3. Robert Story - Models and Influences

Robert Story's own thoughts about literature, literary influences and musical influences are collected in the most idiosyncratic of his books, Love and Literature, 1842... We could make a long list of the poets he had read and considered...

But I have chosen, below, four writers whose work and whose lives seem to me to map out the world in which Robert Story tried to shape a literary career...

Isaac Watts (1674 –1748)

...he had obtained from the Rev. Mr. Boucher, of Kirk Newton, a copy of Watts' Divine Songs. As they took his fancy greatly, he had no difficulty, so tenacious was his memory, in getting off more in an hour than Mr. Boucher set him as a task for a week.

...From these circumstances began his love of poesy, and thus the Christian Muse became the earliest preceptress of his own. He began even at this, the tender age of eleven years, to scribble imitations of Watts.

John James, 'Life', p xvi

Isaac Watts is the Father of English Hymnody - and his hymns are still loved today. There are many web sites devoted to his work, and many versions of his books are available on Google Books, and other web sites.

Robert Story himself, Poetical Works, p v, tells us that the book was Watts, Divine Songs for Children.

I have attached, below, the Title Page of an 1829 version, printed in Derby - as an example of the book that Robert Story knew.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TNoCAAAAQAAJ

There is an American edition on Hathi Trust...

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hn5cfw

Maybe the wider world now knows Issac Watts only through the Lewis Carroll parodies, like 'Tis the Voice of the Lobster' or 'How doth the little crocodile...'. But that just goes to show that Watts got the cadences right.

Robert Burns 1759-1796

'The desire to see his native hills had been greatly increased by reading Currie's edition of Burns, which he first met with whilst in Yorkshire, and the songs and verses of the Ayrshire Bard, in praise of the glens and streams of the north, touched a chord in his breast of exquisite sensibility. He determined to be a ploughman, and emulate the fame of Burns ; and vanity already whispered the title of "The Burns of Beaumont Side".'

John James, 'Life of Robert Story', p xxvi-xxvii

"I wrote thousands of verses meant to be imitative of Burns", continued the Bard, "but they were nearly all destroyed as soon as written - being all, even in my own estimation failures."

Robert Story, Love and Literature, 1842, p 83

There are many books and web sites about Robert Burns - a good place to start is the National Library of Scotland.

http://digital.nls.uk/burns/

I have attached, below, the title page of Burns' first book, Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, the famous Kilmarnock edition of 1786. The entire print run of 612 copies sold out within one month - this is now a very rare book. There is currently a copy on sale on ABEBOOKS for £57,500.00 - postage included.

The Kilmarnock edition led to the first Edinburgh edition of 1787, and James Currie's first collected edition of 1800 - Currie's edition is the one that Robert Story knew. Princeton University's copy of Volume 1 of Currie's edition can be seen on Hathi Trust.

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101041292937

And see Leith Davis, 'Negotiating Cultural Memory: James Currie’s Works of Robert Burns', in the International Journal of Scottish Literature...

http://www.ijsl.stir.ac.uk/issue6/davis.htm

Robert Burns quickly became Scotland's 'National Bard', and is of course still revered. But Burns could not make a living as a poet - or a farmer. In 1789 his political friends found him a formal post as an Exciseman in Dumfries. Burns died in 1796, at the age of 37.

Thomas Moore 1779-1852

Thomas Moore is mentioned by Robert Story, and sometimes reviewers mention Thomas Moore as they try to think of something to say about Robert Story.

Moore, middle class, university educated, does not fit tidily into our discussion of 'Labouring-Class' writers. But Moore did have to make his living through his writing, and did not do too badly, with a good number of best-sellers. And he had a nice, regular earner, in the many volumes and many editions of Moore's Irish Melodies - song lyrics that Moore wrote to versions of Irish tunes. Through Google Books and resources like the Hathi Trust you can see the many versions - lyrics with sheet music, lyrics with suggested well-known tunes, pirated versions, illustrated editions... There is an interesting early copy on Hathi Trust...

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101036892899

and I have added some pdf examples, below...

But not even Thomas Moore... There is the usual debacle in poets' lives - the job that was supposed to be a sinecure but which turned into a financial nightmare. Eventually, his political friends found him a civil list pension of £300 a year and - when Moore died - a pension for his widow of £100 a year.

When Moore's family heard of the civil list pension his daughter said, 'Now Papa will not have to work so hard and will be able to go out a little...'

If Robert Burns became Scotland's 'National Bard', and Thomas Moore became, sort of, Ireland's 'National Bard', did this mean that there was space on Parnassue for someone who could be England's 'National Bard'?

John Nicholson 1790-1843

'The Airedale Poet'

In the year 1824, the Poems of John Nicholson, the Airedale Poet, a man of great poetical genius, were attracting much attention in the West-Riding of Yorkshire, especially in Craven, and gained for the Author not only much local celebrity, but also considerable pecuniary reward. Nicholson and Story became acquainted, were often in the company of each other, and the glowing report which the former gave of the success of his poetic labours, stimulated Story's ambition to again appear before the public with a volume of poetry.

John James, 'Life of Robert Story', p xxxix

Among those of the uneducated poets who tasted deeply of the cup of misery, may be ranked John Nicholson...

John James 'Life of John Nicholson' p viii

See

1859 Poems by John Nicholson, the Airedale poet

Edited by W. Dearden, with an sketch of his life and writings, by John James.

The University of California's copy of the fourth edition on Hathi Trust

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3548652