The Dead Men's Song Part 7

[12] To observe liberties taken with the text, compare these verses with authentic version.

_September 20, 1914._

Who that loves tales of adventure, thrilling yarns involving the search for mysteriously lost treasure, has not gloried in "Treasure Island"? And who that recalls STEVENSON's stirring romance does not involuntarily chant to himself the ridiculous but none the leas fascinating verse commencing

"Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest--"

as if the gruesome rhyme were in a way intended as a sort of refrain for the entire story? When we were younger we undoubtedly speculated on the amazing capacity of this particular dead man's chest, and we gloated over the uncanny wickedness of the whole affair. The verse, however, turns out to be one of those curiosities of literature which is unearthed every now and then by some industrious contributor to the "Query Page" of THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW. In this number of the latter the entire song or "chantey" is given, copied from an old sc.r.a.pbook, and while it can hardly be recommended as a delectable piece of literature, in any sense, it is interesting, aside from its Stevensonian connection, as a bit of rough, unstudied sailor's jingle, the very authors.h.i.+p of which is long since forgotten. And the youthful myth of the Dead Man's Chest--that, too, it appears, is not at all the thing that fancy painted it. The real Dead Man's Chest, however, as "W. L."

explains it, is quite as alluring as the imaginary one and will appeal to the student of geographical peculiarities in the West Indies.

_October 4, 1914._

"FIFTEEN MEN ON THE DEAD MAN'S CHEST"

_New York Times Review of Books_:

The fine old sea poem, "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest,"

recently quoted in your columns, was written by Younge E. Allison.

I have raked through various biographical dictionaries trying to discover who Younge E. Allison was, but without results. The man who wrote such a poem should not be unknelled, unhonored, and unsung. In your editorial touching the rhyme I don't think you do it justice. You describe it as "a rough, unstudied sailor's jingle," whereas it is a work of art. Some of the lines are tremendous, and the whole poem has a haunting quality that never yet distinguished a mere jingle. I never weary of repeating some of its sonorous lines.

WALT MASON.

Emporia, Kan., Sept. 24.

EDITORIAL NOTE.--We have received several other letters in which the authors.h.i.+p of the lines is credited to Mr. Allison, who is a resident of Louisville, Ky., and the editor of The Insurance Field of that city. Mr. Allison was at one time a correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES and also has written several books of fiction, including "The Pa.s.sing of Major Galbraith." It is not likely, however, that he wrote the famous old chanty. One of our correspondents writes that Mr. Allison "reconstructed" the song some years ago on the first four lines which are quoted in Stevenson's "Treasure Island."

Our correspondent, "W. L.," who furnished the copy of the song as published recently in THE BOOK REVIEW says, however, that he copied the verses from a ma.n.u.script written into a book which bears this t.i.tle: "Tales of the Ocean and Essays for the Forecastle, Containing Matters and Incidents Humorous, Pathetic, Romantic, and Sentimental, by Hawser Martingale, Boston, Printed and Published by S. W. d.i.c.kinson, 52 Was.h.i.+ngton St., 1843." This book belonged to his grandfather, who died in 1874, and the song was familiar to "W.

L." in his youth as early as 1870.

In a letter to W. E. Henley, dated at Braemar, Aug. 25, 1881, written when Stevenson had begun the writing of "Treasure Island,"

he writes:

I am now on another lay for the moment, purely owing to Lloyd this one; but I believe there's more coin in it than in any amount of crawlers. Now see here "The Sea Cook or Treasure Island: A Story for Boys." [This was the first t.i.tle selected for the book.]

If this don't fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day. Will you be surprised to learn that it is about Buccaneers, that it begins in the Admiral Benbow public house on the Devon coast, that it's all about a map and a treasure and a mutiny and a derelict s.h.i.+p and a current and a fine old Squire Trelawney, (the real Tre.

purged of literature and sin to suit the infant mind,) and a doctor and another doctor and a sea cook with one leg and and a sea song with a chorus, "Yo-ho-ho and a Bottle of Rum," (at the third "ho" you heave at the capstan bars,) which is a real buccaneer's song, only known to the crew of the late Capt. Flint, who died of rum at Key West much regretted?

The first publication of "Treasure Island" was in 1883, and in a letter to Sidney Colvin in July, 1884, Stevenson writes: "'Treasure Island' came out of Kingsley's 'At Last,' where I got 'The Dead Man's Chest.'"

THE UNPUBLISHED LETTER

_New York Times Review of Books_,

It has been my great pleasure and satisfaction to sit with Young E.

Allison of Louisville in business intimacy and friends.h.i.+p for many years, and to have seen the inception of his "Derelict" in three verses based on Billy Bones' song of "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest" from "Treasure Island." During this intimacy also I have observed those original three stanzas grow to six and viewed the adjustment and balance and polish he has given to what I now consider a masterpiece.

No one who ever read "Treasure Island" with a mind, but feels there is something lacking in Billy Bones' song. It left a haunting wish for more and if the book was closed with a single regret it was because Billy Bones had not completed his weird chant. So it affected Mr. Allison, a confirmed novel reader and a great admirer of Stevenson. Henry Waller, collaborating with Mr. Allison in the production[13] of the "Ogallallas" by the Bostonians along back in 1891, declared he had a theme for that swashbuckling chant and Allison, who wrote the libretto for the "Ogallallas," agreed to work it out. That same night with Waller's really brilliant musical conception in his mind, Mr. Allison wrote what might be considered the first three verses of the present revision, which were set to Waller's music, written for a deep baritone, and published by Pond.

Thereafter during the rehearsal of the "Ogallallas" no session was complete until Eugene Cowles, in his big, rich ba.s.s, had sung Allison's three verses of "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest" to Waller's music, as "lagniappe," while cold chills raced up and down the spines of his hearers--more or less immune to sensations of that character.

[13] Incubation at that time. Production in 1893.

As I write I have before me a copy of the music, the t.i.tle page of which reads as follows: "A Piratical Ballad. Song for Ba.s.s or Deep Baritone. Words by Young E. Allison. Music by Henry Waller. New York. Published by William A. Pond & Co. 1891."

Later it occurred to Mr. Allison that he had done scant justice to an idea full of great possibilities, and another verse was added, and still later another, making five in all, when in a more polished condition it was submitted to the _Century_ for publication, and accepted, though later the editor asked to have the closing lines re-constructed as being a bit too strong for his audience. Mr. Allison felt that to bring back those drink-swollen and weighted bodies "wrapp'd in a mains'l tight" from their "sullen plunge in the sullen swell, ten fathoms deep on the road to h.e.l.l"

would cut the heart out of the idea--while admitting to the _Century's_ editor that such a sentiment might not be entirely fitted for his clientele--and so declined to make the alteration.

About this time Mr. Allison had "Derelict" privately printed for circulation among friends. I have in my possession his printer's copy, and the various revisions in his own handwriting--probably a dozen in all.

Six years after the first verses were written, Mr. Allison decided to inject a woman into his "Reminiscence of Treasure Island," as he styles it, which was most adroitly done in the fifth verse--last written--and in the private copies it is set in Italics as a delicate intimation that the theme of a woman was foreign to the main idea which he attempted to carry out just as he believed Stevenson might have done. There was no woman on Treasure Island yet she pa.s.ses here without question.

Shortly after the sixth verse had been added, the editors of the _Rubric_--a Chicago magazine venture of the late 90's[14]--asked Mr. Allison for permission to publish the five verses which had fallen into their hands, and in granting the request he furnished the later revision in six verses. This was published on eight pages of the _Rubric_ in two colors, very happily ill.u.s.trated, I thought, and was captioned "On Board the Derelict."

[14] Vol. I No. 1, 1901.

It is the fine adjustment, the extreme delicacy, the very artfulness of the whole poem, I might say, which has led you into believing it "a rough, unstudied sailor's jingle" and in stating editorially, "it is not likely however that he [Mr. Allison] wrote the famous old chanty." Were it not that you hazarded this speculation I would not feel called upon to recite this history, in justice to Mr. Allison, who is one of the most honorable, modest and original men of letters and who would scorn to enter the lists in an effort to prove that what he had created was his own. Among those who know him like Henry Watterson, Madison Cawein, James H.

Mulligan, (who was one of Stevenson's friends, present in Samoa when he died), James Whitcomb Riley, and a host of others he needs no defense.

Mr. Mason's comment in your issue of October 4, 1914, is a very fine tribute to the work of a stranger to him and testifies to his artistic judgment, for a study of this "old chanty" will prove it to be a work of art, not only for the tremendous lines of which Mr.

Mason speaks, but because it creates the impression of antiquity while being entirely modern by every rule of versification.

If you take the pains to scan the lines you must soon admit how subtle and delicate are the alternating measures, prepared purposely to create the very idea of age and coa.r.s.eness and succeeding with every almost matchless line and selected word.

Just a word more. Of course I cannot pretend to say how the version published in your issue of September 20, 1914, got copied into the "Old Sc.r.a.p Book" to which "W. L." refers, but violence to the text and the meter--which you may determine by reference to the authentic copy inclosed herewith--would indicate that it had been "expurgated" for drawing room recital by an ultra-fastidious[15] who nevertheless recognized its great force.

[15] And non-poetic.

By the way, Mr. Allison wrote "The Pa.s.sing of Major Kilgore," not "Major Galbraith," one of the first really good newspaper stories "from the inside" then written, though since there have been many.

Yours very truly, C. I. HITCHc.o.c.k Louisville, October 6, 1914.

YO-HO-HO _and a_ BOTTLE OF RUM

It has not been the purpose of this sketch of a poem's history, with which has been joined other matters, reminiscent or germane, to enter into a discussion relative to the origin of chanties, or to attempt to trace the four lines of Captain Billy Bones' song to any source beyond their appearance in "Treasure Island." In a more or less extensive, though desultory, reading of a little of almost everything, the writer has never stumbled upon any chanty or verse from which the famous quatrain might have sprung. Nor has he ever met anyone who remembers to have read or heard of anything of the kind. This includes Allison himself, an omnivorous reader, a Stevenson admirer and student, a friend of many of Stevenson's friends, and who, since the appearance of "Treasure Island," has had hundreds of letters and conversations bearing on the subject.

While "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum," as a line, occasionally has since been used in modern versification, but without any of the Stevenson flavor and seldom with much poetic or dramatic instinct, all authorities appear to be agreed that he evolved the quatrain. This however is not a point at issue here. What seems to be of prime importance to this narrative though, is that Allison, taking this quatrain as a starting point, wrote a wholly modern versification in words and meter so skillfully used as to create not only a vivid atmosphere of piracy and antiquity, but of unskillfulness and coa.r.s.eness. That is the highest expression of art.

Since _The New York Times Book Review_ very unjustly raised a question of the authors.h.i.+p of "Derelict," it has been my privilege to read the really remarkable correspondence that has reached Mr. Allison from men all over the country who have been treasuring newspaper clippings of perverted versions of the poem out of pure admiration for its cla.s.sical lines and the bold portrayal of a grewsome story. These letters have increased since _The Scoop_ of the Press Club of Chicago printed the correspondence [See "The Unpublished Letter"] addressed to _The New York Times Book Review_. _The Scoop_ continued its interesting discussion of the poem in the issue of October 24, under a caption of "Yo-ho-ho!" and incorporated a communication from "our Bramleykite Pilling" on chanties in general, submitting also a criticism of Allison's sea-faring knowledge of the consistency of mainsails and the size of hawsers. If anything were needed to prove that "Derelict" is not "of the sea," this in itself would be sufficient. _The Scoop_ article is worthy of production in toto: