A VOLUME OF VERSE FOR CHILDREN.*
Ir is not given to many to write for children such things as the small people really care for. If one has ever observed the manner in which an intelligent child regards a book especially intended for young persons of his time of life, the very moderate gratitude with which the present inspires him, his prompt looking of the gift-horse in the mouth in search of extenuating pictures, his suspiciousness of lurking lessons, not to be repressed by the most carefully-inculcated good manners, one knows that children do not expect much from literature to their intention. And they are as right as children mostly are about matters which concern their own mysterious individuality, for out of the numbers who write for them, there are few who do not mistake the nature and direction of their fancies, or who have that perception of their tastes which is imparted by sympathy. We are not speaking now of the excellent boy-and-girl literature that has grown to such large proportions since the minatory epoch of Tommy and Harry, and the worldly-wise period of Miss Edgeworth's "Frank." But of the books written for quite young children, the failures in an order of composition which is at once very difficult and imperatively spontaneous, are vastly more numerous than the successful achievements. A fatal taint of grown-np.ishness is upon almost all books of this kind; a savour of condescension,—which a clever child scents with the certainty of a cautions cat ; and although, unlike the latter, be may be brought to swallow the suspected morsel, it will be with but languid appreciation. Let us take Liliput Levee, for instance ; what a charming production that is, with its fantastic conceits and its genuine fun ! But whom does it charm most readily, most surely ? Not the little people, we believe, but the older reader who sees how it is done ; and that is just what makes it fall short of Lear's Nonsense Verses, which have found so many imitators but are still inimitable, and of Alice in Wonderland, to say nothing of the stories of old renown that have suffered many things at many hands, notably Ornikehank's, but have survived imperti- nent improvements, and will survive the educational processes of the philosophers and faddists of all time, for the simple reason that none of these can ever abolish childhood. At least, we hope this will be so ; for children who should nut believe in the " White Cat," or who would regard the household arrangements of the " Three Bears " with incredulous scrutiny, would be odious little prigs and pedants, undeserving of rides to Banbury Cross, condolences upon the untimely arrival of the Sandman, or personal illustrations of the adventnres of those four immortal Little Pigs which have conveyed to so many generations their earliest notions of the caprices of destiny.
Why is it that, with so much goodwill, there is so little success in the writing of stories, and especially verses, for children? It cannot be because the writers do not care about children, for, if they did not, they would not write for them; but we think it may be because they do not retain in themselves enough or any of the child. They may, and often do, appre- hend the limits of the intelligence of their small clients ; but something more and other than this is necessary to win their hearts, and fix in their memory the fancies of stories or the form of rhymes. He who can do this must have the heart of the little child he once was, still beating inside the heart of the man be now is, the heart that has been tamed by time, wrung by sorrow, and taught by experience. If there remains no vestige of the former, the writer may have great ingenuity, cunning fancy, and skill in expression ; but he will lack the subtle sympathy, the exquisite unreasonableness, the delightful dis- regard, or rather absence of all sense of proportion, the prepos- terous " solution of continuity," which is above all things dear to children. The rhymes which were selected for illustration by
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the ever-to-be-lamented artist, Mr. Caldeeott (surely the children never had such a friend, or sustained such a loss), were chosen on the sound principle of giving the preference to what is non- sense according to grown-up notions; but the man who depicted the elopement of the dish with the spoon, not only knew how children love nonsense of the absolutely incongruous kind, but loved it himself in the child's heart which always remained with him. Why, oh why, did he not leave to all time a series of pictures of the yeripeties of the Little Pigs, or, in a graver mood, illustrate that charming quatrain in which a fratricide and a suicide are related succinctly as follows ?-
"I'll tell you a story of Johnny Magory ;
He went to a wood, and shot a Tory [thief].
Then be came home and shot another, And so pat an end to himself and his brother !"
A volume of verse—almost all of it, we are glad to say, pure
nonsense—which reveals the writer's possession of the peculiar gift that wins the heart of children, lies before us. It is a pity that the title should be so discouraging. That the writer of these very funny verses should have called his hook Bumblebee logo's Budget, by a Retired Judge, is only to be accounted for by supposing that the title has some household association which endears it to the writer, but being unexplained, does not excuse it to his readers. The verses, which really do produce the impression of having been written because the author could not help it, are comical and unreasonable to the last degree ; but they are not quaint, and that is much to their credit, for quaintness is too artificial a quality to please children. "A Retired Judge" is presumably an elderly gentleman ; but this particular Judge has retired into the nursery, to all appearance, and bids fair to be eminently popular with the pinafore public, who are extremely hard to please, and whose criticism is as candid as it is practical The children will not learn verses by heart unless they like them ; and no one ever sees them dancing to rhymes set to their own tunes, unless those rhymes have a touch of the tarantula about them. There is "Dickory, Dickory-dock, the mouse ran up the clock," for instance; non- sensical enough to please the moat exacting ; but where are the good grey heads that cannot remember the time when the feet that are—well, not gouty, perhaps, but "threatened "—jumped and hopped and skipped, "All around the mulberry-tree, the mulberry-tree, the mulberry-tree," to that inspiring measure ? There are verses in this volume that will take the fancy of the children oil to-day as strongly, and hold it as long. There are pretty, simple, happy, loving conceits also, and among the verses that appeal to older readers, while they are not over the heads of the little ones, are those addressed to the writer's mother, "lost awhile," and also a little poem whose motive is the same as the well known " Wive d'une Mere," with its touching refrain :— " En attendant, stir mes genoux,
Bean genSral, endormez•vous !"
Without a touch of sentimentality, but fall of genuine feeling, is " Bobby, my Boy." " The Maid of Rangoon " is truly poetical in its prodigal fancifulness, and the writer's plea for the admission of his puppets to live-
"— in your Babyland Along with the bright and merry band That have lived there pleasantly ever so long, And who'll live for ever in nursery song,"—
is followed by a recapitulation of the immortal stories and rhymes, from "Red Riding Hood" to the "Ugly Duckling," which is exceedingly clever. We have not space for an extract long enough to do justice to this catalogue in rhyme; but we must endorse one observation
:- "And little Diok Whittington (we don't oars For the big one who grew up to be Lord Mayor)."
Among the prettiest verses in the volume (but the children will not like them the best) are those on " Babyland," with their perfect presentment of the serious and convinced house-building and garden-making of children, and their pathetic touches of regretful reminiscence. The poet of the children seldom drops into moralising, but when he does, it is good moralising.
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