Swinburne and the Burgundy

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 923, 18 April 1957, Page 7

Swinburne and the Burgundy

HE story of Swinburne and the Burgundy was told by Richard Le Gallienne in his book The Romantic 90s. "The last time I saw Swinburne he did not see me," he wrote, "and perhaps it is telling tales out of school to recall the occasion, Still, as I consider the reminiscence far from derogatory to him, and believe, too, that the reader will regard it with me as presenting him in a brotherly human aspect, I will hazard it. Swinburne, like some other poets of the time, Tennyson and Meredith, for instance, was a great walker, Putney lies at the foot of Wimbledon Common, and it was Swinburne’s custom to walk every morning from his house to the top of the Common and back. It chanced that one morning I had been out early bicycling, and I had stepped into a shop at the top end of the Common to buy a newspaper. Whom should I come against, leaving as I was entering, but Swinburne, He did not see me, and I had no thought of disturbing his morning meditations. But when I came out of the ‘shop I saw him ahead of me on his way home. It was then I noticed his fantastic manner of walking and heard those profane carters laughing at the great man of whom they knew nothing. As I watched him dancing oddly on his way, a profane idea struck me also, I remembered that there was at the head of the Common, a short distance away, an old-inn called the Rose and Crown; I have referred to that bottle of Bass which was all that the protective Wattsretin ever thoughtful of his welling, considered good for him. Swinburne, needless to say, was no ordinary drunkard, but for him, as for so many other poets, strong drink was a mocker, and for him, with his orgiastic temperament, it was more potent and dangerous

than for less sensitive men. Thus, as I remembered the Rose and Crown, I could not help wondering if, now that he was out of the clutches of his friend, he might not be inclined to a little human truancy. So I hung behind till the inn came in sight. ‘Will he pass it?’ I smiled to myself, or ‘Will he go in?’ I was not left in doubt, for, as a billiard ball glides into the pocket, the author of ‘Atalanta in Calydon’ suddenly disappeared, There was no one but me and the carters to see. I smiled to think of Watts-Dunton at the bottom of the hill, and, after waiting a few moments, I myself entered the inn. It was one of those old inns in which the taproom is partitioned off into various cosy sections, I glanced into one and another of them, but there was no sign of my illustrious friend, Perhaps I had-been mistaken, after all, Then, leaning on the bar, I ordered my own ‘morning,’ as Pepys would say, from the gay young barmaid, and presently brought our conversation round to the gentleman who had entered before me, remarking that I was acquainted with him, and wondered what had become of him. ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘the gentleman’ never drank at the bar, but every morning, at the same hour, he dropped in and, repairing to a private room, punctually consumed a bottle of Burgundy, alone with his thoughts, Needless to say, he did not fall in my estimation on that account. On the contrary, it but made him the more comradely human, and I rejoiced, too, that, in spite of his friendly gaoler, the poet did contrive thus to warm his yeins with that generous ichor. I waited around on the grass outside for perhaps three-quarters of an hour, and then suddenly again there was the divine ‘Algy’ once more on his homeward way, apparently none the worse for his truant libation."