The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘By Jove, I will; he was my father's friend!’
Thus Dr. Furnivall, in choice blank verse,
Replied when he was asked by Mr. Sweet
(Sweet of the pointed and envenomed pen,
Wherewith he pricks the men who not elect
Him a Professor, as he ought to be),
'Twas thus, we say, that Furnivall replied
To the bold question asked by bitter Sweet.
‘And what that question?’ Briefly, it was this—
‘Why do not you, who start so many things,
Societies for poets live and dead,
Why do not you a new communion found—
“Shelley Society” might be the name—
Where men might worry over Shelley's bones?’
‘By Jove, I will; he was my father's friend,’
Said Furnivall; and lo, the thing was done!

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Then the fresh victim to ‘inaugurate’,
They called upon the Reverend Stopford Brooke.
Who, being well disposed to them, arose,
And did address them in majestic phrase,
‘Forewords’, as they are styled by Furnivall,
By Jove, for Shelley was his father's friend.
‘A thoughtful and most temperate address’
Was Stopford Brooke's, who, as we learn with grief
From the reporter of this merry fit,
‘Knocked Mr. Matthew Arnold out of time’.
Oh, somewhere, meek, unconscious Matt, that sit'st
Below Teutonic limes, somewhere thou'lt read
I' the Times, how Stopford Brooke has knocked thee flat!
Then, to the joy of the assembled host,
To them arose intrepid Furnivall
(Young Mr. Shelley was his father's friend),
And proved that Matthew is a Philistine!
Oh, tell it not in Gath; oh, tell it not
Where men do congregate in Ascalon,
That Mr. Arnold tarries in their tents
Disguised, and worships Dagon e'en as they.
Such is the view of Dr. Furnivall.

Then anecdotes of Shelley were brought forth—
Old anecdotes, and such as Captain Sumph
Was wont to tell of Byron and the priest
Who grieved that he was ‘not a family man’.

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This was the bravest of the anecdotes,
How Shelley at the elder Furnivall's
(For Shelley was the Doctor's father's friend)
Was asked one day, at tea, ‘What he would take’?
And what took Shelley but a dish of milk
(It seems he did not like it in a cup)—
A dish of milk, and, butterless, a crust.
Such was the food of this superior mind,
Such the tradition and the influence
That shaped the soul of Dr. Furnivall.

What more? Why not so much as we might hope;
But Mr. Brooke—the Reverend Stopford Brooke,
He who in our religion finds romance—
Declared that Shelley was the poet-priest
Of what he calls ‘the modern Meliorism’.
What that may be we know not; but 'tis thought
To be a kind of pious Socialism,
To be a dallying with dynamite,
With Mr. Hyndman and the other gents
Who lead a mob along the streets and break
The windows, and who scare the little girls.

Then these weird figures went their several ways,
All the Society of Shelleyites.
Much have they added to the public stock
Of information about Shelley's ways;

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Much, very much, it helps us to enjoy
The Adonais and Alastor, too,
Prometheus and Epipsychidion.
Oh, happy Shelley! happy in thy friends,
And happy in the culminating chance
When Mr. Sweet inquired of Furnivall
Why he should so neglect so great a bard,
For Shelley was the Doctor's father's friend.