THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19144, 29 October 1927, Page 13

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (STKCULLT WniTTBK ?OB THS TBISS.) By A. H. Griming. CCXLI.—ON SWIMMEKR AND SWIMMING. Many years ago—how many I hardly dare to recall, but I was quite r. lad — I read a story which gave me great delight at the time, railed "Darby Doyle's Voyage to Quebec." It told how Darby managed to swim, or to seem to swim, :tll the way from Cork to America. I lost sight of the story, and could not even remember the bonk that contained it, until a year or two back, when looking through a volume of "Humours of Irish Life" in "Kvery Irishman's Library." I came across (lie story. With the aid of Ned Flynn, an old townsman, Darby secreted himself aboard a vessel bound for Quebec, and when within two or three days of its destination, Darby, with an empty mealhag, a bottle, and a bare ham-bone, slipped over the side into the sea. At once Ned raised the «ry, "A man in the sea! A man in the sea!" and Darby was promptly hauled on board. There he tr.id his wonderful story of how he had swum after the vessel all the way from '..'ork. On arrival at Quebec, the master of the ship made a good deal of money by putting up the following advertisement: — • THK GKKAXEST OF WOXDHER IN THE . V'UHLD Ti; }";E SEEN HEBE. A man !.ha.t iJejla Nicholas the Diver. He hhs r.wum irom Cork U> Amerrykey. Troved L-n oath by :cn oi tho crew and t'.veuty piKjacfit'eis. Ad:'.r.tta.nce Half a dollar.

Taking Darby into this paying part, nership, the captain backed Darby to "swim against any swimmer in " the world." And lie gave Darby a hundred dollars in "'goold'' to seal the bargain. The sequel was what captured my boyish imagination:—

At last the di 7 camo that I vjg t0 Ftand the tug. I £aw the captain look in vrry often at me. At last—

"Darby." biz he, "aro you in any way co'.vd' ? Tho ;>llow you have to shwim against can shwim down vrathenalk Rn d cdtharacts."

"Can he, avic," siz T, "but can he shu-im up them?" An' who should come up while. I was tawkin' to the captain but tho chap I was to fchwim with an' he heard al! I sed. He -.vas s,o tali that ho could eat brond a:\l butther over :uy head—with a .'ace as ijiiiw as a kite'? ;'.'";.

"Tip us the mitten," sb I. ".Mabouchal," siz i, "where are wo poing to shwim to? What id ye think i: -.ve shwum to Keep C'ecr or the Keep ov Good Hope?" "I reckon neither," siz he.

Off we set through crowds ov ladies and Kintiemon to the slr.vimmin' place, an' as I was gein' I was tript up by a big lump of iron stuck fast in the ground with a big rimr to it.

"What'd ye rail that?" siz I io the captain, who was at my elbow.

"Why, Darby," siz he, "th.it' 3 half an anchor." "Have ye any use for it?" siz I. "Not in the least," six he; "it's only to fasten boats to."

"Maybe you'd frive it to a lvxly ?" siz I. "An' welkin;, Darby," ciz he; "it's youra. - '

"God bless your honour," piz I; "it's rnv poor father that will pray for you. When I left home the creather hadn't us much as an anvil hut what was sihreeled away by -he a^int —bad end to them. This will be just the thing that'll maich him; ho can tio the horse to the ;in? while he forges the other part. Now will ye obleejo me by crettin' a couple ov chaps fo lay it en my sho:;'3er when I fret into the wather, and I won't have io bo comin' back for it afther I shake hands with this fellow."

Oh, the chap turns from yallow to 'white when ho heard me say this. An' f>iz he to the gintleman that was walkin' by his side—"l reckon I'm r.of. for the shwimmin' to-day—l don't feel myself." "An' murdher an' Jnsdi, if you're vcr brother, can't yen send him for yerself, and I'll wait here till he com.es. An' when will yc be able for Ihc slnvim '' sjz I, mighty complaisant.

"I reckon in another 'vock." siz In-. „ So we shook hands and parted. The pour fellow wont homo, took the fovr, and began lo ravo. "Shwim up the catharacfs—sliwim to the Keep of Good Hope shwim to St. Helena—snwim to Keep Cleer—shwim with an anchor on his back — oh! oh't oh!!!"

I regret tli.it I run unable to recapture the rare relfch with which I first, read that, story. It is liy one Thomas Ettingsall, and was originally published in the "Dublin Penny Journal" in 1832. It has, however, a direct hearing upon the recent craze for establishing sham records in swimming the 'English Channel, and it recalls the first genuine triumph in that exploit, when Captain on August 2nd, 1875, swam from Dover to Calais in a little less than 2-i hours. Swinburne, himself; a fearless swimmer, heard of this "glorious triumph," as he dubbed it, when staying with Jowett at Malvern. "Never," says one of the poet's biographers, "had Swinburne been known to exhibit more enthusiasm than when the news reached him of Webb's success. He was in a state of perfect ecstasy during the whole day, and the other members of the Swinburne and ."owett fraternity caught some of the spirit of rapture from the bard whose talk was irresistibly inspiring. Edwin Harrison, who was among Jowett's guests, and, like Swinburne indulged in swimming, it being also indeed" one of his favourite pastimes, wrote home about the event and the effect upon the 'laureate of the sea,' and the wording of the letter reads like echoes of sentiments uttered by Swinburne in his excited condition of mind over this unique affair."

"Are you not all delighted," he writes, August 2Sth, 1875, "with Captain Webb's exploit? It must bo the greatest bodily feat ever done since the world was first sot spinning. If ho had done it in ancient Greece, his countrymen would have crowned him with garlands, kept him at the public cost, set up statues in his honour, and pensioned his children after him."

I distinctly reniember the excitement caused all over England when the news was published of this first Channel swim, and I can therefore enter fully into Swinburne's state of mind. Writing to Watts Dunton from Malvern on August 27 th, Swinburne said: "What a glorious thing is this triumph of Captain Webb, and what a lyric Pindar would have written on him. If only I could beg, borrow, or steal the Theban lyre for half an hour I would try at an ode for myself. There never was such a subject of the land ever in Greece itself; it is above all Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, or Nemean fame. I consider it the "greatest glory that has befallen England sL-ce the publication of Shelley's greatest poem, whichever that may be. Its hero is the only man among strangers to me personally in England, that I would go much out of my way to shake hands with if permitted that honour; or if not, even to see. Jowett himself hurrahed mildly (ne pas lire "wildly") when the news came (I had the honour of announcing it) and observed what a supremely great man lie would have been in Greece. Man indeed! He would (and have been deified on the spot."

To properly appreciate Swinburne's enthusiasm, it must be remembered that from his youth up, he was an ardent lover of the sea. "As for the sea," he once wrote, "its salt must have been in mv blood before I vis born. I can remember no earlier eniovment than being held up naked in my father's arms and brandished between his hands, then shot like a stone from a slin<r through the air, shouting and touching with delight, head foremost into the coming wave. . . I renumber being afraid of other things but never of the sea." In his "Portraits and Sketches," Sir Edmund Gosse says that Swinhurn- was very fond of talking about his feats' of swimming and riding a* a bov and no other poet has written iibout the former exercise with so much felicitv and ardour. The stanzas _ "The"Triumph of Time." his Swimmer -s Dream," and "Ex Voto." are notable examples of this, but Sir Edmund Goose, quotes from "Epilogue what is perhaps the finest thing bwinburnc has written on the pastime:—

As one that pre n June day ris Hakes seaward for the dawn, and tries The water with delimited limbs That taste the sweet dark sea, and swims KiWit eastward under strengthening skies, "And sees the gradual rippling rims Of waves whence daybreaks blossom-wise Take fire ere light peer well above, And laughs from all his heart with lore;

And softlier swimming with raised head Peels the full flower of morning ehed And fluent sunrise round him rolled That laps and leaves his body bold With fluctuant heaven in waiters stead, And urgent through the gro-.vinj gold, St-ikes and sees all the sur.iy flash red. And his soul takes the sun, and ye.irr.= For jov wherewith the sea's heart burns.

In the opinion of Sir Edmund Gosse, there is nothing elsewhere in literature to approach these stanzas. They were founded on the poet's experience in the surf of Northumberland, and Swinburne's courage and zest as a bather were superb. "I was assured," -ays Sir Edmund, "by earlier companions that he'made remarkably little way by svrimming' and that his feats were mostly of floating, his little body tossing on the breakers like a cork. His cousin. Lord Redesdale, told me, that at Eton Algernon 'could swim for ever,' but that he was always muscularly feeble, making up for this deficiency by his splendid courage and confidence."