Yorkshire Dialect Poems (1673-1915) and traditional poems

The excellent example set by the authors of the Yorkshire Dialogues was not followed all at once. Early in the eighteenth century, however, Allan Ramsay rendered conspicuous service to dialect poetry generally by the publication of his pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd (1725), as well as by his collections of Scottish songs, known as The Evergreen and Tea Table miscellanies. Scotland awoke to song, and the charm of Lowland Scots was recognised even by Pope and the wits of the coffee-houses. One can well believe that lovers of dialect south of the Tweed were thereby moved to emulation, and in the year 1736 Henry Carey, the reputed son of the Marquis of Halifax, produced a ballad-opera bearing the equivocal title, A Wonder, or An Honest Yorkshireman.(3) Popular in its day, this opera is now forgotten, but its song, "An Honest Yorkshireman" has found a place in many collections of Yorkshire songs. It lacks the charm of the same author's famous "Sally in our Alley," but there is a fine manly ring about its sentiments, and it deserves wider recognition. The dialect is that of north-east Yorkshire.

In 1754 appeared the anonymous dialect poem, Snaith Marsh.(4) This is a much more conventional piece of work than the seventeenth- century dialogues, and the use which is made of the local idiom is more restricted. Yet it is not without historic interest. Composed at a time when the Enclosure Acts were robbing the peasant farmer of his rights of common, the poem is an elegiac lament on the part of the Snaith farmer who sees himself suddenly brought to the brink of ruin by the enclosure of Snaith Marsh. To add to his misery, his bride, Susan, has deserted him for the more prosperous rival, Roger. As much of the poem is in standard English, it would be out of place to reprint it in its entirety in this collection, but, inasmuch as the author grows bolder in his use of dialect as the poem proceeds, I have chosen the concluding section to illustrate the quality of the work and the use which is made of dialect.

From the date of the publication of Snaith Marsh to the close of the eighteenth century it is difficult to trace chronologically the progress of Yorkshire dialect poetry. The songs which follow in our anthology- "When at Hame wi' Dad" and "I'm Yorkshire, too "-appear to have an eighteenth-century flavour, though they may be a little later. Their theme is somewhat similar to that of Carey's song. The inexperienced but canny Yorkshire lad finds himself exposed to the snares and temptations of " Lunnon city." He is dazzled by the spectacular glories of the capital, but his native stock of cannyness renders him proof against seduction. The songs are what we should now call music-hall songs, and may possibly have been written for the delights of the visitors to Ranelagh or Vauxhall Gardens.

"The Wensleydale Lad" seems to be of about the same period, for we learn from the song that the reigning monarch was one of the Georges. Its opening line is a clear repetition-or anticipation-of the opening line of "When at Hame wi' Dad"; but whereas the hero of the latter poem, on leaving home, seeks out the glories of Piccadilly and Hyde Park, the Wensleydale lad is content with the lesser splendours; of Leeds. The broad humour of this song has made it exceedingly popular; I first heard it on the lips of a Runswick fisherman, and since then have met with it in different parts of the county.

In the year 1786 Joseph Ritson, the antiquary, published a slender collection of short poems which he entitled The Yorkshire Garland. This is the first attempt at an anthology of Yorkshire poetry, and the forerunner of many other anthologies. All the poems have a connection with Yorkshire, but none of them can, in the strict sense of the word, be called a dialect poem.

In the year 1800 the composition of Yorkshire dialect poetry received an important stimulus through the appearance of a volume entitled, Poems on Several Occasions. This was the posthumous work of the Rev. Thomas Browne, the son of the vicar of Lastingham. The author, born at Lastingham in 1771, started life as a school-master, first of all at Yeddingham, and later at Bridlington; in the year 1797 he removed to Hull in order to engage in journalistic work as editor of the recently established newspaper, The Hull Advertiser. About the same time he took orders and married, but in the following year he died. Most of the poems in the little volume which his friends put through the press in the year 1800 are written in standard English. They display a mind of considerable refinement, but little originality. In the form of ode, elegy, eclogue, or sonnet, we have verses which show tender feeling and a genuine appreciation of nature. But the human interest is slight, and the author is unable to escape from the conventional poetic diction of the eighteenth century. Phrases like "vocal groves," "Pomona's rich bounties," or "the sylvan choir's responsive notes" meet the reader at every turn; direct observation and concrete imagery are sacrificed to trite abstractions, until we feel that the poet becomes a mere echo of other and greater poets who had gone before him. But at the end of the volume appear the "Specimens of the Yorkshire Dialect," consisting of three songs and two eclogues. Here convention is swept aside; the author comes face to face with life as he saw it around him in Yorkshire town and village. We have the song of the peasant girl impatiently awaiting the country fair at which she is to shine in all the glory of "new cauf leather shoon" and white stockings, or declaring her intention of escaping from a mother who "scaulds and flytes" by marrying the sweetheart who comes courting her on "Setterday neets." What is interesting to notice in these songs'is the influence of Burns. Browne has caught something of the Scottish poet's racy vigour, and in his use of a broken line of refrain in the song, "Ye loit'ring minutes faster flee," he is employing a metrical device which Burns had used with great success in his "Holy Fair" and "Halloween." The eclogue, "Awd Daisy," the theme of which is a Yorkshire farmer's lament for his dead mare, exhibits that affection for faithful animals which we meet with in Cowper, Burns, and other poets of the Romantic Revival. In the sincerity of its emotion it is poles apart from the studied sentimentality of the famous lament over the dead ass in Sterne's Sentimental Journey; indeed, in spirit it is much nearer to Burns's "Death of Poor Mailie," though Browne is wholly lacking in that delicate humour which Burns possesses, and which overtakes the tenderness of the poem as the lights and shadows overtake one another among the hills. The other eclogue, " The Invasion," has something of a topical interest at a time like the present, when England is once more engaged in war with a continental power; for it was written when the fear of a French invasion of our shores weighed heavily upon the people's minds. In the eclogue this danger is earnestly discussed by the two Yorkshire farmers, Roger and Willie. If the French effect a landing, Willy has decided to send Mally and the bairns away from the farm, while he will sharpen his old "lea" (scythe) and remain behind to defend his homestead. As long as wife and children are safe, he is prepared to lay down his life for his country.

The importance of Browne's dialect poems consists not only in their intrinsic worth, but also in the interest which they aroused in dialect poetry in Yorkshire, and the stimulus which they gave to poets in succeeding generations. There is no evidence that the dialogues of George Meriton, or Snaith Marsh, had any wide circulation among the Yorkshire peasantry, but there is abundant evidence that such was the case with these five poems of Thomas Browne. Early in the nineteenth century enterprising booksellers at York, Northallerton, Bedale, Otley, and ,Knaresborough were turning out little chap-books, generally bearing the title, Specimens of the Yorkshire Dialect, and consisting largely of the dialect poems of Browne. These circulated widely in the country districts of Yorkshire, and to this day one meets with peasants who take a delight in reciting Browne's songs and eclogues.

Down to the close of the eighteenth century the authors of Yorkshire dialect poetry had been men of education, and even writers by profession. With the coming, of the nineteenth century the composition of such poetry extends to men in a humbler social position. The...