The diversity of these, if we may so express them, "camp stools" of
imagination, is worthy of remark, both as to their application and
amplitude. For instance, after _one_ line, and that if perused with
attention, comparatively less abstruse than its fellows, the gifted poet
satisfies himself with the insertion of three sonorous, but really simple
syllables, they are invariably at follows--
"Too-ral-loo!"
But when _two_ lines of the poem--burning with thought, bursting with
action--entrance by their sublimity the enraptured reader, greater time is
given, and more extended accommodation for a mental sit-down is afforded
in the elaborate and elongated composition of
"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day!"
These introductions are of a high classic origin. Many professors of
eminence have quarrelled as to whether they were not the original of the
"Greek chorus;" while others, of equal erudition, have as stoutly
maintained, though closely approximating in character and purpose, they
are not the "originals," but imitations, and decidedly admirable ones,
from those celebrated poets.
A Mr. William Waters, a gentleman of immense travel, one who had left the
burning zone of the far East to visit the more chilling gales of a
European climate, a philosopher of the sect known as the "Peripatetic," a
devoted follower of the heathen Nine, whose fostering care has ever been
devoted to the tutelage of the professors of sweet sounds; and therefore
Waters was a high authority, declared in the peculiar _patois_ attendant
upon the pronunciation of a foreign mode of speech--that
"Too-ral-loo"
was to catch him wind! And
"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day,"
to let "um rosin up him fuddlestick!" These deductions are practical, if
not poetical; but these are but the emanations from the brain of
one--hundreds of other commentators differ from his view.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38