Chapter I: Introduction

BY
MAURICE HUTTON, LL.D.,
_Principal of University College, Toronto_

W. H. E.

There is a Heav'n: at least on earth below:
It is where scholars read and thinkers brood:
For crowns and halos volumes in a row
For angels' wings it has its gown and hood.

In that seraphic choir see Ellis sit!
With that Elys-ian light his numbers glow:
The scholar's seriousness, the scholar's wit,
Twin spirits in alternate ebb and flow.[1]

Studious and silent he has read life's page,
Scholar and chemist he sees part and whole;
Teaching and thought let loose his noble rage
And stir the genial current of his soul.

His golden rod absorbs our meaner staves
As Aaron's rod the rods of Phara-oh,
Or as New Brunswick's river-name outbraves[2]
The pious Jordan of Ontario.

His May-blossoms relieve our strenuous May,
Our evening smoke curls bluer as we read,
The earliest pipe of half-awakened day
Draws a new fragrance from his choicer weed.

His artless puff-balls have a tale to tell,
His Flora opens treasures new and old,
His way-side weeds have been our asphodel[3]
His "dandy lines" become our "harmless gold."[4]

[1]Plato (sixth letter--323 c.) speaks of Elysian or Ellis-i-an scholars
"Swearing with scholarly seriousness and with that playfulness which
is seriousness' twin sister." Thompson's _Gorgias_, 41.

[2]See "Weed," p. 37.

[3]See "Weed," p. 43.

[4]See Lowell on "Dandelions":--

"Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold."

SOME ELUCIDATIONS OF THE INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITORS

Lines

1. So also,

". . . amidst the fairest flowers
Of the blest isles, Elysium's blooming bowers."

Greek inscription on a marble at Rome. Neaves, _Greek Anthology_,
_Edin._, 1874, p. 62 ("blooming," vulgarism, meaning weedy.)

2. Cf. _Ezekiel_, xxxvii. 1, 2.

3. Academic "crowns and halos" (cf. Seneca, _Naturales Questiones_,
1, 2, 1 and 3) must needs, for obvious reasons, be made of
paper. Notice also the subtle suggestion that Dr. Ellis is
_laurea donandus Apollinari_, worthy of the laurel (crown) of
Apollo. (Horace, _Carminum_, iv. 2, 9.)

4. Why should "the gown and hood" be required "for angels' wings"? To
clothe them withal, of course. The draping of angels with wings
and the attachment of wings to the structure of the back of the
human figure have presented problems to artists in all ages.
The best solution is undoubtedly to cover up the wings, and the
gown with its hood is the only appropriate garment. (Cf.
Carpenter, Edward, "Angels' Wings," . . . London, 1898, pp.
25-40, in which the anatomical and sartorial difficulties are
fully discussed.)

8. Principal Hutton and Dr. Ellis present the phenomenon of
homoblastês sprouting (or swearing) together. Cf. Theophrastus,
"On the Causes of Plants," v, 5, 4.

10. In other words, Dr. Ellis is at once polupaipalos exceeding
crafty (_i.e._ master of many crafts, including angling). Cf.
Homer, _Odyssey_, 15, 419, 11. and polupathês subject to many
passions. Cf. Plutarch, _Moralia_, 171.

11-12. A subtle hint of elasi-bronta thunder hurling (cf. Pindar,
_Fragments_, 108), or hellissô bômon to dance round about it
(whatever it may be). Cf. Callimachus, _Del._ 321.

13. Clearly referring to "_praedam calamo tremente ducit_," he draws
in his prey with a rod. Martial, 4, 30, 9. Cf. _infra_, "Weed"
p. 31.

16. "The pious Jordan" is evidently a bull, referring to the cult of
the river-god. It reflects _tauriformis Aufidus_, the
bull-formed Aufidus, the river upon which Horace was born
(Horace, _Carminum_, iv. 14, 25). We also have our Afidus or
Jordan, upon whose banks our own Horace lives.

17-20. An ingenious reference to the University final examinations in
May, when candidates write all day and the examiner reads and
smokes till dawn. Having subjected his victims to freshly
devised tortures (_novo quaestiones genere distorsit_
Suetonius, _Dom._ 10), he broods over their miseries and their
papers--eleas aneleos--an owl without pity.

23-24. Or, in the language of the angler, his epanthrakides have been
our epanthismos; his weeds have given us the motive for the
design on the back of this book.

J. M.
J. J. M.

CONTENTS

PAGE
Little White Crow 1
Consider the Lilies of the Field 18
The Skunk Cabbage 21
The Wanderer's Song 25
The Cowdung Fly 27
The Song of the Bass 31
Maskinongewagaming 33
Magaguadavic and Digdeguash 37
Rhona Adair 40
The Duffer's Elegy 42
When Potter Played 45
Colonial Preference 47
The Lyric League 51
Psychology 53
The Bal Poudré 55
Wisdom and Fancy 56
Persicos Odi 57
The Iceberg 58
Horace I., i 60
When You and I were Young, Adam 63
As a Watch in the Night 68
To R. R. W. 70

Christmas 1913 Toronto

_To those good friends in whose indulgent eyes
they seemed worth collecting and preserving;
And to the beloved memory of some
who once trod with me the Highways and Byways
where they were gathered;
I offer this handful of
Wayside Weeds._

Little White Crow
(A LEGEND OF ST. ANNE)