irresponsible interference of his undergraduate staff. Praed seems to have become jealous, and impatient of editorial supervision, and seceded from the Magazine, carrying most of his friends with him. Knight’s Quarterly ceased to appear, therefore, after the publication of the sixth number. An attempt was subsequently made to carry it on with another staff, but the character of the publication was materially altered, and in its new form it failed to command popularity. Charles Knight had published a rather bitter notice in No. 6 of the Magazine, to which Praed replied in a letter addressed to the Cambridge Chronicle. Knight{21} wrote a rejoinder, and there the matter ended. Two months later, however, Praed called upon Knight of his own accord, and friendly intercourse was resumed between them, so that in the Spring of 1826 we find Praed again co-operating with Knight and Barry St. Leger in the conduct of a new periodical. This was The Brazen Head, a cheap weekly publication, that was designed to deal with current events in a humorous manner. The Friar Bacon legend was utilised as a framework, and the Friar and the Head, under Praed’s direction, discoursed wittily together, week by week, upon the topics of the day. “We had,” said Knight, “four weeks of this pleasantry: and, what was not an advantage, we had nearly all the amusement to ourselves, for the number of our purchasers was not legion.” So The Brazen Head went the way of its predecessor. Brief though its existence was, it contained some of Winthrop Praed’s most charming and characteristic verse. The opening poem of the first number, “The Chant of the Brazen Head,” is in particular unsurpassable among his compositions.

Praed’s literary occupations were not permitted to interfere with his University work to any serious extent, although they absorbed most of his interest. The Rev. Derwent Coleridge says, with reference to his University career, ‘There can be no doubt{22} that he might have attained higher distinction as a scholar by a course of systematic study, for he showed in after life both the power of thorough investigation and a sense of its value; but the bent of his genius, and perhaps the state of his bodily health, inclined him to a more discursive occupation. As it was, though he failed as a competitor for the University scholarship, the long and shining list of his academic honours bore full testimony, not merely to his extraordinary talent, but to the high character of his scholastic attainments.

“In 1822 he gained Sir William Browne’s medal for the Greek Ode, and for the Epigrams; in 1823 the same medal a second time for the Greek Ode, with the first prize for English and Latin declamation in his college. In 1824, Sir William Browne’s medal a second time for Epigrams. In 1823 and 1824 he also gained the Chancellor’s medal for English verse—‘Australasia’ being the subject the former year, and ‘Athens’ in the latter. In the classical tripos his name appeared twice in the list, a high position, yet scarcely adding to the reputation which he already enjoyed. In 1827 he was successful in the examination for a Trinity Fellowship, and in 1830 he completed his University triumphs by gaining the Seatonian prize.{23}”

On leaving Cambridge, Praed practised for a while at the bar, apparently with no great success. Politics at this time engaged his attention more particularly, and in 1830 he was returned to Parliament for the first time, as member for the soon-to-be-extinguished borough of St. Germains. Praed had been a rival of Macaulay’s for the leadership of the Union, and much was expected of him as a speaker. Of course he disappointed expectations, but his contributions to the debate on the Reform Bill of 1830, although not brilliant, were not ineffective. He was the mover of two amendments: one that freeholds in boroughs should confer borough and not county votes; and the other, in support of which his most successful speech was delivered, was a scheme of minority representation, that appears to have been identical with that which has been, until recently, in force in three-cornered constituencies.

St. Germains having been disfranchised, Praed in 1832 unsuccessfully contested St. Ives, in Cornwall, where he had some family influence. Being excluded from Parliament, he turned his attention to political journalism, and became a leader-writer on the Morning Post, to which paper also he contributed numerous anonymous political squibs. Praed began his career as a Liberal, but about this time he became a convert to Conserva{24}tive opinions. Of this change of front he himself writes to a friend: “My old college opinions have been considerably modified by subsequent acquaintance with the world and observation of things as they are. I am not going to stem a torrent, but I should like to confine its fury within some bounds.... So my part in political matters will probably expose me to all sorts of abuse for ratting, and so forth. I abandon the party, if ever I belonged to it, in which my friends and my interests are both to be found, and I adopt one where I can hope to earn nothing but a barren reputation, and the consciousness of meaning well.”

His connection with the Morning Post led to a personal acquaintance with the leaders of the Tory party; and overtures having been made to him in 1835 to join Sir Robert Peel’s Administration, he accepted the post of Secretary to the Board of Control, and re-entered Parliament as member for Great Yarmouth. In the same year he married Helen, daughter of George Bogle, Esq.

Sir Robert Peel’s Government came to a sudden and untimely end in about three months, and with it ended Praed’s brief career as a minister.

In 1837 he retired from Great Yarmouth, and was returned for Aylesbury, which borough he continued to represent until his death, which occurred in 1839. His health, never robust, is said to have{25} been permanently affected by his exertions at the Great Yarmouth election of 1834, and to this has been attributed the development of the fatal lung disease to which he fell a victim. The winter of 1838-39 he spent at St. Leonard’s with his wife and two infant daughters, returning to London for the meeting of Parliament in February 1839, when his general health appeared to have improved. His energy was untiring: he was constant in his attendance during the seven nights’ debate on the Corn Laws, and in May, when the House adjourned, consequent upon a change of Government, he paid a flying visit to Cambridge in his official capacity of Deputy High Steward of the University. The weather was very severe, and on his returning to London his health was visibly breaking up. He continued to attend in his place in the House of Commons, however, until the middle of June, when he paired for the remainder of the Session with Lord Arundel. On the 15th of July he was dead.

During the last ten or twelve years of his life Praed was a constant contributor of verse to the periodicals of his day, although he was never associated with any purely literary undertaking in the same intimate manner as he was in the case of Knight’s Quarterly Magazine. Charles Knight engaged his and John Moultrie’s co-operation in{26} Friendship’s Offering for 1827, which he, Knight, edited for Smith & Elder. Praed contributed the “Red Fisherman,” the only one of his legendary ballads that has achieved any lasting popularity. Praed’s original title for this poem was “The Devil’s Decoy,” which “some blockhead in the confidence of the publishers” thought fit, on his own responsibility, to alter to “The Red Fisherman.” Praed was very angry, and was disposed to regard Charles Knight as responsible, and it was with difficulty that another rupture between the old friends was averted. “The Red Fisherman” has been frequently quoted, and it has been the fashion to regard it as Praed’s happiest effort in ballad writing, although in what respect it can be deemed superior to “The Bridal of Belmont,” “The Haunted Tree,” “The Teufelhaus,”—which is even more weirdly powerful—it is impossible to say. “The Troubadour,” Praed’s longest poem, contains much that is very charming. The first two cantos of it were published in Knight’s Quarterly. Praed’s secession from the Magazine interrupted the continuation. Only a portion of the third canto was ever written. The poem is very indeterminate in character, and might have been carried on indefinitely, as each canto brings the hero into a new field of adventure, and supplies a tale or episode complete in itself. The poem, even as far as it was published, is too{27} lengthy for insertion in extenso, but selected lyrics from it will be found in this volume.

Praed’s claim to distinction, however, rests entirely upon his Poetry of Life and Manners. As a writer of what, for want of a better name, we call Vers de Société, he was in his time unapproachable, and has hardly, at any time, been surpassed. Verse-writing of this class in Praed’s early days had sunk to a very low ebb. Neither Canning’s wit nor Moore’s gay fancy inspired the vapid scribblers who filled albums and keepsakes with “Lines to Ladies’ Portraits,”

Praed taught his contemporaries to be natural. He had a remarkable fluency of expression. He was humorous, witty, and good-natured; he was a man of the world, and knew his world well, gauged its weaknesses with accuracy, and judged them with the leniency of a good-humoured worldly philosopher, contriving, meanwhile, not to forfeit his own character for honesty and healthiness of mind. There is nothing very deep about Praed’s poetry, yet is it not entirely superficial. He had keen insight and plenty of discrimination, but for great passion or sustained power he had no capabilities. Lightly and gracefully he skated over the{28} thin surface ice of sentiment, not ignorant of, yet with little desire to fathom, the unknown depths of passion and suffering that lay beneath. “The genius of gentleman” claimed for Horace by the late Lord Lytton, belonged to Praed in no common degree. No man equally witty and brilliant was ever more perfectly well-bred in his writings: without prudery, affectation, or cant, he was never slangy, suggestive, or irreverent: he even achieved the difficult art of writing political satires that lost none of their point from the fact of their being free from coarseness or personality. He was a typical society poet, compounded of wit, scholar, and gentleman. His world was not a very serious or a very earnest world, and he wrote of it pretty much as he found it, with some slight touches of half-sad, half-cynical, but never unkindly moralising; yet with all its faults it was a pleasant world to those whom it treated well, and a man laden with society’s favours, as was Praed, was not likely to develop into a Democritus. Few poets have been better treated by the world than he was: the paths of literature and politics were never thorny ones to him; his talents brought him reputation before he had ever struggled to attain it. Helping hands were freely held out to him from the hour of his first schoolboy success; he was popular in society, fortunate in friendship, and, above all things,{29} happy in his family and domestic affections. Mr. Locker remarks of the qualities of his poetry, that “his fancy is less wild than Moore’s, while his sympathies are narrower than Thackeray’s.” Both statements (qualified by the further expression of opinion that has already been quoted) may be accepted without much demur. With regard to the latter remark, there are indeed few writers of the century of whom it might not, with equal justice, have been made. Admitting that his sympathies were neither very deep nor very wide, they are at least essentially and uniformly healthy and pure. Whatever might have been Praed’s matter, his manner, although not versatile, is always good. His fluency of expression is remarkable, and must have even been a source of weakness, since a man who wrote so much, so constantly, and with so little effort, must almost inevitably have perpetrated a good deal of inferior work in his time. What Praed published formed only a portion of what he wrote, for he was always ready to scribble verse on slight temptation; and that “inquisitive man with the note book,” Nathaniel Parker Willis, who met Praed at a country house, has left it on record that he was ever open to furnish contributions to the inevitable album that every fair one cherished in those days. Praed’s style, as has been said, is not versatile:{30} he never hazarded possible harshness by metrical experiments, and the measures that he particularly affected have become intimately associated with the general characteristics of his style; his rhyme and rhythm are both perfect, and apparently instinctive, as if writing in metre were as effortless an exercise to him as writing in prose.

To conclude in the words of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, “Not unknown, nor without mark in the arena of political conflict, the name of Praed is still remembered as at least that of a forward pupil in the school of statesmanship; and though his literary honours, won in earliest manhood, and sustained by the casual productions of a leisure hour, were worn carelessly, while he was preparing for more serious duties, yet now that years have gone by, and we have to audit the past with no expectation of any future account, we find that he has left behind him a permanent expression of wit and grace, refined and tender feeling, of inventive fancy and acute observation, unique in character, and his own by an undisputed title.”

FREDERICK COOPER.

{31}

Poems by W. M. Praed.

LEGENDS AND TALES.

THE RED FISHERMAN; OR, THE DEVIL’S DECOY.

(1827.)

THE LEGEND OF THE DRACHENFELS.

L’Envoi.

To the Countess Von C——, Bonn.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

THE LEGEND OF THE TEUFEL-HAUS.

THE LEGEND OF THE HAUNTED TREE.

THE BRIDAL OF BELMONT.

A LEGEND OF THE RHINE.

POEMS, Etc.

CHIVALRY AT A DISCOUNT.

“Nous avons changé tout cela.”—Moliere.

THE CONJURER.

“Marry come up! I can see as far into a wall as another!”

COUSINS.

“L’Hymen, dit-on, craint les petits Cousins.”—Scribe.

BAGATELLES!

THERE’S NOTHING NEW BENEATH THE SUN.

(The Brazen Head.)

PEACE BE THINE.

THE CONFESSION OF DON CARLOS.[1]

(Imitated from the Spanish.)

MARRIAGE.

THE BACHELOR.[2]

T. QUINCE, ESQ., TO THE REV. MATTHEW PRINGLE.

HOW TO RHYME FOR LOVE.

SURLY HALL.

{130}

MY FIRST FOLLY.

(Stanzas written at Midnight.)

SONGS FROM THE TROUBADOUR.[5]

I.
(FROM CANTO I.)

II.

III.
(FROM CANTO II.)

IV.

V.
(FROM CANTO III.)

THE SEPARATION.