THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY

AND OTHER PHENOMENA OF THE DAY

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL

OF POETRY

AND OTHER PHENOMENA OF THE DAY

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

     PHOEBE.—What pretty flowers are these?
I prithee let me smell!
     CLOWN.                          Smell, an thou wilt!
These be not flowers for maids. This snow-white thing,
Wood-garlic, doth infect the sylvan air,
And sicken the sweet milk of browsing kine;
The other, purple houndstongue, worse than mice
For smelling cleanly chambers; here, again,
A flower less comely, stinking goosefoot, grows,—
An odour dear to dogs!
     PHOEBE.                        Faugh! O how foul!
How name ye this, the tallest and most fair?
     CLOWN. Death-netle, lady. Touch it not!
     PHOEBE.                               I am sick—
I swoon—its foetid breathing fills the air,
Like the most rank corruption of a corse.

                     A WHIP FOR WHITE WANTONS, 1651.

 

 

STRAHAN & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON.

__________

i

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL

OF POETRY

AND OTHER PHENOMENA OF THE DAY

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

“For shame!—write cleanly, Labeo, or write none.”
                                                      HALL’S Satires, Book II. i.

“Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd
Fell not from heaven, or more gross to love
Vice for itself.”                                                 Paradise Lost.

 

 

STRAHAN & CO.

56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON

1872

__________

ii

LONDON:

PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO.,

CITY ROAD.

__________

iii

CONTENTS.

_____

                                                                                                              PAGE                                                                

PREFACE          .          .          .           .          .          .          .          .          v

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY:

          I. SOCIAL PHENOMENA OF THE HOUR   .          .          .          1

        II. A LITERARY RETROSPECT: THE ITALIAN FALSETTO
                SINGERS AND THEIR IMITATORS       .          .          .          8

      III. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE AND A. C. SWINBURNE       .         16

      IV. MR. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI              .          .          .         33

      V. THE “HOUSE OF LIFE,” &C., RE-EXAMINED      .          .         56

     VI. PEARLS FROM THE AMATORY POETS    .          .          .         69

    VII. PROSPECTS OF THE FINAL DEGRADATION OF VERSE,
                  AS A MEANS OF INTELLIGENT EXPRESSION       .         82

NOTES               .          .          .           .          .          .          .          .         92

 

__________

Back to The Fleshly School Controversy