Author: St. John, Arthur
Biography:
by
Jackson, Heather (HJ)
ST. JOHN, Arthur (fl 1826)
The Weft of the Wye (1826) had two reviews, each quoting long passages from the poem. They were not kind. GM, beginning with the observation “This is a curious Poem,” objected first of all to the fact that it has almost nothing to do with the Wye itself and then to the writer’s representation of Wales as a semi-barbarous state. The Literary Chronicle called it “the most despicable attempts at verse-spinning, that we ever laughed at.” The only newspaper references to St. John are advertisements for the poem. Public records have failed to turn up any documents about a person of exactly this name before 1824 (and that is a birth record) so it is quite possible that it is a pen-name. No other publications are attached to it. (ancestry.com 22 Nov. 2024; findmypast.com 22 Nov. 2024; GM 96 [Oct. 1826], 338-9; Literary Chronicle 9 Sept. 1826, 563) HJ