Volume 25 — THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL OF POETRY.

A very pleasing advertisement appeared lately in the Manchester Advertiser, an advertisement which all who are interested in literature will be glad to see. Here it is:—

WANTED, A POET.—A tradesman who wishes to advertise his wares extensively, wants a Gentleman who can Write Advertising Poetical Effusions with facility.—Apply by letter, containing specimens of poetry, to A S, at the Printer's.

Though poor Johnson or Goldsmith would have been glad of such an offer, some conceited brethren of the goose-quill may look with contempt at the idea of the application of poetry to the advertisement of wares. Why not apply poetry to the advertisement of wares as well as apply Art to their construction? is not Art-crockery considered a great thing?—and what is your School of Design for, but to supply us with Art-clothes and Art-furniture; so that in good time we shall have Art-velvets, Art-cottons, Art-muslins, Art-silks, and Art-satins, for Art-waistcoats, Art-shirt-fronts, Art-frocks, Art-slips, Art-gowns; likewise Art-chairs and Art-tables, Art-fenders, Art-fire-irons, Art-pots and Art-kettles, Art-coalscuttles, Art-paper for walls, Art-bell-pulls, Art-pump-handles, Art bedsteads, and Art-washhand basins? The spirit of the age requires that Art shall be turned to practical account. He that would prosper by the poetical Art must utilise it. One way to do so, as good as any other, would be to sing the praises of candlesticks, for instance, or knives and forks, or haberdashery, or any other description of goods; what not? Poets have quite exhausted their old stock of subjects; they want a new stock, and that of a linendraper would be as good as any. The lines—

for example, might serve for the commencement, and indicate the argument of a modern Epic of the Manchester School. The place of the hero in the poem would of course be supplied by a power-loom. But the "poetical effusions" required as per advertisement would necessarily be lyrical. Here an abundance of themes opens up to the bard. Suppose that the wares which the poet is engaged to advertise are stuffs. It will not follow that his verses should be stuff too. Leaving doggrel to the minstrel of Moses, he might aim at a really sentimental treatment of his subject. He might, with the view of calling public attention to a silk, write something of this sort:—

LINES TO ISABEL.

⁂ At 16s. 6d., A Superior Article and Striking Novelty. Now Selling Off at a Tremendous Sacrifice. Jackson and Co., &c.

The foregoing is merely an attempt to show what might be done in this line, or sort of lines. It is no easy job, as a judicious ancient observes, to do common themes to a T.

Perhaps it is strange, however, that a Manchester tradesman should have to advertise for a poet. Is there no young man in his establishment that turns down his collars and grows his hair in ringlets, and has joined the moustache-movement, that would answer his purpose? In most large businesses there are such young men, who let off their poetical steam in effusions to the moon, &c., and merely waste it. Many of these poor young fellows are snubbed and ridiculed, and thus have their self-regard—which is always sensitive—irritated and mortified, till they are driven to all manner of reckless and evil courses; whereas, by the useful direction of their talent, rendering it subservient to the purposes of the shop, they would be enabled to fulfil the aspirations that are in them with credit to themselves and with advantage to their employers: provided they would pay that attention to their grammatical studies, which is necessary to the composition of decent verses, even on the subject of a merino or a ducape.

The Real and the Ideal.—There is as much difference between the real and the ideal, as there is between a castle in Ayrshire and a castle in the Air.