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Now, to us, had we needed such evidence aside from the pretty general want of merit in his poetry, the above is quite conclusive that it was this very mischievous puffing on the part of the English press that took Mr. Kipling out of "the side columns of English papers," and, along with not wholly disinterested tributes from a few authors and other writers, gave him his phenomenal popularity.

But Kipling's rank as a poet will not be assigned him permanently by the character of his popularity today; it will not be assigned him by the aristocracy of letters, nor by the out-of-date Jack tars and moss-troopers whom he has celebrated in verse and in song; but it will be assigned him by the common sense of the cultured class of common people, to whom most of his verse does not appeal, to whom much of it is repulsive, and in which innocent child-life is disregarded and the dignity of woman-hood is dishonored.

CHAPTER V.

"THE SEVEN SEAS."

"Q for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"

Shakespeare.

HEN Mr. Kipling's biographer shall come

W

finally to record the deeds, both great and small, that enter into the warp and woof of a life very distinguished, with or without good reason, that he had kingdoms for a stage, princes to act, however unimportant the part, and monarchs to behold, whether from interest feigned or real, will not be questioned. But that his muse ascended the brightest heaven of invention will doubtless be disputed by numberless judges competent to pass upon the merits of his verse in a fair and impartial manner.

"A song of the English."

Poetry that has little else to recommend it except such dry facts as the poet may have recited in this narrative ought, at least, inculcate truth, especially when truth is set forth as one of the

prime virtues of the poem in the very invocation of the muse, the poet's object being that

"Through the naked words and mean

Ye may see the truth between."

Take the first stanza in the above song:

"Fair is our lot-O goodly is our heritage!
(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)
For the Lord our God Most High

He hath made the deep as dry,

He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth!"

The very trite figure is very readily recognized as a comparison between Moses' leading the Jews out of captivity to the Pharaohs, and the various migrations and settlement of the English all over the world. Now to any one acquainted with the motives of the East India Company in the settling of India, Clive's dealing with the nabobs of the Carnatic, or Warren Hasting's treasonable treatment of the Begums of Oude; to any one at all acquainted with the persecution that drove the Puritans from Holland to America; to any one recalling the fact that Canada and Australia were first turned by England to the unhallowed purpose of places for banished convicts; to any one acquainted with the many indefensible methods of English policy in spreading her dominions and commerce, whether we contemplate her in "unhappy Ireland,” “darkest Africa,” in In

dia, or America, the idea that "this is the Lord's doings" seems most preposterous. The pathway has been smitten by the English and for England, but how could Kipling turn so blind to many of the unrighteous methods of our ancestors as to impute it to the Lord? "Paradise will be found in the shadow of the crossing of swords," said Mohammed, and we suppose Mussulmen poets have sung of pathways made by Allah.

Moreover, Kipling's reckless muse makes him contradict this profane imputation in that bit of jingling braggadocia, "The Sons of the Widow," from which we have elsewhere quoted:

"Walk wide o' the Widow of Windsor,

For 'alf of creation she owns:

We 'ave bought her the same with the sword an' the flame, An' we've salted it down with our bones."

But whether acquired by "divine right," purchase, or conquest, other nations, even though "green with envy," must in fairness concede that

THE HOME AND DOMINIONS OF THE WINDOW OF

WINDSOR Wouldn't be a bad name for the whole geography of the old earth.

Consider next the beauties of the fourth

stanza:

"Keep ye the Law-be swift in all obedience.

Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford, Make ye sure to each his own

That he reap what he hath sown;

Here we have Hogarth's curve of beauty. Mark the swift descent of obeying laws and clearing the land of evil to the rather impracticable idea of bridging a ford, then an upward flight through the Scriptural text of one's reaping as he has sown to the grand climax that

By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord."

This idea does not harmonize well, either with England's standing army, her great navy, her many wars with other nations, her hesitancy in adopting arbitration, nor with Kipling's well known militarism.

We shall pay only a passing notice to the figures and diction of this poem, and then call attention to what we consider its most serious blemish, a blemish that, if we are correct in our surmise, does much discredit to the poet. That roving merchant ships should be called "gipsies of the Horn" and "swift shuttles of an Empire's loom" are a couple of magnificent figures to come together in a single breath,-in one sentence. We would suggest that gypsies are not so much associated with Cape Horn in the popular mind as are the Patigonian Indians. Morover, if the "gipsies of the Horn" are no more spirited than other gip

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