“The Anniversary” (Knight’s Quarterly Magazine)

An allusion to the pseudonymous Gerard Montgomery as an improvisatore triggers a digression on the recent publication by the “Improvisatrice” (i.e., Letitia Elizabeth Landon), and on the conflicting priorities of women who publish poetry.

Performer Name:
“Gerard Montgomery”
Performance Venue:
 
Performance Date:
 
Author:
 
Date Written:
1824
Language:
English
Publication Title:
Knight’s Quarterly Magazine
Article Title:
The Anniversary
Page Numbers:
3:204
Additional Info:
 
Publisher:
Charles Knight
Place of Publication:
London
Date Published:
1824

Text:

[following an impromptu poem by Gerard Montgomery]:

HEAVISIDE. Why Gerard is a perfect Improvisatore. But if he idle away his life in this way he will shoot wide of his mark both in poetry and love.

VERNON. By-the-by, Gerard, get a poetical mistress, and she will stir up your ambition, and win you from the distaff. Strike up to the Improvisatrice.

GERARD. What, the girl the papers have been puffing so! Is she pretty?

VERNON. Ay pretty, and good, and accomplished; and altogether one of us. Her volume is really exceedingly clever—I think the cleverest poetry a woman has yet produced amongst us. But it is almost a pity to say so. It is a pity to tempt a blooming girl out of the range of her own womanly hopes and pleasures, into the turbid sea of literary ambition. Our praises, and what is more, the public voice, may lead her to the honours of intellectual supremacy—but the poetical fame of a woman always seems something exotic and artificial; it is connected with the display, which appears to me (us) to be quite alien to the true female character. But this is mere common-place. If the girl will prefer the laurel crown to the wedding-ring, let her win it and wear it. But they cannot be worn together. The moment that nursing begins, the poetical existence of a woman is past. Come, Heaviside, read us a pretty bit out of this pretty volume.

SIR THOMAS. Let it be the shortest, for I am getting very dry.

HEAVISIDE. Here then is a bit, where some very feminine thoughts are very sweetly expressed—the "Song of the Hunter's Bride."

[Quotation of the "Song" follows, and the conversation moves on to other topics.]

Notes:

A joint review of new books by several contributors to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, partly written in dialogue form.

Collected by:
AE