Volume 62 — POETRY OF FACT.
Reading edition
At the festive season of the year particularly, people commonly complain that the newspapers are dull. Unless in exceptional years, nothing happens of which the narration is in anywise interesting, and the dearth of news is generally so extreme that journalists are actually driven to fill their columns with theological controversies.
The dryness of grammatical details has been surmounted by the device of putting them into metre, as in the As in Præsenti and the Propria quæ Maribus of the Eton Latin Grammar. Might not the contents of the Journals, in like sort, be rendered somewhat less prosy than they sometimes are by being versified? The telegrams would, perhaps, be peculiarly susceptible of this treatment, whereunto they seem to lend themselves in virtue of their characteristic conciseness, which it would enhance. The electric wire on New Year's Day transmitted a certain message from Rome. Here it is in the form of blank verse:—
The King to-day received the Ministers. The Deputations Parliamentary, The State's great Officers, the military And the municipal authorities, And other delegates. His Majesty Thanks for congratulations did return To those who tendered them, occasionally, Upon the New Year's Day; and he expressed His hope that, 'twixt the representative Great bodies of the People and the State, The concord, which the national unity Doth to complete essentially conduce, Would ever be maintained.
The Court Circular could be rendered in heroic rhymes. As thus:—
The Queen walked in the Castle Grounds this morn; The Duke of Edinburgh, Louise, of Lorne The Princess, and the Marquis with his bride, For Town left Windsor after this noon-tide. Prince Arthur, by Sir Howard Elphinstone Attended, went to Dover, too, anon. Right Honourable Gladstone here has been To-day, and had an audience of the Queen, The Premier, after that, remained to lunch, The dinner-party included Mr. Punch.
Other intelligence, miscellaneous or special, could be couched in lyrical measures. Take a specimen of a money article:—
The English funds, this blessèd day, Have no fresh movement known, Save of one-eighth a rise had they, Which could not hold its own. Consols so little looked alive, As quoted but to be At ninety-two one half, to five— Eighths, for delivery. Excitement did the day throughout The Railway Market thrill; Shares have been briskly pushed about, And prices risen still. A hundred thousand pounds in gold Came, at the Bank, to hand, And much for discount there, behold! Increased was the demand.
Police reports also could be embodied in song, as, for example:—
At Worship Street came Peter Fake, a young thief, Charged with stealing a watch, unto summary grief. For three months, with hard labour, committed was he, And well whipped, in addition, was ordered to be. The prisoner, on hearing his sentence, no doubt More than he had expected, burst instantly out In a howl, of a sort which description would mock; In the midst of it he was removed from the dock.
And so on. The suggestion above exemplified will perhaps be adopted by some enterprising journalist, prepared to afford the necessary remuneration to competent poets. In the event of another war, the communications of Our Special Correspondent might fall naturally into the form of an Epic, shaped and determined by the course of circumstances. The title of a journal composed in verse might be, for want of a better, The Poetical News.