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In our family we have always relished Oliver Herford's nonsense rhymes, including the account of Willie's displeasure with his goat: "I do not like my billy goat, I wish that he was dead; Because he kicked me, so he did, He kicked me with his head." Well, these Parecis Indians enthusiastically play football with their heads.
Greene's novel is, indeed, far from being purely pastoral; no more than in Sidney's, to use Professor Herford's happy phrase, are we allowed to forget that Arcadia bordered on Sparta.
For the social side, see Traill, V., VI., and Cheney's Industrial and Social History of England. The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vols. Courthope's A History of English Poetry, Vol. Elton's A Survey of English Literature from 1780-1830, 2 vols. Herford's The Age of Wordsworth. XXII. of Vol. Hancock's The French Revolution and the English Poets.
This may be easily illustrated. Miss Herford's inimitable monologues, being each the apotheosis of some typical Bromide a shopgirl, a country dressmaker, a bargain-hunter and so on become, through her art, intensely sulphitic. They are excruciatingly funny, just because she represents types so common that we recognize them instantly.
Opus 19 is a group of "Wonder Songs," which interpret Oliver Herford's quaint conceits capitally. Opus 26 collects nine songs, of which "Princess Pretty Eyes" is fascinatingly archaic. It is good to see him setting two such remotely kindred spirits as Herrick and Emily Dickinson. The latter has hardly been discovered by composers, and the former is too much neglected.
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