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Transcribed from the 1904 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                  [Picture: Building castles in the air]





                                  LONDON
                                  LYRICS


                           By FREDERICK LOCKER

                     _WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_
                             BY A. D. GODLEY

                                * * * * *

                          _WITH A FRONTISPIECE_
                           BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

                                * * * * *

                                  LONDON
                              METHUEN & CO.
                          36 ESSEX STREET, W. C.
                                 MDCCCCIV

                                CONTENTS

                                                    PAGE

INTRODUCTION                                         vii
The Castle in the Air                                  1
The Cradle                                             8
O Tempora Mutantur!                                   12
Piccadilly                                            15
The Old Clerk                                         19
The Garter                                            23
The Pilgrims of Pall Mall                             30
The Russet Pitcher                                    34
The Enchanted Rose                                    39
Circumstance                                          42
A Wish                                                43
My Life is a--                                        46
Vanity Fair                                           48
Bramble-Rise                                          51
Old Letters                                           56
Susannah                                              59
My Firstborn                                          63
The Widow's Mite                                      66
St George's, Hanover Square                           68
A Sketch in Seven Dials                               70
Miss Edith                                            72
A Glimpse of Gretna Green, in the Distance            75
The Four Seasons                                      78
Enigma                                                80
Enigma                                                81
To the Printer's Devil                                83
NOTES                                                 85



INTRODUCTION


The father of Frederick Locker Lampson (or Frederick Locker, according to
the name by which he is generally known) was Edward Hawke Locker, at one
time Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital.  He is described in the
"Dictionary of National Biography" as "a man of varied talents and
accomplishments, Fellow of the Royal Society, an excellent artist in
water-colour, a charming conversationalist, an esteemed friend of Southey
and Scott."  Frederick, the author of "London Lyrics," "was born," Mr
Augustine Birrell, his son-in-law, writes in _Scribner's Magazine_
(January 1896), "in Greenwich Hospital in 1821.  After divers adventures
in various not over well selected schools, and a brief experience of the
City and of Somerset House, he became a clerk in the Admiralty, serving
under Lord Haddington, Sir James Graham, and Sir Charles Wood.  He was
twice married--first, to Lady Charlotte Bruce, a daughter of Lord Elgin
(of the Marbles); and secondly, to the only daughter of Sir Curtis
Lampson, Bart., of Rowfant in Sussex."

The present volume is Locker's earliest literary venture; produced,
however, at the comparatively mature age of thirty-six.  "In 1857," he
says in "My Confidences," "I published a thin volume--certain
sparrow-flights of song, called 'London Lyrics.'"  Subsequently, about
1860, Thackeray, who was then editor of the _Cornhill Magazine_, invited
Locker to contribute; and poems published there and elsewhere were
collected and reprinted from time to time, the original title being
always retained.  Ten editions, besides some selections privately
printed, appeared before the poet's death.  In almost all something new
was added, in all something old was taken away; so that only eight of the
twenty-five pieces composing the early "thin volume" survive in the issue
of 1893, and some of these are much altered.  It is hoped that readers of
Locker's later and more highly finished work will consider a
republication of his "Primitiae" justified by the interest which attaches
to all beginnings.

So many people even now confuse minor poetry with bad poetry that it is
almost invidious to call a poet minor.  Yet there is no doubt that minor
poetry can be good in its way, just as major poetry can be good in _its_
way.  "If he [Locker] was a minor poet he was at least [why 'at least'?]
a master of the instrument he touched, which cannot," writes Mr Coulson
Kernahan in the _Nineteenth Century_ for October 1895, "be said of all
who would be accounted _major_."  Locker was not of those, in his own
opinion, who would be accounted major.  "My aim," he says, "was humble.
I used the ordinary metres and rhymes, the simplest language and ideas, I
hope, flavoured with an individuality.  I strove... not to be flat,
and above all, not to be tedious."  It is not necessary to prove by
argument and illustration that Locker is a minor poet, nor that he
belongs to that honourable company of writers of what we now call "light
verse"--the masters of which are, after all, among the immortals--Horace
and Herrick.  His place in that company is not so easy to define.
Probably he stands half way between the serious singers--who succeed by
virtue of grace and artistic finish, yet lack the touch of passion, the
indefinable something that makes greatness--and the bards whose primary
object, like Calverley's, is to make the reader laugh.  "He elected,"
says Mr Coulson Kernahan, "to don the cap and bells when he might have
worn the singing robes of the poet": a description of one who chose to be
a jester when he might have been serious, and hardly applicable to
Locker, who is never a professed "funny man."  Mr Kernahan is far more
just when he claims for "London Lyrics" a kind of sober gentleness which
moves neither to laugh nor to weep: "his sad scenes may touch us to
tender melancholy, but never to tears; his gay ones to smile, but seldom
to laughter."  Locker's Muse is not the Muse of high spirits.  He does
not start with the intention of jesting.  He is the gentle and serious
spectator of things which are not the most serious in life--with a sense
of the humorous which is not repressible, and which enters into all his
reflections, but which he never allows wholly to master him.

It is really impossible to classify poets on any satisfactory principle.
Every good poet is a class by himself.  But if the attempt must be made,
one may say that the author of "London Lyrics" belongs to that school of
which the other chief representatives, in English or American literature,
have been Praed, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mr Austin Dobson.  It has
always been the fashion to class him with the first named of the trio as
a writer of "occasional verse" or "vers de societe."  These titles, like
other parts of the nomenclature of the poetic art, are not satisfying.
Why "smoothly written verse, where a boudoir decorum is or ought always
to be preserved: where sentiment never surges into passion, and where
humour never overflows into boisterous merriment" should be
conventionally called "society verse," or "occasional verse," is not very
clear.  To write "society verse" is to be the laureate of the cultured,
leisured, pleasure-loving upper classes; but some poets satisfy the above
requirements--Locker himself included--yet certainly do not write
exclusively of or for "Society."  Then again, what is "occasional"?
Many serious poems are inspired by the transient occasion.  But we are
not, presumably, to class "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints" among
occasional pieces, nor is Wordsworth's sonnet on London at dawn to be
called occasional; yet the source of it, the fact that the poet happened
to be upon Westminster Bridge in the early morning, was transient, not
(apparently) inherent in the nature of things.  However, these names must
be accepted as we find them.  Here is Locker's own law: "Occasional
verse," he says, "should be short, graceful, refined, and fanciful, not
seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful.  The tone
should not be pitched high: it should be terse and idiomatic, and rather
in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and
the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be
marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness: for,
however trivial the subject-matter may be, indeed, rather in proportion
to its triviality, subordination to the rules of composition, and
perfection of execution, are of the utmost importance."  Among the
enviable versifiers who can satisfy these requirements Praed and Locker
both hold a high place.  Praed, indeed, is the chief among writers of
"vers de societe," for not only does his manner conform to the laws laid
down by high authorities, but his theme is generally "Society" with a
capital S.  "Praed," says Locker in "My Confidences," "is the very best
of his school: indeed, he has a unique position; for in his narrower vein
of whimsical wit, vernacular banter, and antithetical rhetoric, which may
correctly be called _vers de societe_ in its most perfected form, and its
exactest sense, he has never been equalled."  These phrases hit off Praed
very well--if one does not exactly see what "Society" has to do with
antithetical rhetoric.

These two poets, so often classed together, are not really very much
alike.  Both are certainly "in lighter vein"; but they differ apparently
in temperament, and certainly in method.  No one would deny to Praed the
gift of humour.  But the period in which he wrote was one which admired
primarily wit; and while it would be too much to say that his heart is
not in his theme--that he stands