A Survey of African Poetry in the London Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement 1865-1985

Turning to South Africa, Sir Hubert said Rudyard Kipling was in a sense a poet of South Africa, the Poet of "General Joubert" and the "Bridge Guard in the Karroo." and "Columns" and "Piet." He had consulted Mr. Kipling as to what South African Poetry there was beside his own. Mr. Kiplig replied, "It's a case of there's Pringle, and there's Pringle, and there's a lot of good verse, light and half-light, but scattered, and there are the poems in the Taal, part translations and parodies, part original." Pringle was the son of a Scotch Border farmer, roughly contemporary with Keats. He acquired a good literary position in Edingurgh and made the friendship of Scott. But literature did not pay, and in 1819 he went out to South African with a Scotch party. He spent some time with them in the bush and then attempted a new iterary career in Cape Town, but quarrelled with the governor, and returning to England threw himsef into the cause of the abolition of slavery. Just when success was reached he died at the early age of 46 in 1834.