THE 'KOTTABISTAI' AN anthology of Anglo-Irish verse would be incomplete if it did not include within it some selections representative of an interesting literary movement in Trinity College, Dublin, which has been marked by the publication of successive numbers of a college magazine entitled Kottabos, between the year 1874 and the present day. Kottabos owed its origin, and much of its lustre, to the eminent classical scholar, Professor Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, F.T.C.D., who for many years acted as its editor. It was primarily a magazine of Greek and Latin compositions written by Trinity College men, but it was open also to contributions, from the same source, of original English verse and of English verse-translations. In such a miscellany we could not expect to find the productions of many born poets. Born poets are not numerous in any generation, and when they do appear they are seldom gregarious; they are disposed to 'dwell apart;' their utterances are not often of the kind that fits them to take a place side by side with the productions of the 'elegant trifler' in verse. To Kottabos some writers of unmistakable kinship with the genuine poets did occasionally contribute; but these cannot be numbered with the typical 'Kottabistai.' The typical 'Kottabistai' have been men of culture and scholarship, who have written English verse at that period of life at which men are most enthusiastic, most emotional, most enamoured of beauty, most ambitious, most receptive, and most imitative. Kottabos encouraged a taste for English verse-writing, just as it encouraged a taste for Greek and Latin verse-writing; and between the accomplished contributor of English verse and the accomplished contributor of Greek and Latin verse there was generally a close affinity. Many of the English versecompositions-like some by Mulvany, Martley, Mr. S. K. Cowan, and Professor Tyrrell-were excellent parodies; many-like some by Professor Dowden, Dr. Todhunter, and Professor Tyrrell-were deliberate and acknowledged studies of the styles of eminent masters; many-like some by De Burgh, Dr. Todhunter, Mr. Newcomen, Mr. George Wilkins, and Mr. Rolleston-were clever translations; many were unconscious imitations of poets who happened at the moment to be in vogue. Often the lyrics were humorous and very amusing; often they contained just enough spontaneous personal emotion to be very nearly genuine poems; occasionally they were genuine poems. A few of the early contributors to Kottabos have proved that the poetic impulse of their college days was not transient; their poetical individuality has shown itself to be strong and persistent; and to these must be assigned separate places in every anthology of modern Irish verse. On the other hand, some who did very good and even promising work in those days have gone to the grave without having accomplished anything better; and some had not yet had time to prove whether their early fervour was the enduring spirit of poetry or not. From these two latter classes, with hesitation and with diffidence, and not without a misgiving that writers as worthy have been omitted, the names of Charles Pelham Mulvany, John Martley, Professor Palmer, and Percy Somers Payne have been selected. G. F. SAVAGE-Armstrong. CHARLES PELHAM MULVANY CHARLES PELHAM MULVANY was born in Dublin on May 20, 1835. He was educated in Dublin, and took his degree of B.A. at Trinity College in 1856. For a time he was a surgeon in the Royal Navy, but subsequently entered Holy Orders, and went to reside in Canada, where he died after a very chequered career on May 31, 1885. Besides his many contributions to Kottabos, he published verses in The Nation, The Irish Metropolitan Magazine, and, we believe, in The College Magazine, which he edited. Mulvany's works are:-LYRICS OF HISTORY And of Life (1880); A HISTORY OF BRANT, ONTARIO (1883); TORONTO, PAST AND PRESENT (1884); HISTORY OF THE North-West REBELLION OF 1885 (1886). Mulvany is less of a poet than of a clever and humorous parodist. His serious poems are often pervaded by a melancholy not unlike Edgar Allan Poe's. They generally begin well, but, like the productions of most writers of his degree, fall off towards the close. EMMELINE WHY sitt'st thou by the shore, Why sportest thou no more, G. F. S.-A. Mid those oozy-looking damsels just emerging from the brine, Thy blue eyes on the blue water why so sadly dost incline, Looking wistful And half tristful, Emmeline? One summer morn like this, Thy heart beat close to his, And I rather think he took the liberty to twine His arm just for one moment round that slender waist of thine; He loves you, the poor wretch ! But there's many a better catch, Emmeline. Cut him dead when next you meet him, burn his letters every line, And deserve the eligible match your dearest friends assign. He is but a poor and true man, You a lady (not a woman), Emmeline. LONG DESERTED YON old house in moonlight sleeping, Once it held a lady fair, Long ago she left it weeping, Still the old house standeth there- That old pauper house unmeet for the pleasant village street With its eyeless window sockets, And its courts all grass o'ergrown, And the weeds above its doorway Where the flowers are carved in stone, And its chimneys lank and high like gaunt tombstones on the sky. Ruin'd, past all care and trouble, Like the heir of some old race Whose past glories but redouble Present ruin and disgrace, For whom none are left that bear hope or sorrow anywhere. Lost old house! and I was happy 'Neath thy shade one summer night, When on one that walk'd beside me Gazed I by the lingering light, In the depths of her dark eyes searching for my destinies. There within our quiet garden Fell that last of happy eves Through the gold of the laburnum And the thickening lilac leaves; There the winter winds are now sighing round each leafless bough. Haunted house! and do they whisper That the wintry moon-rays show, Glancing through thy halls, a ghastly And thy windows shining bright with a spectral gala light? Vain and idle superstition! Thee no spectral rays illume ; But one shape of gentlest beauty I can conjure from thy gloom, In whose sad eyes I can see ghosts that haunt my memory. JOHN MARTLEY JOHN MARTLEY, the third son of Mr. Henry Martley, Q.C., afterwards a Judge of the Landed Estates Court, Ireland, was born in Dublin on May 15, 1844. He was educated at Cheltenham College; at St. Columba's College, Rathfarnham ; and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1866. In 1875 he was called to the Irish Bar, but, obtaining an appointment in the Landed Estates Court, he did not practise. He wrote both for Kottabos and for Froth, a Dublin periodical (1879). He married Miss Frances Howorth, sister of Mr. H. Howorth, M.P., and died of consumption on August 25, 1882. Martley's work is: FRAGMENTS IN PROSE AND VERSE (published posthumously, 1883). Martley, like Mulvany, excelled as a parodist; but his parodies lack the completeness and the original surprises of Mulvany's. His serious poems have the same tendency to lose force and power as they advance. He manifests a higher culture, a greater tenderness, and a purer taste than Mulvany; and his skill in versification is sometimes, though not always, masterly. THE VALLEY OF SHANGANAGH G. F. S.-A. WRITTEN FOR THE AIR THE WEARING OF THE GREEN' IN the Valley of Shanganagh, where the songs of skylarks teem, And the rose perfumes the ocean-breeze, as love the hero's dream, 'Twas there I wooed my Maggie. In her dark eyes there did dwell A secret that the billows knew, but yet could never tell. Oh light as fairy tread her voice fell on my bounding heart; 6 |