Chapter XVII: Part II: opened with a suite in F Major for orchestra (op. 39) by (11)

And in it he placed the Fitzwilliam and King’s College Chapel and the lofty towered church of the Great Saint Mary, which looketh towards the Senate House, and King’s Parade and Trumpington Road and the Pitt Press and the divine opening of the Market Square and the beautiful flowing fountain which formerly Hobson laboured to make with skilful art; him did his father beget in the many-public-housed Trumpington from a slavey mother and taught him blameless works; and he, on the other hand, sprang up like a young shoot and many beautifully matched horses did he nourish in his stable, which used to convey his rich possessions to London and the various cities of the world; but oftentimes did he let them out to others and whensoever any one was desirous of hiring one of the long-tailed horses he took them in order, so that the labour was equal to all, wherefore do men now speak of the choice of the renowned Hobson. And in it he placed the close of the divine Parker, and many beautiful undergraduates were delighting their tender minds upon it playing cricket with one another; and a match was being played and two umpires were quarrelling with one another; the one saying that the batsman who was playing was out and the other declaring with all his might that he was not; and while they two were contending, reviling one another with abusive language, a ball came and hit one of them on the nose and the blood flowed out in a stream and darkness was covering his eyes, but the rest were crying out on all sides:

“Shy it up.”

And he could not; him, then, was his companion addressing with scornful words:

“Arnold, why dost thou strive with me since I am much wiser? Did not I see his leg before the wicket and rightly declare him to be out? Thee, then, has Zeus now punished according to thy deserts and I will seek some other umpire of the game equally-participated-in-by-both-sides.”

And in it he placed the Cam and many boats equally rowed on both sides were going up and down on the bosom of the deep rolling river and the coxswains were cheering on the men, for they were going to enter the contest of the scratchean fours; and three men were rowing together in a boat, strong and stout and determined in their hearts that they would either first break a blood vessel or earn for themselves the electroplated-Birmingham-manufactured magnificence of a pewter to stand on their ball tables in memorial of their strength, and from time to time drink from it the exhilarating streams of beer whensoever their dear heart should compel them; but the fourth was weak and unequally matched with the others and the coxswain was encouraging him and called him by name and spake cheering words:

“Smith, when thou hast begun the contest, be not flurried nor strive too hard against thy fate, look at the back of the man before thee and row with as much strength as the Fates spun out for thee on the day when thou fellest between the knees of thy mother, neither lose thine oar, but hold it tight with thy hands.”

iii—The Two Deans

_Scene_: _The Court of St. John’s College_, _Cambridge_. _Enter the two deans on their way to morning chapel_.

JUNIOR DEAN: Brother, I am much pleased with Samuel Butler,
I have observed him mightily of late;
Methinks that in his melancholy walk
And air subdued when’er he meeteth me
Lurks something more than in most other men.

SENIOR DEAN: It is a good young man. I do bethink me
That once I walked behind him in the cloister,
He saw me not, but whispered to his fellow:
“Of all men who do dwell beneath the moon
I love and reverence most the senior Dean.”

JUNIOR DEAN: One thing is passing strange, and yet I know not
How to condemn it; but in one plain brief word
He never comes to Sunday morning chapel.
Methinks he teacheth in some Sunday school,
Feeding the poor and starveling intellect
With wholesome knowledge, or on the Sabbath morn
He loves the country and the neighbouring spire
Of Madingley or Coton, or perchance
Amid some humble poor he spends the day
Conversing with them, learning all their cares,
Comforting them and easing them in sickness.
Oh ’tis a rare young man!

SENIOR DEAN: I will advance him to some public post,
He shall be chapel clerk, some day a fellow,
Some day perhaps a Dean, but as thou sayst
He is indeed an excellent young man—

_Enter Butler suddenly without a coat_, _or anything on his head_, _rushing through the cloisters_, _bearing a cup_, _a bottle of cider_, _four lemons_, _two nutmegs_, _half a pound of sugar and a nutmeg grater_.

_Curtain falls on the confusion of Butler and the horror-stricken dismay of the two deans_.

iv—On the Italian Priesthood

(Con arte e con inganno, si vive mezzo l’anno;
Con inganno e con arte, si vive l’altra parte.)

In knavish art and gathering gear
They spend the one half of the year;
In gathering gear and knavish art
They somehow spend the other part.

v—A Psalm of Montreal

The City of Montreal is one of the most rising and, in many respects, most agreeable on the American continent, but its inhabitants are as yet too busy with commerce to care greatly about the masterpieces of old Greek Art. In the Montreal Museum of Natural History I came upon two plaster casts, one of the Antinous and the other of the Discobolus—not the good one, but in my poem, of course, I intend the good one—banished from public view to a room where were all manner of skins, plants, snakes, insects, etc., and, in the middle of these, an old man stuffing an owl.

“Ah,” said I, “so you have some antiques here; why don’t you put them where people can see them?”

“Well, sir,” answered the custodian, “you see they are rather vulgar.”

He then talked a great deal and said his brother did all Mr. Spurgeon’s printing.

The dialogue—perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a little of the one and a little of the other—between the writer and this old man gave rise to the lines that follow:

Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room
The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;
Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,
Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth:
O God! O Montreal!

Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter,
Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful—
He preacheth gospel of grace to the skin of owls
And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls:
O God! O Montreal!

When I saw him I was wroth and I said, “O Discobolus!
Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men!
What doest thou here, how camest thou hither, Discobolus,
Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?”
O God! O Montreal!

And I turned to the man of skins and said unto him, “O thou man of
skins,
Wherefore hast thou done thus to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?”
But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins
And he answered, “My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.”
O God! O Montreal!

“The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar—
He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;
I, Sir, am a person of most respectable connections
My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.”
O God! O Montreal!

Then I said, “O brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon’s haberdasher,
Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,
Thou callest trousers ‘pants,’ whereas I call them ‘trousers,’
Therefore thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee!”
O God! O Montreal!

“Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas,
The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon’s haberdashery to the
gospel of the Discobolus?”
Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty saying, “The Discobolus hath no
gospel,
But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.”
O God! O Montreal!

vi—The Righteous Man

The righteous man will rob none but the defenceless,
Whatsoever can reckon with him he will neither plunder nor kill;
He will steal an egg from a hen or a lamb from an ewe,
For his sheep and his hens cannot reckon with him hereafter—
They live not in any odour of defencefulness:
Therefore right is with the righteous man, and he taketh advantage
righteously,
Praising God and plundering.

The righteous man will enslave his horse and his dog,
Making them serve him for their bare keep and for nothing further,
Shooting them, selling them for vivisection when they can no longer
profit him,
Backbiting them and beating them if they fail to please him;
For his horse and his dog can bring no action for damages,
Wherefore, then, should he not enslave them, shoot them, sell them for
vivisection?

But the righteous man will not plunder the defenceful—
Not if he be alone and unarmed—for his conscience will smite him;
He will not rob a she-bear of her cubs, nor an eagle of her eaglets—
Unless he have a rifle to purge him from the fear of sin:
Then may he shoot rejoicing in innocency—from ambush or a safe
distance;
Or he will beguile them, lay poison for them, keep no faith with them;
For what faith is there with that which cannot reckon hereafter,
Neither by itself, nor by another, nor by any residuum of ill
consequences?
Surely, where weakness is utter, honour ceaseth.

Nay, I will do what is right in the eye of him who can harm me,
And not in those of him who cannot call me to account.
Therefore yield me up thy pretty wings, O humming-bird!
Sing for me in a prison, O lark!
Pay me thy rent, O widow! for it is mine.
Where there is reckoning there is sin,
And where there is no reckoning sin is not.

vii—To Critics and Others

O Critics, cultured Critics!
Who will praise me after I am dead,
Who will see in me both more and less than I intended,
But who will swear that whatever it was it was all perfectly right:
You will think you are better than the people who, when I was alive,
swore that whatever I did was wrong
And damned my books for me as fast as I could write them;
But you will not be better, you will be just the same, neither better
nor worse,
And you will go for some future Butler as your fathers have gone for
me.
Oh! How I should have hated you!

But you, Nice People!
Who will be sick of me because the critics thrust me down your
throats,
But who would take me willingly enough if you were not bored about me,
Or if you could have the cream of me—and surely this should suffice:
Please remember that, if I were living, I should be upon your side
And should hate those who imposed me either on myself or others;
Therefore, I pray you, neglect me, burlesque me, boil me down, do
whatever you like with me,
But do not think that, if I were living, I should not aid and abet
you.
There is nothing that even Shakespeare would enjoy more than a good
burlesque of _Hamlet_.

viii—For _Narcissus_

(A)

(To be written in front of the orchestral score.)

May he be damned for evermore
Who tampers with Narcissus’ score;
May he by poisonous snakes be bitten
Who writes more parts than what we’ve written.
We tried to make our music clear
For those who sing and those who hear,
Not lost and muddled up and drowned
In over-done orchestral sound;
So kindly leave the work alone
Or do it as we want it done.

(B)