HOURS WITH LESS KNOWN 
WRITERS. 
BY D. F. LAMSON. 
The recent publication of Robert Her- 
rick’s charming verses in two volumes, 
with all the attractions of the modern 
book-maker’s art, is proof sufficient that 
the somewhat “‘over-sportive parson’’ is 
not likely to be forgotten by this genera- 
tion. 
And Herrick’s muse is deserving of 
such remembrance; for apart from oc- 
casional license, “‘my unbaptised rhym- 
es,’ as he called them, for which he 
himself prayed for forgiveness, in a man- 
ner which reminds us of Chaucer and 
Dryden, it must be said that Herrick was 
a poet of delicate tastes, and that his ver- 
ses are full of beauty and music. His oc- 
casional coarseness was in part the frank- 
ness of his age; there was no vice in 
Robert Herrick; he simply saw human 
nature as it is, and saw it whole. 
cording to our ideas he was a_ poor 
churchman, but he belonged to a worldly 
and not over-fastidious age, an age that 
expected little in the way of piety even 
of its spiritual guides. He owed his living 
in a sweet Devonshire village to favorit- 
ism, but he was a soundhearted man who 
enjoyed life and was full of charity and 
tenderness. : 
Herrick was born in London in 1591, 
but loved the country, sung the praises 
of its daffodils and heart’s-ease, wrote 
polished and harmonious verses, dwelt in 
bachelor loneliness with a pet cat, an in- 
telligent dog anda friendly goose, and 
performed the offices of the church on 
Sundays and holy-days with regularity if 
not with unction. Some anecdotes pre- 
served of him show him to have been a 
kindly, quick-witted, somewhat humor- 
ous man who saw life mainly on its bright- 
er and care free side, and reflected it in 
his poems. His verses are mostly brief 
and in the lighter vein; they deal with 
nature and life with a graceful touch, and 
are full of melody and sweetness. He 
owed much to Ben Jonson, ‘‘Saint Ben,’’ 
as he affectionately calls him, as his mas- 
ter of lyric verse, but finally outdid him 
in his little songs of pleasure in fruits, 
and flowers, and pretty women, and little 
children, in morris-dances and wakes, 
in Christmas and Twelfth-night revels. 
His bird-notes, exquisite, untiring, seem 
always ready to begin afresh. His num- 
bers of Arcadian freshness describe the 
picturesqueness of rural life as no Eng- 
lish poet had before described it; his love 
poems have all the freshness and frag- 
Ac- ° 
£5 11.907; 
SCHOOL WORK 
A VERY SUCCESSFUL AFFAIR 
The third exhibition of school work 
of pupils of the G. A. Priest and John 
Price Primary schools, Manchester, was 
held on Tuesday afternoon and evening 
of this week in the assembly hal! of the 
new primary school building. The ex- 
hibition as a whole was very successful 
and in many respects in advance of last 
year. 
The work was naturally much more 
artistically arranged inasmuch asthe room 
is more appropriate for an exhibition of 
this kind than the Town hall. A feature 
well worth mentioning, too, was the way 
the work was displayed. The work of 
the grades was arranged around the room 
while the industrial—sloyd and sewing — 
was displayed in the middle of the room. 
The exhibition, if it serves no other 
purpose, certainly does place before the 
people the actual work being done in the 
schools in‘'a manner that could not be 
gained in any other way. ‘The display 
showed what is being done in general by 
the various grades, and anyone who is 
interested in any particular pupil can learn 
in a minute just what has been accom- 
plised, for the work done by each pupil 
throughout the year has been: saved and 
rance of summer fields and the charm of 
the nightingale’s song. For delicate 
fancy, exquisite imagery and_ tuneful 
melody, for light and color, many of 
Herrick’s poems are unsurpassed, 
-_ . y 6 brs 1 A a. 
[ake his lines ““The Primrose,’’ one 
of the sweetest and most delicate of Eng- 
lish Howers: 
*“Ask me why I send you here 
This sweet infanta of the year? 
Ask me why I send to you 
This primrose, thus bespearl’d with dew? 
I will whisper to your ears, 
The sweets of love are mixed with. tears. 
Ask me why this flower does show 
So yellow green, and sickly too? 
Ask me why the stalk is weak 
And bending, yet it doth not break? 
I will answer, these discover 
What fainting hopes are in a lover,”’ 
His tender fancy often found express- 
ion in elegiac verse; 
‘‘Here she lies, a pretty bud, 
Lately made of flesh and blood; 
Who as soon fell fast asleep 
As her little eyes did peep. 
Give her strewings, but not stir 
The earth that lightly covers her.’’ 
. . a4 . 
Another epitaph is ““Upon a Maid:?’’ 
‘“Here she lies, in beds of spice, 
Fair as Eve in Paradise; 
For her beauty it was such, , 
Poets could not praise too much. 
can be seen. 
Not only is it a benefit in. this regard 
but it is a benefit to the children, too, for 
the fact that there is to be an. exhibition 
of their work serves as an incentive for 
better work all through the year, and 
much good is thus accomplished. 
Some of the objects and work display- 
ed, done by the children, were truly 
marvellous from. the standpoint of the 
older ones who have not had the oppor- 
tunity for the training now in vogue. 
From the kindergarten to the highest 
grade there is a tendency, as seen by the 
work, to depart from the three ‘‘ ey 
soto speak, and to train the children 
practical, every day things. 
»> 
The little 
tots in Grade II, for instance, learn how 
to mould and shape objects from clay, 
and the results obtained as seen by the 
objects displayed, would indicate. that 
they have learned more of this art by act- 
ual experience in a short time than they 
could learn from books in years, at their 
age. 
Following is a brief review of the dis- 
play by erades: | 
Continued on page 15 
Virgins, come, and in a ring 
Her supremest requiem sing; 
Then depart, but see ye tread 
Lightly, lightly, o’er the:dead.’” 
The exuberance of his poetic fancy 
and his love of nature in its more genial 
and sportive moods often find voice in 
words of the sweetest, as in the lines on 
“The Blossoms,’’ ‘‘How the Hearts’ - 
ease first came,’’ ““The Captive Bee,’’ 
*“The Night-Piece—To Julia.’’ His ver- 
ses are redolent with roses and jessamin- 
es, as light as the thistle-down floating in 
the air, and as_ beautiful as the June 
hedgerows. They are lightsome canzon- 
ets welling up from the heart, and that 
sing themseives to: fresh unworn hearts 
the world over-—virginibus puerisque canto. 
Another more serious side of Herrick’ s 
character and poetry must be reserved 
for another paper. 
TES NAS & 
Dustless road will greatly remedy the 
speeding nuisance. Much of the fast 
driving and apparent racing is due to a 
dislike for eating the other fellow’s dust. 
Why ‘not have your printing done at 
the office of THe Breeze Print? 
The Brerze one year, one dollar, 
