152
NOTES AND QUERIES
The making of verses was a gentlemanly pursuit in early Victorian days, encouraged of course by the system of classical education which emphasised translation from Latin and Greek and hence a detailed knowledge of the rules—or mechanics—of prosody. Mercer received such a traditional education: he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took a B.A. degree, and for a time was at the Inner Temple, though he did not take the Bar examination. When he came to Hong Kong as his uncle's private secretary, he sought solace from the chores of day-to-day colonial administration in his poetic exercises and the result was Under the Peak.
There are five poems in this book—‘a string of sonnets’—which refer specifically to Hong Kong. They are, respectively: The Peak; The Bay; The Triads' Cave; The Water Fall; The Temple on Taplichow; The Pic Nic Cottage at Heong-Kong; and The Chinaman's Grave on the Lonely Hill Side. According to Mercer's note on the poem, The Triads' Cave, ‘a cavern romantically situated, has now disappeared before the utilitarian demand for granite. It was long the chosen resort of the members of the infamous San hop hwai, or Triad Society', where:
The robber horde oath-bound to mutual aid
Would plan foul murder and unpitying raid
O'er midnight counsel in their secret den?
The gem among these sonnets is without doubt The Chinaman's Grave, and should be given in extenso:
Oh Chow, or Wong! or by whatever name
Men call'd thee, or the Gods may call thee now,
Why so extravagantly vast thy claim
To mortuary earth upon the brow
Of yon fair hill? If all men spread as thou
No room for things created would be found
Throughout the Seric land, but all the ground
Would teem with graves, and well might it be said
That living ones were push'd from off their stools
By men all useless, now that they are dead
And vanish'd. Did Confucius leave no rules
To bind a soul's ambition by the tomb?
Then let survivors show themselves no fools,
But dig thy bones up to make elbow-room
152
NOTES AND QUERIES
The making of verses was a gentlemanly pursuit in early Victorian days, encouraged of course by the system of classical education which emphasised translation from Latin and Greek and hence a detailed knowledge of the rules-or mechanics-of prosody. Mercer received such a traditional education: he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took a B.A. degree, and for a time was at the Inner Temple, though he did not take the Bar examination. When he came to Hong Kong as his uncle's private secretary, he sought solace from the chores of day-to-day colonial administration in his poetic exercises and the result was Under the Peak.
There are five poems in this book-‘a string of sonnets'—which refer specifically to Hong Kong. They are, respectively: The Peak; The Bay; The Triads' Cave; The Water Fall; The Temple on Taplichow; The Pic Nic Cottage at Heong-Kong; and The China- man's Grave on the Lonely Hill Side. According to Mercer's note on the poem, The Triads' Cave, ‘a cavern romantically situated, has now disappeared before the utilitarian demand for granite. It was long the chosen resort of the members of the infamous San hop hwai, or Triad Society', where:
The robber horde oath-bound to mutual aid Would plan foul murder and unpitying raid O'er midnight counsel in their secret den?
The gem among these sonnets is without doubt The Chinaman's Grave, and should be given in extenso:
Oh Chow, or Wong! or by whatever name
Men call'd thee, or the Gods may call thee now,
Why so extravagantly vast thy claim
To mortuary earth upon the brow
Of yon fair hill? If all men spread as thou No room for things created would be found Throughout the Seric land, but all the ground Would teem with graves, and well might it be said That living ones were push'd from off their stools By men all useless, now that they are dead And vanish'd. Did Confucius leave no rules To bind a soul's ambition by the tomb? Then let survivors show themselves no fools, But dig thy bones up to make elbow-room1o
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