A CENTURY OF PARODY AND
IMITATION

JAMES AND HORACE SMITH

EDITED BY

WALTER JERROLD

AND

R. M. LEONARD

HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW

NEW YORK, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, BOMBAY

1913

The object of this compilation is to provide a corpus of representative parodies and imitations of a century, beginning with Rejected Addresses (1812), which practically marked the birth of modern parody, and are here printed in their entirety. Prose parodies, excepting those in Rejected Addresses, have been excluded; the derivation of the word 'parody' may be referred to in justification. Emerson wrote in his 'Fable'

so in this volume will be found all forms of imitations from, in Mr. Owen Seaman's words, 'the lowest, a mere verbal echo, to the highest, where it becomes a department of pure criticism.'

It is quite unnecessary to add to the published mass of writing, wise and foolish, on the art and ethics of parody. Some of the pieces in this book are included chiefly because they have an historical place in the development of parody to its present high standard of execution and good taste.

Isaac D'Israeli asserted that 'unless the prototype is familiar to us a parody is nothing.' As a matter of fact some of the best work is that of which the originals have been forgotten long since; although, of course, when the poets and the poems imitated are familiar the art of the imitator can be better appreciated.

The word 'century' has been interpreted with some licence. The work of living parodists does not fall[vi] within the scope of this collection, and it is a real self-denying ordinance which forbids the inclusion of triumphs by Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr. Owen Seaman, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Mr. Barry Pain, the Rev. Anthony Deane, and others who, in their undergraduate days, enlivened the periodicals of Oxford and Cambridge, or to-day show their dexterity in the pages of Punch. By way of recompense, the volume contains parodies by some, still living in 1812, whose work was published before Rejected Addresses. The parodies which follow therefore range from George Ellis, who was born in 1753, to Andrew Lang, who died in 1912. Very sparing use has been made of anonymous work, and in this connexion it may be well to explain that 'Adolphus Smalls of Boniface' is ruled out, because, although published anonymously, it is known to be the joint composition in their Balliol days of Dr. W. W. Merry, the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Alfred Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of Colchester.

With regard to Rejected Addresses, the publication of which may be said to have revived and established the art of parody, the genesis of the work is sufficiently explained in the authors' prefaces and notes. There were parodists before the Brothers Smith, yet their topical little volume has a lasting value, not only because of its inherent excellence, but also because it struck the note which the best later exponents of the art have followed. Published in the autumn of 1812, the book reached its fifteenth edition within two years, and its success led to the publication of a volume of certain of the Addresses that had really been sent to Drury Lane for competition. The one hundred and fifteen such Addresses which were actually submitted are, with one or two exceptions, preserved in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum.

The compilers' best thanks are due to those who[vii] have kindly allowed the use of copyright parodies or imitations—namely, to the following: Sir Herbert Stephen (and Messrs. Bowes and Bowes) for parodies by his brother J. K. Stephen; Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton and Messrs. Chatto and Windus for Swinburne's parodies; Mr. W. M. Rossetti and Messrs. Ellis for those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Messrs. G. Bell and Sons for the copyright pieces by C. S. Calverley in Fly-Leaves; Messrs. Blackwood and Sons for Sir Theodore Martin's 'Lay of the Lovelorn' and H. D. Traill's parodies; Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and Co. for R. F. Murray's 'Tennysonian Fragment' from Punch; Messrs. Burns and Oates for Francis Thompson's imitation of Omar Khayyam; Messrs. Chatto and Windus, and, for the American rights, the Houghton, Mifflin Company, for the parodies by Bret Harte and Bayard Taylor; the Editor of the Journal of Education for 'A Girtonian Funeral' by an unknown author, presumably deceased; Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. for the parodies by Andrew Lang; Messrs. J. MacLehose and Sons for the additional pieces by R. F. Murray; Messrs. Metcalfe and Co. for A. G. Hilton's parodies; Messrs. Pickering and Chatto for Miss Fanshawe's pieces; and Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for the variations by H. C. Bunner on the familiar theme of 'Home, Sweet Home.' The sources of the copyright work are given in the notes at the end of the volume. The footnotes are those of the writers of the parodies.

WALTER JERROLD.

R. M. LEONARD.

REJECTED ADDRESSES[1]
OR
THE NEW THEATRUM POETARUM

LOYAL EFFUSION.

BY W. T. F.[2]

[4]

THE BABY'S DEBUT.

BY W. W.[5]

[Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.]

'The author does not, in this instance, attempt to copy any of the higher attributes of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but has succeeded perfectly in the imitation of his maukish affectations of childish simplicity and nursery stammering. We hope it will make him ashamed of his Alice Fell, and the greater part of his last volumes—of which it is by no means a parody, but a very fair; and indeed we think a flattering, imitation.'—Edinburgh Review.

AN ADDRESS

WITHOUT A PHŒNIX.

BY S. T. P.[8]

[9]

CUI BONO?

BY LORD B.[9]

'The author has succeeded better in copying the moody and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the nervous and impetuous diction in which his noble biographer has embodied them. The attempt, however, indicates very considerable power; and the flow of the verse and the construction of the poetical period are imitated with no ordinary skill.'—Edinburgh Review.

[15]

TO THE

SECRETARY OF THE MANAGING COMMITTEE
OF DRURY-LANE PLAYHOUSE.

Sir,

To the gewgaw fetters of rhyme (invented by the monks to enslave the people) I have a rooted objection. I have therefore written an address for your theatre in plain, homespun, yeoman's prose; in the doing whereof hope I am swayed by nothing but an independent wish to open the eyes of this gulled people, to prevent a repetition of the dramatic bamboozling they have hitherto laboured under. If you like what I have done, and mean to make use of it, I don't want any such aristocratic reward as a piece of plate with two griffins sprawling upon it, or a dog and a jackass fighting for a ha'p'worth of gilt gingerbread, or any such Bartholomew-fair nonsense. All I ask is, that the door-keepers of your playhouse may take all the sets of my Register now on hand, and force every body who enters your doors to buy one, giving afterwards a debtor and creditor account of what they have received, post-paid, and in due course remitting me the money and unsold Registers, carriage-paid.

I am, &c.

W. C.[13]

IN THE CHARACTER OF

A HAMPSHIRE FARMER.

Most Thinking People,

When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, your servant.' If I were base enough,[16] mean enough, paltry enough, and brute beast enough, to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are not Ladies and Gentlemen, but I hope something better, that is to say, honest men and women; and in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, nor ever will be, your humble servant. You see me here, most thinking people, by mere chance. I have not been within the doors of a playhouse before for these ten years; nor, till that abominable custom of taking money at the doors is discontinued, will I ever sanction a theatre with my presence. The stage-door is the only gate of freedom in the whole edifice, and through that I made my way from Bagshaw's[14] in Brydges Street, to accost you. Look about you. Are you not all comfortable? Nay, never slink, mun; speak out, if you are dissatisfied, and tell me so before I leave town. You are now, (thanks to Mr. Whitbread,) got into a large, comfortable house. Not into a gimcrack palace; not into a Solomon's temple; not into a frost-work of Brobdingnag filigree; but into a plain, honest, homely, industrious, wholesome, brown brick playhouse. You have been struggling for independence and elbow-room these three years; and who gave it you? Who helped you out of Lilliput? Who routed you from a rat-hole, five inches by four, to perch you in a palace? Again and again I answer, Mr. Whitbread. You might have sweltered in that place with the Greek name[15] till doomsday, and neither Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Canning, no, nor the Marquess Wellesley, would have turned a trowel to help you out! Remember that. Never forget that. Read it to your children, and to your children's children! And now, most thinking people, cast your eyes over my head to what the builder (I beg his pardon, the architect) calls the proscenium. No motto, no slang, no popish Latin, to keep the people in the dark. No veluti in speculum. Nothing in the dead languages, properly so called, for they ought to die, aye and be damned to boot! The Covent Garden manager tried[17] that, and a pretty business he made of it! When a man says veluti in speculum, he is called a man of letters. Very well, and is not a man who cries O. P. a man of letters too? You ran your O. P. against his veluti in speculum, and pray which beat? I prophesied that, though I never told any body. I take it for granted, that every intelligent man, woman, and child, to whom I address myself, has stood severally and respectively in Little Russell Street, and cast their, his, her, and its eyes on the outside of this building before they paid their money to view the inside. Look at the brick-work, English Audience! Look at the brick-work! All plain and smooth like a quakers' meeting. None of your Egyptian pyramids, to entomb subscribers' capitals. No overgrown colonnades of stone, like an alderman's gouty legs in white cotton stockings, fit only to use as rammers for paving Tottenham Court Road. This house is neither after the model of a temple in Athens, no, nor a temple in Moorfields, but it is built to act English plays in; and, provided you have good scenery, dresses, and decorations, I daresay you wouldn't break your hearts if the outside were as plain as the pikestaff I used to carry when I was a sergeant. Apropos, as the French valets say, who cut their masters' throats[16]—apropos, a word about dresses. You must, many of you, have seen what I have read a description of, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons in Macbeth, with more gold and silver plastered on their doublets than would have kept an honest family in butcher's meat and flannel from year's end to year's end! I am informed, (now mind, I do not vouch for the fact,) but I am informed that all such extravagant idleness is to be done away with here. Lady Macbeth is to have a plain quilted petticoat, a cotton gown, and a mob cap (as the court parasites call it;—it will be well for them, if, one of these days, they don't wear a mob cap—I mean a white cap, with a mob to look at them); and Macbeth is to appear in an honest yeoman's drab coat, and a pair of black calamanco breeches. Not Salamanca; no, nor Talavera neither, my most Noble Marquess; but plain, honest, black calamanco[18] stuff breeches. This is right; this is as it should be. Most thinking people, I have heard you much abused. There is not a compound in the language but is strung fifty in a rope, like onions, by the Morning Post, and hurled in your teeth. You are called the mob; and when they have made you out to be the mob, you are called the scum of the people, and the dregs of the people. I should like to know how you can be both. Take a basin of broth—not cheap soup, Mr. Wilberforce—not soup for the poor, at a penny a quart, as your mixture of horses' legs, brick-dust, and old shoes, was denominated—but plain, wholesome, patriotic beef or mutton broth; take this, examine it, and you will find—mind, I don't vouch for the fact, but I am told—you will find the dregs at the bottom, and the scum at the top. I will endeavour to explain this to you: England is a large earthenware pipkin; John Bull is the beef thrown into it; taxes are the hot water he boils in; rotten boroughs are the fuel that blazes under this same pipkin; parliament is the ladle that stirs the hodge-podge, and sometimes——. But, hold! I don't wish to pay Mr. Newman[17] a second visit. I leave you better off than you have been this many a day: you have a good house over your head; you have beat the French in Spain; the harvest has turned out well; the comet keeps its distance;[18] and red slippers are hawked about in Constantinople for next to nothing; and for all this, again and again I tell you, you are indebted to Mr. Whitbread!!!

[19]

THE LIVING LUSTRES.

BY T. M.[19]

THE REBUILDING.

BY R. S.[22]

[Spoken by a Glendoveer.]

DRURY'S DIRGE.

BY LAURA MATILDA.[31]

'"Drury's Dirge," by Laura Matilda, is not of the first quality. The verses, to be sure, are very smooth, and very nonsensical—as was intended; but they are not so good as Swift's celebrated Song by a Person of Quality; and are so exactly in the same measure, and on the same plan, that it is impossible to avoid making the comparison.'—Edinburgh Review.

[32]

A TALE OF DRURY LANE.

BY W. S.[32]

Thus he went on, stringing one extravagance upon another, in the style his books of chivalry had taught him, and imitating, as near as he could, their very phrase.[33]—Don Quixote.

[To be spoken by Mr. Kemble, in a suit of the Black Prince's Armour, borrowed from the Tower.]

'From the parody of Walter Scott we know not what to select—it is all good. The effect of the fire on the town, and the description of a fireman in his official apparel, may be quoted as amusing specimens of the misapplication of the style and metre of Mr. Scott's admirable romances.'—Quarterly Review.

'"A Tale of Drury," by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, admirably executed; though the introduction is rather tame. The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's characteristic love of localities. The catastrophe is described with a spirit not unworthy of the name so venturously assumed by the describer.'—Edinburgh Review.

JOHNSON'S GHOST.[37]

[Ghost of Dr. Johnson rises from trap-door P. S., and Ghost of Boswell from trap-door O. P. The latter bows respectfully to the House, and obsequiously to the Doctor's Ghost, and retires.]

Doctor's Ghost loquitur.

That which was organised by the moral ability of one has been executed by the physical efforts of many, and Drury Lane Theatre is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher, or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed for the accom[39]modation of either; and he who should pronounce that our edifice has received its final embellishment would be disseminating falsehood without incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection without participating the advantage of success.

Professions lavishly effused and parsimoniously verified are alike inconsistent with the precepts of innate rectitude and the practice of external policy: let it not then be conjectured, that because we are unassuming, we are imbecile; that forbearance is any indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. He that is the most assured of success will make the fewest appeals to favour, and where nothing is claimed that is undue, nothing that is due will be withheld. A swelling opening is too often succeeded by an insignificant conclusion. Parturient mountains have ere now produced muscipular abortions; and the auditor who compares incipient grandeur with final vulgarity is reminded of the pious hawkers of Constantinople, who solemnly perambulate her streets, exclaiming, 'In the name of the Prophet—figs!'

Of many who think themselves wise, and of some who are thought wise by others, the exertions are directed to the revival of mouldering and obscure dramas; to endeavours to exalt that which is now rare only because it was always worthless, and whose deterioration, while it condemned it to living obscurity, by a strange obliquity of moral perception constitutes its title to posthumous renown. To embody the flying colours of folly, to arrest evanescence, to give to bubbles the globular consistency as well as form, to exhibit on the stage the piebald denizen of the stable, and the half-reasoning parent of combs, to display the brisk locomotion of Columbine, or the tortuous attitudinizing of Punch;—these are the occupations of others, whose ambition, limited to the applause of unintellectual fatuity, is too innocuous for the application of satire, and too humble for the incitement of jealousy.

Our refectory will be found to contain every species of fruit, from the cooling nectarine and luscious peach to the puny pippin and the noxious nut. There Indolence may repose, and Inebriety revel; and the spruce apprentice, rushing in at second account, may there chatter[40] with impunity; debarred, by a barrier of brick and mortar, from marring that scenic interest in others, which nature and education have disqualified him from comprehending himself.

Permanent stage-doors we have none. That which is permanent cannot be removed, for, if removed, it soon ceases to be permanent. What stationary absurdity can vie with that ligneous barricado, which, decorated with frappant and tintinnabulant appendages, now serves as the entrance of the lowly cottage, and now as the exit of a lady's bed-chamber; at one time, insinuating plastic Harlequin into a butcher's shop, and, at another, yawning, as a flood-gate, to precipitate the Cyprians of St. Giles's into the embraces of Macheath. To elude this glaring absurdity, to give to each respective mansion the door which the carpenter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal with the varying scene, passing from deal to mahogany, and from mahogany to oak, as the opposite claims of cottage, palace, or castle, may appear to require.

Amid the general hum of gratulation which flatters us in front, it is fit that some regard should be paid to the murmurs of despondence that assail us in the rear. They, as I have elsewhere expressed it, 'who live to please,' should not have their own pleasures entirely overlooked. The children of Thespis are general in their censures of the architect, in having placed the locality of exit at such a distance from the oily irradiators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means to perpetrate, in the castle of Macduff, 'ere his purpose cool,' so vast is the interval he has to travel before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the Muse of Smiles, is hard, but it is cygnet's down in comparison with mine. The peerless peer of capers and congees[38] has laid it down as a rule, that the best good thing uttered by the morning visitor[41] should conduct him rapidly to the doorway, last impressions vying in durability with first. But when, on this boarded elongation, it falls to my lot to say a good thing, to ejaculate, 'keep moving,' or to chant, 'hic hoc horum genitivo,' many are the moments that must elapse, ere I can hide myself from public vision in the recesses of O. P. or P. S.

To objections like these, captiously urged and querulously maintained, it is time that equity should conclusively reply. Deviation from scenic propriety has only to vituperate itself for the consequences it generates. Let the actor consider the line of exit as that line beyond which he should not soar in quest of spurious applause: let him reflect, that in proportion as he advances to the lamps, he recedes from nature; that the truncheon of Hotspur acquires no additional charm from encountering the cheek of beauty in the stage-box, and that the bravura of Mandane may produce effect, although the throat of her who warbles it should not overhang the orchestra. The Jove of the modern critical Olympus, Lord Mayor of the theatric sky,[39] has, ex cathedrâ, asserted, that a natural actor looks upon the audience part of the theatre as the third side of the chamber he inhabits. Surely, of the third wall thus fancifully erected, our actors should, by ridicule or reason, be withheld from knocking their heads against the stucco.

Time forcibly reminds me, that all things which have a limit must be brought to a conclusion. Let me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to your recollection, that the pillars which rise on either side of me, blooming in[42] virid antiquity, like two massy evergreens, had yet slumbered in their native quarry, but for the ardent exertions of the individual who called them into life: to his never-slumbering talents you are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of Diana yet survives in the name of Erostratus, surely we may confidently predict, that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant posterity in that of—Samuel Whitbread.

THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY.

BY THE HON. W. S.[40]

Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.—Virgil.

Scene draws, and discovers a Lady asleep on a couch.

Enter Philander.

'"The Beautiful Incendiary," by the Honourable W. Spencer, is also an imitation of great merit. The flashy, fashionable, artificial style of this writer, with his confident and extravagant compliments, can scarcely be said to be parodied in such lines.'—Edinburgh Review.

FIRE AND ALE.

BY M. G. L.[44]

Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum.—Virgil.

'"Fire and Ale," by M. G. Lewis, exhibits not only a faithful copy of the spirited, loose, and flowing versification of that singular author, but a very just representation of that mixture of extravagance and jocularity which has impressed most of his writings with the character of a sort of farcical horror.'—Edinburgh Review.

PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS.

BY S. T. C.[45]

[Exit hastily.

'Mr. Coleridge will not, we fear, be as much entertained as we were with his 'Playhouse Musings,' which begin with characteristic pathos and simplicity, and put us much in mind of the affecting story of old Poulter's mare.'—Quarterly Review.

'"Playhouse Musings,"' by Mr. Coleridge, a piece which is unquestionably Lakish, though we cannot say that we recognise in it any of the peculiar traits of that powerful and misdirected genius whose name it has borrowed. We rather think, however, that the tuneful brotherhood will consider it as a respectable eclogue.'—Edinburgh Review.

DRURY LANE HUSTINGS.

A NEW HALFPENNY BALLAD.
BY A PIC-NIC POET.

This is the very age of promise: To promise is most courtly and fashionable. Performance is a kind of will or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgement that makes it.

Timon of Athens.

[To be sung by Mr. Johnstone in the character of Looney M'Twolter.]

'"A New Halfpenny Ballad," by a Pic-Nic Poet, is a good imitation of what was not worth imitating—that tremendous mixture of vulgarity, nonsense, impudence, and miserable puns, which, under the name of humorous songs, rouses our polite audiences to a far higher pitch of rapture than Garrick or Siddons ever was able to inspire.'—Edinburgh Review.

ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS.

TRANSLATED BY DR. B.[49]

Lege, Dick, Lege!—Joseph Andrews.

To be recited by the Translator's Son

'In one single point the parodist has failed—there is a certain Dr. Busby, whose supposed address is a translation called "Architectural Atoms, intended to be recited by the translator's son." Unluckily, however, for the wag who had prepared this fun, the genuine serious absurdity of Dr. Busby and his son has cast all his humour into the shade. The doctor from the boxes, and the son[61] from the stage, have actually endeavoured, it seems, to recite addresses, which they call monologues and unalogues; and which, for extravagant folly, tumid meanness, and vulgar affectation, set all the powers of parody at utter defiance.'—Quarterly Review.

'Of "Architectural Atoms," translated by Dr. Busby, we can say very little more than that they appear to us to be far more capable of combining into good poetry than the few lines we were able to read of the learned doctor's genuine address in the newspapers. They might pass, indeed, for a very tolerable imitation of Darwin.'—Edinburgh Review.

THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL.

BY THE EDITOR OF THE M. P.[52]

Bounce, Jupiter, bounce!—O'Hara.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As it is now the universally-admitted, and indeed pretty-generally-suspected, aim of Mr. Whitbread and the infamous, bloodthirsty, and, in fact, illiberal faction to which he belongs, to burn to the ground this free and happy Protestant city, and establish himself in St. James's Palace, his fellow committee-men have thought it their duty to watch the principles of a theatre built under his auspices. The information they have received from undoubted authority—particularly from an old fruit-woman who has turned king's evidence, and whose name, for obvious reasons, we forbear to mention, though we have had it some weeks in our possession—has induced them to introduce various reforms—not such reforms as the vile faction clamour for, meaning thereby revolution, but such reforms as are necessary to preserve the glorious constitution of the only free, happy, and prosperous country now left upon the face of the earth. From the valuable and authentic source above alluded to, we have learnt that a sanguinary plot has been formed by some united Irishmen, combined with a gang of Luddites, and a special committee sent over by the Pope at the instigation of the beastly Corsican fiend, for destroying all the loyal part of the audience on the anniversary of that deeply-to-be-abhorred and highly-to-be-blamed stratagem, the Gun[62] powder Plot, which falls this year on Thursday the 5th of November. The whole is under the direction of a delegated committee of O. P.'s, whose treasonable exploits at Covent Garden you all recollect, and all of whom would have been hung from the chandeliers at that time, but for the mistaken lenity of government. At a given signal, a well-known O. P. was to cry out from the gallery, 'Nosey! Music!' whereupon all the O. P.'s were to produce from their inside-pockets a long pair of shears, edged with felt, to prevent their making any noise, manufactured expressly by a wretch at Birmingham, one of Mr. Brougham's evidences, and now in custody. With these they were to cut off the heads of all the loyal N. P.'s in the house, without distinction of sex or age. At the signal, similarly given, of 'Throw him over!' which it now appears always alluded to the overthrow of our never-sufficiently-enough-to-be-deeply-and-universally-to-be-venerated constitution, all the heads of the N. P.'s were to be thrown at the fiddlers, to prevent their appearing in evidence, or perhaps as a false and illiberal insinuation that they have no heads of their own. All that we know of the further designs of these incendiaries is, that they are by-a-great-deal-too-much too-horrible-to-be-mentioned.

The Manager has acted with his usual promptitude on this trying occasion. He has contracted for 300 tons of gunpowder, which are at this moment placed in a small barrel under the pit; and a descendant of Guy Faux, assisted by Col. Congreve, has undertaken to blow up the house, when necessary, in so novel and ingenious a manner, that every O. P. shall be annihilated, while not a whisker of the N. P.'s shall be singed. This strikingly displays the advantages of loyalty and attachment to government. Several other hints have been taken from the theatrical regulations of the not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-universally-execrated monster Bonaparte. A park of artillery, provided with chain-shot, is to be stationed on the stage, and play upon the audience, in case of any indication of misplaced applause or popular discontent (which accounts for the large space between the curtain and the lamps); and the public will participate our satisfaction in learn[63]ing that the indecorous custom of standing up with the hat on is to be abolished, as the Bow-street officers are provided with daggers, and have orders to stab all such persons to the heart, and send their bodies to Surgeons' Hall. Gentlemen who cough are only to be slightly wounded. Fruit-women bawling 'Bill of the play!' are to be forthwith shot, for which purpose soldiers will be stationed in the slips, and ball-cartridge is to be served out with the lemonade. If any of the spectators happen to sneeze or spit, they are to be transported for life; and any person who is so tall as to prevent another seeing, is to be dragged out and sent on board the tender, or, by an instrument taken out of the pocket of Procrustes, to be forthwith cut shorter, either at the head or foot, according as his own convenience may dictate.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, have the committee, through my medium, set forth the not-in-a-hurry-to-be-paralleled plan they have adopted for preserving order and decorum within the walls of their magnificent edifice. Nor have they, while attentive to their own concerns, by any means overlooked those of the cities of London and Westminster. Finding, on enumeration, that they have with a with-two-hands-and-one-tongue-to-be-applauded liberality, contracted for more gunpowder than they want, they have parted with the surplus to the mattock-carrying and hustings-hammering high bailiff of Westminster, who has, with his own shovel, dug a large hole in the front of the parish church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, that, upon the least symptom of ill-breeding in the mob at the general election, the whole of the market may be blown into the air. This, ladies and gentlemen, may at first make provisions rise, but we pledge the credit of our theatre that they will soon fall again, and people be supplied, as usual, with vegetables, in the in-general-strewed-with-cabbage-stalks-but-on-Saturday-night-lighted-up-with-lamps market of Covent Garden.

I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take an account of the ladies, and other artificial[64] flowers, at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular account will hereafter appear. For the present, my fashionable intelligence is scanty, on account of the opening of Drury Lane; and the ladies and gentlemen who honour me with their attention will not be surprised if they find nothing under my usual head!!

THE THEATRE.

BY THE REV. G. C.[53]

A Preface of Apologies.

If the following poem should be fortunate enough to be selected for the opening address, a few words of explanation may be deemed necessary, on my part, to avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion I have thought it right to make on the noise created by tuning the orchestra, will, I hope, give no lasting[65] remorse to any of the gentlemen employed in the band. It is to be desired that they would keep their instruments ready tuned, and strike off at once. This would be an accommodation to many well-meaning persons who frequent the theatre, who, not being blest with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the overture, and think the latter concluded before it is begun.

was originally written 'one hautboy will'; but, having providentially been informed, when this poem was upon the point of being sent off, that there is but one hautboy in the band, I averted the storm of popular and managerial indignation from the head of its blower: as it now stands, 'one fiddle' among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. The story of the flying play-bill is calculated to expose a practice much too common, of pinning play-bills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all. If these lines save one play-bill only from the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings glances at the boorish fashion of wearing the hat in the[66] one-shilling gallery. Had Jennings thrust his between his feet at the commencement of the play, he might have leaned forward with impunity, and the catastrophe I relate would not have occurred. The line of handkerchiefs formed to enable him to recover his loss, is purposely so crossed in texture and materials as to mislead the reader in respect to the real owner of any one of them. For, in the satirical view of life and manners which I occasionally present, my clerical profession has taught me how extremely improper it would be, by any allusion, however slight, to give any uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, however foolish or wicked.

G. C.

The Theatre.

Interior of a Theatre described.—Pit gradually fills.—The Check-taker.—Pit full.—The Orchestra tuned.—One Fiddle rather dilatory.—Is reproved—and repents.—Evolutions of a Playbill.—Its final Settlement on the Spikes.—The Gods taken to task—and why.—Motley Group of Play-goers.—Holywell Street, St. Pancras.—Emanuel Jennings binds his Son apprentice—not in London—and why.—Episode of the Hat.

'"The Theatre," by the Rev. G. Crabbe, we rather think, is the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite and most masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most original author; and can hardly be said to be in any respect a caricature of that style or manner—except in the excessive profusion of puns and verbal jingles—which, though undoubtedly to be ranked among his characteristics, are never so thick-sown in his original works as in this admirable imitation. It does not aim, of course, at any shadow of his pathos or moral sublimity, but seems to us to be a singularly faithful copy of his passages of mere description.'—Edinburgh Review.

TO THE MANAGING COMMITTEE OF THE NEW DRURY-LANE THEATRE.[54]

Gentlemen,

Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount Parnassus, I was suddenly seized with a violent travestie in the head. The first symptoms I felt were several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accom[70]panied by a singing in my throat, which quickly communicated itself to the ears of everybody about me, and made me a burthen to my friends and a torment to Doctor Apollo; three of whose favourite servants—that is to say, Macbeth, his butcher; Mrs. Haller, his cook; and George Barnwell, his book-keeper—I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and mauled after a very frightful fashion. In this woful crisis, I accidentally heard of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder incident to Grub Street. I send you enclosed a more detailed specimen of my ease: if you could mould it into the shape of an address, to be said or sung on the first night of your performance, I have no doubt that I should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.

I am, &c.,

Momus Medlar.

Case No. I.

MACBETH.

[Enter Macbeth, in a red nightcap. Page following with a torch.]

Case No. II.

THE STRANGER.

Case No. III.

GEORGE BARNWELL.

PUNCH'S APOTHEOSIS.

BY T. H.[55]

Scene draws, and discovers Punch on a throne, surrounded by Lear, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Othello, George Barnwell, Hamlet, Ghost, Macheath, Juliet, Friar, Apothecary, Romeo, and Falstaff.—Punch descends, and addresses them in the following

Recitative.

'"Punch's Apotheosis," by G. Colman, junior, is too purely nonsensical to be extracted; and both gives less pleasure to the reader, and does less justice to the ingenious author in whose name it stands, than any other of the poetical imitations.'—Edinburgh Review.

[80]

'We have no conjectures to offer as to the anonymous author of this amusing little volume. He who is such a master of disguises may easily be supposed to have been successful in concealing himself, and, with the power of assuming so many styles, is not likely to be detected by his own. We should guess, however, that he had not written a great deal in his own character—that his natural style was neither very lofty nor very grave—and that he rather indulges a partiality for puns and verbal pleasantries. We marvel why he has shut out Campbell and Rogers from his theatre of living poets, and confidently expect to have our curiosity in this and in all other particulars very speedily gratified, when the applause of the country shall induce him to take off his mask.'—Edinburgh Review.

The Morning Post.

Additional note intended for p. 61.—This journal was, at the period in question, rather remarkable for the use of the figure called by the rhetoricians catachresis. The Bard of Avon may be quoted in justification of its adoption, when he writes of taking arms against a sea, and seeking a bubble in the mouth of a cannon. The Morning Post, in the year 1812, congratulated its readers upon having stripped off Cobbett's mask and discovered his cloven foot; adding, that it was high time to give the hydra-head of Faction a rap on the knuckles!

GEORGE ELLIS.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COLLEGE LIBRARY.

(GRAY)

GEORGE CRABBE.

INEBRIETY.

(POPE)

CATHERINE MARIA FANSHAWE.

ODE.

(GRAY)

FRAGMENT.

(WORDSWORTH)

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE.

A FABLE.

(DRYDEN)

THE COURSE OF TIME.

(ROBERT POLLOK)

GEORGE CANNING AND JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE.

INSCRIPTION

For the Door of the Cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, the 'Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her Execution.

(SOUTHEY)

THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND.

DACTYLICS.

(SOUTHEY)

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE

Being the Quintessence of all the Dactylics that ever were or ever will be written.

(SOUTHEY AND COLERIDGE)

[95]

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.

Sapphics.

(SOUTHEY)

[Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE, GEORGE CANNING, AND GEORGE ELLIS.

THE LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES.

A Mathematical and Philosophical Poem.

(ERASMUS DARWIN)

GEORGE CANNING AND GEORGE ELLIS.

SONG BY ROGERO.

(German Tragedy)

[Weeps, and pulls out a blue 'kerchief, with which he wipes his eyes; gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds.]

[At the repetition of this line Rogero clanks his chains in cadence.]

[During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison, and, finally, so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops—the music still continuing to play, till it is wholly fallen.]

JAMES HOGG.

WALSINGHAME'S SONG

From 'Wat o' the Cleuch.'

(SCOTT)

THE FLYING TAILOR.

Further Extract from 'The Recluse,' a Poem.

(WORDSWORTH)

[118]

THE CHERUB.

(COLERIDGE)

[120]

ISABELLE.

(COLERIDGE)

THE CURSE OF THE LAUREATE.

(SOUTHEY)

Carmen Judiciale.

[128]

THE GUDE GREYE KATT.

(JAMES HOGG)

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS.

(COLERIDGE, LAMB, AND CHARLES LLOYD)

[143]

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

THE AMATORY POEMS OF ABEL SHUFFLEBOTTOM.

(THE DELLA CRUSCANS)

Sonnet I.

Delia at Play.

Sonnet II.

To a Painter attempting Delia's Portrait.

[145]

Sonnet III.

He proves the Existence of a Soul from his Love for Delia.

Sonnet IV.

The Poet expresses his Feelings respecting a Portrait in Delia's Parlour.

[146]

LOVE ELEGIES.

Elegy I.

The Poet relates how he obtained Delia's Pocket-handkerchief.

[147]

Elegy II.

The Poet invokes the Spirits of the Elements to approach Delia.—He describes Her Singing.

[148]

Elegy III.

The Poet Expatiates on the Beauty of Delia's Hair.

[149]

Elegy IV.

The Poet relates how he stole a Lock of Delia's Hair, and her Anger.

CHARLES LAMB.

EPICEDIUM—GOING OR GONE.

(DRAYTON)

HYPOCHONDRIACUS.

(ROBERT BURTON)

THOMAS MOORE.

THE NUMBERING OF THE CLERGY.

(SIR CHARLES HANBURY WILLIAMS)

We want more Churches and more Clergymen.—Bishop of London's late Charge.

Rectorum numerum, terris pereuntibus, augent.—Claudian in Eutrop.

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.

A BORDER BALLAD.

By an Enchanter Unknown.

(SCOTT)

THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.

By S. T. C., Esq., Professor of Mysticism.

(COLERIDGE)

Σκιᾶς ὄναρ.—Pindar.

[160]

PROEMIUM OF AN EPIC,

WHICH WILL SHORTLY APPEAR IN QUARTO, UNDER THE TITLE OF

'FLY-BY-NIGHT.'

By R. S., Esq., Poet Laureate.

(SOUTHEY)

[162]

YE KITE-FLYERS OF SCOTLAND.

By T. C.

(THOMAS CAMPBELL)

LOVE AND THE FLIMSIES.

By T. M., Esq.

(MOORE)

SONG BY MR. CYPRESS.

(BYRON)