| Show AS TO POETRY the disposition to write what one bag baa to say now and adi then in rhyme is if as prevalent now as it ever was wae notwithstanding the discouragements discourage ments to which the practice has ban been subjected by the press and otherwise some souls have music lo in them and w whether their tenements are ever permitted to master an instrument or the means by which proper expression may be given the latent intent faculty or not it still exists exist nod and in one form or another will occasionally manifest itself so we suppose suo suD pose with the disposition to compose jingling lines sometimes rhythm and xeal poetry accompany each other but oftener they do not again some good poetry does not rhyme and once in a while we are confronted with a composition labeled a poem which contains neither rhyme reason nor purpose this to is bot to be ascribed to ull ignorance oran ce altogether it is is in sometimes a A newspaper render reader recently asked the joew york sun how many living poets there are in the world at the winding up p of the nineteenth century and received a characteristic reply the luminary estimate was that there are about a million mil lloD in making it it al lowed one hundred thousand far this sou country auntry ou thirty thousand tor for england and nd ireland a half dozen for canada a hundred for africa excluding the barbary states and egypt forty or fifty thousand tor for south america where capriccioso capricci poets fl flourish like mites in an old cheese a hun hundred drej thousand for the powers of the triple alliance seventy five thousand for prance france as many for spain half as many amny for portugal twenty for russia a many for turkey a big lot for the scandinavian countries six hundred for iceland a baker bakery a dozen for australia a small email squad for mexico and the rest for asia which contains more than one half of the human race the sun afan had not time to classify the poets tout but three classes it concludes are always prominent the muscular the moral and the morbid or in other words the bass drummers the harp tote job and the bones rattlers tj which kinds may be added those who fife for love jove those who fiddle for fun and those shone who run the hurdy gurdy for eold old cash all of whom fight for a place to in the poetic orchestra of this period of the nineteenth century it Is hold held that some of our A american meri can poetry is in better than most of the foreign poetry though there could hardly be any worse than a heap of ours no attempt is made to tell why it is in that in these times less than a tenth part of the she worlds poetry la Is made by the sex which is far more poetical inspirit a acirit and life than the other sex more zealous in devotion to the beautiful and even perhaps more sentimental perhaps it to is because women have something better to do than rby rhyming wing or they would rather put their poetry into their lives than into verse the concluding portion of the suns reply ply is not so bantering in tone but justus just as truthful and forcible as nearly very every editor of experience can testify to co abundantly poetry that is ma poetic gentle inspiring splendid dainty ardent pure beautiful heart expanding solacing enchanting melo dious heroic or birdlike bird like we love the poets who are able to make such poetry can never be too numerous we wish we had ton ten of them or ton ten times time ton ten to every one we have now but out with doggerel l so say we all |
