Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon

Poetical Sketches of the Interior of Ceylon Benjamin Bailey (1791-1853), aged 26 years Framed colour portrait by an anonymous artist Courtesy: Keats catalogue, London Metropolitan Archives "One of the noblest men alive at the present day" was John Keats's description of Bailey Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon Benjamin Bailey's Original manuscript, 1841 Introduction: Rajpal K de Silva, 2011 Serendib Publications London 2011 Copyright:© Rajpal Kumar de Silva, 2011 ISBN 978-955-0810-00-0 Published by: Serendib Publications 3 Ingleby Court Compton Road London N21 3NT England Typesetting / Printing Lazergraphic (Pvt) Ltd 14 Sulaiman Terrace Colombo 5 Sri Lanka iv CONTENTS Acknowledgements Foreword: Professor Emeritus Ashley Halpe Benjamin Bailey as a friend of John Keats: Professor Robert S White Benjamin Bailey, (1791 — 1853) Preface The Manuscript Present publication Some useful sources Introduction Biography Bailey's personality Bailey and Keats Bailey's poetry Ecclesiastical appointments Courtship and marriage Later in France Bailey in Ceylon Appendices I England during Bailey's era Early British Colonial rule in Ceylon II The Church Missionary Society, (CMS) CMS in Ceylon and Kottayam Comparative resumes of the two Baileys III Benjamin Bailey, Scrapbook Guide: Harvard University, USA IV Keats House Museum, Hampstead, London V St Peter's Church, Fort, Colombo: Bailey Memorials VI Six letters of Vetus in the Ceylon Times, 1852 Benjamin Bailey: Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon Part I -- Preface, Sonnets and Notes Part II -- Sonnets and Notes Part III -- Sonnets, Poems, Stanzas, Appendix and Notes Notes Bibliography V Acknowledgements Benjamin Bailey's manuscript of 1841 would probably have faded into oblivion had it not been for my chancing to pick it up in an antiquarian bookstore. Moreover, had it not been for my partner Mano Anandappa's typing skills, for which I owe her a huge debt of gratitude, this publication would not have got off the ground! To Malaka Talwatte, for his ever-willing, cheerful help with his computer expertise in the initial setting out of the typed text, and the insertion of all the illustrations, (some of which he was responsible for), and, to Altaf Hussein, my saviour when burdened with computer problems, I can only express my sincere appreciation and thanks. The staff of the Oriental section of the British Library, London, helped me in obtaining the publications and other material related to the two Benjamin Baileys, both born in 1791, both belonging to the Church Missionary Society (CMS), but confusingly wrongly catalogued! Kenneth Page, Interpretation Officer at Keats House Museum, Hampstead, London, was most helpful and directed me to the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), where Deborah Jenkins, Deputy Head of Heritage Services and Howard Doble, chief archivist, readily agreed to provide me with all the relevant Bailey material held in the Keats Catalogue, while Tim Warrender paid personal attention to my requests and helped me with photographing many sensitive items from their collection. The Church of Ceylon Library and Archives, Colombo, and the Royal Asiatic Society, Colombo, both have information on Bailey which I have made use of. To all the kind and patient staff of these institutions I am deeply grateful. Lelani Chinnadurai visited the UK's University of Birmingham's Cadbury Research Library, Special Collections, which houses the Church Missionary Society's Archives, at my request. I owe Lelani very special thanks for obtaining for me confirmation of the identities of the two Baileys, both missionaries sent out by the CMS, one to South India and the other to Ceylon. Antony Anghie, at present visiting professor and lecturer on International Organisation at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA, (permanently based at Utah University as Samuel D Thurman Professor of Law), offered to research the Benjamin Bailey Scrapbook Guide which is in the Harvard University Library; this contains a considerable amount of original Bailey material. For this entirely fortuitous opportunity for me to avail myself of Antony's generosity, which included photographing of items from Bailey's Scrapbook, I can but only offer him my most grateful thanks.The items used from Harvard are acknowledged individually. vi Vijita Fernando, Laksiri Jayasuriya, Dassana Raffel, and Neloufer de Mel have all read my text and made valuable comments. May Yee has edited all of my writing suggesting several improvements. Professor Emeritus Ashley Halpe, Sahithyaratne, Kalakeerthi, Chevalier dans l'ordre des Palmes Academiques, has graciously written the Foreword while Professor Robert White, an expert on John Keats, the Romantic poet, suggests that Bailey had some influence on Keats's long poem Endymion. To all of them, I offer my most grateful thanks. I acknowledge and am grateful for all the sources which I have been pleased to make use of to supplement my own research in the publication of Benjamin Bailey's manuscript. Dammika Mallawaarachchi and Kaushal Dissanayake of Lazergraphic have been responsible for the final layout of the pages of the book, the printing and binding of which was undertaken by Saman Weerasinghe, owner of Lazergraphic. The excellent quality of the resulting book, I have no doubt, is due to the care and attention lavished on the work by Saman and his dedicated staff, to all of whom I say, "well done and thank you!" R K de Silva 2011 vii Foreword R K de Silva's serendipitous, to use his own word, discovery many years ago of POETICAL SKETCHES OF THE INTERIOR OF CEYLON brings us a valuable addition to the sparse colonial literature of this island, known to the world, as that title indicates, as "Ceylon" in those early days of the British Imperium. Always the thorough scholar and painstaking editor, Dr de Silva worked on this edition of the book for several years. He now follows his three brilliant pictorial volumes of images of Sri Lanka, Early Prints of Ceylon, Illustrations & Hews of Dutch Ceylon and 19th Century Newspaper Engravings with this edition of images of the country in a different medium: English verse. The English writers of the late 18th century and early 19th century seized avidly, as we know, on the new territory for literature discovered by the move away from the Augustan formal garden, the world of polite manners and cultivated discourse, to the exploration of wild and sublime landscapes no less than wild and wonderful areas of human action and imagination, quarrying history and legend for subjects and locations. While Jane Austen depicted and delved into her world of 'country village, country town and country house' many of her contemporaries reached out to the expression of vagaries of character and social interaction; imaginations took wing with the music of the skylark and the nightingale equally with the life imagined in ancient art and sculpture and in ancient poetry and drama. The Poetical Sketches of the Rev. Benjamin Bailey are those of an author responsive to tides in the English taste of his time, but not to those mentioned above. He was drawn, like some of the poets of the period, to the appreciation of, indeed delight, in solitude and the awed admiration of the sublime. The sketches are indeed of the interior as he takes us with him past (to retain his spellings, which are not those generally used today) the `Kandian Boundary', Warakapali' and the `Kadeganava Pass' to Kandy, to `Rambodde' and its waterfalls, IsIuwera Ellia', `Doombera', `Gampolla' and the river there, `Pedrotallagalla' the Peacock Mountain and `Hakgolle'. He has ranged widely over the central hills and has captured the ambiance, the feel of facets of the landscape, and the sounds of streams, torrents and waterfalls as he creates his "sketches", some of which, he reports, he put down on he spot he had come to. In one sketch he writes: "I will not wait the trick of memory, But sitting here upon this pointed peak, This knoll of fragrant herbs, my soul will speak..." viii and again, "On either side of this inviting plain Dark mountains rise and frowning forests grow:" and in another "...Calls The loud torrent wrathfully: - and now it brawls So gently that it rolls, not roars, - a sweet And pleasant and deep melody..." Thus these Poetical Sketches The Peotical Sketches of the Rev. Benjamin Bailey are one more example of the happier side of the colonial encounter and experience to put beside William Knighton's novel Forest Life in Ancient Ceylon, the poems of Rev. Senior and the like. The imaginations of these visitors to this country have been touched to life by our world, so new to them, just as the archaeological and ethnographic curiosities of the country and by the folklore, folktales and folk poems of the people, much like the antiquarian research and publications to be seen in Europe at this time. From Dr de Silva's 'serendipitous' discovery of these Poetical Sketches thirty years ago to the present when this new edition of them is before us he has exercised the same meticulous care and scholarship that he brought to his three volumes of pictorial images of "Ceylon". This, like the earlier volumes, is brilliantly edited and laid out, with printing and binding of outstanding quality. Taken together, the four volumes constitute a remarkable window on the Sri Lanka of colonial times. Ashley Halpe Emeritus Professor of English University of Peradeniya Sri Lanka ix Benjamin Bailey as Friend of John Keats Bailey and Keats encountered each other 'about the end of 1816, or the beginning of 1817'' through mutual friends, John Hamilton Reynolds and James Rice, who had shared poems and views on poetry with Bailey. The friendship quickly blossomed as they 'saw much of each other in London and Keats described his new friend as 'one of the noblest men alive at the present day'.

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