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.
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