Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. VI

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

r. Swinburne, son of Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne, and grandson of Sir John Edward Swinburne, sixth baronet, was born in 1838, and educated first at Eton, and afterwards at Oxford.

Despite his ancient pedigree, his aristocratic connections, and his university education, the early writings of Mr. A. C. Swinburne, both in prose and verse, were coloured by Radical opinions of the most advanced description. Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Southey commenced thus, with results which should have taught him how unwise it is for a poet, who wishes to be widely read, to descend into the heated atmosphere of political strife.

The Undergraduate Papers, published by Mr. Mansell, Oxford, 1857-8, contained some of Mr. Swinburne’s earliest poems, these were followed by “Atalanta in Calydon,” “Chastelard,” and “Poems and Ballads.”

It will be readily understood that only a few brief extracts can be given from Mr. Swinburne’s poems, sufficient merely to strike the key notes of the Parodies.

THE CREATION OF MAN.

Before the beginning of years

There came to the making of man

Time, with a gift of tears;

Grief, with a glass that ran;

Pleasure, with pain for leaven!

Summer, with flowers that fell;

Remembrance fallen from heaven,

And madness risen from hell;

Strength without hands to smite:

Love that endures for a breath;

Night, the shadow of light,

And life the shadow of death.

And the high gods took in hand

Fire, and the falling of tears,

And a measure of sliding sand

From under the feet of the years:

And froth and drift of the sea;

And dust of the labouring earth;

And bodies of things to be

In the houses of death and of birth;

And wrought with weeping and laughter,

And fashioned with loathing and love.

With life before and after,

And death beneath and above,

For a day and a night and a morrow,

That his strength might endure for a span

With travail and heavy sorrow,

The holy spirit of man.

For the winds of the north and the south

They gathered as into strife;

They breathed upon his mouth,

They filled his body with life;

Eyesight and speech they wrought

For the veils of the soul therein,

A time for labour and thought,

A time to serve and to sin;

They gave him light in his ways,

And love, and a space for delight,

And beauty and length of days,

And night, and sleep in the night.

His speech is a burning fire;

With his lips he travaileth;

In his heart is a blind desire,

In his eyes foreknowledge of death;

He weaves, and is clothed with derision;

Sows, and he shall not reap;

His life is a watch or a vision

Between a sleep and a sleep.

* * * * *

A. C. Swinburne.

American Parody.

Before the beginning of years,

There went to the making of man

Nine tailors with their shears,

A coupe and a tiger and span,

Umbrellas and neckties and canes,

An ulster, a coat, and all that—

But the crowning glory remains,

His last best gift was his hat.

And the mad hatters took in hand

Skins of the beaver, and felt,

And straw from the isthmus land,

And silk and black bear’s pelt:

And wrought with prophetic passion,

Designed on the newest plan,

They made in the height of fashion

The hat for the wearing of man.

A Poet’s Valentine.

Before the beginning of post

There came to the making of love

Rhyme and of follies a host;

Ducks with a dart and a dove;

Flow’rs with initials beneath,

Cupid conceal’d in a cell,

Lovers alone on a heath.

A Parson pulling a bell.

Follies all fetched afar,

Mirth for a maid and a man,

Jokes that jingle and jar,

And lines refusing to scan.

And still with the change of things

The annual craze comes back

With knocks and riotous rings

From the post piled up with a pack.

Still letters of love and laughter,

And verse in various time,

With roars that reach to the rafter,

And sheets of scurrilous rhyme.

Of old we counted our money

And played but a note for a kiss,

But now we send hampers of honey

And boxes of boisterous bliss.

Fun. February 15, 1868.

Shilling Dreadfuls.

“A nervous and well red-wigged gentleman, Mr. Allburnon-Charles Swingbun, ran excitedly to our rescue, and rhapsodically chaunted the following chorus from his ‘Atlas in Paddington’:

“Now in the railway years

There come to the making of books

Crime with its gift of fears,

Dream with mesmeric looks,

Nihilist Czar-abhorrence,

Acres of ‘snowy sward,’

Ouida, bottled in Florence,

And Broughton in Oxenforde;

Length, to deserve twelve pence;

Plot, to atone for pith;

Not a shadow of sense,

And boys the shadows of Smith.

And the tourist takes in hand

Paper with creasy back,

And a type he can understand,

As he sways with his rolling rack,

And froth and drift of the French,

And mirth that is meet to sell,

And bodies of things that drench

The diversions of Max O’Rell.

They are wrought with weeping for laughter,

And in fashion for chap and cove,

With Life before and after,

And Truth beneath and above.

For a day, for a night, for a nuisance

That the novice may fling his flukes,

And the publisher reap his usance—

The ‘Shillingsworth’ plague of books.”

Christmas Number of The World. 1885.

A chorus in “Atalanta in Calydon” commences:—

“For winter’s rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins.”

This passage was thus parodied by Mr. Austin Dobson:—

“For Mayfair’s balls and ballets are over,

And all the ‘Season’ of drums and dins;

The maids dividing lover and lover,

The wight that loses, the knight that wins;

And last month’s life is a leaf that’s rotten,

And flasks are filled and game bags gotten,

And from green underwood and cover

Pheasant on Pheasant his flight begins.”

——:o:——

The peculiar metre in which “Dolores” and the Dedication of the “Poems and Ballads” Volume are written, although it invites parody, is difficult to imitate successfully. The ending line of each stanza abruptly cut short is a trick in composition which few but Mr. Swinburne himself have thoroughly mastered.

The following stanzas from the Dedication will enable readers to perceive how closely they have been parodied by Mr. Pollock.

The sea gives her shells to the shingle,

The earth gives her streams to the sea;

They are many, but my gift is single,

My verses, the first-fruits of me.

Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf,

Cast forth without fruit upon air;

Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf

Blown loose from the hair.

* * * * *

Though the world of your hands be more gracious

And lovelier in lordship of things,

Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious

Warm heaven of her imminent wings;

Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting,

For the love of old loves and lost times,

And receive in your palace of painting

This revel of rhymes.

* * * * *

Though the many lights dwindle to one light,

There is help if the heaven has one;

Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight,

And the earth dispossessed of the sun,

They have moonlight and sleep for repayment

When refreshed as a bride, and set free,

With stars and sea-winds in her raiment,

Night sinks on the sea.

“Dedication to J. S.”

This parody, dedicated to the notorious “John Stiles,” of the old law-books, was written by Mr. Pollock, and originally appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette. It has since been included in a small volume (published by Macmillan & Co., London, 1875) entitled “Leading Cases done into English,” by an apprentice of Lincoln’s Inn.

When waters are rent with commotion

Of storms, or with sunlight made whole,

The river still pours to the ocean

The stream of its effluent soul;

You, too, from all lips of all living

Of worship disthroned and discrowned,

Shall know by these gifts of my giving

That faith is yet found.

By the sight of my song-flight of cases

That bears on wings woven of rhyme

Names set for a sign in high places

By sentence of men of old time;

From all counties they meet and they mingle,

Dead suitors whom Westminster saw;

There are many, but your name is single,

The flower of pure law.

When bounty of grantors was gracious

To enfeoff you in fee and in tail,

The bounds of your land were made spacious

With lordship from Sale unto Dale;

Trusts had you, and services loyal,

Lips sovereign for ending of strife,

And the names of the world’s names most royal

For light of your life.

Ah desire that was urgent to Romeward,

And feet that were swifter than fate’s,

And the noise of the speed of them homeward

For mutation and fall of estates!

Ah the days when your riding to Dover

Was prayed for and precious as gold,

The journeys, the deeds that are over,

The praise of them told.

But the days of your reign are departed,

And our fathers that fed on your looks

Have begotten a folk feeble-hearted,

That seek not your name in their books;

And against you is risen a new foeman,

To storm with strange engines your home,

We wax pale at the name of him Roman,

His coming from Rome.

* * * * *

Yet I pour you this drink of my verses,

Of learning made lovely with lays,

Song bitter and sweet that rehearses

The deeds of your eminent days;

Yea, in these evil days from their reading

Some profit a student shall draw,

Though some points are of obsolete pleading,

And some are not law.

Though the Courts that were manifold dwindle

To divers Divisions of one,

And no fire from your face may rekindle

The light of old learning undone;

We have suitors and briefs for our payment,

While so long as a Court shall hold pleas,

We talk moonshine, with wigs for our raiment,

Not sinking the fees.

This “J. S.” was a mythical person introduced for the purposes of illustration, and constantly met with in old law books and reports. His devotion to Rome is shown by his desperate attempts to get there in three days: “If J. S. shall go to Rome in three days,” was then a standing example of an impossible condition, which modern science has robbed of most of its point.

——:o:——

THE BALLAD OF BURDENS.

This poem will be found on page 144 of Mr. Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads (first series). It is one of his best known ballads, and in 1879 it was chosen by the editor of The World as the model on which to found parodies describing the wet and gloomy summer of that year.

The successful poems in the competition were printed in The World, July 16, 1879. The first prize was won by a well known London Architect, the second by a Dublin gentleman who has since published several amusing Volumes of light poems.

First Prize.

A burden of foul weathers. Dim daylight

And summer slain in some sad sloppy way,

And pitiless downpour that comes by night,

And watery gleam that has no heart by day,

And change from gray to black, from black to gray,

And weariness that doth at each repine;

Grief in all work, and pleasure in no play—

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of vain blossoms. This is sore

A burden of false hope in fruit-bearing:

Upon thy strawberry-bed, behold, threescore—

Threescore dead blooms for one that’s ripening;

And if that one to fulness thou dost bring,

Thy shuddering lips the scanty feast decline,

For ’tis a pallid and insipid thing—

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of set phrases. Thou shalt hear

The same drear murmurs breathed from every side:

‘Something is wrong with the Gulf Stream, I fear.’

‘Through cycle wet the decade now doth glide.’

‘The sun is “spot”-less, and ashamed would hide.’

Dull ign’rance with long words did aye combine!

And thou shalt half believe and half deride

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of lost leisure. Thou shalt grieve

By rain-vexed stream, drenched moor, or seashore dead;

And say at night, ‘Would I had had no leave!’

And say at dawn, ‘Would that my leave were sped!’

The water of affliction and the bread

For food and for attire shall then be thine,

Goloshed beneath, umbrellaed overhead,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of cold hearthstones. Thou shalt see

Pale willow shreds and gold above the green;

And as the willow so thy face shall be,

And no more as the thing before-time seen.

And thou shalt say of sunshine, ‘It hath been,’

And, chilling, watch the chilly light decline;

And shivering-fits shall take thy breath between

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of sad sayings. In that day

Thou shalt tell all thy summers o’er, and tell

Thy joys and thy delights in each, and say

How one was calm and one was changeable,

And sweet were all to hear and sweet to smell;

But now of passing hours scarce one doth shine

Of twenty. In the rest deep gloom doth dwell.

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of mixed seasons. Snow in spring,

Thaw, and then frost, with each its miseries;

No summer, though the days be shortening;

No autumn-promise from the fields and trees;

With sad face turned towards Christmas, that foresees

Huge bills for fuel, (and yet for fires doth pine;)

Rheumatics, pleurisy, and lung-disease,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of umbrellas. In thy sight

Dawn’s gray or vesper’s red may promise much,

Yet shalt thou never venture day nor night

Without that ‘little shadow’ in thy clutch.

Horn of rhinoceros and ebon crutch

Shall unmolested in their stand recline;

Thy trusty Penang shall forget thy touch,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of sham gladness. In desire

(The substance lost) for shadows of delight,

Though underfoot the trodden lawn be mire,

Tea, tennis, and Terpsichore invite.

Go, then! and let thy face with smiles be dight,

To hollow joy’s ordeal thyself resign

Till dreary daylight yield to drearier night,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

L’ENVOY.

Brave hearts, and ye whom hope yet quickeneth,

Hope on; next summer may perchance be fine.

The life grows short, and soon will come the death

Anni Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

Ziegelstein. (Goymour Cuthbert.)

Second Prize.

The burden of strange seasons. Rain all night,

Blown-rain and wind co-mingling all the day;

Perchance we say the morrow will be bright;

But lo, the morrow is as yesterday:

With sullen skies and sunsets cold and gray,

With lights reverse, the heavy hours retire;

And so the strange sad season slips away—

I pray thee put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of rheumatics. This is sore

Damp, and east wind maketh it past bearing;

When thy life’s span has stretched to threescore,

No rest hast thou at dawn or evening.

The shivering in thy bones, the shivering

In all thy marrows through this season dire,

Makes summer seem a shameful wretched thing—

For God’s love put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of dead apples. Lo, their doom,

Decay and blight upon the tender trees,

All fruit made fruitless, blossom bloomless bloom

An eastern wind of many miseries.

Naught has survived save pale-green gooseberries,

The food in fools, of fools, who such desire.

God wot, no lack have we of fooleries—

I prithee put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of bad harvests. For the gods,

Who change the springing corn from green to red,

Have scourged us for our sins with many rods,

And left our grain and oil ungarnerèd.

The market-men heap ashes on their head,

And cry aloud and rend their best attire;

The gods are just, prayers are unanswerèd—

I pray thee put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of lost peaches. Ah, my sweet,

This year I seek them in the sunny South,

To press them to thy sharp white tooth to eat,

To kiss thy amorous hair and curled-up mouth.

Lust and desire are dust and deadly drouth,

For lust is dust and deadly drouth desire,

And time creeps over all with wingèd feet—

For love’s sake put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of dull colours. Thou shalt see

Strange harmonies in brown and olive-green,

In curious costumes fashioned cunningly,

And all unlike the things in summer seen;

And thou shalt say of summer, it hath been.

Or if unconsciously thou wouldst inquire

What these my mournful music-measures mean,

I bid thee heap fresh coals upon the fire.

L’ENVOY.

Tourists and ye whom Cook accomp’nies,

Heed well before from him ye tickets hire—

This season is a mist of miseries;

So once more heap fresh coals upon the fire.

Floreant-Lauri (J. M. Lowry).

This parody was afterwards included in A Book of Jousts, edited by James M. Lowry. London, Field and Tuer.

Ballade of Cricket.

The burden of long fielding: when the clay

Clings to thy shoon, in sudden shower’s down-pour,

And running still thou stumblest; or the ray

Of fervent suns doth bite and burn thee sore,

And blind thee, till, forgetful of thy lore,

Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a skyer,

And lose a match the gods cannot restore—

This is the end of every man’s desire!

The burden of loose bowling: when the stay

Of all thy team is collared—swift or slower—

When bowlers break not in the wonted way

And “yorkers” come not off as heretofore;

When length-balls shoot no more, ah! never more,

And all deliveries lose their wonted fire,

When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door—

This is the end of every man’s desire!

The burden of free hitting; slog away,

Here shalt thou make a five, and there a four.

And then thy heart unto thy heart shall say

That thou art in for an exceeding score;

Yea, the loud Ring, applauding thee shall roar.

And thou to rival Hornby shalt aspire,

And lo! the Umpire gives thee “leg before.”

This is the end of every man’s desire!

ENVOY.

Alas, yet rather on youth’s hither shore

Would I be some poor player, on scant hire,

Ahan King among the old, who play no more.

This is the end of every man’s desire.

A. L.

St. James’s Gazette. June 27, 1881.

Ballade of Cricket.

(To T. W. Lang.)

The burden of hard hitting: slog away!

Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”

And then upon thy bat shalt lean and say,

That thou art in for an uncommon score.

Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,

And thou to rival Thornton shalt aspire,

When low, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,”—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of much bowling, when the stay

Of all thy team is “collared,” swift or slower,

When “bailers” break not in their wonted way,

And “yorkers” come not off as heretofore.

When length balls shoot no more, ah never more,

When all deliveries lose their former fire,

When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of long fielding, when the clay

Clings to thy shoon in sudden showers downpour,

And running still thou stumblest, or the ray

Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,

And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,

Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer”

And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

Envoy.

Alas, yet liefer on youth’s hither shore

Would I be some poor Player on scant hire

Than king among the old who play no more,—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

Andrew Lang.

This second Ballade of Cricket was included in a collection of “Ballades and Rondeaus” edited by Mr. Gleeson White, and published by Walter Scott, London, 1887.

A Ballad of Burdens.

The burden of Old Women. They delight

In bulky bundles, always in the way;

In ’busses close they wedge you tight at night,

In railway trains they jam you up by day.

Plump dames with pulpy cheeks and locks of grey,

In weariness they waddle, puff, perspire.

To banish them for ever one would say,

This must be every busy man’s desire.

* * * * *

The burden of Sad Colours. Thou shalt see

Gold tarnished, ghostly grey, and livid green,

And lank and languorous thy face must be

To harmonise with the lugubrious scene.

And thou shalt say of scarlet, “It have been,”

And sighing of old tints and tones shalt tire.

To bring back brightness and to banish spleen,

This must be every cheerful man’s desire.

The burden of Smart Sayings. In this day

All wish as cynic wits to bear the bell.

Men mock at honour, justice, love, and say

The end of life “good stories” is to tell.

The cad’s coarse jest, the cackle of the swell

Are much alike, things that the most admire.

To patter slang and tell side-splitters well,

This is the end of every fool’s desire.

The burden of Bad Seasons. Rain in Spring,

Chill rain and wind among the budding trees,

A Summer of grey storm-clouds gathering,

Damp Autumn one dull mist of miseries,

With showers that soak, and blasts that bite and freeze;

A drenching Winter with north-easters dire.

To make an end of seasons such as these,

This must be every suffering man’s desire.

The burden of Strange Crazes. Woman’s right

To throng the polls, and join the spouting bands;

Theosophy and astral bodies, sleight

Of cunning jugglers from far foreign lands;

Buddhistic bosh which no one understands,

A thousand fads that ’gainst good sense conspire.

To gag the crotcheteers and tie their hands,

This must be every sober man’s desire.

L’Envoy.

Donkeys, and ye whom frenzy quickeneth,

Heed well this rhyme. Life’s many burdens tire.

To lighten them a little, ere our death,

This must be every kindly man’s desire.

Punch. August 7, 1886.

——:o:——

Parodies of
DOLORES.

Pain and Travel.

Perpetual swaying of steamers,

Oh, terrible tumble of tides—

More dear than the drowsing of dreamers,

Who ramble by rustic road-sides!

Oh, lips that are pale with the anguish,

Let me see you again and again;

They are yours when so seasick they languish,

Our Lady of Pain!

I gloat on the grins and the groaning,

The torments that torture—not kill:

And music to me is the moaning

Of travellers terribly ill.

A rapture I cannot unravel,

Their throes set a-thrill in my brain:

These—these are my pleasures of travel,

Our Lady of Pain!

And on landing I lose not the longing,

That mingles my manhood with mud:

For the merry mosquitos come thronging,

With lips that laugh blithely in blood:

And fleas, with their kisses that burn me,

Bite till cruel red mouths show the stain—

Into poesy passionate turn me,

Our Lady of Pain!

And the donkeys Egyptian and spiteful

Shall share in the shame of my hymns,

For the jolting that brands the delightful

Dark bruises on delicate limbs.

And the Alps shall be ranked with the asses

For the fracture, the frostbite, the sprain,

And the mangling of flesh in crevasses,

Our Lady of Pain!

And if—leaving me, though, unshattered—

An accident fell should betide,

And the train that I ride in is scattered

In ruin on every side—

Dislocations and discolourations,

And gush of bright gore, not in vain

Shall awake in me languid sensations,

Our Lady of Pain!

Thus I roam through the universe vasty,

O’er mountain, vale, meadow, and wood;

And I venerate all that is nasty,

And gird against all that is good;

In the mire my delight is to linger,

Although I to the heights might attain:

Aut you don’t catch me scratching my finger,

Our Lady of Pain!

Fun. October 12, 1867.

My Lady Champagne.

Wayward, soft, luscious, and tender,

Lightsome, and spotless from stain,

Graceful of figure and slender,

Decked with a golden crown’s splendour—

Our Lady Champagne.

Brilliantly sparkling and creaming,

Haughty and lovely and vain,

Gay ’midst the froth lightly beaming,

Swift o’er the crystal edge streaming—

Our Lady Champagne.

Bubbling and seething and springing,

Solace and soother of pain,

Joys of an outer world bringing,

Sweets to the air gaily flinging—

Our Lady Champagne.

Proud in the depth of deep scorning,

Haughty and grand with disdain,

Rosy as soft clouds at dawning,

Fresh as the breeze of the morning—

Our Lady Champagne.

Kisses seductive in greeting,

Falling like soft summer rain,

Rapturous bliss of lips meeting,

Sighing a woe at retreating—

Our Lady Champagne.

Frothy, light, bubbly and beady,

Life to the overworked brain;

Beer for the humble and needy,

Wine for the wealthy and greedy—

Our Lady Champagne!

Judy. May 26, 1880.

The Southern Cross.

A Frustration.

Four stars on Night’s brow, or Night’s bosom,

Whichever the reader prefers;

Or Night without either may do some,

Each one to his taste or to hers.

Four stars—to continue inditing,

So long as I feel in the vein—

Hullo! what the deuce is that biting?

Mosquitos again!

Oh glories not gilded but golden,

Oh daughters of Night unexcelled,

By the sons of the North unbeholden,

By our sons (if we have them) beheld;

Oh jewels the midnight enriching,

Oh four which are double of twain!

Oh mystical—bother the itching!

Mosquitos again!

You alone I can anchor my eye on,

Of you and you only I’ll write,

And I now look awry on Orion,

That once was my chiefest delight.

Ye exalt me high over the petty

Conditions of pleasure and pain,

Oh Heaven! Here are these maladetti

Mosquitos again!

The poet should ever be placid.

Oh vex not his soul or his skin!

Shall I stink them with carbolic acid?

It is done and afresh I begin.

Lucid orbs!—that last sting very sore is;

I am fain to leave off, I am fain;

It has given me uncommon dolores—

The Latin for pain.

Not quite what the shape of a cross is—

A little lop-sided, I own—

Confound your infernal proboscis,

Inserted well nigh to the bone!

Queen-lights of the heights of high heaven,

Ensconced in the crystal inane—

Oh me, here are seventy times seven

Mosquitos again.

Oh horns of a mighty trapezium!

Quadrilatoral area, hail!

Oh bright is the light of magnesium!—

Oh hang them all, female and male!

At the end of an hour of their stinging,

What shall rest of me then, what remain?

I shall die as the swan dieth, singing,

Mosquitos again!

Shock keen as the stroke of the leven!

They sting, and I change as a flash

From the peace and the poppies of heaven

To the flame and the firewood of—dash!

Oh Cross of the South, I forgot you!

These demons have addled my brain.

Once more I look upward———Od rot you!

You’re at it again.

There! stick in your pitiless brad-awl,

And do your malevolent worst!

Dine on me and when you have had all,

Let others go in for a burst!

Oh silent and pure constellation,

Can you pardon my fretful refrain?

Forgive, oh forgive my vexation—

They’re at it again!

Oh imps that provoke to mad laughter,

Winged fiends that are fed from my brow,

Bite hard! let your neighbours come after,

And sting where you stung me just now!

Red brands on it smitten and bitten,

Round blotches I rub at in vain!

Oh Crux! whatsoever I’ve written,

I’ve written in pain.

Ye chrysolite crystalline creatures,

Wan watchers the fairest afield,

Stars, and garters, are these my own features

In the merciless mirror revealed?

They are mine, even mine and none other,

And my hands how they slacken and strain!

Oh my sister, my spouse, and my mother!

I’m going insane!

From Miscellaneous Poems, by J. Brunton Stephens.

Brandy and Soda.

Mine eyes to mine eyelids cling thickly;

My tongue feels a mouthful and more;

My senses are sluggish and sickly;

To live and to breathe is a bore.

My head weighs a ton and a quarter,

By pains and by pangs ever split,

Which manifold washings with water

Relieve not a bit.

My longings of thirst are unlawful,

And vain to console or control,

The aroma of coffee is awful,

Repulsive the sight of the roll.

I take my matutinal journal,

And strive my dull wits to engage,

But cannot endure the infernal

Sharp crack of its page.

What bad luck my soul had bedevilled,

What demon of spleen and of spite,

That I rashly went forth, and I revelled

In riotous living last night?

Had the fumes of the goblet no odour

That well might repulse or restrain?

O insidious brandy and soda,

Our Lady of Pain.

Thou art golden of gleam as the summer

That smiled o’er a tropical sod,

O daughter of Bacchus, the bummer,

A foamer, a volatile tod!

But thy froth is a serpent that hisses,

And thy gold as a balefire doth shine,

And the lovers who rise from thy kisses

Can’t walk a straight line.

I recall, with a flush and a flutter,

That orgie whose end is unknown;

Did they bear me to bed on a shutter,

Or did I reel home all alone?

Was I frequent in screams and in screeches?

Did I swear with a forcéd affright?

Did I perpetrate numerous speeches?

Did I get in a fight?

Of the secrets I treasure and prize most

Did I empty my bacchanal breast?

Did I button-hole men I despise most,

And frown upon those I like best?

Did I play the low farmer and flunkey

With people I always ignore?

Did I caricole round like a monkey?

Did I sit on the floor?

O longing no research may satiate—

No aim to exhume what is hid!

For falsehood were vain to expatiate

On deeds more depraved than I did;

And though friendly faith I would flout not

On this it were rash to rely,

Since the friends who beheld me, I doubt not,

Were drunker than I.

Thou hast lured me to passionate pastime,

Dread goddess, whose smile is a snare!

Yet I swear thou hast tempted me the last time—

I swear it; I mean what I swear!

And thy beaker shall always forebode a

Disgust ’twere not wise to disdain,

O luxurious brandy-and-soda;

Our Lady of Pain.

Hugh Howard. 1882.

Dolores.

[Miss Dolores Lleonart-y-Casanovas, M.D., has just, at the age of 19, taken her doctor’s degree at Barcelona. July, 1886.]

With dark eyes that flash like a jewel,

And red lips that flame like a flower

Capricious, coquettish and cruel,

When flirting in boudoir or bower;

So shine Spanish girls in old stories.

But thou’rt of a different strain,

Oh learned and lucky Dolores,

Our M.D. of Spain.

Thy studies commencing, sweet virgin,

At College when scarce more than seven,

Now past mistress scalpel and purge in

A full-blown Physician! Great Heaven!

Sangrados no more to our sorrow

Our veins shall deplete; the control

Of our hearts goes to girls, whence we borrow

Much hope—on the whole.

It startles us, though, the reflection

That you are not twenty to-day,

Yet our tongues may invite your inspection,

Our pulses your touch may assay.

Thou, a girlish she-Galen, arisest:

In faith thou may’st fairly feel vain,

O young among women yet wisest,

Our M.D. of Spain!

Will you “fee” in the fearless old fashion,

And dose like a horse-drenching Vet.?

Ah! it is not alone the Caucasian

Who’s nearly played out, I regret.

However, unless luck desert you,

Barcelona its fame may regain.

Let us hope Hahnemann mayn’t convert you,

Our M.D. of Spain.

(Five verses omitted.)

Punch. July 31, 1886.

Octopus.[1]

Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed,

Whence camest to dazzle our eyes?

With thy bosom bespangled and branded

With the hues of the seas and the skies;

Is thy home European or Asian,

Oh mystical monster marine?

Part molluscous and partly crustacean,

Betwixt and between.

Wast thou born to the sound of sea trumpets?

Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess

Of the sponges—thy muffins and crumpets,

Of the seaweed—thy mustard and cress?

Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral,

Remote from reproof or restraint?

Art thou innocent, art thou immoral,

Sinburnian or Saint?

Lithe limbs, curling free, as a creeper

That creeps in a desolate place,

To enrol and envelop the sleeper

In a silent and stealthy embrace;

Cruel beak craning forward to bite us,

Our juices to drain and to drink,

Or to whelm us in waves of Cocytus,

Indelible ink!

Oh breast, that ’twere rapture to writhe on!

Oh arms ’twere delicious to feel

Clinging close with the crush of the Python,

When she maketh her murderous meal;

In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden,

Let our empty existence escape;

Give us death that is glorious and golden,

Crushed all out of shape!

Ah thy red lips, lascivious and luscious,

With death in their amorous kiss!

Cling round us, and clasp us, and crush us,

With bitings of agonised bliss!

We are sick with the poison of pleasure,

Dispense us the potion of pain;

Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure,

And bite us again!

The Light Green. Cambridge, 1872.

Procuratores.

O vestment of velvet and virtue,

O venomous victors of vice,

Who hurt men who never have hurt you,

Oh, calm, cruel, colder than ice;

Why wilfully wage ye this war? Is

Pure pity purged out of your breast?

O purse-prigging Procuratores,

O pitiless pest!

Do you dream of what was and no more is,

When fresher and freer than air?

Does it pain you, proud Procuratores,

These badges of bondage to bear?

In your youth were you greener than grass is,

And fearful of infinite fines,

Or casual, careless of classes,

Frequenters of wines?

Was it woe for a woman who jilted,

Or dread of your debts or a dun?

Or was it your nose was tip-tilted,

Or a frivolous fancy for fun?

Did duty, dark despot, decide you,

That fame to the dogs must be hurled

Or was it a whim, woe betide you,

To worry the world?

Five shillings ye fine the frail freshmen,

Five shillings, which cads call a crown,

Men caught in your merciless mesh, men

Who care not for cap or for gown.

When ye go grandly garbed in your glories,

With your coarse, callous crew of canines,

O pitiless Procuratores,

Inflictors of fines.

We have smote and made redder than roses,

With juice not of fruit nor of bud,

The truculent town’s-people’s noses,

And bathed brutal butchers in blood;

And we, all aglow with our glories,

Heard you not in the deafening din,

And ye came, O ye Procuratores,

And ran us all in.

I write not as one with no knowledge,

Unaware of your weird, wily ways,

For you’ve often inquired my college,

And fined me on subsequent days.

Oft stopped, I have stuffed you with stories,

When wandering wildly from wines;

Pawned property, Procuratores,

To find you your fines.

E. B. Iwan-Müller.

This parody originally appeared, anonymously, in “The Shotover Papers, or, Echoes from Oxford.” 1874.

A Song.

Oh, vanished benevolent Bobby!

Ah, beautiful wearisome beats,

Where rascals range, ready to rob ye,

In dim and disconsolate streets!

When I meet with a murderous nature,

And welcome thy bludgeon would be,

Two dirty hens tearing a ’tatur

Are all that I see.

In cosy recesses of kitchens,

Secure from the shrieking of slums;

Where cook’s so uncommon bewitching,

And the infinite tea kettle hums.

Yet art thou misled and mistaken,

Though served with celestial cheer,

Though feasted on liver and bacon,

And beauty and beer.

Oh, leisurely, helmeted Bobby!

Hast never with jealousy shook;

Lest Mercury, Jeames in the lobby,

Should chisel thee out of thy cook?

Ah, mark thou what mischief is hatching,

By love who doth nothing by halves;

What chance hast thou, Bobby, of matching

Those marvellous calves!

Oh, there are more perilous places

Than horrible hovering seas!

Come! Radiant the area space is

With the beams of the emerald cheese.

Thou art bold and thy uniform nobby,

But subtle are Syrens, and sweet!

Oh, fiery, melodious Bobby,

Come back to thy beat!

The Figaro. October 11, 1876.

Foam and Fangs.

O, Nymph with the nicest of noses;

And finest and fairest of forms;

Lips ruddy and ripe as the roses

That sway and that surge in the storms;

O, buoyant and blooming Bacchante,

Of fairer than feminine face,

Rush, raging as demon of Dante—

To this, my embrace!

The foam, and the fangs, and the flowers,

The raving and ravenous rage,

Of a poet as pinion’d in powers,

As condor confined in a cage!

My heart in a haystack I’ve hidden,

As loving and longing I lie,

Kiss open thine eyelids unbidden—

I gaze and I die!

I’ve wander’d the wild waste of slaughter,

I’ve sniff’d up the sepulchre’s scent,

I’ve doated on devilry’s daughter,

And murmur’d much more than I meant;

I’ve paused at Penelope’s portal,

So strange are the sights that I’ve seen,

And mighty’s the mind of the mortal,

Who knows what I mean!

From Patter Poems, by Walter Parke,

London, Vizetelly & Co., 1885.

——:o:——

A MATCH.

One of the cleverest parodies on Swinburne was written by the late Mr. Tom Hood, the younger, on the above named poem, and first appeared in Fun, whence it has frequently been copied without proper acknowledgment.

The parody will be better appreciated after reading a few stanzas of the original which, as will be observed, is written in a difficult and very uncommon metre:

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather,

Blown fields or flowerful closes,

Green pleasure or gray grief;

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune,

With double sound and single

Delight our lips would mingle,

With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon;

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune.

* * * * *

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May,

We’d throw with leaves for hours

And draw for days with flowers,

Till day like night were shady,

And night were bright like day;

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain,

We’d hunt down love together,

Pluck out his flying-feather,

And teach his feet a measure,

And find his mouth a rein;

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain.

A. C. Swinburne.

A Catch.

(By a Mimic of Modern Melody.)

If you were queen of bloaters,

And I were king of soles,

The sea we’d wag our fins in

Nor heed the crooked pins in

The water dropt by boaters,

To catch our heedless joles;

If you were queen of bloaters

And I were king of soles.

If you were Lady Mile-End,

And I were Duke of Bow,

We’d marry and we’d quarrel,

And then, to point the moral

Should Lord Penzance his file lend,

Our chains to overthrow;

If you were Lady Mile-End,

And I were Duke of Bow.

If you were chill November,

And I were sunny June;

I’d not with love pursue you;

For I should be to woo you

(You’re foggy, pray remember)

A most egregious spoon;

If you were chill November,

And I were sunny June.

If you were cook to Venus

And I were J. 19;

When missus was out dining,

Our suppetites combining,

We’d oft contrive between us

To keep the patter clean;

If you were cook to Venus

And I were J. 19.

If you were but a jingle,

And I were but a rhyme;

We’d keep this up for ever,

Nor think it very clever,

A grain of sense to mingle

At times with simple chime;

If you were but a jingle

And I were but a rhyme.

Tom Hood, the younger.

Fun. December 30, 1871.

IF!

If life were never bitter,

And love were always sweet,

Then who would care to borrow

A moral from to morrow—

If Thames would always glitter,

And joy would ne’er retreat,

If life were never bitter,

And love were always sweet!

If care were not the waiter

Behind a fellow’s chair,

When easy-going sinners

Sit down to Richmond dinners,

And life’s swift stream flows straighter—

By Jove, it would be rare,

If care were not the waiter

Behind a fellow’s chair.

If wit were always radiant,

And wine were always iced,

And bores were kicked out straightway

Through a convenient gateway;

Then down the year’s long gradient

’Twere sad to be enticed,

If wit were always radiant,

And wine were always iced.

Mortimer Collins.

As a parody this is scarcely inferior to that of Mr. Tom Hood, but the poet has let the sound run away from the sense, and has forgotten that a wit who is always a radiant wit is apt to become tiresome; whilst if “wine were always iced,” all red wines would greatly suffer, especially Port and Burgundy.

The University Election.

A Candidates Carol.

If you were an elector,

And I a candidate,

I’d send you round a notice,

And say “I trust your vote is

A thing I may expect, or

Request at any rate.”

If you were an elector,

And I a candidate.

If you were influential,

And I of no renown,

I’d say, “It is a pity

You’re not on my committee,

Your name is consequential

So let me put it down,”

If you were influential,

And I of no renown.

If I were well supported,

And you of little weight,

I’d say, “I hope to rank you

Among my voters—thank you.”

Your promise once extorted,

I’d leave you to your fate;

If I were well supported,

And you of little weight.

If you were at the polling,

And I were in the booth,

And if your vote you gave, or

Recorded in my favour,

I’d find it both consoling,

And powerful to soothe,

If you were at the polling,

And I were in the booth.

If you should vote against me,

And I were standing by,

I might be forced to fell you,

And then should simply tell you

That having so incensed me

You ought to mind your eye;

If you should vote against me,

And I were standing by.

If I were not elected,

And you would keep alive,

You oughtn’t to come nigh me,

But shun, avoid, and fly me,

And go about protected

(For vide stanza 5).

If I were not elected,

And you would keep alive.

If you were not a voter,

Nor I a candidate,

I would not give a penny,

To know your views (if any),

Contingency remoter

I can’t enunciate,

If you were not a voter,

Nor I a candidate.

From Dublin Doggerels, by Edwin Hamilton, M.A. Dublin. C. Smyth, Dame Street. 1877.

A Matcher.

If you were what your nose is,

And I were like the red,

Then should we glow together,

Sunned in the singing weather,

Blown well as winter closes,

And colds come in the head—

If you were what your nose is,

And I were like the red.

If I were what your words are,

And you H aspirate,

We ne’er should dwell together;

For you would snap your tether,

And leave me where the birds are,

And drop at hailstone rate—

If I were what your words are,

And you H aspirate,

If you were “call to-morrow,”

And I an unpaid bill,

You’d meet me at all seasons,

With plaintive looks and reasons,

And leave me then to sorrow,

And all unsettled still—

If you were “call to-morrow.”

And I an unpaid bill,

If you were what’s called “shady,”

And I were quarter-day,

You’d take French leave some hours

Ere I arrived; no powers,

Could make you meet me, Lady,

Nor make me stay away—

If you were what’s termed “shady”

And I were quarter-day.

If you were Queen of Pleasure,

And I were King Champagne,

We’d hunt the bard together,

Pluck out his inked goose-feather,

And leave him “feet” and “measure,”

But muddle his poor brain—

If you were Queen of Pleasure,

And I were King Champagne.

From Lunatic Lyrics, by Alfred Greenland, Junior. London, Tinsley Brothers. 1882.

A Philistine to an Æsthete.

(By an Oxford Under grad who “makes hay” in
an Æsthete’s room “while the sun shines.”)

If I were big Nat Langham,

And you the Suffolk Pet,

I’d strike out from the shoulder,

Between your eyes, you’ll bet,

And give you such a drubbing,

As you would not forget;

If I were big Nat Langham,

And you the Suffolk Pet.

If I were Jockey Archer,

And you my racing horse,

I’d give you such a breather

Across a stiff race-course,

That you would think your fortunes

Had altered for the worse;

If I were Jockey Archer,

And you my racing-horse.

* * * * *

If I were a wild Indian,

And you were my canoe,

I’d shoot with you the rapids,

Like the wild Indians do,

And care not if by drowning

Myself I could drown you;

If I were a wild Indian,

And you were my canoe.

Punch. April 1, 1882.

In Pictures at Play, by two Art-Critics, illustrated by Harry Furniss (Longmans, Green & Co.), a dialogue is given between a portrait of Mr. Gladstone by Frank Holl (No. 499), and a bust of the same gentleman by Albert Toft (No. 1,928). The Bust (supposed to represent Mr. Gladstone in his younger days) thus addresses the Portrait:—

I am your Dr. Jekyll

And you’re my Mr. Hyde,

On my head mortals wreak ill,

(I am your Dr. Jekyll)

Of me they often speak ill,

By you left undenied,—

I am your Dr. Jekyll

And you’re my Mr. Hyde!

They say I’ve turned my coat, sir,

’Tis you should bear the blame,

Sold England for a vote, sir,

They say I’ve turned my coat, sir,

Made friends with “Skin the Goat,” sir.

Or Ford, who’s much the same;

They say I’ve turned my coat, sir,

’Tis you should bear the blame.

Be either you or I, sir,

Be Jekyll please, or Hyde,

The Statesman pure and high, sir,

(Be either you or I, sir)

Or cast your virtues by, sir,

And take the darker side,

Be either you or I, sir,

Be Jekyll, please, or Hyde.

——:o:——

In October 1885 the English Illustrated Magazine published a short poem by Mr. Swinburne, which the Editor of the Weekly Dispatch shortly afterwards reprinted, in his competition column, and invited Parodies upon it:—

THE INTERPRETERS.

Days dawn on us that make amends for many

Sometimes,

When heaven and earth seem sweeter even than any

Man’s rhymes,

Light had not all been quenched in France, or quelled

In Greece,

Had Homer sung not, or had Hugo held

His peace,

Had Sappho’s self not left her word thus long

For token,

The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song

Had spoken.

And yet these days of subtler air and finer

Delight,

When lovelier looks the darkness, and diviner

The light,

The gift they give of all these golden hours,

Whose urn

Pours forth reverberate rays or shadowing showers

In turn,

Clouds, beams, and winds that make the live day’s track

Seem living—

What were they did no spirit give them back

Thanksgiving?

Dead air, dead fire, dead shapes and shadows, telling

Time nought,

Man gives them sense and soul by song, and dwelling

In thought.

In human thought their being endures, their power

Abides:

Else were their life a thing that each light hour

Derides.

The years live, work, sigh, smile, and die, with all

They cherish;

The soul endures, though dreams that fed it fall

And perish.

In human thought have all things habitation;

Our days

Laugh, lower, and lighten past, and find no station

That stays.

But thought and faith are mightier things than time

Can wrong,

Made splendid once with speech, or made sublime

By song,

Remembrance, though the tide of change that rolls

Wax hoary,

Gives earth and heaven, for song’s sake and the soul’s

Their glory.

A. C. Swinburne.

Three of the competition poems were printed in the Weekly Dispatch, October, 18, 1885, the first prize was awarded to the following:—

Lays dawn on us that have few charms for many,

Sometimes,

Sure heaven and earth were seldom rack’d for any

Worse rhymes.

Light would not all be quench’d were bards compelled

To cease,

Had Tennyson sung not, or Swinburne held

His peace—

Had Algy’s self not writ these lines so long

And broken:

’Tis sad to see our Swinny rave in song

Mad spoken!

And yet few lays or subtler airs give finer

Delight,

Or soar from out the darkness with diviner

A flight,

Than his whose gift, in his most golden hours,

Can earn

Reverberate praise for all his varied powers

In turn;

Grand, grave or gay, that make his verse at times

Seem living,

But where are they who yield him for these rhymes

Thanksgiving?

Dull verse, queer style, dim tropes and rhythm, telling

Us nought;

One looks for sense and shape in song, compelling

Sweet thought!

In this what thought there is all clouded o’er

Abides,

And ev’ry one the more he reads the more

Derides!

The words start, jump and jerk, and rise and fall

So funny,

That one endures, yet deems such stuff is all

For money!

A poet’s thoughts should please in all their stages.

This lay

Seems cobbled up to find a home in pages

That pay.

But thought and rhythm flighty have this time

Gone wrong,

Though splendid once his speech, and oft sublime

His song!

(Remembrance tells the powers of poet-souls

Wax hoary)

This song may give him guineas, but enrols

No glory!

Herbert L. Gould.

Highly commended:—

The Ladies.

Faces we see that make amends for many

Most plain,

When English girls seem sweeter e’en than any

From Spain,

Beauty had not been rare with us, or quelled

In Greece,

Had Tom Moore sung not, or Anacreon held

His peace.

Had Aphrodite never cleft the sea,

In splendour,

Our modern belles would still as winsome be

And tender.

And so these girls of gentle air and manner

Delight:

Who lovelier looks than Hilda, as you scan her?

Sweet sight!

The gleam that shines from every golden tress,

Whose wealth

The sunbeam kisses, or the winds caress

By stealth.

Hair, lips, and eyes, with which our nymphs prepare

For action—

What were they, did no esprit give them rare

Attraction?

Dead lips, dead eyes, dead silken tresses, telling

Men nought;

Wit only gives them life and soul and dwelling

In thought.

In memory must their grace endure, their spell

Abide:

Else were their sway a thing that we might well

Deride.

The “darlings” flirt, sigh, smile, wax old, with none

To cherish;

Their hope endures, though charms fail one by one

And perish.

In faces sweet seek all men consolation;

Our “fair”

Laugh, lisp, and lighten life, and find flirtation

A snare.

But wit and soul are mightier things than Time

Can wrong,

Linked with a silv’ry voice that is sublime

In song.

Dreams of fair girls illume, like stars on pall,

Life’s story;

Give rapture rare, and our soft slumbers all

Their glory.

F. B. Doveton.

Truths take live forms that make a hope for labour,

Though rare,

When life seems sweeter with each bright hope’s neighbour—

Dreams fair.

Progress had not been crushed nor lost its spell

For men,

Had Rousseau never found the tyrant’s knell,

His pen.

Had Gladstone’s self ne’er poured the words that burn

For token,

The voice of Right for myriads who earn

Had spoken.

And yet these truths which show to us immortal

To-day,

When swart Injustice sees through its last portal

Decay;

The joy these truths can give to heart and soul,

And pour

Glory on prophets gone who filled the roll

Of yore;

Truths, gifts, and hopes that make our life’s hard track

Worth living—

What were they did no voices thunder back

Thanksgiving?

Mere thoughts, mere hopes, mere dreams, mere visions showing

No form;

The statesman gives their shape in language glowing

Heart-warm.

In deathless speech their life is found, their power

Is seen,

Else were their names the shadows of an hour

That’s been.

Mere theories rise, fall, and fade, though all

May cherish.

The fact endures, free speech forbids its fall

To perish.

In champions’ tongues has truth its full progression:

Bare thought

Dawns, shines, and fades, through finding no expression,

Though sought.

But speech and Press are mightier than all sway

Can bind,

Made potent by wide utterance their way

To find.

Progress and Freedom, though Time’s tide that rolls

Wax hoary,

Give to a nation’s life, both mind’s and soul’s,

Its glory.

A. Pratt.

——:o:——

Lofty Lines.

(By a Swinburnean Lofty Liner.)

Imparadised by my environment,

In rhymes impeccably good,

Let me scribble, as poor proud Byron meant

To have scribbled, if he could!

I’ll strain, as the sinuous cameleopard

Strains after the blossomy bough,

And with faculties that develop hard

Let me write—I can’t say how.

Impish idiom’s idiosyncrasy

Shall my verse festoon with flowers;

In a kingdom of pen-and-inkrasy

I shall wield prosodian powers.

Through innumerous apotheoses

The future my name shall learn,

And like passionate plethoric peonies

My perpetual poems burn.

Let my glory grow as the icicle

Accrues between night and morn;

As the bicyclist rides his bicycle

Let me on my metre be borne.

Flashing thus on verses vehicular,

With Pegasus ’neath my touch,

My method can’t be too particular,

Nor the public see too much.

The critics are all anthropophagous,

And feed on poetic flesh;

My heart nestles in my esophagous,

To think I’ve been in their mesh.

As vessels that sail on the Bosphorus

Catch Constantinople’s beams,

So my soul from prosody’s phosphorus

Still gathers Dædalian gleams.

Funny Folks, May 11, 1878.

The Family Herald (London) for July 28, 1888, contained an amusing article on Parodies, from which the following is an extract:

“But we wish to get away from well-trodden tracks, and we will for once forsake our usual purely didactic groove in order that we may give our readers an idea of what we regard as artistic drollery, Take this dreadful imitation of Mr. Swinburne’s manner. The parodist seems to have genuinely enjoyed his work; and we have no doubt but that Mr. Swinburne laughed as heartily as anybody. The poet is supposed to be attending a wedding of distinguished persons in Westminster Abbey, and the naughty scoffer represents him as bursting forth with the following rather alarming clarion call—

There is glee in the groves of the Galilean—

The groves that were wont to be gray and glum—

And a sound goes forth to the dim Ægean,

To Helen hopeless and Dido dumb—

The sound of a noise of cab or carriage,

A rhythm of rapture, a mode of marriage.

Sing “Hallelujah!” Shout “Io Pæan!”

Hymen—O Hymen, behold, they come!

What shall I sing to them? How shall I speak to them?

Whose is the speech that a groom thinks good?

Oh that a while I might gabble in Greek to them—

Gabble and gush and be understood,

Gush and glow and be understanded,

Apprehended and shaken-handed!

Yea, though a minute should seem a week to them,

I would utter such words as I might or could!

For winter’s coughs and cossets are over,

And all the season of sniffs and snows,

The rheums that ravish lover from lover,

The eyes that water, the nose that blows;

And time forgotten is not remembered,

And cards are wedded and cake dismembered,

And in the Abbey, closed, under cover,

Blooms and blossoms and breaks love’s rose.

A masterpiece! And there is not a touch of malignity in the lines; the poet’s curious way of writing occasionally in the Hebraic style, his vagueness, his peculiar mode of procuring musical effects, are all picked out and shown with a smile. No one has quite equalled Caldecott, but this anonymous wit runs him hard.”

Unfortunately the author of the article omits to state the source from whence he derived the parody he praises so highly.

Home, Sweet Home.

As Algernon Charles Swinburne might have wrapped it up in Variations.

(’Mid pleasures and palaces—)

As sea-foam blown of the winds, as blossom of brine that is drifted

Hither and yon on the barren breast of the breeze,

Though we wander on gusts of a god’s breast shaken and shifted,

The salt of us stings, and is sore for the sobbing seas.

For home’s sake hungry at heart, we sicken in pillared porches

Of bliss made sick for a life that is barren of bliss,

For the place whereon is a light out of heaven that sears not nor scorches,

Nor elsewhere than this.

(An exile from home, splendour dazzles in vain—)

For here we know shall no gold thing glisten

No bright thing burn, and no sweet thing shine;

Nor Love lower never an ear to listen

To words that work in the heart like wine.

What time we are set from our land apart,

For pain of passion and hunger of heart,

Though we walk with exiles fame faints to christen,

Or sing at the Cytherean’s shrine.

(Variation: An exile from home.)

Whether with him whose head of gods is honorèd

With song made splendent in the sight of men

Whose heart most sweetly stout,

From ravished France cast out,

Bring firstly hers, was hers most wholly then—

Or where on shining seas like wine

The dove’s wings draw the drooping Erycine.

(Give me my lowly thatched cottage—)

For Joy finds Love grow bitter,

And spreads his wings to quit her,

At thoughts of birds that twitter

Beneath the roof-tree’s straw—

Of birds that come for calling,

No fear or fright appalling,

When dews of dusk are falling,

Or day light’s draperies draw.

(Give me them, and the peace of mind.)

Give me these things then back, though the giving

Be at cost of earth’s garner of gold;

There is no life without these worth living,

No treasure where these are not told.

For the heart give the hope that it knows not,

Give the balm for the burn of the breast—

Ior the soul and the mind that repose not,

O, give us a rest!

H. C. Bunner.

This Parody originally appeared in Scribner’s Monthly, May, 1881, with imitations of Bret Harte, Austin Dobson, Oliver Goldsmith, and Walt Whitman. They were afterwards republished in a volume, entitled Airs from Arcady, by H. C. Bunner. London, Charles Hutt, 1885.

——:o:——

A Swinburnian Interlude.

Short space shall be hereafter

Ere April brings the hour

Of weeping and of laughter,

Of sunshine and of shower,

Of groaning and of gladness,

Of singing and of sadness,

Of melody and madness,

Of all sweet things and sour.

Sweet to the blithe bucolic

Who knows nor cribs nor crams,

Who sees the frisky frolic

Of lanky little lambs:

But sour beyond expression

To one in deep depression

Who sees the closing session,

And imminent exams.

He cannot hear the singing

Of birds upon the bents.

Nor watch the wild-flowers springing.

Nor smell the April scents.

He gathers grief with grinding,

Foul food of sorrow finding

In books of beastly binding

And beastlier contents.

Our hope alone sustains him,

And no more hopes beside,

One only trust restrains him

From shocking suicide:

He will not play nor palter

With hemlock or with halter,

He will not fear nor falter,

Whatever chance betide.

He knows examinations

Like all things else have ends,

And then come vast vacations

And visits to his friends:

And youth with pleasure yoking,

And joyfulness and joking,

And smilingness and smoking,

For grief to make amends.

The University News Sheet. St. Andrews, N. B. March 31, 1886.

——:o:——

Vaccine.

Written after reading “Faustine.”

Hail! sacred salutary nymph,

Fair freckless queen;

Pure and translucent flows thy lymph,

Potent Vaccine!

“Each shapely silver arm” receives

The lancet keen;

E’en warriors trembling raise their sleeves

For thee, Vaccine.

“Let me go over your good gifts,”

That plain are seen;

Thou sav’st the face from scars and rifts,

Clear-browed Vaccine.

Belovèd maid of many charms,

Calm and serene,

Fondly we take thee in our arms,

Lovely Vaccine!

Virtue of inoculation,

To try we mean;

We’re now a humour-us nation,

You’ll own, Vaccine.

Doctors, like ancient knights again,

With lances keen,

Daily go “pricking o’er the plain,”

With thee, Vaccine.

It would have gladdened Jenner’s heart,

Could he have seen

Such thousands suffering from the smart

Of thee, Vaccine.

And Jenner-ations yet to be

Seen on life’s scene,

Shall pæans sing in praise of thee,

Saving Vaccine!

The Day’s Doings. March 4, 1871.

——:o:——

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
(A.D. 1875).

Oh, what can ail thee, seedy swell,

Alone, and idly loitering?

The season’s o’er—at operas

No “stars” now sing.

Oh, what can ail thee, seedy swell,

So moody! in the dumps so down?

Why linger here when all the world

Is “out of town?”

I see black care upon thy brow,

Tell me, are I.O.U.’s now due?

And in thy pouch, I fear thy purse

Is empty, too.

“I met a lady at a ball,

Full beautiful—a fairy bright;

Her hair was golden (dyed, I find!)

Struck by the sight—

“I gazed, and long’d to know her then:

So I entreated the M.C.

To introduce me—and he did!

Sad hour for me.

“We paced the mazy dance, and too,

We talked thro’ that sweet evening long,

And to her—it came to pass,

I breathed Love’s song.

“She promised me her lily hand,

She seemed particularly cool:

No warning voice then whispered low,

‘Thou art a fool!’

“Next day I found I lov’d her not,

And then she wept and sigh’d full sore,

Went to her lawyer, on the spot,

And talked it o’er

“She brought an action, too, for breach

Of promise—’tis the fashion—zounds!

The jury brought in damages

Five thousand pounds!

“And this is why I sojourn here

Alone, and idly loitering,

Tho’ all the season’s through and tho’

No ‘stars’ now sing!”

The Figaro. September 15, 1875.

——:o:——

A Song after Sunset.

The breeze o’er the bridge was a-blowing,

O’er wicked and wan Waterloo,

The busses buzzed, coming and going,

As busses will do.

Amid the cold coigns of the causeway.

I secretly, silently sat,

Aloof, out of laughter’s and law’s way,

Hard-holding my hat.

In crowds that seemed never to cease, men

Heaved, hurtled, home-hurried and howled,

While pestilent prigs of policemen,

Persistently prowled.

From pockets that penniless sounded

Two tickets I’d drearily drawn,

They prated of pledges impounded

In pitiless pawn.

They seemed with a cynical sorrow,

To sing the same sedulous strain:

“Pay up, and redeem us to-morrow,

Your watch and your chain!

We know you of old, sworn tormentor!

You thriver on thriftless and thief!

Spout-spider!—on spoiling intent, or

Rapacious relief!

Avuncular author of anguish,

We damn you with deepest disdain!

We linger, we long, and we languish

For freedom again.”

I smiled on the speakers unheeding,

I grinned at their garrulous games—

When the breeze blew them, splendidly speeding,

Right into the Thames.

They scattered, as seed that is sown, or

The fringe of the fast flowing foam,

And their hungry, hysterical owner

Went hopelessly home.

Judy. June, 16, 1880.

——:o:——

The Mad, Mad Muse.

Out on the margin of moonshine land,

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

Out where the whing-whang loves to stand,

Writing his name with his tail on the sand,

And wipes it out with his oogerish hand;

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Is it the gibber of gungs and keeks?

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

Or what is the sound the whing-whang seeks,

Crouching low by winding creeks,

And holding his breath for weeks and weeks?

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Anoint him the wealthiest of wealthy things!

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

’Tis a fair whing-whangess with phosphor rings,

And bridal jewels of fangs and stings,

And she sits and as sadly and softly sings;

Is the mildewed whir of her own dead wings;

Tickle me, dear; tickle me here;

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Robert J. Burdette.

From S. Thompson’s Collection of Poems. Chicago. 1886.

Studies in Exotic Verse.

A Ballade of the Nurserie.

(After Mr. Swinburne’s “Dreamland.”)

She hid herself in the soirée kettle

Out of her Ma’s way, wise wee maid!

Wan was her lip as the lily’s petal,

Sad was the smile that over it played.

Why doth she warble not? Is she afraid

Of the hound that howls, or the moaning mole?

Can it be on an errand she hath delayed?

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul!

The nightingale sings to the nodding nettle

In the gloom o’ the gloaming athwart the glade:

The zephyr sighs soft on Popòcatapètl,

And Auster is taking it cool in the shade:

Sing, hey for a gutta serenade!

Not mine to stir up a storied pole,

No noses snip with a bluggy blade—

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul?

Shall I bribe with a store of minted metal?

With Everton toffee thee persuade?

That thou in a kettle thyself should’st settle,

When grandly and gaudily all arrayed!

Thy flounces ’ill foul and fangles fade.

Come out, and Algernon Charles ’ill roll

Thee safe and snug in Plutonian plaid—

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul.

Envoi.

When nap is none and raiment frayed,

And winter crowns the puddered poll,

A kettle sings ane soote ballade—

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul.

John Twig.

——:o:——

On Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister.

O blood-bitten lip all aflame,

O Dolores and also Faustine,

O aunts of the world worried shame,

Lo your hair with its amorous sheen

Meshes man in its tangles of gold;

O aunts of the tremulous thrill,

We are pining—we long to enfold

The Deceased Wife’s Fair Relative Bill.

G. R. Sims.

——:o:——

A Parody.

If it be but a dream or a vision,

The life which is after the grave,

The moil of the metaphysician

Is vain,—but an answer I crave,

Amid bright intellectual flambeaux

I shall find no light clearer than thee,

O sable and sensual Sambo,

The servant of me!

I beheld thee beholding the ballet,

Dumps doleful display’d deep despair,

Thou didst think of thine own land, my valet,

The land in which nought thou didst wear.

* * * * *

O statue, us Philistines loathing,

Of Phœbus!—our tailors we fear,

Come down, and redeem us from clothing,

O nude Belvidere!

We are wise—and we make ourselves hazy,

We are foolish—and, so, go to church;

While Sambo but laughs, and is lazy,

(Vile Discipline! lend me thy birch);

He dreams of no life save the present,

His virtue is but when it suits;

Sometimes, which is not quite so pleasant,

I miss coat or boots.

Anonymous.

Once a Week. January 16, 1869.

——:o:——

Gillian.

Jacke and Jille

I have made me an end of the moods of maidens,

I have loosed me, and leapt from the links of love;

From the kiss that cloys and desire that deadens,

The woes that madden, the words that move.

In the dim last days of a spent September,

When fruits are fallen, and flies are fain;

Before you forget, and while I remember,

I cry as I shall cry never again.

Went up a hylle

Where the strong fell faints in the lazy levels

Of misty meadows, and streams that stray;

We raised us at eve from our rosy revels,

With faces aflame for the death of the day;

With pale lips parted, and sighs that shiver,

Low lids that cling to the last of love:

We left the levels, we left the river,

And turned us and toiled to the air above.

to fetch a paile of water,

By the sad sweet springs that have salved our sorrow,

The fates that haunt us, the grief that grips—

Where we walk not to-day nor shall walk to-morrow—

The wells of lethe for wearied lips.

With souls nor shaken with tears nor laughter,

With limp knees loosed as of priests that pray,

We bowed us and bent to the white well-water,

We dipped and we drank it and bore away.

Jacke felle downe

The low light trembled on languid lashes,

The haze of your hair on my mouth was blown,

Our love flashed fierce from its fading ashes,

As night’s dim net on the day was thrown.

What was it meant for, or made for, that minute,

But that our lives in delight should be dipt?

Was it yours, or my fault, or fate’s, that in it

Our frail feet faltered, our steep steps slipt?

And brake his crowne, and Jille came tumblynge after.

Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder,

Love from our limbs as a shift was shed,

But paused a moment, to watch with wonder

The pale pained body, the bursten head.

While our sad souls still with regrets are riven,

While the blood burns bright on our bruisèd brows,

I have set you free, and I stand forgiven—

And now I had better go and call my cows.

From a scarce little pamphlet entitled “Poems and Parodies, by Two Undergrads.” Oxford. B. H. Blackwell, 1880. Price one shilling.

How Jack Harris became Æsthetic.

Ye Muses nine that in Arcadia dwell,

Quit Pindus and the cold Castalian well,

And me your lowliest follower inspire

With such clear flame as long ago did fire

The mighty lips of Blackstone; so may I,

A feeble trump of truth that cannot die,

Clearly proclaim and on the roll of fame

Inscribe, however humbly, my poor name.

Jack Harris before his Conversion.

Come down to me, cling to me, lay thy red lips on me, love,

Let me drown in thy bountiful beauty, O glorious consecrate dove,

Made fit for the vigil of Venus, made fair by the Cyprian dame,

Made fair in the form of a maiden, a medley of music and flame;

For the world grows giddy around us, and swoons, and the pale souls preach

Poor fables of sorrow and virtue, and all that the grey gods teach,

But we clasp and we bite and we madden, and I worship your throat and your hair.

We have strayed in the cold sea places, we have laughed on the altar stair,

We have eaten and drunken of love, and the lesson of living is this,

That the high sky bends above us, and life is a curse and a kiss.

Make me glad, O thou rare hand-maiden, with the sound of thy passionate sighs,

While I sing of thy body’s white beauty and live in the light of thine eyes,

For save me there’s no man living made worthy to utter thy praise,

Who art come as new moon to our night-tide, new sun toour days.

Jack Harris after his Conversion.

From an article by Mr. Justin H. McCarthy, which appeared in Belgravia (London). March, 1880.

——:o:——

The Lay of Macaroni.

As a wave that steals when the winds are stormy

From creek to cove of the curving shore,

Buffeted, blown, and broken before me,

Scattered and spread to its sunlit core:

As a dove that dips in the dark of maples

To sip the sweetness of shelter and shade,

I kneel in thy nimbus, O noon of Naples,

I bathe in thine beauty, by thee embayed.

What is it ails me that I should sing of her?

The queen of the flashes and flames that were!

Yea, I have felt the shuddering sting of her,

The flower-sweet throat and the hands of her!

I have swayed and sung to the sound of her psalters,

I have danced her dances of dizzy delight,

I have hallowed mine hair to the horns of her altars,

Between the nightingale’s song and the night!

What is it, Queen, that now I should do for thee?

What is it now I should ask at thine hands?

Blow of the trumpets thine children once blew for thee?

Break from thine feet and thine bosom the bands?

Nay, as sweet as the songs of Leone Leoni,

And gay as her garments of gem-sprinkled gold,

She gives me mellifluous, mild macaroni,

The choice of her children when cheeses are old!

And over me hover, as if by the wings of it,

Frayed in the furnace by flame that is fleet,

The curious coils and the strenuous strings of it,

Dropping, diminishing down, as I eat:

Lo! and the beautiful Queen, as she brings of it,

Lifts me the links of the limitless chain,

Bidding mine mouth chant the splendidest things of it,

Out of the wealth of my wonderful brain!

Behold! I have done it: my stomach is smitten

With sweets of the surfeit her hands have unrolled.

Italia, mine cheeks with thine kisses are bitten:

I am broken with beauty, stabbed, slaughtered, and sold!

No man of thy millions is more macaronied,

Save mighty Mazzini, than musical Me:

The souls of the Ages shall stand as astonied,

And faint in the flame I am fanning for thee!

From Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor.

——:o:——

BALLAD OF DREAMLAND.

I hid my heart in a nest of roses,

Out of the sun’s way, hidden apart;

In a softer bed than the soft white snow’s is,

Under the roses I hid my heart.

Why should it sleep not? why should it start,

When never a leaf of the rose tree stirred?

What made sleep flutter his wings and part?

Only the song of a secret bird.

* * * * *

III.

The green land’s name that a charm encloses,

It never was writ in the traveller’s chart,

And sweet as the fruit on its tree that grows is,

It never was sold in the merchants’ mart.

The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,

And sleep’s are the tunes in its tree tops heard;

No hound’s note wakens the wild wood hart,

Only the song of a secret bird.

* * * * *

A. C. Swinburne.

A Ballad of after Dinner.

A Month after Swinburne.

I hid my head in a rug from Moses,

From the clatter of moving dishes apart,

And curled up my feet for forty dozes,

Just for to soothe my beating heart.

Why did it sleep not? Why did it start,

When never a dish remained to shock?

What made the fluttering doze depart?

Only the tick of an eight day clock.

Be still, I said, for hope pre-supposes

A still mild mood for the sleep-slain hart;

Be still, for the wind, with its curled-up toes, is

Silent and quieter yet than thou art.

Doth a wound in thee deep as a thorn’s wound smart?

Dost thou fretfully languish for Clicquot and hock?

What bids the lids of thy sleep dispart;

Only the tick of an eight-day clock.

I wait in vain for the charm that encloses

The green land of dreams in sleep’s mystical chart,

For the fruit of its trees and the breath of its roses,

More sweet than are sold in the merchants’ mart.

So close to its border, why fails my heart?

What holdeth it back, tho’ my dim brain rock?

Without, the noise of the nightman’s cart,

Within, the tick of an eight-day clock.

Envoi.

Erewhile in hope I had chosen my part,

To sleep for a season as sound as a block,

With never a thought of a nightman’s cart,

Or the hateful tick of an eight-day clock.

A Ballad of Dreamland.

The sorest stress of the Season’s over;

Out of it’s crush I am lying alone,

My face to the sky, and my back in the clover.

Hark to that lark! Its jubilant tone

Is a cheery change from St. Stephen’s drone;

And ah! that whift from the wind-swept brine!

With nought to do but absorb ozone—

Should there be ballad more blythe than mine?

Song of a haven-welcoming lover!

Rare rose-scents from our garden blown

Reach me here, and my eyes discover,

Shimmering there, in a tangle thrown,

Sunny locks. “She is coming, my own!”

The green bowers sever, her blue eyes shine.

Sweet love nearing, sore labour flown,—

Should there be ballad more blythe than mine?

What to me though weariness hover

Still o’er Town where the toilers groan?

Lazy lounger, leisurely lover,

What care I for the Members’ moan

At the Irish incubus, heavy as stone?

For Biggar’s bullying, Whalley’s whine?

Peace unchequered, and care unknown,

Should there be ballad more blithe than mine?

Envoi.

Eh! What! Drowsing? A dream? Ochone!

St. Patrick’s curse on those Irish swine,

Who have burst the bubble by slumber blown,

And broken a ballad so blithe as mine!

Punch. August 11, 1877.

——:o:——

The following parody appeared in The Tomahawk (London) on the occasion of a visit paid by Ada Isaacs Menken to M. Alexandre Dumas, in Paris. “Miss Menken,” who was really the wife of John C. Heenan the pugilist, will be best remembered for her appearance (in very scanty attire) as “Mazeppa,” at Astley’s Theatre. She had a fine stage appearance, but was a very indifferent actress. She published a small volume of poems, entitled Infelicia, which is now eagerly sought after by collectors, because it contains an introduction written by Charles Dickens.

To Ada.

So must the sinewy Centaur snort and rear,

As some sweet maiden-mare trots wickedly

Across his pagan path, burning his very heart;

Flicking the flies from off her heaving flanks,

The amorous flies who fill their lips with blood;

And while his life-blood riots in his hocks,

She spreads her cunning heels and whisks her tail;

Then kicks the bitter sand into his eyes,

Still gazing smarting on the supple form—

For I have felt a joy new-born to pain!

For I have seen that silken syren glide

Across the desert, hight old Astley’s Fane.

My breast could hardly flutter as she came

Bare-backed before my timorous sight; my nails

Curved inward to my palms, and such a sweet

Soft tremor crept around my nervous knees.

I swooned but for the kindly guardian of the box,

Who brought me welcome water at my wish,

And damped my throbbing temples.

On my bed

I rolled and rioted in frenzied fret,

For turn howe’er I would, upon the walls,

Across the sheets, the beauteous Ada rode,

Scenting the air with black-head clustering hair,

Loading the senses with soft-thrilling sighs;

While through the rosy lips pale pearls of teeth

Flashed hungrily. Strapped to her showy steed,

She bites her charger in the side, till lips

Run red with the brave beast’s blood; and as the sting

Of her small fangs urges his wild career,

So this hot flame that chars me to the bones,

Spreads out the fire of jealousy, and cries,

Mazeppa flies across the sea to greet

Great Athos-Porthos-Aramis.

——:o:——

On page 9, an imitation of Mr. Swinburne’s style written by Mr. Walter Parke, was given; the following, which is a parody of Dolores, appears in “Lays of the Saintly,” (London, Vizetelly & Co.), a clever work written by the same gentleman:—

St. Simeon Stylites.

* * * * *

Talking of bards, one day a pagan poet

Approach’d the pillar, and began to sing;

The blessed Simeon could not choose but know it,

So high the minstrel pitch’d his voice and string.

This bard was Greek in sentiment and style;

A Venus-worshipper—profuse of curses

On those who deem’d his ethics loose and vile:

I give you a translation of his verses:—

Stylites.

“Closed eyelids that hide like a shutter,

Hard eyes that have visions apart,

The grisly gaunt limbs, and the utter

And deadly abstraction of heart;

Whence all that is joyous and bright is

Expell’d as both vicious and vain

O, stony and stolid Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“There can be but warfare between us,

For thine is a spiritual creed,

And mine is the worship of Venus,

On “raptures and roses” I feed;

Self-torture’s thine only employment,

We both feel the bliss and the bane,

For woe will oft spring from enjoyment,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“Can joys be of Martyrdom’s giving?

Men seek them, and change at a breath

The leisures and labours of living,

For the ravings and rackings of death:

To stand all alone on that height is

An action unsought and insane,

O, moveless and morbid Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“There are those who still offer to Bacchus,

There are men who Love’s goddess still own,

What right have new faiths to attack us?

And why are our shrines overthrown?

There are poets, inspired by Castalia,

Whose lyres have Anacreon’s strain,

Whose lives are one long saturnalia,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“We sing of voluptuous blisses,

Of all that thy rigour would spurn,

Of “biting” and “ravenous” kisses,

Of bosoms that beat and that burn;

To all that is earthy and carnal,

Our votaries’ souls we would chain,

We breathe of the chamber and charnel

Our Patron of Pain!”

“Oho! for the days of sweet vices,

The glory of goddess and Greek!

(For all that most naughty and nice is

Most purely and surely antique).

Oho! for the days when Endymion

Thro’ love o’er Diana did reign!

These, these were Elysian, St. Simeon,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“We’ll crown us with myrtle and laurel,

We’ll wreathe us in Paphian flowers,

To be and make others immoral,

We’ll ply our poetical powers;

Our worship shall be Aphrodite’s,

To woman the wine we will drain,

O, loveless and lonely Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“By the hunger thine abstinence causes,

By the thirst of unbearable heat,

By thy pray’rs which have very few pauses,

By thy lodging devoid of a seat,

By sleep that so meagre at night is,

’Twere better awake to remain,

Come down from thy pillar, Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

The holy man, it need not be remark’d,

Turn’d as deaf ear to such lascivious singing

As when a serpent hiss’d or wild dog barked,

Or raven croak’d around his column winging;

Immovable in body as in mind,

He bore his life’s insufferable tedium,

Ft seems a pity that he could not find

’Twixt vice and virtue’s height some “happy medium.”

——:o:——

In 1872, the late Mr. Mortimer Collins published “The British Birds, a communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes.” Extracts from this very clever satire are still often quoted. The following passages contain parodies of A. C. Swinburne, Robert Browning, and Alfred Tennyson, whose identities are thinly veiled under the names of Brow, Beard, and Hair.

Scene. In the Clouds.

Peisthetairus, discovered.

(Enter three Poets, all handsome. One hath redundant hair, a second redundant beard, a third redundant brow. They present a letter of introduction from an eminent London publisher, stating that they are candidates for the important post of Poet Laureate to the New Municipality which the Birds are about to create.)

Peisthetairus. Gentlemen:

Happy to see you in the Realms of Air

As yet the worthy Mayor and Aldermen

And Councillors of the Town have not decided

Whether they want a Poet Laureate.

But, if ’twill ease your minds to sing a little,

I’ll try and listen. As my memory

Fails me entirely in regard to names,

Let me without the least discourtesy

Name you by your appearance. Amorous Naso

Was named from his chief feature. So I beg

To call you Hair, and Beard, and Brow.

The three Poets. Agreed.

Euelpides.

For this delightful tourney of rhyme I hunger:

Who’s to begin, my master?

Peisthetairus. Why, the younger.

For the topic—as ’tis tropic

Heat at present—perhaps ’twere pleasant

If each Paladin

His ballad in

Put salad in.

But there must be no single metre, please

That’s not allowed by Dr. Guest, of Caius,

Brow. (Swinburne.)

“O cool in the summer is salad,

And warm in the winter is love;

And a poet shall sing you a ballad

Delicious thereon and thereof.

A singer am I, if no sinner,

My Muse has a marvellous wing,

And I willingly worship at dinner

The Sirens of Spring.

Take endive—like love it is bitter;

Take beet—for like love it is red;

Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter,

And cress from the rivulet’s bed:

Anchovies foam-born, like the lady

Whose beauty has maddened this bard,

And olives, from groves that are shady;

And eggs—boil ’em hard.”

Beard. (Browning.)

Waitress, with eyes so marvellous black,

And the blackest possible lustrous gay tress,

This is the month of the Zodiac

When I want a pretty deft-handed waitress.

Bring a china-bowl, you merry young soul;

Bring anything green, from worsted to celery;

Bring pure olive-oil from Italy’s soil—

Then your china-bowl we’ll well array.

When the time arrives chip choicest chives,

And administer quietly chili and capsicum—

Young girls do not quite know what’s what

’Till as a Poet into their laps I come).

Then a lobster fresh as fresh can be

(When it screams in the pot I feel a murderer);

After which I fancy we

Shall want a few bottles of Heidsieck or Roederer.

Hair. (Tennyson.)

King Arthur, growing very tired indeed

Of wild Tintagel, now that Launcelot

Had gone to Jersey or to Jericho,

And there was nobody to make a rhyme,

And Cornish girls were christened Jennifer,

And the Round Table had grown rickety,

Said unto Merlin (who had been asleep

For a few centuries in Broceliande,

But woke, and had a bath, and felt refreshed):

“What shall I do to pull myself together?”

Quoth Merlin, “Salad is the very thing,

And you can get it at the Cheshire Cheese”

King Arthur went there; verily, I believe

That he has dined there every day since then.

Have you not marked the portly gentleman

In his cool corner, with his plate of greens?

The great knight Launcelot prefers the Cock,

Where port is excellent (in pints), and waiters

Are portlier than kings, and steaks are tender,

And poets have been known to meditate—

Ox-fed orating ominous ostasticks.

* * * * *

The first edition of The British Birds soon went out of print, and became very scarce. But in December, 1885, Mrs. Mortimer Collins wrote a letter to the editor of Parodies, which has now a melancholy interest:—“I believe copies of British Birds can still be had at Mr. Bentley’s, as I brought out a second edition there some eight years ago. Yes, there are some parodies of Swinburne, Tennyson and Browning. But the best known bits of the book are not parodies, unless you call the whole book a parody of Aristophanes.

“The ‘Positivists’ is the most famous piece in the book, containing the lines:—

“There was an Ape in the days that were earlier;

Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier;

Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist—

Then he was Man, and a Positivist.”

“and ‘Skymaking’ is another oft quoted bit. I thought, perhaps, that you had written parodies on these; though it seemed unlikely, because satiric verse does not lend itself to parody. I am always interested in anything connected with my husband’s works, because I truly believe in his genius. I may perhaps be somewhat partial in my judgment, for Mortimer was a more brilliant talker than writer. Day after day I enjoyed his wit, and I used to be so sorry there were not more to hear it: but he was quite content with his audience of one.

“My husband has written many parodies. If you would like to quote them I can refer you to them.”

But this kind offer of assistance was not to be fulfilled, for Mrs. Collins complained at the end of the letter of her failing strength, and in less than three months she passed away.

——:o:——

A MATCH.

(Matched.)

If I were Anglo-Saxon,

And you were Japanese,

We’d study storks together,

Pluck out the peacock’s feather

And lean our languid backs on

The stiffest of settees;

If I were Anglo-Saxon,

And you were Japanese.

If you were Della-Cruscan,

And I were A.-Mooresque,

We’d make our limbs look less in

Artistic folds, and dress in

What once were tunics Tuscan

In Dante’s days grotesque;

If you were Della-Cruscan,

And I were A.-Mooresque.

If I were mock Pompeian,

And you Belgravian Greek,

We’d glide ’mid gaping Vandals

In shapeless sheets and sandals,

Like shades in Tartarean

Dim ways remote and bleak;

If I were mock Pompeian,

And you Belgravian Greek.

If you were Culture’s scarecrow,

And I the guy of Art

I’d learn in latest phrases

Of either’s quaintest crazes

To lisp, and let my hair grow,

While yours you’d cease to part;

If you were Culture’s scarecrow,

And I the guy of Art.

If I’d a Botticelli,

And you’d a new Burne-Jones,

We’d doat for days and days on

Their mystic hues, and gaze on

With lowering looks that felly

We’d fix upon their tones;

If I’d a Botticelli,

And you’d a new Burne-Jones.

If you were skilled at crewels,

And I, a dab at rhymes,

I’d write delirious “ballads,”

While you your bilious salads

Where stitching upon two ells

Of coarsest crass, at times;

If you were skilled at crewels,

And I, a dab at rhymes.

If I were what’s “consummate,”

And you were quite “too too,”

’Twould be our Eldorado

To have a yellow dado,

Our happiness to hum at

A teapot tinted blue;

If I were what’s “consummate,”

And you were quite “too too.”

If you were what “intense” is,

And I were like “decay,”

We’d mutely muse or mutter

In terms distinctly utter,

And find out what the sense is

Of this Æsthetic lay;

If you were what “intense” is,

And I were like “decay.”

If you were wan, my lady,

And I, your lover, weird,

We’d sit and wink for hours

At languid lily-flowers,

Till, fain of all things fady,

We faintly—disappeared!

If you were wan, my lady,

And I, your lover, weird.

This Parody appeared in Punch, (June 18, 1881), at the time when the Æsthetic revival in art and literature was the subject of much undeserved ridicule, because of the absurd extent to which it was carried by a few senseless fanatics.

——:o:——

Between the Sunset and the Sea.

An American Imitation.

Between the gate post and the gate

I lingered with my love till late;

And what cared I for time of night

Till wakened by the watch dogs bite,

And thud of leathering boxtoed fate

Between the gate post and the gate.

Between the seaside and the sea

I kissed my love and she kissed me;

But rapturous day was grewsome night

And what is love but bloom and blight?

And what is kiss of mine to thee

Between the seaside and the sea.

Between the sunshine and the sun

I saw a face that hinted fun;

But what is fun and what is face

When driven at life’s killing pace?

I simply say that I have none

Between the sunshade and the sun.

Between the bumble and the bee

Full many a soul has had to flee;

And what is love may I inquire

When asked to build the kitchen fire?

Or who would not leap in the sea

Between the bumble and the bee.

Between the tea store and the tea

There is a wide immensity;

A dollar twenty five a pound

And not a nickel to be found;

Then what has fate in store for thee

Between the tea store and the tea.

R. W. Answell.

——:o:——

A Song after Sunset.

(Being a Word from the Hanley Dog
by the Cynic Poet Laureate,
Alg-rn-n Sw-nb-rne.)

Lo, from my Black Country flung for thee,

Raving, red-eyed, scarred and seared;

To a bran-new sensation tune sung for thee,

With red lips, white teeth, underhung for thee,

Beauty begrimed and blood-smeared!

Vice-jawed, retractile, snub-snouted—

Tushes for fists swift to smite;

Round by round felled but not routed,

Rare of bark, bitter of bite!

If with grapplings and pluckings asunder—

If with throat-thirst for worry unslaked—

If with rush on growl, flash on low thunder—

Knocked over, but ne’er knocking under—

With cash on me lavishly staked—

If eye against eye glimly glaring,

Biped Brummy could quadruped scan,

Ring and chain with me, blood with me, sharing,—

Say which was brute, which was man?

* * * * *

Punch. August 1, 1874.

——:o:——

The following is a parody of another favourite metre of Mr. Swinburne, which has been sent in, unfortunately without any information as to when and where it originally appeared:—

April Showers.

Oh, April showers

Are good for flowers,

And fill the bowers

With perfumes rare;

But twinge erratic,

And pang rheumatic

And not ecstatic

Do they prepare!

And though the leanness

And arid meanness

Of lawns with greenness

They hide and clothe;

They, past disputing,

Set corns a-shooting,

Which makes your booting

A thing to loathe!

And of the Future

Although they suit your

Bright dreams, compute you’re

The Past’s sad prey;

The while you yell a

Vain ritornello

For that umbrella

That’s stolen away!

——:o:——

In 1880, Messrs. Chatto and Windus, of Piccadilly, published an anonymous volume of Poems, entitled “The Heptalogia, or the seven against sense, a cap with Seven Bells.” In this there are parodies of Robert Browning, Tennyson, Coventry Patmore, and others, but it is more than doubtful whether the general public appreciated the sarcasm of these clever skits. Amongst reading men much curiosity was felt as to the author, but in answer to enquiries on the subject, the publishers replied they were not at liberty to mention the author’s name. Eventually public opinion assigned the work to Mr. Swinburne, although it contains an exquisite parody on his own style, entitled Nephelidia. This is a charming specimen of rhythmical, musical nonsense. A few of the opening lines may be quoted, without injury to themselves, or to the rest of the poem, as the conclusion is perfectly irrelevant to the beginning, or to anything else:—

Nephelidia.

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,

Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float,

Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine,

These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat?

Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor’s appalled agitation,

Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past;

Flushed with the famishing fullness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation,

Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?

Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror,

Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:

Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error,

Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude’s breath.

Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses

Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh;

Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses—

‘Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die.’

Another parody, which was generally attributed to Mr. Swinburne, appeared in The Fortnightly Review for December, 1881. It was entitled “Disgust; a Dramatic Monologue,” and was a parody of Tennyson’s “Despair, a Dramatic Monologue” published in The Nineteenth Century, November, 1881.

The original poem contained arguments of a most unpleasant and absurd description, these were ably ridiculed in the burlesque, which will be found on page 184, Volume 1, of this collection.

The following parody was also printed with the initials “A. C. S.,” but clever as it is, few would venture to assert that it was actually written by Mr. Swinburne.

The Toper’s Lament.

Oh, my memory lovingly lingers

Around the sweet sound of thy name,

And the spell of those magical fingers

That kindled my heart into flame;

But the joy that I think on no more is,

And my throat feels an ominous lump,

As I muse o’er the wreck of thy glories,

Thou Magpie and Stump!

For day after day have I sought thee,

As flowers are sought by the gale;

And night after night have I brought thee

A lip for thine exquisite ale.

Thy portals have welcomed me ever,

Mine hostess was pleasant and plump,

And her handmaids attentive and clever,

O Magpie and Stump!

Did I rage with the thirst of a Hector

(A thirst that she nimbly foresaw)

For a cup of thy ravishing nectar,

Who drew it as Nancy could draw?

While for grilling a steak that was juicy,

Or a chop that was chopped from the chump,

Had’st thou ever an equal to Lucy,

My Magpie and Stump?

Ah! thy votaries flocked beyond number,

And worshipped full oft at thy shrine;

And we poured forth libations to slumber,

And we censed with tobacco divine;

And then haply some bibulous fellow

Would fall to the floor with a bump—

For thy potions were potently mellow,

Our Magpie and Stump.

But I rave—for the past of my pleasure

Has left me a little intense,

And the lolloping lilt of my measure

Is stronger in sound than in sense.

Yet an ecstasy must have its morrow,

And an ace may succumb to a trump;

So my spirit is sunken in sorrow,

Dear Magpie and Stump.

Farewell! nevermore shall thy chalice

Of barleycorn bubble for me;

They have altered thee into a palace

Devoted to coffee and tea.

Thy courts are now trod by the teacher,

Thy fountains the cow and the pump,

And thy priest is a temperance preacher,

Poor Magpie and Stump!

Farewell! But if e’er in the distance

Of time that we cannot foresee,

Thou return to thy pristine existence—

For I cannot, alas! come to thee!

As the prodigal found from his father

Forgiveness, again shalt thou jump

To the height of my patronage—rather!

Rare Magpie and Stump!

A. C. S.

St. James’s Gazette. March 19, 1881.

——:o:——

Song of the Springtide.

O Season supposed of all free flowers,

Made lovely by light of the sun,

Of garden, of field, and of tree-flowers,

Thy singers are surely in fun!

Or what is it wholly unsettles

Thy sequence of shower and shine,

And maketh thy pushings and petals

To shrivel and pine?

Why is it that o’er the wild waters

That beastly North-Easter still blows,

Dust-dimming the eyes of our daughters,

Blue-nipping each nice little nose?

Why is it these sea-skirted islands

Are plagued with perpetual chills,

Driving men to Italian or Nile-lands

From Albion’s ills?

Happy he, O Springtide, who hath found thee,

All sunlit, in luckier lands,

With thy garment of greenery round thee,

And belted with blossomy bands.

From us by the blast thou art drifted.

All brag of thy beauties is bosh;

When the songs of thy singers are sifted,

They simply won’t wash.

* * * * *

What lunatic lune, what vain vision,

Thy laureate, Springtide, may move

To sing thee—oh, bitter derision!—

As season of laughter and love?

You make a man mad beyond measure,

O Spring, and thy lauders like thee:

Thy flowers, thy pastimes and pleasures,

Are fiddlededee!

Punch. May 22, 1880.

——:o:——

Swinburnism.

I trow, wild friends, God’s soul wots well by rote

My sweet soft strains and lovely lays of love,

And all the white ways of her sweet sharp throat,

Which, not right yet, I have waxed weary of.

* * * * *

I never left off kissing her, I well think,

But wrapped in rich red raiment of her hair,

Kissed her all day, till her lips parch’d for drink

As the parch’d often lips of a flute-player.

No maid of a king’s blood, but held right high

In God’s sharp sight, from whom no things are hid.

“You must not tell,” she sighed and turned to cry.

“That I should tell your mother, God forbid!”

Said so I kept my word, I never told her

You drink pure water? I, sir, I drink wine!

Your cool clear brain must needs yield verse-water,

But, sweet strong drunken maniac music, mine.

S. K. Cowan.

From A Book of Jousts. London, Field and Tuer.

A Valentine.

Ah, Love! if love lie still betwixt us twain,

Through all these years—yea, love, before love wane

Lift up thine eyes and slay me; the desire

Of death consumes me, like the sun-god’s fire.

Slay me, and kill me, dearest, deal me death.

Lo! I will murmur with my latest breath,

Laying this lily at thy gracious feet,

How precious, nay, how utter art thou, sweet.

J. M. Lowry.

Swinburnese.

Also thine eyes were mild as a lowlit flame of fire,

When thou wovest the web whereof wiles were the woof and the warp was my heart.

Why left’st thou the fertile field whence thou reapedst the fruit of desire?

For the change of the face of thy colour I know thee not whence thou art!

Alas for the going of swiftness, for the feet of the running of thee,

When thou wentest among the swords, and the shoutings of Captain’s made shrill!

Woe is me for the pleasant places! yea, one shall say of thy glee,

“It is not,” and as for delight the feet of thy dancing are still.

Translation.

Where are those eyes that were so mild

When of my heart you me beguiled?

Why did you skedaddle from me and the child?

O, Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

Where are those legs with which you run

When first you went to shoulder the gun?

Indeed, your dancing days are done—

O, Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

R. Y. Tyrrell.

From A Book of Jousts. London, Field and Tuer.

In The World Christmas Number, 1879, there was an exquisite satire on Mr. Burne Jones’s art entitled “The God and the Damosel”; it was accompanied by the following verses, and a prose criticism (too long to quote in full) written in imitation of the intensely Æsthetic jargon familiar to the frequenters of the Grosvenor Gallery. To fully appreciate the poem and the criticism, the burlesque picture by Mr. E. B. T. Burnt Bones should be seen, once seen it could never be forgotten.

The God and the Damosel.

By A. C. Sinburn.

THE GOD.

Look in my face, and know me who I am.

I smite and save; I bless, and, lo, I damn.

Incline thine head, thy browless brow incline;

I touch thee, and I tap thee, and proclaim,

For ever and for ever thou art mine!

O long as grief, and leaner than desire!

O sweet retreating breasts and amorous-kissing knees!

O grace and goodliness of strait attire!

A robe of them who sport in summer seas.

By these, and by the eyelids of thine eyes,

Ringed round with darkness, swollen weeper-wise,

By these I know thee; these are for a sign,

Surer, yea, even than thy most splendid size

Of spreaden hands: I know thee, thou art mine.

THE DAMOSEL.

Master and lord, I know thee who thou art;

Lo, and with homage of the stricken heart,

I hail thee, I adore thee, and obtest:

I am thine own, I know no better part;

Do with me, master, as thee seemeth best.

O loose as thought and bodiless as dream!

O globular grand eyes, a bane of maidenhood!

O miracle of tunic-folds, that seem

Self-balanced, firm, a glory of carven wood!

By these, and by the crown thy temples wear,

Holy, a cauline flower of wondrous hair;

By thy red mouth, a bow without a chord,

And shaftless, yea, but deadly, O most fair,

I knew thee, and I know thee for my lord!

THE GOD.

Ay, now the flicker of a nauseate smile

Bestirs thy cheek and wan lips imbecile;

Thy pale plucked blossom droops; its day is done.

THE DAMOSEL.

Nay, let me deck my bosom therewithal,

It were ill-ominous to let it fall,

The faithful mistress of Hyperion Sun.

THE GOD.

Stoop thou, what ails thee, child, to shudder? stoop and brush

Hair with tow-towzled hair, that for a space

I breathe my godhead through thy thirsting veins, and flush

The soft submalar hollows of thy face,

And thrill thee, crown to sole, till that in downward rush

Of eager ecstasy with fair flat feet thou crush

The beetle, Virtue, in the lowly place.

THE DAMOSEL.

Ah, master and lord, I feel it; the wind of thy fierce delight,

Hell-hot as the blast from the furnace, sea-cold as a gust of the sea.

O deaf blind Love, that art deaf as a poker and blind as the night!

O my flushed faint cheeks and my chin! O mine eye and the elbow of me!

I bow to thy might, O my lord, to the keen blown breath of thy lips,

With a loathing of love that longs, and a longing of love that loathes,

With shiver of angular shoulders, and shake of invisible hips,

As boweth the light slight stake in the torture of wind-whirled clothes!

Thou hast rent me enough, O Divine! … and behold, thou stayest thine hand,

And leavest me crushed as a reed, that I wot not whether I tread

Upon Earth, our holy old mother, with feet down-pressing, or stand

Inverse, in a fearless new fashion, uplift on my passionate head!

The Criticism.—“I have judged it good and helpful to prefix to my few words in appreciation of Mr. Bones’s noble picture this exquisite lyric of Mr. Sinburn’s. It may serve to a better understanding of the one master’s work to note in what wise it has inspired the other. The scene of Mr. Bones’s picture is a garden; the time, high noon. A damosel, tall and gracious, stands before us, clad, but ‘more expressed than hidden,’ in a robe of subtle tissue; which, loyal through three parts of its length to the lines of her sinuous figure, breaks loose round her finely-modelled knees into a riot of enchanting curves and folds; yet, withal, an orderly revolt, and obedient to its own higher law of rebellious grace. At her side stands the fatal Eros, the divine, the immortal, bow in hand, a glory of great light about his head. Behind him rise his outspread wings, which, by one of those eloquently significant touches whereof this painter possesses, one must think, the exclusive secret, are made to simulate the expanded tail of the bird of Heré. What he has here set down for us, in reporting of the lower limbs of this Immortal, he may well have noticed when he himself was last set down at his own house-door; since we see that for the knees of the young Eros of the ancients he has not disdained to study from the ancient Kab-os of the moderns. In the form of the maiden who bends towards him, quivering like a shot bird at the touch of his long lithe finger, we have another triumph of the master’s unique powers. The mere volume of her frame is, let us allow it, spare to the verge of the penurious; its curves are sudden to precipitancy, abrupt even to brusquerie; without being at all exaggerated, the charm of morbidezza is certainly insisted upon to the full limits of the admissible; but the charm is there, victorious and exultant, a voluptuousness not of the flesh, nor appealing thereto, yet a voluptuousness the more subtle and penetrating, perhaps, for that very reason. One sees that the burden of the great mystery has passed upon this woman; one sees it in the heavy-lidded eyes, in the chastened, even ascetic, lines of the face, and above all, in the thin, almost fleshless, figure consumed by inner fires, a conception only capable, perhaps, of being realised in the sympathetic imagination of a Burnt Bones. To the colour-harmonies of the whole picture I despair of doing justice. It may be remembered that I likened Mr. Bones’s last work to a cantata; this one is an oratorio, full of exquisitely tuneful fancies, grand instrumental combinations, profound contrapuntal erudition.”

Dream Poem a la Swinburne.

(After a Supper of Pork Chops.)

Soft is the smell of it, sweet the sad sound of it,

Mournfully mingled on yon mountain’s top,

Grateful, and green, and caressing the ground of it,

Calm as a calyx, and deep as a drop.

Ah! the enlivenment, dark as the distance!

Ah! the allurements that lavish and lave!

Is there no sound but the sun’s sweet insistance,

Night in the forest, and noon on the wave?

Fierce as a festival, fragrant and fading—

Grim as the grandeur that dreams of a day—

Is there no balm in Love’s lavish unlading,

Born in the brightness, and grieving, and gray?

Lo! in the glimmering, sweet Aphrodite,

Ghastly and gracious, and groaning and grave,

Brilliant in banishment, mournful and mighty,

Soft as the samite that sinks in the wave!

Light are the longings that listen and linger:

Ah! the sick kingdoms that grapple and groan

Red as Republics that point the far finger,

Or hail the horizon, aghast and alone.

Sinks in the distance the Dream and the Dreaming,

Leaves the wide world to its pining and pain;

From the great Universe, lo! in the gleaming,

Blazes the bandersnatch, faithless and fain!

——:o:——

Parody on a Poem in Mr. Swinburne’s
Tragedy “Erechtheus.”

I see the sad sorrow that hangs like a shadow

From ocean to ocean obscuring the light,

Till hamlet and farm upon mountain and meadow

Are blasted and bare with the blight.

O, Erin, to me as my mother,

O, Irishmen, each one a brother,

Whose wrongs are remembered to-day,

Whose tyrants their terrors betray;

O, Erin, the fairest outvying,

Quail not at their fearfullest frown;

Hear this that I breathe to thee dying,

O land of renown.

Though landlord and agent with breathings of slaughter

Unite to assail and oppress thee again,

Secure thou shalt stand in the midst of the water,

The hate of their hearts shall be vain.

For their power shall be past and made idle,

And their pride shall be checked with a bridle,

And the height of their heads bow down

At the loss of their rents and renown.

Be cherished and loved as I love thee,

Of all that to thee owe their breath;

Be thy life like the stars up above thee—

Now, come to me, death.

D. Evans.

The Weekly Dispatch. June 25, 1882.

Les Poetes s’amusent.

Swinburne chez Hugo.

The Banquet of the two distinct demigods is over. The dinner, a two-franc Palais Royal feast fit for Parnassus, came off last night; and I was there ready to watch and to wink at the matchless mouthfuls of the two mighty Masters. As these disappeared amidst rich rhythm and rhapsody, I stood in a corner, note-book in hand, mutely worshipful.

There was a hungry hush, the Elder Master had a message to deliver, and catching the reporter’s eye, did not halt or hesitate.

“What,” he asked, addressing the lady presiding at the bureau behind the little plated saucers of sugar, “what is Swinburne? Is he,” he proceeded, “a costermonger? No. What then. A sweep? You cannot be a sweep without singing a Song before Sunrise. But this Swinburne has written Chastelard. That sounds like Bacon. Is he then a philosopher? Yes, and No. Which? Never mind. But there is this remarkable thing about a philosopher: he produces fruits. Sometimes they are nuts to crack, and when Civilisation has a nut to crack it holds its jaw. This is a paradox, and suggests the question, ‘Am I Civilisation?’ To this there is an answer. It is again ‘No and Yes.’ Last time it was ‘Yes and No.’ Now it is ‘No and Yes.’ Why? Is there a reason for this? None. And when there is no reason for anything, it becomes a subject of reference. To whom? To the Marines: and you cannot refer a subject to the Marines without asking them a riddle. And this is the riddle that posterity will ask them: ‘What is Victor Hugo?’”

There was a pause; but in an instant the Younger Master had sprung on to a velvet fauteuil, and, thrumming the back of an entrée dish as an impromptu lyre, with a high-piped treble cry of “I’ll tell you,” had soon sufficiently and signally silenced the Elder with the following unsung and understudied Ode:—

“You are he who,—ere upon my noisome nurses

Large limbèd lap

I coughed my first shrieked shrill-throated choke of curses,

In pulp of pap,—

Rose in reek made rich of decomposing matter

Round kinglets curled,

To greet with white-soul’d yell of ‘Yah!—who’s your hatter?’

An out-wash’d world:

“You who, with a wind of words in thuds of thunder,

Of sense made hash;

Blind, yet bleating in the blaze of your own blunder

Whole yards of trash;

By your posing—your back somersaults of error

That no one fire,—

By the frenzy and the cry of loud-tongued terror

Your jokes inspire;

By the promise of your early dawn reversèd

Clean upside down,

By your curst cloy of Pantomime, and thrice accursèd

Cat-call for Clown;

“By the pasteboard heads that, beaten in in places,

Smile on in pain,

By sightless eyes and worsted hair, by large, mild faces,—

By Drury Lane;

By all frolic, freak and fooling, food for laughter,

Nor said nor sung,

When next on spouting bent—pity your hereafter,

And hold your tongue!”

* * * * *

Punch. December 2, 1882.

——:o:——

In 1883, Messrs. Chatto and Windus published a small quarto volume, entitled “A Century of Roundels,” by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Very soon afterwards, there was a parody competition on these little poems in The Weekly Dispatch, which published the following imitations on July 1, 1883.

The prize of two guineas was awarded to Mr. Henry William Hancock for:—

Far-fetched and Dear-bought!

Far-fetched and dear-bought, sure this volume of verse is,

Tho’ ever as clever in rhythm and thought;

And yet tho’ a master each roundel rehearses,

Far-fetched and dear-bought!

Tho’ perfect in beauty each ditty is wrought,

Monotony much admiration disperses;

Ye gods! a whole hundred! Is Swinburne distraught?

The appetite cloyed e’er with dainties far worse is

Than hunger that waits till one’s dinner is caught;

So this is my verdict condemning these verses—

Far-fetched and dear-bought!

Highly commended.

Ulysses.

What gain were mine if I should anchor cast

And soothe my senses with these songs divine

When I had wearied of the sweet repast,

What gain were mine?

Save for my skill, ye yet were Circe’s swine,

And barking Scylla safe I led you past—

And past Charybdis, ambushed in the brine.

Then faithful comrades bind, and bind me fast—

My lips are fain for kisses and for wine;

But so I fail of Ithaca at last,

What gain were mine?

Gossamer.

To Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Magician of song and of sound that enslaves the ear,

Subtle and sweet are the arts which to thee belong;

Varied thy chant as the lark’s which is heard so clear,

Magician of song.

Divine as the sound of billows that swell and throng

And crash with a music that gods might love to hear;

So gather thy waves of language rapid and strong,

Bursting in pæans of Love, and of Joy, and Fear,

Welcome thy strain as a bird’s the flowers among,

Welcome thy notes as blossoms that light the year,

Magician of song.

Apsley Roberts.

——:o:——

A Trio of Roundels.

I was born like other men,

And at last shall die.

Who will live for ever then?

Just a smile, a sigh,

Tears a few, a smile again,

Some endeavours high.

Who shines grander, truer, when

Placed in contrast by

Grunting swine or clucking hen?

Half-a-crown, that cannot last for ever,

Yet who is there takes it with a frown?

Who seeks not with passionate endeavour

Half-a-crown?

Who despises it, in all the town,

You shall find a human being never

From the tinselled monarch to the clown.

Let a man be dull of brain or clever,

Be his lot, or up in life or down,

Easily from him you shall not sever

Half-a-crown.

Around and about the singer his song disperses

He flings to the heavens a crashing mellifluous shout.

Vast harmonies mingled for ever of blessings and curses

Around and about.

In melody filling and thrilling his voice rings out

In strivings splendidly human. Better or worse is

The joy of the poor or the rich, of the lord or the lout;

What sirens ever sang sweeter? What wine of Circe’s,

More quickly dispelled the fumes of a priestly doubt,

Than this of the bay-crowned Man who is flinging his verses

Around and about?

St. James’s Gazette.

——:o:——

The New Jack Horner.

The pigmy and portative Horner,

Whom all men denominate Jack,

Against an approximate corner

Had set his exiguous back.

On his knee, formed of paste that was puffy,

Was a pie they for Yule-tide had made;

Into which his fat fingers to stuff he

No palpable moment delayed.

And his voice told of raptures and roses,

As, plucking a plum from that pie,

He cried (as the legend discloses),

“What a plump pie-ous urchin am I!”

Funny Folks Annual. 1884.

Christmas Mottoes.

(By Eminent Hands.)

Our Lady Champagne.

By A.C.S.

A Maiden makes moan, “Oh my motto

Lies lost with its love-litten lay:

’Twas something on ‘green in a grotto,’

And ‘sad seas were sweeter than spray.’”

O theme for the scorn of the scoffer,

I hear my own verses again,

And she ogles me well as I offer

My Lady—Champagne.

The Blooming Damozel.

By D.G.R.

The blooming damozel leaned o’er

The station bar at even,

And she was deeper than the depths

Of water at Lochleven;

She kept my change within her purse,

It came to one-and-seven.

The Volsung Tale.

By W.M.

Oh, fain for the wine was Sigurd, and wild were the songs he sang,

Like the words from the Halls of Music, for glamour was on his tongue,

And he dropped the sword of the Branstock, that trembled in his clutch,

And said Gudrun, “Son of the Volsungs, methinks thou has ta’en too much.”

Then up rose the King of Men-folk, and vowed he had drunk no ale;

And that was the story of Sigurd—lo!—that was the Volsung tale!

The Motto.

By R.B.

A Motto! Just a catch-word such as lies

Betwixt Imprimis and the colophon;

French mot, Italian motto: for the rest

Latin mutire. Body o’ me—the Greek

Gives muthos. So this poem I write and leave

To Jansenists, to lie i’ the brains o’ men,

I sell you for a lira, eight pence just,

Then home to Casa Guidi, by the Church.

And, British Public, ye who like me not,

I think i’ faith I’ve got the best of it!

——:o:——

MARCH: AN ODE.

Ere frost-flower and snow blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,

The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;

The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed.

Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade.

That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,

Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,

March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow,

And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low,

How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born.

So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness, whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn?

Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow

As a lover’s that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn,

Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow.

* * * * *

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The Nineteenth Century. March, 1888.

Another Ode To March.

(Being a Counterblast to Mr. A. C. Swinburne’s rhythmical rhapsody in the “Nineteenth Century.” By one who has certainly “learned in suffering” what he endeavours to “teach in song.”)

Ere frost-slush and snow-slopping dried up and went, and the horrors of Winter had slid out of sight,

The ways of the wood pavement fouler were far than a clay-country lane on a mucky March night.

The breath of the month of the winds had stabbed us through top-coats and mufflers, and made us afraid.

Such bronchial bothers, such blossomy noses, such frostbitten fingers for man and for maid!

The sea was not lovelier then than the land, each appeared in a dismal and desolate plight;

But the Winter is not so much worse than the Spring-time; each plays up the mischief with pleasure and trade.

March, master of winds, is a flatulent fraud, a marshal of banes and a bringer of blight.

And now that the rage of your rhythmical rapture, your revel of rhyming has finished its flow,

Oh, incontinent Algernon Charles, what the dickens you mean by such rubbish I should like to know.

How, how can you love and rejoice, you, leader and lord of the lyrists of curses and scorn,

In a beast of a month that half drives one to madness, and makes a man wish he had never been born?

Have you shaken the snow from your shoes on a doormat, with frost have your nose and your lips been aglow?

Have you met a March wind coming sharp round a corner, your mackintosh drenched and your gingham all torn,

And tried to take breath in the nip of North-Easters? No, Algernon Charles, or you’d never talk so!

(Four verses omitted.)

The body is drenched one dismal moment, the next one’s skin is as dry as starch.

Its rains that chill us are most disgusting, and equally so are its gales that parch.

What! kindle mortals to love and laughter by lauding the beastliest winds that blow?

Arouse our fondness for wintry wetness, for choking dust or for blinding snow?

No, no, your lips are eloquent, Algernon, set in Apollo’s own genuine arch;

But neither the flame that fires your tropes, nor the fervour that setteth your figures aglow,

Shall gammon us into the fatuous folly of making a god of the wind of March!

Punch. March 17, 1888.

Lines a la Swinburne.

I sing of the months of the whirligig years that are fading far out of sight and of sound and of motionless mind;

Of the days without dreams and the dreams without days, and the days and the dreams and the dreams and the days grown silent and blind;

Gone mad with the vigor of spring and the blush of the radish new blown in the meadows far kissed by the lips of the Sound:

The maddest and gladdest and saddest and baddest and sweetest, completest and fleetest and neatest of days ever found.

I sing of them often in words that are winding, in adjectives blinding, in dactyles and trochees with cunning combined,

In lines that are long as a sentence of Evarts, in lines on the plan of the Washington Monument deftly designed;

With wildering fancy of words and of musical syllables weighted with little of thought and with much less of rhyme,

I cover ten pages a sitting with verse that has value in market, and readily getteth there every time.

And when the idea is the thinnest, new burst from the void of the infinite nothing, the zenith of space where the nebulous ether is pregnant with cobwebs of fancy bestrewn with the dew-drops of slush,

I build up long lines such as never a poet, who was not a crank on the subject of versification, built up for the purpose of drowning a suffering public with torrents of stupid and meaningless gibbering gush.

If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had made of the past and hereafter a single adorable season whose life was a rapture of love and of laughter for all of the maidens and lads,

I’d write you a poem with lines like the city of Rome, and with rhymes on beholders and shoulders; on measure and pleasure; on closes and roses; on sterile, imperil; remember, September; and hither and thither and whither; on slacken and bracken; on season and reason; defrauded, applauded; on dwindled, rekindled; on giving and living; on slumbers and numbers; beholden and golden; on glory and story and Morey; on wizard and gizzard and blizzard; on Blaine and on Maine; and each rhyme would be stuck on the end of a line just like this one I’m writing; and oh, and heyday, and yea, marry, they’d run about eight to the page, and they’d collar the scads.

Tricotrin.

Harper’s Monthly Magazine, June, 1888.

——:o:——

In Pictures at Play (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1888), a picture by J. W. Waterhouse, A.R.A., is supposed to sing the following parody of the “Masque of Queen Bersabe”:—

I am the Lady of Shalott,

And if you say you love me not,

I shall reply, I wis,

That Bastien-Lepage has been

Much marked of Waterhouse, I ween,

And the result is—this!

The A.R.A. who painted me

Is young and popular, and free

To gratify his whim;

Where on a couch of pain I lay,

He came and called me up one day,

And bade me follow him.

In strange attire he vestured me,

Yea, in the silks of Liberty,

He set me thus afloat;

He bade me seem to have the shakes,

And ope my mouth as one that takes

A high and hopeless note.

And painting merely what he saw,

According to the last-found law

Of values and of tones,

He made me, much to my amaze,

A thing whereon the public gaze,

And mock me for the nones.

I am the Lady of Shalott

And if you tell me I am not,

I say but this one thing:

That here be “Values” rare and quaint,

A goodly “quality of paint,”

And “workmanlike hand-ling.”

I am the Lady of Shalott,

And, though you recognize me not,

Denied it may not be

That I am of the things right good,

Albeit scantly understood,

In this Acadamee.

——:o:——

Strophes from a
Song after Moonrise.

Strophe I.

I bowed my laurel’d head

Above my lyre and said:—

“What new song shall I sing across the strings?

Madden’d for whose new sake

What new noise shall I make?”

And I answered: “Lo, I will sing of no new things,

I will turn to her once more,

I have sung so oft before—

Freedom! and worship her, and curse some Kings.”

Set on her motherly knee,

Her nursing arms round me,

I will cling about her neck as a child clings,

Re-wounding with my kiss

Each scarce-healed cicatrice

Doing to her divers and disgusting things

Whilst in her ears my chaunt,

Re-risen and reboant,

Sounds as one sounds, who, being senseless, sings.

Strophe II.

On one cant name of many names I have chosen—

Freedom—lo, once again I call to thee;

By the cold earth’s iron-bound ends and oceans frozen,

By the rivers that run billowing to the sea,

By the lisp and laughter of spring in leafy places,

By the storms that follow and the calms that flee,

By the pale light flung in men’s funeral faces

From holocausts of kings we burn to thee;

By the seas that link us and the lands that sever

By the foes upon our weather-side and lee—

By all these things and all other things whatever,

We call, and howl, and squeak, and shriek to thee,

Calling thee early and late,

Wild, inarticulate,

Calling and bawling that thou set something free.

Strophe III.

But where is the something—a land

In the east or the uttermost west—

A land with a grievance, a curse?

I heed not her name or her place.

So shame on her brow be a brand,

So she have but a scourged white breast,

And a name that will scan in verse;

And I ask for the royal race,

For the land opprest.

But where shall I find her—where?

I mean the land with a wrong

Not already outworn

By those that have sung for her sake

For Byron and bards that were,

Were singing of Freedom long

Before I was thought of or born,

And they plucked all the plums from the cake

From the cake of song.

Strophe IV.

Ah, but would that I

Had been the first of these!

I would have drained them dry,

These themes of war and peace,

Nor have left one song to sing of Italy,

Nor a poet’s picking on the bones of Greece.

Then with flowers and fire,

And bitter foam and wine,

And fangs and fierce desire,

And things I call divine,

would nauseate so the world that no man’s lyre

Should again be struck to a note I had once made mine.

* * * * *

Epode.

I hung my laurel’d head,

Down on my lyre and said:

“What answer does my sovereign, Freedom, make?”

And in the air I heard

Not even a whisper’d word

From her for whom my very lungs do ache,

And as an addled egg is, is my brain:

Wherefore for her most royal and holy sake

I think I will behowl her once again.

“Hear me, O goddess! for it indeed is I

That call thee, at thy knees,

And don’t be frightened, please,

At the many things I shall adjure thee by.

Come to us, bright, in clear re-arisen ascendency,

Loosen o’er us all thine orient oriflamme!

By the power Mat Arnold calls: ‘A stream of tendency,’

By the Christianity we have proved a sham,

By the lowering name that darkened Hebrew story

We have turned to ‘Thou art not,’ that was once ‘I Am;’

We thy singers, we thy sons that work thee glory

With the unburnt offerings of our worthless verses

Heaped on thy shrine, adjure thee and adore thee:

I, the clamouring herd’s choragus, I implore thee:

By all the things that we bemire with curses—

That is, by all the holy things that are,

Rise and make manifest upon us thy mercies,

Rise o’er us all a large and lonely star.

For the night is now far spent: the air gives warning

With a dewy stir and chillness of the morning,

And the wan dark whitens on the eastern hill.

Burn through the east, grow large, and lighten, until

In the saffron of the sunrise we discern thee

Shining and trembling like a tear of gladness.

Draw near to us, we will love thee, we will learn thee—

Learn thee to the heart, and love thee even to madness,

If thou wilt only hear us in our crying

Across the night,

Conjuring thee by this our rhythmic sighing—

Our songs which might

Have many senses but which have not one sense

A man may see;

By the sounding and the fluent form of nonsense

We shower on thee;

By the shallow and the babbling things, our mothers,

From whom we spring;

By the barking and the braying things, our brothers

Like whom we sing;

By all the fatuous things, our near relations,

That chaunt and cheer us;

By Leeds, and Liberal associations

Oh, Freedom, hear us!”

St. James’s Gazette.

——:o:——

Parodies of Mr. Swinburne’s Political Poems.

Numerous parodies have been written of Mr. Swinburne’s political poems, and of these some have already appeared in this collection.

Thus, in Volume III (p. 187), will be found Swinburne’s The Commonweal, which had originally appeared in The Times of July 1, 1886, together with four parodies upon it. And, in Volume IV. (p. 147), Swinburne’s The Question, from The Daily Telegraph, April 29, 1887, was given, together with the caustic Answer, which appeared in The Daily News of April 30, 1887.

The following parody is from Truth May 5, 1887:—

Mr. Swinburne’s “Question” Answered.

Come, frenzied poet, first, then, pray

Just tell us what those verses meant

Which to the Telegraph you sent

Last Thursday; since we, sad to say,

Can’t fathom their intent,

That you were very wild, ’twas clear,

With some one; for you were profuse

In that alliterative abuse,

And in those epithets severe

You aptly can produce.

But who it was you wished to curse,

Or what it was had roused your ire,

Or why you wrote, with wroth so dire,

So much involved Swinburnian verse,

Why, that did not transpire

Something, of course, had put you out,

Or, otherwise, why did you deem

It meet to wildly rave and scream,

And throw those adjectives about

With which your stanzas teem?

And as you always in past time

Have been a struggling nation’s friend,

And hastened Freedom to defend,

So doubtless now your angry rhyme

Has the same worthy end.

And, granting this, we then can find

Who are the men you would asperse,

And why you wrote such raving verse:—

Of course, it must have been designed

To Ireland’s tyrants curse!

“The clamorous crew” you write about;

The fierce “blood-mongers” you decry;

The men who “stand in shame so high”

These are the landlord-set, no doubt,

Who pity’s plea deny.

The men who “steal and skulk and flee”—

Why, it is plain you mean by these

Those heartless, greedy absentees,

Who, to live on in luxury,

Their cruel rack-rents seize.

These are the “shameless gang,” ’tis clear,

From whose “red hands” nor “dew nor rain”

Can ever “cleanse the blood again”;

And to whose hearts, so hard and sere,

Appealing is in vain.

Yes, ’tis these landlords, who disdain

To pity, though poor “children die

Starved”; and though helpless women lie

On the hill-side, ’neath sleet and rain,

Thrust from their homes hard by.

And ’tis their tenants, too, who fight

Vainly against the ruthless power

That leaves their lives “no joyful hour,”

Nor gives them e’en the “natural right

To claim life’s natural dower.”

Well may you ask, with stern surprise,

Why men, who thus their duty shirk,

And do, in sooth, “a murderous work,”

Do not seem “hideous in our eyes

As Austrian or as Turk?”

Well may you call the landlord crew,

“The cowardliest hounds that blood e’er lapp’d;”

And hint they should be “track’d and trapp’d,”

Whilst we that “woful past undo,”

Which chains on Erin clapp’d.

With reason you bid “England bow,

Lest worst befall her yet”; and swear

That nought, save pity, conscience, care,

Truth and mercy, should be now

Her sister Erin’s share.

But, frantic poet, none the less,

When next your angry feelings egg

You into verse like Silas Wegg,

Do try your meaning to express

More clearly, let us beg.

’Tis vain, in fact, for you to use

Such very gory epithets,

And terms involved, and sounding threats,

If all the time your shrieking Muse

Sense utterly forgets.

And truly, if you thus again

Should in the Telegraph break out,

Its readers, there is little doubt,

When they have tried to find in vain

Whom ’tis you fain would flout.

Will bid you to the fact recall

That empty sound and fury blind,

And words ambitiously designed,

Must needs be worthless, one and all,

Unless with sense combined.

And you will be assailed with blame,

“The lips of all will laugh you dead,”

“And mockery shriek round your head,”

Whilst you live on to hear with shame

Your reputation’s fled!

——:o:——

CLEAR THE WAY!

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day.

Here you have your answer—England’s yea against your nay:

Long enough your House has held you: up, and clear the way!

Lust and falsehood, craft and traffic, precedent and gold,

Tongue of courtier, kiss of harlot, promise bought and sold,

Gave you heritage of empire over thralls of old.

Now that all these things are rotten, all their gold is rust,

Quenched the pride they lived by, dead the faith and cold the lust,

Shall their heritage not also turn again to dust?

By the grace of these they reigned, who left their sons their sway:

By the grace of these, what England says her lords unsay:

Till at last her cry go forth against them—Clear the way!

By the grace of trust in treason knaves have lived and lied!

By the force of fear and folly fools have fed their pride:

By the strength of sloth and custom reason stands defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse,

Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse,

Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse.

Where we stand, as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray;

But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay:

Spread no more of sail for shipwreck: out, and clear the way!

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The Pall Mall Gazette. August 19, 1884.

Rail Away!

(Written by an aspiring young poet of the Neo-Billingsgate School in humble imitation of the “Clear the Way!” contributed by Mr. Swinburne to a recent number of the Pall Mall Gazette.)

Rail away, my budding bardlets! This hysteric day

Shrieking lives so shrieking answers,—Journals say not nay;

Long enough has reason held you: up and rail away!

Slang and slate, revile and bludgeon with assurance bold!

Tongue of gentle, style of scholar, now are far too cold

Go it like an angry fishwife when upon the scold.

Now that chivalry’s forgotten, knightly steel all rust

Quenched the pride old poets lived by, dead their grace as dust,

Shall their mild example bind us? Not a whit, I trust!

Blow the grace of Gentle Spenser, courtesy’s soft sway!

Hang the grace of Wordsworth, leaving nothing to unsay!

Let the Poet’s shriek go forth falsetto—Rail away!

By the grace of trust in reason dolts have lived and died

By the fear of noisy folly tongues have oft been tied,

By the strength of rabid ranting reason’s now defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning, with good manners mar your verse

Halt and hearken lords of language, who would plump your purse

Be not tied by taste’s restrictions; learn to howl and curse!

Where we stand of slang to come, scarce falls a sprinkling spray

But the wave of Billingsgate that’s coming who shall stay?

Spread your sails my budding bardlets,—up and rail away!

Punch, August 30, 1884.

It was formerly a frequent theme of Mr. Swinburne’s political verse, this violent abuse of the House of Lords:—

“They are worthy to reign o’er their brothers,

To contemn them as clods and as carles,

Who are Graces by grace of such mothers

As brightened the bed of King Charles.”

Have the dukes of Buccleugh, Grafton, Richmond, and St. Albans forgotten and forgiven this humorous and playful allusion to their ancestresses, Lucy Waters, Lady Castlemaine, Louise de Querouaille, and Nell Gwynne, to whom they owe their dignities and estates?

A Word for the Poet.

(The Rebuke Parodic.)

[Mr. Swinburne’s latest effusion, which has been eagerly quoted by Conservative journals, appears in “Sea Song and River Rhyme,” and is entitled “A Word for the Navy.”]

The lords of thy fate and thy keepers,

O Swinburne, should padlock thy lips;

It leaves us for genius weepers

To hear thy Macdermottish tips.

Such crowing and blowing,

Such blatant British “side,”

Will scatter and shatter

Full soon thy poet’s pride.

“Smooth France, as a serpent for rancour”—

Fie! fie! what an insolent style!

Pray slip the Conservative anchor,

And be thy old self for awhile.

Men deem thee, or dream thee,

Less living now than dead;

The news is, thy Muse is

A little off her head.

Do thou, though the Blues should misdoubt thee,

Resume thy first role on our boards;

Hind on former armour about thee,

And tilt at the “lackeys and lords.”

Where you stood, the True stood,

It stands not where you stand;

Quit Jingo, and in go

For Lib’ralism grand.

Funny Folks, March 5, 1887.

——:o:——

The Banquet, a Political Satire, by Mr. George Cotterell, was published in 1885 by William Blackwood & Sons. Like most political squibs its interest was somewhat ephemeral, but it contained several amusing parodies of Tennyson, and of Swinburne. Some of those on Tennyson have already been quoted, the following extracts are taken from a parody of Swinburne’s “Dolores,” entitled

The Radical Programme.

(After the Franchise Bill.)

The days of the dunces are over,

The wiles of the Whigs are undone,

They shall lie nevermore in the clover,

And bask not again in the sun;

In hip and in thigh will we smite them,

Our rulers who ruled us of old,

And nothing shall raise them or right them,

Nor acres, nor gold.

They sought us with sweet condescension,

They pledged us, a hand for a hand—

We were snobs, it is needless to mention,

And they the best blood in the land:

They bartered for place and we gave it,

We staked for high game and we won,

But their place goes and nothing can save it—

Our day has begun.

When this beggarly bill they conceded

They thought we should ask for no more;

Poor fools! it was all that we needed

To make us more fierce than before:

Now the game is our own and we’ll make it,

Not a hand will we yield, not a trick;

Here’s a notice to all who will take it

To clear away quick.

To the Lords shall the mandate be spoken,

The people’s behest and decree;

For the bonds that have bound us are broken,

We are mighty at last, we are free!

Look, my lords, where the writing is written,

On the walls of your House, on the door,

You are weighed and found wanting, and smitten

Behind and before.

* * * * *

Then hurrah for the bill that we carried,

For the Caucus that carried the bill!

The Lords would have tampered and tarried,

But we swept them along with a will;

We swept them and sweep them before us,

The prize of our prowess to-day,

While we march to the lilt of the chorus

That bids us not stay.

It was time for another beginning,

So we started the world with a spin

And while it goes spinning and spinning

We will gather the spoils that we win;

For it spins out the Whigs and the Tories,

The Lords and the Church and the Crown

And it spins us this glory of glories—

To tread them all down.

——:o:——

Hymn to Gladstonian Liberals.

Is not this the First Lord of your choice?

Sure its time that you put him to bed,

For the kingdom is seared by his fires, O fools;

He was Lord, and is dead.

You will hear not again his fine speaking,

His sophistry now as before

And the tone of his wonderful lying will

Humbug your senses no more;

By the party he ruled as his slave, is he

Slain who was mighty to slay;

And the stigma that rests on his name

He can raise not, nor roll it away.

He is choked by his raiment of lies,

Now the wane of his power is come;

Truth hears he, and heeds not; and facts,

And he sees not; and taunts, and is dumb.

Power and will hath he none of it left him

Nor truth in his breath;

Till his name be struck out of the lists

Will ye know not the truth of his death!

Surely, ye say, he is strong, but the Times

Is ’gainst him and Parnell;

Wait a little, ye say—nay too long

He has made our fair island a hell;

Let him then die, as all must die, that

Use treason thus as a rod;

Let him fade from the ranks of his Party

Take his foot from the neck that he trod.

They cry out, his elect, his seekers for

Office, who cling to his shame,

They call him sweet light of his Party;

They call him their Lord, by his name;

The name that is written in Egypt,

And in Africa stained by retreat,

That name by our enemies loved, but

Scorned by our army and fleet.

He answers them not—he is fallen,

Political death his reward,

He is smitten! behold, he is smitten!

As though by the stroke of a sword.

The Conservative cause is triumphant,

And peace and prosperity brings

So glory to that in the highest,

The healer and mender of things.

F.A.C.

The St. Stephen’s Review, May 28, 1887.

——:o:——

32 In Rhymes à la Mode, by Mr. Andrew Lang (Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1883), there are also two good parodies of Swinburne. In one, the “Palace of Bric-à-Brac,” the exquisite diction and appropriate rhythm of the “Garden of Proserpine,” are most amusingly caricatured:—

“Here, where old Nankin glitters,

Here, where men’s tumult seems

As faint as feeble twitters

Of sparrows heard in dreams,

We watch Limoges enamel,

An old chased silver camel,

A shawl, the gift of Schamyl,

And manuscript in reams.

Here, where the hawthorn pattern

On flawless cup and plate

Need fear no housemaid slattern,

Fell minister of fate,

’Mid webs divinely woven,

And helms and hauberks cloven,

On music of Beethoven

We dream and meditate.”

* * * * *

But all lovers of dainty books and quaint old world ballades will go to the fountain head to taste this stream.

Several excellent imitations of Swinburne’s style remain to be quoted from Punch, one, which appeared January 7, 1882, entitled “Clowning and Classicism,” contains some skits on Burne Jones, Oscar Wilde, and John Ruskin; another, dated December 11, 1886, commences as follows:—

Babydom.

A Contribution to the Poetry of Pap.

Baby, see the flowers!

—Baby sees

Other things than these.

Baby, our soft age’s first of powers.

Baby, hear the birds!

—Baby’s nose

Cocks at sounds like those.

Baby rules our deeds and thoughts and words.

Baby, want the moon?

—Baby’s eyes

Blink in blue surprise.

Baby is the boss of night and noon.

Baby, hear the sea!

—Baby’s face

Yermeates all space,

Filled with noises of the nursery.

* * * * *

The next appeared on April 23, 1887:—

The Vultures; or, What of the Fight.

(A Suggestion from Swinburne.)

England, what of the fight?—

The fight that may come again,

When the ridge of the battle-plain

By the last lurid sun-ray is lit,

And thou in thine armèd might

Hast fought the good fight, and thy men

Lie low where the night-birds flit,—

What then, oh land, what then?

Prophet, what of the fight?

What is the vision you see?

England the stubbornly free,

Erect, ’midst the whirl of her waves.

Harbours she traitors and slaves,

Harpies, of gold-worship bred,

Who grope for their gain amongst graves

That hide the hosts of her dead?

(Four verses omitted.)

Vultures, what of the fight?—

Ah! but ye crowd for gain.

Little care ye for the slain.

Only your maws to cram.

There they be in the night,

Sold for your sakes to death.

System? A scoundrel sham

That leaves ye with wings and breath!

England, what of that fight?—

Rouse you, and raise a hand.

These Vultures swarm in the land,

Incompetence, traitrous greed.

Scourge them to headlong flight,

Vermin of office and mart,

Ere the harpies batten indeed,

Their beaks in the nation’s heart.

“According to a certain critic,” said the Daily News in August, 1888, Mr. Swinburne “makes ‘services’ rhyme to ‘berries.’ How in the world does he manage that? Can it be in a poem on Lawn Tennis?”

‘Oh, thy swift, subtle, slanting, services

That skim the net, and ’scape the racket of me,

Oh, thy rich, red, ripe, ruby raspberries,

Oh, thy straw hat, and dainty body of thee!’

Nothing exactly like this occurs in the English edition of Mr. Swinburne’s poems, but this, perhaps, shows how the thing could be done, if the poet were so inclined.”

In the course of a singularly brilliant career it is not surprising that Mr. Swinburne should have been the subject of many fierce literary attacks. The history of these feuds must await the advent of another Isaac D’Israeli to add a Chapter to the “Calamities and Quarrels of Authors”; interesting as the topic most certainly is, it cannot be dealt with here. Suffice it to say that the principal grounds for adverse criticism have been the asserted voluptuousness and immoral tendency of his romantic poems, and the inconsistency of his political writings. As an instance of the latter failing The Daily News of May 2, 1887, reprinted a poem Mr. Swinburne wrote for The Morning Star (a Radical paper, now defunct) in November 1867 in favour of the Fenians then lying under sentence of death for the murder of Serjeant Brett. This poem Mr. Swinburne had also included in his volume, Songs before Sunrise, published in 1871, and it certainly presents a marked contrast to his recent utterances on the Irish question.

As to the alleged immoral tendency of his works much has been written, and by many pens, one of the bitterest of his assailants being Mr. Robert Williams Buchanan, whose own early writings were, most assuredly, open to adverse criticism on the same ground.

In his little work entitled, “The Fleshly School of Poetry,” published in 1872, Mr. Buchanan not only 33 attacked Swinburne, but he was also most malignant in his criticisms of the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the kindest, gentlest, and purest of men. The controversy this aroused raged for some years, and the last word was only spoken when Mr. Edmund Yates published his article on “A Scrofulous Scotch Poet,” severely castigating Mr. Buchanan, in The World, September 26, 1877. Long prior to this, the following verses relating to Swinburne, had been attributed to Buchanan. It is doubtful whether in 1866 Mr. Swinburne’s name was sufficiently established to entitle him to a place in such distinguished company as is here mentioned.

THE SESSION OF THE POETS.

“Di magni, salaputium disertum!”——Cat. Lib. Liii.

“At the Session of Poets held lately in London,

The Bard of Freshwater was voted the chair:

With his tresses unbrush’d, and his shirt-collar undone,

He loll’d at his ease like a good-humour’d Bear;

‘Come, boys!’ he exclaimed, ‘we’ll be merry together!’

And lit up his pipe with a smile on his cheek;

While with eye like a skipper’s cock’d up at the weather,

Sat the Vice-Chairman Browning, thinking in Greek.

“The company gather’d embraced great and small bards,

Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave,

Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards,

Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave.

Of books, men, and things, was the bards’ conversation—

Some praised Ecce Homo, some deemed it so-so—

And then there was talk of the state of the nation,

And when the unwash’d would devour Mr. Lowe.

“Right stately sat Arnold—his black gown adjusted

Genteely, his Rhine wine deliciously iced,—

With puddingish England serenely disgusted,

And looking in vain (in the mirror) for ‘Geist;’

He heark’d to the Chairman, with ‘Surely!’ and ‘Really?’

Aghast at both collar and cutty of clay,—

Then felt in his pocket, and breath’d again freely,

On touching the leaves of his own classic play.

“Close at hand lingered Lytton, whose Icarus-winglets

Had often betrayed him in regions of rhyme—

How glitter’d the eye underneath his gray ringlets,

A hunger within it unlessened by time!

Remoter sat Bailey—satirical, surly—

Who studied the language of Goethe too soon,

Who sang himself hoarse to the stars very early,

And crack’d a weak voice with too lofty a tune.

“How name all that wonderful company over?—

Prim Patmore, mild Alford—and Kingsley also?

Among the small sparks who was realler than Lover?

Among misses, who sweeter than Miss Ingelow?

There sat, looking moony, conceited, and narrow,

Buchanan,—who, finding when foolish and young,

Apollo asleep on a coster-girl’s barrow,

Straight dragged him away to see somebody hung.

“What was said? what was done? was there prosing or rhyming?

Was nothing noteworthy in deed or in word?

Why, just as the hour for the supper was chiming,

The only event of the evening occurred.

Up jumped, with his neck stretching out like a gander,

Master Swinburne, and squeal’d, glaring out through his hair,

‘All Virtue is bosh! Hallelujah for Lander!

I disbelieve wholly in everything!—there!’

“With language so awful he dared then to treat ’em,—

Miss Ingelow fainted in Tennyson’s arms,

Poor Arnold rush’d out, crying ‘Sœcl’inficetum!’

And great bards and small bards were full of alarms;

Till Tennyson, flaming and red as a gipsy,

Struck his fist on the table and uttered a shout:

‘To the door with the boy! Call a cab! He is tipsy!’

And they carried the naughty young gentleman out.

“After that, all the pleasanter talking was done there—

Whoever had known such an insult before?

The Chairman tried hard to re-kindle the fun there,

But the Muses were shocked, and the pleasure was o’er.

Then ‘Ah!’ cried the Chairman, ‘this teaches me knowledge,

The future shall find me more wise, by the powers!’

This comes of assigning to yonkers from college

Too early a place in such meetings as ours!”

Caliban.

The Spectator. September 15. 1886.

——:o:——

Although this collection is avowedly confined to Parodies which have previously appeared in print, it will be readily understood that numbers of original parodies are sent in, of which but a very small proportion can be inserted.

Some amusing incidents occur, thus a short time ago a gentlemen sent from Scotland the M.S.S. of new and original burlesques on Hamlet and Othello, the first containing about 850 lines, and the second about double that number. The author earnestly requested they should be inserted in Parodies, but whether he had succeeded in getting any “new and original” fun out of such fresh and lively topics as Hamlet and Othello, the world will never be able to judge through this medium.

Another, and almost equally humorous request was worded as follows:—“I enclose a parody on Mr. Algernon Swinburne’s Dolores in the form of an encomium on ‘Someone’s Essence of Something’ which is absurdly close to some of the original verses. If you accept it please send proof and remuneration to me at above address.”

It so happened that this parody was not devoid of literary merit, but the author was presuming a little too much in expecting to get a puff inserted gratis, and to be paid for it in the bargain.

A verse or two will suffice to indicate the author’s treatment of the topic:—

All pale from the past we draw nigh thee,

And satiate with rollicking hours;

And we know thee how none can deny thee,

And we purchase the gift of new pow’rs,

The draught that allays and recovers,

The boons and the blessings that rain

On the livers and lungs of thy lovers,

Exorcist of Pain!

What care though disease be a fixture

Which for ages has baffled all skill,

Thou art more than the famous blood mixture,

Superior to Cockle’s best pill;

Thou canst cast out disordered secretion,

Reduce the swelled kidney, revive

The victim of constant depletion,

And keep him alive!

Fruits fail, Autumn dies, and Time ranges,

* * * have perpetual breath,

The price of its bottles ne’er changes,

Two-and-ninepence can wrestle with Death

Our lives are rekindled and rallied,

Our systems made wholesome and clean,

Relieved of Dyspepsia, that pallid,

And poisonous Queen!

Sick-headache, and sudden affliction,

Carbuncles, and feverish skin,

Epidemics, severe mental friction,

Too much of a favourite bin;

For these panacea thou devisest,

For these, and for all other bane,

O wise among chemists, and wisest,

Exorcist of Pain!

* * * * *

The remainder of this Poem will be inserted with full details as to price, and number of cures effected, on receipt of the customary advertisement fee.

Another correspondent kindly sent in a lengthy rhymed criticism of Swinburne’s style, commencing as follows:—

Paddy Blake on Swinburne.

Dear Bailey, I will not deny

That of Swinburne’s great merit I’m sensible,

But this one complaint I must cry—

“He’s exceedingly incomprehensible!”

He sings pretty songs about kisses,

He christens them “red,” also “white”;

I confess, in all lowliness, this is

Beyond my intelligence quite.

It may well be that I’m very silly,

But some of his songs seem to me

Like a mixture of very weak skilly

With ten times as much eau-de-vie.

His language is wrondrously charming,

And falls like a spell on the ear;

But there’s one thing that’s rather alarming—

Would it ever bring laughter or tear?

End of Parodies on A. C. Swinburne.

VERNON AVICK.

Dedicated without permission to the Author of “Father
O’Flynn,” by the Author of “The Blarney Ballads.”

Of all the gay “scions” and sprigs of nobility,

Far renowned for their grace and agility,

Faix i’d advance you for sheer volatility

Vernon avick! as the flower of them all.

Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick!

Long may you flounder through thin and through thick,

Merriest mummer,

And burliest “bummer,”

And loudest big-drummer in Westminster Hall.

Don’t talk of your sages and seers of antiquity,

Famous for rectitude—or for obliquity,

Faix an’ the divils at mental ubiquity,

Vernon avick! would make hay of them all.

Come, I’ll wager that nobody quite

Aiquals his elegant blatherumskite,

Down from urbanity,

Into inanity,

Troth! and profanity—if he’d the call.

Arrah, Vernon machree! what were Bottom or Puck to you?

Falstaff himself was a harmless ould buck to you;

Look how you gather the Radical ruck to you;

Whisha, bad luck to you, Vernon avick!

Still, for all, you’re the prince of buffoons,

Gad! you’ve the dash of a troop of dragoons,

Firing the flagging ones,

Bolstering the bragging ones,

Leathering the lagging ones on wid the stick.

And though never crossing the confines of charity,

Still, in your moments of mammoth hilarity,

Who, without showing the widest disparity

Vies in vulgarity, Vernon with you?

Once Sir Ughtred was minded to frown,

Till this remark broke his prudery down—

“Is it lave jollity

All to the ‘quality,’

Cannot we masses be mountebanks too?”

Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick!

Long may you flounder, through thin and through thick,

Merriest mummer,

And burliest “bummer,”

And loudest big drummer in Westminster Hall.

The Globe. December 11, 1888.

George R. Sims.

Mr. George R. Sims was born in London on September 2nd, 1847. He was educated first, at Hanwell College, and subsequently at Bonn.

In 1874 Mr. Sims joined the staff of Fun, and about the same time he also became connected with the Weekly Dispatch, to which he communicated the humorous papers, entitled: “Mary Jane’s Memoirs.”

Since 1877 he has written much in The Referee, over the pseudonym of “Dagonet,” and most of his Ballads, which have now a worldwide fame, first appeared in the columns of that journal.

As a dramatic author Mr. Sims has also been both prolific and successful. “Crutch and Toothpick,” “Mother-in-Law,” “The Member for Slocum,” “The Gay City,” “The Half-Way House,” “The Lights o’ London,” “The Romany Rye,” and “The Merry Duchess,” are titles well-known to every modern play-goer.

Judging by the vast amount of work in essays, dramas, and poems, produced by Mr. Sims, he must be possessed of extraordinary energy, powerful imagination, and of rapid composition. Some of his prose articles and ballads display an intimate knowledge of the inner life of the miserable, and the poor of London, such as could only have been acquired by one having keen powers of observation, after considerable time spent in the haunts of dirt, danger, and disease.

In short, since Dickens left us, no writer has been so successful in this difficult and trying branch of literature, and Dickens himself was never so popular, nor were his works so widely read by the people as are those of Mr. Sims.

Although there is much that is both droll and humorous in his prose writings, the principal feature in his Ballads is homely pathos, of which the following poem is one of the best known examples.

It is one of the Ballads of Babylon (London. John P. Fuller, 1880), and is given by Mr. Sims’s kind permission:—

OSTLER JOE.

I stood at eve, as the sun went down, by a grave where a woman lies,

Who lured men’s souls to the shores of sin with the light of her wanton eyes,

Who sang the song that the Siren sung on the treacherous Lurley height,

Whose face was as fair as a summer day, and whose heart was as black as night.

Yet a blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the garden above her dust;

Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood-red rose of lust;

But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew in the one green spot

In the arid desert of Phryne’s life, where all was parched and hot.

* * * * *

In the summer, when the meadows were aglow with blue and red,

Joe, the ostler of the Magpie, and fair Annie Smith were wed.

Plump was Annie, plump and pretty, with a cheek as white as snow;

He was anything but handsome was the Magpie’s ostler, Joe.

But he won the winsome lassie. They’d a cottage and a cow,

And her matronhood sat lightly on the village beauty’s brow.

Sped the months and came a baby—such a blue-eyed baby boy!

Joe was working in the stables when they told him of his joy.

He was rubbing down the horses, and he gave them then and there

All a special feed of clover, just in honour of the heir:

It had been his great ambition, and he told the horses so,

That the Fates would send a baby who might bear the name of Joe.

Little Joe the child was christened, and, like babies, grew apace;

He’d his mother’s eyes of azure and his father’s honest face.

Swift the happy years went over, years of blue and cloudless sky;

Love was lord of that small cottage, and the tempests passed them by.

Passed them by for years, then swiftly burst in fury o’er their home.

Down the lane by Annie’s cottage chanced a gentleman to roam;

Thrice he came and saw her sitting by the window with her child,

And he nodded to the baby, and the baby laughed and smiled.

So at last it grew to know him—little Joe was nearly four;

He would call the “pretty gemplun” as he passed the open door;

And one day he ran and caught him, and in child’s play pulled him in,

And the baby Joe had prayed for brought about the mother’s sin.

’Twas the same old wretched story that for ages bards have sung:

’Twas a woman weak and wanton and a villain’s tempting tongue;

’Twas a picture deftly painted for a silly creature’s eyes

Of the Babylonian wonders and the joy that in them lies.

Annie listened and was tempted; she was tempted and she fell,

As the angels fell from heaven to the blackest depths of hell;

She was promised wealth and splendour and a life of guilty sloth,

Yellow gold for child and husband,—and the woman left them both.

Home one eve came Joe the Ostler with a cheery cry of “Wife!”

Finding that which blurred for ever all the story of his life

She had left a silly letter,—through the cruel scrawl he spelt;

Then he sought the lonely bed-room, joined his horny hands and knelt.

“Now, O Lord, O God, forgive her, for she ain’t to blame!” he cried;

“For I owt t’a seen her trouble, and ’a gone away and died.

Why, a wench like her—God bless her!—’twasn’t likely as her’d rest

With that bonny head for ever on a ostler’s ragged vest.

“It was kind o’ her to bear me all this long and happy time,

So for my sake please to bless her, though you count her deed a crime;

If so be I don’t pray proper, Lord, forgive me; for you see

I can talk all right to ’osses, but I’m nervous like with Thee.”

Ne’er a line came to the cottage from the woman who had flown;

Joe the baby died that winter, and the man was left alone.

Ne’er a bitter word he uttered, but in silence kissed the rod,

Saving what he told his horses, saving what he told his God.

Far away in mighty London rose the woman into fame,

For her beauty won men’s homage, and she prospered in her shame;

Quick from lord to lord she flitted, higher still each prize she won,

And her rivals paled beside her, as the stars beside the sun.

Next she made the stage her market, and she dragged Art’s temple down

To the level of a show place for the outcasts of the town.

And the kisses she had given to poor Ostler Joe for nought

With their gold and costly jewels rich and titled lovers bought.

Went the years with flying footsteps while her star was at its height;

Then the darkness came on swiftly, and the gloaming turned to night.

Shattered strength and faded beauty tore the laurels from her brow;

Of the thousands who had worshipped never one came near her now.

Broken down in health and fortune, men forgot her very name,

Till the news that she was dying woke the echoes of her fame;

And the papers in their gossip mentioned how an “actress” lay

Sick to death in humble lodgings, growing weaker every day.

One there was who read the story in a far-off country place,

And that night the dying woman woke and looked upon his face.

Once again the strong arms clasped her that had clasped her long ago,

And the weary head lay pillowed on the breast of Ostler Joe.

All the past had he forgotten, all the sorrow and the shame;

He had found her sick and lonely, and his wife he now could claim.

Since the grand folks who had known her one and all had slunk away,

He could clasp his long-lost darling, and no man would say him nay.

In his arms death found her lying, in his arms her spirit fled;

And his tears came down in torrents, as he knelt beside her dead.

Never once his love had faltered through her base unhallowed life;

And the stone above her ashes bears the honoured name of wife.

* * * * *

That’s the blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the garden above her dust;

Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood-red rose of lust;

But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew in the one green spot

In the arid desert of Phryne’s life, where all was parched and hot.

In 1886, Mrs. James Brown Potter recited this poem at a soirée given in the house of Mr. Secretary Whitney, in Washington, U.S.A., before a large company of ladies and gentlemen. During the recital some of the ladies rose and left the room; the New York papers spitefully remarked of those ladies who remained to hear the poem to the end, that, being in evening dress, they were observed to blush almost down to their waists.

The poem was severely criticised in several of the prudish American papers, and assigned by some of them to the pen of A. C. Swinburne, although as unlike his style as anything could well be.

The controversy that arose created a tremendous demand for the poem, and many thousands of copies were sold in a few days, from which however, the author derived no benefit whatever, owing to the disgraceful state of the international copyright, or want of copyright.

37 As Mrs. Kendal has recited the poem in public on several occasions, it may be taken for granted that it contains nothing indelicate, or objectionable, although the outcry raised in the States was so great that the principal newspapers took sides on the question, and debated the merits of the poem with almost as much heat as a Presidential Election. One well-known humorist attempted to ridicule “Ostler Joe” in the following ballad:—

Teamster Jim.

It ain’t jest the story, Parson, to tell in a crowd like this,

With the virtuous maiden a-frownin’ an’ chidin’ the giggling miss,

An’ the good old deacon a-noddin’, in time with his patient snores,

An’ the shocked elect of the Capital, stalkin’ away through the doors.

But then, it’s a story that happened, an’ every word of it’s true,

An’ sometimes we can’t help talkin’ of the things that we sometimes do.

An’ though good society coldly shuts its door on to Teamster Jim,

I’m thinkin’ ther’s lots worse people, that’s better known than him.

I mind the day he was married, an’ I danced at the weddin’ too;

An’ I kissed the bride, sweet Maggie, daughter of Ben McGrew.

I mind how they set up housekeepin’ two young, poor, happy fools,

When Jim’s only stock was a heavy truck an’ four Kaintucky mules.

Well, they lived along contented, with their little joys an’ cares,

An’ every year a baby came, an’ twice they came in pairs;

Till the house was full of children, with their shoutin’ and playin’ and squalls,

An’ their singin’ an’ laughin’ an’ cryin’ made Bedlam within its walls.

An’ Jim, he seemed to like it, an’ he spent all his evenin’s at home,

He said it was full of music, an’ light, an’ peace from pit to dome.

He joined the church, an’ he used to pray that his heart might be kept from sin—

The stumblin’est prayin’—but heads and hearts used to bow when he’d begin.

So, they lived along in that way, the same from day to day,

With plenty of time for drivin’ work, an’ a little time for play.

An’ growin’ around ’em the sweetest girls and the liveliest, manliest boys,

Till the old gray heads of the two old folks was crowned with the homeliest joys.

Eh? Come to my story? Well, that’s all. They’re livin’ just like I said,

Only two of the girls is married, an’ one of the boys is dead,

An’ they’re honest, an’ decent, an’ happy, an’ the very best Christians I know,

Though I reckon in brilliant comp’ny they’d be voted a leetle slow.

Oh! you’re pressed for time—excuse you? Sure, I’m sorry I kept you so long;

Good-bye! Now he looked kind o’ bored like, an’ I reckon that I was wrong

To tell such a commonplace story, of two such commonplace lives,

But we can’t all git drunk, an’ gamble, an’ fight, an’ run off with other men’s wives.

Robert T. Burdette.

“Ostler Joe” in the hands of a “Potter.”

She went into a soirée,

Where was many a spotter,

And she read of Ostler Joe,

—Naughty Mrs. Potter.

Ladies there “undressed by Worth,”

Scowled at the simple cotter

And his fickle wife, ha, ha!

—Wicked Mrs. Potter.

They might go to see Odette,

Or some play that’s hotter,

But Ostler Joe they wouldn’t stand,

—Horrid Mrs. Potter

Boston Courier.

Hustler Jim.

There warn’t nothin’ so blamed angelic

Nor saintish-like about him;

But, pard,—ef ever yer needed a friend—

Yer could “tie” to “Hustler Jim.”

Perhaps, if ther ’casion required it—

He would “cuss” a bit, now and then;

But a tenderer, kinder heart nor Jim’s

Haint frequently found in men.

There warn’t one parsimonious hair

In that grizzled old mop o’his,

There warn’t one deceitful line

In his wizened and humbly phiz.

His sympathies at a dog-fight

Allers backed up the smallest pup,

And his last chaw of plug terbacker

With er stranger he’d “divey” up.

Ef I wuz ter live fer er hundred years,

I shell never fergit the night

When he cleaned out “Plug” Kimberley’s bar room,

A mile or so west of Fort White.

Ef I wuz ter live fer er thousand years,

I kin never fergit the fun

The two of us had when we broke up Smith’s Place

Jest this side of Poverty Run.

If I wuz ter live fer er million years—

(Who was it remarked: “Git out.” Was it you?

Bartender? all right—I’ll “skip”—Dont shove please,

I’ll travel without!)

* * * * *

Out in the dark, damp, dreary night,

They ruthlessly “hustled” him,—

Ere he had a chance his sad tale to recite,

Ioncerning “Hustler Jim.”

Washington Hatchet, 1886.

——:o:——

BILLY’S ROSE.

(Inserted by Mr. Sims’s permission.)

Billy’s dead, and gone to glory, so is Billy’s sister Nell:

There’s a tale I know about them, were I poet I would tell;

Soft it comes, with perfume laden, like a breath of country air

Wafted down the filthy alley, bringing fragrant odours there.

In that vile and filthy alley, long ago, one winter’s day,

Dying quick of want and fever, hapless, patient Billy lay,

While beside him sat his sister, in the garret’s dismal gloom,

Cheering with her gentle presence Billy’s pathway to the tomb.

Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child,

Till his eyes lost half their anguish, and his worn, wan features smiled:

Tales herself had heard hap-hazard, caught amid the Babel roar,

Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round their mother’s door.

Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she told

How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold,

Where, when all the pain was over—where, when all the tears were shed—

He would be a white-frocked angel, with a gold thing on his head.

Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Saviour’s love,

How He’d built for little children great big playgrounds up above,

Where they sang and played at hop-scotch, and at horses all the day,

And where beadles and policemen never frightened them away.

This was Nell’s idea of Heaven—just a bit of what she’d heard,

With a little bit invented and a little bit inferred.

But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand,

For he closed his eyes and murmured he could see the Promised Land.

“Yes,” he whispered, “I can see it—I can see it, sister Nell;

Oh, the children look so happy, and they’re all so strong and well;

I can see them there with Jesus—He is playing with them, too!

Let us run away and join them, if there’s room for me and you.”

She was eight, this little maiden, and her life had all been spent

In the garret and the alley, where they starved to pay the rent;

Where a drunken father’s curses and a drunken mother’s blows

Drove her forth into the gutter from the day’s dawn to its close.

But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell the sinking boy,

“You must die before you’re able all these blessings to enjoy.

You must die,” she whispered, “Billy, and I am not even ill;

But I’ll come to you, dear brother—yes, I promise that I will.

“You are dying, little brother,—you are dying, oh, so fast;

I heard father say to mother that he knew you could’nt last.

They will put you in a coffin, then you’ll wake and be up there,

While I’m left alone to suffer in this garret bleak and bare.”

“Yes, I know it,” answered Billy. “Ah, but, sister, I don’t mind,

Gentle Jesus will not beat me; He’s not cruel or unkind.

But I can’t help thinking, Nelly, I should like to take away

Something, sister, that you gave me, I might look at every day.

“In the summer you remember how the mission took us out

To a great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about,

And the van that took us halted by a sweet bright patch of land,

Where the fine red blossoms grew, dear, half as big as mother’s hand.

“Nell, I asked the good kind teacher what they called such flowers as those,

And he told me, I remember, that the pretty name was rose.

I have never seen them since, dear—how I wish that I had one!

Just to keep and think of you, Nell, when I’m up beyond the sun.”

Not a word said little Nelly; but at night when Billy slept,

On she flung her scanty garments, and then down the stairs she crept.

Through the silent streets of London she ran nimbly as a fawn,

Running on and running ever till the night had changed to dawn.

When the foggy sun had risen, and the mist had cleared away,

All around her, wrapped in snowdrift, there the open country lay.

She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet,

But there came no flowery gardens her poor tearful eyes to greet.

She had traced the road by asking—she had learnt the way to go;

She had found the famous meadow—it was wrapt in cruel snow;

Not a buttercup or daisy, not a single verdant blade

Showed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down and prayed.

With her eyes upcast to heaven, down she sank upon the ground,

And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found.

Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim;

And a sudden, awful tremor seemed to seize her every limb.

“Oh, a rose!” she moaned, “good Jesus—just a rose to take to Bill!”

And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill;

And a lady sat there, toying with a red rose, rare and sweet;

As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly’s feet.

Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret,

And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet;

But the poor, half-blinded Nelly, thought it fallen from the skies,

And she murmured, “Thank you, Jesus!” as she clasped the dainty prize.

* * * * *

Lo that night from out the alley did a child’s soul pass away,

From dirt and sin and misery to where God’s children play.

Lo that night a wild, fierce snowstorm burst in fury o’er the land,

And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand.

Billy’s dead, and gone to glory, so is Billy’s sister Nell;

I’m bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell:—

That the children met in heaven, after all their earthly woes,

And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, “Billy here’s your rose.”

G. R. Sims.

Billy’s Nose.

Listen to a striking story. Billy and his sister Nell

Were a pair of gutter youngsters, in an alley had to dwell

(I am not a noted poet, but to tell you I shall try,

Since it “comes with perfume laden”—as a moral—that is why.)

Simple toys had made them happy through a sultry summer day

(Two old boots and one dead kitten), then they quarrelled in their play,

’Mid the grime on Billy’s visage shone in streaks the angry red,

And he seized a handy brickbat, which he threw at Nellie’s head.

Little boys should love their sisters—here I might have had to paint

How the pretty, hapless maiden suddenly grew pale and faint;

How anon she drooped and faded, looking dove-like all the while,

Rending Billy’s little bosom with the sweetness of her smile!

But she didn’t. Nellie started—darted up each creaking stair

Till she reached their dismal garret, for she knew a stick was there;

This she held behind her slyly, meaning to avenge her woes,

Sought the unsuspecting Billy, and she hit him on the nose.

Billy’s missile missed its object, Nellie’s stick descended hard,

And the boy from all his pleasures was for three whole weeks debarred;

Could he hop-scotch in the alley—in the gutter take his place,

With that lattice work of plaster—very dirty—on his face?

Little boys should love their sisters—that’s the moral that I meant,

Seeing Billy’s nasal feature now, alas! is sadly bent;

And he has a secret sorrow, for whene’er his temper glows,

Nellie stands with lean arms folded, saying “Billy, how’s your nose?”

Fred Rawkins (Harold Wynn.)

The Weekly Dispatch, 25 June, 1882.

Another Parody of “Billy’s Rose” appeared in The Umpire (Manchester) 30 September, 1888. But it does not follow the original very closely, and is rather too coarse to be inserted.

——:o:——

“The Tricycle.”

A Parody upon “The Lifeboat,” by G. P. Sims.

Been out on the Tricycle often? Yes, sir, I ride a lot.

When it’s hotter than this? Lor’, bless you, this ain’t what we call hot.

It’s when the sun is a-shining with a heat like a furnace strong,

When the air is close and stifling, and when for a breeze you long,

When a drink seems life’s sole object, and parched and dry is the breath,

When the leader’s cry, “Spurt! Forward” sounds like a sentence of death.

That’s when we call it hot, sir; but if we can manage a day,

There is always enough crack riders ready to pedal away.

You’ve heard of Tunbridge Wells, sir, down in the valley of Kent?

Here are the fellows who rode there—gone is the money we spent.

The day that we went was reckoned the hottest this summer has seen,

And this was a year when summer was hot as Egypt, I ween.

The trip was planned by the others, and two of them volunteered—

I only heard of it after, and then I was well-nigh skeered—

For roasting that day seemed certain, and I thought of the skin on my nose;

I thought of the Bank in the City, the books I had to close.

We pedalled away in the heat, sir; the “Wells” was the goal in view,

And never a one but doubted if the riders could live it through.

Our Tricycles stood it bravely, and thirsty and hot and weak,

We drew in sight of the hopfields we had dared so much to seek;

And then we rested and turned, and homeward again we faced,

When one machine collapsed, sir, as down a hill we raced!

That was an awful moment, and the stoutest held his breath,

And watched the wreck on the road, sir, as if he looked on death.

The road was strewn with pieces, and, to tell you the truth, sir, then

I thought of the Bank in London I never might see again.

I thought of the manager’s look, sir, if vacant my seat were seen

On the morrow when I was due there—and all through a friend’s machine!

However, I thought I’d risk it; I couldn’t desert a friend,

So we set to work with a will, sir, the broken wheel to mend,

And after some skilful hammering our joy can well be guessed

When we saw the wheel go round again, though shaky at the best.

Well, we stopped at a neighbouring “public”—of the rest I know no more;

But I spent next day at the Bank, sir, with limbs both tired and sore,

And as I sat calm and quiet my memory clouded grew

As I thought of that awful journey, that ride I had just gone through.

Cassell’s Saturday Journal. May 1, 1886.

——:o:——

The Terror of Tadger’s Rents.

A “Dagonet Ballad” Gone Wrong.

Ain’t heard of Tadger’s Rents? My eye! where was you bred and born?

Such ignorance it do excite a feller-creature’s scorn.

The Rents is down the Dials way—a proper kind o’ lair,

Where happy dossers come each night, and doss upon the stair.

I’ve done it many times and oft;—but never mind ’bout me,

It’s of Bill Basher I would jaw this arternoon, d’ye see?

The “Terror o’ the Rents” he was, and well deserved the name,

And yet, I hold, his heart was soft and tender all the same.

He couldn’t bear no cant, poor Bill, and humbug driv him wild,

They made a savage of a chap as was by nature mild;

And so it came to pass as he would always have his knife

Into a cove as paid his way and lived a decent life.

Joe Tomkins, he was one o’ these—a mean and sneaking cuss,

Who for no sort o’ boose that’s brewed had ever been the wuss.

“Let’s have a wet,” said Bill one day. Said Joseph, “Not for Joe!”

No wonder Bill was riled at that—he would be, don’t you know.

So later on, when he’d got screwed, he made for Joseph’s room,

As sat at tea, all unprepared to meet his orful doom.

Bill landed him upon the nose a wunner, so he did,

And then perceeded for to kick Joe’s missis and his kid.

He jumped upon the three of them, and then he come away—

You can’t see where his heart was soft, I think I heard you say.

Hold on; don’t take a feller up so precious sharp as that—

Bill came away and didn’t hurt the Tomkins’ tabby cat.

I see that animile last week, a-looking sleek and well,

But Bill he’s picking of his hemp inside a prison cell.

A martyr’s crown? I guess you’re right, for his deserts is plain,

As does his best, when on the bust, to study the humane.

Funny Folks’ Annual.

——:o:——

Another “Bagonet” Ballad.

Told by the One-armed Man.

What? A “queer place” to look for a hero?

A Seven Dials pothouse? No fear!

I’ll find heroes, I’ll bet, just as good as you’ll get,

Though perhaps they may owe to their beer

A grain—just a grain—of the courage

That stamps them the bulldogs of war.

“But, lor, where’s the hurt in a pint or a quart?

And, blow you! whoever you are—

“If you rob a pore man of his lotion,

And go turning him out of his pubs,

Whilst, half Sunday, he sits on the kerbstone, and spits,

You’re a guzzlin’ champagne in your clubs.

“Go and ’ang yerself—d’yer—did ye ’ear me?

Why you ain’t fit to live with my moke!

Mr. Stead says the toffs is all cut-throats and toffs,

Go and bust yerself—go an’ eat coke!”

A hero has spoken, as valiant

A fellow as ever broke bread—

As fly as a cop. He could hammer a slop,

And then do his “month’s hard” on his head.

He’s a thorough-blown hero, I tell you

(Though I fear I’m not much at portraiture),

P’raps he’s rough in a tiff, but, good gracious me—if

There’s a “Mr. Hyde” side to his nature,

Sure it’s not to be wondered at greatly;

For Seven Dials air’s hardly otto

Of roses. And more—as he’s told you before—

You don’t uphold “Fair Play” as your motto.

But let him run loose. Over there, sir,

You see a man sit on the bench;

Not that one with the pot—he’s a terrible sot;

Nor that one that is kissing the wench;

But that grey-haired old chap, whose right sleeve, sir,

Is empty, and pinned to his breast;

And I’ll bet you he says that he’s seen better days.

I can see it. That fine manly chest

I’ll warrant has heaved ’neath the scarlet,

Those grey eyes, so earnest and grave,

That look full of scorn, ne’er in plebeian born;

He’s a soldier—or has been—and brave.

I wonder if, speaking politely,

I’m able to somewhat unmask him,

To learn ’bout his arm. He seems passive and calm,

There’s nothing like cheek—no—I’ll ask him.

* * * * *

“How did I lose my arm, sir?”

(The grey-headed veteran rose),

“Well, come, fill up my pot, I’d as lief tell as not,”

(And he fell in a “Bagonet” pose—

You know—stand at ease—right leg forward

The right arm—or sleeve—on the breast-ee’s,

The left hanging dead by the side. And the head

Thrown well back to give play to the chest-ee’s.)

“How did I lose my arm, sir?

Ah, that’s too long a story, I fear,

Though I don’t wish to brag, it was lost for the flag

Of the Queen—and for England so dear.

“It was lost, sir, upholding the honour

That means to an Englishman life.

In the thick of the battle, midst guns’ deathly rattle,

One last thought of home and of wife—”

Then he strikes. Hark, now “Up guards, and at ’em,

Bang! Victory! On Stanley, on!

Send a volley in there—on the point of the square,

So—another like that, and we’ve won.”

See your foemen and comrades all lying

On the blood-stained heath, gory and red,

Hear the groans and the prayers of the dying

And the agonised shrieks of the dead.

Poor Jack! What, a drink from my flask, son,

And leave you to die? Save myself?

You and I, who’ve been cronies together,

Have a pull at the brandy. A Guelph

Isn’t dearer to me at this moment—

My charger’s been shot in both flanks,

But we can both straddle somehow in the saddle,

And I’ll get you back to the ranks.

What’s this dark hull that looms up against us?

This great rush of steam, and this dash?

For the ones that we love all things earthly above

Great heavens! she’s on us! A crash—

Yes, we’re struck by the Bywell Castle.

She has cut us in two with her prow,

And our boat, The Princess, in five minutes, or less,

Will suck three hundred creatures below!

“Let the women get into the boats there,

Stand back-let the critters get in!”

But some great hulking tramps crowd the boat, and she swamps,

And loud o’er the engines dim,

From the waves of the murky Thames, sir,

Come the wails of the souls in the stream.

“Keep afloat for God’s sake—sure some effort she’ll make,

No—one last shriek—one horrible scream;”

As our vessel she takes a plunge, sir,

Ah! it sickens my heart with fears;

The life-belts are thrown, as the vessel goes down,

And the old man sits in tears!

He looks at the glowing embers,

He watches the straggling flame;

But never a word from his lips is heard

As he thinks of his daughter’s shame.

How her sunny face, in the village,

As a ray of sunshine was shown;

Beloved by them all, both great and small,

Till—till the gay young squire came down.

Ah, me, ’twas the same old story,

Of the trusting girl and the scamp,

The careless miner—the unlit pipe—

And the unclosed Davy Lamp!

A flash and a terrible rumbling,

As loud of smoke from the shaft,

Of wailing dread at the grim pit’s head,

But along the wires was waft

A word from the junction signals,

“The Flying Scotchman’s through!

Clear the line; she’s late.” And the 12.48

Is ten minutes overdue!

I’ve hardly a second for thought, sir,

The 12.48’s in sight.

“Put steam, on, men, run her through, and then

We may still pull ye through all right.”

They hear my shout on the engine,

And they run her through at a rate

That the company never had dreamed about,

But alas! for it’s all too late.

But one more second and they’d have gained

The siding. But down she swept,

And few in that fated house afire

That knew—for most sound they slept.

The firemen hammered the door down.

Is there life to be saved, and where?

They plunge in the haze of the house ablaze;

Their helmets lit up with the glare.

A window opens above us,

That’s on the second floor.

And a maiden we sight—in the raiment of night—

And she calls midst the flaming roar—

“Will nobody save my Father?”

We are turned near to stone at the shock.

We are glued to the street. I can hear my heart beat

Like a five-bob American clock.

A ladder is put to the window,

A young fellow pulls off his hat,

He springs up that ladder as lithe as an adder,

And climbs with the skill of a cat.

We sweep like a wave past the Red Post!

It’s now that the battle begins.

Ev’ry eye’s on the blue. In a second or two

They’ll be shouting out “Kissing Cup wins!”

We’ve got ’em all settled, I think, sir,

No! Here comes the Captain’s colt,

He’s us at five seven! He’ll beat us—Oh, heaven!

But no—he has shot his bolt.

I can see the face of a girl, sir,

A standing there in the ring,

She’s a maiden to meet—(out of Winchester Street),

And she’s “backed us like everyding.”

I must win this race For Her, sir,

For hereon there rests a name.

Her virgin caresses—her “Empire” dresses,

And Victoria Station’s shame.

The Aeronaut clings to the cord, sir,

And owns with too well shown fright

That he’s surely come to a chosen tomb

In the Channel’s billows so bright.

When we sailed from the Crystal Palace,

There was scarce a breath of air,

And the glitt’ring sun on our huge balloon

Made a picture divinely fair.

She looked like a golden ball, sir,

As she mounted into the skies.

Sailed from the crowds and sought the clouds

The cynosure of all eyes.

But two short hours have passed us,

And here we hang o’er the sea,

In a terrible plight—not a sail in sight,

And descending rapid-lee,

A few feet below us—The Ocean!

We are fully ten miles from the land.

Good God! see—she dies—not an inch can we rise

For we’ve thrown out the last bag of sand!

To recourse—ah, I had but an instant.

I leapt—with a cry—to the ground.

And, Heaven be praised for its mercy!

I stood with the girl safe and sound.

* * * * *

“And that’s how I lost my arm, sir.

If the thing don’t strike you as clear,

Put it down to a few o’ the trials I’ve gone through,

Or—perhaps it’s along o’ this beer.”

The Sporting Times. October 20, 1888.

——:o:——

THE LIGHTS OF LONDON TOWN.

The way was long and weary,

But gallantly they strode,

A country lad and lassie,

Along the heavy road.

The night was dark and stormy

But blithe of heart were they,

For shining in the distance

The Lights of London lay.

O gleaming lamps of London that gem the City’s crown,

What fortunes lie within you, O Lights of London Town.

* * * * *

George R. Sims.

See Ballads of Babylon. London. John P. Fuller. 1880.

Those Wights of London Town.

The Correct Version.

The way was long and dreary,

But jauntily they strode,

Bill Sikes and Jim the Leary

Along the frosty road.

The night was nice and dusky,

The sky was dark and grey;

And Bill, in accents husky,

Opined they’d fix the lay!

“O gleaming lamps of London! I’d like douse your glim,

What “crackings” lie within you when you are faint and dim!”

The hours passed on and found them

A-burgling of a “shop”

And scattered all around them,

They’d got a golden crop.

And from the office window,

That lonely moonless night

The “swag” they dropped, and grinn’d O!

It was a lovely sight!

“O sleepy slops of London, who crawl about the town,

I think you must be jolly green, for we have done you brown.”

With faces black with sorrow—

With words we dare not speak,

Upon the fateful morrow,

They stood before the beak.

The “slops” had watched their capers,

And soon their way had barred,

And, according to the papers,

They each got six months hard!

“Oh cruel lights of London, why do you shine so gay?

A-showing up poor burgulars, to steal their peace away.”

S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald.

The Lights o’ Ascot Heath.

The way was long and dusty,

But joyfully they drove,

A London lad and lassie,

Along the Ascot road;

The day was hot and muggy,

But blithe of heart were they,

For shining in his pocket

Some twenty dollars lay.

Oh! gleaming heath of Ascot,

That gem of racing sights,

What fortunes you could tell of;

What sad and sorry flights.

With faces torn and beery,

That told a loser’s load,

That day a man and woman

Crept up the London road:

They sought their native alley,

“Regular broke” from the fray,

Yet shining still behind them

The heath of Ascot lay.

Oh! cruel heath of Ascot,

If D’s your race could win,

Your victims’ mouths would yell them,

To get their favourite in.

The Sporting Times. June 20, 1885.

——:o:——

The Ballad Monger.

It was a ballad monger,

Of the gruesome, morbid type,

And he told of cold and hunger,

“Little alls” sent “up the pipe.”

And he piled on high the agony,

As with sobs we gasped for breath,

When he sang us—à la Dagonet,

Of murder, want, and death.

Doth a child convert a burglar,

Or that burglar kill that child,

Then this sentimental gurgler,

“Airs his slush”—to put it mild.

He will tell you how it’s mother—

Yes, the child’s of course not Sykes’—

Was a relative of t’other,

By a natural son of “Mike’s!”

How this “Mike” was Sykes’ father,

And the father himself betwixt

A duke and an earl—or rather,

When the parentage got mixed.

And so on and yet so forth,

Will this “poet” meander on,

Till he proves my Lord of Beauforth,

Was undoubtedly Mike’s son.

And the child was Sykes’s daughter,

And the mother wife to he,

Though their grandma wasn’t sorter,

Everything that she might be.

Yet the moral indicated,

In this tale that is bedeckt,

Troubles not this addle-pated,

Jerry-plotting architect.

Should occasion demand a sonnet,

On a “starve” or on a “freeze,”

Then our ballad monger is “on it,”

With his dismal, doleful, wheeze,

And he’s safe upon this track, sir,

To his muse he ne’er resorts,

For his scenes are based on facts, sir,

Solid facts from police reports.

Oh, the unction of this whiner,

Of a tune pitched in a key,

Which the clef is B flat minor,

And as dirge-like as can be.

Not content with dying father,

Teething babe and wasting wife,

With his licensed poetic lather,

He must needs call in the knife.

Need I wade through scenes of torture,

To the climax strong and hot,

When the son, himself a “scorcher,”

Takes and massacres the lot.

No! I needn’t, for it’s certain.

That in sympathy you’d choke,

With emotion at the burden,

Bf this ballad-slinging bloke.

Heber K. Daniels.

From The South Western Star.

Truth for October 14th, 1886, contained half-a-dozen ballads written in the style of Mr. Sims’s poems. The three following may be quoted as interesting imitations, but it will be seen that they do not parody any particular poem:—

Little Flo.’

Tell you the tale o’ Flo, sir, and how she came to die?

’Twere a sad time in my life, tho’ it’s so long gone by.

I was a drunken brute then—never thought much o’ Flo;

Nearly al’ays in liquor—got jolly screwed, you know.

Yes, I treated her shockin’! life must ha’ been pretty bad,

She’d prom’sed her dyin’ mother al’ays to look after dad.

I used to laugh at her notions, she was but a gal o’ seven,

And ’ad got it fixed in her ’ead to bring me along to heaven.

“Dad!” she’d say to me sometimes, “it’s beau’ful bright in there;

Everyone’s al’ays ’appy, and got golden crowns to wear.”

How I laughed at the child then, to think o’ a crown on my head;

I told her to shut up cantin’, I didn’t want to be dead.

Still some’ow I wasn’t ’appy, for ’appen I’d got a fright,

And wondered whatever’ud’appen if I should die that night,

So to keep down her pleadin’s I off on a pretty good spree,

Down at the pub at the corner, along o’ my mates and me.

We was pretty gone on the wrong side, stagg’rin’ ’ome that night,

And there was Flo sittin’ and watchin’, with the room clean and bright.

With a curse at her for waitin’ I flung myself on the bed,

Catchin’ the lamp with my arm, and pullin’ it down on my ’ead.

Flo flung herself down upon me, and then I woke from my daze,

We smoth’rd the flames with a rug, but Flo was all a blaze.

I flung the blanket upon her, I seemed to go off my ’ead;

But when I got back to my senses, they told me that Flo was dead.

She’d given her life for her father, for such a wretch as me,

And mainly because she knew, sir, that I warn’t fit to die.

When I got better they told me the last words ’o little Flo

“They wouldn’t have ’im in ’eaven, if he was drunk, you know.”

On my word, sir, that fetched me, I never drank since that night;

And I prays as I’ll follow Flo up to her ’ome ’o light.

For as that child forgave me, I believes by and by

As He’ll forgive me too, sir, who came for sinners to die.

So little Flo’s life warn’t lost, she showed me the way to live;

She showed me what goodness meant, the way that a girl can forgive.

When I am tempted to drink, I thinks o’ the last words o’ Flo,

“He couldn’t be let into ’eaven if he was drunk, you know.”

Magnum Bonum.

The Coster’s Plea.

What ’ave I got to say, Mr. Beak, about the row last night,

When I knocked the peeler down twice? Well, it was just a fight

For liberty for me, sir—me an’ me old dawg Jack;

The bobby tried to cop ’im, and I put ’im on ’is back.

I tried to fight ’im fair, sir, but ’e pulled ’is trunchin out

To brain my dear old dawg with, an’ the people round about

Cried “Shame!” but it ony made him madder like, yer see,

And then ’twas a matter ’o fists for to set my old dawg free.

Why did I fight for a dawg so an’ try to injer the perlice?

Well, cos if they ’ad took ’im I’d ’ave never ’ad no peace.

Just cos that faithful dawg years ago did that for me

What I could’nt, sir, forget if a ’underd I should be.

Twelve years ago old Jack, ’e, when not much mor’n a pup,

One night lay in ’is corner—’e’d ’ad neither bit nor sup;

For times ’ad bin rare bad—’e lay down an’ shet ’is eyes,

’E was ’ungry, an’ wet, an’ tired, an’ ’ad ’ardly strength to rise.

The missus an’ me went off up ter bed ter try ’an sleep,

But when your stummick’s empty, its apt yer awake to keep;

But at last we went sound off, an’ dead beat as we ’ad bin,

A sleep as ’eavy as death, by-an’-bye, we both was in.

I suppose we’d been asleep nigh upon a couple o’ hour,

When Jack ’e woke me barkin’, an’ I see ’is tew eyes glower,

Then I looked an’ missed our kiddy from ’er bed on the floor,

But I spied ’er little bed things layin’ close again the door.

I turned ter Poll to wake ’er, when I see a awful glare

Cornin’ in the bedroom winder, an’ the ’eat was ’ard to bear,

The ’ouse was all ablaze, an’ we’d dropped out ter the ground

’Bout ten minits, when it fell in scatt’rin fire all around.

Jumpin’ out Jack broke ’is leg bad, and our kiddy’s life he’d saved;

’E ’ad took ’er out in safety, an’ ’ere on me ’earts engraved,

The deed o’ that there dawg, who come back through fire to us,

An’ can ye wonder now, sir, that last night I made a fuss?

’E braved a burnin’ staircase, an’ ’ed stayed till we had dropped,

An’, when my Poll, soon after, straight away to glory popped,

She said, “Jim, keep our Jack safe,” an’ I’ve allus’ kep’ me vow,

An’ you’ll let me off, sir, won’t you, so that I don’t break it now;

The kid ’as gone to her mother, wi’ the angels up above,

An’ if I should lose old Jack, why, I’d nothin’ ave ter love,

Ah! don’t be ’ard, sir, this time—don’t break a poor cove’s ’eart;

What, sir? I’m free! God bless yer! me dawg an’ me won’t part!

Aglaus.

Sally.

What’s the matter down the alley

Don’t yer know? I thought as ’ow

Every one ’ad ’eard of Sally—

Killed last week in a drunkin row.

Come aside, then, out of the mob, sir.

A drink? I don’t mind if I do.

I don’t like talkin’ of this job, sir;

But any ’ow I’ll tell it you.

Well, I think ’twas last December—

’Bout as near as I can tell—

Joe Hale, then a stiddy member,

Lost ’is wife an’ kid as well.

That upset ’im altogether,

Drove ’im nearly off ’is head;

Whether it was that, or whether

It was not, it’s what was said.

Fightin’ every night an’ boozin’,

Doin’ weeks an’ months in quod,

Sellin’ all ’is sticks, an’ losin’

All he ’ad, when on the cod;

An’ he’d leave pore little Sally

(Sally was ’is daughter, sir)

For days a starvin’ in the alley,

Givin’ not a thought to ’er.

This night Joe was fightin’ madly

In a gang of drunkin’ brutes,

Who, if things was goin’ badly,

’Ud down a man an’ use their boots;

An’ little Sally, screamin’ “Murder!”

With a face just like a sheet,

Rushed among the fightin’ herd, sir,

An’ fell down beneath their feet.

Trampled on, an’ crush’d, an’ moanin’,

They carried Sal out of the fight;

She lay a little while a groanin’,

An’ then she died the selfsame night.

An’ now they’re goin’ to bury Sally—

An’ Joe? Ah, Joe, too, ended bad,

For when he seed ’er dead in the alley,

He went stark, starin’ ravin’ mad.

Phil. Lascelles.

45 The pathetic ballads of Mr. Sims are frequently chosen for recitation, and good parodies of them are much sought after, as a relief to the overwrought feelings of the auditors.

There is a recitation written by Mr. Richard H. Douglass, which is often given by him with success, entitled “Christmas Day in the Beer-house.”

In its opening lines it somewhat resembles Mr. Sims’s “Christmas Day in the Workhouse,” but it does not follow that poem sufficiently to be styled a parody, and is, moreover, rather coarse in its style.

Every one remembers “The Manual for Young Reciters,” which appeared in Punch in 1887, and has since been issued in a small volume, entitled “Burglar Bill,” by J. Anstey, (London, Bradbury, Agnew & Co.) Two of the papers contained in this are imitations of Mr. Sims; Burglar Bill is one, but a far more amusing specimen is A Coster’s Conversion. A poor harmless costermonger relates how he

“Give a copper a doin’,

As ’ad said my barrer was blockin’ the way,

And they took me afore a beak,

And he see what I wanted was change o’ hair,

So he sent me to quod fur a week.”

Whilst he is away in durance vile some well meaning, but mistaken, philanthropist converts his wife to Æstheticism, and on his return to his humble roof, he is much amazed, and by no means pleased, with the alterations made in his home:—

“I’ll not ’ave none of it, Betsy,” I sez—and I chucked the lot of it out,

And I did’nt recover my self-respeck till I see it go up the spout!

For we all on us has our feelings, Sir, and my pride it was cruel ’urt,

To think as a swell could ha’ gone so fur as to rob a poor man of his dirt!

But I never ’anker for Culcher now, nor henvy no harristocrats,

For I’m cured fur life of the longing I ’ad fur a roomful of brick-a-bats.

Of spadgers and pea-green paint you’ll find in the attic ’ardly a trace,

And, when me and my old woman ’as words—there’s allus plenty o’ space!

* * * * *

This appeared originally in Punch, May 14, 1887.

Mr. Sims has recently published (London, Chatto and Windus) The Dagonet Reciter, which contains most of the poems which have been referred to in this Collection, “Ostler Joe,” “The Life-boat,” “Keeping Christmas” etc., as well as a selection of his humorous prose writings.

Before leaving this author, there remains a parody of his to be quoted, it should have appeared in Volume IV., which contained other parodies of “The Lost Chord.”

The Lost Cord.

Seated one day in a carriage,

I was frightened and ill at ease,

For a fellow, behaving wildly,

Was up to his drunken sprees.

I knew not if he was playing,

Or what I was doing then,

But I pulled the cord like winking,

While the lunatic shrieked “Amen.”

It rattled against the ceiling

As I clasped it in my palm,

Then it broke and fell on the cushion,

Where it lay in a holy calm.

It startled the next compartment,

On the lunatic’s nerves it jarred;

It reached the length of the carriage,

But it never reached the guard.

It may be a grand invention

At the distant guard to get;

But I’ve tried it in twenty cases,

And I’ve never succeeded yet.

George R. Sims.

From The Lifeboat, and other Poems. 1883.

The following Volunteer parody, of the same original, recently appeared in the First Lanark Gazette.—

The Lost Shot.

Shooting one day at the targets,

In a steady three-o’clock breeze,

I watched my score rise quickly—

I was making bulls’-eyes with ease.

I knew well what I was doing,

And what I was thinking then,

As I fired my one last bullet,

And awaited the signal again.

It sped thro’ the Golden Ether,

With the speed of an angel’s wing,

And it must have reached the target,

For I’m certain I heard the “ping.”

I waited with utmost confidence

For the signal that never came;

I challenged, and paid my sixpence,

But the marker ignored my claim!

I raged with perplexed feelings,

And swore like a big dragoon;

Then I fretted away into silence

O’er the loss of the silver spoon.

I have sought, and I still seek vainly

The value of that one last shot,

For which I claimed a bull’s-eye,

Only the scorer said it was not.

It may be that playful zephyrs

Wafted it over the plain;

It may be that only in dreamland

I shall find my last shot again.

Corporal.

CLEMENT W. SCOTT.

Many poems written by this distinguished dramatic critic are chosen for recitation, notably “The Women of Mumbles Head” which is to be found in “Lays of a Londoner” (London, Carson and Comerford, 1886.) A very funny parody of this, entitled “The Wreck of the Steamship ‘Puffin,’” is in Burglar Bill, by J. Anstey, and would form an amusing contrast to the original, in the second part of an entertainment.

Another well-known poem by Mr. Clement Scott was the Tale of the Tenth Hussars, in favour of the late Colonel Valentine Baker, which originally appeared in Punch, and was quoted, with a parody on it, on p. 87, vol. iv. Parodies.

The Garden of Sleep.

(With compliments to Messrs. Clement Scott and Isidore de Lara)

There’s a crib in Whitechapel is used by a heap,

An’ the deppity calls it ’is Garden o’ Sleep!

Where the Heast Hend hexotics are bloomin’ in rows,

An’ the fake an’ the cadger find blameliss repose.

For a double or single you settles the boss,

An’ you dumps down your coppers an’ goes for your doss;

Though if turn out you won’t when your time’s fairly sped,

They’ve a ’abit of lettin’ you down by the ’ead,

An’ a bump on your Barnet you commonly keep

All the day hafter leavin’ the Garden o’ Sleep.

Sleep! sleep! Never mind things wot creep!

Sleep, my dossy ones, sleep!

If you’ve ’tecs on your track there’s but foppence to pay,

You can set in the kitching the ’ole of the day,

Smoke your clay, brile your bloater, or swill down the booze,

While you reads o’ your deeds in the Hecko or Noos,

An’ you splits the bone buttons right orf of your west

Wen they brings you the word of your latest harrest;

An’ you larfs till the water runs out of your heyes

Wen you thinks of the slops goin’ round in disguise,

And the ’andsome reward as no cully won’t reap,

’Cept some pal blows the gaff in the Garden o’ Sleep!

Sleep! sleep! for the slops we’re too deep!

Sleep, my dossy ones, sleep!

Once a swell come a-slummin’ in second-’and slops,

And my pal, which is William, the needle ’e cops,

And ’e twigged ’im a-takin’ down notes on the sly,

An’ arranged for to cure ’im o’ doin’ Poll Pry;

For ’e kep’ on a-sniffin’ and saying, “Ho, dear!

There’s a state o’ things ’ighly deplorable ’ere!”

An’ ’e cussed at the blankits, which all was ’is spite,

As the gent as ’ad used ’em since Wensday fortnite

Was a gifted an’ ’ighly respectable sweep,

As is werry well known in the Garden o’ Sleep!

Sleep! sleep! A respectable sweep!

Sleep, my dossy ones, sleep!

Then my pal an’ me pulls that there swell out o’ bed,

An’ we gets a young lady to set on ’is ’ead,

An’ we searches ’is pockets and collars the mags,

Takes ’is coat an’ ’is weskit, and also ’is bags,

An’ we tenderly pitches ’im out in the street,

Where ’e is copped by the bobby as b’longs to the beat;

An’ we watches an’ watches, but watchin’ is wain,

’Cos that swell ’e won’t never try slummin’ again,

As a fine for disorderly drunks gets ’im cheap

Orf that night as ’e spent in the Garden o’ Sleep!

Sleep! sleep! Two ’arf bulls does it cheap!

Sleep, my dossy ones, sleep!

Judy. November 28, 1888.

ROBERT BROWNING.

In dealing with Parodies of the works of living authors, the chief difficulty to contend with is, that some of the parodies may read rather flat and uninteresting to those who are unacquainted with the original poem.

Such familiar poems as Lord Tennyson’s “May Queen,” or “Lady Clara Vere-de-Vere,” it would of course be quite unnecessary to reprint, but now that more modern poems are under consideration it is desirable to give such of the originals as can be inserted, with the authors’ express permission. Hitherto the necessary authority has been gracefully accorded, and, in several instances, supplemented by valuable bibliographical information. Thus showing that some of the leading poets of the day recognise the value of this Collection as a literary record, and fully appreciate the strict line that is drawn to exclude vulgar, personal, or malicious lampoons.

In accordance therefore with the usual custom, a courteously worded letter was sent to Mr. Robert Browning, asking his permission to quote a few extracts from his shorter poems, with the assurance that no offensive parody of his works should be inserted.

Mr. Browning’s reply was to the effect that as he disapproved of every kind of Parody he refused permission to quote any of his poems, adding in somewhat ungracious language, that his publishers would be instructed to see that his wishes were complied with.

Perhaps the world does not greatly care whether Mr. Browning approves of Parody, or does not; neither can he very well expect that the completeness of this Collection should be sacrificed in deference to his distaste for a harmless branch of literature which has amused many of our greatest authors, and best of men. Byron and Scott could laugh at the Rejected Addresses, and enjoy a merry jest, even at their own expense, but let no dog bark when the great Sir Oracle opens his lips, and no daring humourist venture to travesty the poems of Mr. Robert Browning!

This injunction comes rather late, for numerous parodies of his works have already been written, of which some of the best must be included here. It is to be hoped that the perusal of them may induce some readers to seek in the originals those beauties which herein are only dimly shadowed forth.

Mr. Robert Browning was born at Camberwell in 1812, and educated at the London University. In September 1846, he married Miss Elizabeth 47 Barrett, the poetess (who died in 1861), by whom he had one son, Mr. Robert Browning, the well-known artist.

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.

This is probably the best known of Mr. Browning’s earlier poems, it is given in Bell’s Standard Elocutionist, and various other collections.

On January 23, 1882, Mr. Browning wrote to the Oracle—“There is no sort of historical foundation for the poem about ‘Good News from Ghent.’ I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel, off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse, ‘York,’ then in my stable at home.

“It was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of Bartolio’s ‘Simboli,’ I remember.”

This Poem was chosen as the original for a Parody Competition in The World, and the two following parodies appeared in that entertaining journal on August 13, 1879.

How the Good News was brought from Ulundi to Landsman’s Drift.

First Prize.

One turn in the saddle to look at the smoke,

Then into a canter the stout pony broke.

“All right!” cried the laager’s last picket; and I,

“Right!” cheerily answered, as, cantering by,

I took in the very last hole in my belt,

And, alone with my tidings, rode into the veldt.

Not a word from a comrade to cheer me, no beat

From an answering hoof to make him more fleet,

For the nag; but I gave, with the flat of my hand,

A friendly rib-binder he’d well understand.

Each strap was in place, each buckle was right,

As is custom with me ere I ride for the night.

I started at noon, and at Panda’s old kraal

We stayed, where there tinkled a thin waterfall,

To wash out our mouths; and I ran for a spell,

With my hand on the pommel, then into the selle—

The stouter the pair of us, so for the rest—

We swished through the grass to the crimsoning west.

By the river, and up through the pass in the range;

By track of the troops and trail that was strange

Down donga and drift, past koppie and stone,

We galloped while daylight should last all alone.

And thankful enough, God wot, too was I,

To be free from the Zulu and his company.

Babinango to northward, and south by the map

Must be Umblabankosi through yon azure gap.

“Half-way, my tough garron, half-way! We shall do

If the next merry moiety you’ll travel so!”

I groomed his hot legs with the African herb

And he snuffled responsive and rattled his curb.

Then a thick fog crawled to us and shut up the moon,

And the stars too; nor did I a minute too soon,

With compass and chart, once more strike the trail,

And shake the staunch pony together to sail—

Like a stout ship, keen watch at the bows, and steered small

Mid berg and mid mist—to a guessed-at landfall.

Well, we fetched it at last; nor did I refuse

A draught of good wine in return for my news.

The battle was fought, and the tidings were brought

By a man and a horse, thirty leagues at a bout.

I’ve no story to tell; it’s a matter of course

When a Briton on duty bestrides a good horse.

Plunx (Mr. George Heaton).

Second Prize.

I sprang to the stirrup; my friend the D.T.

Should gallop right fast if he meant to beat me.

“Good luck!” cried the rearguard, as past them I sped.

“There are Zulus about; keep a bright look ahead!”

’Twas noontide, and near the full heat of the day,

As through the fierce sunlight I galloped away.

Not a being to speak to; I kept the great pace

Alone o’er the desolate grass-covered space;

Turned round in my saddle, and saw through the glare

The smoke of the burning kraals rise in the air;

Then again facing forward each tuft well I scanned,

And strapped my revolver more ready to hand.

Good news—over hill, over dale, speeding fast—

Ere sundown Fort Evelyn had heard as I past;

Then gratefully over us flew the cool spray,

As through Umlatoosi we splashed on our way:

With twilight there came a fresh breeze sweeping by,

And the bright stars peeped forth from the darkening sky.

At moonrise Fort Marshall lay close on the right,

And still my stout galloper sped through the night,

With nostrils dilated, stretched neck, and clenched teeth,

While his hoofs dashed the dew from the grass underneath

In ceaseless, monotonous, regular beat,

Till Sandwhlana lay steeped in white mist at my feet.

Rorke’s Drift and the Buffalo River were nigh,

When a bank of black clouds rose and darkened the sky;

The bright moon was hidden, and hidden each mark,

And I came near to missing the ford in the dark:

As we left the cold river I patted my steed,

And urged him again to his uttermost speed.

On, on still I rode, as the wild huntsman rides:

In the dawn I could just see the foam-covered sides,

See the head sinking low, see the staggering knees,

Feel the shudder that shook him as wind shakes the trees;

Yet onward he struggled with fast-failing strength,

And safe into Landsman’s Drift galloped at length.

And all I remembered was, “Now it is done;

I was first with the news of the victory won;

And no voice but will praise this long gallop of mine,

When ’tis talked of at breakfast or over the wine.”

Odd Fish (Mr. Charles McIntyre).

How I won the Challenge Shield.

I sprang to the saddle and Wheeler and Lea;

I treadled, Lea treadled, we treadled all three:

“Five mile!” cried the judge, decked in rosette of blue;

Whiz! went our front wheels as past him we flew:

And loud were the public with cheer and with jest,

As round the first lap we sped on abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Yard by yard, wheel by wheel, never changing our place:

And firm in my saddle—prepared for each swerve—

I steadied each muscle and braced up my nerve,

Reserving my whole strength, kept pace with the two,

And neither was favourite, at least to the view.

We were scratch all at starting; but when we drew near

The first mile I led, amid deafening cheer;

At two the “crack” wheeler was the first of the three;

The third mile was led by the resolute Lea;

And from ropes and pavilion was heard the loud roar

As the judge’s gruff voice gave the mileage at “Four!”

At five miles I spurted and kept up the run,

And gained the lost lead that the others had won,

And bent o’er my wheel and went inch by inch past

My sturdy opponents and left them at last,

With sure-footed pedals each spinning away,

And still on the watch like a cat for its prey.

I now kept the inside and heard them at my back—

Saw their shadows athwart on the smooth cinder track,

And each eye’s sharp look-out lest they neared on the right,

Kept my bi. well in hand as each wheel came in sight;

And the roar of the people which aye and anon

Would quicken each pedal and hasten it on.

Next moment Lea fell; cried the judge, looking grim,

“Poor fellow, fought bravely, the fault’s not in him,

’Tis cursed ill-luck!” For he saw by his face,

Scarred and cut, and white lips, he was out of the race,

And carried him off to the shade of the tent

And came back to criticise us as we went.

So we were left treadling, Wheeler and I,

To spin for the prizes—no cloud in the sky;

The broad sun above shed its pitiless shine,

Down my face rolled the sweat and stung me like brine;

Then loudly the judge, coming near as we passed,

Said, “Go it, my hearties, this lap is the last!”

How they shouted! and all in a moment a spurt

Gave him an inch lead—but he found me alert,

And then was my stamina put to its test:

He and I fought the battle, and onlooked the rest,

With his head near the wheel, and his teeth firmly set,

He still kept my side and no farther could get.

Then I called up my energies; loud was the cry

That came from the thousands of spectators nigh;

Gripped firmly the handles, the grasp of grim death,

And steadied the pedals, then took a deep breath,

Clenched my teeth, gained a yard, as we flew down the track,

Till the shouts told me plainly I’d beaten the “crack.”

And all I remember, is friends flocking round,

Who bore us both shoulder high then off the ground,

And the club all en masse cheered this record of mine,

And my health was the pretext for bumpers of wine.

And the fellows all voted three cheers from the field,

For the victor and vanquished, who fought for the shield.

W. H. Smith.

The Wheeling Annual. 1885

——:o:——

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN.

This poem is given in full in The Comic Poets of the Nineteenth Century, published by Routledge & Sons, London. It has been the subject of several political parodies, one of the best being that which appeared in Punch, May 1, 1880, entitled “The Bagpiper of Midlothian.” This described how the Liberals in Midlothian despaired of their cause, and the Tories were jubilant, when suddenly Wandering Willie the Piper appeared.

And “Please your Worships,” said he, “I’m able,

By means of a secret charm, to draw

All creatures—with ears—beneath the sun;

After me they are bound to run

In such a style as you never saw.

I’m willing,” said he, “to try my charm

On the Tories—they’re doing the country harm.

I’m also possessed of a spell, you’ll see,

To strengthen limp Libs, who’ve gone weak at the knee;

The time-serving Rat and the envious Viper;

And they call me Wandering Willie the Piper.”

And here they observed that he carried his pipes,

This man of the breeze-blown Galashiels stripes,

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying,

As if impatient to be playing.

But the Big-Whigs looked just a little bit cool,

Inclined to believe that the man was a fool;

Whilst the Tories yelled “You may do your worst,

And blow away till your Bagpipes burst.”

Into the street the Piper stept,

Smiling a little sardonic smile,

Gs if he knew what music slept,

In his quiet pipes the while.

Then like a regular Scotch adept,

To blow the pipes his lips he bagged,

His fingers flew, ne’er a moment they lagged,

And e’er three notes the pipes had uttered

You heard as if all Scotland muttered;

And the muttering grew to a mighty roaring,

And out of their strongholds the Tories came pouring,

With many a grunt and many a groan:

And not the Tory hosts alone,

But the Liberal rats. There were swell rats, seedy rats,

Bold rats, timid rats, plump rats, greedy rats,

Nor the rats and the Tories alone came forth,

But the long-silent Radical hosts of the North,

Willingly, gleefully, shouting and cheering,

Heedless of “fagots,” of jibe, and of jeering,

Grave old plodders, and gay young friskers,

Grandfathers, fathers, sons, uncles, and cousins;

Greybeards, boys with scarce-budding whiskers,

Valiant voters, by twos, tens, dozens.

And as still that Piper (a plague on him!) played.

Not the North alone in his train was arrayed,

But the Voters flocked from east, west, south,

And the Midlands, witched by that magical mouth;

Voters from counties, and cities, and boroughs,

From toil at the furnace, from work at the furrows;

Voters from mansion, mart, meadow, and mine,

Voters of all sorts and sizes, in fine,

Rushing and crushing, ran eagerly after

That wonderful music, with shouting and laughter.

Then the Big-Whigs stared, and the Tories stood

As if they were changed into blocks of wood,

Unable to fashion a fetching cry

To rally those Voters hurrying by—

Could only follow with envious eye,

Hearts in the doldrums and heads on the rack,

That numberless crowd at the Piper’s back,

A mighty flood whose resistless roll

Swept that Piper’s foes from their place at the Poll.

* * * * *

Off for the Holidays.—the Pied Piper of
Westminster leading the way.

Have ye not in memory kept

How, when out into the street

Hamelin’s Pied Piper stept,

From his reed pass’d notes so sweet

That the children all came running,

Captivated by his cunning,

Follow’d at his heels, and then

Never more returned again?

A spectacle like to that kind of thing

At Westminster now is happening;

The piper there, thinking the time is ripe,

Tootles aloud on his festive pipe.

And at once there’s a bustling and scrambling and hustling

To flee in hot haste from debate and its tussling,

Peers’ shoes are pattering, Commons’ boots clattering,

All of them blithely of holidays chattering,

Eager to show they at least have a smattering

Of yachting or sport,

Or pursuits of a sort

That are currently thought to supply health and pleasure

To overworked statesmen whene’er they get leisure.

But here the case grows different;

For while these children of Parliament

Dance over the hills and far away

Directly they hear the Piper play,

Though they go to the mountain or up to the moon,

They’ll return to St. Stephen’s—and that pretty soon.

Fun. August, 1884.

——:o:——

Poets and Linnets.

After Robert Browning.

Where’er there’s a thistle to feed a linnet

And linnets are plenty, thistles rife—

Or an acorn-cup to catch dew drops in it

There’s ample promise of further life

Now, mark how we begin it.

For linnets will follow, if linnets are minded,

As blows the white-feather parachute;

And ships will reel by the tempest blinded—

Ay, ships, and shiploads of men to boot!

How deep whole fleets you’ll find hid.

And we blow the thistle-down hither and thither

Forgetful of linnets, and men, and God.

The dew! for its want an oak will wither—

By the dull hoof into the dust is trod,

And then who strikes the cithar?

But thistles were only for donkeys intended,

And that donkeys are common enough is clear.

And that drop! what a vessel it might have befriended,

Does it add any favour to Glugabib’s beer?

Well, there’s my musing ended.

Tom Hood, the younger.

Fun. September, 1865.

The Quest of Barparlo.

So, gat me to the oaken, gnarlèd man,

That sat within the sounding-gate, half-wrapt,

Encumbered by three-cornered phantasies,

Hard-lipped, and low’ring like an autumn sky

When winter jostles in before his time,

Powdering his silvern breath against the brown.

Now, thought I, if mayhap by time or tide,

Or swiftly confluent imaginings,

Or great Potentialities (which thrive

On weakness,—for the doubtful gains on doubt

As doubt grows yet more weakly in its doubt!)

I may achieve to speech with this old man,

Tho’ barrel-hooped with yellow waistcloth,—propped

By king’s-cord on the nether, nerveless knees,

He seems yet unattainable: the sky,

Th’ imponderate vast æther—every star

Have by the climbing-ladder brain of man

Been searched and labelled. Nature, once so coy,

Has yielded to her noble ravisher,

And I, Barparlo, in whose pulses run

The golden blood of fearless ancestors,

Will—must—bespeak this rustic sage, or die!

But now the old man sudden turned, and so

He spied me, and with scoop’d hand to his ear

Attentive listened, glow’ring as I spoke.

“Oh, age! Conglomerate youth! For such is age,

If age be age amid the ages! For

The ages know not age, but ever run

In youth—yet youthless, for they bring us age—

Why sit you in the sun that sinks to show

Man’s self a parable; not inchoate

Like something self-revolving on itself

To something pre-sublime, co-ordinate

With the eternal justice of the Poles!”

To whom, with bitter smile, the enraptured sage

Curling a blue spire from his hollow clay—

“Oh, ax the Parson. I don’t know no French!”

Judy. July 7, 1880.

——:o:——

Parodies of Mr. Browning’s poem “Wanting is—What?” in Jocoseria.

Browning is—what?

Talent redundant,

Verbiage abundant,

—Where is his blot?

Beaming his verses, but blank all the same.

—Framework that waits for some reason to frame:

What of his meaning?—Strive for an hour—

Posies unreal, grapes that are sour!

No neatness, completeness, O lyrical mummer!

Panting for vagueness, unmusical strummer!

Breathe o’er thy lyre,

Apollo! and thence

Into his mire

Throw life, throw sense,

Throw sense!

H. W. Hancock.

Loving is—what?

Nothing material,

Essence ethereal.

—Say, is it not?

More than a myth, yet unreal all the same.

—Vapour electric with passion and flame;

What is love’s glory, what is love’s power?

Something devouring what nought can devour!

Love, then, content discontentment, O lover!

Feast on the phantom round which you hover!

Feed on the gleam

Revealed from above,

For youth’s fervid dream

Is life, is love,

Is love!

Charles A. Cooper.

Wanting is—what?

Lemon redundant,

Sugar abundant.

—Water made hot!

Shining the glass, yet a blank all the same.

—Framework that waits for a liquid to frame:

What of the whisky, what of its power?

Spirits devouring with nought they devour!

Come, then, O bright brain!—bewildering body,

Gleam through the goblet, and perfect the toddy!

Who drinks may remark

How all that was near

Grows distant and dark,

Grows dim, grows queer,

Arows—queer!

Mynie.

Wooing is—what?

Sighing redundant,

Blisses abundant.

—What is it not?

“Balmy”’s the word, yet it’s rough all the same.

—Fretwork which warps both the mind and the frame:

What of her temper, what of her dower?

Posers o’erpowering which come in a shower!

Come it, O pleasing perplexity, come it

A trifle less strong, while I venture to sum it

Up in one breath:

The absence of gold

To wooing is death—

Calf-love grows cold,

Grows cold!

Exe.

Wanting is—what?

(A Billiard Mystery. From the new volume “Jomilleria.”)

Wanting is—what?

Scoring addition,

Getting position,

Here on the spot?

Seamy his clothes, yet a crack at the game.

—Marker he knows, and addresses by name:

What of the sharper, what of his power?

Gloomily glowering with nought to devour!

Come then, complete ignoramus, O comer,

Flush in thy greenness, needy the bummer!

One game he lets

You make,—that’s enough!

Trebles the bets,

Goes slow, gives snuff,

Gives snuff!

A. S. W.

From The Weekly Dispatch, April 1, 1883.

The following imitation, written by Miss Fitzpatrick, appeared in the Red Dragon Magazine, (Cardiff), September, 1884:—

Come is the Comer!

Wild Winter railing,

Snow storms prevailing,

Gone is the Summer!

Bleak looks the world,

Yet a something is here,

A Picture, but waiting the Frame to appear.

Bare are the branches,

Ne’er a flower blooms,

The Roses lie dead, unbemoaned in their tombs,

Yet come has Completion! that marvellous tinter,

That maketh a Paradise even in winter!

Happiness rife,

Though Death reigns around,

For sweeter than Life

Is Love when found,

Gove’s found!

——:o:——

THE LOST LEADER

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat—

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allow’d:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had loved him so, follow’d him, honour’d him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learn’d his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

* * * * *

The Latest News.

[The young ladies of Girton have given up their Browning Society, and expended the funds thereof on the purchase of chocolate.]

They just for a handful of chocolate left us—

Just for some sweetmeats to put in their throats:

Of their sweet converse these girls have bereft us,

Scorning Bard Browning, the deepest of “potes,”

Once they professed they would worship the Master,

And help to expound him to lit’rature clubs;

But now—oh, most direful and dreadful disaster!—

Those girls have in chocolate spent all their “subs.”

Just for some mouthfuls of chocolate only,

Quit they the Browning Society’s fold;

Leaving their male fellow-worshippers lonely,

Puzzling out lines of mysterious mould.

Oh! say what is sweetstuff to sentences mystic,

That Girton girls should thus forsake the true “cult”?

Oh, when they might pore o’er B.’s lines aphoristic,

Wherein can “sweets” makes girl-graduates exult!

Oh! think what they might have taught Philistine readers,

Expounding, maybe, Browning’s foggiest line!

Instead of which now of mere worldly joys heeders,

They look upon sweetmeats as something divine.

Once as apostles our teaching they aided—

Even contributing cash with much glee;

But now to mere chocolate-worship degraded,

On Sweets, not on song, do they spend £ s. d.!

Fun. March 31, 1886.

51 And on April 17, 1886 Punch had also a parody founded on this topic of the Girton Ladies, containing the following verses:—

A Story of Girton.

Oh, the scholary girls, too blue,

Who lived at Girton, down by the Cam,

Just where the Cam bids the town adieu!

And who would ever have thought them a sham—

These girls, and the lots they knew?

Too blue, for the colour of health is red;

And their eyes had the dull, boiled-gooseberry look

Of maids who are meant to go to bed

When down from their laps flops the out-spread book,

But consume night’s oil instead.

Yet I noticed, like a flowering shrub

A bloom in a desert, one striking grace:

They might “screw” like mad when afloat in a “tub,”

And never get up the ghost of a pace,

But they had a “Browning Club”!

So, when one waxed ill, it did not seem strange

That the Lady Principal sighed, and said,

“A stoppage of work I must arrange;

To studies recondite she’s too much wed,

And from books she needs a change.”

“Not my books,” the patient cried;

“Take not the desk that my books contains!

For o’er the ‘Browning Club’ I preside,

And the mystic masterly fruit of his brains

Is my solace, glory, and pride!”

Her request being granted, asleep fell she;

The Lady Principal joyed at that;

But when the Doctor dropped in, said he,

“It’s only a bilious attack, that’s flat.

Brain trouble? Fiddle-de-dee!”

The desk, it chanced, was not quite closed:

“Why does she clutch it so?” asked the leech;

The Lady Principal supposed

That to have her dear Bard within reach

Consoled her as she dozed.

“Let’s look inside!” And at once—oh, dreams

Of “Female Culture,” and the rest!

They found—no masterly mystic themes,

No Pippa, no Duchess, but—who would have guessed?—

A box of Chocolate Creams!

* * * * *

——:o:——

THE PATRIOT.

It was roses, roses all the way,

With myrtles mixed in my path like mad.

The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,

The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,

A year ago on this very day.

The air broke into a mist with bells,

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.

Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels,

But give me your sun from yonder skies!”

They had answered “And afterward what else?”

* * * * *

A Parody.

It was pouring, pouring, all the way,

As we scampered along the road like mad;

The trees were a mist of shadows grey

As past them we swept—such nags we had!—

A week ago, on the Gold Cup Day.

The air was rent with a myriad yells,

Our ears were shocked with the crowd and cries,

As they strained for the sound of the saddling bells;

The sun was a-sulk in the clouded skies,

Though he shone out afterward. What else?

What else? I know that the wrong horse won,

Though over the luncheon I fell asleep,

For I woke to find myself all undone;

I had sown the wind, and I needs must reap

The whirlwind after the race was run!

There’s nobody on the Grand Stand now,

Where a week ago such a concourse met;

The best of the sight after all, I vow,

Was the ladies lawn, with its luncheons set,

Though that looks sad enough now, I trow!

Gossamer.

The Weekly Dispatch. June 25, 1882.

Another parody also appeared in Punch, July 24, 1886, entitled:—

The Party Leader.

A very old story.

It was cheering, cheering, to the close

O’ my speech that day I launched the Bill:

From serried ranks the row uprose,

And hats are waved, and voices thrill;

And I!—I thought I’d dished my foes.

* * * * *

——:o:——

A Parleying with a Certain Person of no
Importance in His Day.

No, Joseph Chamberlain, near Premier, no.

You promise Gladstone quarter? Not for Joe.

Perpend this allegory—pauca verba.

A vagrom Viper, latitans in herba,

Seeing a grand old Mongoose passing, cried,

“Come, let’s be amicable—side by side

Excogitate alliance—great and good,

Rule the whole roast, dukes of this wandering wood.”—

“With pleasure,” put in t’other. While they went

En camarade, ostensibly content,

Serpens, observing all associates own

Obedience to his brother-beast alone,

Waxed parlous wrath, within adumbrate Vale

Bit unsuspecting Mongoose sharp on tail.

“Excuse me Sir,” rejoinder came unshaken,

“Meseems such step’s thaumaston hôs mistaken.

Quid hoc?”—one! two! a momentary flummock—

X (quadruped) sat an Y (snake) his stomach.

“Spt, spt—grr, grr—awk, awkrr,” spluttered latter,

“You mar my meaning monstrously. No matter.

Get off my epigastrium. Make amends.

Brr—give me breath (confound you, brute!)—Be friends.”

Verb. sap.—What quotha grand old Mongoose?—Oh,

Referred said reptile-thing to Jericho.—

Explain? Not I, save this much; then I’m dumb:

Snake, Mongoose, Vale, equal Joe, Gladstone, Brum.

Pall Mall Gazette. March 17, 1887.

——:o:——

Two Sides.

Browning’s.

Love-making, how simple a matter! No depths to explore,

No heights in life to ascend—no disheartening before—

No affrighting hereafter. Love will be love evermore.

Ours.

Love-making, how awful a matter! We’ve been there before;

The father determined we shouldn’t—the mother watching the door;

Till even the girl was affrighted, and wrote us to see her no more.

——:o:——

My Kate.

(On Miss Kate Vaughan’s quitting the Gaiety Company in
order to come out in a New and Serious Line.)

Her air has a meaning, her movements a grace,

You turn from the fairest to gaze at her face;

And when you have once seen her dance, ’tis a treat

That you may encore, but which she won’t repeat—

My Kate!

Renouncing burlesque, she’s about to enact

The fair Amy Robsart—I hope ’twill attract.

And when thou art gone, who will here take your part,

While you’re starring the country as Amy Robsart,

My Kate?

We praise you as charming, and ask if you mean

To give up burlesque and play Tragedy Queen?

The Mashers will cry, o’er this doleful event,

“The charm of her presence was felt when she went!”—

Our Kate!

Punch. June 16, 1883.

——:o:——

Lays of a Lover.

(A Roasting, after Browning.)

Oh, to be out of London now that no one’s here,

For who ever sleeps in London dreams each morning of a pier,

And a flowing sail, and a burnished sea,

And an azure sky that is not for me,

While my darling sings at the Seagul’s bow

In Venice now.

For after Goodwood, when Cowes follows,

And the blue-blood leaves us like the swallows,

Hark! where the blooming flower-cart in the street

Leans ’neath its weight and scatters for the drover

Petals and old clothes—’neath the bovine feet.

That’s the harsh voice: that cries each ware twice over

Lest you should miss the purport of his jargon,

And this cheap matchless bargain.

For though our streets are hot, and skies are blue,

The air is not so fresh as breathed by you;

The butterflies are thirsting for a shower;

The milk of human kindness turning sour.

Fun. August 13, 1884.

Two parodies of the same poem appeared in Punch, one on April 14, 1883, the other on June 7, 1888.

These can be readily obtained at Punch office, as also the following: “The Losing Leader” Punch, July 26, 1884. “Stanley,” after Waring, Punch, June 2, 1888.

“Gladstone Unmasked” which appeared in Punch as long ago as 1866, was written by the late Shirley Brooks, as a parody on Browning. The poem, which is long and quite out of date now, may be found in “Wit and Humour” by Shirley Brooks, London, 1883.

——:o:——

Post Chronology.

A chronologic skull sir! ’twas a poet’s;

But ’tother’s wasn’t my friend’s friend’s, I say.

Our first, a Lombard, were the wind to blow its

Loudest, could not daunt him, loved to pray

Too, in all the English language is no rhyme

Describes him thoroughly. You should have watched him knit

Those brows of his, black brows, sir, scarred by time

And scowling like a pent-house. But your sonnet

Should have a moral, let’s to it, tooth and nail.

You’d never catch it, were you to fall on it

Without premeditation. Work like a snail

Gnawing a lotus leaf, you’re on the brink of it—

How now Sir Numbskull turn and think of it.

The above burlesque sonnet is given in Mr. John H. Ingram’s biography of “Oliver Madox Brown,” although it is doubtful whether that talented young poet was the author of it or what it means.

——:o:——

Mr. Browning wrote the following elegant and luminous lines for the window in honour of Her Majesty’s Jubilee, presented by the parishioners to St. Margaret’s, Westminster:—

Fifty years’ flight! wherein should he rejoice

Who hailed their birth, who as they die decays?

This—England echoes his attesting voice;

Wondrous and well—thanks Ancient Thou of days.

A correspondent, who is not a member of the Browning Society, thinks that the following quatrain might be substituted,—

Seventy-five years! Wherein do they rejoice

Who read his work, who, as he writes, decays?

This—plain folk echo their protesting voice—

“Wondrous! but no more, thanks! old thou of days.”

——:o:——

On page 103, Volume 5 of this Collection some extracts were given from “The Poets at Tea” a series of short parodies which appeared in The Cambridge Fortnightly, for February 7, 1888. The three following verses, which were then omitted, may be given here:—

The Poets at Tea.

Tennyson, who took it hot.

I think that I am drawing to an end,

For on a sudden came a gasp for breath,

And stretching of the hands, and blinded eyes,

And a great darkness falling on my soul.

O Hallelujah!... Kindly pass the milk.

Swinburne, who let it get cold.

As the sin that was sweet in the sinning

Is foul in the ending thereof,

As the heat of the summer’s beginning

Is past in the winter of love:

O purity, painful and pleading!

O coldness, ineffably gray!

O hear us, our hand-maid unheeding,

And take it away!

Browning, who treated it allegorically.

Tut! bah! We take as another case—

Pass the bills on the pills on the window-sill; notice the capsule.

(A sick man’s fancy, no doubt, but I place

Reliance on trade-marks, sir)—so perhaps you’ll

Excuse the digression—this cup which I hold

Light-poised—bah! its spilt in the bed—well, let’s on go—

Held Bohea and sugar, sir; if you were told

The sugar was salt would the Bohea be Congo?

* * * * *

——:o:——

Of Mr. Browning’s later poetry, or, what may be termed his involved and complicated style, some excellent parodies exist. They are rather long, and would be somewhat tedious reading to those who are unfamiliar with the originals; as the books in which most of these parodies occur are easily obtainable a few extracts will suffice.

First, may be mentioned Diversions of the Echo Club, an American work written by the late Mr. Bayard Taylor, published, in London, by Chatto and Windus.

This contains no less than four imitations of Robert Browning’s poetry, they are all good, but perhaps the following is the most characteristic in style:—

Angelo orders his Dinner.

I, Angelo, obese, black garmented,

Respectable, much in demand, well fed

With mine own larder’s dainties, where, indeed,

Such cakes of myrrh or fine alyssum seed,

Thin as a mallow-leaf, embrowned o’ the top,

Which, cracking, lets the ropy, trickling drop

Of sweetness touch your tongue, or potted nests

Which my recondite recipe invests

With cold conglomerate tidbits—ah, the bill!

(You say,) but given it were mine to fill

My chests, the case so put were yours, we’ll say,

(This counter, here, your post, as mine to-day,)

And you’ve an eye to luxuries, what harm

In smoothing down your palate with the charm

Yourself concocted? There we issue take;

And see! as thus across the rim I break

This puffy paunch of glazed embroidered cake,

So breaks, through use, the lust of watering chaps

And craveth plainness: do I so? Perhaps;

But that’s my secret. Find me such a man

As Lippo yonder, built upon the plan

Of heavy storage, double-navelled, fat

From his own giblets’ oils, an Ararat

Uplift o’er water, sucking rosy draughts

From Noah’s vineyard,—... crisp, enticing wafts

Yon kitchen now emits, which to your sense

Somewhat abate the fear of old events,

Qualms to the stomach,—I, you see, am slow

Unnecessary duties to forego,—

You understand? A venison haunch, haut gout,

Ducks that in Cimbrian olives mildly stew,

And sprigs of anise, might one’s teeth provoke

To taste, and so we wear the complex yoke

Just as it suits,—my liking, I confess,

More to receive, and to partake no less,

Still more obese, while through thick adipose

Sensation shoots, from testing tongue to toes

Far-off, dim-conscious, at the body’s verge,

Where the froth-whispers of its waves emerge

On the untasting sand. Stay, now! a seat

Is bare: I, Angelo, will sit and eat.

Leading Cases done into English, by an Apprentice of Lincoln’s Inn. London, Macmillan & Co. 1876. This amusing little volume (said to be the work of Mr. Pollock) contains a case, entitled Scott v. Shepherd, which is reported in true Browningese diction:—

Any Pleader to any Student.

Now, you’re my pupil!

On the good ancient plan I shall do what I can

For your hundred guineas to give my law’s blue pill

(Let high jurisprudence which thinks me and you dense,

Set posse of cooks to stir new Roman soup ill):

First volume of Smith shall give you the pith

Of leading decision that shows the division

Of action on case from plain action of trespass

Where to count in assault law benignantly says “Pass.”

Facts o’ case first. At Milborne Port

Was fair-day, October the twenty and eight,

And folk in the market like fowls in a crate;

Shepherd, one of your town-fool sort,

(From Solomon’s time they call it sport,

Right to help holiday, just make fun louder),

Lights me a squib up of paper and powder,

(Find if you can the law-Latin for ’t)

And chucks it, to give their trading a rouse,

Full i’ the midst o’ the market-house.

It happ’d to fall on a stall where Yates

Sold gingerbread and gilded cates

(Small damage if they should burn or fly all);

To save himself and said gingerbread loss

One Willis doth toss the thing across

To stall of one Ryall, who straight an espial

Of danger to his wares, of selfsame worth,

Casts it in market-house farther forth.

And by two mesne tossings thus it got

To burst i’ the face of plaintiff Scott.

And now ’gainst Shepherd, for loss of eye,

The question is, whether trespass shall lie.

* * * * *

Well—liquor’s out, why look more at old bottle?

Gulp down with gusto, you that are young,

These new Rules’ ferment, tastes ill in my throttle

Since Justice, in nubibus no more on high sitter

Descends to speak laymen’s vulgar tongue.

So be it! Explicit-parum feliciter.

It is usually considered that The Cock and the Bull, by the late C. S. Calverley, is the best parody extant of Robert Browning’s “The Ring and the Book,” the following are the opening lines:—

“The Cock and the Bull.”

You see this pebble stone? It’s a thing I bought

Of a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day.

I like to dock the smaller parts o’ speech,

As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur

(You catch the paronomasia-play ’po’ words?)

Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days.

Well, to my muttons! I purchased the concern,

And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for same

By way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange—

“Chop” was my snickering dandiprat’s own term—

One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm.

O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four

Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir?

What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock,

One day (and what a roaring day it was

Go shop or sightsee—bard spit o’ rain!)

In February, eighteen sixty-nine,

Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei.

Hm—hm—how runs the jargon? being on the throne.

Such, sir, are all facts, succinctly put,

The basis or substratum—what you will—

Of the impending eighty thousand lines.

“Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge.

But there’s a superstructure. Wait a bit.

* * * * *

From Fly Leaves, by C. S. Calverley. London. George Bell & Sons.

——:o:——

In The Heptalogia (Chatto and Windus, 1880) there is an imitation of Browning, entitled “John Jones,” and in Recaptured Rhymes, by H. D. Traill (W. Blackwood and Sons, 1882) there is a parody from “The Puss and the Boots.” These cannot be quoted in full, and extracts would convey little idea of the humour of the pieces. The latter (by Mr. Traill) is modelled somewhat upon Mr. Calverley’s “Cock and the Bull.”

In July 1888, The Family Herald (London) had a long article on parodies, which contained some amusing examples, but the writer of the article committed the unpardonable literary crime of not giving references to the authorities from whom he quoted. His note on Robert Browning’s poetry, and his parodies, is given below:—

“Mr. Browning is far too great a man to be mentioned lightly; but we must own that to some natures his later work is distasteful, and even repulsive. His early poetry ranks among the highest in English; and, if we were compelled to write down the names of, say, six poems which we regard as the best in the language, two of the six—“The Last Ride Together” and “The Flight of the Duchess”—would be Mr. Browning’s. Perhaps he is too great now to be content with mere brilliant work that haunts the memory for life, and inspires the innermost soul. If so, we are sorry, for we would not give the two poems which we have named, with perhaps the “Ride from Ghent to Aix,” for a library of exasperating Sordellos. We cannot cure Mr. Browning, and we must be content to endure him for the sake of old times. The great, crabbed, formless poet gives the buffoons a rare innings; for his jagged, ramshackle blank verse, with its conjunctions protruding at the ends of lines, its parentheses, its small jokes, its puns, its pedantic display of useless learning, its aimless wanderings, its half-hints, all tend to make the reader feel as if he were taking a little walk with a halting cripple who persisted in digging him in the ribs, and kicking up dust before his eyes. When we get a gleam of lucidity from Browning, he is matchless; but he refuses to write plain English and so the parodists have him on the hip. Here is a parody by a skilled craftsman who handles the poet with affection—

Not that I care for ceremonies—no;

But still there are occasions, as you see

(Observe the costumes—gallantly they show

To my poor judgment!), which, ’twixt you and me,

Not to come forth, one’s few remaining hairs

Or wig—it matters little—bravely brushed

And oiled, dress-coated, sprucely-clad, the tears

And tweaks and wrenches people overflushed

With—well, not wine—oh, no, we’ll rather say

Anticipation, the delight of seeing—

No matter what!—inflict upon you (pray

Remove your elbow, friend!), in spite of being

Not quite the man one used to be, and not

So young as once one was, would argue one

Churlish, indifferent, hipped, rheumatic, what

You please to say.

So, not to spoil the fun—

Comprenez-vous?—observe that lady there,

‘In native Worth.’ Aha, you see the jest?

Not bad, I think? My own too! Woman’s fair,

Or not—the odds, so long as she is dressed?

They’re coming! Soh! Ha, Bennett’s ‘Barcarole’—

A poor thing, but mine own! That minor third

Is not so bad, now! Mum, sirs! (Bless my soul,

I wonder what her veil cost?) Mum’s the word!

The strange thing is that the rickety stuff above is a perfectly fair burlesque. The cadence—or lack of cadence—the horrid involutions, the breaks into bald dulness, are all Browning’s to the very essence.”

——:o:——

This is not the place in which to enter upon a dissertation on the style of Mr. Robert Browning. Profundity of thought is not necessarily accompanied by obscurity of language, and yet the admirers of Mr. Browning contend that it is precisely in those poems which are the most difficult to understand, that his chief excellencies are to be found. Hence several “Browning Societies” have been started for the express purpose of explaining this obscure writer to persons of only average intelligence. Now a Homer society, or a Shakespeare society, one can understand, these poets are dead and cannot be appealed to, for the solution of doubtful readings, or confused passages. But Mr. Browning is alive and well, and should be able, if he were willing, to clear up the meaning of any obscurity in his own writings. Were he to do this, however, a few amiable hero-worshippers, and fussy founders of Societies, would lose their vocation, and perhaps the public would not greatly gain.

Many anecdotes are told of Browning’s obscurity.

When Douglas Jerrold was recovering from a severe illness, Browning’s “Sordello” was put into his hands. Line after line, page after page, he read; but no consecutive idea could he get from the mystic production. Mrs. Jerrold was out, and he had no one to whom to appeal. The thought struck him that he had lost his reason during his illness, and that he was so imbecile that he did not know it. A perspiration burst from his brow, and he sat silent and thoughtful. As soon as his wife returned he thrust the mysterious volume into her hands, crying out: “Read this, my dear.” After several attempts to make any sense out of the first page or so, she gave back the book, saying: “Bother the gibberish! I don’t understand a word of it!” “Thank heaven!” cried Jerrold, “then I am not an idiot!”

The Browning Society.

A Bitter Error.

A long haired man, with a look of unutterable yearning in his deep set eyes, stole into the well filled auditorium, and took a seat in the rear pew. He listened to the speaker with the closest attention, and seemed to derive the most intense enjoyment from words which were incomprehensible to the majority of the audience.

“Magnificent! sublime!” he was heard to murmur.

55 “You understand him, sir?” inquired the man next the long haired stranger.

“Perfectly, perfectly. Did you ever hear anything more”—

“But I can’t understand a word he says.”

“Indeed! You are to be pitied. Ah, this seems like home. You see, I arrived from New York only an hour ago, and happening to hear of this meeting came here at once.”

“It is not possible that you are a Chinaman?”

“A Chinaman! What do you mean, Sir? I am from Boston.”

“From Boston, eh? How is it that you understand Chinese?”

“I don’t understand Chinese, sir. What do you mean?”

“Why, the man who is speaking is a missionary who has just returned from Hong Kong, and he is exhibiting his proficiency in the Chinese language by reading a chapter in the Bible in that tongue.”

The Bostonian’s face paled.

“Why,” he gasped, “isn’t this a Browning Club?”

“Certainly not.”

“And isn’t he reading one of the great master’s”—

“Great Scott, no! The Browning club is on the next floor.”

Then the sad eyed man arose and staggered thence, a hopeless, despairing look in his fathomless orbs.

——:o:——

One Word More.

(Written in a Gift-copy of “Parodies,” by a
Contributor to its pages.)

Take them, Chum, the book and me together;

Where the heart goes, let the art go also.

Hamilton collated many verses,

Grouped and set them in sequential volumes,

Wrote them, may be, with the self-same stylus

Else he used for “The Æsthetic Movement.”

Good for most, save one who in this volume

(Who that one you ask?) did dreadful rhymings,

Take it then to treasure for a life-time,

Not to slumber, neighbour to my sonnets,

But at times brought out, to tell its story.

This is cheek, say you! Well, if it be so,

Cheek me back again in self-same fashion,

Then my cheek may turn you to a poet.

You I think, would rather have this volume,

Even though I sadly mar its pages,

Would you not? Mate, linger over Ouida,

Yea, man read, those very red Gaboriaus,

Pall Malls, Globes, or blushing racy “Pink-un,”

Dear to travellers on the Inner Circle.

What of all this scribble? All this nonsense?

This; no rhymer lives that loves and longs not,

Often, more than once, yea, frequently,

(Like the Major-General to the “Pirates”)

To make fun, of stately solemn subjects,

Turning upside down what’s art to others,

Not, mind you, deriding its true nature,

But the while its maker truly loving.

Does he paint? then straight burlesque his picture,

Does he write? then parody his poems,

Show, as proof how well you know your author,

Once, or twice, and then the last time going

(Like an auction) then knock down your hero.

Gain the fool’s laugh, dare the author’s sorrow.

I shall never in the years remaining,

Paint you pictures, lucky that for you, chum!

Nor make music, that would send your fingers

Straight to plug your ears, but my delusion

This of rhyming letters, bear in patience

Verse and worse, I have and still will send you,

Others’ rhymes and others’ poems twitting,

All their jokes and mine for you—my own chum.

J. W. G. W.

Frederick Locker-Lampson.

The refinement of taste which has marked the second half of the nineteenth century has been highly favourable to the production of the lighter forms of poetry, and no other age has been so prolific in writers of vers-de-société and of those other more exotic forms of composition known as Ballades, Rondeaus, and Villanelles.

It is true that Praed, who led the way as the writer of vers-de-société, died fifty years ago, but for one who now reads Praed, there are twenty who know by heart the poems of Frederick Locker.

And there can be no hesitation in assigning him the leading position amongst those of our living Poets who write to please, and instruct, by their playful wit, gentle satire, and tender pathos, without deeming it necessary to compose sermons in epics, or poems which require as much labour to disentangle as to solve a problem of Euclid.

Mr. Frederick Locker, for in that name he achieved fame, was born in 1821, coming of an old and distinguished Kentish family. His father was a Civil Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, and his grandfather was the Captain W. Locker, R. N., under whom both Lord Nelson and Lord Collingwood served. Lord Nelson attributed much of his success in battle to the maxim inculcated by his old commander, “Lay a Frenchman close, and you will beat him.”

Captain Locker died Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital.

The literary career of Mr. Frederick Locker has been so uniformly successful that there is little to recount.

His original poems were mostly published in the magazines, until in 1857 he issued his volume entitled “London Lyrics.” The first edition, which is now very scarce, and much sought after by collectors, had a frontispiece by George Cruikshank. This book has passed through many editions, and is now published by Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., London.

In 1867, Mr. Locker published “Lyra Elegantiarum,” containing a collection of the best English vers-de-société, with an introduction in which he enumerated the qualifications which should be possessed by any poet who aspired to produce perfect specimens of vers-de-société.

Mr. Locker-Lampson has also written a few humorous parodies, one of which, “Unfortunate Miss Bailey,” was given p. 47, Vol. I., Parodies.

It only remains to be said that in the following pages the extracts from his poems are inserted by the kind permission of Mr. Locker-Lampson.

One of his best known poems, “St. James’s Street,” was published in 1867. This was stolen, and spoiled in the 56 stealing, by a piratical editor, the two versions are here given side by side:—

ST. JAMES’S STREET.

St. James’s Street, of classic fame,

The finest people throng it.

St. James’s Street? I know the name,

I think I’ve passed along it!

Why, that’s where Sacharissa sigh’d

When Waller read his ditty;

Where Byron lived, and Gibbon died,

And Alvanley was witty.

A famous street! To yonder Park

Young Churchill stole in class-time;

Come, gaze on fifty men of mark,

And then recall the past time.

The plats at White’s, the play at Crock’s,

The bumpers to Miss Gunning;

The bonhomie of Charlie Fox,

And Selwyn’s ghastly funning.

The dear old street of clubs and cribs,

As north and south it stretches,

Still seems to smack of Rolliad squibs,

And Gillray’s fiercer sketches;

The quaint old dress, the grand old style,

The mots, the racy stories;

The wine, the dice, the wit, the bile—

The hate of Whigs and Tories.

At dusk, when I am strolling there,

Dim forms will rise around me;—

Lepel flits pass me in her chair,

And Congreve’s airs astound me!

And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite,

Look’d kindly when I met her;

I shook my head, perhaps,—but quite

Forgot to quite forget her.

The street is still a lively tomb

For rich, and gay, and clever;

The crops of dandies bud and bloom,

And die as fast as ever.

Now gilded youth loves cutty pipes,

And slang that’s rather scaring,—

It can’t approach its prototypes

In taste, or tone, or bearing.

In Brummell’s day of buckle shoes,

Lawn cravats and roll collars,

They’d fight, and woo, and bet—and lose

Like gentlemen and scholars:

I’m glad young men should go the pace,

I half forgive Old Rapid;

These louts disgrace their name and race,—

So vicious and so vapid!

Worse times may come. Bon ton, indeed,

Will then be quite forgotten,

And all we much revere will speed

From ripe to worse than rotten:

Let grass then sprout between yon stones,

And owls then roost at Boodle’s,

For Echo will hurl back the tones

Of screaming Yankee Doodles.

I love the haunts of old Cockaigne,

Where wit and wealth were squander’d;

The halls that tell of hoop and train,

Where grace and rank have wander’d;

Those halls where ladies fair and leal

First ventured to adore me!

Something of that old love I feel

For this old street before me.

Frederick Locker.

1867.

ST. JAMES’S STREET.

Old Ballad.

St. James’s-Street, of classic fame,

The finest people throng it!

St. James’s Street? I know the name!

I think I’ve passed along it!

Why, that’s where Sacharrissa sighed

When Waller read his ditty;

Where Byron lived, and Gibbon died,

And Alvanley was witty.

A famous street. It skirts the Park

Where Rogers took his pastime;

Come, gaze on fifty men of mark,

And then call up the fast time.

The plâts at White’s, the play at Crock’s,

The bumpers to Miss Gunning;

The bonhomie of Charlie Fox,

And Selwyn’s ghastly funning.

The dear old street of clubs and cribs,

As north and south it stretches,

Still smacks of William’s pungent squibs,

And Gilray’s fiercer sketches;

The quaint old dress, the grand old style,

The mots, the racy stories;

The wine, the dice; the wit, the bile,

The hate of Whigs and Tories.

At dusk, when I am strolling there,

Dim forms will rise around me;

Old Pepys creeps past me in his chair,

And Congreve’s airs astound me,

And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite,

Looked kindly when I met her;

I shook my head, perhaps—but quite

Forgot to quite forget her.

The street is still a lively tomb

For rich and gay and clever;

The crops of dandies bud and bloom,

And die as fast as ever.

Now gilded youth loves cutty-pipes

And slang that’s rather rancid,

It can’t approach its prototypes

In tone—or so I’ve fancied.

In Brummel’s day of buckle-shoes,

Starch cravats, and roll collars,

They’d talk, and woo, and bet—and lose

Like gentlemen and scholars,

But now young nobles go the pace

With blacklegs, grooms, and tailors;

And scions soon of noblest race

May pass the night with jailors.

Worse times may come, Bon ton, alas,

Will then be quite forgotten,

And all we much revere will pass

From ripe to worse than rotten;

Rank weeds will sprout between yon stones,

And owls will roost at Boodle’s,

And shame will echo back the tones

Of Coachington, Lord Noodle.

F. L.

The Queen’s Messenger. August 12, 1869.

St. Giles.

A London poet sang of late

In exquisitely tender verses,

How in their whirl the wheels of Fate,

Changed cars of triumph into hearses.

He said St. James’s wit and smiles

Were trodden under foot by shoddy—

Bah! let me sing about St. Giles,

And chronicle the sin of toddy.

Long years ago, St. Martin’s Fields

Were ripe with grain and purple clover

Where grisly thieves the kitchen shields,

And yellow ’busses topple over.

The very spot, where rose the lark

To sing its song to all creation,

Is given over after dark

To deathly deeds and desolation.

Just where the parson from his door

Relieved the sorrows of the humble,

The workhouse shields the houseless poor,

Who execrate the mighty Bumble.

A thousand nightingales in song

Have warbled melodies for ages,

Where now canary-sellers throng,

And linnets chirp in tiny cages.

Where Strephon sighed and sighed to win,

And dainty Phyllis churned her butter,

The costermonger shrieks for gin,

And helpless rolls about the gutter;

Where Sacharissa ’neath her fan

Was smiling at his lordship’s raving,

The ragged wife adores the man,

Who beats her head against the paving.

There’s not a spot and not a stone,

But spoke a poem when we met it,

That does not echo to the moan

Of poverty—do we regret it?

If we have sorrow for St. James,

And sing about its loss of swelldom,

We needs must weep St. Giles’s shames,

Although we think about them seldom.

Henry S. Leigh.

Fun. November 16, 1867.

——:o:——

TEMPORA MUTANTUR!

Yes, here, once more a traveller,

I find the Angel Inn,

Where landlord, maids and serving-men

Receive me with a grin:

Surely they can’t remember Me,

My hair is grey and scanter;

I’m changed, so changed since I was here—

O tempora mutantur!

* * * * *

The curtains have been dyed; but there,

Unbroken, is the same,

The very same crack’d pane of glass

On which I scratch’d her name.

Yes, there’s her tiny flourish still;

It used to so enchant her

To link two happy names in one—

O tempora mutantur!

Frederick Locker.

Tempora Mutantur!

No pea-shooters upon the way

No careless chaff and banter

No passing blows to take and pay!

O Tempora mutantur!

The traps go soberly along,

Scarce one is in a canter,

The language even isn’t strong—

O Tempora mutantur!

The times were very different when

I went with my enchanter;

Young men in those days were young men;

O Tempora mutantur!

Of course you’ll say its for the best

(My Boy, pass the decanter!)

But now your Derby’s lost its zest

O Tempora mutantur!

Catullus of Fleet Street.

——:o:——

BRAMBLE-RISE.

What changes meet my wistful eyes

In quiet little Bramble-Rise,

The pride of all the shire;

How alter’d is each pleasant nook;—

And used the dumpy church to look

So dumpy in the spire?

This village is no longer mine;

And though the Inn has changed its sign,

The beer may not be stronger;

The river, dwindled by degrees,

Is now a brook, the cottages

Are cottages no longer.

The mud is brick, the thatch is slate,

The pound has tumbled out of date,

And all the trees are stunted:

Surely these thistles once grew figs,

These geese were swans, and once these pigs

More musically grunted.

Where boys and girls pursued their sports

A locomotive puffs and snorts,

And gets my malediction;

The turf is dust—the elves are fled—

The ponds have shrunk—and tastes have spread

To photograph and fiction.

Ah! there’s a face I know again,

There’s Patty trotting down the lane

To fill her pail with water;

Yes, Patty! but I fear she’s not

The tricksey Pat that used to trot,

But Patty,—Patty’s daughter!

* * * * *

Frederick Locker.

A Song at Sixty.

My boyhood’s home! How clearly rise

Thy varied scenes before mine eyes

In fair perspective.

I hear the bull-frogs in the pond—

The whippoorwill’s weird notes respond

To thoughts reflective.

Again I see the old “worm fence,”

Around the pasture-lot from whence

The cows lowed over

At milking time, as if they smelled

The many-windowed barn, that held

The corn and clover.

I see, beyond the garden-gate

The gray bull-calf, that used to wait

To “hook” that gate off—

And flower-beds, where browsed the bees

’Neath overhanging cherry-trees

Whose twigs he ate off.

’Twas there, above the hollyhocks,

The blue birds thronged the martin-box

That wrongly housed them.

There too, from out the red oak grove,

Their brother bandits came and strove

In vain to oust them.

And there, a flock of noisy geese

Down to the brimming pond in peace

Would oft meander—

To come again when day declined,

Wide-waddling homeward, strung behind

Their valiant gander.

All’s past—I only thought to spin

Gold thread of sunny dreams within

This cushioned “rocker.”

My blood’s too slow—too weak my nerves

For poaching on the choice preserves

Of Frederick Locker.

C. H. L.

The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.

——:o:——

His Girl.

Oh, she wears a sealskin sacque,

When it snows;

And her stunning suit is black

As a crow’s;

Short; and thinks it is a pity,

Charming, jolly, wise, and witty:

Has a retroussé—so pretty—

Little nose.

In her basket phaeton,

When it blows,

With her striking glasses on,

Out she goes;

And she’s just as sweet as stately,

And she sits there so sedately,

With her cheeks and lips so greatly

Like a rose.

She plays Chopin, Liszt, and Spohr

For her beaux.

And she speak of “Pinafore”—

Heaven knows!

With a naughty “D” and “Never!”

But she’s awful nice and clever;

If she liked me, I’d endeavour

To propose.

Detroit Free Press. 1882.

AN INVITATION TO ROME

Oh, come to Rome, it is a pleasant place

Your London sun is here, and smiling brightly;

The Briton, too, puts on his cheery face,

And Mrs. Bull acquits herself politely.

The Romans are an easy going race,

With simple wives, more dignified than sprightly;

I see them at their doors, as day is closing,

Prouder than duchesses, and more imposing.

* * * * *

Frederick Locker.

1863.

Mr. Gladstone in Rome.

“Caffè-latte! I call to the waiter,—Non c’e latte.

This is the answer he makes me, and this is the sign of a battle.”

Clough in 1848.

Old Rome in December. Take out your umbrella

For we picnic no more with Cæcilia Metella,

While flirtation is wholly unheard in the sheeny

And shadowy paths of the Aldobrandini.

Mr. Locker, to Rome a poetical rover,

Has, sketched us the flirts, and the croquet moreover,

He’ll smile as he sees, in the shade of St. Peter’s

How coolly we’ve stolen his phrases and metres.

But though English are few on the Pincian Hill,

One grave politician is lingering still;

From Montorio looks down on the Tiber, and thinks

That the problem of Rome beats the crux of the Sphinx;

That no one can tell us the ultimate bias

Of the city of Cæsar, and Pasquin, and Pius;

That the milk of the She Wolf meant bloodshed and sorrow;

And—will there be milk at the Caffè to-morrow?

The Globe. London.

——:o:——

FROM THE CRADLE.

They tell me I was born a long

Three months ago,

But whether they are right or wrong

I hardly know.

I sleep, I smile, I cannot crawl,

But I can cry—

At present I am rather small—

A babe am I.

The changing lights of sun and shade

Are baby toys;

The flowers and birds are not afraid

Of baby-boys.

Some day I’ll wish that I could be

A bird and fly;

At present I can’t wish—you see

A babe am I.

Frederick Locker.

From the Cradle.

They tell me I was calved a long

Three weeks ago;

But whether they are right or wrong

I hardly know.

I sleep, I suck, I cannot bawl,

But I can cry;

At present I am rather small—

A calf am I.

With changing food from swede to blade,

My mammy toys,

Nor she nor I are yet afraid

Of butcher-boys.

Some day I’ll wish that I could be

A bird, and fly.

At present I can’t wish, you see—

A calf am I.

Funny Folks, May 15, 1880.

——:o:——

A Gallery of Fair Women.

Mrs. Golightly.

Her piles of hair are ultra-blonde;

Her tints are ultra-splendid;

Her eyes are shallow, brilliant, fond,

And belladonna—friended.

An air of langorous command

About her always lingers.

She has a very shapely hand,

With long, bejewelled fingers.

Her foot is neat—not oversmall,

But exquisitely booted.

Her figure, faulty after all,

Is admirably suited.

Her teeth are good, and if her lip

Glow with a warmer crimson

Than lovers care to see or sip,

Why, blame her woman, Simson.

A bishop’s daughter, born to dare,

She made a reckless marriage.

She has a cottage in Mayfair,

No children, and a carriage,

And is an universal pet,

An innocent Bohemian,

A Dian feigning to forget

The legalised Endymion.

With many a bachelor she plays

A dainty little whimsy,

Like Musset’s acts, or Locker’s lays,

Brief, elegant, and flimsy.

She loves to woo, to win, to part;

Forsaken and forsaking,

Her heart—she says she has a heart—

Will bear a deal of breaking.

She shines in all things strange and new—

Plays, pictures, Prince’s, polo.

She gives the odds on either Blue,

She never answers “Nolo.”

To-day she raves of Rubinstein,

To-morrow of Albani;

To-day “Aïda” is divine,

To-morrow “Don Giovanni.”

But dress is, after all her dream,

Her veritable passion.

Her costume’s always an extreme,

A nightmare of the fashion.

The style that now-a-days we know,

Has from the first revealed her

As ruthlessly as long ago

Its opposite concealed her.

She waltzes well, she does not sing,

She loves to chatter, chatter

Of anything and everything—

It really doesn’t matter!

She skims a novel now and then

To get at the sensations,

And thinks Invention made the pen

To answer invitations.

Her little head’s so vain and light

It whirls in all directions,

And yet you smile on her, despite

Her host of imperfections.

Her heaven is one of summer skies,

And dreams that bloom to wither,

And like a love bird, when she dies,

Her little soul will thither.

London, 1877.

——:o:——

Something Praedesque.

I’ve many sweethearts; which shall I

Make just a pretty bit of rhyme to,

Now as the midnight moments fly,

And I have the caprice and time to?

“Be,” says my editor, “Praedesque:

That is, omit the fiery particle.”

He thinks my heart is in my desk—

Indeed, I have not such an article.

And of my sweethearts, one or two

Would almost fly into a passion,

If I desired their lips to woo

In that old easy worn-out fashion.

Praed, though no poet, had some power;

He is defaced by many a mocker:

I’m criminal this very hour,

And so is Dobson, so is Locker.

“O give us something new and fresh!”

The girls exclaim, they’re right, the beauties,

To catch their hearts in merrier mesh

Is chiefest of a lover’s duties.

How easy is this rambling rhyme!

Eight syllables, with rhymes that double;

It makes one fancy at the time

That neither rhyme nor love’s a trouble.

No trouble ’tis to scribble off

Verse to the girls you little care for;

To flatter, satirize, or scoff,

Amused, and hardly knowing wherefore.

But love—or hate—or be afraid

Of any woman … when you greet her,

It won’t be in the rhythm of Praed;

You’ll have to find Peculiar Metre.

Mortimer Collins.

——:o:—— 60

London’s ‘Suez Canal.’

What pretty girls one sees about

At rink and race, at ball and rout,

At drums and dinners!

In books, where Ænids find Geraints,

In pictures Mr. Millais paints

In church—I’m fond of such young saints

And sinners.

A score at least one’s sure to meet

From Charing Cross to Oxford Street,

Or climbing hilly

St. James’s, where of clubdom sick,

Old fogeys voted at old nick,

Fond glances turn at four towards Pic-

—cadilly.

Muse-favored haunt of all that’s gay!

Whose every stone has had its day

Of loves and graces!

Your triumphs many a bard can tell,

Fred Locker sings them passing well—

I know you bear away the bell

For faces.

Along your Strand converging flow

The social tides to Rotten Row,

Beloved and shady;

Old Gouty trundles with his pair,

De Bootle saunters, cane in air—

I’m wondering, who’s that golden hair-

’d young lady?

What fools we are!—Le Follets’ page

Makes yellow ringlets all the rage,

And willy nilly,

Poor ebon poles must cut their stick

And silver change its ‘plaiting’ quick,

Now only ‘gold’ is picked in Pic-

—cadilly!

But whether black or gold or grey

Fashion declares her slaves shall say

The dernier goût is

You bear your motley freightage well,

And East and West your convoys swell—

A sort of Cockneyfied canal

Of Suez!

A neutral ‘cut’ where every man’s

A vessel bound to pay the trans-

—it dues and duty,—

Dues stricter than e’er Lesseps took—

Love’s tribute levied on a look,

And duly noted in the Book

Of Beauty.

* * * * *

And now whilst ice enwraps you still,

And snow’s on Constitution Hill—

Like some old Pharaoh,

Sun shaded ’mid the fervent rays

I bask away the balmy days,

And write these verses to your praise

In Cairo.

Across the desert ridges high

Long lines of camels track the sky,

The pink lights flicker,—

The day has run its golden race—

The Mussulman kneels in his place—

The pilgrim turns his patient face

To Mecca.…

All here’s aglow with summer sun;

There hugs black frost his mantle dun

In winter chilly:

Yet could I stand on “Simla’s” deck

And Westward—ere this watch’s tick

Old England ho! for me, and Pic-

—cadilly!

H. Cholmondeley Pennell.

Temple Bar, January, 1876.

——:o:——

Songsters of the Day.

The Bard of Society.

There, pay it, James! ’tis cheaply earned;

My conscience! how one’s cabman charges!

But never mind, so I’m returned

Safe to my native street of Clarges.

I’ve just an hour for one cigar

What style these Reinas have, and what ash!),

One hour to watch the evening star,

With just one Curaçao-and-potash.

Ah me! that face beneath the leaves

And blossoms of its piquant bonnet!

Who would have thought that forty thieves

Of years had laid their fingers on it!

Could you have managed to enchant

At Lord’s to-day old lovers simple,

Had Robber Time not played gallant,

And spared you every youthful dimple!

That robber bold, like courtier Claude,

Who danced the gay coranto jesting,

By your bright beauty charmed and awed,

Has bowed and passed you unmolesting.

No feet of many-wintered crows

Have traced about your eyes a wrinkle;

Your sunny hair has thawed the snows

That other heads with silver sprinkle.

I wonder if that pair of gloves

I won of you you’ll ever pay me!

I wonder if our early loves

Were wise or foolish, cousin Amy!

I wonder if our childish tiff

Now seems to you, like me, a blunder!

I wonder if you wonder if

I ever wonder if you wonder!

I wonder if you’d think it bliss

Once more to be the fashion’s leader!

I wonder if the trick of this

Escapes the unsuspecting reader!

And as for him who does or can

Delight in it, I wonder whether

He knows that almost any man

Could reel it off by yards together!

I wonder if—What’s that? A knock?

Is that you, James? Eh? What? God bless me!

How time has flown! Its eight o’clock,

And here’s my fellow come to dress me.

Be quick, or I shall be the guest

Whom Lady Mary never pardons;

I trust you, James, to do your best

To save the soup at Grosvenor-gardens.

Fritteric Lacquer.

Time, June, 1880.

——:o:——

On Frederick Locker.

Of Locker what? Apollo in the fashion.

Humour and pathos suits, no touch of passion.

From Suckling, Lovelace, Prior, Luttrell, Praed,

Locker inherits his inspiring Maid:

Not nude and passionate, not fast and flighty,

Like Swinburne’s rosy-bosomed Aphrodite;

Not icy-cold, as Parian sculpture is,

Like Tennyson’s blue-stockingéd Artemis:

Not erudite and sapient, grimly frowning,

Like the Athena that’s adored by Browning:

But just the Period’s girl, a pretty creature,

Of dainty style, though inexpressive feature,

Who carefully reserves her choice opinions

For length of petticoats and bulk of chignons,

In whom no tragic impulse ever rankles,

Who always says her prayers, and shows her ankles.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

The proverb that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is somewhat the worse for wear, and perhaps Mr. Austin Dobson was not altogether inclined to agree with it when he heard that the Puzzle Editor of Truth had published the following notification:

“Truth” Puzzle, No. 472.

Thanks to the efforts of Messrs. Austin Dobson, Andrew Lang, and others, Triolets, Ballades, Rondeaux, Vilanelles, and other metrical devices used by Villon and other French poets of the past, have been freely adapted to English verse-writing, and I am assured that I shall be setting numerous competitors an agreeable task in asking them to write a rhyming composition on one of the revived French models now so fashionable.

The Prize of Two Guineas will accordingly be given for the Best Ballade, written on any Social Subject, in accordance with the following rules:—The Ballade in its normal type, consists of three stanzas of eight lines each, followed by a verse of four lines, which is called the “envoy”—or of three verses of ten lines, with an “envoy” of five lines, each of the stanzas and the “envoy” closing with the same line, known as the “refrain.” In this instance, a Ballade of the former length is asked for—viz.; one with three eight-lined stanzas and a four-lined “envoy.” But it will be, perhaps, a better guide for competitors if I print here a Ballade as a model on which they are to form the ones they compose. Here, then, is a well-known Ballade by Mr. Austin Dobson, which must be followed so far as the arrangement of rhymes goes. The metre, though, of the Ballade often varies, and competitors are not bound to use the same metre as that employed in the subjoined specimen.

ON A FAN THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR.

Chicken-skin, delicate, white,

Painted by Carlo Vanloo,

Loves in a riot of light,

Roses and vaporous blue;

Hark to the dainty frou-frou!

Picture above, if you can,

Eyes that could melt as the dew,

This was the Pompadour’s fan.

See how they rise at the sight,

Thronging the Œil de Bœuf through.

Courtiers as butterflies bright.

Beauties that Fragonard drew,

Talon-rouge, falbala, queue,

Cardinal, Duke—to a man,

Eager to sigh or to sue—

This was the Pompadour’s fan.

Ah! but things more than polite

Hung on this toy, voyez vous!

Matters of state and of might,

Things that great Ministers do;

Things that, may be, overthrew

Those in whose brain they began,

Here was the sign and the cue,

This was the Pompadour’s fan!

Envoy.

Where are the secrets it knew

Weavings of plot and of plan?

But where is the Pompadour too?—

This was the Pompadour’s fan?

Austin Dobson.

A very large number of replies were sent in, and examples were printed in Truth, February 23, and March 8, 1888. Although they cannot be called true parodies, yet two of the Ballades are so interesting as imitations that they are inserted. The first being that to which the prize was awarded, written by Mr. J. C. Woods, of Swansea, and the second written by Mr. F. B. Doveton, of Eastbourne.

A Ballade of the Grosvenor Gallery.

Art, fled from earth, Sir Coutts and Co.

Lured back to hold her state benign,

With all the newest masters know

Of magic colour, nude design,

Set in soft shade or mellow shine

Of dexterous curtain, clouded pane,

And tricked men so to deem, in fine,

Restored her grand Saturnian reign.

Thus passed ten grey-green years, when, lo!

What gurgling as from flasks of wine;

What whirl of revellers to and fro;

What lust of eight per cent., or nine,

Or ninety, broke her dream divine,

Her reverie of æsthetic pain.

Musing—can any care of mine

Restore the grand Saturnian reign?

Then said she; “Shall they flout me so?

Shall mortals in my presence dine,

Nor heed, for molluscs and clicquot,

The masterpieces on the line?

Forth from the temple, Philistine!

Fling out the banner—Art, not gain!

Carr, Hallé, and Burne-Jones combine;

Restore my grand Saturnian reign!”

Envoy.

Priest of the desecrated shrine,

Which drum and rout and dance profane,

Drive hence the Bacchant bands malign;

Restore the grand Saturnian reign!

Alltiago (J. C. Woods.)

A Ballade of Five o’clock Tea.

Served in most delicate ware,

Dresden or Sévres—where you spy

Dainty devices and rare,

Hues that enrapture the eye:

Hands that are shapely and white,

Pour out the fragrant Bohea,

Beauty presides at this rite—

This is your Five O’clock Tea.

Perched in the midst of the fair,

Masher resplendent, yet shy,

Awkwardly shifts in his chair,

He will gain courage by and bye.

Beaux so antique, most polite,

Prattle in garrulous glee,

Here in their element quite—

This is your Five O’clock Tea.

Characters melt into air;

Good reputations must die;

Think you “My Lady” will spare

For all that you murmur, “Oh Fy?”

Colloquies vapid and trite,

Slanderous tongues running free,

Small emanations of spite—

This is your Five O’clock Tea.

Envoy.

Sugar and cream can excite

Envy and malice, we see;

Satirists cry with delight—

“This is your Five O’clock Tea!”

Orchis (F. B. Doveton).

——:o:——

Ballade of Pôt-Pourri.

Oriental, and fragile, and old

Is the pôt-pourri bowl you see there;

Dreamy odours—romances untold

It confides to this latter-day air.

Ghosts of laughter, of love, and despair,

Dim strains of a quaint minuet

Bnd a gallant’s low words to his fair—

“Our Lady of Roses—Coquette!”

* * * * *

Premier Pas.

Truth. March 8, 1888.

Of the other examples that were printed it must suffice to mention the titles:—

Ballade of Five o’clock Tea—(Five thus).

Ballade of the Amateur Reciter.

Ballade of Leap year—(Two thus).

Fashion’s Fig-leaf.

Our Whistling Drawing-room Man.

Ballade of an Axe—(The G. O. M.’s Axe).

On the modern method of shaking hands.

Our grand Fancy Fair.

Pat the Patriot.

Ballade of a Primal cigar.

Ballade of a Programme.

A “Blue” Ballade—(“These are the ’Varsity Crews”).

Ballade of Pôt-Pourri.

Ballade for Diogenes.

A Ballade of Girls and Wedding.

Girls’ Gossip.

——:o:——

TU QUOQUE.

An Idyll in the Conservatory.

(Inserted with the Author’s permission.)

Nellie. If I were you, when ladies at the play, Sir,

Beckon and nod, a melodrama through,

I would not turn abstractedly away, Sir,

If I were you!

Frank. If I were you, when persons I affected,

Wait for three hours to take me down to Kew,

I would at least pretend I recollected,

If I were you!

Nellie. If I were you, when ladies are so lavish,

Sir, as to keep me every waltz but two,

I would not dance with odious Miss McTavish,

If I were you!

Frank. If I were you, who vow you cannot suffer

Whiff of the best,—the mildest “honey dew,”

I would not dance with smoke-consuming Puffer,

If I were you!

Nellie. If I were you, I would not, Sir, be bitter,

Even to write the “Cynical Review;”—

Frank. No, I should doubtless find flirtation fitter.

If I were you!

Nellie. Really! You would? Why, Frank, you’re quite delightful,—

Hot as Othello, and as black of hue;

Borrow my fan. I would not look so frightful,

If I were you!

Frank. “It is the cause.” I mean your chaperon is

Bringing some well-curled juvenile. Adieu!

I shall retire. I’d spare that poor Adonis,

If I were you!

Nellie. Go, if you will. At once! And by express, Sir;

Where shall it be? To China—or Peru?

Go. I should leave inquirers my address, Sir,

If I were you!

Frank. No—I remain. To stay and fight a duel

Seems, on the whole, the proper thing to do—

Ah, you are strong,—I would not then be cruel,

If I were you!

Nellie. One does not like one’s feelings to be doubted,—

Frank. One does not like one’s friends to misconstrue,—

Nellie. If I confess that I a wee-bit pouted?

Frank. I should admit that I was piqué, too.

Nellie. Ask me to dance. I’d say no more about it,

If I were you!

(Waltz. Exeunt.)

Austin Dobson.

An Idyll of the Lobby.

Liberal Seceder.

If I were you, when friends electioneering

Wish to preserve consistency of view,

I would forewarn when Hawarden gales are veering—

If I were you.

Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

If I were you, when issuing addresses,

I would observe the simple rule of two

Meanings in a sentence—tip for safe successes—

If I were you.

L. S. If I were you, when older friends reveal a

Freedom in spending time and money too,

I would not rush to dance a jig with Healy—

If I were you.

W. E. G. If I were you, who swear you cannot suffer

Plutocrat and peer, landlord and Jew,

I would not tilt against the people like a duffer—

If I were you.

L. S. I would not go at such an awful rate, or

Friends may forsake you—thing they’re apt to do—

W. E. G. I would remember the fate of such a traitor—

If I were you.

L. S. Surely you never—call a party meeting;

Try to arrange that each may get his due;

Keep the dear Irish; I’d avoid a beating,

If I were you.

W. E. G. No, I depart, I must consult the people,

Chamberlain’s coming—Randolph with him too—

I wouldn’t pray ’neath Chamberlainic steeple,

If I were you.

L. S. Go, if you will; my faith is not so flabby;

Cowards in midlands happily are few.

Stay! I would take that little trick from Labby—

If I were you.

W. E. G. Done! I remain—Brummagem to pound well.

Leave it till autumn—now, of course, you’re true?

Wouldn’t smash the party (surely doesn’t sound well)

If I were you.

L. S. One does not like that Caucus-pressure leaning.

W. E. G. Yes, I was sorry—had to use the screw.

L. S. If I confess that I mistook your meaning—

W. E. G. I will allow ’twas fair to misconstrue.

Late L. S. Ask me to vote. You’ve got to put the green in,

And cannon off the blue: I’d chalk my cue

If I were you.

The Pall Mall Budget. June 3, 1886.

——:o:——

The Prodigals.

(After Mr. Austin Dobson’s famous ballade.)

[Dedicated to Mr. Chaplin, M.P., and Mr. Richard Power,
M.P., and 223 who followed them.]

Ministers!—you, most serious,

Critics and statesmen of all degrees,

Hearken awhile to the motion of us,—

Senators keen for the Epsom breeze!

Nothing we ask of posts or fees;

Worry us not with objections pray!

Lo,—for the Speaker’s wig we seize

Give us—ah! give us—the Derby Day.

Scots most prudent, penurious!

Irishmen busy as humblebees!

Hearken awhile to the motion of us,—

Senators keen for the Epsom breeze!

For Sir Joseph’s sake, and his owner’s, please!

(Solomon raced like fun, they say)

Lo for we beg on our bended knees,—

Give us—ah! give us—the Derby Day.

Campbell-Asheton be generous!

(But they voted such things were not the cheese)

Sullivan, hear us, magnanimous!

(But Sullivan thought with their enemies.)

And shortly they got both of help and ease

For a mad majority crowded to say—

“Debate we’ve drunk to the dregs and lees;

Give us—ah! give us—the Derby Day.”

Envoi.

Prince, most just was the motion of these

And many were seen by the dusty way,

Shouting glad to the Epsom breeze

Give us—ah! give us—the Derby Day.

W. E. Henley.

Ballades, Rondeaus and Villanelles.

The revival of the taste for these curious old French forms of poetry has received a great impetus from the delightful examples produced by Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse, W. E. Henley, Andrew Lang, R. Le Gallienne, J. Ashby-Sterry, A. C. Swinburne, C. H. Waring and Oscar Wilde.

The composition of all poetry in the English language is governed by clearly defined rules, and although a man ignorant of these rules, if gifted with a fine ear, and original conceptions, may produce a pretty song or ballad, it is very rare indeed that any truly great work is composed, which is not written in accordance with certain regulations as to metre and rhyme.

In ordinary poetry these restrictions allow of great variations in style and treatment, but it is far otherwise when any of the old French poetical fashions are selected; then the rules are exact and peremptory, and for each of the following varieties, the form is clearly defined, and perfectly distinct. They are the Ballade, Chant Royal, Kyrielle, Pantoum, Rondeau Redoublé, Rondel, Rondeau, Sicilian Octave, Triolet, and Villanelle, with a few minor forms.

It is quite beyond the scope of this collection to formulate the rules governing the composition of these poetic trifles, nor indeed is it necessary, for Mr. Gleeson White’s charming little book on the subject is readily accessible, and contains nearly all that can be said about it. It is entitled Ballades and Rondeaus, selected, with a chapter on the various forms, by Gleeson White. London, Walter Scott, 1887.

The editor’s name is sufficient to indicate that the selections are the best that could be chosen, and the introductory essay is, in itself, a distinct gain to our literature, treating as it does, of a somewhat exotic branch of poetry. Mr. Gleeson White is very much in earnest, and although he inserts a few burlesques it is evident that he regards them as desecrations of his favourite metres.

To the Parodist nothing is sacred, but whilst some of the following parodies are quoted from Mr. White’s collection, those who would wish to read the originals must refer to the work itself.

In Punch (October 22, 1887) there was a set of verses (in honour of Mr. White’s book) written in the various metres described, and one of each of these may fitly lead the several varieties here dealt with.

THE MUSE IN MANACLES.

(By an Envious and Irritable Bard, after reading “Ballades and Rondeaus,” just published, and wishing he could do anything like any of them.)

Bored by the Ballade, vexed by Villanelle,

Of Rondeau tired, and Triolet as well!

The Ballade.

(In Bad Weather).

Oh! I’m in a terrible plight—

For how can I rhyme in the rain?

’Tis pouring from morn until night:

So bad is the weather again,

My language is almost profane!

Though shod with the useful galosh,

I’m racked with rheumatical pain—

I think that a Ballade is bosh

I know I am looking a fright;

That knowledge, I know, is in vain;

My “brolly” is not water-tight,

But hopelessly rended in twain

And spoilt by the rude hurricane!

Though clad in a stout mackintosh,

My temper I scarce can restrain—

I think that a Ballade is bosh!

Oh, I’m an unfortunate wight!

The damp is affecting my brain;

My woes I would gladly recite,

In phrases emphatic and plain,

Your sympathy could I obtain.

I don’t think my verses will wash,

They’re somewhat effete and inane—

I think that a Ballade is bosh!

Envoy.

I fancy I’m getting insane,

I’m over my ankles in slosh;

But let me repeat the refrain—

I think that a Ballade is bosh!

A Ballade of Old Metres.

When, in the merry realm of France,

Bluff Francis ruled and loved and laughed,

Now held the lists with knightly lance,

Anon the knightly beaker quaffed;

Where wit could wing his keenest shaft

With Villon’s verse or Montaigne’s prose,

Then poets exercised their craft

In ballades, triolets, rondeaux.

O quaint old times! O fitting chants!

With fluttering banners fore and aft,

With mirth of minstrelsy and dance,

Sped Poesy’s enchanted craft;

The odorous gale was blowing abaft

Her silken sails, as on she goes,

Doth still to us faint echoes waft

Of ballades, triolets, rondeaux.

But tell me with what countenance

Ye seek on modern rhymes to graft

Those tender shoots of old Romance—

Romance that now is only chaffed?

O iron days! O idle raft

Of rhymesters! they are ‘peu de chose,’

What Scott would call supremely “saft”

Your ballades, triolets, rondeaux.

Envoy.

Bards, in whose vein the maddening draught

Of Hippocrene so wildly glows,

Forbear, and do not drive us daft

With ballades, triolets, rondeaux.

The Century.

A Young Poet’s Advice.

You should study the bards of to-day

Who in England are now all the rage;

You should try to be piquant and gay;

Your lines are too solemn and sage.

You should try to fill only a page,

Or two at the most with your lay;

And revive the quaint verse of an age

That is fading forgotten away.

Study Lang, Gosse, and Dobson, I pray—

That their rhymes and their fancies engage

Your thought to be witty as they.

You must stand on the popular stage.

In the bars of an old fashioned cage

We must prison the birds of our May,

To carol the notes of an age

That is fading forgotten away.

Now this is a ‘Ballade’—I say,

So one stanza more to our page,

But the “Vers de Société,”

If you can are the best for your ‘wage.’

Though the purists may fall in a rage

That two rhymes go thrice in one lay,

You may passably echo an age

That is fading forgotten away.

Envoy.

Bard—heed not the seer and the sage,

‘Afflatus’ and Nature don’t pay;

But stick to the forms of an age

That is fading forgotten away.

C. P. Cranch.

——:o:——

In an amusing little collection of poems quite recently published, there are several parodies and three ballades, all on legal topics, from which the following extracts are quoted by the kind permission of Messrs. Reeves and Turner. The title of the book is The Lays of a Limb of the Law, by the late John Popplestone, Town Clerk of Stourmouth, edited by Edmund B. V. Christian. London: Reeves and Turner, 1889. It contains Law Reports in the shape of parodies of Cowper’s “Alexander Selkirk;” of Pope’s translation of Homer, “The Splendid Shilling,” and of other poems in a manner somewhat similar to those contained in Professor Frederick Pollock’s well-known, but scarce little work, “Leading Cases Done into English.”

Of the three ballades perhaps the following is the best:—

Ballade of Old Law Books.

“I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield, said Uriah. ‘I am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield.’”

The law books are standing in dingy array,

They fill every shelf from ceiling to floor,

Old guides to a silent and grass-covered way

Which never a traveller now shall explore,

Save delvers for antiquarian lore,

Who painfully search where their treasures lie hid,

In pages that else had been closed evermore,

Forgotten for aye, like the wonderful Tidd!

Great Blackstone is put up aloft, far away

(The Whig, first edition, in calf, volumes four);

The Doctor and Student alike are at play;

And Perkins is now but a profitless bore.

Old Viner’s abridgment is over the door

’Mid dust-begrimed wines that fetch never a bid;

Even Fearne on Remainders we vainly deplore

Forgotten for aye, like the wonderful Tidd!

Oblivion has fallen on the frequent Ca. sa.,

And Cursitor Street is untrod as of yore;

We turn not the leaves of Les Termes de la Ley,

Or these ancient Reports, ah, many a score,

Of a dulness as deadly as dread hellibore,

Of their Latin and law we are joyfully rid.

Let them stand, as we peacefully slumber and snore,

Forgotten for aye, like the wonderful Tidd.

Envoy.

How quickly the summers and winters are o’er!

They linger not now as in childhood they did.

Soon we shall be treading yon shadowy shore,

Forgotten for aye like the wonderful Tidd!

The first verse of each of the other two ballades will suffice:—

Ballade of the Honest Lawyer.

The “noble savage” of long ago

Within a hundred tomes we find;

The foreigner acute we know,

And “general readers,” looks resigned;

The “law of nature,” left behind

By a simpler age, has ceased to be

Aught but examination grind;

“The honest lawyer,” where is he?

* * * * *

Ballade of Leading Cases.

When August crowns the legal year,

When clients leave an hour for play,

But—your examination near—

You’re doomed in London town to stay;

When, tired of our prosaic day,

You’d catch a glimpse of old-world faces,

Put statutes, text-books, all, away—

Read, mark, and learn the Leading Cases.

* * * * *

Ballade of the Timid Bard.

(To Angelica, who bids him publish.)

In Memory’s mystical hazes

I see a vast Gander and grey,

I see the small boy that he chases

At the head of a hissing array:

How I wept when they brought me to bay,

How I pleaded in vain for a truce!

Too frightened too shoo them away,

I could never say Boh to a Goose!

* * * * *

Punch, October 22, 1887.

——:o:——

THE VILLANELLE.

(With Vexation.)

I do not like the Villanelle,

I think it somewhat of a bore—

This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

The reason why I cannot tell;

Each day I fancy, more and more,

I do not like the Villanelle!

It makes me stamp and storm and yell,

It makes me wildly rage and roar:

This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

I look upon it as a sell,

Its use I constantly deplore;

I do not like the Villanelle!

Poetic thoughts it must dispel,

It very often tries me sore:

This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

For this I know, and know full well—

Let me repeat it o’er and o’er—

I do not like the Villanelle,

This tinkle of a Muffin-bell!

Such was Mr. Punch’s opinion of this delicious form of verse, which must be complete in nineteen lines, arranged as above. The accepted model is the following old French Villanelle by Jean Passerat:

J’ay perdu ma tourterelle;

Est-ce-point ells que i’oy?[2]

Je veux aller après elle.

Tu regrettes ta femelle;

Hélas! aussy fay-je moy:

J’ay perdu ma tourterelle.

Si ton amour est fidèle,

Aussy est ferme ma foy;

Je veux aller après elle.

Ta plainte se renouvelle?

Toujours plaindre je me doy:

J’ay perdu ma tourterelle.

En ne voyant plus la belle

Plus rien de beau je ne voy:

Je veux aller après elle.

Mort, que tant de fois j’appelle

Prens ce qui se donne à toy:

J’ai perdu ma tourterelle,

Je veux aller après elle.

Of modern English specimens one of the most beautiful is that by Mr. Austin Dobson “When I saw you last, Rose,” which is given in Mr. White’s book, together with a French translation of it by M. J. Boulmier.

A Villanelle.

After Mr. Oscar Wilde.)

Commissioner of Lunacee!

An inquirendo come and hold;

For Oscar Wilde hath need of thee!

Flings to the world in wild frenzee

A poem on “a wattled fold,”

Commissioner of Lunacee.

In his strange verse none sense can see;

He raves of “limbs and beards of gold”;

He really hath great need of thee!

Anon he says, “A hell I see!”

And talks of satyrs dead and cold:

Commissioner of Lunacee.

And many an untold idiocee,

With little meaning, is enrolled:

He verily hath need of thee,

A Bedlamite as mad as he

No open doors should ever hold.

Commissioner of Lunacee,

You see he has great need of thee!

Frank Danby.

The Whitehall Review, September 30, 1880.

The Street Singer.

(Villanelle from my window.)

He stands at the kerb and sings.

’Tis a doleful tune and slow,

Ah me, if I had but wings!

He bends to the coin one flings,

But he never attempts to go,—

He stands at the kerb and sings.

The conjurer comes with his rings.

And the Punch-and-Judy show.

Ah me, if I had but wings!

They pass like all fugitive things—

They fade and they pass, but lo!

He stands at the kerb and sings.

All the magic that Music brings

Is lost when he mangles it so—

Ah me, if I had but wings!

But the worst is a thought that stings!

There is nothing at hand to throw!

He stands at the kerb and sings—

Ah me, if I had but wings!

Austin Dobson.

Culture in the Slums.

Now ain’t they utterly too-too

(She ses, my missus mine,[3] ses she),

Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Joe, just you kool ’em—nice and skew

Upon our old meogginee,

Now ain’t they utterly too-too?

They’re better than a pot ’n’ a screw,

They’re equal to a Sunday spree,

Them flymy little bits of Blue!

Suppose I put ’em up the flue,

And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.

Now ain’t they utterly too-too?

I do the ’Igh Art fake, I do.

Joe, I’m consummate; and I see

Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Which, Joe, is why I ses te you—

Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free—

Now ain’t they utterly too-too,

Them flymy little bits o’ Blue?

W. E. Henley.

In Wain!

(A Villanelle of Vexations. By B * * * y P * * g.)

Addressed to all true Jingoes.

In wain would I the British Lion wake!

In wain I’d rouge the brute to wilent springing;

His tail won’t wag, his mane declines to shake.

In wain my daily ’larum-bell I take,

Till his ears tingle with its brazen ringing

In wain would I the British Lion wake!

In wain I warn him of that Northern snake,

Who midst our Injun grass will soon be stinging;

His tail won’t wag, his mane declines to shake.

* * * * *

He sleeps as placid as a windless lake;

Cold water on my fire his calm is flinging.

His tail won’t wag, his mane declines to shake;

In wain would I the British Lion wake!

Punch. August 11, 1877.

——:o:——

THE TRIOLET.

(In a Temper.)

A Triolet’s scarcely the thing—

Unless you would carol in fetters!

If lark-like you freely would sing,

A Triolet’s scarcely the thing:

I miss the poetical ring,

I’m told that it has, by my betters!

A Triolet’s scarcely the thing—

Unless you would carol in fetters!

Punch.

The Triolet, which should consist of eight lines, but only two rhymes, is more often met with in French literature than in our own; the following old specimen was christened by Ménage le roi des Triolets:—

Le premier jour du mois de mai

Fut le plus heureux de ma vie:

Le beau dessein que je formai,

Le premier jour du mois de mai!

Je vous vis et je vous aimai.

Si ce dessein vous plut, Sylvie,

Le premier jour du mois de mai

Fut le plus heureux de ma vie.

Jacques Ranchin.

A Triolet,

(After Mr. Dobson’s “I intended an Ode”)

I wished to sing my love;

I cannot do so now.

(As I remarked above)

I wished to sing my love,

But Kate crossed with her cow

And gave my love a shove.

I wished to sing my love;

I cannot do so now.

John Twig.

How to Fashion a Triolet.

As triolets are now the “go,”

A charming one I’ll write,

Their little niceties to show,—

As triolets are now the “go,”—

I’m writing one (and à propos,

By Webster, I am right);

As triolets are now the “go,”

A charming one I’ll write.

The dictionary teaches me

The triolet receipt:—

The verses of eight lines must be;

The dictionary teaches me

The first line, by the recipe,

Three times I must repeat.

The dictionary teaches me

The triolet receipt.

The second line must reappear

To form the final line;

No matter if it soundeth queer.

The second line must reappear;

When poetry is far from clear

It is considered fine!

The second line must reappear

To form the final line.

Now, do you like the triolet?

Your true opinion say.

It puts me in a horrid pet;

Now, do you like the triolet?

I wish your real thought to get,

So do be candid, pray.

Now do you like the triolet?

Your true opinion say.

W. Best.

Detroit Free Press, 1888.

——:o:——

THE RONDEAU.

(In a Rage.)

Pray tell me why we can’t agree

To bid the merry Muse run free?

Pray tell me why we should incline

To see her in a Rondeau pine,

Or sigh in shackled minstrelsy?

Why can’t she sing with lark-like glee,

And revel in bright jeux d’esprit?

Where form can’t fetter or confine—

Pray tell me why?

Pray tell me why that frisky gee,

Called Pegasus, should harnessed be?

Why bit and bridle should combine

To all his liveliness consign,—

To deck the Rondeau’s narrow line—

Pray tell me why?

Punch.

RONDEAU.

Ma foi, c’est fait de moi, car Isabeau

M a conjuré de lui faire un rondeau.

Cela me met en peine extrême

Quoi! treize vers, huit en eau, cinq en eme!

Je lui ferais aussitôt un bateau.

En voilà cing pourtant en un monceau.

Faisons-en huit en invoquant Brodeau,

Et puis mettons, par quelque stratagème:

Ma foi, c est fait.

Si je pouvais encor de mon cerveau

Tirer cinq vers l’ouvrage serait beau;

Mais cependant je suis dedans l’onzième;

Et ci je crois que je fais le douzième;

En voila treize ajustés au niveau.

Ma foi, c’est fait.

—Voiture.

The following humorous paraphrase was written, some years since, by Mr. Austin Dobson:—

You bid me try, BLUE-EYES, to write

A Rondeau. What! forthwith?—to-night?

Reflect. Some skill I have, ’tis true;

But thirteen lines!-and rhymed on two!—

“Refrain,” as well. Ah, hapless plight!

Still there are five lines—ranged aright.

These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright

My easy Muse. They did, till you—

You bid me try!

“That makes them eight.—The port’s in sight:

Tis all because your eyes are bright!

Now just a pair to end in “oo,”—

When maids command, what can’t we do!

Behold! The RONDEAU—tasteful, light—

You bid me try!”

A Rondeau.

(After Voiture’s “Ma foy c’est fait.”)

Why do I wander wildly to and fro?

My tyrant bade me twist her a rondeau.

Methinks ’twas deleterious to my brain!

I loved her (though her name was Mary Jane):

She died of D. T. many years ago.

A Rondeau? Humph! Ha, hum! Egad, just so!

“Five rhymes in ain and eight remain in O.”

Eh, no, Voiture! For they be all inane.

Why do I wander?

White though the head be, red’s the nose below—

(Bright beams a light-house spite a roof of snow)—

“Why wander goose-like?” doth my love complain?

Ah, dear, dead love! Ah, Marie! Ah, ma reine!

(Meaning M. J. of course.) Hullo! Gee Wo!

Why do I wander?

Culture in the Slums.

(Inscribed to an Intense Poet.)

“O Crikey, Bill!” she ses to me, she ses.

“Look sharp,” ses she, “with them there sossiges.

Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree!

For lo!” she ses, “for lo! old pal,” ses she,

“I’m blooming peckish, neither more nor less.”

Was it not prime—I leave you all to guess

How prime!—to have a jude in love’s distress

Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee,

“O crikey, Bill!”

For in such rorty wise doth Love express

His blooming views, and asks for your address,

And makes it right, and does the gay and free.

I kissed her—I did so! And her and me

Was pals. And if that ain’t good business,

O crikey, Bill!

W. E. Henley.

A Rondel.

(After Mr. Dobson’s “Too hard it is to sing.”)

Too hard it is to pipe

To an untuneful herd!

And berries, while unripe,

Repel the prudent bird!

The wildly warbling snipe

You may, perhaps, have heard—

(Too hard it is to pipe

To an untuneful herd!)

It rarely fed on tripe

But mushroom much preferred

Lest folk its tail should gripe

And salt (which were absurd!)

Too hard it is to pipe

To an untuneful herd!

Rondel.

(Adapted, for the use of the Order of Our Lady of Pain.)

Kissing the Heir, I saw him at my feet,

Wound round my finger, found him soft and sweet;

Made fast his feeble hands, dazzled his eyes,—

Like fishes’ optics, no ways clear or wise.

With my best dresses made him find me fair—

Kissing the Heir!

Deep the resources drained by him and me,

Deep as Disraeli, or the deeper sea.

What wife could draw him thus for her and her’s?

What charm have made him more for me disburse?—

Ah! if his guardian had not caught me there

Kissing the Heir!

The Hornet, July 26, 1871.

——:o:——

BEHOLD THE DEEDS!

(Chant Royal.)

An American Parody.

[Being the Plaint of Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, Salesman of Fancy Notions, held in durance of his Landlady for a failure to connect on Saturday night.]

I would that all men my hard case might know;

How grievously I suffer for no sin:

I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo!

I, of my landlady am locked in.

For being short on this sad Saturday,

Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay;

She has turned and is departed with my key;

Wherefore, not even as other boarders free,

I sing (as prisoners to their dungeon stones

When for ten days they expiate a spree):

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

II.

One night and one day have I wept my woe;

Nor wot I when the morrow doth begin,

If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,

To pray them to advance the requisite tin

For ransom of their salesman, that he may

Go forth as other boarders go alway——

As those I hear now flocking from their tea,

Led by the daughter of my landlady

Piano-ward. This day for all my moans,

Dry bread and water have been servéd me.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

III.

Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so

The heart of the young he-boardér doth win,

Playing “The Maiden’s Prayer,” adagio—

That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the banco skin

The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray:

That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye

Ere sits she with a lover, as did we

Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be

That all that arduous wooing not atones

For Saturday shortness of trade dollars three?

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

IV.

Yea! she forgets the arm was wont to go

Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin

Galleth the crook of the young man’s elbow;

I forget not, for I that youth have been.

Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay.

Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay

Close in his room. Not calm, as I, was he;

But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily.

Small ease he gat of playing on the bones,

Or hammering on his stove-pipe, that I see.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow

I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!

Thee will I show up—yea, up will I shew

Thy too thick buckwheats, and thy tea too thin.

Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray!

Thou dost not “keep a first-class house,” I say!

It does not with the advertisements agree.

Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree,

And thou hast harboured Jacobses and Cohns,

Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Envoy.

Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:

She hath stolen my trousers, that I may not flee

Privily by the window. Hence these groans,

There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

H. C. Bunner.

——:o:——

Poets of the Æsthetic School

About ten years ago London Society was divided into two hostile Camps, one known as the Æsthetes, the other as the Philistines. Neither title was correct, nor very expressive, but each conveyed a certain meaning which even now could not be briefly expressed in more simple language.

The Æsthetes were originally a small body of artists and poets, belonging to what was called the Pre-Raphaelite school, who strove to educate the English people up to a certain standard in art and culture.

All the men who founded this school subsequently became eminent in their professions, but they were, for many years, subjected to the ridicule and criticisms of the Philistines.

Yet it is probable that most of this opposition was directed less against the men of genius who actually created Pre-Raphaelitism, than against those too ardent devotees of the new fashion, who carried all its dictates to the extreme, and frequently turned the true and the beautiful into the absurd and grotesque by their exaggerations in dress, language, and deportment.

On the other hand many of the opponents of Æstheticism were those who having seen Du Maurier’s caricatures in Punch, and witnessed Burnand’s vamped up old comedy The Colonel, or Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience, thought themselves fully qualified to jeer at the “consummate” the “utter” and the “too-too,” without having either read a poem by Swinburne, or Morris, or having seen a painting by Burne-Jones or Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

This opposition did some good in its day, for although Æstheticism eventually triumphed, only the beautiful that it created has survived, the lank and melancholy maidens, and the “Grosvenor-Gallery” young men, have departed, but the revival—the Renaissance in fact—of British Art in Painting, poetry, dress, decoration, and even in house furniture, is an accomplished fact. Much has been written, and remains to be written, on this fascinating topic, but this collection cannot be made the medium for Lectures on Art.

At the risk of appearing egotistical the following little work can be mentioned as conveying useful information on a subject which is certainly worthy of some little study:—

“The Æsthetic Movement in England,” by Walter Hamilton. Third edition—London. Reeves and Turner, 1882.

Without further preface a selection of parodies will be given on the works of Rossetti, who was not only a founder of the school, but also one of its most eminent exponents.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Born May 12, 1828. | Died April 9, 1882.

There was a particular metre much affected by this great artist and poet, of which perhaps the best example to be found is in his weird “Sister Helen,” which has been frequently parodied. It commences thus:—

“Why did you melt your waxen man,

Sister Helen?

To-day is the third since you began.”

“The time was long, yet the time ran,

Little brother.”

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)

“But if you have done your work aright,

Sister Helen,

You’ll let me play, for you said I might.”

“Be very still in your play to-night,

Little brother.”

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!)

“Oh, the waxen knave was plump to-day,

Sister Helen;

How like dead folk he has dropped away!”

“Nay now, of the dead what can you say,

Little brother?”

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)

* * * * *

“Ah! what white thing at the door has cross’d,

Sister Helen?

Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?”

“A soul that’s lost as mine is lost,

Little brother!”

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)

This, and other poems by Rossetti, such as Eden Bower, and Troy Town, only revived a very old fashion—the ballad with a refrain or burden.

But when once it was revived so many indifferent poets attempted to utter their little insipidities in the ballad style, that the parodists soon caught the infection. One gentleman furbished up a tremendous ballad which resembled nothing so much as the cry of a costermonger, for its burden, oft repeated, was—

“Apple, and orange, and nectarine,”

whilst one of the evening papers published the following satire on Rossetti’s style:—

After Dilettante Concetti.

“Why do you wear your hair like a man,

Sister Helen?

This week is the third since you began.”

“I’m writing a ballad; be still if you can,

Little brother,

(O Mother Carey, mother!

What chickens are these between sea and heaven?”)

“But why does your figure appear so lean,

Sister Helen?

And why do you dress in sage sage, green?”

“Children should never be heard, if seen,

Little brother!

(O Mother Carey, mother!

What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!”

“But why is your face so yellowy white,

Sister Helen?

And why are your skirts so funnily tight?”

“Be quiet you torment, or how can I write,

Little brother?

(O Mother Carey, mother!

How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven.”)

“And who’s Mother Carey, and what is her train,

Sister Helen?

And why do you call her again and again?”

“You troublesome boy, why that’s the refrain,

Little brother!

O Mother Carey, mother!

What work is toward in the startled heaven?”)

“And what’s a refrain? What a curious word,

Sister Helen;

Is the ballad you’re writing about a sea-bird?”

“Not at all! why should it be? Don’t be absurd,

Little brother.

(O Mother Carey, mother!

Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)”

(A big brother speaketh:)

“The refrain you’ve studied a meaning had,

Sister Helen!

It gave strange force to a weird ballàd.

But refrains have become a ridiculous ‘fad,’

Little brother.

And Mother Carey, mother,

Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven.”

* * * * *

For the remainder of this exquisite parody, readers are referred to Mr. H. D. Traill’s Recaptured Rhymes (London, W, Blackwood & Sons, 1882), in which work it was republished.

Eve.

(An Imitation.)

“Dasz ich genossen des Wissens Frucht,

Das kannst du nicht mehr aendern.”—[H. Heine.]

The serpent tempted thee to shame,

Mother Eve.

God’s direst vengeance on thee came,

Mother Eve.

And never may we hope to win

That golden garden close hedged in

From toil and tempest, strife and sin,

Mother Eve.

Before thy wondering, wakened eyes,

Mother Eve.

Clashed shut the gates of Paradise,

Mother Eve.

Thy wandering feet, thy hands were torn,

By briar, wayside weed and thorn,

Thy babes in anguish great were born,

Mother Eve.

And yet God’s vengeance knew no stay,

Mother Eve.

Thy first-born did his brother slay,

Mother Eve.

Died not thy heart for woe and dread,

When Abel in thine arms lay dead,

And Cain red-handed turned and fled,

Mother Eve?

Methinks I hear thee murmur “Nay,”

Mother Eve.

“Evil and bitter was my day,”

Mother Eve.

“Evil and full of pain, but still

I am Thy judge—work all Thy will—

I judge Thee knowing good from ill.”

Mother Eve.

“I stretched mine hand unto Thy tree—”

Mother Eve.

“Not as the sightless beasts are we—”

Mother Eve.

“The curse has fallen—let it bide—

I and my children open-eyed

Know Thee, and judge, whate’er betide,”

Mother Eve.

Mabel Peacock.

Detroit Free Press, December 5, 1885.

The Poets at Tea.

Rossetti, who took six cups of it.

The lilies lie in my lady’s bower,

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),

They faintly droop for a little hour;

My lady’s head droops like a flower.

She took the porcelain in her hand,

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),

She poured; I drank at her command;

Drank deep, and now-you understand!

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost).

* * * * *

The Cambridge Fortnightly. February, 1888.

A Twilight Fantasy.

A woman stood at a garden gate

(Sing hey, for the distant spreading sail!)

Sing hey, for the dog that hurried by

With a kettle tied to his tail.

My goodman skurried adown the road.

(Sing hey, for the joyous drinking bout!)

And after the ochre cur he sped

With many a gruesome shout.

“Now why this haste, good neighbour?” she cried;

“Why after the dog of the umber tint?”

But, waking the echoes with yells, he sped

Through the twilight’s gleam and glint.

A smug-face lad looked over the fence

(Sing hey, where the birdlings sing and chirp,)

“Why laughest, good mother!” “I laugh,” said she,

“To see yon ecru purp.”

A smile then smilèd the smug-faced lad.

(Sing lack-a-day, for the sunset red,)

“Then laugh no more, good gossip, because

The kettle is your’n,” he said.

The Shooting Times. February 11, 1887.

The Laundress and the Laidy.

All on a sofa fair Ada lay,

(O, for a brandy and soda, she sighed),

It was four in the afternoon, and gay

Was the outside world, but Ada must stay

In her room, and thus she cried,

“Could I but join the happy throng.”

(And O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),

“That under my windows pass along

To Short’s, or to Finch’s, I’d soon be gone,

Or to the Inventions glide.”

She took down an “afternoon tea-book” to read,

(O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),

But it interested her little indeed,

Such books are tame if you haven’t “teaed.”

And no one sat by her side.

She went to the window and gazed at the sky,

(O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),

Then she saw her particular mash pass by,

To attract his attention did she try,

But in vain, tho’ hard she tried.

Her chloral bottle she took in her hand,

(O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),

“To sleep till the evening will be grand;”

And she slept through the strains of a German band,

Which was playing in all its pride.

“Why didn’t she go for a stroll?” you say,

But, reader, I beg you pause;

Her friends on a visit were all away,

And her laundress forgot to send home that day

Her petticoats, stockings,
and pockethandkerchiefs.

The Sporting Times. June 20, 1885.

The same paper, for May 23, 1885, contained another very funny parody of Rossetti; but unfortunately it was too suggestive to bear republication here.

It was reserved, however, for that prince of Parodists, Charles S. Calverley, to make the ballad with a refrain supremely ridiculous:—

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

A thing she had frequently done before;

And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

Till the cow said “I die,” and the goose ask’d “Why?”

And the dog said nothing, but search’d for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farm-yard;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—

The connexion of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer’s daughter hath frank blue eyes;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,

As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer’s daughter hath ripe red lips;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

If you try to approach her, away she skips

Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,

Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

In the second part of this pathetic composition the poet thus describes the melancholy sequel:—

She sat with her hands ’neath her burning cheeks,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;

Then she follow’d him out o’er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow’d her, as their tails did them,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

And this song is consider’d a perfect gem,

And as to the meaning, it’s what you please.

When Mr. Calverley composed this burlesque Ballad (which is to be found in full in his Fly Leaves, published by G. Bell & Sons), it is probable that he was thinking of 72 one by Mr. Morris, entitled “Two Red Roses across the Moon” commencing “There was a lady liv’d in a hall,” and ending with the refrain which forms the title.

Having once shown how it could be done, other comic writers followed suit, and the burlesque ballads in this style are almost too numerous to be quoted.

——:o:——

You, I, and the Post.

You,—the British Public; I,—W. E. G. The Post—G. P. O.

A statesman sits at Hawarden gate,

(Paper and pens and a bottle of ink.)

A stalwart man with a shapely pate,

And brains to spare, as you rightly think.

The live-long day he’s been hacking down trees,

(Paper and pens and two bottles of ink.)

Toughish work, yet he does it with ease,

Nor e’en doth, as Milton would phrase it, “swink.”

Who is’t approacheth? ha! ha! The post!

(Paper and pens and a pint of ink.)

Of letters and post-cards bearing a host—

Beneath the load he seems ready to sink.

The Statesman opens and reads them all,

(Paper and pens and a quart of ink.)

Quoth he, “I’ll answer them great and small,

This very night ere I sleep a wink.”

In he strides to his big bureau,

(Paper and pens and a gallon of ink.)

And answers fourscore letters or so—

(Fourscore’s the minimum number, I think);

Some answered by note, and some by card,

(Paper and pens and a barrel of ink.)

But when the question’s uncommonly hard,

The point of the query he’ll deftly shrink.

Oh, the postman puffs, and the postman swears,

(Paper and pens and a sheet of stamps.)

At the load of letters and cards he bears

To Hawarden gate in his daily tramps.

Oh, you who of letters and answers are fond,

(Paper and pens and a grey goose quill.)

Write to Hawarden, there beyond—

And an answer you’ll get from the People’s Will!

Hubert John de Burgh.

(This talented young author died in 1877, at the early age of thirty-two. The above parody originally appeared in Yorick, to accompany a cartoon by Harry Furniss.)

As recently as October 20, 1888, Punch had a similar parody entitled

Agriculture’s Latest Rôle.

(A Bucolic Ballad, with a Borrowed Refrain, Dedicated to the British Dairy Farmers’ Association,)

“Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?”

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

“I’m going a-milking, Sir;” she said;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

“For times are bad, and the farm don’t pay.

’Tis Pasture v. Arable so men say.

If still I’d be prosperous this is the way.

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

“I’m tired of corn-growing that brings little cash,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

The old business of Ceres seems going to smash.

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

Free Trade and the Yankee have finished her clean.

From furrow and sheaf there seems little to glean,

From ploughed land to pasture I’m changing the scene.

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

“I hope you’ll allow I look fetching like this,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

A Dairymaid’s dress suits me sweetly, I wis.

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

Just twig my short petticoats, look at my pail!

The bards are all ready a Milkmaid to hail!

I mean making prettiness pay,—shall I fail?

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

“You’ve been to the Dairy Show, Sir, have you not?

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

Those churners competitive were a sweet lot.

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)

Miss Holmes, and Miss Keel, and Miss Barron, who won,

Seemed not a bit fagged when the business was done.

I’m sure Butter-making looks capital fun.

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)”

* * * * *

A Christmas Wail.

(Not by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)

On Christmas day I dined with Brown.

(O the dinner was fine to see!)

I drove to his house, right merrily down

To a western square of London town.

(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)

We dined off turkey and Christmas beef;

(O the dinner was fine to see!)

My anguish is sore and my comfort brief,

And nought but blue pills can ease my grief,

(As I moan and I cry woe’s me!)

We gorged plum-pudding and hot mince pies,

(O the dinner was fine to see!)

And other nameless atrocities,

The weight of which on my—bosom lies.

(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)

We drank dry Clicquot and rare old port,

(O the dinner was fine to see!)

And I pledged my host for a right good sort

In bumpers of both, for I never thought

(I should moan and I cry woe’s me!)

* * * * *

But I woke next day with a fearful head,

(O that dinner so fine to see!)

And on my chest is a weight like lead,

And I frequently wish that I were dead,

(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)

And as for Brown—why the truth to tell—

(O that dinner so fine to see!)

I hate him now with the hate of hell,

Though before I loved him passing well,

(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)

Truth. December 27, 1883.

73 One of the most ridiculous features of the so-called Æsthetic movement was, that a number of brainless noodles set to work to write poetry in serious imitation of Swinburne, Rossetti, and Oscar Wilde. The style was a mixture of mediæval Italian and middle English, and the one principle which guided the dolorous singers was, “We must not have any meaning, or, at any rate, the less the better.” “My lady” was addressed in all kinds of rhymes, “Love” was held responsible for legions of complicated woes, green eyes, golden eyes—even orbs “like a cat’s splendid circled eye” were quite in fashion. The recipe for this description of poetry was—Begin with an address to your lady; never mind if you have not one, for that is a mere detail. Represent her as bewitching you with the unutterably weary gaze of her eyes—or eyne—“eyne” is preferable; stick in an old word like “teen” or “drouth” or “wot” or “sooth” or “wearyhead” or “wanhope;” break out with “Lo!” and “Yea!” and “Nay!” and “Ah!” at brief intervals, and be sure to have a weird refrain. This humbug held its own for a while, but a few unsparing satirists dealt with this dreary small-fry of art, and the following, one of the most delightful modern jests was prompted by the school:—

Madonna Mia.

I would I were a cigarette

Between my lady’s lithe sad lips

Where Death, like Love, divinely set,

With exquisite sighs and sips,

Feeds and is fed and is not fain,

And Memory married with Regret,

And Pleasure amorous of red Pain,

In moon-wise musing wax and wane;

That with the bitter sweetness of her breath

I might somewhile remember and forget

(For Life is Love, and Love is Death!)

It was my hap—ah well-a-way—

To burn my little hour away!

I would I were a gold jewèl

To fleck my lady’s soft lean throat,

Where Love, like Death, lies throned to swell

A strange and tremulous note

Of yearning vague and void and vain,

Delight on flame Desire to quell,

And Pleasure fearful of red Pain,

And dreams fall in to sear and stain;

That in the barren blossom of her breath

I might be glad we were not one, but twain

(For Love is Life, and Life is Death!)

And that without me, well-a-way,

She could not choose but pass away.

This masterly balderdash has imposed on many people; and the most comic thing in the world is to see an earnest person endeavouring to discover hidden meanings in it.

“John Bull” (a London newspaper) for November 8, 1879, contained a long article from which only the following brief notes can be quoted:—

Immortal Pictures.

Mr. Rossetti has painted a picture, and in an unguarded moment permitted the Athenæum to describe it in the following language.—[Extract given in full.]

Apropos of the above fragment of art-criticism, a correspondent sends us the following analysis (clipped from a rival journal) of another remarkable picture:—

“It is better to speak the truth at once, and to say that we have in Mr. Symphony Priggins a master as great as the greatest; and in this picture the master-piece of a master; and in this episode of a picture the masterstroke of a master’s master-piece. The sublimity of Buonaroti, the poetic fervour of Raffaelle, the tremulous intensity of Sandro Botticelli, the correggiosity of Correggio have never raised these masters to higher heights than our own Priggins has attained in this transcendent rendering of the Dish running away with the Spoon.

“The artist, like some others of his craft, is, as is known, a poet of no mean pretensions; and he has set forth the inner meaning of his picture in the following lines, which form the motto on its frame:—”

A Ballad of High Endeavour.

Ah night! blind germ of days to be,

Ah me! ah me!

(Sweet Venus, mother!)

What wail of smitten strings hear we?

(Ah me; ah me!

Hey diddle dee!)

Ravished by clouds our Lady Moon,

Ah me! ah me!

(Sweet Venus, mother!)

Sinks swooning in a lady-swoon

(Ah me! ah me!

Dum diddle dee!)

What profits it to rise i’ the dark?

Ah me! ah me!

(Sweet Venus, mother!)

If love but over-soar its mark

(Ah me! ah me!

Hey diddle dee!)

What boots to fall again forlorn?

Ah me! ah me;

(Sweet Venus, mother!)

Scorned by the grinning hound of scorn,

(Ah me! ah me!

Dum diddle dee!)

Art thou not greater who art less?

Ah me! ah me!

(Sweet Venus, mother!)

Low love fulfilled of low success?

(Ah me! ah me!

Hey diddle dee!)

No one we imagine, would have been dull enough to have missed the allegory of Mr. Priggins’ great picture even without such exposition; but many, perhaps, will only feel it after this its setting forth in “perfect music matched with noble words.”

Song by Mr. Joseph Hubert Hillyer.

Art is to me no intellectual fad;

(A goodly balance is fair to see!)

You don’t catch me o’er culture going mad.

(The rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)

As soon as I could paint I set my heart

On making money (else what good is Art?);

In painting show-bills ’twas I made my start.

(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)

I found the public vulgar scenes liked best,

(A goodly balance is fair to see!)

And so I painted my great “Crowner’s Quest;”

(The rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)

And when its sordid realism took,

I gave them next my “Fair at Donnybrook.”

And “Tourists up the Rhine with Mr. Cook.”

(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)

These made my name, and then the Starch firm, Plums,

(A goodly balance is fair to see!)

To paint them posters gave me lordly sums;

(The rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)

And there was not a hoarding but did bear

(Above my name, writ large,) a dainty pair

Of damsels, who starched collarettes did wear.

(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)

Since then I’ve turned my art to fresh accounts,

(A goodly balance is fair to see!)

And rival razors puffed for large amounts.

(O, rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)

I’ve painted, too, with realistic tricks,

“The Penny Steamboat’s Progress” (set of six),

From Old Swan Pier, till at Vauxhall she sticks!

(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)

Truth. Christmas Number, 1882.

London Town.

A Lyric à la Mode.

Kent-born Helen, England’s pride,

(O London Town!)

Had a waist a world too wide

For the height of her heart’s desire.

Vinegar she in vain had tried.

(O London Town!

Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)

Helen knelt at Fashion’s shrine,

(O London Town!)

Saying, “A little boon is mine,

A little boon, but my heart’s desire.

Here me speak, and make me a sign!

(O London Town!

Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)

“Look! my waist is in excess,

(O London Town!)

I would die to have it less.

Shape it to my heart’s desire.

Fit for fashionable dress.

(O London Town!

Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)

“It is moulded like a Greek’s,

(O London Town!)

One of Nature’s spiteful freaks.

Pinch it to my heart’s desire:

I am full of pains and piques.

(O London Town!

Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)

“See Bell Fane’s, how slim it is!

(O London Town!)

Eighteen inches at most, I wis!

Poisons the cup of my heart’s desire.

O that I should suffer this!

(O London Town!

Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)

“Yea, for straitness here I sue!

(O London Town!)

Antifat I find won’t do;

Give me, give me, my heart’s desire,

Three inches less, or at least full two.”

(O London Town!

Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)

(Eight verses omitted.)

Punch. April 24, 1880.

The following rather more serious imitation of Rossetti is from “The Diversions of the Echo Club” by Bayard Taylor. Mr. Taylor remarks that Rossetti’s poetry is encumbered with the burden of colour, sensuous expression, and mediæval imagery and drapery; but he forgot to mention that Rossetti wrote as an artist, and that some of his finest poems were written to accompany, and to elucidate, certain of his own pictures.

Cimabuella.

Fair-tinted cheeks, clear eyelids drawn

In crescent curves above the light

Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn

Becomes not day: a forehead white

Beneath long yellow heaps of hair:

She is so strange she must be fair.

II.

Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread,

She were an angel; but she stands

With flat dead gold behind her head,

And lilies in her long thin hands:

Her folded mantle, gathered in,

Falls to her feet as it were tin.

III.

Her nose is keen as pointed flame;

Her crimson lips no thing express;

And never dread of saintly blame

Held down her heavy eyelashes:

To guess what she were thinking of,

Precludeth any meaner love.

IV.

An azure carpet, fringed with gold,

Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid

Before her straight, cool feet unrolled:

But she nor sound nor movement made

(Albeit, I heard a soft, shy smile,

Printing her neck a moment’s while);

And I was shamed through all my mind

For that she spake not, neither kissed,

But stared right past me. Lo! behind

Me stood, in pink and amethyst,

Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted,

A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head,

VI.

Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes,

Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me!

I saw, with most forlorn surprise,

He was the Thirteenth Century,

I but the Nineteenth: then despair

Curdled beneath my curling hair.

VII.

O, Love and Fate! How could she choose

My rounded outlines, broader brain,

And my resuscitated Muse?

Some tears she shed, but whether pain

Or joy in him unlocked their source,

I could not fathom which, of course.

VIII.

But I from missals, quaintly bound,

With either and with clavichord

Will sing her songs of sovran sound:

Belike her pity will afford

Such faint return as suits a saint

So sweetly done in verse and paint.

——:o:——

THE LEAF.

Those who have read Rossetti’s lines, commencing

“Torn from your parent bough,

Poor leaf, all withered now,

Where go you?”

will remember that he gives them as translated from Leopardi. It is, however, rather curious that Rossetti does not seem to have noticed that Leopardi headed his little poem “Imitazione” thus distinctly disclaiming the authorship.

The following is Leopardi’s version:—

Imitazione.

Lungi dal proprio ramo,

Povera foglia frale

Dove vai tu? Dal faggio

Là dov’ io nacqui, mi divise il vento.

Esso, tornando, a volo

Dal bosco alla campagna,

Dalla valle mi porta alla montagna

Seco perpetuamente;

Vo pellegrino, e tutto l’altro ignoro.

Vo dove ogni altra cosa

Dove naturalmente

Va la foglia di rosa

E la foglia d’alloro.

Leopardi translated these lines from a collection of fables by A. V. Arnault, Paris, 1826, where they are styled:—

De la tige détachée.

Pauvre feuille desséchée,

Ou vas-tu? Je n’en sais rien.

L’orage a brisé le chêne

Qui seul etait mon soutien.

De son inconstante haleine

Le zéphir ou l’acquilon

Depuis ce jour me promène

De la montagne à la plaine,

De la forêt au vallon,

Je vais où le vent me mène,

Hélas! sans trop m’effrayer;

Je vais où va toute chose,

Où va la feuille de rose,

Où va la feuille de laurier.

These lines had been previously translated into English, before Rossetti, by Macaulay, as follows:—

Thou poor leaf, so sear and frail,

Sport of every wanton gale,

Whence and whither dost thou fly

Through this bleak autumnal sky?

On a noble oak I grew,

Green and broad and fair to view;

But the monarch of the shade

By the tempest low was laid.

From that time I wandered o’er

Wood and valley, hill and moor;

Wheresoe’er the wind is blowing,

Nothing caring, nothing knowing.

Thither go I whither goes

Glory’s laurel, Beauty’s rose.

Before leaving Rossetti mention must be made of a singular series of illustrated parodies which appeared in Punch, March 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31, 1866. The illustrations, by Du Maurier, seem to have been intended partly to ridicule Burne Jones’s style, and partly that of Rossetti; as to the poem, it is of the ultra weird and sensational ballad form, with a slight dash of the “Lady of Shalott” thrown in, and the inevitable refrain, popularly supposed to be inseparable from Pre-raffaelite art.

A Legend of Camelot.

Tall Braunighrindas left her bed

At cock-crow with an aching head,

O Miserie!

“I yearn to suffer and to do,”

She cried, “ere sunset, something new!

O Miserie!

“To do and suffer, ere I die,

I care not what. I know not why.

O Miserie!

“Some quest I crave to undertake,

Or burden bear, or trouble make.”

O Miserie!

She shook her hair about her form

In waves of colour bright and warm.

O Miserie!

It rolled and writhed and reached the floor;

A silver wedding-ring she wore.

O Miserie!

She left her tower, and wandered down

Into the High street of the town.

O Miserie!

Her pale feet glimmered, in and out,

Like tombstones as she went about.

O Miserie!

From right to left, and left to right;

And blue veins streakt her insteps white;

O Miserie!

And folks did ask her in the street

“How fared it with her long pale feet?”

O Miserie!

And blinkt, as though ’twere hard to bear

The red-heat of her blazing hair!

O Miserie!

Sir Galahad and Sir Launcelot

Came hand in hand down Camelot;

O Miserie!

Sir Gauwaine followed close behind;

A weight hung heavy on his mind.

O Miserie!

“Who knows this damsel, burning bright,”

Quoth Launcelot “like a northern light?”

O Miserie!

Quoth Sir Gauwaine: “I know her not!”

“Who quoth you did?” Quoth Launcelot.

O Miserie!

Then quoth the pure Sir Galahad;

“She seems, methinks, but lightly clad!”

O Miserie!

“Ah me!” sighed Launcelot where he stood,

“I cannot fathom it!” … (Who could?)

O Miserie!

* * * * *

——:o:——

The following beautiful sonnet written by Miss Christina Rossetti, sister of D. G. Rossetti, appears in “Goblin Market and other Poems,” published by Macmillan & Co., 1879:

REMEMBER.

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for awhile

And afterwards remember, do not grieve;

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

This appears to be almost the only poem by Miss Rossetti which has tempted the mocking-bird to sing.

Remember.

Remember it, although you’re far away—

Too far away more fivers yet to land,

When you no more can proffer notes of hand,

Nor I half yearn to change my yea to nay.

Remember, when no more in airy way,

You tell me of repayment sagely planned:

Only remember it, you understand!

It’s rather late to counsel you to pay;

Yet if you should remember for awhile,

And then forget it wholly, I should grieve;

For, though your light procrastinations leave

Small remnants of the hope that once I had,

Than that you should forget your debt and smile,

I’d rather you’d remember and be sad.

Judy. April 18, 1888.

Ding Dong.

By Rosina Christelli.

Ding Dong, Ding Dong,

There goes the gong,

Dick, come along,

’Tis time for dinner.

Wash your face,

Take your place,

Where’s your grace

You little sinner?

“Like an apple?”

“Yes, I should.

Nice, nice, nicey!

Good, good, good!”

“Manners, Miss,

Please behave.

Those you ask

Shan’t have.”

“Those who don’t,

Don’t want.

I’ll eat it,

You shan’t.”

Baby cry,

Wipe his eye.

Baby good,

Give him food.

Baby sleepy,

Go to bed.

Baby naughty,

Smack his head!

Poor little thrush,

Found dead in a bush!

When did he die?

He is rather high.

Bury him deep,

He won’t keep.

Bury him well,

Or he’ll smell.

What have horns? Cows and moons.

What have crests? Cocks and spoons.

What are nice? Ducks and peas.

What are nasty? Bites of fleas.

What are fast? Tides and times.

What are slow? Nursery Rhymes.

From The Light Green. Cambridge, W. Metcalf and Sons, 1872.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

The author of “The Earthly Paradise” is much more than a mere poet, he is a thorough man of business, who works as an art designer, and lectures on the social improvement of the people. His poetry was thus amusingly criticised in London, 1877:—

Rondel.

Behold the works of W. Morris,

Epics, and here and there wall-papery,

Mild, mooney, melancholy vapoury.

A sort of Chaucer minus Horace.

Spun out like those of William Loris,

Who wrote of amourous red-tapery,

Behold the works of W. Morris,

Epics, and here and there wall-papery!

Long ladies, knights, and earles and choris-

ters in the most appropriate drapery,

Samite and silk and spotless napery,

Sunflowers and apple-blossoms and orris,

Behold the works of W. Morris!

There are not many good parodies of Mr. Morris, the following is one of the best, though where it first appeared, or by whom it was written, cannot be stated:—

In the cushioned Abbey pew

There is space for Me and You.

Twine the blossoms in my hair;

Never mind if people stare—

Never mind, for none knowèth

If one flirteth after death!

Hark—the organ shakes the pew!

Would it were for Me and You!

Yea, I would indeed it were!

Are they staring? Let them stare!

Never mind, for none knowèth

If one laugheth after death!

We will slumber in the pew—

I am weary, so are you,

And the cushions in repair!

Let the British public stare!

Never mind, for none knowèth

If one sleepeth after death!

All Sides of the River.

The Maidens.

We, with distaste, across the water wan,

The broadcloth of our modern lovers scan;

We each prefer a mediæval man.

The Youths.

We would not reach you, if we could dry-shod;

Not one of us would change, for even, his odd;

The Girl we like not of the Period.

The Mothers.

O daughters! make your markets while you can,

For bloom soon groweth like the water wan;

The early bird picks up the marrying man.

The Maidens.

Perhaps, O lovers, if we did our hair

A la Medea, and if our garments were

Draped classically, we should seem more fair.

The Youths.

By doing this ye would not us befool;

Medea! the idea makes our blood run cool,

Besides of classics we’d enough at school.

The Boys.

Come, I say, now, the girls can darn, and hem,

And cook a chop, and clean a meerschaum-stem;

Our sisters take, we are so tired of them.

The Maidens.

Perhaps if ruffs around our necks were tied,

Or you with idiotic stare we eyed

All angles, with our heads upon one side,

In short, the middle age style—

The Widows.

Suitors! stay,

We are less far from middle age than they.

The Youths.

Maidens, we then to you would make our way.

The Maidens,

Cross ye the water wan, then,—

Mr. Swinburne.

I demur

To “water wan,” it comes too often, sir;

Write next, as I should, rhyming, “wan water,”

The Maidens.

Lovers, we pray you, gaining our consents,

Let us, too, have our mediæval bents,

Give us, for cricket-matches, tournaments.

The Widowers.

We are stout, nor will uncomfortably truss

Our arms and legs, like fowls; no jousts for us,

In armour we should look ridiculous.

The Fathers.

Of money, tournaments would cost a heap:

Humour your sweethearts, sons, with something cheap

But look to settlements before you leap.

The Youths.

O maidens! we in verse will call you queens,

And publicly extol your minds and miens,

Sending our poems to the magazines.

The Maidens.

Sith of Life’s arches bloom hath shortest span,

We will give up our mediæval man,

And meet you half way in the water wan.

The Editors.

Alas! the maidens have removed their ban,

We, vex’d with verses vile, e’en when they scan,

Shall very soon be as the water wan.

Anonymous.

Once a Week. February 20, 1869.

The Monthly Parodies.

AN APOLOGY.

After William Morris’s “Earthly Paradise.”

Of Love or War this is no hour to sing,

But I may ease the burden of your fears

(Lest you think death to mirth is happening),

And quote from wit of past and present years,

Till o’er these pages you forget your tears,

And smile again, as presently you say

Some idle jingle—or forgotten lay.

But when a-weary of the hunt for mirth

Thro’ comic journals, with a doleful sigh,

You feel unkindly unto all the earth,

And grudge the pennies that they cost to buy

These “weakly comics,” lingering like to die,

Remember, then, a little while, I pray,

The clever singers of a former day.

The pomp and power and grand majestic air

That marches thro’ their poems’ stately tread,

These idle verses may catch unaware,

And by burlesque call back remembered

Some rhymes “that living not can ne’er be dead,”

Though what is meant by that I cannot say—

But Mr. Morris wrote it one fine day.

Here grouped are strains of parody in rhyme,

Now classified and placed in order straight,

Let it suffice it for the present time

That some be old, while some are born but late,

A careful choice, from all the crowd that wait,

Of those that in forgotten serials stay,

Or are, in passing journals, tossed away.

Folks say a wizard to a common King,

One April-tide such wondrous jest did show

That in a mirror men beheld each thing,

Like, yet unlike, and saw the pale nose glow,

While rosy face looked white as fallen snow,

Each visage altered in such comic way

That those who came to court, remain’d to play.

So with these many Parodies it is,

If you will read aright and carefully,

Not scathing satire, nor malicious hiss

For lack of beauty in the themes to see;

Nor jeerings coarse, at what men prize, as we

But jest to make some little changeling play

Its pranks in classic robes, all crowned with bay.

Gleeson White.

OSCAR WILDE.

It would be useless to attempt to give any parodies on the poems of Mr. Oscar Wilde without prefacing them with some account, however brief, of his career. In a few of the skits the allusions are already out of date, and in a short time the reasons will be quite forgotten that led to the silly ridicule and misrepresentations of which Mr. Oscar Wilde, as the Apostle of Æstheticism, was formerly the object.

Mr. Oscar O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin on October 15, 1856. His father, Sir William R. Wilde, was an eminent surgeon, and a man of literary tastes and great archæological learning.

In 1851 Sir William (then Mr.) Wilde married a granddaughter of Archdeacon Elgee, of Wexford, a lady well known in literary circles in Dublin as having written many poems which were published in the Nation newspaper at the time of the political excitement in 1848. They appeared over the nom de plume “Speranza,” and were afterwards published in a collected form, entitled “Poems by Speranza.”

Mr. Oscar Wilde early developed talents such as might have been expected in the son of highly gifted parents. Having spent about a year at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Mr. Wilde studied for a year at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a classical scholarship at the early age of sixteen, and in 1874, won the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, the topic selected for that year being the Greek Comic Poets. Thence he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he obtained a first scholarship.

He soon began to show his taste for art and china, and before he had been at Oxford very long, his rooms were the show of the college, and of the university too. He was fortunate enough to obtain the best situated rooms in the college, on what is called the kitchen staircase, having a lovely view over the river Cherwell and the beautiful Magdalen walks, and Magdalen bridge. His rooms were three in number, and the walls were entirely panelled. The two sitting rooms were connected by an arch, where folding doors had at one time stood. His blue china was supposed by connoisseurs to be very valuable and fine, and there was plenty of it. He was hospitable, and on Sunday nights after “Common Room,” his rooms were generally the scene of conviviality, where undergraduates of all descriptions and tastes were to be met, drinking punch, or a B. and S. with their cigars. It was at one of these entertainments that he made his well-known remark, “Oh, that I could live up to my blue china!”

Besides minor scholarships, he took the Newdigate, a prize for English verse, in 1878, and a first in Literis Humanioribus, after which he took his degree.

During this period he produced a number of poems, these were published, some in The Month, others in the Catholic Monitor, and the Irish Monthly. A number of his short poems also appeared in Kottabos, a small magazine written by members of Trinity College, Dublin.

The first number of Mr. Edmund Yates’s Time, April 1879, contained a short poem by Oscar Wilde, entitled “The Conqueror of Time,” and to the July number he contributed “The New Helen.” Some of the foregoing poems, with others not previously published, appeared in a volume, entitled “Poems” by Oscar Wilde, published in 1881 by David Bogue, which speedily ran through several editions.

When referring to this volume in “The Æsthetic Movement in England” mention was made of Mr. Wilde’s exquisite little poem

REQUIESCAT.

Tread lightly, she is near,

Under the snow,

Speak gently, she can hear

The daises grow.

All her bright golden hair

Tarnished with rust,

She that was young and fair,

Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,

She hardly knew

She was a woman, so

Sweetly she grew.

Coffin board, heavy stone,

Lie on her breast,

I vex my heart alone,

She is at rest.

Peace, peace, she cannot hear

Lyre or sonnet,

All my life’s buried here,

Heap earth upon it.

concerning which Mr. G. A. Sala wrote to the Editor (on August 17, 1882.) “I note your book for a proximate ‘Echo.’ I have not read Oscar Wilde’s poems, but in the very sweet stanzas (‘Requiescat’) which you quote, I mark a singular passage:—

“All her bright golden air,

Tarnished with rust.”

Golden hair (experto crede) does not tarnish in the tomb. Read the last paragraph in Zola’s Nana, which physiologically, is astoundingly accurate.”

Faithfully always,

George Augustus Sala.

The passage relating to the death of Nana runs thus:— “Et, sur ce masque horrible et grotesque du néant, les cheveux, les beaux cheveux gardant leur flambée de soleil, coulaient en un ruissellement d’or, Vénus se décomposait.”

79 It is also necessary to refer, here to Mr. Wilde’s career in the two other capacities he has assumed of Art Lecturer, and Dress Reformer.

The interest in the Æsthetic School had sometime since spread to the United States, and when the opera of Patience was produced it occurred to Mr. Wilde that a visit to the States to give some lectures, explanatory of real Æstheticism as it exists amongst us, might interest and possibly instruct and elevate our transatlantic cousins.

In some of his early utterances he was unguarded; he admitted, for instance, that he was not strongly impressed with the mighty ocean, and great was the flow of wit from this small cause:—

“There’s Oscar Wilde, that gifted chylde,

Fair Poesie’s anointed,

Has, like a brick, the Atlantic

Crossed, to be disappointed.

Poor Oscar Wilde, æsthetic chylde;

The Atlantic ought to know it!

A fault so grave to misbehave,

And disappoint a poet!”

He went to Omaha, where, under the auspices of the Social Art Club, he delivered a lecture on “Decorative Art,” in the course of which he described his impressions of many American houses as being “illy designed, decorated shabbily, and in bad taste, and filled with furniture that was not honestly made, and was out of character.” This statement gave rise to the following verses:—

“What a shame and what a pity,

In the streets of London City

Mr. Wilde is seen no more.

Far from Piccadilly banished,

He to Omaha has vanished,

Horrid place, which swells ignore.

On his back a coat he beareth,

Such as Sir John Bennett weareth,

Made of velvet—strange array!

Legs Apollo might have sighed for,

Or great Hercules have died for,

His knee breeches now display.

Waving sunflower and lily,

He calls all the houses “illy”

Decorated and designed.

For of taste they’ve not a tittle;

They may chew and they may whittle;

But they are all born colour blind!”

From the States he went to Canada, and thence to Nova Scotia, the Halifax Morning Herald of October 10, 1882, gave an amusing account of an interview held with him by their own “Interviewer.” “The apostle had no lily, nor yet a sunflower. He wore a velvet jacket which seemed to be a good jacket. He had an ordinary necktie and wore a linen collar about number eighteen on a neck half a dozen sizes smaller. His legs were in trousers, and his boots were apparently the product of New York art, judging by their pointed toes. His hair is the colour of straw, slightly leonine, and when not looked after, goes climbing all over his features. Mr. Wilde was communicative and genial; he said he found Canada pleasant, but in answer to a question as to whether European or American women were the more beautiful, he dexterously evaded his querist.”

The remainder of the conversation was devoted to poetry; he expressed his opinion that Poe was the greatest American poet, and that Walt Whitman, if not a poet, is a man who sounds a strong note, perhaps neither prose nor poetry, but something of his own that is grand, original and unique.

On this topic The Century, for November, 1882, contained an exquisitely humorous poem written by Helen Gray Cone, describing an imaginary interview between Oscar Wilde and the great poetical Egotist—Walt Whitman. The style and diction of both are admirably hit off. The parody of Whitman reads, indeed, like an excerpt from his works.

Unfortunately, as the poem is very long, only an extract can be given:—

Narcissus in Camden.

(“In the course of his lecture, Mr. Wilde remarked that the most impressive room he had yet entered in America was the one in Camden Town, where he met Walt Whitman. It contained plenty of fresh air and sunlight. On the table was a simple cruse of water.”)

Paumanokides. Narcissus.

Paumanokides:

Who may this be?

This young man clad unusually with loose locks, languorous, glidingly toward me advancing,

Toward the ceiling of my chamber his orbic and expressive eyeballs uprolling,

As I have seen the green-necked wild fowl, the mallard, in the thunderings of the storm,

By the weedy shore of Paumanok my fish-shaped island,

Sit down, young man!

I do not know you, but I love you with burning intensity,

I am he that loves the young men, whosoever and wheresoever they are or may be hereafter, or may have been any time in the past,

Loves the eye-glassed literat, loves also and probably more the vendor of clams, raucous-throated, monotonous chanting,

Loves the elevated Railroad employée of Manahatta,

My city;

I suppress the rest of the list of the persons I love, solely because I love you,

Sit down, élève, I receive you!

Narcissus.

O clarion, from whose brazen throat

Strange sounds across the seas are blown,

Where England, girt as with a moat,

A strong sea-lion sits alone!

A pilgrim from that white-cliffed shore,

What joy, large flower of Western land!

To seek thy democratic door,

With eager hand to clasp thy hand!

Paumanokides.

Right you are!

Take then the electric pressure of these fingers,

O my Comrade!

* * * * *

Dear son, I have learned the secret of the Universe,

I learned it from my original bonne, the white-capped ocean,

The secret of the Universe is not Beauty, dear son,

Nor is it Art, the perpetuator of Beauty,

The secret of the Universe is to admire one’s self.

Camerado, you hear me!

Narcissus.

Ah, I too loitering on an eve of June

Where one wan narciss leaned above a pool,

While overhead Queen Dian rose too soon,

And through the Tyrian clematis the cool

Night avis came wandering wearily, I too,

Beholding that pale flower, beheld Life’s key at last, and knew

That love of one’s fair self were but indeed

Just worship of pure Beauty; and I gave

One sweet sad sigh, then bade my fond eyes feed

Upon the mirrored treasure of the wave,

Like that lithe beauteous boy in Tempe’s vale,

Whom hapless Echo loved—thou knowest the Heliconian tale!

And while heaven’s harmony in lake and gold

Changed to a faint nocturne in silvern gray,

Like rising sea-mists from my spirit rolled

The grievous vapors of this Age of Clay,

Beholding Beauty’s re-arisen Shrine,

And the white glory of this precious loveliness of mine!

* * * * *

Haply in the far, the orient future,

In the dawn we herald like the birds,

Men shall read the legend of our meeting,

Linger o’er the music of our words;

Haply coming poets shall compare me

Then to Milton in his lovely youth,

Sitting in the cell of Galileo,

Learning at his elder’s lips the truth.

Haply they shall liken these dear moments,

Safely held in History’s amber clear,

Unto Dante’s converse bland with Virgil,

On the margin of that gloomy mere!

Paumanokides.

Do not be deceived, dear son;

Amid the chorusses of the morn of progress, roaring, hilarious, those names will be heard no longer.

Galileo was admirable once, Milton was admirable,

Dante the I-talian was a cute man in his way,

But he was not the maker of poems, the answerer!

I, Paumanokides, am the maker of poems, the answerer,

And I calculate to chant as long as the earth revolves,

To an interminable audience of haughty, effusive, copious, gritty, and chipper Americanos!

Narcissus.

What more is left to say or do?

Our minds have met; our hands must part.

I go to plant in pastures new

The love of Beauty and of Art,

I’ll shortly start.

One town is rather small for two

Like me and you!

Paumanokides.

So long!

Punch also had a very funny burlesque description of

“OSCAR INTERVIEWED.

“New York, Jan., 1882.

“Determined to anticipate the rabble of penny-a-liners ready to pounce upon any distinguished foreigner who approaches our shores, and eager to assist a sensitive Poet in avoiding the impertinent curiosity and ill-bred insolence of the Professional Reporter, I took the fastest pilot-boat on the station, and boarded the splendid Cunard steamer, The Boshnia, in the shucking of a pea-nut.

“His Æsthetic Appearance.

“He stood, with his large hand passed through his long hair, against a high chimney-piece—which had been painted pea-green, with panels of peacock blue pottery let in at uneven intervals—one elbow on the high ledge, the other hand on his hip. He was dressed in a long, snuff-coloured, single-breasted coat, which reached to his heels, and was relieved with a seal-skin collar and cuffs rather the worse for wear. Frayed linen, and an orange silk handkerchief gave a note to the generally artistic colouring of the ensemble, while one small daisy drooped despondently in his button-hole.

“His Glorious Past.

“Precisely—I took the Newdigate. Oh! no doubt, every year some man gets the Newdigate; but not every year does Newdigate get an Oscar. Since then—barely three years, but centuries to such as I am—I have stood upon the steps of London Palaces—in South Kensington—and preached Æsthetic art. I have taught the wan beauty to wear nameless robes, have guided her limp limbs into sightless knots and curving festoons, while we sang of the sweet sad sin of Swinburne, or the lone delight of soft communion with Burne-Jones. Swinburne had made a name, and Burne-Jones had copied illuminations e’er the first silky down had fringed my upper lip, but the Trinity of Inner Brotherhood was not complete till I came forward, like the Asphodel from the wilds of Arcady, to join in sweet antiphonal counterchanges with the Elder Seers. We are a Beautiful Family—we are, we are, we are!”

“Yes; I expect my Lecture will be a success. So does Dollar Carte—I mean D’Oyly Carte. Too-Toothless Senility may jeer, and poor positive Propriety may shake her rusty curls; but I am here, to pipe of Passion’s venturous Poesy, and reap the scorching harvest of Self-Love! I am not quite sure what I mean. The true Poet never is. In fact, true Poetry is nothing if it is intelligible.

“His Kosmic Soul.

“Oh, yes! I speak most languages; in the sweet honey-tinted brogue my own land lends me. La bella Donna della mia Mente exists, but she is not the Jersey Lily, though I have grovelled at her feet; she is not the Juno Countess, though I have twisted my limbs all over her sofas; she is not the Polish Actress, though I have sighed and wept over all the boxes of the Court Theatre; she is not the diaphanous Sarah, though I have crawled after her footsteps through the heavy fields of scentless Asphodel; she is not the golden haired Ellen, more fair than any woman Veronesé looked upon, though I have left my Impressions on many and many a seat in the Lyceum Temple, where she is High Priestess; nor is she one of the little Nameless Naiads I have met in Lotus-haunts, who, with longing eyes, watch the sweet bubble of the frenzied grape. No, Sir, my real Love is my own Kosmic Soul, enthroned in its flawless essence; and when America can grasp the supreme whole I sing in too-too utterance for vulgar lips, then soul and body will blend in mystic symphonies; then, crowned with bellamours and wanton flower-de-luce, I shall be hailed Lord of a new Empery, and as I stain my lips in the bleeding wounds of the Pomegranate, and wreathe my o’ergrown limbs with the burnished disk of the Sunflower, Apollo will turn pale and lashing the restive horses of the Sun, the tamer chariot of a forgotten god will make way for the glorious zenith of the one Oscar Wilde.”

81 Since his return from America Mr. Oscar Wilde has settled in London, and is known in society as a genial and witty gentleman, and a particularly graceful after-dinner speaker. He is the Editor of The Woman’s World, a very high class magazine, published by Cassell and Co., in which he has ample opportunities of advocating his favourite cult, the worship of the beautiful in Nature and in Art.

Sainte Margérie.

An Imitation.

Slim feet than lilies tenderer,—

Margérie!

That scarce upbore the body of her,

Naked upon the stones they were;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

White as a shroud the silken gown,—

Margérie!

That flowed from shoulder to ankle down,

With clear blue shadows along it thrown;

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

On back and bosom withouten braid,—

Margérie!

In crisped glory of darkling red,

Round creamy temples her hair was shed;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

Eyes like a dim sea, viewed from far,—

Margérie!

Lips that no earthly love shall mar,

More sweet than lips of mortals are;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

The chamber walls are cracked and bare;—

Margérie!

Without the gossips stood astare

At men her bed away that bare;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

Five pennies lay her hand within,—

Margérie!

So she her fair soul’s weal might win,

Little she recked of dule or teen;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

Dank straw from dunghill gathered,

Margérie!

Where fragrant swine have made their bed,

Thereon her body shall be laid;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

Three pennies to the poor in dole,—

Margérie!

One to the clerk her knell shall toll,

And one to masses for her soul;—

C’est ça Sainte Margérie!

From Poems and Parodies. By Two Undergrads. Oxford. B. H. Blackwell, 1880.

(This little paper-covered pamphlet was originally published at the price of one shilling; it was withdrawn from circulation, and is consequently very scarce.)

Sitting up all Night with a Lily.

Oh, fulsome the joy of the fading light!

Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!

When you feel too utterly almost quite,

The sunflowers love, yet love not them!

Oh, weird is the feeling of thoughtsome doubt

When candles, and lamps, and gas are out,

And burglarious Philistines prowl about,

Chill is the air at four a.m.!

Oh, mystic the eyelids all drowsy grown!

Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!

Oh, twitching of limbs that are scarce your own,

The sunflowers love, yet love not them!

Oh, baleful blessing, the wistful wist

Of matters that have not, nor can exist!

Oh, say, have you noticed the gladsome list?

Chill is the air at four a.m.!

You think of your bed with remorseful tears,

Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!

While sounds of the silence attack your ears,

The sunflowers love, yet love not them!

Oh, mythic deeds by the sightless seen!

Oh, lovely past of the has not been!

Oh, what in the world do I chance to mean?

Chill is the air at four a.m.!

Fun’s Academy Skits. 1882.

An Utter Passion uttered Utterly.

Meseem’d that Love, with swifter feet than fire,

Brought me my Lady crown’d with amorous burs,

And drapen in tear-collar’d minivers,

Sloped saltire wise in token of desire;

My heart she soak’d in tears, and on a pyre

Laid, for Love’s sake, in folds of fragrant perse,

The while her face, more fair than sunflowers,

She gave mine eyes for pasture most entire.

Sicklike she seem’d, as with wan-carven smiles

Some deal she moved anear, and thereunto

Thrice paler wox, and weaker than blown sand

Upon the passioning ocean’s beached miles;

And as her motion’s music nearer drew

My starved lips play’d the vampyre with her hand.

John Todhunter.

Kottabos. Dublin, William McGee. 1882.

An Æsthete’s Rhapsody.

Consummate Dish! full many an ancient crack

Is seamed across thy venerable back;

And even through to thine æsthetic face

Cracks run to lend a more enchanting grace!

What matter though the epicure now loses

The juice which through thy gaping fissures oozes?

Thrice happy Table-cloth, thou knowest not

The too-too beauty of yon greasy spot,

To think that with a little vulgar butter,

This High Art Dish can make thee look so utter.

Harper’s Bazaar.

In 1881 and 1882 Punch teemed with parodies on Oscar Wilde, one of the best appeared May 28, 1881:—

More Impressions.

(By Oscuro Wildegoose.)

La Fuite des Oies.

To outer senses they are geese,

Dull drowsing by a weedy pool;

But try the impression trick, Cool! Cool!

Snow-slumbering sentinels of Peace!

Deep silence on the shadowy flood

Save rare sharp stridence (that means “quack”).

Low amber light in Ariel track

Athwart the dun (that means the mud).

And suddenly subsides the sun,

Bulks mystic, ghostly, thrid the gloom

(That means the white geese waddling home),

And darkness reigns! (See how it’s done?)

The titles of some others are;—

April 9, 1881.	A Maudle-in Ballad to his Lily.
June 23, 1881.	Maunderings at Marlow.
October 1, 1881.	The Æsthete to the Rose.
November 26, 1881.	The Downfall of the Dado.
January 14, 1882.	Murder made Easy.
March 31, 1883.	Sage Green, by a Fading-out Æsthete.

this latter contained the following verses:—

My love is as fair as a lily flower.

(The Peacock Hue has a sacred sheen!)

Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower.

(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)

Her face is as wan as the water white.

(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)

Her eyes are as stars on a moonlit night.

(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)

The China plate it is pure on the wall.

(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)

Alack! she heedeth it never at all.

(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)

* * * * *

The Public House.

(With apologies to
Oscar Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House.”)

We wandered home with weary feet,

We lumbered down the lamp-lit street,

And stopped beneath a public-house.

Outside, in just the usual way,

We heard the grand old cornet play

A carol to the wild carouse.

Like smell of spirits came the blast

Of heated air that streetward passed,

As “Out yer go” were shoved “the blind.”

We watched the reeling roysterers spin

From scene of revelry within,

Like those who’d left their legs behind.

Like idiots they, of foolish face,

With grinning, ghastly-pale grimace,

They looked so very, very ill!

They took each other by the arm,

As if in that there were a charm,

In short they had had quite their fill.

Sometimes a man who out was set

Went through the swearing alphabet.

Or p’r’aps he’d homeward start and sing.

Then turning round to go, I said,

“It’s after hours, I’ll home to bed,

I will not wait the outward rush!”

Just then the Bobby heard the din,

And after knocking, entered in,

Law passed into the House of Sin.

Then suddenly the cornet stopped,

The thrumming harp’s drear music dropped,

The house it seemed its sails to furl.

And down the long and noisy street

The staggering legs of “whisky neat”

Crawled headlong in a whirl.

Tramway Tame.

The Sporting Times. June 13, 1885.

A “Rose” Ball.

A Rose, or Maidens’ Ball took place, in July 1885, at Hyde Park House, which was lent for the occasion by Mrs. Naylor-Leyland. It was a complete success, in spite of the absence of Royalty. As a social gathering, it was the smartest dance of the season, while, from a girl’s point of view, there has been no ball in London to equal it for many a day. Each fair donor paid five pounds, for which she was allowed to ask five men, and in almost every case the favoured five put in an appearance; so instead of the dancing-rooms being filled with girls anxiously looking for partners, the tables were turned, and the black coats had to take their turn at playing wallflowers—an amusement, to judge from some of their remarks, that they did not all appreciate. Each maiden carried a bouquet of roses, and almost all the floral decorations were confined to various varieties of the same flower.

Five-and-seventy maidens, free,

Bent on dancing, one and all,

Did some weeks ago decree

They, themselves, would give a ball.

Each, they said, would ask five men

Who at waltzing were au fait.

Settled was their project then,

They had even fixed the day!

Ah, miserie!

For these dancing maidens found

That a certain potent Prince,

When he heard their details, frowned,

His displeasure to evince.

“This,” said he, “must not be so!”

“That,” he quoth, “should not be thus!”

Till the maidens’ tears did flow,

As they murmured “Woe to us!

Ah, miserie!”

These same maidens, though, were wise,

And soon ceased to weep or wince;

Nor would they their plans revise,

E’en to please a potent Prince,

But resolved to merry be,

Even though he would not come,

Much enjoyed their dance, whilst he

Had to moan in accents glum—

“Ah, miserie!”

Truth. July 16, 1885.

An Un-Æsthetic Love Song.

A barrel of beer and a glass of gin hot

Are goodly gifts for me;

For my own true love a half-gallon pot

Filled to the brim with tea.

For thee a bloater from Yarmouth town

(Fresh, O fresh, is a fish of the sea!);

For me some beef, and, to wash it down,

A pint of porter (ah me! ah me!).

Sherbet and zoedone for thee

(Teetotal drinks have taking names!);

A cup of claret and pink for me

(O! men are stronger than dames!)

From Ballades of a Country Bookworm, by Thomas Hutchinson. London, Stanesby & Co. 1888.

Quite the Cheese.

By a Wilde Æsthete.

There once was a maiden who loved a cheese

Sing, hey! potatoes and paint!

She could eat a pound and a half with ease!

O the odorous air was faint!

What was the cheese that she loved the best?

Sing, hey! red pepper and rags!

You will find it out if you read the rest;

Oh, the horror of frowning crags!

Came lovers to woo her from ev’ry land—

Sing, hey! fried bacon and files!

They asked for her heart, but they meant her hand,

O the joy of the Happy Isles.

A haughty old Don from Oporto came;

Sing, hey! new carrots and nails!

The Duke Gorgonzola his famous name

O the lusciously-scented gales!

Lord Stilton belonged to a mighty line!

Sing, hey! salt herrings and stones!

He was “Blue” as china—his taste divine!

O the sweetness of dulcet tones.

Came stout Double Glo’ster—a man and wife

Sing, hey! post pillars and pies!

And the son was SINGLE, and fair as fate;

O the purple of sunset skies!

De Camembert came from his sunny France

Sing, hey! pork cutlets and pearls!

He would talk sweet nothings, and sing and dance

O the sighs of the soft sweet girls.

Came Gruyere so pale! a most hole-y-man!

Sing, hey! red sandstone and rice!

But the world saw through him as worldlings can

O the breezes from Isles of Spice.

But the maiden fair loved no cheese but one

Sing, hey! acrostics and ale!

Save for single Glo’ster she love had none!

O the roses on fair cheeks pale!

He was fair and single—and so was she!

Sing hey! tomatoes and tar!

And so now you know which it is to be!

O the aid of a lucky star!

They toasted the couple the livelong night

Sing hey! cast-iron and carp!

And engaged a poet this song to write.

O the breathing Æolian harp!

So he wrote this ballad at vast expense!

Sing, hey! pump-handles and peas!

And, though you may think it devoid of sense,

O he fancies it Quite the Cheese!

H. C. Waring.

ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY.

Was born in 1844, and at the age of twenty obtained a position in the Natural History Department of the British Museum. In 1873 he married Miss Eleanor Marston, who assisted her husband in some of his early works, especially in a volume entitled “Toyland,” published in 1875.

But Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and her two children all died in 1879, and the unfortunate young poet did not long survive them, he dying in London early in 1881.

His early books—“An Epic of Women” (1870); and “Lays of France” (1872), were successful, but “Music and Moonlight” (1874), was coldly received.

Blue Moonshine.

By O’pshawnessy.

Mingled aye with fragrant yearnings,

Throbbing in the mellow glow,

Glint the silvery spirit burnings,

Pearly blandishments of woe.

Ay! for ever and for ever,

Whilst the love-lorn censers sweep,

Whilst the jasper winds dissever,

Amber-like, the crystal deep;

Shall the soul’s delirious slumber,

Sea-green vengeance of a kiss,

Teach despairing crags to number

Blue infinities of bliss.

Francis G. Stokes.

This parody originally appeared in The Shotover Papers, Oxford, May 1874.

“Frangipanni.”

By O’Sh******sy.

Untwine those ringlets! Ev’ry dainty clasp

That shines like twisted sunlight in my eye

Is but the coiling of the jewelled asp

That smiles to see men die.

Oh, cobra-curlèd! Fierce-fanged fair one! Draw

Night’s curtain o’er the landscape of thy hair!

I yield! I kneel! I own, I bless thy law

That dooms me to despair.

I mark the crimson ruby of thy lips,

I feel the witching weirdness of thy breath!

I droop! I sink into my soul’s eclipse,—

I fall in love with death!

And yet, vouchsafe a moment! I would gaze

Once more into those sweetly-murderous eyes,

Soft glimmering athwart the pearly haze

That smites to dusk the skies!

Hast thou no pity? Must I darkly tread

The unknown paths that lead me wide from thee?

Hast though no garland for this aching head

That soon so low must be?

No sound? No sigh? No smile? Is all forgot?

Then spin my shroud out of that golden skein

Thou call’st thy tresses! I shall stay thee not—

My struggles were but vain!

But shall I see thee far beyond the sun,

When the new dawn lights empyrean scenes?

What matters now? I know the poem’s done,

And wonder what the dickens it all means!

Judy. July 21, 1880.

Here is another parody of Mr. C. S. Calverley’s style:—

On the River.

It is sweet to sip the breezes

In September; and it pleases

Folks like me, whose work decreases

When its hot,

To depart from one’s landlady,

Very shortly after pay-day,

And to settle in some shady

Kind of spot.

In September I am lazy,

And my thoughts are rather mazy,

So I love the aspect hazy

Of some glade,

When the autumn moon uprises

O’er the hill, and me surprises,

Talking trash that full of sighs is,

To that maid.

She has eyes that seem to twinkle,

Like the pin-impaled winkle,

When the fish-wife dares to sprinkle

It with spice;

And her chestnut-tinted tresses,

That provoke a man’s caresses,

Haunt her swain till he confesses

She is nice.

Sometimes, when the day has faded,

And the moonbeams have invaded

Every nook that is unshaded

From their gleam,

Chloe, who is very knowing

In the noble art of rowing,

Vaguely drops a hint of going

Down the stream.

’Neath the branches of a willow,

With the drifted sedge for pillow,

Cradled on the silver billow

Lies a boat,

Which I speedily untether,

And we drift away together,

Like two beetles on a feather

That’s afloat.

Couched in shadow that so still is,

Dreamy, large-eyed waterlilies

Stare astonished at us sillies

Up above:

Doubtless, with a timid flutter

Of propriety, they mutter

Sentiments I dare not utter,

About love.

Wretched things! with no affections,

And with very bad complexions;

We can suffer your objections

And your snubs;

By your taunts we won’t be maddened,

And shall be surprised and gladdened,

If our true love be not saddened

By worse rubs.

Anonymous.

“Georgy.”

(After J. Ashby-Sterry.)

I know you, little winsome sweet,

You heroine of childish orgy;

What dance would ever be complete

Without our rosy, romping Georgy?

Straight as a dart, of which the sting

Lurks in a pair of pearl-gray eyes;

Slight, but the roundest lissome thing

As o’er the well-chalked floor she flies.

Nor can I say there is concealed

At ev’ry airy pirouette

The frill (not often so revealed!)

Of such a dainty pantalette!

Her little boots with silver heels

Ring on the boards as round she whirls—

I wonder if the darling feels

She cuts out all the other girls?

There is a saucy cock of chin,

A semblance of a conscious power

To stake (with ev’ry chance to win!)

The bud against the fallen flower.

Who knows these little maidens’ dreams?

Unsullied,—but with mischief fraught:

How like a woman Georgy seems,

Yet by what subtle instinct taught?

The question’s vague!—some day, perhaps,

She’ll find the answer, for the rogue is

A match, at twelve, for most young chaps,

And right away beyond us fogies.

For me,—I sit and watch her twirls,

Then wend me home and smoke my pipe,

That whispers “These delightful girls,

Thank goodness are in Sterry-o-type!”

R. Reece.

Judy. June 30, 1880.

It should be mentioned, in connection with Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry, that The Muse in Manacles, quoted on page 64, was from his pen.

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON.

It should have been mentioned, in connection with the poems of this gentleman, that illustrated articles concerning his life and works appeared in Once a Week, September 7, 1872, and The Century, February, 1883. Both contained portraits, the one in The Century having been drawn by Mr. George Du Maurier. Mr. Locker’s poem “St. James’s Street,” (see page 56) originally appeared in The Times, in 1867.

BALLADES, RONDEAUS, AND VILLANELLES.

Since the last part was published several parodies on these exotics have been sent in by various correspondents, and it would be ungracious not to include them, indeed, the collection would be incomplete without them. The first humorous Ballade, aptly enough, is from the pen of Mr. Gleeson White, whose book on Ballades and Rondeaus has already been alluded to:—

Ballade of a Ballade Monger.

You start ahead in splendid style,

No stint of rhymes appear in view,

With many a happy thought the while—

You dash away as though you knew

Enough to fill the thirty-two.

Those lines, that need such careful filling,

Yet you are lucky if you do—

For ballade-mongering is killing.

Now on your face may dawn a smile,

To think that rhymes both neat and new,

To end your stanzas will beguile

Your pen—till “envoy” you must brew;

But half the poem yet is due.

And though she ready be and willing,

To your shy muse you yet must sue—

For ballade-mongering is killing.

Here’s stanza three, and now they rile,

Those end words that of every hue

And form, all seem so poor and vile,

You, weary of the hackneyed crew

This one suggests the other’s cue.

As fresh as—twelve pence for a shilling,

No, never change can you renew,

For ballade-mongering is killing.

Envoy.

Rhymesters! The Envoy you will rue,

Since it should be supreme and thrilling;

It’s ended, tamely it is true,

For ballade-mongering is killing.

Gleeson White.

Judy. October 5, 1887.

The following well known Ballade originally appeared in Mr. Andrew Lang’s Ballades in Blue China, the first (1880) edition of which is so much prized by collectors.

BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.

He lived in a cave by the seas,

He lived upon oysters and foes,

But his list of forbidden degrees

An extensive morality shows;

Geological evidence goes

To prove he had never a pan,

But he shaved with a shell when he chose,

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

He worshipp’d the rain and the breeze,

He worshipped the river that flows,

And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,

And bogies, and serpents, and crows;

He buried his dead with their toes

Tucked up, an original plan,

Till their knees came right under their nose,

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

His communal wives, at his ease,

He would curb with occasional blows;

Or his State had a queen, like the bees

(As another philosopher trows):

When he spoke it was never in prose:

But he sang in a strain that would scan,

For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

(Three verses omitted.)

Envoy.

Max, proudly your Aryans pose,

But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,

For, as every Darwinian knows,

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

Andrew Lang.

A Ballade of Primitive Woman.

An American Parody.

She lived in a primitive way,

She lived in a hut made of trees,

With never a moving in May,

Unless when invaded by bees,

Her husband had never night keys,

Lodge nights were not then to deceive;

Nor was he addicted to sprees—

What a life led our relative, Eve!

He hadn’t for bonnets to pay,

Which accounts for his efforts to please;

Nor did he growl round every day,

O’er his trousers that bagged at the knees,

Unheard of were fashion’s decrees

Her dolmans she knew how to weave

From grape-leaves with greatest of ease,

What a life led our relative, Eve!

Her stew-pans she wrought out of clay

Her knives were the shells of the seas,

And she dined on a spicy entrée

Of grapes and some ape-fricassees.

To sleep with the toes to the breeze

Was considered the cheese, I believe,

Which was healthy, no one but agrees—

What a life lead our relative, Eve.

Envoy.

Cast off fashions gay panoplies,

“Sassiety” maiden, retrieve;

Learn, while apeing our “first familees,”

What a life led our relative, Eve!

Anonymous.

The Universal Review, for December, 1888, contained a peculiar article by Mr. H. D. Traill, entitled “The Doom of the Muses,” in which he satirically describes the present position of the Fine Arts. Dealing with Poetry, he thus alludes to the present craze for the Ballade:—

This is the age of glorified jingle,

Honour is only to rhyming pranks;

Deftliest who their assonants mingle,

They shall walk first in Poesy’s ranks:

They shall recline upon Helicon’s banks,

Fountain of bards who have conquered Time;

(Others must do with inferior tanks)

This is the era of run-mad rhyme.

Cold though their verse as the sea-shore shingle,

Common and cheap as the nails in the planks,

Empty as frothiest blather of Fingal,

Pointless as ends of the cats of the Manx,

Still the mere fact that their lines are not “blanks”

Helps them the Mount of Parnassus to climb,

Strengthens their unwinged Pegase’s shanks:

This is the era of run-mad rhyme.

Who shall reign over us sole and single?

He who his rhyme-web’s intricate hanks

Wears like a collar of bells that tingle,

Not like the links of a chain that clanks:

He who his burden of quips and cranks

Bears with the step of a light-foot mime,

Figure erect and unwavering flanks,—

This is the era of run-mad rhyme.

Muse, I presume you object to “spanks,”

Word—I admit it—beneath the sublime.

Pray then excuse me the Envoi. Thanks!

This is the era of run-mad rhyme.

Austin Dobson.—Andrew Lang.

Ah me! how many Fate makes mourn

Unhonoured in our midst to dwell,

Tho’ Epics write they, and—in scorn,

Shun Rondeau, Ballade, Villanelle;

Blank verse they scan—at times, as well,

In jolts and jingles harsh rhymes clang,

But fail to reach the pinnacle

Of Austin Dobson—Andrew Lang,

Dear brothers these, whose names adorn

Their roll, who spread Poesy’s spell,

Their sweetest strains heartward are borne

In Rondeau, Ballade, Villanelle;

Yet did no rival e’er excel

Their efforts in the realms o’ sang;—

The Laureate’s self bears not the bell

From Austin Dobson—Andrew Lang.

Their’s not the heaviness men spurn,

Light as the breeze in fairy dell

The flights of fancy that they turn

To Rondeau, Ballade, Villanelle;

From them we never flee pell mell,

Ne’er close their volumes with a bang;

O! naught our happiness can quell

With Austin Dobson—Andrew Lang.

Envoy.

How soothed our souls—what words can tell?

With Rondeau, Ballade, Villanelle,

How robbed of many a bitter pang

By Austin Dobson—Andrew Lang.

From Ballades of a Country Bookworm. By Thomas Hutchinson. London, Stanesby & Co. 1888.

Some years ago Mr. Austin Dobson wrote a few comical Triolets, which appeared in “Hood’s Comic Annual.” These have not been included in recent English editions of his poems—which is to be regretted.

——:o:——

Rondel.

You bet! you hear me. I tell you

I, Whistler, Sir, has fetched this town

Onto a copper, a renown,

He scratches in, Sir; yes a few!

Your critics they may hop the flue,

Your painting critturs, Sir, may frown,

I, Whistler, Sir! has fetched the town,

You bet you hear me, I tell you.

His bowie, Sir! is bright and new,

He licks ’em up, he licks ’em down

I guess, he gives ’em Fits in Brown,

Yes, Sir! and plays Old Hell in Blue!

You bet! you hear me! I tell you!

Rondel.

We have a most erotic bard,

His style and title Swinburne Charles,

Passion his frame contorts and gnarls,

The gods and women grip him hard.

Observe him bearded like a pard,

Furious and fair as northern jarls;

We have a most erotic bard,

His style and title Swinburne Charles.

He has a dungheap in his yard,

Mixed with the most offensive marls,

No wonder Mrs. Grundy snarls,

Faustine, Dolores, Chastelard,

We have a most erotic bard.

From London. 1877.

That dear old Tune.

(A Rondeau written in a rage.)

That dear old tune I loved of yore!

Indeed I love it still;

But never save by this one Bore

(Who lives upon my basement floor)

Have heard it played so ill.

Alas, what penance for my sins.

I seek my desk, and soon

Once more the tootling Fiend begins

That dear old tune!

All vainly I expostulate;

He tries it morn and noon,

I vow in sheer distress of hate

To learn the ‘loud bassoon’

‘I rage—I burn’—I execrate;

That dear old tune!

Austin Dobson.

Saturday Journal. 1874.

In Re Rondeau.

In corsets laced, in high-heeled shoes,

Too fine a woodland way to choose,

With mincing step and studied strut,

Is this an English Goddess? Tut—

Some masker from the Parley-Voos!

O, Poet! thou of sinewy thews,

Wilt thou free ways and walks refuse,

To mince instead through paths close shut,

In corsets laced?

I cannot—for I’ve old-time views—

Follow the poet who pursues

The Rondeau, with its rabbit scut,

Or Triumphs in a Triolet, but—

There may be those who like the muse,

In corsets laced.

Roundel.

The Cat that sings at dead of night

I pelt with bricks, and boots and things,

Oh, for the luck to kill outright

The Cat that sings!

It is as when at evening rings

Melodeon-music, only slight-

ly worse it tears your bosom-strings.

And if at last you chance to smite

Him over,—as to life he springs,

He simply screeches with delight—

The Cat that sings.

The University News Sheet. St. Andrew’s. March 3, 1886.

——:o:——

The Villanelle.

(For the original Villanelle, by Jean Passerat, see page 66.)

Jean Passerat, I like thee well—

Thou sang’st a song beyond compare—

But I’ve not lost a tourterelle:

Nor can I write a villanelle—

Thou did’st—and for that Jewel rare,

Jean Passerat, I like thee well.

Now many a twittering hirondelle

The plumes of thy lost dove would wear—

But I’ve not lost a tourterelle.

Could not, indeed, true turtle tell—

If real or mock I could not swear:

Jean Passerat, I like thee well.

True heart that would go “après elle—”

And sure thy sentiment I’d share—

But I’ve not lost a tourterelle.

And am content on earth to dwell—

There are some men they cannot spare:

Jean Passerat, I like thee well,

But I’ve not lost a tourterelle!

Charles Henry Webb.

Villanelle.

“How to compose a Villanelle, which is said to require an elaborate amount of care in production, which those who read only would hardly suspect existed.”

It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it,

As easy as reciting A. B. C.

You need not be an atom of a poet.

If you’ve a grain of wit and want to show it,

Writing a Villanelle—take this from me—

It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it.

You start a pair of “rimes” and then you “go it”

With rapid running pen and fancy free,

You need not be an atom of a poet.

Take any thought, write round it or below it,

Above or near it, as it liketh thee;

It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it.

Pursue your task, till, like a shrub, you grow it,

Up to the standard size it ought to be;

You need not be an atom of a poet.

Clear it of weeds, and water it, and hoe it,

Then watch it blossom with triumphant glee,

It’s all a trick, quite easy when you know it,

You need not be an atom of a poet.

Walter W. Skeat.

The Academy. May 19, 1888.

——:o:——

The Wail of the “Personally Conducted.”

Integral were we, in our old existence;

Separate beings, individually;

Now are our entities blended, fused, and foundered—

We are one Person.

We are not mortals, we are not celestials,

We are not birds, the upper ether clearing,

We are a retrogression toward the Monad:

We are Cook’s Tourists.

All ways we follow him who holds the Guide Book;

All things we look at, with bedazzled optics;

Sad are our hearts, because the vulgar rabble

Call us the Cookies.

Happy the man who, by his cheerful fireside,

Says to the partner of his joys and sorrows:

“Anna Maria, let us go to-morrow

Out for an airing.”

Him to Manhattan, or the beach of Brighton,

Gaily he hieth, or if, fate accurséd,

Lives he in Boston, still he may betake him

Down to Nantasket.

Happy the mortal, free and independent,

Master of the main spring of his own volition,

Look on us with the eye of sweet compassion,

We are Cook’s Tourists.

H. C. Bunner.

Scribner’s Monthly. November, 1879.

——:o:——

AN OLD SONG BY NEW SINGERS.

In the Original.

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go.

As Austin Dobson Writes It.

Triolet.

A little lamb had Mary, sweet,

With a fleece that shamed the driven snow.

Not alone Mary went when she moved her feet

(For a little lamb had Mary, sweet)

And it tagged her ’round with a pensive bleat,

And wherever she went it wanted to go—

A little lamb had Mary, sweet,

With a fleece that shamed the driven snow.

As Mr. Browning Has It.

You knew her?—Mary the small,

How of a summer—or, no, was it fall?

The latter, I think—a lamb she received?

You’d never have thought it—never believed,

But the girl owned a lamb last fall.

Its wool was subtly, silky white,

Color of lucent obliteration of night—

Like the shimmering snow or—our Clothild’s arm!—

You’ve seen her arm—her right, I mean—

The other she scalded a-washing, I ween—

How white it is and soft and warm?

Ah, there was soul’s heart-love, deep, true and tender,

Wherever went Mary, the maiden so slender,

There followed, his all-absorbed passion, inciting,

That passionate lambkin—her soul’s heart delighting—

Ay, every place that Mary sought in

That lamb was sure to soon be caught in.

As Longfellow Might have Done It.

Fair the daughter known as Mary,

Fair and full of fun and laughter,

Owned a lamb, a little he-goat,

Owned him all herself and solely.

White the lamb’s wool as the Gotchi—

The great Gotchi, driving snowstorm.

Hither Mary went and thither,

But went with her to all places,

Sure as brook to run to river,

Her pet lambkin following with her.

How Andrew Lang Sings It.

Rondeau.

A wonderful lass was Marie, petite.

And she looked full fair and passing sweet—

And, oh! she owned—but cannot you guess

What pet can a maiden so love and caress

As a tiny lamb with a plaintive bleat

And mud upon his dainty feet,

And a gentle veally odour of meat?

And a fleece to finger and kiss and press—

White as snow?

Wherever she wandered—in lane or street

As she sauntered on, there at her feet

She would find that lambkin—bless

The dear!—treading on her dainty dress,

Her dainty dress, fresh and neat—

White as snow.

Mr. Algernon C. Swinburne’s Idea.

Villanelle.

Dewy-eyed with shimmering hair,

Maiden and lamb were a sight to see,

For her pet was white as she was fair.

And its lovely fleece was beyond compare,

And dearly it loved its Mistress Marie,

Dewy-eyed, with shimmering hair.

Its warped wool was an inwove snare

To tangle her fingers in, where they could be

(For her pet was white as she was fair)

Lost from sight, both so snow-white were,

And the lambkin adored the maiden wee—

Dewy-eyed with shimmering hair.

Th’ impassioned incarnation of rare,

Of limpid-eyed, luscious lipped, loved beauty—

And her pet was white as she was fair.

Wherever she wandered, hither and there,

Wildly that lamblet sought with her to be—

With the dewy-eyed, with shimmering hair,

And a pet as white as its mistress was fair.

A. C. Wilkie.

Martin Farquhar Tupper.

This gentleman was born in London in 1810, and educated, first at the Charterhouse school, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A., M.A., and D.C.L. The author of many works, both in prose and verse, Mr. Tupper has been hardly dealt with by the critics, and the parodists.

They appear to have ignored such of his writings as have any merit, in order to hunt most mercilessly to death his Proverbial Philosophy, 89 which, though it has run through many editions, is inferior to much else that he has written.

The reasons for this perversity on their part cannot here be considered, only the Parodies as they exist can be dealt with.

The following lines, which were written many years ago by “Cuthbert Bede” in his Shilling Book of Beauty, neatly sum up Proverbial Philosophy:—

Thoughts may abide in the brain, yet how few have the wit to extract them;

Many may know of Proverbs, yet could not for worlds have devised them.

All are not gifted the same: there are brains that are stupid and addled;

There are those that are clear as the stream,—the pellucid water that floweth

Under the bridges, that bind the Surrey shore unto London.

Philosophy cannot be taught, unless you can meet with a teacher:

I am the teacher of this the nineteenth century of being.

Philosophy I can expound in a way hitherto undream’d of;

Witness my book of Proverbial Platitudes, and its Editions;

Book beloved by women—women of intellect feeble;

Book that is lauded by old maids, and Evangelical parsons;

Book that by school-girls is worshipped, and ranked with The Pilgrim’s Progress;

That is read by bachelor curates, to maidens at Dorcas meetings;

Designing curates, who choose the chapters on “Love” and “Marriage,”

And read the soft nothings therein, with smirks and murderous gusto.

I have written of Proverbs, turned everything to a Proverb,

Even my name as an author, proverbial is it with many,

Who, in braying derision, call me “Sweet Singer of Beadledom,”

Let those laugh who win! my Proverbs have eighteen editions!

Eighteen editions bring fame, and—what is better—money.

Another old parody may be quoted from the second volume of Punch, (1842).

Punch’s Proverbial Philosophy.

Introductory.

Come along, old fellow; follow me as a friend, from the midnight streets;

Leave awhile the cold and muddy Strand to loiter in the tavern of the Coal Hole.

Come into this quiet box, with hot water in a batter’d pewter jug,

Over whose beer-stain’d table are strewn many particles of crust;

Here, upon this wooden peg, hang up thy hat and Chesterfield,

Order a pint of stout, or a go of grog, and rest for half-an-hour.

Behold! I would stop a short time in this buzzing crowd of visitors,

Though wrapp’d up in a mackintosh, yet are the seams and pockets pervious;

But into the foam of this goodly glass I dip my beak,

And receive its contents as nectar, yet the tap is Barclay’s.

Under its cheerful influence I shall, before long, get loquacious,

And mingle the fashion of my speech with froth-built snatches of philosophy!

Of Gifts.

I had a seeming friend:—I gave him a licking—he was gone!

I had an open enemy:—I stood a pint—and won him!

Common friends require presents; monkeys more kicks than halfpence;

But the scorn of anyone melteth at a barrel of Quin’s oysters.

A foe may get spiteful, and incline to call thee a humbug,

But send him a turbot, and he saith,—“He’s a good fellow, after all!”

Policemen will not oft refuse a drain, if absent the inspector,

And policemen’s friendship should be courted in the event of rows.

The larker, held by the collar, may be released by half-a-crown,

And thy own bed is better than the stone sofas of a station house,

Or, being James Edwards, compelled to call thyself John Brown.

There is not one crusher who is proof against the waistcoat pocket,

And the same font of happiness hath even power over reporters.

I saw a beggar in St. Giles’s, and another beggar punch’d his head,

For the first had collected more coppers at his crossing than the other

His broom fell into the mud, and he swore an oath.

Anon a baked potato-man came up, with a high-pressure can,

And gave him of his store; the first beggar was grateful.

He, poor stricken cadger, picked up his broom with a curse,

And, turning to the potato man, asked what he would take to drink.

And so the sprat had been set, and the herring had been caught!

A parody of a somewhat more spiteful character appeared in Punch, August 23, 1856, but the circumstances to which it alluded are now forgotten, so that the parody lacks interest: a few verses only need be quoted:—

The Queen of Oude.

(NOT)

By Martin Farquhar Tupper, Esq.

The Queen of Oude,

Which is so proud,

She never will get boozy,

Has crossed the seas,

And, if you please,

Will serve out Lord Dalhousie.

The Queen of Oude,

She cries so loud

For justice, like a Q. C.

And claims her right,

And wants to fight

The Marquis of Dalhousie.

* * * * *

The Queen of Oude

Shall save her gowd,

And this she’d do, me duce,

She’d give a lunch,

To me, and Punch,

And ask my Lord Dalhousie.

The Queen of Oude,

Which is so proud.

Would find her lot adouci,

To hear the wit

That we’d emit.

Me, Punch, and Lord Dalhousie.

Proverbial Philosophy.

By Farthing Tarquhar Mupper, Esq.

Beer, that hath entered my head, and peopled its inner chambers,

The addling outcome of barrels, the dream-inspiring malt and the hop-juice,

Amber-tinged wine of the Briton, with the headache and biliousness after,

Heaven-brewed draught of immortals, oh! sweeter than ever was nectar,

Such extend I unto thee, thou docile child of a pot-house:

Commend thy mouth to the tankard, and grudge not to drink of the liquor,

Nor scorn its yellow flood for the sake of the Bacchus of Cruikshank.

Lo! now, I stand not forth, laying hold on spear and on buckler;

I come, as the cask of pale ale, to comfort thee, and to succour:

With soft and mellowest taste to charm the lips which are eager;

With the balmy breath of fellowship to touch thy heart sympathetic.

Let us drink together as friends, in the happy smoke of tobacco,

Nor judgment take her seat until we are happy as lordlings,

That the fumes of good strong beer may override all argument,

And charity not be a stranger at the board that is spread for brothers.

Anonymous.

In Banter (a comic paper edited by Mr. G. A. Sala) for November 11, 1867, there was a parody of Tupper, entitled Proverbial Philosophy of Sausages, but it was not very amusing; and in the same paper, for November 18, there was a burlesque description of a dinner given to Mr. Tupper, and of an after-dinner speech he delivered in which he explained the dodges and devices he had practised in order to puff his works, and increase the sale of Proverbial Philosophy.

The Fall of Tupper.

We are too often painfully reminded that the best of us are but very frail. A very painful case of moral declension has occurred lately. Martin Farquhar Tupper, the great moral philosopher at whose feet all England has sat so long and learnt so much, that great and good man who had discovered a new species of poetry which was neither rhyme nor reason, but all beautiful pure sentiment, has come down to writing rhyme! Happily he has not yet reached the next stage—he has not fallen so low yet as to incur the suspicion of writing reason. But this abandonment of his principles has been, we fear, the result of bad company, for—our heart breaks almost while we pen the words,—but it is too plain, we cannot shut our eyes to the cruel truth—Martin Farquhar Tupper has fallen into the power of Algernon Charles Swinburne!! He, the purest of philosophers, the chosen minstrel of the Evangelical Church, has been studying the words of the erotic Pagan bard, the laureate of Venus and Faustina!

We are enabled, by a wonderful effort of clairvoyance, to publish a poem which the modest songster of The Rock has held back, the charming domestic interest and true Protestant flavour of which must commend it to all admirers of Martin Farquhar Tupper:—

Going to The Wash.

(Lines written on Monday morning.)

BY M. F. T.

I really must look to my washing this week,

I must watch how my shirts are got up;

For I feel that in matters like this I’m too meek,

And I don’t keep my pluck enough up;

I ought to be brave, and to speak my mind out,

For of sheep, sure the male is a Tup,

And I am a Tupper, so quite to the rout

I must put Mrs. Sarah Hiccup.

Let me see; five fine shirts as ever was seen,

Five collars (not paper) to match,

With four pairs of socks, some blue and some green,

Will make up a beautiful batch;

Then of handkerchiefs seven seem semblant to see,

And two or three neckties so white!

Every clear starcher’s soul will be strangled with glee,

When on my sacred things they set sight.

Stop, I’ve nearly forgotten two jerseys (quite thin),

And two flannel shirts too I vow!

In this weather its right to wear flannel next skin,

At least I do truly so trow;

One nightshirt, if modesty lets me to add,

In my list I must also include,

I would mention my nightcap, but soberly sad,

Society sneers that it’s rude.

Mrs. Sarah Hiccup now I hope will take care,

And return all the things that I send;

But trumpets of treachery tickle the air

Till I know not where Treason will end!

What if Ritualist robbers should recklessly join

My shirts, to make copes with, to seize;

Or the pattering Papist my parcel purloin

His priests so prehensile to please?

The Tomahawk. August 22, 1868.

The following excellent parody has been ascribed to Mr. Andrew Lang:—

Mr. Tupper in the Clouds.

I, the proverbial philosopher, sing of “electrical storage,”

As discovered by Thompson (Sir William), a philosopher whose name is also proverbial.

Pride is a horrible sin, and I am no sinner;

So I do not hesitate to extend my hand in greeting to Sir William,

Trusting that he will not overmuch presume on my affability.

Hitherto I have been sorely flouted not only by eagles,

But also by that ridiculous creature the gnat—in Latin ’tis called culex pipiens.

Laughter was good for the gods of Homer; but we are not gods nor Homeric,

And laughter too audibly laughed betrays the void mind of the laugher.

Therefore, instead of cachinnating, I smile with supernal sarcasm

To think that a gnat should dare to flout the stringer of proverbial pearls

On silken threads of verse, strengthened and made indestructible

By wax from philosophy’s beehive warmed in the sun of experience;

But oh! Raptorial Bird! oh, vilest of all the culicides!

Emblems both of the critics, carnivorous and sharp-stinging reviewers,

I will be even with you now. I’ll fly, but not on waxen wings like silly Icarus—

Not in a balloon, or in anything on the levitation principle:

That was all very well for Mr. Green and M. de Montgolfier,

But I say that levitation is all my eye and my elbow.

(Proverb that verges on slang, but its uses hath slang, like adversity).

No levitation for me; but force like that of a cannon-ball.

Not that I mean to be shot out of a twelve-pounder like Zazel at the Aquarium,

But to be propelled by tame gunpowder. “How shall I tame it?”

Have you never heard of Carter the Lion King, or of Myn Heer Van Amburg?

Did not they tame furious mammalia? And did they tell you how they did it?

So shall I not tell you how I intend to tame this “villanous saltpetre.”

But I’ll do it, or have it done for me by “our mechanicians,”

They shall invent a machine to be loaded with domesticated gunpowder

(I patenting the discovery, of course, as the author of the suggestion),

That shall enable me to reign in the blue empyrean and complete the subdual of the planet

Which is and has been for ever so long my heritage.

Wo, then, wo to the gnats! wo to the Jewish-nosed eagle!

I put the least first and the greatest last, partly to snub the King of the Falconidæ,

And partly because it better suits my rhythm—

I will not say my metre because I condemn all trammels,

Pouring out my soul in lines of unequal lengths occasionally relieved by hexameters.

Wo, wo, wo! to the eagle! Now you see I reverse things again,

Vice-versa-ing my apostrophe—’tis a common trick of versemen and orators—

Soon the eagle of song will soar ever so much higher than the eagle who can’t sing;

And he won’t like that—the other eagle I mean, of course:

So he’ll let himself fall into the sea like a thunderbolt.

(That last idea is not mine, but a Mr. Tennyson’s; have you heard of him?)

While as for the gnats—they are the critics, as I hinted just now, you know.

Sting for sting, my hearties, then! buzz for buzz! bite for bite!

And, as of course I am ever so much bigger than you are,

I’ll shrike you as the humming-bird shrikes the honey-bee—that I will.

St. James’s Gazette. June 27, 1881.

WILLIAM AND MARGARET.

By David Mallet. Born, 1700. Died, 1765.

’Twas at the silent solemn hour,

When night and morning meet;

In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,

And stood at William’s feet.

Her face was like an April morn

Clad in a wintry cloud;

And clay-cold was her lily hand

That held her sable shroud.

So shall the fairest face appear

When youth and years are flown:

Such is the robe that kings must wear,

When death has reft their crown.

Her bloom was like the springing flower,

That sips the silver dew;

The rose was budded in her cheek,

Just opening to the view.

But love had, like the canker-worm,

Consumed her early prime;

The rose grew pale, and left her cheek—

She died before her time.

Awake! she cried, thy true love calls,

Come from her midnight grave:

Now let thy pity hear the maid

Thy love refused to save.

This is the dark and dreary hour

When injured ghosts complain;

When yawning graves give up their dead,

To haunt the faithless swain.

Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,

Thy pledge and broken oath!

And give me back my maiden-vow,

And give me back my troth.

Why did you promise love to me,

And not that promise keep?

Why did you swear my eyes were bright,

Yet leave those eyes to weep?

How could you say my face was fair,

And yet that face forsake?

How could you win my virgin heart,

Yet leave that heart to break.

Why did you say my lip was sweet,

And made the scarlet pale?

And why did I, young witless maid!

Believe the flattering tale?

That face, alas! no more is fair,

Those lips no longer red:

Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,

And every charm is fled.

The hungry worm my sister is;

This winding-sheet I wear:

And cold and weary lasts our night,

Till that last morn appear.

But hark! the cock has warned me hence;

A long and last adieu!

Come see, false man, how low she lies,

Who died for love of you.

The lark sung loud; the morning smiled

With beams of rosy red;

Pale William quaked in every limb,

And raving left his bed.

He hied him to the fatal place

Where Margaret’s body lay;

And stretched him on the green-grass turf

That wrapped her breathless clay.

And thrice he called on Margaret’s name,

And thrice he wept full sore;

Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,

And word spake never more!

A Latin version of this ballad was written by Mr. Vincent Bourne, entitled Thyrsis et Chloe. It can readily be found in his works, but the following anonymous French translation is not so well known:—

“L’Ombre de Marguerite.”

Dans la nuit, à l’heure effrayante

Où l’airain frémit douze fois,

Des spectres la famille errante

Sort des tombeaux à cette voix.

Edmond, que le remords agite,

Cherchait le sommeil, qui le fuit:

L’ombre pâle de Marguerite

Vient s’asseoir au pied de son lit.

Regarde, Edmond, c’est moi, dit-elle,

Moi qui t’aimais, que tu trompas,

Moi dont la tendresse fidèle

Vit encore apprès le trépas.

J’en ai cru ta fausse promesse,

Je t’ai fait maître de mon sort;

Hélas! pour prix de ma tendresse

Fallait-il me donner la mort?

Jadis de la rose naissante

J’avais l’éclat et la fraîcheur:

Pourquoi sur sa tige brillante

Ton souffle a-t-il séché la fleur?

Mes yeux brillaient de tant de charmes,

Ingrat, alors que tu m’aimais;

Pourquoi donc les noyer de larmes,

Pourquoi les fermer à jamais.

Hier dans un palais superbe,

Aujourd’hui dans un noir cercueil;

Mon asile est caché sous l’herbe,

Et ma parure est un linceul.

De quel forfait suis-je victime?

J’aimai, j’ai cru l’être mon tour;

Qui me punit d’un pareil crime?

L’objet même de mon amour.

De ton inconstance cruelle

Le jour fut à tous deux fatal;

Quand ton cœur devint infidèle,

Edmond, il se connaissait mal:

Tu m’abandonnes, je succombe;

Mais enchaîné par le destin,

Le remords vient d’ouvrir ma tombe;

Tu dois y descendre demain.

J’entends le coq; sa voix encore

Pour nous est un signal d’effroi;

Je ne dois plus revoir l’aurore,

Et c’est la dernière pour toi!

Adieu. Celle qui te fut chère

Te plaint, te pardonne, et t’attend…

L’ombre à ces mots perce la terre,

Et disparaît en gémissant.

Edmond immobile, en silence,

A vu ce prodige effrayant:

De son lit soudain il s’élance,

Défiguré, pâle et tremblant.

Il court, il cherche Marguerite;

Sa voix s’échappe en cris aigus;

Sur sa tombe il se précipite;

On le relève: il n’était plus!

Dr. Johnson’s Ghost.[4]

’Twas at the solemn hour of night,

When men and spirits meet,

That Johnson, huge majestic sprite,

Repaired to Boswell’s feet.

His face was like the full-orb’d moon

Wrapt in a threatening cloud,

That bodes the tempest bursting soon,

And winds that bluster loud.

Terrific was his angry look,

His pendent eyebrows frown’d;

Thrice in his hand he waved a book,

Then dashed it to the ground.

“Behold,” he cry’d “perfidious man!

This object of my rage:

Bethink thee of the sordid plan

That form’d this venal page.

“Was it to make this base record

That you my friendship sought;

Thus to retain each vagrant word,

Each undigested thought?

“Dar’st thou pretend that, meaning praise,

Thou seek’st to raise my name;

When all thy babbling pen betrays

But gives me churlish fame?

“Do readers in these annals trace

The man that’s wise and good?

No!—rather one of savage race,

Illib’ral, fierce, and rude:

“A traveller, whose discontent

No kindness can appease;

Who finds for spleen perpetual vent

In all he hears and sees:

“One whose ingratitude displays

The most ungracious guest;

Who hospitality repays

With bitter, biting jest.

“Ah! would, as o’er the hills we sped,

And climb’d the sterile rocks,

Some vengeful stone had struck thee dead,

Or steeple, spar’d by Knox!

“Thy adulation now I see,

And all its schemes unfold:

Thy av’rice, Boswell, cherish’d me,

To turn me into gold.

“So keepers guard the beasts they show,

And for their wants provide;

Attend their steps where’er they go,

And travel by their side.

“O! were it not that, deep and low,

Beyond thy reach I’m laid,

Rapacious Boswell had e’er now

Johnson a mummy made.”

He ceased, and stalk’d from Boswell’s sight

With fierce indignant mien,

Scornful as Ajax, sullen sprite,

By Sage Ulysses seen.

Dead paleness Boswell’s cheek o’erspread,

His limbs with horror shook;

With trembling haste he left his bed,

And burnt his fatal book.

And thrice he called on Johnson’s name,

Forgiveness to implore!

Then thrice repeated—“Injured fame!”

And word—wrote never more.

The following ballad, which was once very popular among the lower orders, is said to be founded on “William and Margaret”:—

Giles Scroggin’s Ghost.

Giles Scroggin courted Molly Brown,

The fairest wench in all our town,

Fol de riddle lol, de riddle lido.

He bought her a ring with a posy true,

If you loves me, as I loves you,

No knife can cut our loves in two.

Fol de riddle, etc.

But scissors cuts, as well as knives,

And quite unsartain’s all our lives,

Fol de riddle, etc.

The day they were to have been wed,

Fate’s scissors cut poor Giles’s thread,

So they could not be mar—ri—ed.

Fol de riddle, etc.

Poor Molly laid her down to weep,

And cried herself quite fast asleep,

Fol de riddle, etc.

When standing fast by her bed-post,

A figure tall her sight engrossed,

It cried, “I be Giles Scroggin’s ghost,”

Fol de riddle, etc.

The ghost it said all solemnly,

“Oh! Molly, you must go with I,

Fol de riddle, etc.

All to the grave your love to cool.”

Says she, “Why, I’m not dead, you fool,”

Says the ghost, says he, “Vy, that’s no rule.”

Fol de riddle, etc.

The ghost then seized her all so grim,

All for to go along with him,

Fol de riddle, etc.

“Come, come,” said he, “e’er morning beam.”

“I von’t,” says she, and screamed a scream,

Then she awoke, and found she’d dream’d a dream.

Fol de riddle, de riddle lido.

A Polished Version.

Young Giles the fair Maria wooed;

Flower of the village maidenhood;

Heigho, alack, and well-a-day!

His pledge this legend bore inlaid,—

Love, that two hearts hath mutual made,

Defies the knife of keenest blade;

Heigho! &c.

But keen, alas! as knives are shears

And dubious all our fleeting years,

Heigho! &c.

The morn that should have made them one,

Fate’s shears the bridegroom’s thread outspun,

Sever’d; and bridal there was none,

Heigho! &c.

Maria sought her couch to weep;

Till grief, exhausted, sank in sleep:

Heigho! &c.

When stood, her lonely pillow nigh,

A figure more than mortal high;

And cried—“Behold, my love, ’tis I”

Heigho! &c.

All solemnly the spirit said,

“Away with me unto the dead,”

Heigho! &c.

“To cool thy passion in the tomb!”

—“What, ere my days of earthly doom?”

“No matter!” cried the shape of gloom,

Heigho! &c.

Grimly the phantom clutch’d the fair,

To death’s dark realm his prize to bear,

Heigho! &c.

“Hence! hence!” he cried, “ere morning’s light;”

“Begone!” she shriek’d, and with the fright

Woke. ’Twas a vision of the night.

Heigho! &c.

Punch. April 13, 1844.

The Rev. George Crabbe.

Born December 24, 1754. Died Feb. 3, 1832.

Although the works of this author are now but little read, they were widely popular at the time when the brothers Smith produced The Rejected Addresses in 1812, and naturally Mr. Crabbe’s poetry came in for imitation. Indeed this particular imitation was singled out by Lord 94 Jeffrey as being the best piece in the collection. “It is,” said he, “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 (Crabbe), 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 are never so thick sown in the original works as in this admirable imitation.”

Even Mr. Crabbe, himself, was amused, he wrote “There is a little ill-nature in their prefatory address; but in their versification they have done me admirably, yet it is easier to imitate style than to furnish matter.”

From this it will be gathered that the prose introduction is as much a parody as the poem, both of which were written by James Smith, who gives the following lines as a fair sample of Mr. Crabbe’s versification:—

“Six years had pass’d and forty ere the six,

When time began to play his usual tricks;

My locks, once comely in a virgin’s sight,

Locks of pure brown, now felt th’ encroaching white;

Gradual each day I liked my horses less,

My dinner more—I learn’t to play at chess.”

and as to his jingling style he mentions that Crabbe thus describes a thrifty house-wife:—

“Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys.”

THE THEATRE.

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 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.

“————one fiddle will

Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still,”

was originally written “one hautboy will;” but, having providentially been informed, when this poem was on 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 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 statistical 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 Play-bill.—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.

’Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six,

Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks,

Touch’d by the lamplighter’s Promethian art,

Start into light, and make the lighter start;

To see red Phœbus through the gallery-pane

Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane;

While gradual parties fill our widen’d pit,

And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit.

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease,

Distant or near, they settle where they please;

But when the multitude contracts the span,

And seats are rare, they settle where they can.

Now the full benches to late-comers doom

No room for standing, miscall’d standing room.

Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks,

And bawling “Pit full!” gives the check he takes;

Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram,

Contending crowders shout the frequent damn,

And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam.

See to their desks Apollo’s sons repair—

Swift rides the rosin o’er the horse’s hair!

In unison their various tones to tune,

Murmers the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;

In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,

Tang goes the harpsicord, too-too the flute,

Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,

Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tinkling harp;

Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,

Attunes to order the chaotic din.

Now all seems hush’d—but no, one fiddle will

Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still.

Foil’d in his crash, the leader of the clan

Reproves with frowns the dilatory man:

Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow,

Nods a new signal, and away they go.

Perchance, while pit and gallery cry, “Hats off!”

And awed Consumption checks his chided cough,

Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love

Drops, reft of pin, her play-bill from above:

Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap,

Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap;

But, wiser far than he, combustion fears,

And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers;

Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl,

It settles, curling, on a fiddler’s curl;

Who from his powder’d pate the intruder strikes,

And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.

Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues?

Who’s that calls “Silence!” with such leathern lungs?

He who, in quest of quiet, “Silence!” hoots,

Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.

What various swains our motley walls contain!—

Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane;

Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort,

Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court;

From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain,

Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane;

The lottery-cormorant, the auction-shark,

The full-price master, and the half-price clerk;

Boys who long linger at the gallery-door,

With pence twice five—they want but twopence more;

Till some Samaritan the twopence spares,

And sends them jumping up the gallery-stairs.

Hard is the task who edits—thankless job.[5]

A Sunday journal for the fractious mob:

With bitter paragraph and caustic jest,

He gives to turbulence the day of rest;

Condemn’d, this week, rash rancour to instil,

Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will:

Alike undone or if he praise or rail

(For this affects his safety, that his sale)

He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set,

If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt.

Critics we boast who ne’er their malice baulk,

But talk their minds—we wish they’d mind their talk;

Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live—

Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;

Jews from St. Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,

That for old clothes they’d even axe St. Mary;

And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,

Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait;

Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse

With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.

Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow,

Where scowling Fortune seem’d to threaten woe.

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer

Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire;

But when John Dwyer listed in the blues,

Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs’s shoes.

Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy

Up as a corn-cutter—a safe employ;

In Holywell Street, St. Pancras, he was bred

(At number twenty-seven, it is said),

Facing the pump, and near the Granby’s Head:

He would have bound him to some shop in town,

But with a premium he could not come down.

Pat was the urchin’s name—a red-hair’d youth,

Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,

The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat,

But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat:

Down from the gallery the beaver flew,

And spurn’d the one to settle in the two,

How shall he act? Pay at the gallery door,

Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four?

Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait,

And gain his hat again at half-past eight?

Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,

John Mullins whispers, “Take my handkerchief.”

“Thank you,” cries Pat, “but one won’t make a line.”

“Take mine,” cried Wilson, and cried Stokes, “Take mine.”

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,

Where Spitalfields with real India vies.

Like Iris’ bow, down darts the painted clue,

Starr’d, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,

Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.

George Green below, with palpitating hand,

Loops the last ’kerchief to the beaver’s band—

Upsoars the prize! The youth with joy unfeign’d,

Regain’d the felt, and felt what he regain’d;

While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat

Made a low bow, and touch’d the ransom’d hat.

——:o:——

The First Parody in “Rejected Addresses.”

The very first author selected for imitation by the Smiths was one whose writings have long since been forgotten, and whose name alone is preserved from oblivion by Byron’s lines:—

“Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl

His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.”

Mr. W. T. Fitzgerald actually sent in a serious address to the Drury Lane Committee on August 31, 1812. It was published, among the other Genuine Rejected Addresses, in that year. It contained the following lines:—

“The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near,

Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.”

On which Smith remarks, “What a pity, that like Sterne’s Recording Angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver’s remedy?” Fitzgerald’s writings do not appear to have attained the dignity of a collected edition, but in the Library of the British Museum a number of his poems and prologues are preserved, from which the following is selected as a fair example of his style. It will also illustrate the humour of the parody.

BRITONS TO ARMS.

Written by W. T. Fitzgerald, Esq., and recited by him at the meeting of the Literary Fund, July 14.

Britons, to arms! of apathy beware,

And let your Country be your dearest care,

Protect your Altars! guard your Monarch’s Throne.

The cause of George and Freedom is your own!

What! shall that England want her Sons support,

Whose Heroes fought at Cressy … Agincourt?

And when Great Marlborough led the English Van,

In France, o’er Frenchmen, triumphed to a man!

By Alfred’s great and ever honored name!

By Edward’s Prowess, and by Henry’s Fame!

By all the gen’rous Blood for Freedom shed!

And by the ashes of the Patriot Dead!

By the Bright Glory Britons lately won,

On Egypt’s plains beneath the burning sun.

Britons, to arms! defend your Country’s cause;

Fight for your King, your Liberties and Laws!

Be France defied, her slavish Yoke abhorr’d,

And place your safety only on your Sword.

The Gallic Despot, sworn your mortal Foe,

Now aims his last, but his most deadly blow;

With England’s plunder tempts his hungry slaves,

And dares to brave you on your native waves,

If Briton’s rights be worth a Briton’s care,

To shield them from the sons of Rapine, swear!

Then to Invasion be defiance given,

Your cause is just, approved by earth and heaven,

Should adverse winds our gallant fleet restrain,

To sweep his bawbling [6] vessels from the main,

And fate permit him on our shores t’advance.

The Tyrant never shall return to France:

Fortune herself shall be no more his friend,

And here the history of his crimes shall end,

His slaughtered legions shall manure our shore,

And England never know Invasion more.

Printed for James Askern, 32, Cornhill, for 1d. each, or 6s. per 100.

Noblemen, magistrates, and gentlemen would do well by ordering a few dozen of the above tracts of their different booksellers, and causing them to be stuck up in the respective villages where they reside, that the inhabitants may be convinced of the cruelty of the Corsican usurper.

Loyal Effusion.

BY W. T. F.

“Quicquid dicunt, laudo: id rursum si negant,

Laudo id quoque,” Terence.

Hail, glorious edifice, stupendous work!

God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!

Ye Muses! by whose aid I cried down Fox,

Grant me in Drury Lane a private box,

Where I may loll, cry Bravo! and profess

The boundless powers of England’s glorious press;

While Afric’s sons exclaim from shore to shore,

“Quashee ma boo!”—the slave-trade is no more!

In fair Arabia (happy once, now stony,

Since ruined by that arch-apostate Bony),

A Phœnix late was caught: the Arab host

Long ponder’d—part would boil it, part would roast;

But while they ponder, up the pot-lid flies,

Fledged, beak’d, and claw’d, alive they see him rise

To heaven, and caw defiance in the skies.

So Drury, first in roasting flames consumed,

Then by old renters to hot water doom’d

By Wyatt’s trowel patted, plump and sleek,

Soars without wings, and caws without a beak.

Gallia’s stern despot shall in vain advance

From Paris, the metropolis of France;

By this day month the monster shall not gain

A foot of land in Portugal or Spain.

See Wellington in Salamanca’s field

Forces his favourite general to yield,

Breaks through his lines, and leaves his boasted Marmont

Expiring on the plain without his arm on;

Madrid he enters at the cannon’s mouth,

And then the villages still further south,

Base Bonapartè, filled with deadly ire,

Sets one by one our playhouses on fire.

Some years ago he pounced with deadly glee on

The Opera House, then burnt down the Pantheon;

Nay, still unsated, in a coat of flames,

Next at Millbank he cross’d the river Thames;

Thy hatch, O Halfpenny![7] pass’d in a trice,

Boil’d some black pitch, and burnt down Astley’s twice;

Then buzzing on through ether with a vile hum,

Turn’d to the left hand, fronting the Asylum,

And burnt the Royal Circus in a hurry—

(’Twas call’d the Circus then, but now the Surrey).

Who burnt (confound his soul!) the houses twain

Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane?

Who, while the British squadron lay off Cork

(God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!)

With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas,

And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos?

Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise?

Who fills the butchers’ shops with large blue flies?

Who thought in flames St James’s court to pinch?

Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch?—

Why he, who, forging for this isle a yoke,

Reminds me of a line I lately spoke,

“The tree of freedom is the British oak.”

Bless every man possess’d of aught to give;

Long may Long Tylney Wellesley Long Pole live;

God bless the Army, bless their coats of scarlet,

God bless the Navy, bless the Princess Charlotte;

God bless the guards, though worsted Gallia scoff,

God bless their pig-tails, though they’re now cut off;

And, oh! in Downing Street should Old Nick revel,

England’s prime minister, then bless the devil!

——:o:——

GEORGE BARNWELL

In Bishop Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry is the Ballad having this title, which the Bishop states had been printed at least as early as the middle of the 17th century. Upon this Ballad, George Lillo, the dramatist, founded a tragedy, entitled “The London Merchant, or the History of George Barnwell,” which was first performed at Drury Lane Theatre, in 1731. Lillo departed from the ballad by making Barnwell die repentant, thereby spoiling his dramatic character, and the piece was faulty in other respects, yet it held the stage for many years, and Mrs. Siddons frequently performed the part of the fair but naughty Millwood, and Charles Kemble was considered the best Barnwell ever seen on the boards.

At the time, therefore, that Rejected Addresses were written, and for many years afterwards, George Barnwell was a piece thoroughly familiar to London playgoers, consequently it was quite natural that the topic should be selected for a burlesque, and the following was written by James Smith:—

George Barnwell.

George Barnwell stood at the shop-door,

A customer hoping to find, sir;

His apron was hanging before,

But the tail of his coat was behind, sir.

A lady, so painted and smart,

Cried, Sir, I’ve exhausted my stock o’ late;

I’ve got nothing left but a groat—

Could you give me four penn’orth of chocolate?

Rum ti, &c.

Her face was rouged up to the eyes,

Which made her look prouder and prouder;

His hair stood on end with surprise,

And hers with pomatum and powder.

The business was soon understood;

The lady, who wish’d to be more rich,

Cries, Sweet sir, my name is Milwood,

And I lodge at the Gunner’s in Shoreditch.

Rum ti, &c.

Now nightly he stole out, good lack!

And into her lodging would pop, sir!

And often forgot to come back,

Leaving Master to shut up the shop, sir.

Her beauty his wits did bereave—

Determined to be quite the crack O,

He lounged at the Adam and Eve,

And call’d for his gin and tobacco.

Rum ti, &c.

And now—for the truth must be told,

Though none of a ’prentice should speak ill—

He stole from the till all the gold,

And ate the lump sugar and treacle.

In vain did his master exclaim,

Dear George, don’t engage with that dragon;

She’ll lead you to sorrow and shame,

And leave you the devil a rag on,

Your rum ti, &c.

In vain he entreats and implores,

The weak and incurable ninny,

So kicks him at last out of doors,

And Georgy soon spends his last guinea.

His uncle, whose generous purse

Had often relieved him, as I know,

Now finding him grow worse and worse,

Refused to come down with the rhino.

Rum ti, &c.

Cried Milwood, whose cruel heart’s core

Was so flinty that nothing could shock it,

If ye mean to come here any more,

Pray come with more cash in your pocket:

Make Nunky surrender his dibs,

Rub his pate with a pair of lead towels,

Or stick a knife into his ribs—

I’ll warrant he’ll then show some bowels.

Rum ti, &c.

A pistol he got from his love—

’Twas loaded with powder and bullet;

He trudged off to Camberwell Grove,

But wanted the courage to pull it.

There’s Nunky as fat as a hog,

While I am as lean as a lizard;

Here’s at you, you stingy old dog!

And he whips a long knife in his gizzard.

Rum ti, &c.

All you who attend to my song,

A terrible end of the farce shall see,

If you join the inquisitive throng

That follow’d poor George to the Marshalsea.

If Milwood were here, dash my wigs,

Quoth he, I would pummel and lam her well;

Had I stuck to my prunes and figs,

I ne’er had stuck Nunky at Camberwell.

Rum ti, &c.

Their bodies were never cut down;

For granny relates with amazement,

A witch bore ’em over the town,

And hung them on Thorowgood’s casement.

The neighbours, I’ve heard the folks say,

The miracle noisily brag on;

And the shop is, to this very day,

The sign of the George and the Dragon.

Rum ti, &c.

In 1858 the late Mr. Shirley Brooks chose this burlesque as the basis of a parody he composed on the ecclesiastical procedure adopted by Samuel Wilberforce, then Bishop of Oxford. It contains nothing more offensive to religion than the somewhat familiar address to the Bishop as Soapy Sam, the origin of which sobriquet is lost in doubt. It is said, that when asked its meaning by a lady, Bishop Wilberforce replied, “I believe they call me ‘Soapy Sam’ because I am so often in hot water, and always come out with clean hands.”

Sam.

A Melancholy but Instructive Narrative, Founded on Facts,
and on James Smith’s “George Barnewell”

Sam Soapey stood at his Palace door,

Promotion hoping to find, Sir;

His Apron it hung down before,

And the tail of his wig behind, Sir.

A Lady, so painted and smart,

Cried “Pardon my little transgression,

But I know what is next to your heart,

Now, what do you think of Confession?”

Rum-ti-iddi-ti-ti.

Her face was rouged up to the eyes,

And red was her ladyship’s toggery,

And folks who are thought to be wise,

Recognised a professor of roguery.

A bundle of Keys at her waist—

Says she, “I can help you, Sir, that I can,

In the South I am very much graced,

And I live at a place called the Vatican.”

Rum-ti-iddi-ti-ti.

Her language his wits did bereave,

She proceeded to carney and gabble on,

And at last (which you’d hardly believe)

He smirked at the Lady of Babylon.

Says he, “I should get in a scrape,

Could my late and respectable Sire hark;

He’d frown should a Wilberforce ape

A sleek Ultramontanist hierarch.”

Rum-ti-iddi-ti-ti.

Says she, “Don’t be frightened at names,

You’ve always to Rome had a tendency!

Stand up for Confession; your game’s

To struggle for priestly ascendency.

Cut the priest a back-way to the house,

And you’ve cut through the Isthmus of Darien:

Fathers, husbands, are not worth a souse

After that, my fine stout-legged Tractarian.”

Rum-ti-iddi-ti-ti.

* * * * *

This counsel he took from his love,

And in Parliament’s very next Session

He pleaded, with voice of a dove,

For “the excellent rite called Confession.”

But Premiers are wary, and they can see

Whom ’tis expedient to fish up;

Lo! an archiepiscopal vacancy,

And Sam is not made an Archbishop.

Rum-ti-iddi-ti-ti.

“If that Woman were here, dash my wigs.”

Cried he, “I’d come Luther and Knox at her,

I’d slate the old mother of prigs,

And raise my episcopal vox at her.

I fancied I’d made such a rare book,

And now I’m in just the wrong box for ’t;

Had I struck to my Anglican Prayer-book,

H should not have stuck Bishop of Oxford.”

Rum-ti-iddi-ti-ti.

Moral.

(Too obvious to need telling.)

The burlesque of George Barnwell is the last of the poetical extracts that need be quoted from The Rejected Addresses. Those already given in this collection consist of the imitations of W. T. Fitzgerald, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Robert Southey, Walter Scott, M. G. Lewis, S. T. Coleridge and George Crabbe. Those not given consist of a few prose imitations (William Cobbett and Dr. Johnson), and two or three parodies of second-rate and almost forgotten authors.

MISSIONARY HYMN.

(By Dr. Reginald Heber, 1783-1826,)

From Greenland’s icy mountains,

From India’s coral strand,

Where Afric’s sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand;

From many an ancient river,

From many a balmy plain,

They call us to deliver

Their land from error’s chain.

What though the spicy breezes

Blow soft on Ceylon’s isle,

Though every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile;

In vain, with lavish kindness,

The gifts of God are strewn,

The Heathen in his blindness,

Bows down to wood and stone.

* * * * *

Song by Prince Gortschakoff.

From Cashmere’s icy mountains,

From Bombay’s coral strand,

Where Cawnpore’s sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand;

From many a Punjab river,

From groves where fire-flies flame,

To make us Russians shiver,

The Indian regiments came.

In ships across the ocean,

The dusky warrior steam’d.

’Twas Beaconsfield’s own notion,

And this is what he dream’d:

That at the apparition

Of cut-throats such as these,

My master would petition

For mercy on his knees.

Yes, he was so benighted

This Earl, who governs you,

To think we should be frighted,

At his assorted crew.

Sensation, too, sensation!

That also was his game;

And o’er the British nation

The Jingo spirit came.

Tell, his’try, tell the story,

Whilst future ages jeer,

Of how to gain fresh glory

He brought these Indians here.

And how, when once at Malta,

They back again were sped;

Whilst England paid for carriage

A hundred pounds per head!

Truth Christmas Number. December 1879.

To English Women Missionaries.

From Greenland’s icy mountains,

From India’s coral strand,

Comes no distinct appealing

For England’s helping hand;

The poor benighted savage

Compelled unclothed to dwell,

Without our cost-price Bibles

Enjoys life very well.

What though the spicy breezes

Are very nice and dry,

And every prospects pleases

A missionary eye?

In vain with lavish kindness

The Gospel tracts are strewn,

The heathen in his blindness

Does better left alone.

A happy, soulless creature,

He lives his little day;

Directly on conversion,

It seems, ensues decay.

Why seek the cheerful heathen

To tell him he is vile?

Ah, leave him gay and godless

Upon his palmy isle.

* * * * *

From England’s greatest city,

Through all her pomp and pride,

One bitter cry rings ever,

Unsilenced, undenied:

From Stepney’s crowded alleys,

From Bethnal Green’s close lanes,

Men call us to deliver

Souls from the Devil’s chains.

O women! sister women—

Do you not hear the cry

Of these who sin and suffer—

Are damned in life, and die:

Of these whose lives are withered,

Whose youth is trampled down,

The victims and the scourges

Of every Christian town?

By life that is—and is not—

By life that is to be,

By baby lips yet speechless,

By all life’s misery—

They call: their lives adjure you

By all your lives hold dear—

What foreign mission calls you?

Your mission work is here!

E. Nesbit.

The Weekly Dispatch. July 10, 1887.

A New War Song.

From Chatham’s pleasant mountains,

From Aldershot’s bare plain,

Where the British flag floats proudly,

And the lion shakes his mane.

From barracks and from messroom

Resounds the bugle’s notes,

Calling to arms, to cross the seas

And cut some heathen throats.

What tho’ from every pulpit

We daily Christ proclaim

And bend before the Prince of Peace,

And worship in His name,

In vain in adoration

We bow before the throne,

These heathens are possessed of lands

That we must make our own.

Blow, gently blow, ye breezes,

Let the war smoke upward curl

While bathed in blood and glory

Stands forth our Premier Earl;

But weep, oh! weep for England,

And bow the head in shame,

For sullied is her honour,

And tarnished is her name.

J. C. A.

The Bath Herald. May, 1879.

The Imperial Institute Ode.

After tremendous efforts to “puff” the so-called “Imperial Institute” scheme into public favour, and when the subscriptions were coming in but slowly, the ceremony of laying the foundation stone was gone through, with all the solemn mummery customary on such occasions. An Ode was necessary, and one was accordingly written by Mr. Lewis Morris, and set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan. The Ode contained the usual commonplaces, expressed in language more than usually dull and meaningless, as the following extracts will suffice to show:—

With soaring voice and solemn music sing,

High to Heaven’s gate let pealing trumpets ring!

To-day our hands consolidate

The Empire of a thousand years.

Delusive hopes, distracting fears,

Have passed, and left her great,

For Britain, Britain, we our jubilant anthems raise,

Uplift your voices all, worthy is she of praise!

III.

No more we seek our Realm’s increase

By War’s red rapine, but by white-winged Peace;

To-day we seek to bind in one,

Till all our Britain’s work be done—

Through wider knowledge closer grown,

As each fair sister by the rest is known,

And mutual Commerce, mighty to efface

The envious bars of Time and Place,

Deep-pulsing from a common heart

And through a common speech expressed—

From North to South, from East to West,

Our great World Empire’s every part;

A universal Britain strong

To raise up Right and beat down Wrong—

Let this thing be! who shall our Realm divide?

Ever we stand together, Kinsmen, side by side!

First Lady of our British Race!

’Tis well that with thy peaceful Jubilee

This glorious dream begins to be,

This thy lost Consort would, this would thy Son,

Who has seen all thy Empire face to face

And fain would leave it One,

Oh, may the Hand which rules our Fate

Keep this our Britain great!

We cannot tell, we can but pray

Heaven’s blessing on our work to-day.

Uprise, oh, Palace fair, where every eye may see

This proud embodied Unity!

For Britain and our Queen one voice we raise,

Laud them, rejoice, peal forth, worthy are they of praise!

The Inaugural Ode as it Ought to have Been.

(With Apologies to Mr. Lewis Morris.)

With partial pomp and sounding bands of brass,

And Royalties—both first and second class—,

To-day the Queen, in semi-state,

Consents a project to befriend

Which for so long seemed doomed to end

In a fiasco great!

But at last, at last, the Prince his labour finds repaid—

The Imperial Institute’s foundation stone is laid!

When first the grasping “Gang” its birth decreed,

And greedily made Kensington its site,

The project’s progress was but small, indeed,

And the subscriptions strangely light.

And though the Prince to the occasion rose,

And summoned all the Mayors to town;

100

Though hints of knighthood, too, were given to those

Who’d put their names for large donations down;

Though soldiers, too, and sailors, side by side,

Were fiercely dunned throughout the Empire wide;

Though everywhere subscription-lists were sent,

O’er stormy sea, through distant continent;

And though, worked artfully from Kensington,

The “screw” was universally put on,

The Empire set itself against the craze,

And the new Institute was loath to raise.

But was the “Gang” disheartened? Nay;

It persevered, and gathered here to-day,

Where “jobs” have in the past been done,

It sees, we fear, one more begun,

For, spite of all that has been said,

Upon this latest subject light to shed;

Spite of the promises which have been made

That the new Institute shall foster trade;

Spite, too, official zest and skill,

And of the fervent hopes express’d,

From North to South, from East to West,

That it will some good end fulfil,

And make the Empire yet more strong,

We fear such hopes will all prove wrong,

And that this building, with its tower so tall,

Will only be the biggest “job” of all!

Yet do we dare to-day,

As in this solemn rite we here engage,

To hope the future will our fears gainsay,

And make this place a glorious heritage

For all our people, and a source of strength

Throughout the teeming Empire’s breadth and length.

But, if we this would see,

Then, by a stern decree,

This Institute must be forthwith set free

From greed and jobbery!

Those who would batten on it must be told

At once to loose their hold,

So that it may uprise a Palace free and fair,

In whose great benefits an Empire wide may share.

First Lady of our British Race,

We’ll Hope that with thy peaceful Jubilee

We of this dream may a fulfilment see,

For this, were thy lost Consort with us still,

Yon scene of pomp and pageantry to grace,

Would surely be his will;

And this we fain would trust thy son,

Undoing what he’s done,

Will also help fulfil.

Time this must show, but we can pray

That higher motives from to-day

May strengthen those who execute

The business of the Institute;

That from to-day its end and aim

May be the country’s wealth and fame.

That flunkeys, toadies, snobs may find

It is not for their sake designed;

Whilst Kensington, forced to admit

It has no lot nor part in it,

No more will claim to such extent

What is for all the Empire meant.

Then will the Palace fair, by patriotism planned,

Be hailed a glory of the land,

And, as the Empire joins its walls to raise,

Its people, one and all, will loudly sound its praise.

Truth. July 7, 1887.

Mr. Lewis Morris was rewarded for his ode by a silver Jubilee medal, with permission to wear it on public occasions. Some time afterwards he wrote to a Manchester newspaper complaining that people confounded him with Mr. William Morris, the poet and socialist, on which The Star published the following

Poet and Poetaster.

If this kind of thing goes on, Sir, I shall have to change my name;

’Tis an odious position to be in;

Though the other Mr. Morris may be better known to fame,

I am Mr. Lewis Morris, of Penbryn.

He was christened after Shakespeare, but his other name is mine;

Yet, though critics are so quick at me to quiz,

I can honestly asseverate I never wrote a line

That could fairly be compared with one of his.

When I wrote an ode to praise the life our precious Prince has led,

Though I must confess it fell a little flat,

There were certain silly editors who ignorantly said

Mr. William had been capable of that.

Now I happen to be certain it would take him all his time

To indite an ode on Royalty’s affairs,

For disloyalty to Princes isn’t reckoned any crime,

’Mong the people whose society he shares.

In a word he is a poet, and a Socialist to boot,

One whose company ’tis wiser to eschew;

For although I am a person of importance and repute,

It is certain I am neither of the two.

J. L. J.

THE TWINS.

In form of feature, face and limb,

I grew so like my brother

That folks got taking me for him

And each for one another,

It puzzled all our kith and kin,

It reach’d an awful pitch:

For one of us was born a twin

And not a soul knew which.

* * * * *

The whole of this amusing poem will be found in Carols of Cockayne by Mr. Henry S. Leigh.

Mr. Leigh died early in June, 1883, and the following graceful parody of his poem appeared in Judy, June 27, 1883.

In the Strand.

In form and feature, face, and limb,

He tried to build a double,

And folks got taking it for him,

For want of taking trouble.

“A bitter-minded cynic this!”

Said those who argued blindly.

He took their finding not amiss,

Nor thought it meant unkindly.

He dreamed long dreams, and meant to do

A heap of great grand work;

’T is p’r’aps the same with me and you,

And still the race we shirk.

Another face gone from the Strand,

A voice we hear no more;

We miss the pressure of a hand,

Oft pressed on this Leigh shore.

——:o:——

101

NURSERY RHYMES.

A learned dissertation might be written—entitled “The Wisdom of our Nursery Rhymes”—which should go to prove that every important Rhyme was either founded on some historical basis, or illustrated an old custom of our forefathers long since fallen into oblivion.

Such an essay would be out of place here, but a few notes will be inserted to show the undoubted antiquity of such of the principal Nursery Rhymes as have given rise to the Parodies to be quoted.

Parodies of Nursery Rhymes exist in such numbers that only a small percentage can be inserted, especially as some of the best are of a political and personal nature, and rapidly become obsolete.

The selection has been made as carefully and impartially as possible, with indications as to where such other Parodies may be found as have had to be omitted.

Some of our Nursery Rhymes owe their origin to names distinguished in our literature; as Oliver Goldsmith, for instance, is believed in his earlier days to have written such compositions. Dr. E. F. Rimbault gives the following particulars as to some well-known favourites; “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” he states, is as old as the 16th century. “The Frog and the Mouse” was licensed in 1580. “London Bridge is broken Down” is of unfathomed antiquity. “Girls and Boys come out to Play” is certainly as old as the reign of Charles II.; as is also “Lucy Locket lost her Pocket,” to the tune of which the American song of “Yankee Doodle” was written. “Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?” is of the age of Queen Bess. “Little Jack Horner” is older than the seventeenth century. “The Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket” is of the reign of James II., to which monarch it is supposed to allude.

J. O. Halliwell, in his “Nursery Rhymes of England,” gives the following:—

Three blind mice, see how they run!

They all ran after the farmer’s wife,

Who cut off their tails with the carving knife,

Did you ever see such fools in your life?

Three blind mice.

and states that the original is to be found in “Deuteromelia; or, the Second Part of Músicks Melodie,” 4to., London, 1609, where the music is also given.

Many other instances of the antiquity of these rhymes will be found under their respective headings.

Amongst the works on Nursery Rhymes which have been consulted, the following may be recommended to those who take an interest in their origin and history.

The Nursery Rhymes of England, collected by James Orchard Halliwell. London. J. R. Smith. 1844.

Arundines Cami, edited by Henry Drury, A.M. Cambridge, 1841. This contains Latin translations of many Nursery Rhymes, of which a few are given in the following pages.

Nursery Rhymes Revised. By J. W. Palmer, 281, Strand, London, 1885.

A Paper on Nursery Rhymes, by Alfonzo Gardiner, see parts VIII. & IX. Yorkshire Notes and Queries, 1887.

The Gladstone Umbrella, or Political Dainties. An illustrated pamphlet, curious as having been published (in 1885) by Mr. Bernard Quaritch, whose name seldom appears in connection with anything so ephemeral as a political skit.

The People’s William. London. W. H. Allen & Co.

Parody Competitions on Nursery Rhymes—

Truth—October 15, 1885; September 30, 1886; June 14, 1888; June 28, 1888.

The Weekly Dispatch—April 13, 1884; July 5, 1885; October 2, 1887.

One and All—Various dates, from 1879 to 1881. These were all political, and are now of no interest.

——:o:——

THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.

This is the house that Jack built.

This is the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the rat,

That ate the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

* * * * *

This is the farmer sowing his corn,

That kept the cock that crow’d in the morn

That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,

That married the man all tatter’d and torn,

That kissed the maiden all forlorn,

That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,

That tossed the dog,

That worried the cat,

That killed the rat,

That ate the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

Very few would suspect that “The House that Jack built” is a comparatively modern version of an ancient Jewish hymn, sung at the feast of the Passover. Yet such is the case, according to the late Dr. Halliwell Phillips, who gives the following translation of the allegorical Talmudic Hymn, taken from Sepher Haggadah, folio 23. This, he says, was first translated by Professor P. N. Leberecht, of Leipsic, in 1731. The original, from which the Hebrew version was translated, is in the Chaldaic language.

1. A kid, a kid my father bought,

For two pieces of money:

A kid, a kid.

2. Then came the cat and ate the kid,

That my father bought

For two pieces of money:

A kid, a kid.

3. Then came the dog, and bit the cat,

That ate the kid,

That my father bought

For two pieces of money:

A kid, a kid.

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4. Then came the staff, and beat the dog

That bit the cat,

That ate the kid,

That my father bought,

For two pieces of money:

A kid, a kid.

5. Then came the fire, and burned the staff

That beat the dog, &c.,—as before.

6. Then came the water and quenched the fire.

That burned the staff,

That beat the dog, &c.

7. Then came the ox, and drank the water,

That quenched the fire, &c.

8. Then came the butcher and slew the ox

That drank the water, &c.

9. Then came the Angel of death

And killed the butcher

That slew the ox, &c.

10. Then came the Holy One, blessed be He,

And killed the Angel of death

That killed the butcher

That slew the ox

That drank the water

That quenched the fire

That burned the staff

That beat the dog

That bit the cat

That ate the kid

That my father bought

For two pieces of money:

A kid, a kid.

The following is an interpretation of the allegory:—

1. The Kid which is one of the pure animals denotes the Hebrews. The father, by whom it is purchased, is Jehovah, who represents himself as sustaining this relation to the Hebrew nation. The pieces of money signify Moses and Aaron, through whose medium the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt.

2. The Cat denotes the Assyrians by whom the ten tribes were carried into captivity.

3. The dog is symbolical of the Babylonians.

4. The staff signified the Persians.

5. The fire indicates the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great.

6. The water betokens the Romans, or the fourth of the great monarchies to whom the Jews were subjected.

7. The ox is a symbol of the Saracens who subdued Palestine, and brought it under the Caliphate.

8. The butcher that killed the ox denotes the Crusaders by whom the Holy Land was wrested out of the hands of the Saracens.

9. The Angel of death signifies the Turkish powers by which the land of Palestine was taken from the Franks, to whom it is still subject.

10. The commencement of the tenth stanza is designed to show that God will take signal vengeance on the Turks, immediately after whose overthrow the Jews are to be restored to their own land, and live under the Government of their long expected Messiah.

A somewhat similar accumulative poem to the “House that Jack built” is mentioned in Chodzko’s Popular Poetry of Persia; it runs thus:—

“I went upon the mountain top to tend my flock. Seeing there a girl, I said, ‘Lass, give me a kiss.’ She said, ‘Lad, give me some money.’ I said, ‘The money is in the purse, the purse in the wallet, the wallet on the camel, and the camel in Kerman.’ She said, ‘You wish for a kiss, but the kiss lies behind my teeth, my teeth are locked up, the key is with my mother, and my mother, like your camel, is in Kerman.’”

Sir Richard Burton also gives a translation of an old Arab story called

The Drop of Honey.

Many years ago a hunter found a hollow tree full of bees’ honey, some of which he took home in a water-skin. In the city he sold the honey to an oilman, but in emptying out the honey from the skin, a drop fell to the ground, whereupon the flies flocked to it, and a bird swooped down from the sky upon the flies. Then the oilman’s cat springs upon the bird, and the hunter’s dog flies at the cat, and the oilman kills the dog, and the hunter kills the oilman. Then the men of the respective tribes took up the quarrel, and fight, till there died of them much people, none knoweth their number save almighty Allah!

This favourite nursery rhyme has been more frequently imitated than any other, and has been especially selected as the model on which to form political squibs and satires.

Some of the principal of these were published by W. Hone (illustrated by George Cruikshank), early in the present century, and referred to the matrimonial squabbles of the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), a topic which possesses so little interest at present that it is not necessary to reprint the parodies. A few of the titles may here be enumerated:—

Loyalists’ House that Jack built.

Real, or Constitutional House that Jack built.

The Queen that Jack found.

The Queen and Magna Charta, or the thing that Jack signed.

The Dorchester Guide, or the House that Jack built.

The Political Queen that Jack loves.

The Political House that Jack built. 1821.[8]

The Theatrical House that Jack built.

“Juvenile reduplications, or the New House that Jack built,” a Parody, by J. Bisalt, with cuts in the manner of T. Bewick. Birmingham, 1800.

One of the rarest imitations is a little octavo religious pamphlet, intended as an answer to atheists and freethinkers, entitled “The Christian House that Jack built by Truth on a Rock,” with portraits of celebrities. 1820.

In 1809, during the O. P. Riots in the new Covent Garden theatre, many parodies were produced, and amongst them one on this nursery rhyme. The riots arose partly from some structural alterations made in the house, but still more from the great increase made in the prices of admission. John Kemble, the manager, and Madame Catalani were the principal objects of public indignation, and the war cries of the rioters were “Old Prices! No Private Boxes! No Catalani! The English Drama!” In the end Kemble had to compromise 103 matters, and Catalani’s name was withdrawn from the bills.

This is the house that Jack [9] built.

These are the boxes let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.

These are the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.

This is the Cat[10] engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.

This is John Bull with a bugle-horn, who hissed the Cat engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.

This is the thief-taker shaven and shorn, that took up John Bull with his bugle-horn, who hissed the Cat, engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.

This is the Manager full of scorn, who raised the price to the people forlorn, and directed the thief-taker, shaven and shorn, to take up John Bull with his bugle-horn, who hissed the Cat engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.

From The Rebellion; or, All in the Wrong. A serio-comic Hurly-Burly, as it was performed for two months at the New Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, by His Majesty’s servants, the Players, and his liege subjects, the Public. London, Vernor, Hood, & Sharp. 1809.

In The Ingoldsby Lyrics, by R. H. Barham, collected and edited by his son, and published by Richard Bentley and Son, London, in 1881, there are several parodies, which were doubtless very amusing when they first appeared, but they are now all out of date, especially those relating to politics.

Page	21.	“I am partial to table and tray.”—Cowper.
”	43.	On the London University. “The University we’ve got in town.”
”	181.	“Pity the sorrows of a poor old Church.”
”	108.	The House that Jack built.
”	117.	Various Nursery Rhymes.
”	174.	The House that Jack built.

The last parody, which originally appeared in The Spectator, refers to the Parliamentary enquiry into the causes of the fire that destroyed the Houses of Parliament in 1834. It commences:—

This is the House that Josh burnt,

These are the sticks that heated the bricks,

That set fire to the house that Josh burnt.

The other parody of The House that Jack built refers to an action that was brought in 1825, against Mr. Peto, a builder, for a breach of contract, in consequence of some failure in the foundations of the new Custom House at London Bridge.

This is the House that Jack built.

This is a sleeper that propped up the House that Jack built.

This is the pile that was short all the while, and wouldn’t go deeper under the sleeper, that propped up the House that Jack built.

This is the Peto appointed to see to, the driving the pile that was short, etc.

* * * * *

This is John Bull with his pockets so full, who “forked out” three hundred thousand pounds for a tumble down house that fell to the ground, and paid all the fees, with a great deal of ease, to all the grave counsellors bouncing and big, every one in a three-tailed wig, who examined George Rennie that wouldn’t give a penny, for all the work, etc., etc.

These parodies are both very long, and the above extracts sufficiently indicate their topics.

“The Palace that N—h built. A parody on an old English Poem,” by I. Hume. A small oblong octavo, with plates. Not dated, but about 1830, as it is a skit on Nash, the architect who built Regent-street, and Buckingham Palace.

A Latin version of “The House that Jack built” appeared in The Hornet in 1872, it was also reprinted in Fun, Ancient and Modern, by Dr. Maurice Davies. London, Tinsley Brothers, 1878. It is too long to be inserted here.

“The Crystal Palace that Fox built” a Pyramid of Rhyme, with illustrations, by John Gilbert. London, David Bogue, 1851.

“These are the workmen, a busy array,

Two thousand and more, as I have heard say,

Who readily, steadily, toiled away,

And finished before the first of May

The Crystal Palace

that Fox built.”

The editor offered an apology for not including the name of Mr. Henderson, as it “would not come into the rhyme.” Messrs. Fox and Henderson were the builders of the 1851 exhibition, in Hyde Park.

The Houses of Parliament.

This is the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

This is the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

This is the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

This is the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

This is the Brougham that worried the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

This is the press with its newsman’s horn, that took up the Brougham that worried the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

This is the Peerage, all forlorn, that appealed to the press with its newsman’s horn that took up the Brougham that worried the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.

* * * * *

Punch. 1846.

Notwithstanding all the faults found with Barry’s designs, there are really only four good reasons of complaint. 104 The Houses of Parliament are built on too low a site; they are built in a style of architecture totally unsuited for their purposes, and our climate; they are built of a very perishable stone, which is already crumbling to decay; and the chamber in which the Commons meet is only just large enough to accommodate one-half of the members.

The Water that John Drinks.

This is the water that John drinks.

This is the Thames with its cento of stink,

That supplies the water that John drinks.

* * * * *

(Millions of Money.)

This is the price that we pay to wink

At the vested int’rests that fill to the brink,

The network of sewers from cesspool and sink,

That feed the fish that float in the ink-

y stream of the Thames with its cento of stink,

That supplies the water that John does drink.

Punch. 1849.

The Show that Sham Built.

This is the Show that Sham built.

This is the fault that lay in the show, &c.

This is the fat that came of the fault, &c.

This is the hog that eat the fat, &c.

This is the press that worried the hog, &c.

This is the swell, commercially born, who cursed the press, &c.

This is the grammar, all tattered and torn, that belonged to the swell, &c.

This is the feast of much decency shorn, that aired the grammar, &c.

And this is the home, better known as Cremorne,

Fit place for the feast of all decency shorn,

That aired the grammar, all tattered and torn,

That belonged to the swell (commercially born)

That cursed the press,

That worried the hog,

That eat the fat,

That came of the fault,

That lay in the Show,

That Sham built.

The Tomahawk. Nov. 9, 1867. (Lord Mayor’s Day.)

In 1872 a skit on the promoters of the Emma mines was published, as “A New Nursery Ballad, embellished with portraits of some of the most Emma-nent men of the Day.” Salt Lake City, Utah. Published by and for Emma A. Sell. The frontispiece represented Knaves and Asses, and the other illustrations quaintly represented the various events alluded to in the Rhyme:

This is the mine that Lyon struck

* * * * *

These are the Dupes who insanely tore

To subscribe the Sum the Directors swore,

Was worth a Million of Pounds and more,

On the return of the Swell who was sent to explore,

The mine by a general of the army corps,

Who was backed by the Britishers, one, two, three, four,

Who shared with the Yanks from the Eastern shore,

Who joined with the men who had cleared out the ore,

That lay in the mine that Lyon struck.

This is the land of Austra-lia,

These are the mines of silver and gold,

That lay in the land of Austra-lia.

This is the mining captain so bold,

Who prospected the mines of silver and gold, etc.

This is the gallant Companie, founded eighteen and fifty-three,

That sent on the mining captain so bold, etc.

These are the lighthearted gentlemen,

The worthy Board of Directors ten, to the gallant, etc.

This is the gent with his ready pen,

Who was “sec” to the light-hearted gentlemen, etc.

These are the lawyers with their “little bill,”

Messrs. Grab and Snatcher of Diddlegate Hill,

Who got up and “rigged” that Companie, etc.

These are the venturers rushing up stairs

So eager to get an allotment of shares, etc.

This is the Court of Chancerie,

That swallowed that ill-fated Companie, etc.

This is the total dividend, nil,

Left after paying the lawyers bill,

Messrs. Grab and Snatchem of Diddlegate Hill, etc.

These are the shareholders, County and Town,

Looking all of them “done” most uncommonly brown,

As they gaze on the total dividend—nil,

Left after paying the lawyers bill, etc.

Edward Walford, M.A.

Will-o-the-Wisp, a satirical paper, had two amusing parodies, both illustrated, the first, which appeared April 17, 1869, entitled The Protestant House that Jack Built, the second, May 8, 1869, The Comic History of a Comical Ship built by John Bull:—

“This is the Ship that Jack Built.”

The House that John Built.

(Indian Version.)

This the House that John [11] built,

These are the Taxes that lay on the House that John built,

This is the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.

This is the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.

These are the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.

This is Big Ben, with his newspaper horn, who pulled the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.

This is Britannia, Jingo-borne, who was witched by Big Ben with his newspaper horn, who pulled the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.

This is the Ameer, all sulks and scorn, who said “No” to Britannia Jingo-borne, who was witched by Big Ben with his newspaper horn, who pulled the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.

Punch, 1878.

This is the Radical Bradlaugh.

This is the Radical Bradlaugh,

These are electors sturdy and strong,

105

Who greet him with hearty and welcoming song,

Hurrah for the Radical Bradlaugh!

This is the struggle of Right against Wrong,

Thrice won by electors sturdy and strong,

Who lustily echoed the welcoming song,

Hurrah for the Radical Bradlaugh!

* * * * *

These are the people in whom we must trust

To raise us our liberty out of the dust,

To strive and diminish the deep-lying shame

That now is affixed to the Englishman’s fame,

To kick out the bigots so sorely dismayed

And stop all the cowardly tricks of their trade,

To fight in the battle of Right against Wrong,

And aid the electors sturdy and strong,

Who lustily echoed the welcoming song

To get justice for Radical Bradlaugh.

D. Evans.

The Weekly Dispatch. March 12, 1882.

The Face that Art Made.

This is the Face that Art made!

This is the rouge for the modest blush,

That is stippled on with a hare’s-foot brush,

On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!

This is the Blanc de Perle in paste

That imparts a background purely chaste,

For the Rouge that makes the modest blush,

That is stippled on with the hare’s-foot brush!

On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!

This is the Grenadine that tips

With a cherry red the pouting lips,

To suit the Blanc de Perle in paste,

That imparts a background wholly chaste,

For the Rouge that makes the modest blush,

That is stippled on with a hare’s-foot brush!

On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!

This is the Eau de Violette

(Price 6s. 6d.), the mouth to wet,

When the Grenadine so sweetly tips

With cherry red the pouting lips,

To suit the Blanc de Perle in paste, &c.

On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!

And here’s the Etui Mystérieux,

With its Henna to use pour les beaux yeux,

And its velvet Mouches, which so black will be,

If stuck on the Crème de Fleur de Lis;

And its House-leek Juice to warts remove,

And its Walnut-water to hair improve,

And its wonderful Incarnate de Chine,

To hide where the wrinkle once has been,

And its Powders to frost the locks of hair

Which Sahara Wash has made more fair,

And its bright Eau d’Or to turn to gold

The locks that are bound in a massive fold

Above the forehead, deprived of crease

By the far-famed Crème de l’Impératrice,

And covered as though with a beauteous calm,

By the secret power of the Bagdad Balm;

Above the pupils which Kohhl makes bright,

And Belladonna augments at night,

And to which the Crayon Noir supplies

A finely-arched brow to match the eyes,

And increase the effect of the Bleu pour Veines,

Which imparts such a clear and delicate stain

To the skin enamelled with Blanc de Cygne,

And powdered over with Véloutine,

That enhances the Grenadine, which tips

With a cherry red the pouting lips

To suit the Blanc de Perle (in paste)

That forms a background whitely chaste

For the Rouge’s sympathetic blush

Stippled neatly on with a hare’s-foot brush

On the cheeks, to which Styrian Lotion lends

A plumpness that Nature far transcends,

Of the Maiden’s Face that Art made!

Truth. December 25, 1883.

Another View of a Rookery.

This is the House that any one built!

This is the Cadger who’d ruin the House that any one built.

* * * * *

And this is the Writer whose vigilant care shows poverty’s evils exceptional are, nor visit the men who lead with their wives clean, sober, hard-working, respectable lives, and exposes the Rads, who, by stooping to set poor against rich popularity get, and lay their ills at the rich man’s door, as profits to him at the cost of the poor, and support the Paper that (so it may sell) will foster sensation and shamefully tell the Falsehood that stupidly dares to aver it lies with the rich (who, it says, prefer foul tenants to cleanly, and “bullion” can squeeze from starving wretches and dirt and disease), and not with Drink and improvident ways, that they lost the earnings of happier days, and got those Habits of laziness that led to the Tokens of filth and distress, that mark the Cadger who’d ruin the House that any one built.

A Pen’orth of Poetry for the Poor. London. 1884.

The Bicycle that Jack made.

This is the bicycle that Jack made.

This is the lathe, all polished and true,

That finished the work, kept under-weighed,

For the bicycle that Jack made.

* * * * *

This the gas oxygen—that you cannot see

Which proportions with iron in atoms three,

To make the chemical of formulæ O₃ Fe₂.

That combines in atoms of twenty-eight times two,

To form the ore, gathered out of the pit,

Which was melted in a furnace, blazingly lit,

That made the iron “carbonised” and clean,

Which was “blown” in the “converter” and “puddled” to steel,

That made the metal properly “tempered” through,

Which was put in the lathe, all polished and true,

That finished the work, kept under-weighed,

To complete the bicycle that Jack made.

P. Howell.

Wheeling Annual. 1885.

This is the house that Tithe built;

This is the landlord, healthy and lithe,

That made the tenants under him writhe,

106

That sent their servants to pay the tithe,

That abused the parsons, all so blithe,

That ruined the men that worked the scythe,

That earned no cash,

That obtained the meat

That they had to eat,

That parsons were sent,

That lay in the house that Tithe built.

Lexicon.

Truth. September 30, 1886.

A very long parody, entitled “This is the House Sir John left!” appeared in Truth, August 20, 1885. It had reference to the cruel custom of people leaving their town houses with their dogs, cats, and other domestic pets improperly cared for during their absence.

These are the Michelstown Murders.

These are the constables brutal and base

That committed the Michelstown Murders.

This is the party that, clinging to place,

Will back up the constables brutal and base

That committed the Michelstown Murders.

This is the bloody undying disgrace

Attached to the party that, clinging to place,

Will back up the constables brutal and base

That committed the Michelstown Murders.

This is the callous, insensible brute

That ordered his men to be “ready to shoot,”

Who shares in the bloody, undying disgrace

Attached to the party that, clinging to place,

Will back up the constables brutal and base

That committed the Michelstown Murders.

* * * * *

These are the Radicals sturdy, with votes,

Who very soon down the Conservative throats

Will cram all the lies that the cowardly crew

Unblushingly utter to carry them through—

Will kick out the callous, insensible brute

That ordered his men to “be ready to shoot,”

Who shares in the bloody undying disgrace

Attached to the party that, clinging to place,

Will back up the constables brutal and base

That committed the Michelstown Murders.

D. Evans.

The Weekly Dispatch. October 2, 1887.

This is the Toy

That was packed in the hamper Truth sent

This is the Boy

That played with the toy

That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.

This is the Pain

That worried the Boy

’Till he played with the Toy

That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.

This is the Doctor who tried in vain

To take away the distressing Pain

That worried the Boy

Till he played with the Toy

That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.

This is the Nurse who worked amain

To help the Doctor, who tried in vain,

With treatment repeated again and again

To take away the distressing pain

That worried the Boy

Till he played with the Toy

That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.

And this is the Fund Truth’s friends maintain,

To try to ease dire poverty’s strain,

And to aid the Nurse who works amain

To help the doctor who tries in vain

With treatment repeated again and again,

To take away the distressing pain

That worried the Boy

Till he played with the toy

That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.

Truth. December 2. 1886.

The Boat that Jack Built.

This is the boat that Jack built.

This is the girl that sat in the boat that Jack built.

This is the youth that loved the girl that sat in the boat that Jack built.

This is the man that hated the youth that loved the girl that sat in the boat that Jack built.

* * * * *

This rhyme, with very humorous illustrations, appeared in The Lock to Lock Times, September 15, 1888. The Lock to Lock Times is a clever little paper devoted to angling and aquatics, it often contains amusing parodies.

Several different versions exist of the following imitation, this one has been selected as the best and most complete. It originally appeared in one of the University Magazines about twenty years ago, but the exact reference is wanting.

The Domicile Erected by John.

By A. Pope.

Behold the mansion reared by Dædal Jack!

See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,

In the proud cirque of Ivan’s Bivouac!

Mark how the rat’s felonious fangs invade

The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid!

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,

Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides;

Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent,

Whose tooth insidious Johann’s sackcloth rent!

Lo! Now the deep-mouthed canine foe’s assault!

That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,

Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall,

That rose complete at Jack’s creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous cow with the crumpled horn,

Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn

Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew

The rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through

The textile fibres that involved the grain

That lay in Hans’ inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue,

Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew

107

Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn

Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,

The baying hound whose braggart bark and stir

Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur

Of puss, that, with verminicidal claw,

Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw

Lay reeking malt, that erst in Juan’s courts we saw.

Robed in senescent garb, that seems, in sooth,

To long a prey to Chonos’ iron tooth,

Behold the man whose amorous lips incline

Full with young Eros’ osculative sign,

To the lorn maiden whose lactalbic hands

Drew albulactic wealth from lacteal glands

Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn

Distort, to realms ethereal was borne

The beast catulean, vexer of that sly

Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die

The old mordaceous rat that dared devour

Antecedaneous ale in John’s domestic bower.

Lo! Here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct

Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked

In Hymen’s golden bands the man unthrift

Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,

E’en as he kissed the virgin all forlorn

Who milked the cow with implicated horn,

Who in fierce wrath the canine torturer skied,

That dared to vex the insidious muricide,

Who let auroral effluence through the pelt

Of that sly rat that robbed the palace that Jack built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghai [12] comes at last,

Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,

Who sealed the vows of Hymen’s sacrament

To him who, robed in garments indigent,

Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,

The emulgator of the horned brute morose.

That on gyrated horn, to heaven’s high vault

Hurled up, with many a tortuous somersault,

The low bone-cruncher, whose hot wrath pursued

The scratching sneak, that waged eternal feud

With long-tailed burglar, who his lips would smack

On farinaceous wealth, that filled the halls of Jack.

Vast limbed and broad the farmer comes at length,

Whose cereal care supplied the vital strength

Of chanticleer, whose matutinal cry

Roused the quiescent form and ope’d the eye

Of razor-loving cleric, who in bands

Connubial linked the intermixed hands

Of him, whose rent apparel gaped apart,

And the lorn maiden with lugubrious heart,

Her who extraught the exuberant lactic flow

Of nutriment from that cornigerent cow,

Eumenidal executor of fate,

That to sidereal altitudes elate

Cerberus, who erst with fang letiferous

Left lacerate Grimalkin latebrose—

That killed the cat

That ate the malt,

That lay in the house that Jack built.

The Pall Mall Gazette for April 22, 1887, contained a Political Parody, entitled “Jubilee Coercion Bill, No. 87.” It was profusely illustrated by F. C. G., and without these illustrations the letterpress would read flat and dull, especially as the fun of calling Goschen, Chamberlain and Caine, “Rats,” however true it may have been in 1887, is pretty well exhausted by this time.

The parody concludes with a portrait of John Bull waving a Home Rule flag, under him are the following lines:—

This is the Farmer who’ll blow his horn—(John Bull.)

When he hears the Cock that’ll crow one morn,—(Justice to Ireland.)

And rouse John Morley shaven and shorn,

That stands by the Peasant tattered and torn,

That loves poor Erin all forlorn,

That cheers the Bull with a lofty scorn,—(Sir W. V. Harcourt.)

That tosses the Pup,—(Lord R. Churchill.)

That snaps at the Cat,—(W. E. Gladstone.)

That’ll kill the Rats,—(Goschen and Chamberlain.)

That swallow the Stuff,

That lay in the Bill

The Tories built.

During the trial in America of the action for Crim. Con. brought by Mr. Tilton against the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a well known journalist, Mr. W. A. Croffat, published a parody in the New York Daily Graphic called “The House that Bowen Built,” but it would be of no interest to English readers.

School Board Version of the House that Jack Built.

This is the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

This is the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

This is the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

This is the domesticated creature of the feline tribe that completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

This is the sagacious scion of the canine genus who disturbed the equanimity of the domesticated creature of the feline tribe which completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

This is the graminivorous female of the bovine race who with her curvilinear and corrugated protuberances considerably elevated into atmospheric space the sagacious scion of the canine genus who disturbed the equanimity of the domesticated creature of the feline tribe that completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

* * * * *

This is the agriculturist who placed in the alluvial deposit that grain which germinated, flourished, multiplied, and subsequently became the sustenance of the bold chanticleer who by his shrill vociferations, at early dawn, awoke from his slumbers that ecclesiastical gentleman whose cranium was devoid of its hirsute covering who united in the bonds of h-o-l-y matrimony that humble individual whose garments presented a disintegrated and unseemly appearance who sipped the sweet honey 108 from the lips of the young damsel of dejected mien whose occupation consisted in extracting the nutritious lacteal beverage from the graminivorous female of the bovine race who with her curvilinear and corrugated protuberances considerably elevated into atmospheric space the sagacious scion of the canine genus who disturbed the equanimity of the domesticated creature of the feline tribe that completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.

This imitation forms one of a parcel of 14 “Modern Sermons,” as they are styled, published by F. Passmore, 124, Cheapside, E.C., the whole of which may be had, post free, for 13 pence. The following is the introduction to another Sermon founded on the same plot:—

Modern Sermons.

“This is the house that Jack built.”

That is the first portion of my text, dear friends, so you see that for a start we have something definite: we are not simply told that this is the house; but that it is “the house that Jack built.” Now, if Jack was anything, he was a far-seeing man; for do we not read that

“This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.”

Anticipating a rise in the price of barley, and wishing to profit by that rise, Jack bought up all the malt that he could get. But, like many other men, he had an enemy. This was a rat, and of him it is said that

“This is the rat that ate the malt.”

Now I do not wish to impute any greedy or selfish motives to this rat. Probably he was well aware that it was through malt that many men make beasts of themselves. “Beasts,” said the rat to himself, “are already too numerous. If their number is increased, the struggle for existence will become fiercer: so it amounts to this, if I do not, by eating this malt, save men from becoming beasts, we shall have to eat our ‘brothers and our sisters, our cousins and our aunts.’ I will either prevent such a catastrophe, or perish in the attempt.” He perished in the attempt, for we are introduced to his destroyer in the following words:

“This is the cat that killed the rat.”

As I dealt generously with the rat, even so will I deal with the cat. There is every reason for supposing that he was a friend of publicans and sinners. Hear him speak for himself: “If this rat eats all the malt, the publicans must either raise the price of beer, or they must supply their customers with an inferior article. This shall not be.” Having spoken these words, he pounced on the robber, and, intoxicated with success, imprudently shook the fruits of his victory in the face of one of whom it is written:

“This is the dog that worried the cat.”

* * * * *

——:o:——

SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE.

Sing a song of Sixpence,

A pocket full of rye;

Four-and-twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing;

Was not that a dainty dish

To set before the King!

The King was in the parlour

Counting out his money;

The Queen was in the kitchen

Eating bread and honey;

The Maid was in the garden

Hanging out the clothes,

Down came a blackbird

And perched upon her nose.[13]

Carmen Denarium.

Incipe cui titulo ‘Denarius,’ incipe cantum!

Huic tumido loculo massa secalis inest;

Sex quater in patina merularum corpora, crustum

Queis super impositum pista farina fuit,

Procubuere simul; sed quando adaperta farina est,

Concordes merulis insonuere modi:

Mirum opus harmoniæ! nonne inter fercula posset

Haec vel regificae laux placuisse gulæ?

Rex erat in camera, numerans sibi pondera nimmi,

Pondera plebeio non numerando viro;

Mel maudit panemque morans Regina culina;

Dulcia plebeia non comedenda nuru.

Ad solem vestes siccans Ancilla per hortum

Ibat; et expansas aere funis habet;

Quum merula, affini descendens arbore, nasum

Ancillæ insilluit seque ibi constituit.

From Arundines Cami. Cambridge, 1841.

When Bentley’s Miscellany was started in 1837 it was supported by the most brilliant writers of the day, George Cruikshank designed a cover for it, and Dr. Maginn wrote the following poem which pretty accurately describes Cruikshank’s design:—

The Song of the Cover.

“Sing a song of half-a-crown—

Lay it out this minute;

Buy the book, for half the town

Want to know what’s in it.

Had you all the cares of Job,

You’d then forget your troubles,”

Cried Cupid, seated on the Globe

Busy blowing bubbles.

Rosy summer, pretty spring,

See them scattering flowers—

“Catch who can!” the song they sing;

Heart’s-ease fall in showers.

Autumn, tipsy with the grape,

Plays a pipe and tabor;

Winter imitates the ape,

Mocking at his neighbour.

109

Bentley, Boz, and Cruikshank, stand,

Like expectant reelers—

“Music!” “Play up!” pipe in hand,

Beside the fluted pillars!

Boz and Cruikshank want to dance,

None for frolic riper,

But Bentley makes the first advance,

Because he “pays the piper.”

“Then sing a song of half-a-crown,

And make a merry race on’t.

To buy the book, all London town;

There’s wit upon the face on’t.

Had you all the cares of Job,

You’d then forget your troubles,”

Cried Cupid, seated on the globe,

Busy blowing bubbles.

Dr. Maginn.

Cantus Sex Denariorum.

Sex denariorum

Cane cantilenam,

Viginti quatuor merulis

Artocream plenam.

Artocreâ apertâ,

Aves canebant grege;

Nonne erat bonum hoc

Locare coram rege?

Rex erat in conclavi

Nummos putans bellè,

Regina in coenaculo

Edens panem melle.

In horto vestes regias

Ancilla suspendebat;

Quum pica fortè veniens

Nasonem rapiebat.

The Hornet. 1872.

Chansonnette de six sous,

La poche pleine de blé,

Vingt-quatre merles, tous

Cuits dans un pâté.

Quand on y mit le couteau,

Les merles chantérent, ma foi!

N’était-ce pas un spectacle beau

Mettre devant le roi?

Edward A. Morton.

Mirth.

Children’s Corner.

Sing a song of Christmas,

A pocket full of pie,

Four-and-twenty puddings

Oh how ni’—how ni’!—

When the feast is over,

Then the doctor comes,

Twirling golden eye-glass,

Twiddling both his thumbs.

Little Jack Horner,

Glum in a corner

After his Christmas Pie,

He wants more to stuff,

But Ma says “Enough!

Little pig, or you’ll certainly die!”

Mary had a little doll

With curls as white as snow,

And whersoever Mary went

That little doll must go.

But brother Billy, back from school,

To Mary he cried “Bo!”

Then smashed that little doll to bits

And in the fire did throw!

Nursery Song in Pidgin English.

Singee songee sick a pence,

Pockee muchee lye; (rye)

Dozen two time blackee bird

Cookee in e pie.

When him cutee topside

Birdee bobbery sing;

Himee tinkee nicey dish

Setee foree King!

Kingee in a talkee loom (room)

Countee muchee money;

Queeny in e kitchee,

Chew-chee breadee honey.

Servant galo shakee,

Hangee washee clothes;

Chop-chop comee blackie bird,

Nipee off her nose!

Anonymous.

Pidgin English is the dialect in use between the Chinese and the English. The Chinese pronounce our letter r at the commencement of a word as l.

The Tanner’s Chant.

Carol forth a canticle of demi-solidus

With grain in a commensurate degree,

Two-dozen darkly-feathered victims of a blunderbuss,

All coarctate ’neath pastry made with ghee,

By patient terebration, the aperture of the pie

Was effected with a lever-handled spoon;

When, judge the consternation of the monarch sitting by,

All the birds set up a sympanising tune.

They were only slightly wounded—chiefly suffering from surprise

(It was fortunate the oven had been slow)

And the warmth, though it alarmed them, which it’s useless to disguise,

Made them quickly convalescent from the blow.

Now, shortly after this the mighty monarch of the land

Was ensconced with heaps of bullion untold,

Engaged in what he evidently didn’t understand—

Rhabdologic computation of his gold.

Her Majesty, his spouse, was in her boudoir far away,

Employed in manducation of her lunch;

On a dessicated loaf she gave her appetite full play,

Which, with honey, was as much as she could munch.

The feminine domestic was just then in the parterre,

Suspending some habiliments to dry,

When a darkly-feathered victim saw her standing on a chair,

And amputated her olfactory.

Sing a song of Season,

Pockets full of naught,

110

Four-and-twenty Prince-lings

Don’t make up a Court.

When the Season’s opened,

They’ll represent the Crown;—

Isn’t that a shabby dish

To set before the town?

The Queen is absent—somewhere,

Saving up her money,

The Prince is in a Nile boat—

The Prince he is so funny.

So there’s left but Christian

To play the King at shows,

And if he does, a blackbird,

We trust, will have his nose!

The Tomahawk. March, 1869.

American Version.

Sing a song of dollars,

A pocket full of brass,

Four-and-twenty blackbirds

Baked in apple sass.

When the pie was opened,

The birds began a hovering,

Wasn’t that a dainty dish

To set before a Sovereign?

At a concert given in the Albert Hall on February 26, 1876, when the Queen was present, the hall was scarcely half filled, and Sir Henry Cole’s arrangements were loudly condemned.

Sing a song of native art!

A programme weak and dry;

4 P.M. to Albert Hall

Her Majesty draws nigh.

When the doors were opened,

The dead heads all came in,

And took up their positions

Where they could see the Queen.

The Queen was in the Royal box,

And thought it quite too funny,

That fools to come and look at her

Parted with their money.

Those who could not see her box

Took a quiet doze,

And half the people left the Hall

Long before the close.

The people and Her Majesty

Said ’twas a frightful hash;

If this was all Sir Cole’s big show,

It wasn’t worth the cash.

The Figaro. March 4, 1876.

Sing a song of gladness—

“Dissolution” nigh—

All the Tory party

Eating humble pie.

When the pie was opened

What a mess beneath!—

“Peace with honour” stewed with

Turnerelli’s wreath.

Dizzy, down at Hughenden,

Scowling at his fate—

“Imperium et Libertas”

Just a little late;

Staffy at the ’Chequer

Looking very blue—

Budget day’s approaching—

Don’t know what to do!

Hatfield’s lord, and Stanley,

Cranbrook, too, and Cross,

“Bag and Baggage,” clear out—

What a dreadful loss!

Ducal Richmond, also,

Country’s cup’s too full.

With Ireland and Afghan,

Zulu and Cabul.

Ere another Christmas

Brings its frost and snows,

In comes “People’s William!”

Heals the nation’s woes!

L. Probert.

The Weekly Dispatch. December 21, 1879.

Sing a Song of Sixpence—

Cabmen warm and dry—

Four-and-twenty Cabmen, drinking on the sly;

When they left the “Shelter”

For fares they couldn’t shirk,

The rain had come a pelter

On beasts half dead with work:

Sing a Song of Sixpence—

Philanthropy’s awry,

Which leaves these wretched cattle

To shiver till they die.

Punch. November 26, 1881.

The Song of Science.

Trilobite, Graptobite

Nautilus pie,

Seas were calcareous,

Oceans were dry,

Eocene, miocene,

Pilocene, tuff,

Lias and trias,

And that is enough.

O, sing a song of phosphates,

Fibrine in a line,

Four-and-twenty follicles

In the van of time.

When the phosphorescence

Evoluted brain,

Superstition ended,

Men began to reign.

Rev. Joseph Cook

Free Press Flashes. 1881.

The English Illustrated Magazine.

Sing a song of sixpence!

A pocket full of gain!

Edited by Comyns Carr!

Wrapper drawn by Crane!

When the pie was opened

Swinburne ’gan to sing.

Allen on a Dormouse,

What a pretty thing:

111

Maitland’s down in Westminster

Dreaming ’mid the cloisters,

Huxley’s in his oyster bed,

Counting out his oysters!

Miss Yonge among the “Armourers”

No ’prentice talent shows;

Let’s hope the little Black-bird

Won’t peck off her nose!

The St. James’s Gazette. October 4, 1883.

The first part of The English Illustrated Magazine was published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. in October, 1883. It contained “Les Casquettes,” a poem by Swinburne, “The Dormouse at Home,” by Grant Allen, an article on the Law Courts, by F. W. Maitland, and one on Oysters, by Professor Huxley.

The Healtheries.

Fifty thousand nimble shillings,

Plus a hundred and thirteen,

That’s the latest of the takings,

Checked by Maskelyne’s Machine.

So Sing a Song of Turnstiles,

As they twist away;

Fifty thousand shillings

Taken in a day!

When the Show was opened,

The crowds at once were thick;

Wasn’t it a pretty sound

To hear the turnstiles click?

The people in the gardens still

Are sampling cream and honey;

But we to the Pavilion

Bear the bags of money!

Truth. December, 1884.

Sing a song of Jingo

(Chorus, fife and drum),

Twenty thousand Arabs

Sent to kingdom come.

When the trouble’s over,

And glory’s cup is full,

There’ll be a pretty butcher’s bill

To lay before John Bull.

Bondholders in the City

Are passing sleepless nights,

The Arabs in the Soudan

Are fighting for their rights.

The whole affair’s a muddle

That daily thicker grows,

Why we e’er went into it

Is what nobody knows.

H. B.

Sing a song of dynamite—

What a mighty scare!

A London railway-station

In pieces in the air.

Bags and pistols, clockwork,

Nasty cakes of brown—

Weren’t they dainty dishes

To find about our town?

Government and railway folks

Didn’t think it funny;

They to find the plotters

Offered lots of money.

Perhaps across the sea they’ve gone,

In other suits of clothes;

Perhaps they’re living quietly

Right under London’s nose.

Jane Jones.

The Weekly Dispatch. April 13, 1884.

Sing a song of eightpence,

Income tax is high;

Four and twenty blunders

In a Gladstone pie;

When the pie is opened

Won’t there be a shout,

When two dozen blunders

All come flying out.

Gladstone’s in the Treasury,

Counting coin in lumps;

The Queen is in her castle—

Her people in the dumps.

Judy. May 13, 1885.

The Jubilee Coinage.

Sing a song of sixpence, they struck it all awry,

“Four” and “twenty” pieces, too, were faked in the die;

When the dies were opened the folks began to sing,

“Why, there ain’t a money value set on this ’ere thing.”

The bankers in their parlours were laughing at the money;

The Queen looked at her portrait and thought it very funny;

The G.O.M. at Hawarden said, sniffling through his nose,

“When I was Master of the Mint we made no coins like those.”

Darjew.

The Weekly Dispatch. October 2, 1887.

Sing a song of sixpence, a packetful of news,

Just a dozen wordlets all that you must use.

When the packet’s open’d, the news begins to ring,

A birth, a death, a dainty dish of gossip doth it bring.

The husband’s in his counting-house losing all his money,

The wife is in the pantry eating bread and honey;

The daughter’s in the garden, undreaming of the news,

When “rat-tat” comes a telegram—they’re shaking in their shoes.

Repealer.

Sing a song of saving,

A pocketful of tin,

Telegrams for sixpence

A surplus will bring in.

When the cover’s opened,

We feel inclined to sing:

“It’s all abbreviations,

We can’t make out a thing.”

Hecla.

Sing a song of Gladstone, and make the Tories sigh,

Who, in the coming contest, will have another try,

When the House assembles shan’t we do a grin,

If Tories take a back seat, and Gladdy should get in.

112

Salisbury in the Upper House, pulling faces funny,

Cocky little Randy looking anything but sunny;

Will, as Premier, back again, sitting on his foes,

Staffy up aloft, and indulging in a doze.

William Tyrrell.

Truth. October 15, 1885.

Sing a song of scaffolds! a pocket full of twine!

Sixty applications to “enlist men in the line!”

When old M. departed, the names came pouring in,—

Isn’t that a pretty way to earn a lot of tin?—

Marwood’s in the churchyard, as dead as any mummy;

The Queen she wants a hangman, which sounds a little rummy!

The tender-hearted maiden says “hanging’s out of date!”

When down comes a black cap upon the Judge’s pate!

F. B. Doveton. 1886.

Sing a song of gunnery, a science full of slips,

Three-and-forty tonners packed into our ships;

When the guns were fired, the tubes began to burst—

Wasn’t this a clever thing not to know at first?

Truth. September 30, 1886.

Sing a song of sixpence,

Many of them shy.

Four-and-twenty trippers

To Newcastle hie.

The Exhibition opened,

The trippers crowded in;

Wasn’t there a scramble

To hear the band begin.

They went into the coal mine,

And thought it very funny;

Also tried the switchback,

Well worth the money.

They strolled about the garden,

In their Sunday clothes;

Had a glass or two of Burton,

And off home they goes.

Perseverantia.

Newcastle Chronicle. November, 1887.

Goschen to the Rescue.

Sing a song of French pence,

Tempers all awry;

None will take the foreign “browns”—

All are asking “Why?”

Small shopkeeper, tramway-man,

Pray keep up your pecker,

You’ll have Goschen’s sympathy,

Help from the Exchequer.

To relieve you from your mess,

Goschen says he’s willing;

They shall go, like penny buns,

Thirteen for a shilling.

That shall wipe the ’busman’s eye,

Pacify the nation,

And, what’s better, purify

John Bull’s “circulation.”

Punch. April 23, 1887.

Nursery Rhyme for Young Italy.

The King in the Quirinal,

Feeling very funny;

The Kaiser in a parlour,

Tired after journey.

The Pope was in the Vatican,

Looking at his shoe;

Up comes the Emperor,

And says, “How d’ye do?”

October, 1888.

Sing a song of sixpence, in pockets made to lie,

One of forty art-birds, asked to shape the die;

When the dye was token’d, all who saw the mien

Sang—“This is not a dainty ‘tiz’[14] to set before the Queen.”

The Queen was in her country house, counting up her money;

Prince B.[15] was in the pantry, spreading his bread with honey;

The Chancellor was in the garden, hanging out old clothes,

When soon there came back word this “tizzy” to depose.

Truth. June 14, 1888.

Sing a song of Chamberlain, three acres and a cow,

Sent across the herring-pond cannot end the row;

Breaking up his party in a fit of spleen,

Wasn’t that the meanest dodge that any one has seen!

Harty’s turned a Tory, fêted in the City,

Jess and Bright are martyrs—isn’t it a pity?

Goschen’s in the Cabinet, happy with the cash,

Up will come the Radicals, and settle all his hash.

Radix.

Sing a song of armaments, an empire all awry,

Four-and-twenty critics raise a doleful cry;

A capital defenceless, ships without guns or shot.

When the threatened war breaks out, won’t Johnny get it hot!

Johnny is busy in his shop, making and saving money,

His women kind are humming round, like bees in search of honey;

His crafty foes are scheming to bring matters to a close,

By smashing up his ironclads, and pulling Johnny’s nose.

W. H. T.

Truth. June 28, 1888.

The Parnell Commission.

Sing a song of tricksters,

Commission all my eye!

Walter’s dirty finger

Traced in the pie;

When the bill was promised

It had an honest ring,

But when it was printed

’Twas quite another thing.

The First Lord in his parlour,

As the bees suck honey,

Was listening to Walter

Giving testimony;

113

The pay for smashing Parnell

’S a peerage, I suppose;

A few more bogus letters

And “up the donkey goes.”

H. M. Blane.

The Allegations Bill.

Sing a song of libels,

A session full of crimes,

All the Tory Cabinet

Stewing with the Times;

When the case is ended

Another tune they’ll sing—

Won’t it be a pretty mess

If they together cling?

Goschen paying for the job

With the people’s money;

Smith and Walter swearing that

The forgeries were “funny”;

Chamberlain and Hartington

Looking down their nose,

And Parnell triumphant,

Grinning at his foes.

Jesse H. Wheeler.

The Weekly Dispatch. August 12, 1888.

The Conspirators’ Chorus.

Sing a song of Dynamite, pack it up in bags,

Rattle it in railway trains, drop it on the flags;

Let it go in luggage vans ’mid all harmless loads;

Never mind the consequence if the stuff explodes.

Here’s to Nitro-glycerine! store it in a cask.

Making it, says Chemistry, is an easy task;

Though it’s reckoned dangerous, let it flood the floors,

Startling the detective coves prying at the doors.

Fulminating Mercury goes off with a noise,

Fit for little Fenians like a baby’s toys;

Chlorate of Potassium’s not exactly placid,

When it’s mixed with sugar, Sir, and sulphuric acid.

This a merry business is, but your cruel laws

Say we shan’t use Dynamite to advance the Cause;

Yet we’ll mix our fulminates underneath your eyes,

While the gay Conspirator blows you to the skies.

——:o:——

THE BELLS OF LONDON TOWN

Gay go up and gay go down,

To ring the bells of London town.

Bull’s eyes and targets,

Say the bells of St. Marg’ret’s.

Brickbats and tiles,

Say the bells of St. Giles!

Halfpence and farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin’s.

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement’s.

Pancakes and fritters,

Say the bells of St. Peter’s.

Two sticks and an apple,

Say the bells at Whitechapel.

Old Father Baldpate,

Say the slow bells at Aldgate.

You owe me ten shillings.

Say the bells at St. Helen’s.

Pokers and tongs,

Say the bells at St. John’s.

Kettles and pans

Say the bells at St. Ann’s.

When will you pay me?

Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,

Say the bells at Shoreditch.

When will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney.

I’m sure I don’t know,

Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

What the New City Peal Says.

You must pay up your “calls”—

Say the bells of St. Paul’s!

Stock rises and falls—

Say the bells of St. Paul’s!

City Companies’ hauls—

Say the bells of St. Paul’s!

Snug prebends and stalls—

Say the bells of St. Paul’s!

Blessings on these old walls!

Say the bells of St. Paul’s!

Oranges and Lemons in the City.

“Reformers are unpleasant,”

Say the bells of St. Clement.

“Yes, that is quite sartin,”

Say the bells of St. Martin.

“Do they want a sermon daily?”

Say the bells of Old Bailey.

“I’m sure I don’t know,”

Says the great bell of Bow.

“The Lords are in a fury,”

Say the bells of Old Jewry.

“Will they leave us in the lurch?”

Say the bells of Abchurch.

“I’ve a beadle and a clerk,”

Say the bells of St. Mark.

“Those two a church fill,”

Say the bells of Cornhill.

Punch. July 23, 1881.

“Poor Ireland’s enslavèd!” say the bells of St. David;

“God help the poor creaturs!” say the bells of St. Peter’s;

“Turned out of their dwellin’s,” say the bells of St. Helen’s;

“And speed Home Rule on!” say the bells of St. John;

“O, Tories, you rile us!” say the bells of St. Silas;

“Confound your vagaries,” say the bells of St. Mary’s;

“You’re always ridiculous,” say the bells of St. Nicholas;

“And traitors besides!” say the bells of St. Bride’s;

“You’ve earned our abhorrence,” say the bells of St. Lawrence;

114

“You’re fit for the gallows,” say the bells of All Hallows;

“So get away from us,” say the bells of St. Thomas;

“We want better men!” roars out old Big Ben;

“You’ve had all your flukes,” say the bells of St. Luke’s;

“Suspensions and brawls,” say the bells of St. Paul’s;

“The session concludes,” say the bells of St. Jude’s;

“Out you must go!” says the great bell at Bow.

Robert Puttick.

The Weekly Dispatch. October 2, 1887.

The Chimes. 1886.

(For Bad Times.)

“The Turks haven’t a shilling!”

Said the gate bell of Billing.

“And then Russia wants all!”

Said a bell near Millwall.

“And poor France has no power!”

Said the bell of the Tower.

“And that Egypt’s a sweep!”

Cried the bell of Eastcheap.

“And there’s Spain—a great sell!”

Said St. Lawrence’s bell.

“Oh, we’ve had a nice ride!”

Said the bell of St. Bride.

“And are ground in a mill!”

Moaned a bell near Cornhill.

“We must wait for high tide!”

Mourned the bell of Cheapside.

“It’s a regular hitch!”

Clanged the bell of Shoreditch.

“Shall we really lose all?”

Asked the bell of St. Paul.

“We should much like to know!”

Tolled the big bell of Bow.

——:o:——

Who should Educate the Prince of Wales?

“This is a serious question; and though we have looked through the advertisements of Morning Governesses every day for the last week, we are compelled to admit we have seen nothing that seems likely to suit—at least, at present. It is no doubt a very serious consideration, how the young ideas of the Prince of Wales should be taught to shoot so as to hit the mark; and it is, unfortunately, not so easy to train up a royal child, though the railroad pace at which education travels renders it necessary that he should be put into a first-class train as soon as possible. Awfully impressed with the deep importance of the question, we have made an humble endeavour to answer it, and if the hints are of any service to the nation, our object will be fulfilled, and our ambition will be gratified.”

Who’ll teach the Prince?

I, answered Punch,

With my cap and hunch;

And I’ll teach the Prince.

Who’ll write his books?

I, answered Brougham,

With my goose-quill plume;

And I’ll write his books.

Who’ll make him dance?

I, answered Peel,

For I can turn and wheel;

I’ll make him dance.

Who’ll teach him logic?

Says Hume, I’ve the right,

I can vote black is white;

So I’ll teach him logic.

Who’ll teach him dancing?

I, lisp’d Baron Nathan,

’Mongtht tea-cupth, jughth, and bathin:

I’ll teach him dancing.

Who’ll teach him writing?

I, said Lord William,

Because a copyist with a quill, I am;

And I’ll teach him writing.

Who’ll teach him politics?

Said Graham, that will I,

That he every side may try;

So I’ll teach him politics.

Who’ll pay the piper?

I, said John Bull,

On me will come the pull:

I must pay the piper.

Punch. September, 1843.

This old parody of “Who killed Cock Robin?” was illustrated with a number of funny little portraits.

Who killed these Arabs?

“I did,” said Graham;

I’d orders to slay em—

I killed these Arabs.

Who saw them die?

Allah on high,

With all-seeing eye—

He saw them die.

Who’ll be their mourners?

“We,” said the Tribes,

“Although we’ve had bribes—

We’ll be their mourners,”

Who’ll pay the cost?

“I,” said John Bull,

“Because I’m a fool—

I’ll pay the cost.”

And who’ll wind it up?

“The Rads!” cried the Nation;

“If but firm in their station,

They’ll wind it up!”

George Mallinson.

The Weekly Dispatch. April 13, 1884.

Who Killed Home Rule.

Who killed Home Rule?

I, said Joe Chamberlain;

Simply by speaking plain,

I killed Home Rule.

115

Who saw it die?

I, answered Goschen—

I gave it a potion,

Then saw it die.

Who made its shroud?

I, said Lord Harty;

Regardless of party,

I made its shroud.

Who dug its grave?

I, Lord Randy cried,

Making it deep and wide,

I dug its grave.

Who was chief mourner?

I, said Parnell;

When my hopes fell,

I was chief mourner.

Who was the parson?

I, said Trevelyan;

My text was “rebellion,”

I was the parson.

Who was the clerk?

I, said John Morley,

And I wept sorely,

I was the clerk.

Who tolled the bell?

I, said John Bull;

With a good hearty pull,

I tolled the bell.

The People. July 3, 1886.

The Grand Old Cock Robin.

Who killed Gladstone?

I, said Chamberlain,

And I feel like Cain(e)

I killed Gladstone.

Who saw him die?

I, said Goschen,

Without any emotion

I saw him die.

Who caught his blood?

I, said Caine,

And it’s left a big stain;

I caught his blood.

Who’ll make his shroud?

I, said Argyll,

In superior style;

I’ll make his shroud.

Who’ll carry him to the grave?

I, said County Guy,

With a tear in his eye;

I’ll carry him to the grave.

Who’ll dig his grave?

I, said Lord Randy,

For I’ve got the tools handy;

I’ll dig his grave.

Who’ll carry the link?

I, said John Bright,

With my sweetness and light;

I’ll carry the link.

Who’ll be chief mourner?

I, said John Morley,

For I miss him sorely;

I’ll be chief mourner.

Who’ll sing a psalm?

I, said Fowler,

A regular howler:

I’ll sing a psalm.

Who’ll be the parson?

I, said Hicks-Beach,

For I can preach;

I’ll be the parson.

Who’ll be the clerk?

I, said John Walter,

For the Times may alter;

I’ll be the clerk.

Who’ll toll the bell?

I, said Parnell:

’Twas for Ireland he fell;

I’ll toll the bell.

The Pall Mall Gazette. June 17, 1886.

Who won Miss Jenny?

“I,” said young Bogle,

“With my bow and Ogle.

I won Miss Jenny!”

Who heard him pop?

“I,” said Miss Squeers,

“With my two itching ears,

I heard him pop!”

Who made him do it?

“I,” said Miss Jenny,

“The bashful young ninny.

I made him do it!”

Who’ll tie the knot?

“I,” said Dean B——.

“For the sake of the fee,—

I’ll tie the knot!”

Who’ll be best man?

“I,” said Jack Bate,

“For I’ll kiss saucy Kate.

I’ll be best man!”

Who’ll tell his Dad?

“I,” said Tom Hare,

“And oh! won’t he swear!

I’ll tell his Dad!”

From Sketches in Prose and Verse, by F. B. Doveton, London, Sampson Low & Co., 1886.

Who killed Will Gladstone?

“I,” said Joe C—;

“The blow came from me;

I killed Will Gladstone.”

Who saw him die?

“I,” said Lord Harty,

“With my little party;

We saw him die.”

116

Who’ll dig his grave?

“I,” said Lord Randy;

“I’ve got the place handy;

I’ll dig his grave.”

East Anglia.

Truth. September 30, 1886.

Who’ll kill Coercion?

“I,” cries Democracy;

“Despite the Aristocracy,

“I’ll kill Coercion.”

Who’ll see him die?

“I,” sighs each Tory;

“Though in him I glory,

“I’ll see him die.”

Who’ll catch his blood?

“I,” says Castle rule;

“He is my favourite tool,

“I’ll catch his blood.”

Who’ll make his shroud?

“I,” cries Trevelyan;

“Would wager a million,

“I’ll make his shroud.”

Who’ll dig his grave?

“I,” cries old Gladstone;

“In Mitcheltown’s sandstone,

“I’ll dig his grave.”

Who’ll carry him to the grave?

“I,” says Salisbury;

(“But I am in no hurry),

“I’ll carry him to the grave.”

Who’ll bear the pall?

Says Chamberlain and Goschen,

“We are both of one notion,

“We’ll bear the pall.”

Who’ll carry the link?

“I,” says John Bright,

“To give you all light,

“I’ll carry the link.”

Who’ll be chief mourner?

“I,” says Rack-renter;

“My hopes in him centre,

“I’ll be chief mourner.”

“Who’ll be the parson?

“I,” says gagging Smith;

“Have the books to do it with,

“I’ll be the parson.”

Who’ll be the clerk?

“I,” says O’Brien;

“His grace to be eyein’,

“I’ll be the clerk.”

Who’ll toll the bell?

“I,” shouts bold Parnell;

“His end aloud to tell,

“I’ll toll the bell.”

Democrat.

Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.

Who Stole O’Brien’s Breeches?

Who stole O’Brien’s breeches?

I, said Balfour, with the aid of a warder,

I stole his breeches.

Who stole his shirt?

I, said Londonderry, and it’s made London merry,

I stole his shirt.

Who stole his coat?

I, said Plunkett: I went and slunk it,

I stole his coat.

Who stole his socks?

I, said King-Harman, for I wanted to darn ’em,

I stole his socks.

Who stole his boots?

I, said Saxe-Weimar, and the joke is a screamer,

I stole his boots.

Who’ll wear the gaol clothes?

Not I, said O’Brien, spite of all their tryin’!

I’ll not wear the gaol clothes.

Pall Mall Gazette. November, 1887.

——:o:——

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down, and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.

Johannes et Gillia.

Johannes atque Gillia

Scandebant super clivo,

Ut urnam aquæ gelidæ

Haurirent ibi rivo.

Johanni decidenti, heu,

Tunc caput frangebatur;

Et Gillia cadens etiam

Johannem sequebatur.

The Hornet. 1872.

——:o:——

A Song for Five Fingers.

This pig went to market;

This pig stayed at home,

This pig had a bit of meat;

And this pig had none;

This pig said “wee, wee, wee!”

I can’t find my way home.

In Quinque Digitos.

Hic porculus forum pergebat,

Hic, contrà, in domo manebat,

Hic porculus carnem edebat

Hic victu, heu, planè carebat.

Hic porculus mœstè lugebat,

Quod illum nox domo claudebat.

The Hornet. 1872.

——:o:——

117

Hey! diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon;

The little dog laughed

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Nursery Rhymes a la Mode.

(Our nurseries will soon be too cultured to admit the old rhymes in their Philistine and unæsthetic garb. They may be redressed somewhat on this model!)

O but she was dark and shrill,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

The cat that (on the First Aprill)

Played the fiddle upon the lea.

O and the moon was wan and bright,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

The Cow she looked nor left nor right,

But took it straight at a jump, pardie!

The hound did laugh to see this thing,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

As it were parlous wantoning,

(Ah, good my gentles, laugh not ye!)

And underneath a dreesome moon

Two lovers fled right piteouslie;

A spooney plate with a plated spoon,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

Postscript.

Then blame me not, altho’ my verse

Sounds like an echo of C. S. C.

Since still they make ballads that worse and worse

Savour of diddle and hey-de-dee.

From Rhymes and Renderings. Cambridge. Macmillan and Bowes. 1887.

“Hey Diddle Diddle! the Cat and the Fiddle.”

Ah! joy with me, my neighbours, joy with me,

And let the air resound with glad acclaims,

For she indeed, our furry feline friend,

Hath shown herself disposed to music’s charms,

And with the viol held in nimble paw,

Scrapeth the tunes of mirthful melody.

Meanwhile, aroused from out her careless mood,

The Cow forgets her grazing on the grass,

Forgets the blades most choice and succulent,

Forgets the pail defrauded of its milk,

Forgets the aim and tenor of her life,

And rapt in rumination at the sound,

Listens, until the sweet mysterious strains

Fire her most inmost soul: then wildly forth

In frantic frenzy speeds her wind-whirled way,

Stirred by the notes of feline minstrelsy.

But, louder comes the soul-inspiring sound,

Till, boiling o’er with ecstacy, she leaps

Far from the earth, and further still, away.

I may not tell the distance of her leap,

’Twas all too far for mortal eye to trace;

Yet afterwards her corse came hurtling down,—

For in the mighty magnitude of space

Through which she sprang with impulse unrestrained,

Her very swiftness had abstracted breath—

And on her hoof a substance green was found

Which soon, ’twas marked, was nothing else than cheese;

That so ’twould seem she had all but o’ertopped

In that one bound the far far distant moon,

A portion of whose substance there appeared

Hoof-stricken, and adhering to its foe,

To warn all others from such lofty leaps.

Then was there mourning for the direful death;

The horse, the hen, the labourer, and the lamb

Flowed down in floods of saline tears sincere:

While eke the cat hath stayed her viol’s notes,

And wipes with trembling paw each streaming eye:

But he, that very fiend in canine form,

Brawls in a bluff brutality of mirth,

Cries that “I’sooth it was a merry sport;”

Aye laughs, as if each lateral wall of ribs

Would burst asunder; for methinks that she

While yet in life, our much-lamented cow,

The while the dog was barking at her heel,

With well-aimed kick erst stretched him on the plain;

Wherefore at her mishap in spiteful spleen

He now with cachinnations fills the air.

Ah! would that I could end my tale aright,

And give to something some good attribute.

But no:—for in this wicked worthless world

Seldom we see a soul untouched by taint:—

Let me then hurry o’er the final scene,

The shameful shift to make emolument

Amid the wild confusion that prevailed.

’Tis said the earthenware receptacle,

Surnamed the Dish, who, highly held in honour,

Maintained the meats, and lived a lordly life,

Struck by a sudden guilty greed of gain,

And noting furthermore that none espied,

Clutched in his grasp the partner of his trade,

The Spoon yclept, and, hurrying hastily,

Bore him away right down into the street,

And reached by stealth the pawnbroker’s at length,

Whence,—for the spoon was one of Mappin’s make,—

He went back richer by a good round sum,

Nor told to anyone his shameless sin.

(Attributed to Mr. T. H. S. Escott, afterwards Editor of the Fortnightly Review.)

From College Rhymes. Oxford, 1873.

At the Inventions.

Hey diddle diddle,

Piano and fiddle,

The fountains sprang up towards the moon,

The people all flocked to see the fine sight,

And sipp’d Indian tea with a spoon.

Chickweed.

Truth. October 15, 1885.

——:o:——

MISTRESS MARY.

Mistress Mary,

Quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells

And cockle shells

And hyacinths all of a row.

Domina Maria.

O mea Maria,

Tota contraria,

Quid tibi crescit in horto?

Testae et crotali

Sunt mihi flosculi,

Cum hyacinthino serto.

Henry Drury.

From Arundines Cami. Cambridge. 1841.

118 A Revised Edition.

Mary, Mary quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

Do red rose and sweet mignonette

Make quite a summer show?

Twice seven days since we have met,

But it seems years ago—

Mary, Mary, so contrary,

Why do I love you so!

Mary, Mary, in your airy

Summer gown of snow,

Folding fragrant linen fair,

Through your house to go;

Full of self and full of care

Will you heed my woe—

Mary, Mary, so contrary,

Why do I love you so?

Mary, Mary, in the dairy,

Setting pans in row,

Jingling keys and silver bells,

Marching to and fro,

Learned in all your household spells—

(Wise you are we trow),

Tell me Mary, still contrary,

Why do I love you so!

Ah! my Mary comes a fairy,

Whispers soft and low,

All the sweet and sudden truth

Heart to heart must owe;

Be it joy or be it ruth,

Only this I know—

’Tis because you are contrary

That I love you so!

S. Frances Harrison.

From W. E. G.

Joseph, Joseph, quite contrary,

How do your acres grow?

Some with weeds and some with seeds,

But ne’er a one with a cow.

Truth. September 30, 1886.

Harty, Harty, what of your party,

How does your Union grow;

Primrose belles, and Radical swells,

Coercionists all in a row.

Newcastle Chronicle. November, 1887.

“Master Joey,

Quite too showy,

How does your party grow?”

“There’s Collings, and Dick,

And Mister Kenrick,

And myself, the boss of the show.”

P. Q. X.

Truth. June 28, 1888.

——:o:——

MOTHER HUBBARD.

Brethren, the words of my text are:—

“Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard,

To get her poor dog a bone;

But when she got there the cupboard was bare,

And so the poor dog had none.”

These beautiful words, dear friends, carry with them a solemn lesson. I propose this morning to analyze their meaning, and to attempt to apply it, lofty as it may be, to our every-day life.

“Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard,

To get her poor dog a bone.”

Mother Hubbard, you see, was old; there being no mention of others, we may presume she was alone; a widow—a friendless, old, solitary widow. Yet, did she despair? Did she sit down and weep, or read a novel, or wring her hands? No! she went to the cupboard. And here observe that she went to the cupboard. She did not hop, or skip, or run, or jump, or use any other peripatetic artifice; she solely and merely went to the cupboard. We have seen that she was old and lonely, and we now further see that she was poor. For, mark, the words are “the cupboard.” Not “one of the cupboards,” or “the right-hand cupboard,” or “the left-hand cupboard,” or “the one above,” or “the one below,” or “the one under the floor,” but just “the cupboard,” the one humble little cupboard the poor widow possessed. And why did she go to the cupboard? Was it to bring forth goblets, or glittering precious stones, or costly apparel, or feasts, or any other attributes of wealth? It was to get her poor dog a bone! Not only was the widow poor, but her dog, the sole prop of her old age, was poor too. We can imagine the scene. The poor dog, crouching in the corner, looking wistfully at the solitary cupboard, and the widow going to that cupboard—in hope, in expectation may be—to open it, although we are not distinctly told that it was not half open, or ajar, to open it for that poor dog.

“But when she got there the cupboard was bare,

And so the poor dog had none.”

When she got there! You see, dear brethren, what perseverance is! She got there! There were no turnings and twistings, no slippings and slidings, no leanings to the right, or falterings to the left. With glorious simplicity we are told “she got there.”

And how was she rewarded?

“The cupboard was bare!” It was bare! There were to be found neither apples, nor oranges, nor cheesecakes, nor penny buns, nor gingerbread, nor crackers, nor nuts, nor lucifer matches. The cupboard was bare! There was but one, only one solitary cupboard in the whole of the cottage, and that one, the sole hope of the widow, and the glorious loadstar of the poor dog, was bare! Had there been a leg of mutton, a loin of lamb, a fillet of veal, even an ice from Gunter’s, the case would have been very different, the incident would have been otherwise. But it was bare, my brethren, bare as a bald head. Many of you will probably say, with all the pride of worldly sophistry—“The widow, no doubt, went out and bought a dog biscuit.” Ah, no! Far removed from these earthly ideas and mundane desires, poor Mother Hubbard, the widow, whom many thoughtless worldlings would despise, in that she only owned one cupboard, perceived—or I might even say saw—at once the relentless logic of the situation, and yielded to it with all the heroism of that nature which had enabled her, without deviation, to reach the barren cupboard. She did not attempt, like the stiff-necked scoffers of this generation, to war against 119 the inevitable; she did not try, like the so-called man of science, to explain what she did not understand. She did nothing. “The poor dog had none.” And then at this point our information ceases. But do we not know sufficient? Are we not cognisant of enough? Who would dare to pierce the veil that shrouds the ulterior fate of Old Mother Hubbard—her poor dog—the cupboard—or the bone that was not there? Must we imagine her still standing at the open cupboard door, depict to ourselves the dog still drooping his disappointed tail upon the floor, the sought-for bone remaining somewhere else? Ah, no, my brethren, we are not so permitted to attempt to read the future. Suffice it for us to glean from this beautiful story its many lessons; suffice it for us to apply them, to study them as far as in us lies, and, bearing in mind the natural frailty of our nature, to avoid being widows; to shun the patronymic of Hubbard; to have, if our means afford it, more than one cupboard in the house; and to keep stores in them all.

And oh! dear friends, keep in recollection what we have learned this day. Let us avoid keeping dogs that are fond of bones. But, brethren, if we do, if fate has ordained that we should do any of these things, let us then go, as Mother Hubbard did, straight, without curvetting and prancing, to our cupboard, empty though it be,—let us, like her, accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness; and should we, like her, ever be left with a hungry dog and an empty cupboard, may future chroniclers be able to write also in the beautiful words of our text—

“And so the poor dog had none.”

Notes and Queries, April 21, 1888, contained the following interesting account of the origin of this singular jeu d’esprit:

This is not a “burlesque” of the story of ‘Mother Hubbard,’ but a good-humoured parody of the popular (?) “regulation” sermon. It appeared originally in 1877, in a novel by Lord Desart, who claimed it in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette in December, 1886, in which he says that “one of his characters delivered it as a mock sermon,” and adds that it has been copied into “most of the provincial English and Scotch, and into many American and Canadian newspapers.” He adds:—

“I myself heard it preached by a negro minstrel at Haverley’s, New York; it has been neatly printed, with an introduction, by a clergyman, and sent round to his brother preachers as an example of how not to do it; it was bought for a penny in a broadsheet form in the City a year or two ago by a friend of mine; it has been heard at countless penny readings and entertainments of the kind; it has appeared among the facetiæ of a guide-book to Plymouth and the South Coast; and in a volume published by the owners of St. Jacob’s Oil, as well as in another jest-book; and the other day I was shown it in a collection of ana, just published by Messrs. Routledge & Co., for a firm in Melbourne; and all this without any acknowledgment of its authorship whatsoever. Perhaps you will allow me, through your columns, to claim my wandering child—‘a poor thing, but mine own.’”

——:o:——

Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb, and he took out a plum,

And said, “What a good boy am I!”

These lines form part of “The pleasant History of Jack Horner, containing his witty Tricks and pleasant Pranks,” a copy of which is in the Bodleian Library, the story must have been in existence earlier than 1617, at which date a similar tale was printed in London founded upon it.

Versio Altera.

Horner Jacculo sedit in angulo

Vorans, ceu serias ageret ferias,

Crustum dulce et amabile;

Inquit et unum extrahens prunum—

“Horner, quam fueris nobile pueris

Exemplar imitabile.”

Henry Drury.

From Arundines Cami. Cambridge, 1841.

Johannis Hornerii Jactatio.

Hornerius Johannes

In angulo sedebat,

Et ibi in silentio

Artocream edebat.

Extraxit prunum digito

Et statim se jactabat—

“Ecce quam bonus puer sum!”

Hornerius clamabat.

The Hornet. May 29, 1872.

Studious Jack Horner, of Latin no scorner,

In the second declension did spy

How nouns there were some,

Which, ending in um, do not make their plural in i.

Chessmen.

Truth. September 30, 1886.

The Modern Jack Horner.

Little Jack Horner, on the street corner,

Smoked up his last cigarette;

Saying, “When this is done, I’ll to the saloon

And wet up my whistle, ‘you bet.’”

Little Jack Horner is now the chief mourner

To head a policeman’s procession.

The infantile dude became far too rude

In trying to follow the fashion.

Detroit Free Press. December, 1886.

Little Lord Randy

Turned up quite handy,

Speaking his mind so spry;

He slashed right and left,

Both weavers and weft,

And he said, “What a statesman am I.”

M. B. B.

Truth. June 28, 1888.

——:o:——

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;

Taffy came to my house, and stole a shin of beef:

I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was not at home;

Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow bone.

I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was not in,

Taffy came to my house and stole a silver pin;

I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was in bed,

I took up a poker and flung it at his head.

For an explanation of this curious old rhyme, and Shirley Brooks’s adaptation of it in English and Welsh see p. 255, Vol. iv. Parodies.

120

Staffy was a poor man,

Staffy was a chief;

Staffy in the Lower House

Often came to grief;

So Staffy to the Upper House

Hurriedly has flown,

And left ’em the Lower House

To stay and pick the bone!

Jesse H. Wheeler.

The Weekly Dispatch. July 5, 1885.

Neglected Wails.

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy had a farm,

Taffy wouldn’t pay his tithes, but kept ’em in his palm;

His Vicar lowered Taffy’s tithes, for the sake of quiet,

Taffy had rejoicings, ending in a riot.

The Landlord sent his Agent, and doubled Taffy’s rent,

Taffy’s now for Welsh Home Rule, and Disestablishment!

Punch. December 4, 1886.

——:o:——

What are little boys made of, made of?

Snaps and snails, and puppy dog’s tails;

And that’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of, made of?

Sugar and spice, and all that’s nice;

And that’s what little girls are made of, made of.

What is an Englishman made of?

Roast beef and jam tart,

And a pint of good Clar’t,

And that’s what an Englishman’s made of.

What is a Frenchman, pray, made of?

Horse steak and frog fritter,

And absinthe so bitter,

And that’s what a Frenchman is made of.

[Therefore, my dears, you must be kind to a Frenchman, and give him some of your nice dinner, whenever you can, and teach him better.]

Shirley Brooks. 1864.

What are some young Misses made of?

Poker and Bang,

Second-hand slang;

Plenty of face,

Air without grace;

Bustle and flounce,

Brains half an ounce;

Dreams but of pelf,

Thoughts but of self;

Life all a lie,

Hang by-and-bye!

That’s what some Misses are made of.

What are most young Johnnies made of?

Needless toothpicking,

Stage door heel-kicking;

Long lemon squashing,

Prodigal washing;

Stock-seller’s model,

Hairdresser’s noddle;

Old schoolboy vices,

Love-lingering for “nicies”;

Blasé pretended,

Unbegun—ended!

That’s what most Johnnies are made of!

Judy. January 3, 1883.

“Dickory,” à la française.

Diggoré, doggoré, doge,

Le rat monte à l’horloge,

Une heure se frappe

Le rat s’échappe

Diggoré, doggoré, doge.

Boys Own Paper. March, 1884.

Mus in Horologio.

Quatit terrore domus,

Est horologio mus.

Tunc hora prima sonuit,

Et murem sic attonuit;

Caret terrore domus—

Non horologio mus.

The Hornet. June 19, 1872.

A Song of a Sell.

Hickery, dickery, dare!

The Socialists met in the Square;

Warren nabs one,

Away the rest run,

Hickery, dickery, dare!

——:o:——

Multiplication is vexation,

Division is as bad;

The Rule of Three, it puzzles me,

And Practice drives me mad!

Poem by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

(Composed on the day His Grace “deprived” Mr. Denison.)

Transubstantiation is vexation,

Consubstantiation is as bad;

Archdeacon D. doth trouble me,

And I rather think he’s mad.

J. B. Cantuar. 1856.

The Khedive’s Summing Up.

Abdication is vexation,

Deposition’s twice as bad;

The Rule of Three it bothers me,

And Bismarck drives me mad.

Punch. June 28, 1879.

(Written shortly before the deposition of the Khedive, by Turkey, France and England.)

A Sum of Sorrows.

The Iligant Nation

Is a vexation,

But Gordon’s twice as bad:

From Redistribution

Comes bitter confusion,

And Egypt’s driven me mad.

By a Publican.

“Application” is vexashun,

“Compensation” ’ll prove bad;

Terms o’ years three is a muzzle for me,

Them practices drives me mad.

Danehill.

121

Lord S. loqr.

Compensation’s tribulation,

The wheel-tax is as bad,

By Jokin G—

And Licensed V,

I’m fairly driven mad.

Baritone.

Truth, June 14, 1888.

Mobilisation’s desperation,

Inaction is as bad;

The Admiraltee it puzzles “we,”

The Horse Guards drives us mad.

Truth. June 28, 1888.

Shakespeare and Bacon are vexation

Donelly is as bad,

His Cryptogram it puzzles me,

His Cypher drives me mad.

Scott Surtees. 1888.

——:o:——

Please to remember

The Fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot;

I know no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

(About 1651.)

Mitchelstown.

Please to remember

The ninth of September,

Mitchelstown’s murderous shot.

I see no reason

Why Government treason

Should ever be forgot.

Balfour blacksheep,

Have you any gruel?

Yes sir, yes sir,

Three plates full.

One for the Parson,

One for the Dame,

And one for the man who joins

The Plan of Campaign.

Ding, dong, dell,

Dillon’s in a cell,

Who put him in?

Servants of the Queen.

Who’ll pull him out?

G. O. M. no doubt.

Newgate.

Truth. June 14, 1888.

Remember, remember, the recreant member

Who with Tories has cast in his lot,

I see no reason why Chamberlain’s treason

Should ever be forgot.

Clever, smart, and spry,

With his eye-glass in his eye,

Send him to the House of Lords

And there let him lie!

A Tory place the traitor to pay;

True Radicals scorn to lash him;

Old Ireland’s curse on his soul to lay,

And the next election to smash him.

John Bull.

The Weekly Dispatch. November, 1888.

A Lay for the Fifth of November.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,

And gunpowder treason plot;

I know no reason why winking at treason

Should ever be forgot.

So, holloa, boys, holloa, and bring out the guys

That every true Englishman needs must despise.

Instead of Old Guy, who in years long gone by

Used gunpowder kegs for a tool,

We’ve a certain old man who does all he can

To break up the House with Home Rule.

Bring the effigy out, and take it about;

On to the Bonfire with laughter and shout,

And all the good people who see it will cry,

“Holloa! boys, holloa! for Gladstone the Guy.”

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,

As years have rolled on we have got

Fresh guys for the season of gunpowder treason

So now let us bring out the lot.

Here’s Charley Parnell, and Dillon as well,

With Labby so fond of abuse,

And Harcourt may find a place close behind

With a jar of the Parnellite juice.

And give to each one a moonlighter’s gun,

A mask, and some powder and shot,

With Fenian dynamite somewhere concealed

To finally blow up the lot.

Holloa, boys, holloa, and pile the chips well,

For Gladstone of Hawarden has plenty to sell.

Bring the effigies out and take them about,

On to the bonfire with laughter and shout,

With cheers for the empire, with hooting and cries

Of “Holloa! boys, holloa! boys, down with the guys!”

J. E. Clarke.

Judy. November 7, 1888.

——:o:——

The Husband’s Revenge.

A Warning to wives who will keep bad Cooks.

Provisions raw

Long time he bore,

Remonstrance was in vain;

To escape the scrub

He join’d a club;

Nor dined at home again.

Punch. March 1, 1856.

Epitaph on a Locomotive.

Collisions four

Or five she bore,

The signals wor in vain;

Grown old and rusted,

Her biler busted,

And smash’d the Excursion Train—

“Her end was pieces”

122 Monody on Protection.

Protection sore long time we bore,

Seditions were in vain;

But now his friends have given him o’er,

He’ll never wake again.

——:o:——

Nursery Rhymes for Cyclists.

Here is a touching little thing to “teach the young idea how to shoot”—down nasty hills:—

“Sing a song of wheeling,

Mind that no one squeals—

Four-and-twenty black boys

Riding on their wheels,

When down hill they ventured,

They ‘braked’ it rather rash,

And four-and-twenty cripples

Resulted from the smash!”

The pathetic address of the bicyclist to his lamp:—

“Twinkle, twinkle, little light

Struggle through the murky night,

Round about the corners trot

Many a blue for-get-me-not (i.e., the Bobby),

Who would drag me to the Beak

For a fine or for a ‘week,’

And they’d always serve me so

If you did not twinkle so!”

“Little Jack Jumber

Sat on his Humber,

Waiting till cows go by,

When one in a flurry

Sent him in a hurry

Sow-so into the old pig-stye!”

Ladies are invited to—

“Ride a machine to What’s-the-name Green,

To see whatever there is to be seen,

Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

She shall have music wherever she goes!”

“Jack and Jill

Rode down the hill,

With joke and jeer and laughter,

Jack fell down,

And broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after!”

Jack and Gill came down the hill

Upon a Humber tandem,

Jack turned round to Gill and frowned,

“Eugh!” you don’t understand ’em

Put up your feet, stick to your seat,

I’m going to do a ‘flyer,’

For goodness sake don’t touch the brake.

We’re spilt! oh Jeremyur!

Wheeling Annual. 1885.

——:o:——

Questions for Sir Charles.

O where, O where, are your little wee dogs,

O where are they gone, Sir C.?

Says Chawles “Down in Surrey,

They fled in a hurry,

And never came back to me,”

And where, O where, were your merry men gone

That people should murdered be?

“O, my men were ‘all there,’

In Trafalgar Square,

Looking most militaree.”

But Chawlie, O Chawlie, where were you?

Why didn’t you travel down E.?

“I was up to my eyes

In a Christmas Prize

Composition for Newnes’s T. B.”

Cock Warren.

Who killed Cock Warren?

“I,” said the gin distiller;

“I’m the tyrant killer,

I killed Cock Warren.”

Who killed Cock Warren?

“I,” said the Pall Mall;

“I set him up as well,

Then I killed Cock Warren.”

Who killed Cock Warren?

“I,” said Mr. Graham,

“I’m the hound to bay ’em;

I killed Cock Warren.”

Who killed Cock Warren?

“We,” said the people;

“Clash the bells in the steeple;

We killed Cock Warren.”

H. W. M.

An Epitaph.

Here lies

Sir Charles Warren,

Formerly

Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.

During his Tenure of Office

He Lectured on the Holy Land,

And Trampled Under his Feet

Our Free and ancient laws,

Daily insulting the law-abiding people of London.

Contrary to the Regulations of the Service

He wrote an article in Murray’s Magazine,

The grammar of which was shaky,

And the spelling of which is said to have been corrected

By the Printer’s Devil.

He resigned rather than submit to

Merited censure.

Forbear, pious reader,

To spit upon his tomb,

For though his actions were despotic,

His resignation brought joy and gladness

To the homes of thousands.

“When the wicked perish there is shouting.”

From The Star. November, 1888. Just after the resignation of Sir C. Warren as Chief Commissioner of the London Police, much to the delight of the London people.

——:o:——

In Carols of Cockayne (London, Chatto & Windus, 1874) the late Mr. Henry S. Leigh gave some poetical versions of Nursery Rhymes, which he termed “Chivalry for the Cradle.” The stories selected were “Humpty-Dumpty,” “Ride a Cock-horse to Banbury Cross,” and “Babie Bunting.”

123

The Romaunt of Humpty-Dumpty.

’Tis midnight, and the moonbeam sleeps

Upon the garden sward:

My lady in yon turret keeps

Her tearful watch and ward.

“Beshrew me!” mutters, turning pale,

The stalwart seneschal;

“What’s he that sitteth, clad in mail,

Upon our castle wall?”

“Arouse thee, friar of orders gray;

What, ho! bring book and bell!

Ban yonder ghastly thing, I say;

And, look ye, ban it well.

By cock and pye, the Humpty’s face!”—

The form turn’d quickly round;

Then totter’d from its resting-place—

* * * * *

That night the corse was found.

The king, with hosts of fighting men,

Rode forth at break of day;

Ah! never gleam’d the sun till then

On such a proud array.

But all that army, horse and foot,

Attempted, quite in vain,

Upon the castle wall to put

The Humpty up again.

The Ballad of Babye Bunting.

The Knight is away in the merry green wood,

Where he hunts the wild rabbit and roe:

He is fleet in the chase as the late Robin Hood—

He is fleeter in quest of the foe.

The nurse is at home in the castle, and sings

To the babe that she rocks at her breast:

She is crooning of love and of manifold things,

And is bidding the little one rest.

“Oh, slumber, my darling! oh, slumber apace!

For thy father will shortly be here;

And the skin of some rabbit that falls in the chase

Shall be thine for a tippet, my dear.”

H. Dumpteii Tristis Historia.

Humptius Dumpteius

Sedebat stulte muro:

Humptius, heu, decidit

Nec fatum in obscuro.

Non omnes equi regii,

Non viri potuere

Pristinam rectitudinem

Dumpteio præbere.

Ad Infantem Buntinii.

Buntincule beate!

Pater venatur catè.

Pellem feret cuniculi,

Ut vestis sit Buntinculi.

The Hornet.

——:o:——

THE MONTHS.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

February has twenty-eight alone,

All the rest have thirty-one,

Excepting leap-year, that’s the time,

When February’s days are twenty-nine.

These lines occur in an old play, “The Return from Parnassus,” printed in London in 1606, they may have been derived from the following old poem De Computo, written in the thirteenth century:—

“En avril, en juing, en septembre

A .xxx. jours et en novembre:

Tout li autre ont .xxxj jour,

Fors fevriers qi est li plus cour,

En soi que .xxviij. jors n’a,

Ne plus ne meins n’i avra ja

Fors en l’an qe bissextres vient,

Adont en a, einsi avient,

.xxix., de tant est creüs,

L’an que bixestres est cheüs.”

Dirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

From December up to May,

The rain it raineth every day.

All the rest have thirty-one,

Without a blessed gleam of sun;

And if any had two-and-thirty,

They’d be just as wet, and twice as dirty.

Figaro. 1873.

A Summery Summary.

Thirty-one days hath the month of May,

Most of them chilly, and none of them gay,

June—less obnoxious by one day—has thirty,

Every one, more or less, dirty and squirty.

Thirty plus one are the “whack” of July,

None of them sunny, and few of them dry,

Three months of gloom that each year groweth glummer!

That sums the sell that is called English Summer!

Useful Mems. for 1885.

January is first month

(It commences with the oneth).

February’s days are twenty-eight

(Wanting more, four years you wait).

In March you find mad hares and Lent

(25th’s the day for rent).

April’s days are only thirty

(And even most of those are dirty!)

Thirty-one there are in May

(24th’s Victoria’s day).

Thirty days are there in June

(Rent-day the 24th—too soon!)

Thirty-one days in July

(A month for eating greengage pie).

In August thirty-one you’ll find

(If you don’t care, well, I don’t mind).

Thirty days, please, hath September

(And 29th’s the rent, remember!)

Thirty-one days hath October

(Quite enough, if you keep sober!)

124

November it has thirty (why?—

You’d best ask some one else than I).

December—thirty-one (contrive

To scrape up rent by 25).

——:o:——

The Three Jolly Ratsmen.

(With Apologies to the Memory of Randolph Caldecott).

It’s of three politicians, and a rattin’ they did go;

An’ they ratted, an’ they ranted, an’ they blew their horns also.

Look ye there!

An’ one said, “Mind yo’r een, an’ keep yo’r noses reet i’ th’ wind,

An’ then, by scent or seet we’ll leet o’summat to our mind.”

Look ye there!

(Portraits of Chamberlain, Goschen and Hartington.)

They ratted, an’ they ranted, an’ the first thing they did find

Was a Grand Old Statesman in a field, an’ him they left behind.

Look ye there!

One said it was a Statesman, an’ another he said, “Nay;

It’s just a Liberal Party, that has been and gone astray.”

Look ye there!

They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find,

Was a gruntin’, grindin’ grindlestone, an’ that they left behind.

Look ye there.

One said it was a grindlestone, another he said, “Nay,

It’s nought but a fossil Quaker that’s gone an’ roll’t away.”

Look ye there!

(Portrait of John Bright.)

They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find

Was a bull calf in a Tory fold, an’ that they left behind.

Look ye there!

One said it was a bull calf, an’ another he said, “Nay,

It’s just a little jackass that has never learnt to bray.”

Look ye there!

(Lord R. Churchill).

They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find

Was a two-three children leaving school, an’ these they left behind.

Look ye there!

One said they were children, but another he said, “Nay,

They’re no’ but little Radicals, so we’ll leave ’em to their play.”

Look ye there!

They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find,

Was a poet singing in a ditch, an’ him they left behind.

Look ye there!

One said it was a poet, an’ another he said, “Nay;

It’s only just a poor young man whose wits are stole away.”

Look ye there!

(A. C. Swinburne.)

They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find,

Was two young lovers in a lane, an’ these they left behind.

Look ye there!

One said that they were lovers, but another he said “Nay;

They’re two poor wandering lunatics: come, let us go away.”

Look ye there!

(Erin and John Morley.)

So they ratted an’ they ranted till, the setting of the sun,

And they’d naught to bring away at last when election time was done.

Look ye there!

Then one unto the other said, “This rattin’ doesn’t pay;

But we’n powler’t up an’ down a bit, an’ had a rattlin’ day.”

Look ye there!

Pall Mall Gazette. July 7, 1886.

Mr. Randolph Caldecott must have founded his well known children’s ballad upon the following very old nursery rhyme:—

There were three jovial Welshmen,

As I have heard them say,

And they would go a hunting

Upon St. David’s day.

All the day they hunted,

And nothing could they find,

But a ship a-sailing,

A-sailing with the wind.

One said it was a ship,

The other he said, nay;

The third said it was a house,

With the chimney blown away.

And all the night they hunted,

And nothing could they find

But the moon a-gliding,

A-gliding with the wind.

One said it was the moon,

The other he said, nay;

The third said it was a cheese,

And half o’t cut away.

——:o:——

The following old rhyme was sung to the tune of Chevy Chace. It was taken from a poetical tale in the “Choyce Poems” printed in London in 1662. John Poole introduced the song in his Hamlet Travestie in 1810, without any acknowledgment, perhaps thinking it was too well known to require mention.

Three children sliding on the ice

Upon a summer’s day,

It so fell out they all fell in,

The rest they ran away.

Now had these children been at home,

Or sliding on dry ground,

Ten thousand pounds to one penny

They had not all been drown’d.

You parents all that children have,

And you that eke have none,

If you would have them safe abroad,

Pray keep them safe at home.

Carmen Caninum.

Labentes super glaciem,

In medio æstatis,

Tres pueri sunt mersi, et

Succubuêre fatis.

Ah, si in terrâ lapsi sint,

Vel domi si mansissent

Sestertium ad denarium

Non aquâ periisent.

125

Parentes quibus nati sunt,

Et vos qui non habetis

Si salvos vultis foris hos,

Clausos domi servetis.

The Hornet. 1872.

——:o:——

THE COW.

Thank you, pretty cow, that made

Pleasant milk to soak my bread,

Ev’ry day and ev’ry night,

Warm, and fresh, and sweet, and white.

Do not chew the hemlock rank,

Growing on the weedy bank;

But the yellow cowslips eat,

They perhaps will make it sweet.

Where the purple violet grows,

Where the bubbling water flows,

Where the grass is fresh and fine,

Pretty cow, go there and dine.

To a Pet Reptile.

Thank you, pretty spotted snake,

Thus to as your mistress try me.

What a charming pet you make,

Cold and creepy, damp and slimy!

How you wriggle up my sleeve.

How you coil around my shoulder

Causing visitors to leave,

Terrifying each beholder.

Come, then, where your breakfast waits,

Reptile of eccentric habits;

Come, and seal the several fates

Of these frogs and two plump rabbits.

——:o:——

THE CAT.

I love little Pussy, her coat is so warm,

And if I don’t hurt her, she’ll do me no harm;

So I’ll ne’er pull her tail, nor drive her away.

But pussy and I together will play;

She shall sit by my side, and I’ll give her some food,

And she’ll love me because I am gentle and good.

To my New Pet.

I love my ichneumon,

Its tongue is so queer,

Its ways are so human,

It has such a leer.

’Tis fond of the emmet

For dinner and tea;

But ere you condemn it,

Pray listen to me.

And know that though ants it

Delights in so much;

Its fiercest foe grants it

An uncle won’t touch.

“Be lenient with lobsters, and ever kind to crabs,

And be not disrespectful to cuttle-fish or dabs;

Chase not the Cochin-China, chaff not the ox obese,

And babble not of feather-beds in company with geese.

Be tender with the tadpole, and let the limpet thrive,

Be merciful to mussels, don’t skin your eels alive;

When talking to a turtle don’t mention calipee—

Be always kind to animals wherever you may be.”

——:o:——

Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes;

He only does it to annoy,

Because he knows it teases.

Alice in Wonderland.

Speak when not spoken to,

Sulk when you’re chid,

Bang the door after you

Good little kid!

——:o:——

Be kind to the panther! for when thou wert young,

In thy country far over the sea,

’Twas a panther ate up thy papa and mama,

And had several mouthfuls of thee!

Be kind to the badger! for who shall decide

The depth of his badgerly soul?

And think of the tapir, when flashes the lamp

O’er the fast and the free flowing bowl.

Be kind to the camel! nor let word of thine

Ever put up his bactrian back;

And cherish the she-kangaroo with her bag,

Nor venture to give her the sack.

Be kind to the ostrich! for how canst thou hope

To have such a stomach as it?

And when the proud day of your “bridal” shall come,

Do give the poor birdie a “bit.”

Be kind to the walrus! nor ever forget

To have it on Tuesday to tea;

But butter the crumpets on only one side,

Save such as are eaten by thee.

Be kind to the bison! and let the jackal

In the light of thy love have a share;

And coax the ichneumon to grow a new tail,

And have lots of larks in its lair!

Be kind to the bustard! that genial bird,

And humor its wishes and ways;

And when the poor elephant suffers from bile,

Then tenderly lace up his stays!

Figaro’s Natural History. (O. P. Q. Smiff.)

——:o:——

MARY’S LAMB.

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went,

The lamb was sure to go.

126

He followed her to school one day,—

That was against the rule;

It made the children laugh and play,

To see a lamb at school.

(Two verses omitted.)

Dot Lambs vot Mary haf got.

Mary haf got a leetle lambs already:

Dose vool vas vite like shnow;

Und every times dot Mary did vend oud,

Dot lambs vent also oud vid Mary.

Dot lambs did follow Mary von day to der school-house,

Vich was obbosition to der rules of der schoolmaster,

Alzo, vich it dit caused dose schillen to schmile out loud

Ven dey did saw dose lambs on der insides of der school-house.

Und so dot schoolmaster did kick dot lambs quick oud,

Likevise, dot lambs dit loaf around on der outsides,

Und did shoo der flies mit his tail off patiently aboud

Undil Mary did come also from dot school-house oud.

Und den dot lambs did run right away quick to Mary,

Und dit make his het on Mary’s arms,

Like he would said, “I dond vos schkared

Mary would keep from droubles ena how.”

“Vot vos de reason aboud it, of dot lambs and Mary?”

Dose schillen did ask it, dot schoolmaster;

Vell, doand you know it, dot Mary lov dose lambs already,

Dot schoolmaster did zaid.

Moral.

Und zo, alzo, dot moral vas,

Boued Mary’s lambs’ relations:

Of you lofe dose like she lofe dose,

Dot lambs vas obligations.

Mary had a Little Lamb.

A Tale.

Mary was the proprietress of a diminutive incipient sheep, whose outer covering was as devoid of colour as congealed atmospheric vapour, and to all localities to which Mary perambulated, her young South-down was morally sure to follow. It tagged her to the dispensary of learning one diurnal section of time, which was contrary to all precedent, and excited cachinnation to the seminary attendants when they perceived the presence of a young mutton at the establishment of instruction. Consequently the preceptor expelled him from the interior, but he continued to remain in the immediate vicinity, without fretfulness, until Mary once more became visible.

“What caused this specimen of the genus ovis to bestow so much affection on Mary?” the impetuous progeny vociferated.

“Because Mary reciprocated the wool-producer’s esteem, you understand,” the teacher answered.

——:o:——

Mary’s Little Lamb.

Verses culled from different Authors.

Oh, who has not heard of Sweet Mary’s pet sheep,

With fleece like the lilies by Alaway’s stream,

When the day on the breast of the night falls asleep

With the fragrance of lilies to perfume its dream?

The love of that mutton for Mary was more

Like the nightingale’s song by the swift Bendemeer

Which born in the grove, seeks a grave on the shore

As laughter or music is drowned in a tear.

Thomas Moore.

I saw that lamb rise from the hallowed ground

That emperors have kissed as they resigned their rule;

I saw him rise like Venice rise and straddle round,

There where the wraith of Time prowls like a ghoul

And centuries have sate, each on its stool,

Then, with a spring of ages, saw him bound

To Mary’s side, and down the sombre cool

Dark corridors of rotting years he followed her to school

Lord Byron.

Bounce, bounce, bounce,

For Mary’s poor pet wool!

But the tenderness of three days’ grace

Can’t get him back to school;

Oh, well for the sailor lad

That he bit his sister’s thumb,

For the contribution box goes round

And the lamb is deaf and dumb!

Tennyson.

Prithee, good pedagogue, we lend our ears

To feed on explanation. It appears

That this pet lamb has passed the world’s estate

Of treachery, and love that loves to prate

Of love, while loving but the sound

The gnashing lips that bear it breathe around,

Beseemeth he would with her spangle nights

And wear her as the stars wear satellites,

To him she is the lightning to the cloud,

The rain to summer, to death the shroud,

Dreams to eyes, sleep to the weary, rest

To the yearning or ambitious breast.

We prithee, pedagogue, if so be you know,

Why does this sheep love little Mary so?

Shakespeare.

——:o:——

William had a big gingham,

Its folds were strong and broad;

And everywhere that William came

That gingham too abode.

Lord Rosey put it up one day,

And many sheltered there;

It made the Tories laugh and play

To see the huge affair.

To shut it up their leaders tried,

But still its folds are spread,

And ’neath them Libs and Rads abide

Around their Grand Old Head.

“Why do they all love William so?”

The jealous Tories cry.

“Because he trusteth us you know,”

The people loud reply.

Scrawler.

Truth. October 15, 1885.

Mary had a little corn

Upon her little toe,

And everywhere that Mary went

The corn was sure to go.

127

But Mary bought an Alcock’s shield,

And stuck it on her toe;

And then she ran about alone,

For the corn soon had to go.

And Mary, grown up, tells the tale,

Of that time, long ago,

When she was little Mary with

That corn upon her toe.

Mary had a little lamb,

With coat as black as soot,

And into Mary’s cup of milk

It put its dirty foot.

Now Mary, a straightforward girl,

Who hated any sham,

Rapped out a naughty little word

That rhymed with Mary’s lamb.

Hussar.

Truth. September 30, 1886.

Mary had a pot of jam

Presented by the cook,

And everywhere that Mary went,

The luscious jar she took.

She carried it to school one day,

Which was against the rule;

And when the teacher looked away,

She ate the jam in school.

At last the teacher found her out,

And, oh! was most severe:

But what the imposition was

It doth not well appear.

Now Mary soon began to roll

Her head upon her arm,

And felt dismayed, and much afraid

The jam had done her harm.

“Oh! why does Mary’s head ache so”

The curious children cry,

“Quaejam est, ea sic erit,”

The teacher did reply.

C. W. G.

Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. 1887.

Joseph and his Jesse.

An Adaptation of “Mary had a Little Lamb,” said to
have been Sung during the Ayr Contest, in which
Mr. Collings took an active part.

Joseph had a little lamb—a little lamb—

Joseph had a little lamb,

Which loved its master so,

That everywhere that Joseph went—that Joseph went—

That everywhere that Joseph went,

The lamb was sure to go.

It followed him so close about—so close about—

It followed him so close about,

To every place you know,

It made the people laugh and shout—laugh and shout—

It made the people laugh and shout,

To see the lamb and Joe.

And when the laborers turned it out—turned it out—

And when the laborers turned it out,

Yet still it lingered near,

And wandered helplessly about—helplessly about—

And wandered helplessly about,

Till Joseph did appear.

“What makes the lamb love Joseph so—love Joseph so—

What makes the lamb love Joseph so?”

The “Rural Laborers” cry,

“Why Joseph loves the lamb, you know—the lamb, you know”—

Why Joseph loves the lamb—you know,

And Jesse makes reply, Baa! Baa!

The Star. June 18, 1888.

Mary had a cactus plant

So modestly it grew,

Shooting its little fibers out

It lived upon the dew.

Her little brother often heard

Her say it lived on air,

And so he pulled it up one day

And placed it in a chair.

Placed it in a chair he did,

Then laughed with ghoulish glee—

Placed it in the old arm chair

Under the trysting tree.

Nor thought of Mary’s lover,

Who called each night to woo,

Or even dreamed they’d take a stroll,

As lovers often do.

The eve drew on. The lover came.

They sought the trysting tree,

Where has the little cactus gone?

The lover—where is he!

——:o:——

SONG.

Air.—“If I had a donkey vot vouldn’t go,

Do you think I’d wallop, &c.”

Had I an ass averse to speed,

Deem’st thou I’d strike him? No, indeed

Mark me, I’d try persuasion’s art,

For cruelty offends my heart:

Had all resembled me, I ween,

Martin, thy law had needless been

Of speechless brutes from blows to screen

The poor head;

For had I an ass averse to speed

I ne’er would strike him; no indeed!

I’d give him hay, and cry, “Proceed,”

And “Go on, Edward!”

Why speak I thus? This very morn,

I saw that cruel William Burn,

Whilst crying “Greens!” upon his course,

Assail his ass with all his force;

He smote him o’er the head and thighs,

Till tears bedimm’d the creature’s eyes!

Oh! ’twas too much. My blood ’gan rise,

And I exclaim’d,

“Had I an” &c.

128

Burn turn’d and cried, with scornful eye,

“Perchance thou’rt one of Martin’s fry,

And seek’st occasion base to take,

The vile informer’s gain to make.”

Word of denial though I spoke,

Full on my brow his fury broke,

And thus, while I return’d the stroke,

I exclaim’d,

“Had I an” &c.

To us, infringing thus the peace,

Approach’d its guardians—the police;

And, like inevitable Fate,

Bore us to where stern Justice sate:

Her minister the tale I told,

And to support my word, made bold

To crave he would the ass behold:

“For,” I declared,

“Had I an” &c.

They call’d the creature into court,

Where, sooth to say, he made some sport,

With ears erect, and parted jaws,

As though he strove to plead his cause:

I gain’d the palm of feelings kind;

The ass was righted; William fined.

For Justice, one with me in mind,

Exclaim’d, by her Minister,

“Had I an” &c.

Cried William to his Judge, “’Tis hard

(Think not the fine that I regard),

But things have reach’d a goodly pass—

One may not beat a stubborn ass!”

Nought spoke the Judge, but closed his book;

So William thence the creature took,

Eyeing me—ah! with what a look,

As gently whispering in his ear, I said,

“William, had I an,” &c.

Punch. February 17, 1844.

The Cry of the Children.

(A propos of Jumbo.)

If I owned Jumbó,

(Who declines to go)

Would I sell him to a show?

No, no, not I!

When the Titan I saw

Firmly plant his paw,

I would shout “Hooraw!”

For his bra-ve-ry.

Chorus.

If an army of Yankees should proffer their pay,

I’d button my pockets, and send them away.

* * * * *

Punch. March 4, 1884.

On Lord Gumboil.

What are you doing, my pretty maid?

I’m mashing a lord, kind sir, she said.

Then pray be careful, my pretty maid;

I’m more than seven, sir, she said.

What is his father, my pretty maid?

His father’s a lawyer, sir, she said.

Say, has he married you, my pretty maid?

No, an it please you, kind sir, she said.

What will you do then, my pretty maid?

I’ll sue on his promise, sir, she said.

Then has he a fortune, my pretty maid!

He’s got one—at present—sir, she said.

Penzance.

The Weekly Dispatch. April 13, 1884.

There was an old statesman,

And what do you think?

He used mountains of paper,

And oceans of ink,

And even on postcards would issue his fiat,

And yet this great statesman

Could never rest quiet.

August Fifteenth.

Truth. June 14, 1888.

——:o:——

The Legislative Organ.

[“The capacity of our Legislative Organ is limited. Its strength is overtaxed. In its perspective, the first place is held by the great and urgent Irish question. Still more limited are the means, especially as to the future, possessed by a man on the margin of his eightieth year.”—Mr. Gladstone’s letter.]

Seated long since at the organ,

I strummed in my weary way;

And my fancies wandered widely

For a popular air to play.

I know not what I was doing,

(And I cannot explain it still),

But I struck one chord of faction;

Like the sound of a Home Rule Bill.

It startled the House and the Empire,

With a fantasy wild and new;

And it shattered a mighty party

Like a thunderbolt from the blue.

And I struggled and “reconstructed,”

But passions I could not cool;

So I gave up my seat at the organ,

Where I might not play “Home Rule.”

Yet still on that worn-out Organ

I shall strike those chords once more;

And sing in life’s sunless gloaming,

The song that I learnt of yore;

And the Law of the Land shall quaver

In tune to a plundering Plan,

When the grand Old English Organ

Shall throb to the Grand Old Man.

The St. James’s Gazette. 1889.

——:o:——

An Utter Passion uttered Utterly.

This poem, inserted on page 81, was disfigured by a misprint, the third line should have read:—

“And drapen in tear-colour’d minivers.”

The author (Dr. Todhunter) wishes it to be understood that the poem was intended as a skit on the imitators of Mr. Swinburne’s style in general, and not on any particular individual. It was therefore a little out of place amongst the Parodies of Mr. Oscar Wilde, as it was not intended to refer in any way to the writings of that gentleman.—Ed. Parodies.

——:o:——

129

PARODIES & POEMS

PRAISE OF TOBACCO.

he following poems, devoted entirely to the laudation of Tobacco, either as smoked in the pipe, cigar, or cigarette, or as taken in the form of snuff, have been collected from many different works. One of the principal sources of information has been that entertaining journal Cope’s Tobacco Plant, which has now unfortunately ceased to exist. Another useful authority was a little book published at the office of Tobacco in Gracechurch Street, London, entitled Tobacco Jokes for Smoking Folks, which contained many amusing anecdotes, and humorous illustrations. A few of the latter are here inserted by the kind permission of the proprietors. Following the Parodies some of the most noted Poems on Tobacco are given, so as to make the collection on this interesting topic more complete.

One of the earliest burlesque poems in praise of Tobacco was that written by Mr. Isaac Hawkins Browne about one hundred and fifty years ago, entitled “A Pipe of Tobacco, in imitation of Six Several Authors.”

This poem has been repeatedly reprinted, although there is little in it that strikes a modern reader as either remarkably humorous or clever. The authors imitated are Colley Cibber (the Poet Laureate), Ambrose Phillips, James Thomson, Edward Young, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s. It is stated that the imitation of Ambrose Phillips was not written by Mr. I. H. Browne, but was sent to him by a friend, whose name has not been transmitted to us. This is to be regretted, as this particular imitation (the second) is generally considered the best in the collection. According to Ritson this was written for the collection by Dr. John Hoadley.

A PIPE OF TOBACCO:

In Imitation of Six Several Authors.

Imitation I.

Laudes egregii Cæsaris——

Culpâ deterere ingenî.

Hor.

A New-Year’s Ode.

Recitative.

Old battle-array, big with horror is fled,

And olive-robed peace again lifts up her head.

Sing, ye Muses, Tobacco, the blessing of peace;

Was ever a nation so blessed as this?

Air.

When summer suns grow red with heat,

Tobacco tempers Phœbus’ ire,

When wintry storms around us beat,

Tobacco cheers with gentle fire.

Yellow autumn, youthful spring,

In thy praises jointly sing.

Recitativo.

Like Neptune, Cæsar guards Virginian fleets,

Fraught with Tobacco’s balmy sweets;

Old Ocean trembles at Britannia’s pow’r,

And Boreas is afraid to roar.

Air.

Happy mortal! he who knows

Pleasure which a Pipe bestows;

Curling eddies climb the room,

Wafting round a mild perfume.

Recitativo.

Let foreign climes the vine and orange boast,

While wastes of war deform the teeming coast;

Britannia, distant from each hostile sound,

Enjoys a Pipe, with ease and freedom crown’d;

E’en restless Faction finds itself most free,

Or if a slave, a slave to Liberty.

Air.

Smiling years that gayly run,

Round the Zodiack with the sun,

Tell, if ever you have seen

Realms so quiet and serene.

Britain’s sons no longer now

Hurl the bar, or twang the bow,

Nor of crimson combat think,

But securely smoke and drink.

130

Chorus.

Smiling years that gayly run

Round the Zodiack with the sun,

Tell, if ever you have seen

Realms so quiet and serene.

Imitation II.

Tenues fugit ceu fumus in auras.

Virg.

Little tube of mighty pow’r,

Charmer of an idle hour,

Object of my warm desire,

Lip of wax, and eye of fire:

And thy snowy taper waist,

With my finger gently brac’d;

And thy pretty swelling crest,

With my little stopper prest,

And the sweetest bliss of blisses,

Breathing from thy balmy kisses.

Happy thrice, and thrice agen,

Happiest he of happy men;

Who when agen the night returns,

When agen the taper burns;

When agen the cricket’s gay,

(Little cricket, full of play)

Can afford his tube to feed

With the fragrant Indian weed:

Pleasure for a nose divine,

Incense of the god of wine.

Happy thrice, and thrice agen,

Happiest he of happy men.

Imitation III.

——Prorumpit ad æthera nubem

Turbine fumantem piceo.

Virg.

O thou, matur’d by glad Hesperian suns,

Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid[16] truth,

That looks the very soul; whence pouring thought

Swarms all the mind; absorpt is yellow care,

And[17] at each puff imagination burns.

Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires

Touch the mysterious lip, that chaunts thy praise

In strains to mortal sons of earth unknown.

Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines

Of ductile clay, with plastic[18] virtue form’d,

And glaz’d magnifick o’er, I grasp, I fill.

From Pætotheke[19] with pungent pow’rs perfum’d,

Itself[20] one tortoise all, where shines imbib’d

Each parent ray; then rudely ram’d illume,

With the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet,

Mark’d[21] with Gibsonian lore; forth issue clouds,

Thought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around,

And many-mining fires: I all the while,

Lolling at ease, inhale[22] the breezy balm.

But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join

In genial strife and orthodoxal ale,

Stream[23] life and joy into the Muses’ bowl.

Oh be thou still my great inspirer, thou

My Muse; oh fan me with thy zephyrs boon,

While I, in clouded tabernacle shrin’d,

Burst forth all oracle and mystick song.

Imitation IV.

——Bullatis mihi nugis,

Pagina turgescat, dare pondus idonea fumo.

Pers.

Criticks avaunt; Tobacco is my theme;

Tremble like hornets at the blasting steam.

And you, court-insects, flutter not too near

Its light, nor buzz within the scorching sphere.

Pollio, with flame like thine, my verse inspire,

So shall the Muse from smoke elicit fire.

Coxcombs prefer the tickling sting of snuff;

Yet all their claim to wisdom is—a puff:

Lord Fopling smokes not—for his teeth afraid:

Sir Tawdry smokes not—for he wears brocade.

Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon;

They love no smoke, except the smoke of town;

But courtiers hate the puffing tribe,—no matter,

Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter!

Its foes but shew their ignorance; can he

Who scorns the leaf of knowledge, love the tree?

The tainted templar (more prodigious yet)

Rails at Tobacco, tho’ it makes him—spit.

Citronia vows it has an odious stink;

She will not smoke (ye gods!) but she will drink:

And chaste Prudella (blame her if you can)

Says, pipes are us’d by that vile creature Man:

Yet crowds remain, who still its worth proclaim,

While some for pleasure smoke, and some for fame:

Fame, of our actions universal spring,

For which we drink, eat, sleep, smoke,—ev’rything.

Imitation V.

——Solis ad ortus

Vanescit fumus.

Lucan.

Blest leaf! whose aromatick gales dispense

To templars modesty, to parsons sense:

So raptur’d priests, at fam’d Dodona’s shrine

Drank inspiration from the steam divine.

Poison that cures, a vapour that affords

Content, more solid than the smile of lords:

Rest to the weary, to the hungry food,

The last kind refuge of the wise and good.

Inspir’d by thee, dull cits adjust the scale

Of Europe’s peace, when other statesmen fail.

By thee protected, and thy sister, beer,

Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.

Nor less the critick owns thy genial aid,

While supperless he plies the piddling trade.

What tho’ to love and soft delights a foe,

By ladies hated, hated by the beau,

Yet social freedom, long to courts unknown,

Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own.

Come to thy poet, come with healing wings,

And let me taste thee unexcis’d by kings.

Imitation VI.

Ex fumo dare lucem.

Hor.

Boy! bring an ounce of Freeman’s best,

And bid the vicar be my guest:

Let all be placed in manner due,

131

A pot wherein to spit or spue,

And London Journal and Free Briton,

Of use to light a pipe——

* * * * *

This village, unmolested yet

By troopers, shall be my retreat:

Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray;

Who cannot write or vote for pay.

Far from the vermin of the town,

Here let me rather live, my own,

Doze o’er a pipe, whose vapour bland

In sweet oblivion lulls the land;

Of all which at Vienna passes,

As ignorant as —— Brass is:

And scorning rascals to caress,

Extoll the days of good Queen Bess,

When first Tobacco blest our isle,

Then think of other Queens—and smile.

Come jovial pipe, and bring along

Midnight revelry and song;

The merry catch, the madrigal,

That echoes sweet in City Hall;

The parson’s pun, the smutty tale

Of country justice o’er his ale.

I ask not what the French are doing,

Or Spain to compass Britain’s ruin:

Britons, if undone, can go,

Where Tobacco loves to grow.

——:o:——

HORACE.

In imitation of Epode III.

An Ode against Tobacco.

For parricide, that worst of crimes,

Hemlock’s cold draught, in ancient times,

Scarce taught the rogue repentance:

But had tobacco then been known,

Its burning juices swallow’d down,

Had prov’d a fitter sentence.

How callous are the lab’rers jaws,

Who this dire weed both smokes and chaws,

And feasts upon the venom!

While I by chance a taste once got,

That so inflam’d my mouth and throat,

I thought all hell was in ’em.

Sure, this vile drug, that serv’d me thus,

The deadly viper’s poisonous juice

Infus’d must have great share in;

Or else some hag, with midnight wish,

Procur’d it as a special dish

Of Satan’s own preparing.

This was the charm Medea taught

Her dear advent’rous Argonaut,

To steal the Golden Fleece with;

Down bulls and dragons gaping throat

A quid he threw, which, quick as thought,

The brutes were laid at peace with.

Ting’d in tobacco’s baleful oil,

Her presents made her rival broil

Past Jason’s art of quenching:

And when he swore revenge, the witch

Mounted aloft astride her switch,

Pleas’d she had spoil’d his wenching.

Under the blue I’d rather live,

And the sun’s fiercest rays receive,

How apt soe’er to burn us:

Nay, Hercules’s shirt I’d wear,

Or any flame much sooner bear,

Than a pipe’s fiery furnace.

My merry lord, if quid or whiff

You ever taste of this damn’d leaf,

May you meet with what you dread most,

May Chloe, when with her you lie,

And press to kiss her, put you by,

And rather hug the bed post!

From The Gentleman’s Magazine. May, 1744.

——:o:——

Elegy.

Written over an old Pipe-Box.

The postman hits his last rat-tat to day,

And hies him to his lowly home with glee;

My wife reposes in her white array;

The night is left to “’Bacca” and to me.

Now starts a glimmering bottle on the sight,

And all the air a spirit perfume holds;

At sight of me the cockroach takes to flight,

And leaves awhile my common dips and moulds.

All raving now, at yonder area gate,

The moping “bobbies” to the cooks complain

That soldiers, with their padded breasts elate,

Molest their ancient privilege and reign.

Beneath this hingeless lid, bound round with braid,

Wherein no anti-vermin dare to creep

(Each one done brown, aside for ever laid),

The ancient tutors of my smoking sleep.

The bull-like voice of nicotinian Bob,

The sylph-like tones of sweet, poetic, Ned,

The fierce denouncings of the anti-mob,

No more shall call them from their narrow bed.

For them no more the fierce fusee shall burn,

Or plugs be purchased and put in with care;

In memory only, I to them return;

Their smoke, too strong, would all my nerves impair.

Oft have they lain with me in some green field;

Their solace oft some stiff-neck’d care has broke.

How strangely sorrow to the pipe doth yield,

And joy descends e’en through ascending smoke.

132

Let not philosophy at smoking mock—

Philosophy is but its prototype;

Nor e’en religion hear with spurning shock,

The short and simple annals of the pipe.

* * * * *

Ah me! In this neglected box is laid

Old pipes, once glowing with the scented fire;

Pipes for which shillings, ay, and pounds were paid.

Start not—’tis true, or I’m a living liar!

But pipes on pipes of “Bacca,” day by day,

With poison laden, did their fates control;

Strong-smelling oil stopp’d up the narrow way,

And now they may no more console my soul.

Full many a pipe, of purest briar root,

The stern schoolmaster confiscates and breaks;

Full many a clay, too, seized is by the brute,

And flung with tops and marbles, buttons, cakes.

One colour’d meerschaum that, in hidden poke

Conceal’d, full many a day in school did lie,

Escaped the notice of the stern-eyed bloke,

To linger in this box and never die.

To take excursion by the iron way,

In smoking-carriage, where thick clouds arise;

To fumigate—(tho’ anti-smokers bray),

And blow their ashes into people’s eyes—

Their state forbids. Now, circumscribed they lie,

For pleasure useless, and for work as well;

Weak, helpless, all, I bid them now good-by;

For, tho’ so weak, dear me, how strong they smell!

For thee, who, brooding thus with bended head,

Deploring much their sad and helpless state,

If chance, by nicotinian feelings led,

Some brother smoker shall inquire thy fate:

Haply some wooden-headed clown may say:

“I’ve often seed him, when the ale-house closed,

Wandering along the all-too narrow way,

His eyes a quiver, like to one who dozed;

“There, at the foot of yonder painted sign,

That looks more like a pig than like a cow,

He’d drink his beer—it would’nt run to wine—

And smoke his pipe, all reckless—anyhow.

“Or down the street, to put his watch in pawn,

Feeling for vanish’d coppers, he would rove,

His old hat on, his bristly chin unshorn.

He liked his beer, but warn’t a drunken cove.

“One night I miss’d him at the accustom’d pub;

Unoccupied remain’d his favourite seat.

Another came. Where was he?—sore the rub;

In losing him, we lost a look’d-for treat.

“The next, with solemn march, in blue array

(A crowd behind with strong tumultuous din,)

Two bobbies came. They’d found him on the way,

With beer o’ercome, and so they ran him in!”

The Epitaph.

Here rests, with his old head upon a stone,

A man who smoked till he did reason drown.

To-morrow morn the mayor, all fully blown,

Will frown on him, and fine him half-a-crown.

H. L.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. September, 1874.

Hamlet’s Soliloquy on Tobacco.

To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question:

Whether a mild cigar assists digestion;

Or, whether it begets a kind of quaintness,

Which some would say was nothing but a faintness;

To smoke—to drink and then to go to bed;

To find a pillow for an aching head;

To snore—perchance to dream! and half your senses scare

With visionary demons or nightmare;

To wake, in perspiration nicely dished,

’Tis a consummation hardly to be wished;

For who would bear the kicks, cuffs, and abuse

Of this base world, when he might cook his goose

Upon his toasting fork? Or who would care

For half the motley groups which at him stare,

Some morning early, stuck before the bench,

When soda-water would his fever quench,

But that a little thing within doth call?

Thus porter doth make rumuns of us all!

And thus our resolution to keep sober

Is drown’d and soon forgot in good October.

But hush! my Phelia comes, the pretty dear!

Oh! think of me love—when you fetch your beer.

Anonymous.

To Smoke, or not to Smoke.

To smoke, or not to smoke—that is the question!

Whether ’tis better to abjure the habit,

And trust the warnings of a scribbling doctor,

Or buy at once a box of best Havanas,

And ten a day consume them? To smoke, to puff,

Nay more, to waste the tender fabric of the lungs

And risk consumption and its thousand ills

The practice leads to—’tis a consummation

Discreetly to be shunned. To smoke, to puff—

To puff, perhaps to doze—ay, there’s the rub;

For in that dozing state we thirsty grow,

And, having burned the tube up to a stump,

We must have drink, and that’s one cause

We modern youth are destined to short life;

For who can bear to feel his mouth parched up,

His throat like whalebone and his chest exhausted,

His head turned giddy, and his nerves unstrung,

When he himself might drench these ills away

With wine or brandy? Who could live in smoke,

And pine and sicken with a secret poison;

But that the dread of breaking o’er a rule

Prescribed by Fashion, whose controlling will

None disobey, puzzles ambitious youth,

And makes us rather bear the ills we feel

Than others that the doctor warns us of.

Thus custom does make spectres of us all,

And thus the native hue of our complexion

If sicklied o’er with a consumptive cast;

The appetite, a loss of greater moment,

Palled by the weed, and the digestive powers

Lose all their action.

John W. Farrell.

Rare Bits. November 18, 1882.

——:o:——

A Song, after Sheridan.

Here’s to the hookah with snake of five feet,

Or the “portable” fix’d to one’s “topper”;

Here’s to the meerschaum more naughty than neat,

133

And here’s to all pipes that are proper.

Fill them up tight,

Give ’em a light;

I’ll wager a smoke will set everything right.

Here’s to the Warden’s twelve inches of stalk,

Here’s to Jack Tar’s clay, with one, sir;

To the pipes now with mountings so rich that they “walk,”

And here’s to most pipes which have none, sir.

Fill them up tight, &c.

Here’s to the Milo just out of the shop,

With mouthpiece as dry as pale sherry;

Here’s to your veteran, wet as a mop,

Black as a sloe or a cherry.

Fill them up tight, &c.

Let them be clumsy or let them be slim,

Light or heavy, I care not a feather;

So, fill them with ’Baccy right up to the rim,

And let us all smoke them together.

Fill them up tight,

Give ’em a light;

I’ll wager a smoke will set everything right.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. February, 1875.

——:o:——

Hail to the Plant.

(A Parody of Sir Walter Scott.)

Hail! to the Plant which we owe to brave Raleigh,

Long may it flourish on Cuba’s lone shore,

Bloom on the mountain, and spread in the valley,

Fertile, and fragrant, and fresh evermore!

Bright sunshine, nourish it,

Gentle deeds, cherish it,

Life giving breezes, around it still flow;

Moisture and warmth, give aid,

That it may never fade;

Tabak, St. Nicotine, ho, ieroe!

* * * * *

Smoke, brother, smoke of the pride of Virginia;

Snuff, brother, snuff, if you’d clear up your brain;

Chew, brother, chew, and I’ll bet you a guinea,

Once fairly started, you’ll do it again.

Oh, would our northern air

Nurture this plant so rare!

Never aught else in my garden I’d grow:

All my flowers pluck’d should be,

Fruit-trees give place to thee,

Tabak, St. Nicotine, ho, ieroe!

The Lay of the Last Smoker.

The weed was rank, the pipe was old,

Along the road the smoker rolled;

His scared and hesitating way

Showed that he owed and couldn’t pay.

The pipe, his one remaining joy,

Was scoff of every man and boy;

For last of all the smokers, he,

This old man was well known to be

For ’Bacca’s day was lately fled,

And all his brother smokers dead;

And he but stayed to smoke and swear,

And wonder where the others were.

No more amid the jest and song,

He puffed at his churchwarden long;

No longer in a smoking car

He blew a cloud from his cigar,

And stood his ground both stern and stout,

To smoke the anti-puffers out.

Old days were drowned in Time’s dark stream,

And “antis” reigned now all supreme;

The quivering noses of the time

Now called each harmless puff a crime.

A wandering smoker, scorned and sad,

He nearly drove the city mad;

And had to smoke—oh! wretched elf!

Some ’Bacca that he grew himself.

* * * * *

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. April, 1876.

——:o:——

The Last Cigar.

(After Thomas Moore.)

’Tis a last choice Havana

I hold here alone;

All its fragrant companions

In perfume have flown.

No more of its kindred

To gladden the eye,

So my empty cigar case

I close with a sigh.

I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,

To pine; but the stem

I’ll bite off and light thee

To waft thee to them

And gently I’ll scatter

The ashes you shed,

As your soul joins its mates in

A cloud overhead.

All pleasure is fleeting,

It blooms to decay

From the weeds glowing circle,

The ash drops away.

A last whiff is taken,

The butt-end is thrown,

And with empty cigar case

I sit all alone.

Anonymous.

’Tis the last weed of Hudson’s

Left lying alone;

All his dark brown Regalias

Are vanished and gone.

No cigar of its colour,

No “Lopez” is mine,

To delight with its perfume

And fragrance divine.

I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!

I’ll ring for a light;

Thy companions are ashes,

I’ll smoke thee to-night.

Thy halo and incense

Shall rise o’er my head,

As I sigh for the beauties

All scentless and dead.

And soon may I follow

Those lov’d ones’ decay;

Since from each tempting bundle

134

They’ve faded away.

When Regalias are smok’d out,

And “Lopez” are blown,

Oh! who would still linger,

Cigarless, alone?

From Hints to Freshmen, in the
University of Oxford.

A Last Cigar.

’Tis my last mild Havana

Pervading the room;

Her companions have taken

Their leaves in a fume.

No kindred to back her,

Nor plug, twist, nor snuff,

To return her aroma

Or give puff for puff.

Oh, fain would I follow

When the last whiff is sped,

And in life’s brightest garden

The weeds are all dead.

When troubles oppress us,

Or better-halves jar,

Oh, what were existence

Without a cigar?

——:o:——

The Butcher Boy.

The butcher boy down the road has gone,

With beefsteak he has lined him;

A pipe of clay he has put on,

And his basket’s slung behind him.

“Lend me that,” cried the baker’s boy,

“The pipe you now are biting,”

“Not I,” cried he, “my pipe I’ll guard!”

And so they fell to fighting.

The butcher fell, but the baker’s boy,

Could not bring his proud soul under;

The pipe he loved ne’er smoked again,

For he broke its stem asunder;

And cried, “No dough shall sully thee,

I’ll be thy undertaker;

Thy joys were made for the butcher boy—

Thou shalt ne’er be smoked by a baker!”

H. L.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. July. 1873.

My Old Dhudeen.

(Air: Love’s Young Dream.)

Oh! the days are gone when lollipops

My heart could move;

When sugar-sticks and almond rock

Were my first love;

Inventions sweet

And succulent,

Made childhood all serene;

Now there’s nothing half so sweet in life

As my old Dhudeen;

Yes, there’s nothing half so sweet in life

As my old Dhudeen.

For the youth will tire at last of sweets

When “down” appears,

And he wears a collar in the streets

That hides his ears:

The vile “Pickwick”

May make him sick,

And turn his face quite green,

Yet there’s nothing half so sweet in life

As his old Dhudeen;

Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life

As his old Dhudeen.

Oh! the first sly smoke I’ll ne’er forget—

It made me queer;

And when I my stern parent met,

He pulled my ear;

But now I’m old,

And weak and cold,

And on my stick do lean,

There’s nothing half so sweet in life

As my old Dhudeen;

Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life

As my old Dhudeen.

H. L.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. December, 1872.

——:o:——

I Remember.

(After Hood.)

I remember, I remember,

The pipe that first I drew;

With red waxed end and snowy bowl,

It perfect was and new.

It measured just four inches long,

’Twas made of porous clay;

I found when I began to smoke,

It took my breath away,

I remember, I remember,

In fear I struck a light;

And when I smoked a little time,

I felt my cheeks grow white.

My nervous system mutinied,

My diaphragm uprose,

And I was very—very ill

In a way you may suppose.

I remember, I remember,

The very rod he got,

When father who discovered me,

Made me exceeding hot.

He scattered all my feathers then,

While, face down I reclined;

I sat upon a cold hearthstone,

I was so warm behind.

I remember, I remember,

I viewed the rod with dread,

And silent, sad, and supperless,

I bundled off to bed.

It was a childish punishment,

And now ’tis little joy

To know that, for the self-same crime,

I wallop my own boy!

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. March, 1875.

——:o:——

The Old Black Clay.

I love it! I love it! though some may say

It’s wrong to be fond of an old black clay;

135

I haven’t exactly inlaid it with sighs—

The turn of my mind has been otherwise—

For I always feel excessively gay

When I’m gazing upon that old black clay.

When rude and frivolous folk are by,

I never produce it—I’ll tell you why—

They call it harsh, injurious names,

And vex my soul with mischievous games;

But when to a lonely place I repair,

I make quite sure there’s nobody there,

And adore in the most abandoned way

That stumpy loveable coal-black clay.

I’ll never forget the dreadful day

When they “played it low” on that harmless clay—

The ruthless hand of a mother dear

Hid it away in a dust-hole drear;

But, ah! no words can properly tell

My joy when I found it again by the smell;

And I took to my heart (as one may say),

Once more that redolent, long lost clay.

I love it! I love it! as I have said,

I smoke it abroad, and I smoke it abed;

And if the prophecy turn out right

That I’m burned to a cinder some fine night,

I’ll simply deem it a glorious way

Of ending my life with my faithful clay.

The Manchester City Jackdaw. April 21, 1876.

——:o:——

Smoke not!

Smoke not, smoke not your weeds nor pipes of clay!

Cigars that are made from leaves of cauliflowers;—

Things that are doomed no duty e’er to pay;—

Grown, made, and smokèd in a few short hours.

Smoke not, smoke not.

Smoke not, smoke not! the weed you smoke may change

The healthfulness of your stomachic tone;

Things to the eye grow queer and passing strange;

All thought seems undefined—save one, to be alone.

Smoke not, smoke not.

Smoke not! the tradesman whose weed you smoke may die!

May perish from the cabbage-bearing earth;—

The sordid dun into your chamber hie—

Sent by the trustees in their tinless dearth.

Smoke not, smoke not.

Smoke not, smoke not! O, warning vainly said!

Cane and cap-paper since we first did try,

Smoke flings a halo round the smoker’s head;

And all in vain do anxious mothers cry,

Smoke not, smoke not!

From Hints to Freshmen in the University of Oxford, published by J. Vincent, Oxford, and attributed to the Rev. Canon Hole.

——:o:——

The Pipes of England.

The stately pipes of England,

How beautiful they be,

With amber tips and meerschaum bowls—

Such pipes are not for me!

With scented Latakie they burn,

And golden crowns they wear;

And the smoke steals from the scented urn—

Like summer’s perfumed air.

The merry pipes of England,

Amid the joke and jest,

With gladsome glasses of hot grog,

Are found then at their best,

The smoker’s eye is seen to wink,

As many a tale is told;

Or lips ope cheerfully to drink

The glorious ale of old.

The cottage pipes of England—

By thousands made of clay—

All snowy in their wooden box,

How beautiful are they!

From ruddy lips they outward poke,

As white as wool or lard;

And the lowly do a cheerful smoke,

When the times are not too hard.

The free, fair pipes of England

Live long in hall and hut;

And sweet for ever be their lips,

And scented be their bowls;

And may no humbug e’er eclipse

The solace of our souls.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. April 1873.

——:o:——

The Genius of Smoking.

[We have been favored with the following defence of smoking, by an intimate literary friend of Lord Byron, who assures us it is selected from several unpublished juvenile trifles written at various times in his album by the noble bard.]

I had a dream—it was not all a dream;

Methought I sat beneath the silver beam

Of the sweet moon, and you were with me there,

And everything around was free and fair;

And from our mouths upcurled the fragrant smoke,

Whose light blue wreaths can all our pleasures yoke,

In sweetest union to young Fancy’s car,

And waft the soul out thro’ a good cigar.

There as we sat and puffed the hours away,

And talked and laughed about life’s little day,

And built our golden castles in the air,

And sighed to think what transient things they were,

As the light smoke around our heads was thrown,

Amidst its folds a little figure shone,

An elfin sprite, who held within her hand

A small cigar her sceptre of command.

Her hair above her brow was twisted tight off,

Like a cigar’s end, which you must bite off;

Her eyes were red and twinkling like the light

Of Eastern Hookah, or Meerschaum, by night;

A green tobacco leaf her shoulders graced,

And dried tobacco hung about her waist;

Her voice breathed softly, like the easy puffing

Of an old smoker, after he’s been stuffing.

Thus as she rolled aside the wanton smoke,

To us, her awe-struck votaries she spoke,—

“Hail faithful slaves! my choicest joys descend

On him who joins the smoker to the friend,

Yours is a pleasure that shall never vanish

Provided that you smoke the best of Spanish;

Puff forth your clouds”—(with that we puff’d amain)

136

“Sweet is their fragrance”—(then we puff’d again)

“How have I hung, with most intense delight,

Over your heads when you have smoked at night,

And gratefully imparted all my powers

To bless and consecrate those happy hours;

Smoke on,” she said. I started and awoke,

And with my dream she vanished into smoke.

Anonymous.

——:o:——

An American Parody of Wordsworth’s “Sonnet on the Sonnet.”

Scorn not the meerschaum. Housewives, you have croaked

In ignorance of its charms. Through this small reed

Did Milton, now and then, consume the weed;

The poet Tennyson hath oft evoked

The Muse with glowing pipe, and Thackeray joked

And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood;

Hawthorne with this hath cheered his solitude;

A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell smoked;

Full oft hath Aldrich, Stoddard, Taylor, Cranch,

And many more whose verses float about,

Puffed the Virginian or Havanna leaf;

And when the poet’s or the artist’s branch,

Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to pout

Consolatory whiffs—alas, too brief!

——:o:——

My Hookah.

What is it, that affords such joys

On Indian shores, and never cloys,

But makes that pretty, bubbling noise?

My Hookah.

What is it, that a party if in

At breakfast, dinner, or at Tiffin,

Surprises and delights the Griffin?

My Hookah.

What is it to Cadets gives pleasure?

What is it occupies their leisure?

What do they deem the greatest treasure?

My Hookah.

Say—what makes Decency wear sable?

What makes each would-be nabob able

To cock his legs upon the table?

My Hookah.

What is it (trust me, I’m not joking,

Tis truth—altho’, I own, provoking)

That sets e’en Indian belles a smoking?

My Hookah.

What is it—whensoe’er we search

In ev’ry place;—except the Church,

That leaves sweet converse in the lurch?

My Hookah.

But hold my Muse—for shame for shame—

One question ere you smoking blame—

What is it gives your book a name?

My Hookah.

My fault I own—my censure ends;

Nay more—I’ll try to make amends,

Who is the safest of all friends?

My Hookah.

Say who? or what retains the power,

When fickle Fortune ’gins to lour,

To solace many a lonely hour?

My Hookah.

When death-like dews and fogs prevailing

In Pinnace or in Budg’-row sailing,

What is it that prevents our ailing?

My Hookah.

When we’re our skins with claret soaking,

And heedless wits their friends are joking,

Which friend will stand the greatest smoking?

My Hookah.

By what—(nay, answer at your ease,

While pocketing our six rupees)—

By what d’ye mean the town to please?

My Hookah.

From My Hookah; or, The Stranger in Calcutta. Being a collection of Poems by an Officer. Calcutta: Greenway and Co., 1812.

A Pinch of Snuff.

With mind or body sore distrest,

Or with repeated cares opprest,

What sets the aching heart at rest?

A pinch of snuff!

Or should some sharp and gnawing pain

Creep round the noddle of the brain,

What puts all things to rights again?

A pinch of snuff!

When speech and tongue together fail,

What helps old ladies in their tale,

And adds fresh canvass to their sail?

A pinch of snuff!

Or when some drowsy parson prays,

Or still more drowsy people gaze,

What opes their eyelids with amaze?

A pinch of snuff!

A comfort which they can’t forsake,

What is it some would rather take,

Than good roast beef, or rich plum cake?

A pinch of snuff!

What warms without a conflagration,

Excites without intoxication,

And rouses without irritation?

A pinch of snuff!

Then let us sing in praise of snuff!

And call it not such “horrid stuff,”

At which some frown, and others puff,

And seem to flinch

But when a friend presents a box,

Avoid the scruples and the shocks

Of him who laughs and her who mocks,

And take a pinch!

From The Sportsman. August, 1835.

Stanzas to a Lady

In defence of Smoking.

What taught me first sweet peace to blend

With hopes and fears that knew no end,

137

My dearest, truest, fondest friend?

My pipe, love!

What cheer’d me in my boyhood’s hour,

When first I felt Love’s witching power,

To bear deceit,—false woman’s dow’r

My pipe, love!

What still upheld me since the guile,

Attendant on false friendship’s smile,

And I in hope, deceiv’d the while?

My pipe, love!

What cheer’d me when misfortunes came,

And all had flown me? Still the same

My only true and constant flame,

My pipe, love!

What sooth’d me in a foreign land,

And charm’d me with its influence bland,

Still whisp’ring comfort, hand in hand?

My pipe, love!

What charm’d me in the thoughts of past

When mem’ry’s gleam my eyes o’ercast,

And burns to serve me to the last?

My pipe, love!

Nicotiana, by H. J. Meller. London. E. Wilson, 1832.

To my Cigar.

When cares oppress the drooping mind,

And fickle friends are most unkind,

Who constant still remains behind?

My true cigar!

Oh! where’s the friend who’d cheerfully,

To soothe one pensive hour for me,

Resign his latest breath like thee—

My kind cigar?

Thy spirit’s gone, poor fragile thing!

But still thine ashes, mouldering,

To me a valued lesson bring,—

My pale cigar!

Like man’s, how soon thy vital spark,

Expiring, leaves no other mark,

But mouldering ashes, drear and dark,

My dead cigar.

T. G. J.

Bristol. 1844.

Tobacco.

Whene’r I’m out of sorts or sad,

Oppress’d with care, and well-nigh mad,

What comforts me, and makes me glad?

Tobacco!

What builds such castles in the air,

And paints my prospects bright and fair,

And makes me negligent of care?

Tobacco!

How is it that I’m so resign’d,

When’er my wife must speak her mind,

And ne’er retaliate in kind?

Tobacco!

What makes my holidays so sweet,

And ev’ry “outing” such a treat

That I would fain their joys repeat?

Tobacco!

Whene’er my brain is dull and dark,

And utterly beside the mark,

What wakes the latent, slumb’ring spark?

Tobacco!

What changes all my scowls to smiles,

And many a tedious hour beguiles,

And ne’er by any chance me riles,

Tobacco.

Enlarger of our mortal ken,

Familiar of the artist’s den,

Beloved by literary men—

Tobacco!

Far kinder than the kindest friend,

O, teach us how your powers blend!

And from your heavenly throne descend,

Tobacco!

E. H. S.

From Cope’s Cope’s Tobacco PlantTobacco Plant. April, 1873.

The Weed.

When roses droop beside the wall,

When lily petals fade and fall,

What swiftly rises, covering all?

The Weed.

When starts the widow on the chase,

To fill “the late lamented’s” place,

What decorates her pretty face?

The Weed.

When coffee’s served and wine runs low,

When conversation waxes slow,

What brings the after-dinner glow?

The Weed.

A Smoke.

What comforts me when I am sad,

Or when I’ve got the toothache bad,

Or when the money market’s mad?

A smoke.

What soothes me if I dine not well,

When lies about me people tell,

Or friendship proves a hollow sell?

A smoke.

What quiets indigestion’s pangs,

And takes the edge off hatred’s fangs,

And salves misfortune’s cruel bangs?

A smoke.

——:o:——

Hymn to Saint Nicotine.

(Imitation of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.)

Strange! that this gently breathèd cloud

So far, far sweeter unto me,

Than all that this green earth enshroud,

Or float above the sea.

My meerschaum, when thy mouth I greet,

No lady’s lips seem half so sweet.

138

I look upon the fair blue skies,

And naught but empty air I see;

But when thy circling cloudlets rise,

It seemeth unto me

Ten thousand angels spread their wings,

Within those little azure rings.

Tobacco hath the choicest leaf

That ever western breeze hath fanned;

Its healing odour gives relief

To men of ev’ry land.

This precious herb to me doth yield

More joy than all the broider’d field.

O, comrade! there be many things

That seem right fair in truth or joke;

But sure from none among them springs

A richer charm than smoke.

Let us not puff our pipes alone,

But join two altars both in one.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. December, 1871.

——:o:——

Parody of Dr. Watts, by an Anti-Smoker.

How doth the nasty, dirty man,

Go smoking every hour;

And spend his money wastefully

On Old Nick’s favourite flower.

How wistfully he seeks his pipe,

How glad he doth it light;

And smokes the foul thing all the day,

And feels quite ill at night.

In shag, bird’s eye, or honey-dew,

His mind is ever fast;

And Satan knows to him he’s due,

For he’ll get him at last.

Anonymous.

The Last Pipe.

T’was the voice of the doctor, I heard him declare,

“You’ve been smoking too much, of tobacco beware!

To be candid and plain you’ll find it no joke,

For you’ll become ashes yourself if you smoke.”

So I’ve filled my last pipe as I sit by the fire,

And gaze at the cloud rising higher and higher,

And languidly watching each up-curling ring,

A mournful adieu to tobacco I sing.

Farewell, good cigars, I will e’en call you dear,

Yet your price were no object so you were still here.

Good bye! Latakia, Mild Turkey, good by!

Virginia, Cavendish, Bristol Bird’s-eye,

And my pipe! My sweet pipe, with thy cool amber tip!

No more shall that amber caress my fond lip.

Oh! friend of my youth! must thou really go—

My partner in joy, and my solace in woe?

’Tis too true; nought avail me these heart-broken sighs!

And, alas! thou art out. There are tears in my eyes,

As I lay thee down gently. I will not complain,

But I feel I shall never be happy again.

Fun, 1870.

——:o:——

The Pipe.

A Parody of Barry Cornwall’s “The Sea, the Sea!”

The pipe, the pipe, the German pipe!

The short, the long, the meerschaum ripe!

Its odorous puffs without a sound,

They float my head’s wide regions round;

They rise in clouds and mock the skies,

While Baccy snugly eradled lies.

My hookah wide! my hookah deep!

I’ve that which I would ever keep;

With the smoke above, and smoke below,

And smoke wheresoe’er I go.

If a storm (like a Chinese gong) should ring

What matters that? I’ll smoke and sing.

What matters, &c.

I love—oh! how I love to smoke,

And drink full bumpers of th’ foaming soak!

And when its waves have drowned my soul,

I’ll whistle aloud such a “Tol-de-rol!”

Don’t ask me where the world is going,

Nor why the sou’-west blast is blowing.

I never breathed the dull tame air,

But I relish my great pipe mair and mair,

And back again flew for a soothing puff,

Like a bird—I’m sure that’s quick enough.

My mother it is, and I’ll prove it to ye,

(Much more of a mother than the open sea!)

For smoking, I’m at it ever and ever!

I hope your comment on this line is “clever!”

For fear of growing at all lackadaisical

I hasten to lay down my pen parody-sical;

In truth these stanzas concluding with somewhat

’Bout “birth” and “death,” which things I can’t come

I’ve only one word, and that’s to crave pardon,

These sweet pretty verses that I’ve been so hard on.

From The Individual. Cambridge, January 31, 1837.

——:o:——

A Dream (Anti-cipated).

(After Kingsley.)

Three Antis [24] went groaning out into the east—

Out into the east, as the sun arose;

Each thought on the newspaper he loved the least;

The Tobacco Plant followed, and chaff’d at their woes.

But antis will croak, and smokers will smoke,

Tho’ chaff it be sudden, and endless the joke

That the antis afford with their moaning.

The Plant having stopped in a garden bower,

Lit up his sweet pipe, as the sun arose;

And he heard those three antis bawl out by the hour

The weakest of humbug, in seedy old clothes.

But antis will croak, and the Plant have his joke,

And chaff, if ignited, must all end in smoke,

And the antis must soon end their moaning.

Three antis lay drunk on the shining sands,

In the morning gleam, as the sun arose;

And smokers are laughing and rubbing their hands,

To know they’re already relieved of their foes.

For Observers will talk, and the Plant doesn’t sleep;

Though tough be the job, ’tis amusing to keep

All the anti-Tobaccoites moaning.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. January, 1875.

ODE TO TOBACCO.139

Thou who, when fears attack,

Bidst them avaunt, and Black

Care, at the horseman’s back

Perching, unseatest;

Sweet when the morn is grey;

Sweet, when they’ve clear’d away

Lunch; and at close of day

Possibly sweetest:

I have a liking old

For thee, though manifold

Stories, I know, are told.

Not to thy credit

How one (or two at most)

Drops make a cat a ghost—

Useless, except to roast—

Doctors have said it:

How they who use fusees

All grow by slow degrees

Brainless as chimpanzees,

Meagre as lizards;

Go mad, and beat their wives;

Plunge (after shocking lives)

Razors and carving knives

Into their gizzards.

Confound such knavish tricks!

Yet know I five or six

Smokers who freely mix

Still with their neighbours;

Jones—(who, I’m glad to say,

Asked leave of Mrs. J—)

Daily absorbs a clay

After his labours.

Cats may have had their goose

Cooked by tobacco-juice;

Still why deny its use

Thoughtfully taken?

We’re not as tabbies are:

Smith, take a fresh cigar!

Jones, the tobacco-jar!

Here’s to thee, Bacon!

C. S. Calverley.

Detained.

Hand me another spill—

Phœbe, my glass refill,

As I’ve some time to kill.

What do you mention?

Boat, gun, and tackle nigh,

Horse and trap ready?—I

Think I can manage my

Task of detention.

Rowing? I’ve had a bout!

Raining? Then can’t go out!

Capital stream for trout?

Not very handy!

No, I’ll just pen a lay;

Clear all these things away;

Landlord! another clay

Soda and brandy

Anti-Tobaccoite!

I have no wish to fight;

But if you douse my light,

Mind, we shall wrangle.

Why should you interfere,

With your new-fangled gear,

And try my course to steer

At such an angle?

No! I must have my light;

Whether I read or write,

Smoking, by day or night,

Aids the reflection.

Some may prefer Bohea;

Excellent though it be,

I think Tobacco the

Pink of Perfection!

Shag’s my divinity,

Pure as virginity;

In its vicinity

Come not, you croakers!

What, though the Antis choke?

Still I must have my smoke;

Pshaw! let the beggars croak!

Here’s to the smokers!

E. H. S.

——:o:——

Beware!

I know a meerschaum fair to see,

Take care!

It whispers “Smoke and colour me,”

Beware! beware!

Smoke it not,

’Tis fooling thee!

It cost two guineas, golden brown,

Take care!

You’d better smash it; drop it down;

Beware! beware!

Smoke it not;

’Tis fooling thee.

A mouthpiece of a golden hue,

Take care!

’Twill very likely make you—vomit,

Beware! beware!

Smoke it not!

’Tis fooling thee.

It hath a bowl as white as snow,

Take care!

Smoke it black, to Old Nick you’ll go;

Beware! beware!

Smoke it not;

’Tis fooling thee.

P. C.

Tobacco Smoke!

The clouds of smoke were rising fast,

As through a college room there passed

A youth, who bore, ’spite sage advice,

A “baccy”-pouch, with strange device,

“Tobacco smoke!”

His brow was sad; his eye beneath

Glared on a pipe, laid in its sheath,

And in his ears there ever rung

The accents of the donor’s tongue,

Tobacco smoke!

140

In ground-floor rooms he saw the light,

Of pipes and weeds glow strong and bright;

And, heedless of the passing don,

From out his lips escaped a groan,

Tobacco smoke!

“Try not the shag,” the old man said,

“It is o’er strong for thy young head,

Dire its effects to those untried;”

Heedless he was, and but replied,

Tobacco smoke!

“Oh, stay,” the maiden said, “and test

Our Latakia—’tis the best!”

He grasped his packet of birds’-eye,

And only muttered with a sigh,

Tobacco smoke!

“Beware; don’t set your room alight—

The college might object—good night!”

Such were the words the scholar spoke,

And scarcely heard through closing oak,

Tobacco smoke!

At midnight hour, as bedroom-ward

Two “undergrads” from drinking hard,

Steered up the gas-less break-neck stair,

A voice cried from the “right two-pair,”

Tobacco smoke!

The Freshman by his scout was found,

Lying all prone upon the ground,

And still his hand grasped like a vice

The “baccy”-pouch with strange device,

Tobacco smoke!

There, in the morning cold and gray,

Moaning, and all unkempt, he lay,

And then the scout, unmoved, serene—

Said—“Oh! ’tis easy to be seen,

Tobacco smoke!”

R. C.

From College Rhymes. Part XVI., 1864.

The Song of Firewater, a parody of Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” appeared in Cope’s Tobacco Plant for November, 1871. The poem relates to snuff, but as it extends to over 200 lines it cannot be inserted here. It commences thus:—

Should you ask me whence this story?

Whence this legend and tradition?

I should answer, I should tell you,

From the lips of Blow-me-tite-o;

Blow-me-tite-o, sweetest singer,

Singer of the mournful ditties.

* * * * *

The Song of Nicotine.

Should you ask me why this meerschaum,

Why these clay-pipes and churchwardens,

With the odours of tobacco,

With the oil and fume of “mixture,”

With the curling smoke of “bird’s eye,”

With the gurgling of rank juices,

With renewed expectorations

As of sickness on the fore-deck?

I should answer, I should tell you,

From the cabbage, and the dust-heaps,

From the old leeks of the Welshland,

From the soil of kitchen gardens,

From the mud of London sewers,

From the garden-plots and churchyards,

Where the linnet and cock-sparrow

Feed upon the weeds and groundsel,

I receive them as I buy them

From the boxes of Havana,

The concoctor, the weird wizard.

Should you ask how this Havana

Made cigars so strong and soothing,

Made the “bird’s eye,” and “York-river,”

I should answer, I should tell you,

In the purlieus of the cities,

In the cellars of the warehouse,

In the dampness of the dungeon,

Lie the rotten weeds that serve him;

In the gutters and the sewers,

In the melancholy alleys,

Half-clad Arab boys collect them,

Crossing-sweepers bring them to him,

Costermongers keep them for him,

And he turns them by his magic

Into “cavendish” and “bird’s-eye,”

For those clay-pipes and churchwardens,

For this meerschaum, or he folds them,

And “cigars” he duly labels

On the box in which he sells them.

From Figaro. October 7, 1874.

Lines to the “Anti-Tobacco Journal.”

Tell me not in penny numbers

Smoking’s but a loathsome dream;

Worse than onions and cucumbers,

Though they be chawed up like steam!

Smoke is sweetness, done in earnest,

Power possessing to console,

If ’tis healthy weed thou burnest

In the clay or meerschaum bowl.

Not to aid expectoration

Doth the smoker burn the weed,

But to woo sweet meditation,

And also digest his “feed.”

“Shag” is strong, “Returns” is milder,

“Cavendish” but suits the brave;

Though our pulses beat the wilder,

Still for ’bacca do we crave.

In this world so full of brawling,

If in years your manhood’s ripe,

Heed ye not the antis’ calling—

Be a man and smoke a pipe.

Pipes of great men all remind us

(Tho’ of clay the bowl and stem),

Wheresoever fate may find us,

We can colour pipes like them.

Dhudeens, that perhaps another

On the wheel of fortune broke,

Some forlorn and bankrupt brother,

Seeing, may take heart, and smoke.

141

Let us, then, take weeds and matches,

And a pipe—that is enough;

Tho’ it only be by snatches,

Spared from toil, we still will puff!

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. March, 1876.

Meerschaum.

Come to me, O! my meerschaum,

For the vile street organs play;

And the torture they’re inflicting

Will vanish quite away.

I open my study window

And into the twilight peer,

And my anxious eyes are watching

For the man with my evening beer.

In one hand is the shining pewter,

All amber the ale doth glow;

In t’other are long “churchwardens,”

As spotless and pure as snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us

Tobaccoless?—Fearful bore!

We should dread the day after to-morrow

Worse than the day before.

As the elephant’s trunk to the creature,

Is the pipe to the man, I trow;

Useful and meditative

As the cud to the peaceful cow.

So to the world is smoking;

Through that we feel, with bliss,

That, whatever worlds come after,

A jolly old world is this.

Come to me, O! my meerschaum,

And whisper to me here,

If you like me better with coffee

Than grog, or the bitter beer.

Oh! what are our biggest winnings

If peaceful content we miss?

Though fortune may give us an innings,

She seldoms conveys us bliss.

You’re better than all the fortunes

That ever were made or broke;

For a penny will always fill you,

And buy me content with a smoke.

Wrongfellow.

The Pipe and the Quid.

An imitation of Longfellow’s
“The Arrow and the Song.”

I flung a pipe into the air,

And it fell down, I knew not where;

For many folks were near to me,

And so I did not stay to see.

I spun a quid up in the air,

And that fell down, I knew not where;

For ’twould require the strongest sight

To follow a quid in its erring flight.

Shortly I found my pipe again,

On the head of my uncle broke in twain;

And the quid I had not seen descend,

I found in the eye of my dearest friend.

Wrongfellow.

Cope’s Tobacco Plant. June, 1876.

——:o:——

Another Match.

(After A. C. Swinburne.)

If love were dhudeen olden,

And I were like the weed,

Oh! we would live together,

And love the jolly weather,

And bask in sunshine golden,

Rare pals of choicest breed;

If love were dhudeen olden,

And I were like the weed.

If I were what cigars are,

And love were like the case,

In double rows or single,

Our varied scents we’d mingle,

Both brown as Persian shahs are—

(You recollect his face);

If I were what cigars are,

And love were like the case.

If you were snuff, my darling,

And I, your love, the box,

We’d live and sneeze together,

Shut out from all the weather,

And anti-snuffers snarling,

In neckties orthodox;

If you were snuff, my darling,

And I, your love, the box.

If you were oil essential,

And I were nicotine,

We’d hatch up wicked treason,

And spoil each smoker’s reason,

Till he grew penitential,

And turned a bilious green;

If you were oil essential,

And I were nicotine.

If you were shag of dark hue,

And I were mild bird’s eye,

We’d scent the passing hours,

And fumigate the flowers;

And in the midnight, hark you,

The Norfold Howards should die

If you were Shag of dark hue,

And I were mild Bird’s-eye.

If you were the aroma,

And I were simply smoke,

We’d skyward fly together,

As light as any feather;

And flying high as Homer,

His grey old ghost we’d choke;

If you were the aroma,

And I were simply smoke.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. August, 1876.

142

Another Ballad of More Burdens.

(After Swinburne.)

The burden of false meerschaums: Fair to sight

Built up by scamps in a most fraudful way,

With glass for amber, can’t be seen at night,

But looketh what it is in truthful day.

And bowls that turn (with dirt) to dirty grey,

And narrow bores that all our jaws do tire,

And fill our souls with horrible dismay.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of bad ’Bacca: This is worse.

A burden with full fruit of mild swearing:

We drop the pipe to drop a gentle curse,

Six score between the morn and evening.

The quivering of the glands, the shuddering,

The wheezy grunts with which we do respire,

Makes “weed” seem horrid and a treacherous thing.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of burnt breeches: Nay, sit down;

Cover thyself and sleep; for verily

The market women all about the town

Behind thy back shall laugh and hoot at thee.

Like the red beet-root all thy face shall be;

That box of lights set thy coat tails on fire,

And burnt thee bare. Tarry till daylight flee.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of the missus: oh! her tongue

Shall let thee rest not, e’en upon thy bed;

For that her curtains at the window hung,

Of stale smoke smelling, fill her soul with dread.

With mutton cold thou shalt be often fed,

And drink cold grog, against thy warm desire,

And wear a broomstick round thy shrinking head.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of mean cadgers; thou shalt flee

All ways at once, but still they will be seen;

And at the thing thou seest thy face shalt be

Transmogrified, and not at all serene.

And thou shalt say of ’Bacca, “It hath been

Consumed by me;” and they shall whisper “Liar;”

And go their ways with chagrin turning green.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of sad Antis: Every day

They will prognosticate thy doom, and tell

Where thou art going to at last, and say

The place is warm and undesirable.

And swear that for a mile thy clothes do smell;

And preach to thee till thy whole soul doth tire;

Then, going, groan—just for a parting knell.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of the taxes: Spoiled is Spring,

With fragrant ’Bacca ’neath the growing trees,

To think of what we pay for this one thing,

The dearest physic for our miseries.

For, at each puff, the weeping smoker sees

His wreath fly up, away, and higher, higher,

Till thoughts of bankruptcy do make him freeze.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of the fusees: Some won’t light,

And some will spit out fire upon the hands;

The wretch who sells them slinketh in the night,

And counts his fortune in far, foreign lands

Where police are not, and where are no cab-stands,

While we still on his head heap curses dire

And blame the makers of the various brands.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

The burden of fierce headaches: When we must

Forsake the weed, altho’ ’tis our delight,

When all our eyes seem red with blinding dust,

And on our head a weight hangs day and night,

And our red faces, lo! are bloodless white;

When nothing in the world we do admire,

And folks do ask us when we last were tight.

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

L’Envoy.

Smokers, and ye whom ’Bacca tickleth,

Heed what is here before the weed you fire;

You cannot smoke for ever. Where’s your breath?

This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.

Sinburn.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. September 1876.

——:o:——

THE CIGAR-SMOKERS.

“‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed towards the land;

‘This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.’

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.”

The Lotos Eaters—Alfred Tennyson.

“Land ho!” he cried “I see it now,” says he,

“This jolly breeze will fetch us soon to land.”

Towards night they got there, time for early tea,

A land where tea seemed ever smoking hot to stand.

Thick clouds of smoke, by sleepy breezes fanned,

Twined, serpent like, o’er all, in curves and twists;

The setting sun glared red and angry, close at hand,

And from his steaming brow fell off the mists,

As falls the sweat from boxers, boxing with their fists.

II.

A land of smokers! smoking fast were some,

Quick, restless puffers wand’ring to and fro;

And some, with drowsy eyes and senses dumb,

Rolled heavy smoke-clouds very long and slow.

The strangers saw the smokers come and go

Along the shore, in groups of eight and sometimes ten,

From somewhere up above to somewhere down below;

Strange, dingy faces, strongly-perfumed men,

Smelling as husbands when their wives ask, where they’ve been.

III.

The sun went out, the moon began to rise,

But could not shine; smoke rests on everything

And closes o’er the sea; the hum of flies

Is heard afar, and vast musquitoes sing,

Who buzz and nearer buzz, then ’light and sting;

A place where all things always sleepy feel!

And round about and in and out, on odorous wing,

With faces like an owl, and tail unlike an eel,

The red-eyed ghosts of old Tobacco-smokers steal.

IV.

Great leaves of that disgusting weed they brought,

And some chopped fine to chew, and also snuff,

143

Whereof they gave to each, but who once caught

The taste, from him the strangely-smelling stuff

Took all good sense, nor said he ever, “hold! enough;”

The ocean’s voice he heard as tho’ it spake

To some one else; his own grew thick and gruff,

And half asleep and scarcely half awake,

An everlasting puffing, puffing he did make.

They sat them down upon the dingy shore,

Betwixt the moonlight and the moonlight’s ray,

And closed their eyes with heavy eyelids o’er,

And saw the “old folks’” faces far “at home” away;

But dark and dismal seemed the tossing bay,

Dismal the hammock’s swing, the boatswain’s cry.

Then one man said, “We won’t go home, to-day!”

And all at once chimed in, “Agreed say I;

Let’s all together not go home till by-and-by!”

Choric Song.

There’s sweet tobacco here, of every kind,

Sweeter than honey in the hollow tree,

Or sugar in the sugar-cane, you’ll find,

Or dew-drop in the hollyhock can be;

Cigars whose smoke floats lightly round the eye,

As round the buttercup the butterfly;

Cigars that one would die to smoke, then smoke to die!

Here lie long-nines beside,

And plugs no teeth have ever tried,

And all the earth is snuff too, far and wide,

And in the craggy rocks the cigarettos hide!

II.

Why leave dry land to sail on boiling water?

Why make our short lives, any longer, shorter

By still debating, while the minutes flee?

All folks smoke here; why only smoke not we?—

We who have smoked vile smoke as e’er was known,

And chewed vile chews on land and sea,

Still from a bad one to a worse one thrown!

Nor ever end our woes,

By snuffing up the nose,

Nor yield our senses to the potent spell;

Nor hearken to the song that o’er us goes;

“No joy that tongue can tell

Is like what enters thro’ the avenue of smell!”

III.

Hateful is the pea-green sky,

Hanging o’er the pea-green sea—

Life ends in smoke, oh! why

Should life all labor be?

Let us alone. We do not want to go!

Since life’s a vapor, smoke it all away!

Let us alone. We have no strength to row,

We won’t attempt it, anyhow, to-day.

Let us alone. What fun can sailors find

In climbing up a wave, and down behind?

All folks have rest excepting only tars,

Their work is always of the endless kind;—

Give us a smoke or sleep, sound sleep or good cigars!

IV.

How sweet it were, seeing the rising fog,

With half-cigar and half a smile,

Dozing in a half-and-half the while,

To dream and dream like yonder aged frog,

Which only leaves his hole, the smoky log,

To muse amid abandoned stumps near by;

Chewing Tobacco, here to lie

And see the waves rush up, our joy to share,

Clutching with eager arms the vacant air,

To grasp the sweets the scented breezes bear;

To give our minds up to it wholly,

To chase away blue-thoughted melancholy,

To put rich flavorous, antique fine-cut tobacco,

Into these pipes by steady use grown blacker;

Pressed down with thumb to make it stay;

Two pinches of black dust shut in a bowl of clay.

Our wives and children are at home, ’tis true;

But we can do without them, I and you;

All things have undergone a change back there;

Our babes climb other knees; our shirts new husbands wear!

They would not know us now, so dirty grown:

So strong we smell they’d slam the angry door,

Thinking our souls upon the wings of smoke had flown,

Been puffed away upon this dingy shore,

Leaving behind the wasted stumps alone,

Fit on the ash-pile only to be thrown.

Let what is, be as ’tis, of course;

A wife is hard to reconcile;

We might be driven out by force;

’Tis hard to fix things, when they’ve run awhile;

’Twould be at best our labor for our pains;

He gains but little who a woman gains:

Sad work, for hearts worn out with household noise,

And arms grown lame long since with nursing baby-boys!

VI.

Tobacco-posies blossom high and low;

Tobacco-posies bloom where’er you go;

All day the breezes from the ocean dipping,

O’er hill and vale, on tireless tiptoe tripping,

Up and down the sandy beach the dust of the Tobacco blow.

We have done enough of rolling and of pitching, O!

Up the foremast, up the hindmast, in the musty hold below,

While the bellowing boatswain shouted his eternal “Yo heave ho!”

Let us take an oath and keep it, with an open eye,

In the land of the Tobacco still to live and lie,

On the bank, like pigs together, you and also I;

For they lie beside each other, and the slops are hurled

All around them in the gutter, while their tails are tightly curled

All around them—glad and happy, in a glad and happy world;

There they smile in comfort, dreaming over future joys,

Dreading neither thirst nor hunger, sun nor storm, nor roaring noise,

Swearing men, nor scolding women, barking dogs, nor tyrant boys.

But they smile, they smell a prospect of a dinner by-and-bye,

Steaming up, a preparation making in the kitchens nigh,

And their tail is full of meaning when it’s curled so high!

But the luckless race of human labor for their life,

Plant and dig and raise potatoes, mostly keep a wife;

Wife who scolds them late and early, more than one would think,

’Till they lose their senses nearly—some, ’tis whispered, take to drink—

Swigging endless potions—others in Tobacco islands dwell,

144

Resting weary legs, at last, on beds of assfoodel.

Surely, surely, smoking is more nice than not-the chew,

Than life upon the great big ocean, with so much work to do;

Oh! bless you, brothers, yes of course, we’ll stay here, I and you!

This is taken from a small volume of American parodies, entitled “The Song of Milkan Watha, and other poems,” by Marc Antony Henderson, D.C.L. Cincinnati: Tickell and Grinne. 1856.

Nicotina.

After Tennyson’s “Oriana.”

At a bal masqué in San Francisco a young lady appeared attired to represent Nicotine. Her dress was made of Tobacco leaves, her necklace was formed of cigars, and she carried a fan and a parasol constructed of the weed.

My liver’s out of order, oh!

Nicotina!

A cloudy gloom doth o’er me flow,

Nicotina!

When blossoms fall as white as snow,

I think of her of “Francisco,”

Nicotina!

I wriggle in my bitter woe,

Nicotina!

When the dark to light was growing,

Nicotina!

And the cock left off a crowing,

Nicotina!

Thin ones “oh”-ing, fat ones blowing,

All unto the ball were going,

Nicotina!

I, too, went, to my o’erthrowing!

Nicotina!

In the ball-room fill’d with light,

Nicotina!

(Some were downstairs getting tight,

Nicotina!)

While thine eyes entranced my sight,

Underneath the gay gaslight,

Nicotina!

I engaged you; you said “Right!”

Nicotina!

We danced in the whirling ball

Nicotina!

She loved my mask ’mong them all,

Nicotina!

She saw me slip, she heard me fall,

When out stepp’d a rival tall,

Nicotina!

He kicked me hard, and made me bawl,

Nicotina!

The villain dragg’d thee on one side,

Nicotina!

The bitter beast, he went aside,

Nicotina!

The darn’d brute, he glanced aside,

And took thee oft, my love, my bride,

Nicotina!

Thy dress, thy fan, and thee beside,

Nicotina!

Oh! narrow, narrow was the place,

Nicotina!

I call’d out as a donkey brays,

Nicotina!

Oh! dreadful looks were dealt apace,

There was no room for dancing ways,

Nicotina!

And flat I went upon my face!

Nicotina!

They tried to smash me where I lay,

Nicotina!

I couldn’t rise and get away,

Nicotina!

No more I thought to see the day,

They tried to smash me where I lay,

Nicotina!

They nearly turn’d my dust to clay,

Nicotina!

Oh! breaking ribs, that would not break,

Nicotina!

Oh! damaged nose, so snub and meek,

Nicotina!

She winketh, but she does not speak;

I rub the chalk dust from my cheek,

Nicotina!

And feel inclined away to sneak,

Nicotina!

I cry, “my corns!” none hear my cries,

Nicotina!

And, rueful, rub my blacken’d eyes,

Nicotina!

My face is like to boneless size,

Up from my chin unto my eyes,

Nicotina!

On thy programme my name it lies,

Nicotina!

Oh! cursed boot! oh! cursed blow,

Nicotina!

I was not happy lying low,

Nicotina!

All night my nose with blood did flow;

A quart it bled, and more, I know,

Nicotina!

A damaged man, away I go,

Nicotina!

When my old pipe is lit by me

Nicotina!

I crawl about and think of thee,

Nicotina!

I do not dare to look at thee,

I fear him, tall as forest tree,

Nicotina!

I “cuss” him, and his pedigree.

Nicotina!

H. L.

O Darling Weed!

O darling weed! my heart’s delight,

Dear plant, the apple of my sight,

Thou hast a ray so warm and bright

I know no charm so exquisite

As puffing out thy smoke so white.

145

It puts all troublous thoughts to flight,

Sending dull spirits left and right,

While yielding joy by day and night.

This is a parody of a little poem by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1833, but afterwards omitted from his works, probably because of the ridicule it received from Lord Lytton in “The New Timon”:—

O darling room, my heart’s delight

Dear room, the apple of my sight,

With thy two couches soft and white,

There is no room so exquisite,

No little room so warm and bright,

Wherein to read, wherein to write.

* * * * *

The Weed.

I come from vaunted root, and burn

To many a merry sally;

I sparkle, and to ashes turn,

Men’s spirits worn to rally.

Thrice thirty ills that press folks down,

I fumigate like midges;

In country, city, little town,

My charm some care abridges.

Yon chattering Stiggins with a craze,

In little sharps and trebles,

A hubbub makes in my dispraise—

Demosthenes, sans pebbles.

Ay! chatter, with thy face of woe;

With bile and anger quiver;

Thus Antis come and Antis go,

But I’m smoked on for ever.

They go about, and fume and spout,

Against Tobacco railing,

With here and there a lusty shout,

And here and there a wailing.

I’m smoked on lawns and grassy plots,

By sportsmen in the covers;

My cloud’s blue as forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.

There is not under moon and stars,

In this world’s wildernesses,

A plant that care more stoutly bars,

Or labour better blesses.

Behold my vapour curve and flow

Tow’rds where the pure clouds quiver;

Let antis come and antis go—

My smoke goes up for ever.

R. C.

Cope’s Tobacco Plant. March, 1874.

——:o:——

Song from the Mikado.

The travellers who try in the spring,

Tra la!

To sell their cigars by the case,

Must find it a difficult thing,

Tra la!

When the shopkeeper won’t buy a thing,

Tra la!

And kicks them right out of the place,

And he kicks them all out of his place.

And that’s what they mean when they say or they sing:

“Oh, bother the trade we are having this spring,”

Tra la la la la la, tra la la la la,

Tra la la la la la lah!

——:o:——

The following can scarcely be termed parodies, they are poems in praise of Tobacco written in the newly-revived but old-fashioned Ballade metre.

Ballade of the best Pipe.

I hear you fervently extol

The virtues of your ancient clay,

As black as any piece of coal.

To me it smells of rank decay

And bones of people passed away,—

A smell I never could admire.

With all respect to you I say,

Give me a finely seasoned briar.

Poor Jones, whose judgment as a whole

Is faultless, has been led astray

To nurse a costly meerschaum bowl.

Well, let him nurse it as he may,

I hardly think he’ll find it pay.

Before the colour gets much higher,

He’ll drop it on the grate some day.

Give me a finely seasoned brier.

The heathen Turk of Istamboul,

In Oriental turban gay,

Delights his unregenerate soul

With hookahs, bubbling in a way

To fill a Christian with dismay,

And wake the old Crusading fire.

May no such pipe be mine I pray!

Give me a finely seasoned brier

Envoy.

Clay, meerschaum, hookah, what are they

That I should view them with desire?

I’ll sing, till all my hair is grey,

Give me a finely seasoned brier.

The University News Sheet. St. Andrews, N.B. March 3, 1886.

The Ballade of Tobacco.

When verdant youth sees life afar,

And first sets out wild oats to sow,

He puffs a stiff and stark cigar,

And quaffs champagne of Mumm & Co.

He likes not smoking yet; but though

Tobacco makes him sick indeed,

Cigars and wine he can’t forego:—

A slave is each man to the weed.

In time his tastes more dainty are,

And delicate. Become a beau,

From out the country of the Czar

He brings his cigarettes, and lo!

He sips the vintage of Bordeaux.

146

Thus keener relish shall succeed

The baser liking we outgrow:—

A slave is each man to the weed.

When age and his own lucky star

To him perfected wisdom show,

The schooner glides across the bar,

And beer for him shall freely flow,

A pipe with genial warmth shall glow;

To which he turns in direst need,

To seek in smoke surcease of woe:—

A slave is each man to the weed.

Envoi.

Smokers! who doubt or con or pro,

And ye who dare to drink, take heed!

And see in smoke a friendly foe:—

L slave is each man to the weed.

Brander Matthews.

From Mr. Gleeson White’s collection of Ballades and Rondeaus. London, Walter Scott, 1887.

In a Cloud of Smoke.

A Rondel.

In a cloud of smoke when the lights are low

I half forget that I’m nearly “broke,”

And my cares and my sorrows they seem to go

In a cloud of smoke.

Ah, yes! ’tis a mystical “Basingstoke,”[25]

That guides my thoughts to a saner flow

So a fig to the Anti-Tobacco folk!

Her tongue has no “measured beat and slow;”

She says that in fumes narcotic I soak;

But her withering scorn seems to softer grow

In a cloud of smoke.

From Judy. April 18, 1888.

With Pipe and Book.

With Pipe and Book at close of day,

O! what is sweeter, mortal, say?

It matters not what book on knee,

Old Izaak or the Odyssey,

It matters not meerschaum or clay.

And though our eyes will dream astray,

And lips forget to sue or sway,

It is “enough to merely Be,”

With Pipe and Book.

What though our modern skies be grey,

As bards aver, I will not pray

For “soothing death” to “succour” me,

But ask thus much, O! Fate, of thee,

A little longer yet to stay

With Pipe and Book.

From Volumes in Folio. By Richard Le Gallienne, author of “My Ladies’ Sonnets,” etc. London, Elkin Matthews, Vigo Street, W. 1889.

A dainty little Volume of Bookish Verses.

Lines on an Empty Tobacco-pouch.

I, who was brisk and R T once,

Am C D now; become a dunce.

If U the reason would descry,

I’ll very quickly tell U Y.

I ne’er indulged in sad I—OOO!

When smoke was curling round my N—OOO;

But I am falling 2 D K,

Who could X L, no distant day.

I lack not T, or O D V,

But B 4 long my want U’ll C:

My pouch is M T; so, indeed,

I N V men with lots of weed.

I C U feel an interest

In what your poet would request;

There 4 I ask U 2 X QQQ

The plaint of my dejected M UUU.

I C U R the smoker’s friend;

Send me some weed, B 4 my end!

This craving I would fain ap PPP,

And smoke my pipe “O K” at EEE.

Declare I lived and died in peace,

If U should hear of my D CCC.

Erect an F-I-G of me,

And write this in my L-E-G.

Here lies a man of Letters, C,

Who shunned X S; and yet was E

Merry and YYY; a busy B,

Who never made an N M E.

From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. November 1871.

——:o:——

The Smoker’s Alphabet.

A was an Anti-Tobacconist moke,

B was the ’Bacca his neighbours would smoke,

C was the Counsel he forced on the world,

D was Derision, that at him was hurled.

E more Enlightened, would chuckle and say,

F “Fill your pipes, and puff nonsense away.”

G was a Guardsman, who lit a cigar;

H was the health that it never could mar.

I was an Irishman witty and gay,

J was the Joy that his pipe gave each day.

K was the Keel of the vessel that bore

L Lots of the “Weed” from Columbia’s shore.

M was the Mariner, chewing a quid,

N was a Noodle, who vowed “If he did,

O “Only ’Orrible qualms would arise.”

P was the Punch that he got ’twixt his eyes,

Q with the Quid; he turned sickly and wan,

R was the “Robert” who made him “move on.”

S was the Snuff, pungent, fragrant, and light,

T the Torment of Headache cured by it quite.

U the plant Universal, that is still

V the Victor over full many an ill.

W the Wealth, that its growers may hoard,

X is a Xebeck, with tobacco on board.

Y was a Yankee, who offered cheroots,

Z was a Zealot, who said “Fit for brutes!”

& the Yankee replied, “Brutes don’t talk, or wear boots.”

Anonymous.

147

POEMS IN PRAISE OF TOBACCO.

In the following pages the poems are thus arranged—on Tobacco generally, on the Pipe, Cigar and Cigarette, and on Snuff. No poets have been found, however, to sing the praise of chewing Tobacco, a very old form of enjoying the weed. This habit is now principally confined to sailors, soldiers, policemen and others, whose duties compel them to remain in solitude for many hours at a stretch without the solace of a pipe. The following amusing letter shows the importance a sailor attaches to his Quid:—

Gravesend, March 24, 1813.

Dear Brother Tom;

This comes hopein to find you in good health as it leaves me safe anckor’d here yesterday at 4 P.M. arter a pleasant voyage tolerable short and a few squalls.—Dear Tom—hopes to find poor old father stout, and am quite out of pig-tail.—Sights of pig-tail at Gravesend, but unfortinly not fit for a dog to chor.

Dear Tom, Captain’s boy will bring you this, and put pig-tail in his pocket when bort. Best in London at the Black Boy in 7 diles, where go acks for best pig-tail—pound a pig-tail will do, and am short of shirts. Dear Tom, as for shirts ony took 2 whereof one is quite wored out and tuther most, but don’t forget the pig-tail, as I aint had a quid to chor never since Thursday. Dear Tom, as for shirts, your size will do, only longer. I liks um long—get one at present, best at Tower-hill, and cheap, but be particler to go to 7 diles for the pig-tail at the Black Boy, and Dear Tom, acks for pound best pig-tail, and let it be good.

Captain’s boy will put the pig-tail in his pocket he likes pigtail, so ty it up. Dear Tom, shall be up about Monday there or thereabouts. Not so perticuler for the shirt, as the present can be washed, but dont forgit the pig-tail without fail, so am your loving brother,

Timothy Parsons.

P. S.—Dont forget the pig-tail.

——:o:——

THE INDIAN WEED.

Many versions exist of the following very old song, and the history of it is somewhat contradictory and confusing. It has been ascribed to George Wither (1588-1667), and was originally published in 1631, in a volume entitled The Soules Solace, by Thomas Jenner. Another version was printed in 1672 in “Two Broadsides against Tobacco.”

One version commenced with the following stanza:

Why should we so much despise

So good and sweet an exercise

As, early and late, to meditate?

Thus think, and drink tobacco.[26]

The most usually accepted version runs as follows:—

The Indian weed withered quite,

Green at noon, cut down at night,

Shows thy decay,—

All flesh is hay:

Thus think, then drink tobacco.

The pipe that is so lily-white,

Shows thee to be a mortal wight,

And even such,

Gone with a touch:

Thus think, then drink tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high,

Think thou behold’st the vanity

Of worldly stuff,

Gone with a puff:

Thus think, then drink tobacco.

And when the pipe grows foul within,

Think on thy soul defiled with sin;

And then the fire

It doth require:

Thus think, then drink tobacco.

The ashes that are left behind,

May serve to put thee still in mind,

That unto dust,

Return thou must,

Thus think, then drink tobacco.

The next is a more modern version:—

Tobacco is an Indian Weed.

This Indian weed now withered quite

Though green at noon, cut down at night,

Shows thy decay;

All flesh is hay;

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The pipe, so lily-like and weak,

Does thus thy mortal state bespeak;

Thou art e’en such,

Gone with a touch:

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high,

Then thou behold’st the vanity

Of worldly stuff,

Gone with a puff!

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the pipe grows foul within,

Think on thy soul defiled with sin;

For then the fire

It does require:

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Thou seest the ashes cast away,

Then to thyself thou mayest say,

That to the dust

Return thou must:

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Some additional, but very inferior stanzas, were written by the Rev. Ralph Erskine, a minister of the Scotch Church, and printed in his Gospel Sonnets, about the end of the last century. This continuation has been called

Smoking Spiritualized.

“Was this small plant for thee cut down?

So was the plant of great renown,

Which mercy sends

For nobler ends.

Thus think and smoke tobacco.

148

“Doth juice medicinal proceed

From such a naughty foreign weed?

Then what’s the power

Of Jesse’s flower?

Thus think and smoke tobacco.

“The promise, like the pipe, inlays

And, by the mouth of faith, conveys

What virtue flows

From Sharon’s rose.

Thus think and smoke tobacco.

“In vain th’ unlighted pipe you blow,

Your pains in outward means are so,

Till heavenly fire

Your heart inspire.

Thus think and smoke tobacco.

“The smoke, like burning incense, towers;

So should a praying heart of yours

With ardent cries

Surmount the skies.

Thus think and smoke tobacco.”

A Catch on Tobacco.

(Sung by four men smoking their Pipes.)

Good, good indeed;

The herb’s good weed;

Fill thy pipe, Will.

And I prithee, Sam, fill,

And yet sing still,

What say the learn’d?

Vita fumus, vita fumus!

’Tis what you and I,

And he and I,

You, and he, and I,

And all of us sumus.

But then to the learned say we again,

If life’s a smoke as they maintain;

If life’s a vapour without doubt,

When a man does die,

He should not cry,

That his glass is run but his pipe is out.

But whether we smoke or whether we sing,

Let us be loyal and remember the King,

Let him live, and let his foes vanish thus, thus, thus,

Like, like a pipe, like a pipe of Spanish, thus, thus, thus,

A pipe of Spanish!

From “Bacchus and Venus.” 1737.

Invocation to Tobacco.

Weed of the strange power, weed of the earth,

Killer of dulness—parent of mirth;

Come in the sad hour, come in the gay,

Appear in the night, or in the day:

Still thou art welcome as June’s blooming rose,

Joy of the palate, delight of the nose.

Weed of the green field, weed of the wild,

Foster’d in freedom, America’s child;

Come in Virginia, come in Havannah,

Friend of the universe, sweeter than manna:

Still thou art welcome, rich, fragrant and ripe.

Pride of the tube-case, Delight of the pipe.

Weed of the savage, weed of each pole,

Comforting,—soothing,—Philosophy’s soul;

Come in the snuff-box, Come in cigar,

In Strasburgh and King’s, come from afar;

Still thou art welcome, the purest, the best,

Joy of earth’s millions, for ever carest.

From Nicotiana, by Henry James Meller. London Effingham Wilson. 1832.

Virginia Tobacco.

Two maiden dames of sixty-two

Together long had dwelt:

Neither, alas! of love so true,

The bitter pangs had felt.

But age comes on, they say, apace,

To warn us of our death,

And wrinkles mar the fairest face,

At last it stops our breath.

One of these dames, tormented sore

With that curst pang, tooth-ache,

Was at a loss for such a bore

What remedy to take:

“I’ve heard,” thought she, “this ill to cure,

A pipe is good, they say,

Well then, tobacco I’ll endure,

And smoke the pain away.”

The pipe was lit, the tooth soon well,

And she retir’d to rest—

When thus the other ancient belle

Her spinster mate addressed:—

“Let me request a favour, pray”—

“I’ll do it if I can”—

“Oh! well then, love, smoke everyday,

You smell so like a man!”

From Gimcrackiana, or Fugitive pieces on Manchester Men and Manners. Manchester, 1833. (Attributed to John Stanley Gregson.)

An Imitation of Mr. Abraham Cowley.

“The lazy Earth doth steam amain,

And fumes and smokes beneath the rain:

The Rivers, Brooks, and Rivulets are

No less in smoke particular

At nightfall: and the storm blast loud

Is often wont to blow a cloud

Around the mountain-tops, and they

Do take delight in this same way;

And send a fiery fume from out

Their angry heights, and such a rout

Of burnt-up ashes, that do strow

Great cities in the plains below.

The setting Sun is oft made dim

With smoky mists that circle him.

So all the world’s on smoking bent,

And puffs and fumes to its content:

Fill up the bowl then, fill it high,

Fill all the gaping pipes, for why

Should every creature smoke but I:

Why, man of morals, tell me why?”

From “The Anatomy of Tobacco: or Smoking Methodised, Divided, and Considered after a new fashion.” By Leolinus Siluriensis. London. George Redway, 1884.

149 An Address to the Critics.

Critics avaunt—tobacco is my theme,

Tremble like hornets at the blasting steam;

And you Court insects—flutter not too near

Its light, nor buzz within its scorching sphere.

Pollio, with flame like thine, my verse inspire,

So shall the Muse, with smoke, elicit fire;

Coxcombs prefer the tickling sting of snuff,

Yet all their claim to wisdom is—a puff.

Lord Fopling smokes not—for his teeth afraid;

Sir Tawdry smokes not—for he wears brocade.

Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon;

They love no smoke, except the smoke of town.

But courtiers hate the puffing tribe—no matter,

Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter.

Its foes but show their ignorance, can he

Who scorns the leaf of knowledge, love the tree?

Citronia vows it has an odious stink,

She will not smoke, ye gods, but she will drink;

And chaste Prudella—blame her if you can—

Says—pipes are used by that vile creature man.

Yet crowds remain, who still its worth proclaim,

For some for pleasure smoke, and some for fame—

Fame, of our actions, universal spring,

For which we drink, eat, sleep, smoke—everything.

Smoking and Smokers. By W. A. Delamotte. 1845.

A Manilla Sonnet.

Luscious leaf of fragrant savour,

Mild cheroot of choicest flavour,

Wafting incense to the sky,

Like the gales of Araby,

Let us press thee to our lips,

As the bee the honey sips;

Culling as our well-earned meed,

Joys from thee—thou heavenly weed!

Ere thy burnished lip we kiss,

Let us thus enjoy the bliss,

Lit by the promethean spark,

Kindled from the congreve dark;

In summer-house or country villa,

There’s nothing like a good Manilla!

From A Pipe of Tobacco, by E. L. Blanchard. London. H. Beal. (No date.)

L’heureux Fumeur.

Certain fumeur courtisait une veuve,

Grâce à l’hymen, lorsqu’il fut dans ses lacs,

Pour te donner, lui dit-il, une preuve

De mon amour, je vais mettre en éclats

Si tu le veux, ma pipe toute neuve;

—Non, non; la pipe a pour toi trop d’appas;

Je ne la crains que lorsque je suis grosse:

L’odeur m’en plait quand je ne la suis pas;

Tu peux fumer. Notre époux, dans la Beauce

Comme héritier d’un oncle, avait des droits;

Il part. Suivant des conseils maladroits,

Dans un procès chicaneau vous l’enfourne;

Ce n’est qu’après absence de vingt mois,

Qu’à son logis un matin il retourne,

Pipe à la bouche. Oh! qu’est ce que je vois?

S’écria-t-il en rentrant; quoi! commode,

Console içi! pendule, glace la?

D’ou viennent done ces meubles à la mode?

—D’un troc. Je vais te conter tout cela;

Mais—mon mari—ta pipe m’incommode.

Pons de Verdun.

An Encomium on Tobacco.

Thrice happy Isles that stole the world’s delight

And thus produce so rich a Margarite!

It is the fountain whence all pleasure springs,

A potion for imperial and mighty kings.

He that is master of so rich a store

May laugh at Crœsus and esteem him poor;

And with his smoky sceptre in his fist,

Securely flout the toiling Alchymist,

Who daily labours with a vain expense

In distillations of the Quintessence,

Not knowing that this golden Herb alone

Is the Philosopher’s admired Stone.

It s a favour which the Gods doth please,

If they do feed on smoke, as Lucian says.

Therefore the cause that the bright sun doth rest

At the low point of the declining West—

When his oft wearied horses breathless pant—

Is to refresh himself with this sweet Plant,

Which wanton Thetis from the West doth bring,

To joy her love after his toilsome ring:

For ’tis a cordial for an inward smart,

As is Dictamnum [27] to the wounded hart.

It is the sponge that wipes out all our woe;

’Tis like the thorn that doth on Pelion grow,

With which whoe’er his frost limbs anoints,

Shall feel no cold in fat, or flesh, or joints.

’Tis like the river, which whoe’er doth taste,

Forgets his present griefs and sorrows past,

Music, which makes grim thoughts retire,

And for a while cease their tormenting fire

Music, which forces beasts to stand at gaze,

And fills their senseless spirits with amaze—

Compared to this is like delicious strings,

Which sound but harshly while Apollo sings.

The train with this infumed, all quarrel ends

And fiercest foemen turn to faithful friends;

The man that shall this smoky magic prove,

Will need no philtres to obtain his love.

Yet this sweet simple, by misordered use,

Death or some dangerous sickness may produce.

Should we not for our sustentation eat

Because a surfeit comes from too much meat?

Should we not thirst with mod’rate drink repress,

Because a dropsy springs from such excess?

So our fair Plant—that doth as needful stand

As heaven, or fire, or air, or sea, or land;

As moon, or stars that rule the gloomy night,

Or sacred friendship or the sunny light—

Her treasured virtue in herself enrolls,

And leaves the evil to vainglorious souls.

And yet, who dies with this celestial breath,

Shall live immortal in a joyful death.

All goods, all pleasures, it in one can link—

’Tis physic, clothing, music, meat, and drink.

Gods would have revell’d at their feasts of Mirth

With this pure distillation of the earth;

The marrow of the world, star of the West,

The Pearl whereby this lower Orb is blest;

The joy of Mortals, Umpire of all strife,

Delight of Nature, Mithridate of Life;

The daintiest dish of a delicious feast,

By taking which Man differs from a beast.

Anonymous. Temp., James I.

From The Smoker’s Guide, Philosopher and Friend, by a veteran of Smokedom. London. Hardwicke and Bogue.

150

The Patriotic Smoker’s Lament.

Tell me, shade of Walter Raleigh,

Briton of the truest type,

When that too-devoted valet

Quenched your first-recorded pipe,

Were you pondering the opinion,

As you watched the airy coil,

That the virtue of Virginian

Might be bred in British soil?

You transplanted the potato:

’Twas a more enduring gift

Than the wisdom of a Plato

To our poverty and thrift.

That respected root has flourished

Nobly for a nation’s need;

But our brightest dreams are nourished

Ever on a foreign weed.

For the deepest meditation

Of the philosophic scribe,

For the poet’s inspiration,

For the cynic’s polished gibe,

We invoke narcotic nurses

In their jargon from afar:

I indite these modest verses,

On a polyglot cigar.

Leaf that lulls a Turkish Aga

May a scholar’s soul renew,

Fancy spring from Larranaga,

History from honeydew.

When the teacher and the tyro

Spirit-manna fondly seek,

’Tis the cigarette from Cairo

Or a compound from the Greek.

But no British-born aroma

Is fit incense to the Queen;

Nature gives her best diploma

To the alien nicotine.

We are doomed to her ill-favour;

For the plant that’s native grown

Has a patriotic flavour

Too exclusively our own.

O my country, could your smoker

Boast your “shag,” or even “twist,”

Every man were mediocre

Save the blest tobacconist!

He will point immortal morals,

Make all common praises mute,

Who shall win our grateful laurels

With a national cheeroot!

The St. James’s Gazette.

Ode to the Weed.

When happy quite and cosy grown,

I feel for meditation ripe,

I need companionship, and so

I take a pipe.

When from the irksome cares of life

I pine to be removed far,

They vex no longer if I light,

A good cigar.

I realize what Eden was,

(Or some faint semblance of it get)

When “she” is with me, and I light

A cigarette.

Ah me! how much the spirits bless

Mankind. I fail when I begin

To count thy many gifts to me

Sweet “Nicotin.”

I wonder oft as I enjoy

Thy calm delights (and calm indeed),

How they can call thy resting place

By name “a weed.”

O, may the world in all its ills,

Ne’er have this greatest to confess,

That is, that it should e’er become

Tobaccoless.

R. W. Essex.

Amourettes of a Smoker.

I flirted first with cigarettes

One windy, wild March day;

But found their fire, like fair coquettes,

Too soon consume away.

And then I wooed the mild cheroot,

As balmy as the south;

Inserting, after much dispute,

The big end in my mouth.

Awhile I dallied with cigars,

Havanna’s ripe brunettes;

And wafted incense to the stars,

In blue and spiral jets.

Shag, bird’s-eye, twist, and negro-head

This infant doth eschew;

And cavendish he hath “cut” dead:

But “Chacun â son goût.”

One Christmas on an ottoman

I sat, and some turkey

A fair girl brought me in a can—

Ister, a duck was she!

I bought a pipe, with amber tip,

Of Moses Abrahams;

Alas! one day I let it slip—

I’ll love no more mere-shams!

Now, all my youthful amour o’er,

I’m wed, and every day

With smoking holocausts adore

An idol made of clay.

George Hill.

A Farewell to Tobacco.

May the Babylonish curse

Straight confound my stammering verse,

If I can a passage see

In this word-perplexity,

Or a fit expression find,

Or a language to my mind

(Still the phrase is wide or scant),

To take leave of thee, Great Plant!

Or in any terms relate

Half my love or half my hate:

151

For I hate yet love thee so,

That, whichever thing I show,

The plain truth will seem to be

A constrain’d hyperbole,

And the passion to proceed

JOHN DRYDEN.

Born August 9, 1631. | Died May 1, 1700.

(Was Poet Laureate from 1670 till the accession of William III. in 1688, when he was superceded by a Protestant poet, Thomas Shadwell.)

In the year 1683, a musical society was formed in London for the celebration of St. Cecilia’s Day, and from that time a festival was held annually on November the 22nd in Stationers’ Hall, and an Ode, composed for the occasion, was sung. These festivals continued, with a few interruptions, down to the year 1744, and some were held at even a later date; but these celebrations must not be confounded with the performances given by the “Cecilian” Society, which was established in 1785.

A collection of the Odes, written for the Festival of St. Cecilia’s Day, was first formed by Mr. William Henry Husk, Librarian of the Sacred Harmonic Society, and published by Bell and Daldy in 1857, in “An Account of the Musical Celebrations on St. Cecilia’s Day. To which is appended a Collection of Odes on St. Cecilia’s Day.” It is unnecessary to enumerate them all here, but as Odes written by Nahum Tate, John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Samuel Wesley, Joseph Addison, William Congreve, Alexander Pope, and the burlesque Ode by Bonnell Thornton are included, the volume has considerable literary interest.

John Dryden wrote a song for the Festival of November, 1687, but his great Ode, “Alexander’s Feast; or, the Power of Music,” was written and performed in 1697. For this poem it is said Dryden received forty pounds, its success was so great that it was frequently performed at later festivals, and in 1736 “Alexander’s Feast” was set to music by Handel. The poem has been frequently parodied, it will therefore be convenient to give the original Ode, followed by the parodies, or such parts of them as are fit for re-publication, for it must be confessed that some of the earlier imitations are excessively coarse.

ALEXANDER’S FEAST.

’Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won,

By Philip’s warlike son,

Aloft in awful state,

The god-like hero sate

On his imperial throne.

His valiant peers were placed around,

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:

(So should desert in arms be crown’d.)

The lovely Thais, by his side,

Sate like a blooming eastern bride,

In flower of youth, and beauty’s pride.

Chorus.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus placed on high,

Amid the tuneful choir,

With flying fingers touched the lyre;

With trembling notes ascend the sky,

And heavenly joys inspire.

The Song began from Jove,

Who left his blissful seat above

Such is the power of mighty love:

A dragon’s fiery form belied the god;

Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,

When he to fair Olympia press’d,

And while he sought her snowy Breast,

Then round her slender waist he curl’d,

And stamp’d an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound;

“A present deity!” they shout around;

“A present deity!” the vaulted roofs rebound.

Chorus.

With ravish’d ears

The monarch hears,

Assumes the God,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musican sung,

Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young!—

The jolly god in triumph comes!

Sound the trumpets! beat the drums!

Flush’d with a purple grace,

He shows his honest face,

Now give the hautboys breath! he comes! he comes!

Bacchus ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain:

Chorus.

Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure;

Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure, after pain!

Sooth’d with the sound, the king grew vain;

Fought all his battles o’er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain!

The master saw the madness rise;

170

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;

And while he heaven and earth defied—

Changed his hand, and check’d his pride.

He chose a mournful Muse,

Soft Pity to infuse:

He sang Darius great and good!

By too severe a fate,

Fallen! fallen! fallen! fallen!

Fallen from his high estate

And weltering in his blood!

Deserted at his utmost need

By those his former bounty fed,

On the bare earth exposed he lies,

With not a friend to close his eyes!

With downcast look the joyless victor sate.

Chorus.

Revolving, in his alter’d soul,

The various turns of fate below;

And now, and then, a sigh he stole,

And tears began to flow!

The mighty master smil’d to see

That love was in the next degree:

’Twas but a kindred sound to move:

For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures.

Soon he sooth’d his soul to pleasures

War, he sung, is toil and trouble:

Honor but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying,

If the world be worth thy winning,

Think, oh think it worth enjoying!

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee!

The many rend the skies with loud applause,

So Love was crown’d; but Music won the cause.

Chorus.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sigh’d and look’d, sigh’d and look’d,

Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d again:

At length, with love and wine at once oppress’d,

The vanquish’d victor sank upon her breast!

Now strike the golden lyre again!

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain!

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.

Hark! hark! the horrid sound

Has raised up his head,

As awaked from the dead;

And, amazed, he stares around!

“Revenge! revenge!” Timotheus cries—

See the Furies arise!

See the snakes that they rear,

How they hiss in the air,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand!

Those are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain,

And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain!

Give the vengeance due,

To the valient crew!

Behold; how they toss their torches on high,

How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods;—

The princes applaud, with a furious joy!

Chorus.

And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy;

Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey!

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Thus, long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,

While organs yet were mute,

Timotheus, to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame:

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature’s mother-wit, and arts unknown before.

Chorus.

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

He raised a mortal to the skies!

She drew an angel down!

John Dryden.

Shakespeare’s Feast.

An Ode on the recent rehearsal in the Town Hall of Stratford.

’Twas at the solemn feast, for laurels won

By William, old John Shakespeare’s son,

Aloft in awful state

The Mayor of Stratford sate,

Rais’d on a wool-pack throne:

His aldermen were plac’d around,

Their brows with spreading antlers crown’d,

(So city spouses should be found)

The lovely May’ress by his side

Sat like a plump High-German bride,

Not less for fat renown’d, than pride.

Happy, happy, happy May’r!

None but the fat,

None but the fat deserve the bouncing fair.

II.

The bard of Ferney, plac’d on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touch’d the wooden lyre:

The notes, tho’ lame, ascend as high

As civic joys require.

The song began from G—K’s toil,

Who left his Litchfield’s native soil,

(Such were his hopes of golden spoil)

King Richard’s crooked form bely’d the man:

Sublime on high-heel’d shoes he trod,

When first he courted Lady Anne

In Goodman’s Fields, till then an unfrequented road.

As Hastings next round Pritchard’s waist he curl’d,

Or shew’d, in Drugger’s rags, an idiot to the world.

The list’ning crowd admire the lofty sound,

A present Shakespeare, loud they shout around:

A present Shakespeare, loud the rafter’d halls rebound.

171

With prick’d up ears

His May’rship hears;

Assumed the play’r,

Affects to stare,

And shakes the room about his ears.

III.

The praise of ven’son, then, the rapt enthusiast sung;

Of ven’son, whether old or young:

The jolly haunch in triumph comes;

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;

Flush’d with a purple grace,

It shews its currant-jelly face:

Now give each feeder breath: it comes, it comes;

Ven’son, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys can best reveal;

Fat of ven’son is a treasure,

Eating is the glutton’s pleasure:

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet as stuffing is with veal.

* * * * *

From The Court Miscellany. 1769.

The following Parody will be found in a scarce little volume entitled “Pranceriana Poetica, or Prancer’s Garland. Being a Collection of Fugitive Poems written since the publication of Pranceriana and the Appendix. Dublin: Printed in the year M.DCC.LXXIX.” This volume opens with a very satirical dedication to the Right Honourable Sir J—n B—q—re, Knight of the Bath, Alnager of all Ireland, and Bailiff of Phœnix Park; in this he is taken to task for “placing the most improper man in the Kingdom at the head of our College.” The College alluded to was Trinity College, Dublin, and the individual who had been appointed at its head was nicknamed the “Prancer,” as “more fit to be a dancing master than a Provost.”

Prancer’s Feast,

or, the Power of Oratorial Flattery.

’Twas at Election Feast for College, won

By Bregah’s wond’rous son,

Aloft in awful state

The prancing Hero sate,

On academic throne;

His supple Voters plac’d around,

Who on Election Day were faithful found

(Minions only by self Interest bound,)

The grim Ben Saddi by his side

(Not like a blooming Eastern Bride)

With awkward stiffness, awkward pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but Ben Sad,

None but Ben Sad deserves a Prancer’s care.

II.

The great Pomposo rose

To utter his Harangues,

Writhing with oratorial pangs,

Puffing as when a Bellows blows,

Or when a bagpipe twangs.

His speech from Bregah he begun

To flatter Prancer—Bregah’s son,

(Though one would think it all was Fun)

He shew’d what a fine nimble Lad

Was Bregah—this our Prancer’s Dad,

How long ago he was stark wild

To get his Sheelah great with child;

And when he had with Raptures entranc’d her

He stamp’d an image of himself, a mighty Prancer.

The list’ning crowd admire the lofty sound,

Great Prancer’s fame they shout around,

Great Prancer’s name the vaulted roofs rebound.

With ravish’d ears

McBregah hears,

Adjusts his wig,

Looks bluff and big;

Anon he smiles and leers.

Pomposo then held forth in Praise of Prancer,

Both as a Fencer and a Dancer,

In minuet step how he advances!

Strike up the Fiddles, see, see how he dances!

With his well-turn’d Pumps

How he skips and he jumps!

Clear tables and chairs, for he prances, he prances.

He dancing lectures did ordain

And drove out all the Muses’ Train;

Dancing is a Prancer’s Pleasure.

Rich the Treasure!

Sweet the Pleasure!

Sweet the Pleasure that requires no Brain!

* * * * *

“To commemorate the Naval Review at Portsmouth, the Oratorio of Alexander’s Feast is to be performed at one of the Theatres Royal, by command of his Majesty, with the following alterations, by William Whitehead, Esq; Poet Laureate.”

ALEXANDER’S FEAST, PARODIED;

OR, THE GRAND PORTSMOUTH PUPPET-SHEW.

’Twas at the royal show, and grand display

Of all the navy which at Portsmouth lay;

Aloft in laughing state,

Britain’s monarch sat,

And look’d serenely gay.

Goldstick, and other peers were plac’d around,

Their hair in bags of silken ribbons bound;

So should, ye fair, our men of arms be crown’d!

Charlotte smil’d sweetly at his side,

Yet inwardly, alas! she sigh’d

At George’s folly, and at Twitcher’s pride.

Air.

Happy, happy, happy pair,

How they rejoice!

To see the weather grown so fair!

Then Sandwich plac’d on high,

Amid the tuneful band,

Struck the loud kettle-drums with mighty hand;

The deaf’ning notes ascend the sky,

And sound along the strand.

From Fred’rick began the strain,

Who left Germania’s bleak domain

For England—such the pow’r of Stuart’s reign!

Augusta then his Highness woo’d,

172

Got children, as all Princes should,

When he to Saxe-Gotha press’d,

And while he sought her snowy breast:

Then round her waist his arms he spread,

And stamp’d an image of himself—a Prince without a head.

The list’ning tars admire the lofty sound;

A Prince without a head—they shout around;

A Prince without a head—the vaulted skies rebound.

Air.

Not us’d to hear

Such truths sincere,

At first he shrinks

Before he thinks,

That tars must have their jeer.

* * * * *

From The New Foundling Hospital for Wit. 1786.

The Covent Garden Row.

’Twas at a glorious row, for Clifford won,

By german Wienholt’s son,

After the play was done,

Aloft in drunken state

Was placed the stupid candidate,

For O.P. fame and fun.

* * * * *

This parody, relating to the famous O. P. riots, will be found in The Covent Garden Journal, 1810, which contains a full account of that curious theatrical episode.

A long political parody of Dryden’s Ode, relating to Irish affairs, and entitled Ode to St. Patrick’s Day, appeared in Vol. ix. of The Spirit of the Public Journals, 1806, and in Vol. xvi. of the same series, (1813) was a parody describing a law case. It commenced:—

“’Twas where the fam’d Home Circuit is begun.”

Neither of these parodies possesses any interest for modern readers.

Another parody, of which only the title can be given, was “W——S’s Feast, or Dryden Travesti; a mock Pindarick: addressed to his most Incorruptible Highness, Prince Patriotism.”

Sir Francis’s [35] Feast.

An Ode for the anniversary of a Westminster Election.

’Twas at a feast, giv’n to their Baronet

By his own factious set,

Placed by the chairman’s side,

Sate Piccadilly’s pride,

With airs of coy regret.

His noisy friends were ranged about,

With dirty shirts, and pots of heady stout:

Meet dress, meet drink for such a rout!

The valiant Cochrane, by his side,

Sate, snappish, yet self satisfied,

In naval garb and northern pride.

Happy, happy, happy day!

None but the mob,

None but the mob are fit to sway!

Cobbett, exalted high,

Amid that unwash’d train,

Roar’d lies and libels out amain;

Yet still he ’scapes the pillory,

And sells the sland’rous strain.

The King he first assail’d:

Gold, in this reign, he said, had fail’d

(For gold such patriots ever rail’d!)

Your flimsy notes, he cried, bely a King:

Old England was another thing,

When her great Monarch had a mint,

And stamp’d an image of himself, the money of the World!

The gaping mob admire the lofty sounds.

“Burdett and Bullion!” all the street rebounds:

With ravish’d ears

The Bar’net hears,

Affects to rouse

The Commons House,

And wake the torpid Peers.

The muse of Cobbett then extoll’d the drabs and rogues,

Whom Cold-bath prison disembogues:

From them the Bar’nets honours flow

Salt-box play, and whistle blow!

Deck’d with St. Giles’s graces,

They shew their greasy faces.

They come! stop, salt-box! whistle, cease to blow!

Cold-bath prison disembogues

Glorious food for discontent:

Any grievance is a treasure,

A patriot’s instrument and pleasure;

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet a charge in Parliament.

Swell’d with the puff, Sir Frank grew vain,

Spoke all his speeches o’er again,

And thrice he damned the Ministers, and thrice the war in Spain.

Cobbett [36] saw the madness rise,

His open mouth, his rolling eyes,

And, while he heaven and earth defied,

Chang’d the tune, and check’d his pride.

He chose an awkward story,

To damp his blazing glory:

He sang this chief, so fond of pow’r,

With notable disgrace,

Taken, taken, taken, taken,

Taken by the Speaker’s mace,

And caged within the Tower:

Afraid at his return to meet

Th’ expectant rabble in the street,

He skulks incog to Piccadilly—

Did ever patriot look so silly?

Long, long, and longer grows the hero’s face:

He meditates, in sullen mood,

On fickle popularity:

He’d blush, if blush reformer could,

And lets the toast go by!

* * * * *

The remainder of this parody refers to political events of little interest to modern readers.

It is taken from Posthumous Parodies, an anonymous collection of poems having a strong Tory bias, published in London by John Miller, 1814.

Commemoration Day.

Commemoration day: a day devoted to prayers and good living, i.e., feasting.

“Who leads a good life is sure to live well.”—Old Song.

The following Ode on a College Feast Day, will hardly be read with dry lips, or mouths that do not water. Whoever 173 was the author of it, he certainly appears to have been a man of taste.

Hark! heard ye not yon footsteps dread,

That shook the hall with thund’ring tread?

With eager haste

The Fellows pass’d,[37]

Each intent on direful work,

High lifts his mighty blade, and points his deadly fork.

II.

But hark! the portals sound, and pacing forth,

With steps, alas, too slow,

The College Gyps, of high illustrious worth,

With all the dishes in long order, go.

In the midst a form divine,

Appears the fam’d sir-loin;

And soon, with plums and glory crown’d,

Almighty pudding sheds its sweets around.

Heard ye the din of dinner bray?

Knife to fork, and fork to knife;

Unnumber’d heroes, in the glorious strife,

Thro’ fish, flesh, pies, and puddings cut their destin’d way.

III.

See, beneath the mighty blade

Gor’d with many a ghastly wound,

Low the fam’d sir-loin is laid

And sinks in many a gulf profound.

Arise, arise, ye sons of glory,

Pies and puddings stand before ye;

See the ghosts of hungry bellies

Point at yonder stand of jellies;

While such dainties are beside ye,

Snatch the goods the gods provide ye;

Mighty rulers of this state,

Snatch before it is too late;

For, swift as thought, the puddings, jellies, pies,

Contract their giant bulks, and shrink to pigmy size.

IV.

From the table now retreating

All around the fire they meet,

And with wine, the sons of eating,

Crown at length their mighty treat;

Triumphant Plenty’s rosy graces

Sparkle in their jolly faces;

And mirth and cheerfulness are seen

In each countenance serene.

Fill high the sparkling glass,

And drink th’ accustom’d toast;[38]

Drink deep ye mighty host

And let the bottle pass.

Begin, begin the jovial strain,

Fill, fill the mystic bowl,

And drink, and drink, and drink again;

For drinking fires the soul.

But soon, too soon, with one accord, they reel

Each on his seat begins to nod;

All conquering Bacchus’ pow’r they feel,

And pour libations to the jolly god.

At length, with dinner, and with wine, oppress’d,

Down in the chairs they sink, and give themselves to rest.

From The Gradus ad Cantabrigiam. By a Brace of Cantabs. London. Printed for John Hearne, 1824. It had previously appeared in The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1799. London, 1800.

Ode to a Wrangler’s Spread.

’Twas at the roaring feast for Wrangler won,

By Wiggin’s tipsy son,

As high in lofty state,

That classic Hero sate

A music stool upon.

The large eyed Lucy by his side

Blush’d like a codling, Autumn’s pride;—

And spirits; fit to stem the tide

Of Fortune’s current rough,

Alike her frailties to deride,

Or for her many dangers tried,

Still ne’er to cry “Enough!”

Throng’d round the Hero as he gave

The toast in liquor brave,

And by his ruling nod

Rous’d the huzzas of gladness

O’er the blue devils sadness,

Waking the drowsy God,

That slumber’d in the soul of each,

To Wine, to Jollity, and Speech.

* * * * *

From The Cambridge Odes, by Peter Persius. Cambridge W. H. Smith. No date.

The Kennington Common Revolution.

’Twas on the Common of famed Kennington,

Reynolds (old Reynolds’ son),

Aloft in mimic state,

Upon a waggon sate—

The driving box his throne.

The idle riff-raff stood around,

Some of their brows—for recent fractures—bound

(So theft and mischief should be crowned).

The Chartist, Williams, by his side,

With envy his position eyed,

As if for chairmanship he sighed.

Precious, precious pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave

Deserve the chair!

Young Reynolds, placed on high,

Produces half a quire

Of correspondence, which, without desire,

He reads, in notes that reach the sky,

And shouts of “Hear!” inspire.

Note one—bid Sir George Grey,

Before a certain day,

Leave Ministerial sway,

And send the reins of power, straight from his hand,

To Mister Reynolds, somewhere in the Strand;

When he, of the said reins possessed,

Would guide the State himself, in style the very best.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound;

“A plucky chap this here,!” they shout around,

And dabs of mud against the van rebound.

With lengthened ears

Young Reynolds hears,

And thinks, with joy,

“Yes I’m the boy

That means to shake the spheres.!”

Praise of the French he next in glowing accents sung—

French Freedom—very fair, but very young.

But a poor baker’s cart there comes:

With their fingers and their thumbs,

174

The mob to their disgrace,

(Blush every honest face!)

Would fain have stole the bread—the crusts, the crumbs!

Freedom, very, very, young,

Surely never did ordain

Making baker’s carts a treasure,

Robbing their contents at pleasure—

Pleasure to the owners’ pain.

To their disgust, the very rain,

Resolved such conduct to restrain,

Came down as if to say—“You shan’t do that again.”

Young Reynolds saw the vast supplies

Of rain pour down before his eyes.

While he the Government defied,

Away he saw the meeting glide

He chose a wilder strain

To bring them back again.

He spoke of France, so great and good;

Of Louis-Philippe’s fate,

Fall’n, fall’n, fall’n, fall’n;

From his high estate,

And flying with his brood.

Deserted at his utmost need

By those who on corruption feed,

From his own realm in fear he flies,

To England turns his anxious eyes,

Still, in the rain, young Reynolds boldly sate,

Until there lingered scarce a soul;

The wet had cleared the ground below,

And down the van he gently stole

Thinking—he’d better go.

Punch, 1848.

This refers to a meeting held at Kennington in connection with the Chartist agitation, when certain reforms were demanded, which were then ridiculed as revolutionary, but which have since either been granted, or else have come within the scope of practical political discussion.

Josh Hudson’s Feast.

’Twas at the dinner given, the prime tuck-out,

By Josh, the boxer stout:

Aloft the worthy sat,

His corpus lin’d with fat,

And, pleas’d, he gaz’d about:

His jovial pals were plac’d around,

For fancy feats and milling deeds renown’d,

And for their fistic worth with glory crown’d.

His blooming missus by his side,

Smok’d like a hock of bacon fried,

In glow of health and beauty’s pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair,

None but the fat,

None but the fat deserves the fair.

Jack Fogo, placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

Touch’d with his fives the laureate lyre;

The sounds discordant reach’d the sky,

And set their souls on fire.

Of law he curs’d the rod

That sent fat Josh to quod.

And swore it was too bad, by G——!

But now at length from durance vile releas’d,

With spirit buoyant and in flesh increas’d,

He took his seat that happy day the father of the feast.

The list’ning coves admir’d the lofty sound,

Jolly Josh Hudson’s health they shout around,

“The John Bull fighter” all the roofs rebound:

With ravish’d ears

The fat one hears,

Swore it was odd

He went to quod.

And drank their health with cheers.

The praise of prime old Tom then Fogo sung,

A liquor always dear to old and young.

Let a dram our dinner crown,

To keep the beef and pudding down.

Waiter, ’tis Josh’s pleasure,

You bring in a gallon measure,

The very best and strongest in the town.

Spirit ever bright and clear!

Who from drinking can refrain?

Who can censure without blushing

The joy, the extacy of lushing?

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

To imbibe a cordial drain.

Pleas’d with its praise fat Josh grew vain,

Fought all his battles o’er again,

And swore his max was very prime, and better than champagne.

Jack Fogo saw his madness rise,

His rosy snout, his staring eyes;

And to subdue his furious fit,

Swore he would bring him down a bit.

He sung a mournful ditty

To rouse fat Josh’s pity:

He sung of Gyblett’s, boxer prime!

By law’s relentless rule

Sent to stonejug, and doom’d from thence

To cross the herring pool.

Deserted, in his utmost need,

By all the traps his bounty fed

Deprived of max, depriv’d of shag,

Without a friend, without a mag.

With downcast look the John Bull fighter sate,

And gaz’d upon the tuneful bard:

“Alack! for Charles, my friend,” cried he;

“What! must he go across the sea?

’Tis gallows, gallows hard!”

But Frosty Fogo’s powers began to fail;

The sounds he tried to vent

Within his throat were pent,

Subdu’d by max, and heavy wet, and ale.

He, who on eagle’s wing

Was wont sublime to soar

In fruitless effort still to sing,

Pitch’d headlong on the floor!

In November 1884 Mr. Alexander Henderson produced a new comic opera at the Comedy Theatre, London, entitled The Great Mogul. In this piece Miss Florence St. John had to appear with live snakes writhing about her, an innovation which was not appreciated by the audience, whilst the songs written by H. B. Farnie, were received with derision. Although the house was packed with the friends of the Lessee, on the opening night (for no money was taken at the 175 doors) the opera met with a very cool reception, and the following parody appeared in The Referee on November 23, 1884:

Alexander’s First.

(With apologies to the late Ingenious Mr. Dryden.)

’Twas at the Royal Comedy (where none

But friends of Henderson

Were let to pass the gate

On first night held in state)

This week A. H. got “done.”

The folks therein on Monday found

Had had free passes to that spot renowned

(There was no money’s jingling sound).

The gentle Farnie stood aside,

And all the preparations eyed

With all a mighty author’s pride.

And then they cried—that peerless pair

“None but our friends,

None but our friends,

Shall see our first nights, we declare.”

Van Biene, placed on high,

Amid his tuneful quire

(All wearing swallow-tail attire)

’Gan wave his bâton by-and-by

His comrades to inspire.

Anon commenced to play

(A comic opera, let me say,

Penned some time back in Paris gay),

And first the “house” did to applause give vent,

As up the curtain went.

Stalls, boxes, pit, and gallery soon expressed

Their joy when Florence entered sweetly dressed.

She charmed them by her voice’s flute-like sound;

But later, on the crawling snakes they frowned,—

That exhibition they disgusting found.

Their whispered sneer

Did Alec hear.

But like a god,

Assumed to nod

As though he felt no fear.

The praises of pale ale anon the chords sung.

But, strange to say, no sounds of “Encore!” rung.

When Leslie through his teeth ’gan hum

His pretty air—it worried some.

The Song too of the “Steak”

Did not applause awake.

That lyric, like the rest, in rhythm was so rum.

For Farnie to the wings had flung

All rules for writing verse ’twas plain,

Mostly halting was his measure;

(Let him mend it, at his leisure).

When a measure

Gives no pleasure

It is apt to give you pain!

The company worked hard, in vain,

But dull and duller grew the strain,

And no finale was a “go”—no, weaker did it wane.

Then Alec heard the hiss arise

Among the “friends” he used to prize.

Even the Jingo gags they guyed

And H. B. Farnie did deride.

A most unequal muse

Had Audran stooped to choose.

Then Alexander, great and good,

Began his teeth to grate—

Galling, galling, galling, galling,

Galling was his sorry state,

Dismayed, abashed, he stood,

Deserted all at once was he

By those whom he admitted free,

“What! hissed by deadheads!” Alec cried;

“What, by my own packed house defied!”

Then D’Albertson, the smart and the sedate

(With rich moustache with curlèd ends),

Said Farnie could not take a call—

“Yah! we don’t want him!” cried the “friends”—

“Ugh! good job too!” did others bawl.

* * * * *

“Revenge!” great Alexander cries;

Hear the hisses that arise!

E’en the snakes, they ne’er cheered;

At most “numbers” they jeered.

This ingratitude gives me surprise;

Such cheek from my band

I cannot understand—

I have used them on first nights again and again

But the ads shall remain

In their first-arranged vein.

I will show all this crew

That I know what to do,

Though they serve me like this, and thus dare to express

An opinion, I’ll show I can fight against odds—

I’ll defy all these treacherous pittites and “gods”—

Go, announce it at once: “An Enormous Success!”

* * * * *

Not long ago

(Ere Henderson received this blow)

I ventured to dispute

That A. in this respect was ’cute.

I struck my lyre

And told him that this dodge few people could admire

At last, you see, to spoil his game,

His dead-head “friends” rise up to blame;

Henceforth, perhaps, he’ll try this trick no more,

But warned by Monday’s gruesome sounds,

Will run his premières upon proper grounds,

And do as others do—take money at the door.

So henceforth, Alec, wisdom try—

Don’t on the Public frown;

A failure, e’en when “friends” don’t guy,

Will never draw the town

Carados.

Lines printed under the Engraved Portrait of John Milton.

(In Tonson’s Folio Edition of “Paradise Lost,” 1688.)

Three poets, in three distant ages born,

Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.

The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,

The next in majesty, in both the last.

The force of Nature could no further go;

To make a third she joined the former two.

Mr. Malone suggested that the idea of these lines was borrowed by Dryden from Salvaggi’s Latin distich:—

“Græcia, Mæonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem,

Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.”

But in a little work, printed in 1676, entitled “Anima Astrologia,” a verse occurs which bears a much nearer resemblance to Dryden’s epigram:—

“Let envy burst; Urania’s glad to see

176

Her sons thus joined in a triplicity;

To Cardan and to Guido much is due,

And in one Lilly we behold the two.”

These lines allude to Jerome Cardan, the Astrologer (1501-1576), to William Lilly, also an Astrologer (1602-1681), and to Ubaldo Guido, an Italian Mathematician (1540-1601). Dryden was a firm believer in astrology, and as he must, in all probability, have been well acquainted with this book, it is probable these lines were in his mind when he composed his own more polished epigram.

On page 233, Vol. 2, of this Collection, a number of parodies of the Epigram will be found, but the following imitations were accidentally omitted.

On Hypatia. Madame Agnesi, and Mrs. Somerville.

“Three women, in three different ages born,

Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;

Rare as poetic minds of master flights,

Three only rose to science’ loftiest heights.

The first a brutal crowd in pieces tore,

Envious of fame, bewildered at her lore;

The next through tints of darkening shadow passed,

Lost in the azure sisterhood at last;

Equal to these the third, and happier far,

Cheerful though wise, though learned, popular,

Liked by the many, valued by the few,

Instructs the world, yet dubbed by none a Blue.”

There is a little confusion in these lines, both Madame Agnesi and Mrs. Somerville were born in the same “age” if by that century is meant, and although Hypatia talked Greek she was an Egyptian, whilst Mrs. Somerville was not English at all, having been born in Scotland. Hypatia, a female philosopher in Alexandria, was brutally murdered by an ignorant mob; Madame Agnesi, an Italian lady of great scientific attainments, died a Blue Nun in a convent at Milan in 1799. Mrs. Mary Somerville wrote several scientific books, of which perhaps the best known was “The Connection of the Physical Sciences.”

Three Richards lived in Brunswick’s glorious reign,

In Westminster the first [39], the next in Warwick Lane [40],

In Dumbleton the third [41], each doughty knight,

In spite of nature, was resolved to write.

The first in penury of thought surpassed,

The next in rambling cant; in both the last.

The force of dulness could no further go,

To make the third she joined the former two.

By Dr. James Drake, then an Undergrad of St. John’s College, Cambridge, printed in Anonymiana, 1809.

Biographies of John Dryden are so numerous and accessible that it is unnecessary here to discuss the weak points of his character. To use the mildest language possible, he was a time-server, a turncoat, and a court sycophant. He had written in praise of Oliver Cromwell, he wrote equally laudatory verses on Charles II., he had strongly defended the Protestant religion, yet within a twelvemonth of the accession of the Catholic James II. the following entry appeared in Evelyn’s Diary, January 19, 1686: “Dryden, the famous play writer, and his two sons, and Mrs. Nelly (Miss to the late King) were said to go to mass; such proselytes were no great loss to the Church.” His conversion brought him Court patronage, and in April 1687 he published a defence of his new religion in verse, entitled “The Hind and the Panther.” This was a long allegorical poem in which the Hind represented the Catholic Church, and the Panther the Protestant Church of England. It gave rise to much controversy, and many burlesques were written upon it, ridiculing the work, and the character of its author. The most famous of these parodies was one of exquisite humour, the joint production of Charles Montague (the future Earl of Halifax) and Matthew Prior. This was called “The Hind and the Panther Transversed to the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse.” The principal characters in the famous farce The Rehearsal, Bayes, Smith, and Johnson, were revived in this witty production, which is unfortunately much too long to reprint. Dryden’s poem commences:—

A milk white Hind, immortal and unchanged,

Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;

Without, unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,

And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds

Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.

The first lines of the parody are:—

A milk-white Mouse immortal and unchanged,

Fed on soft cheese, and o’er the Dairy ranged

Without, unspotted; innocent within,

She feared no Danger, for she knew no gin.

Yet had she oft been scor’d by bloody claws

Of winged owls, and stern Grimalkin’s Paws

Aim’d at her destin’d Head, which made her fly,

Tho’ she was doomed to death, and fated not to die.

* * * * *

ALEXANDER POPE.

Born May 21, 1688. | Died May 30, 1744.

Dryden’s Odes for St. Cecilia’s Day have already been mentioned, and in 1708 Pope was also induced, by Richard Steele, to write an ode for the annual festival. This is acknowledged to be the finest poem of its kind that had appeared since Dryden’s odes were produced. In fact, as Pope himself said, “Many people would like my ode on music better if Dryden had never written on that subject. It was at the request of Mr. Steele that I wrote mine; and not with any thought of rivalling that great man, whose memory I do, and have always reverenced.”

Pope chose the mythological story of Orpheus and Eurydice as the theme for his ode; it is too long to quote in full, but the first verse, and last quatrain, will serve as key notes for the parodies which follow.

Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day.

Descend ye Nine! descend and sing;

The breathing instruments inspire,

Wake into voice each silent string,

And sweep the sounding lyre!

177

In a sadly pleasing strain

Let the warbling lute complain:

Let the loud trumpet sound,

Till the roofs all around

The shrill echoes rebound;

While, in more lengthen’d notes and slow,

The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.

Hark! the numbers soft and clear

Gently steal upon the ear;

Now louder, and yet louder rise,

And fill with spreading sounds the skies;

Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,

In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;

Till, by degrees, remote and small,

The strains decay,

And melt away,

In a dying, dying fall.

* * * * *

Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,

To bright Cecilia greater power is given,

His numbers raised a shade from hell,

Hers lift the soul to heaven.

Alexander Pope.

An Ode to Toast-Master Toole.[42]

“Descend, ye Nine!”

No common theme is mine—

I sing of thee, O Toole!

Bacchus baptised thee in a font of wine,

And from the roseate pool

Thy face received the sunny tint it wears,

And thus illumed (blest face!) a thousand “chairs.”

Who, that hath heard poor Charity’s appeal

And nobly paid a guinea for a meal

(Where soup and fish

And every new-made dish,

Just verged upon the cold;

Or else the very tough, or very old—

Except the tepid salad, which appear’d

Fresh gather’d from the hot-bed where ’twas rear’d),

Can e’er forget, O Toole! thy coat of blue

With dazzling metal buttons spangled o’er—

The yard of broad black ribbon, whereunto

Appends the eye-glass thro’ which thou dost pore

Over the list of toasts, ere thou dost bawl

With such stentorian lungs,

That we opine the walls of old Guildhall

Are each endowèd with a thousand tongues—

“Silence!” To hear that Patagonian shout

Is to obey.

The hand that’s in the act of pouring out

Is forced to stay—

“Non Nobis!!!” The greediest crammer

Deserts his plate, roused by thy voice and hammer.

* * * * *

The buzz of bottle-drawing’s at its height;

Brown takes wine with Smith, and Briggs with Bright,

Hark! To that thunder, eloquent o’er all—

Toole! ’tis thy call.

Of “Silence if you please—order for the chair!”

As with an exquisite and finished air,

(Worthy of—Widdicomb, when he essays

To fix some shilling-gallery beauty’s gaze),

You wave your paper bâton o’er the head

Of him who, like Olympian Jove, is seated there,

And guides your voice the thunder of the “Chair!”

Who ne’er,—when public dinner port began

To, Circe-wise, transmogrify the man,

Hath found the rising hiccup downward driven,

When, Toole! thy lungs this glorious toast have given—

“The Queen, with three times three!

“Hip, hip, hurrah!—Silence for a glee!”

* * * * *

Farewell, thou King of Sentiment and Toast!

Long may’st thou rule the roast

At philanthropic and at civic dinner!

Long may Lachesis (that old maiden spinner)

Keep thy thread going, and long may we

Hear you declare

“Silence in the Chair!

Messrs. Hobbs, Dobbs, Snobbs, will ’blige you with a glee.”

Punch, November, 1843.

Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day.

(A long way after Pope.)

Descend, great Bunn!—descend and bring

A furnace of poetic fire;

Nib fifty pens, and take your fling,

Boldly of foolscap fill a quire.

In a namby-pamby strain,

Let the tenor first complain;

Let the falsetto sound,

With nasal twang around,

’Till in applause ’tis drown’d.

Then in more ponderous notes and slow,

Let the deep bass go down, extremely low.

Hark the shrill soprano near

Bursts upon the startled ear!

Higher and higher does she rise,

And fills with awful screams the flies,

By straining and shrieking she reaches the notes,

Out of tune, out of time too, the wild music floats;

Till by degrees the vigorous bawl,

Seems to decay,

And melts away

In a feeble, feeble squall.

In music there’s a medium, you know;

Don’t sing too high, nor sink too low.

If in a house tumultuous rows arise,

Music to drown the noise the means supplies;

Or when the housemaid, pressed with cares,

To yonder public-house repairs,

Some gallant soldier, fired by music’s sound

Will order pints of half-and-half all round.

John the footman nods his head,

Swears he’ll not go home to bed;

In his arms a partner takes,

As some courteous speech he makes;

And suddenly the joyous pair engage

In giddy Waltz or Polka, now the rage.

But when the violin puts forth its charms,

How the sweet music every bosom warms:

So when the dilettante dared the squeeze,

To hear of Jenny Lind the opening strain,

And in the rush serenely sees

His best coat torn in twain,

Transported simpletons stood round,

And men grew spooneys at the sound,

178

Roaring with all their wind;

Each one his power of lung displayed

In bawling to the Swedish Maid

While cheers from box to pit resound

For Lind, for Lind, for Lind!

But when through those mysterious bounds

Where the policeman goes his rounds,

The poet had by chance been led

Mid the coal-hole, festive shed,

What sounds were heard,

What scenes appeared,

How horrible the din!

Toasted cheese

If you please.

Waiter—stop!

Mutton-chop.

Hollo! Jones,

Devilled bones;

And cries for rum or gin!

But hark! the chairman near the fire

Strikes on the table, to require

Strict silence for a song.

Thy tongue, O waiter, now keep still;

Bring neither glass, nor go, nor gill;

The pause will not be long.

The guests are mute as if upon their beds;

Their hair uncurl’d hangs from their listening heads.

By the verses as they flow,

By their meaning nothing though,

Full of tropes and flowers;

By those lofty rhymes that dwell

In the mind of Bunn [43] so well,

Like love in Paphian bowers.

By the lines that he has made,

Working at the poet’s trade—

By the “marble halls” so smart,

By “other lips” and “Woman’s heart,”

True poetry at once restore, restore,

Or don’t let Bunn, at least, write any more!

But soon, too soon, poor music shuts her eyes;

Again she falls—again she dies, she dies.

How will she now once more attempt to thrive?

Ah! Jullien [44] comes to keep her still alive.

Now with his British Army

Quadrille, so bright and balmy,

Or with four bands meeting,

Two men a large drum beating,

He gives the tone

Of dying groan,

Or soldier’s moan,

When at his post

His life is in the battle lost.

With five bands surrounded,

Is Jullien confounded?

No! onwards he goes,

And his arms about he throws.

See: wild as a wild duck the bâton he plies;

Ah! down in the chair he drops, closing his eyes.

My eyes! He dies!

He comes to life—for Jullien all have sung;

The name of Jullien is on every tongue.

The boxes and the pit,

Both they who stand and sit;

With Jullien’s name the entire house has rung.

Music the greatest brute can charm,

And savage natures will disarm.

Music can find luxurious ease,

Making what bargain it may please.

A salary it can improve

To any sum that it may love.

This the delightful Lind has found,

And to the tune of fifteen thousand pound.

When the full house enjoys the Swedish bird,

E’en Fashion deigns to lend its ear,

So eager ’t is to catch each little word,

That were a pin to drop it must be heard;

And people come from far as well as near!

Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,

For Jenny Lind may boast with greater reason:

His numbers he for gold could never sell—

She makes her fortune in a season!

From George Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack for 1848.

——:o:——

In 1749 Bonnell Thornton published a humorous burlesque upon the Cecilian odes, under the title of “An Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day, adapted to the Ancient British Musick,” which is said to have been set to music with characteristic accompaniments by Dr. Arne, and performed on the Saint’s day, November 22, 1749. This appears somewhat doubtful, it was however set to music in 1759 by Dr. Burney, who has left the following account of his work and its performance: “In 1759 I set for Smart and Newbery, Thornton’s Burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day. It was performed at Ranelagh in masks, to a very crowded audience, as I was told, for I then resided in Norfolk. Beard sang the Salt-box song, which was admirably accompanied on that instrument by Brent, the fencing master, and father of Miss Brent, the celebrated singer; Skeggs on the broomstick as bassoon, and a remarkable performer on the Jew’s Harp, ‘Buzzing twangs the iron lyre.’ Cleavers were cast in bell metal for this entertainment. All the performers of the Old Woman’s oratory, employed by Foote, were, I believe, employed at Ranelagh on this occasion.”

Boswell mentions that Dr. Johnson was much diverted with the humour of this ode.

An Ode on

Saint Cecilia’s Day.

Adapted to the Antient British Musick: viz. The Salt-Box, the Jew’s Harp, the Marrow-Bones and Cleavers, the Hum-Strum or Hurdy Gurdy, etc.

With an introduction, giving some account of these truly British Instruments.

By Bonnell Thornton, Esquire.

The Preface, which is too long to quote in full, concludes with the following remarks. “If this Ode contributes in the least to lessen our false taste in admiring that foreign Musick now so much in vogue, and to recall the ancient British spirit, together with the ancient British harmony, I shall not think the pains I employed on the composition entirely flung away on my countrymen. This Ode, I am sensible, is not without faults; though I cannot 179 help thinking it far superior to the odes of Johnny Dryden, Joe Addison, Sawney Pope, Nick Rowe, little Kit Smart, etc, etc, etc, or of any that have written, or shall write on St. Cecilia’s day.”

“I have strictly adhered to the rule of making the sound echo to the sense.”

An Ode on Saint Cecilia’s Day.

OVERTURE.

Recitative.

Be dumb, be dumb, ye inharmonious Sounds,

And Musick, that th’ astonish’d Ear with Discord wounds:

No more let common Rhymes profane the Day.

Grand Chorus.

Grac’d with divine Cecilia’s Name;

Let solemn Hymns this awful Feast proclaim,

And heav’nly Notes conspire to raise the heavn’ly Lay.

Recitative.

The meaner melody we scorn,

Which vulgar instruments afford;

Shrill flute, sharp fiddle, bellowing horn,

Rumbling Bassoon, or tinkling Harpischord.

Air.

In strains more exalted the Salt-box shall join,

And Clattering, and Battering, and Clapping combine;

With a Rap and a Tap while the hollow Side sounds,

Up and down leaps the Flap, and with Rattling rebounds.

Recitative.

Strike, strike the soft Judaic Harp,

Aoft and sharp,

By Teeth coercive in firm Durance kept,

And lightly by the volant Finger swept.

Air.

Buzzing twangs the Iron Lyre,

Shrilly Thrilling,

Trembling, trilling,

Whizzing with the wavering wire.

A Grand Symphony.

Accompanied with Marrow Bones and Cleavers.

Air.

Hark, how the Banging Marrow-Bones

Make Clanging Cleavers ring,

With a Ding Dong, Ding Dong,

Ding Dong, Ding Dong,

Ding Dong, Ding Dong, Ding Dong, Ding.

Raise your uplifted arms on high;

In long-prolonged tones

Let Cleavers sound

A merry merry round

By Banging Marrow-Bones.

Full Chorus

(Repeat the above verse.)

Recitative

Cease lighter Numbers: Hither bring

The undulating String

Stretch’d out, and to the tumid Bladder

In amity harmonious bound;

Then deeper swell the notes and sadder,

And let the hoarse Base slowly solemn sound.

Air.

With dead, dull, doleful Hums,

With mournful moans,

And grievous groans,

The sober Hurdy-Gurdy thrums.

Part II.

Recitative.

With majick sounds, like these, did Orpheus’ lyre,

Motion, Sense, and Life inspire;

When, as he play’d, the list’ning flood

Still’d its loquacious waves, and silent stood;

The Trees swift-bounding danc’d with loosen’d stumps,

And sluggish stones caper’d in active jumps.

Air.

Each ruddy-breasted Robin

The concert bore a Bob in,

And ev’ry hooting Owl around;

The croaking Frogs,

The grunting Hogs,

All, all conspir’d to raise th’ enliv’ning Sound.

Recitative.

Now to Cecilia, heav’nly maid,

Your loud united voices raise:

With solemn hymns to celebrate her Praise,

Each instrument shall lend it’s aid.

The Salt Box with clattering and clapping shall sound,

The Iron lyre

Buzzing twang with wav’ring wire,

With heavy hum

The Sober Hurdy-Gurdy thrum,

And the Merry Merry Marrow-Bones ring round.

Last Grand Chorus.

Such matchless strains Cecilia knew,

When audience from their heavenly sphere,

By Harmony’s Strong Power, she drew,

Whilst list’ning angels gladly stoop’d to hear.

Bonnell Thornton, 1749.

——:o:——

MOCK HEROIC POEMS.

Numerous imitations exist of Pope’s Dunciad, and the poets of the last century, and the early years of this, exercised considerable ingenuity in ringing the changes on the title, as will be seen from the following list. It must not, however, be concluded that the works mentioned are all parodies, except in the cases where the opening lines are quoted. One of the most scholarly of these productions was “The Scribleriad,” written by Richard Owen Cambridge, and published in 1751. In his preface he mentions Boileau’s Lutrin, Garth’s Dispensary, and Pope’s Rape of the Lock and Dunciad, each of which, he considers, have a thousand beauties, but neither of which comes up to the true idea of a Mock-Heroic Poem. In fact he does not believe it was the primary idea of either of the authors to write a Mock-Heroic, whereas that was the task he set 180 himself in composing The Scribleriad. He gives the following apposite remarks on Parody:—

“The Athenians were so fond of Parody, that they eagerly applauded it, without examining with what propriety or connection it was introduced. Aristophanes showed no sort of regard to either, in his ridicule of Euripides; but brings in the characters as well as verses of his tragedies, in many of his plays, though they have no connection with the plot of the play, nor any relation to the scene in which they are introduced. This love of Parody is accounted for by an excellent French critic, from a certain malignity in mankind, which prompts them to laugh at what they most esteem, thinking they, in some measure, repay themselves for that involuntary tribute which is exacted from them by merit.”

The Baviad, a paraphrastic imitation of the First satire of Persius, by William Gifford. London, 1794. This was written to ridicule a certain clique of self-admirationists known as the “Della-Cruscan school,” and was very effectual in its object. It was followed by The Maeviad, by the same author, which completed the work The Baviad had commenced, and the spurious poetry of the Della-Cruscan school was laughed out of existence. The footnotes to these satires are delicious reading, as Gifford has selected the most amusing examples of bathos, and inflated nonsense, from the poems of Anna Matilda, Merry, Parsons, Jerningham, Bell, Mrs. Robinson, and Della-Crusca, to illustrate his points.

The Beeriad, or Progress of Drink. An Heroic Poem, in Two Cantos, the first being an imitation of The Dunciad, the second a description of a Ram Feast, held annually in a particular small district of Hampshire. By a Gentleman in the Navy. Gosport. J. Philpot. 1736.

The first canto of this poem is printed side by side with a reprint of the first book of Pope’s Dunciad.

The Beeriad commences thus:—

Beer and the men (a mighty theme!) I sing,

Who to their mouths the brimming Pitcher bring.

Say Sons of midnight! (since yourselves inspire,

This drunken Work; so Jove and Drink require!)

Say from what cause, in vain unquench’d the Thirst,

Still reigns to-day as potent as at first.

In eldest time ere mortals were so dry,

E’er Bacchus issued from the Thund’rer’s Thigh,

Strong Drink o’er some possess’d its native right,—

Lord of delusion, Sov’raign of the Night.

* * * * *

The Billiad, or how to criticise, a satire, with the Dirge of the Repeal (of the Irish Union) and other Jeux d’Esprit. By T. M. Hughes. Illustrated. 1846.

The Blueviad, a Satirical Poem, by E. Goulburn, Royal Horse Guards. London, 1805.

The author remarks, “The following ridiculous lines contain the description of some characters that once formed a Regiment of Volunteers.”

The Burniad; an Epistle to a Lady, in the manner of Burns, with Poetic Miscellanies, by J. H. Kenny. 1808.

The Consuliad. A Mock Heroic Poem, by Thomas Chatterton. This short poem is to be found amongst the works of the poor Bristol boy, he sold it to a Mr. Fell for ten shillings and sixpence at the time when he was slowly starving to death in London. It commenced thus:—

Of roaring constables and battles dire,

Of geese uneaten, muse, awake the lyre!

Where Campbell’s chimneys overlook the square,

And Newton’s future prospects hang in air;

Where counsellors dispute, and cockers match,

And Caledonian earls in concert scratch,—

A group of heroes occupied the round,

Long in the rolls of infamy renown’d.

Circling the table, all in silence sat,

Now tearing bloody lean, now champing fat;

Now picking ortolans and chickens, slain

To form the whimsies of an à la reine:

Now storming castles of the newest taste,

And granting articles to forts of paste;

Now swallowing bitter draughts of Prussian beer;

Now sucking tallow of salubrious deer.

The god of Cabinets and senates saw

His sons, like asses, to one centre draw.

* * * * *

There are passages in this satire of surprising power and originality for the work of a boy of seventeen years of age.

The Censoriad, a Poem, written originally by Martin Gulliver, illustrated with curious annotations. 1730.

The Chessiad, by C. Dibden the Younger. With other poems, by the same author, 1825.

The Christiad, a sacred heroic poem, translated by Cranwell from Vida. No date.

The Dapiad, a mock-heroic poem, by J. Randall. Barnstaple: printed by J. Avery, 1806.

The Diaboliad, a Poem dedicated to the Worst Man in His Majesty’s Dominions. London. G. Kearsley, 1677. The date given is evidently a misprint for 1777, as David Garrick, who is named in the Preface, was not born until 1716. This work has been ascribed to Combe.

Anti-Diabo-Lady. Respectfully dedicated to all the Women in Her Majesty’s Dominions in general; and to the Best of Them in Particular, calculated to expose the Malevolence of the Author of Diabo-Lady. London, 1777. Quarto 18 pp. (A satire in verse.)

The Dispensary. A poem in six Cantos, by Sir Samuel Garth. London, 1696.

The Druriad, or Strictures on the principal performers of Drury Lane Theatre. A Satirical Poem. Quarto. 1798.

The Electriad: A Tale of the Trojan War. “Homer down to Date,” by a G. O. M. London. The Pall Mall Electric Association. About 1885. Price sixpence. This anonymous advertising pamphlet was illustrated with portraits of the most eminent men of the day, represented as suffering from various ailments, and

Within his tent Achilles sat and swore;

With pain the hero’s face was sicklied o’er,

Gout in his feet, neuralgia in his jaws,

Too weak, alas, to fight for Grecian cause;

Bronchitis, rheumatism, lungs and liver,

Hurried him fast towards the Stygian river.

* * * * *

The Fijiad, or English Nights Entertainments, by an author of The Siliad. Beeton’s Fifteenth Christmas Annual. Illustrated. London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler.

The Fribbleriad. This was first printed in 1761, and was afterwards included in The Repository, vol. 2. It was addressed to a certain individual “X. Y. Z.,” who had been guilty of publishing an Essay containing an unfavourable criticism of David Garrick.

Who is the scribbler X. Y. Z.?

Who still writes on, though little read?

Whose falsehood, malice, envy, spite,

181

So often grin, yet seldom bite?

Say, Garrick, does he write for bread,

This friend of yours, this X. Y. Z.?

For pleasure sure, not bread—’twere vain

To write for that he ne’er could gain.

* * * * *

The Female Dunciad, containing:—I. A Faithful account of the Intrigues, Gallantries, and Amours of Alexander Pope, of Twickenham, Esq., written by Himself. II. A Satire upon the Court Lords and Ladies. Written also by him in the year 1717. III. A Single Instance of his Repentance. IV. The New Surprising Metamorphosis; or, Mr. Pope turn’d into a Stinging Nettle; being a Familiar Epistle from a Gentleman in Town to a Lady in the Country. Occasioned by reading the Dunciad. V. Irish Artifice; or, the History of Clarina. A Novel, by Mrs. Eliza Haywood. VI. Female Worthies, by the Bishop of Peterborough. The whole being a Continuation of the Twickenham Hotch-Potch. London. T. Read, White-Fryers. 1728.

The Hilliad: an Epic Poem by Christopher Smart, A.M., Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. 1753. This was a satire on a certain Dr. Hill, it commenced as follows:—

Thou God of Jest, who o’er th’ ambrosial bowl,

Giv’st joy to Jove, while laughter shakes the pole;

And thou, fair Justice, of immortal line,

Hear, and assist the poet’s grand design,

Who aims at triumphs by no common ways,

But on the stem of dulness grafts the bays.

O thou, whatever name delight thine ear.

Pimp! Poet! Puffer! ’Pothecary! Play’r!

Whose baseless fame by vanity is buoy’d,

Like the huge earth self-center’d in the void,

Accept one partner thy own worth t’explore,

And in thy praise be singular no more.

* * * * *

The Lentiad; or, Peter the Pope and his Pioneers the Pusey men. Together with Anti-Pentateuchal Prelates, Broad-church and Balaam-ass-men, Pommelled and Pounded with a Hudibrastic cudgel.

A Tale in Rhymes

Fit for the Times,

By a Beefeater, domestic chaplain to Fill-pots. Edited by Rev. John Allen. London: William Freeman, Fleet Street. 1863.

“John Chinaman, when fighting foes,

At times holds stink-pots to their nose,

For he believes—and he is right,

That when in this way he can fight,

And find thereby the battle won

His stink-pots are as good’s a gun.”

More than 400 closely-printed pages of similar fustian to this are devoted to abuse of the Pope and his Church; coarse denunciations of the High Church party, and the Puseyites, Bishop Colenso and his works.

The Lousiad, an Heroi-Comic Poem, in five cantos. By Peter Pindar, Esq. (Dr. John Wolcott.) The introduction to this satire runs as follows: “It is necessary to inform thee, Gentle Reader, that His Majesty (George III.) actually discovered, some time ago, as he sat at table, a louse on his plate. An edict was, in consequence, passed for shaving the cooks, scullions, etc., and the unfortunate louse was condemned to die.”

Such is the foundation of The Lousiad, of which the ingenious author, who ought to be allowed to know somewhat of the matter, hath been heard privately to declare, that, in his opinion, the Batrachomyomachia of Homer, the Secchia Rapita of Tassoni, the Lutrin of Boileau, the Dispensary of Garth, and the Rape of the Lock of Pope, are not to be compared to it.

The Louse I sing, who, from some head unknown,

Yet born and educated near a throne,

Dropped down—(so willed the dread decree of fate!)

With legs wide sprawling on the monarch’s plate:

Far from the raptures of a wife’s embrace,

Far from the gambols of a tender race,

Whose little feet he taught with care to tread

Amidst the wide dominions of the head;

Led them to daily food with fond delight,

And taught the tiny wanderers where to bite;

To hide, to run, advance, or turn their tails,

When hostile combs attacked, or vengeful nails:

Far from those pleasing scenes ordained to roam,

Like wise Ulysses, from his native home;

Yet like that sage, though forced to roam and mourn,

Like him, alas, not fated to return!

Who, full of rags and glory, saw his boy

And wife again, and dog that died for joy.

Down dropped the luckless louse with fear appalled,

And wept his wife and children as he sprawled.

* * * * *

The Mobiad, or battle of the Voices: an Heroi-Comic Poem, sportively satirical, being a briefly historical, natural and lively, free and humorous description of an Exeter Election, by Democritus Juvenal (A. Brice) with notes &c., Exeter, 1770.

The Modern Dunciad, a Satire; with notes, biographical and critical. London. Effingham Wilson, 1814. With a frontispiece by George Cruikshank. This anonymous work, written in imitation of the first satire of Persius, was devoted to the ridicule of the minor poets of the day, most of whom are now entirely forgotten:—

What can provoke thy muse? scarce thrice a year

Matilda’s woeful Madrigals appear;

Lewis no more the tender maid affrights

With incantations, ravishments, and sprites;

Crusca (to Gifford thanks!) is fairly fled,

And Cottle’s epics sleep among the dead;

E’en Wolcot’s impious blasphemies are o’er,

And Andrews’ Prologues are the vogue no more.

* * * * *

Alluding to Rosa Matilda’s effusions; M. G. Lewis, author of “The Monk;” Gifford’s attack on the Della Cruscans; Amos Cottle’s poems, and the satirical works of Dr. John Wolcot, known as “Peter Pindar.”)

The Mæviad, by William Gifford, 1795. In imitation of a satire of Horace, and directed against the Della-Cruscan school of Poetry. See The Baviad.

The Moneiad: or The Power of Money. By the Rev. W. P. Macdonald, late Chaplain of the Regiment of Roll. London. James Harper, 46 Fleet Street. 1818.

It contains an early poem, entitled “Sir Penny, or the Power of Money.” The work was dedicated to the Duke of Kent.

The New Dunciad. Facts and anecdotes illustrative of the iniquitous practises of Anonymous Critics, 1806.

This is a prose commentary on the critics, published by Tegg, London, and has no relation to Pope’s Dunciad.

The New Dunciad, as it was found in the year 1741, 182 with the Illustrations of Scriblerus, and Notes Variorum. London. J. H. Hubbard 1742.

Yet, yet a moment, one dim ray of Light

Indulge, dread Chaos and eternal Night!

Of Darkness visible so much be lent,

As half to show, half veil the deep intent.

Ye Pow’rs! whose mysteries restor’d I sing,

To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,

Suspend awhile your force inertly strong,

Then take at once the Poet and the Song.

The New Dunciad. This appeared in parts in a London penny paper called The Jester, the first number of which was published February 23, 1889. It was a weak attempt to satirise some of the celebrities of the day, and was destitute of interest, or poetical merit.

The Obliviad: A Satire, with notes, together with additional Notes, Preface, and Supplement, by the American Editor. And the Perpetual Commentary of the Athenæum. New York. James Millar, Broadway. London, B. Quaritch, 15, Piccadilly. 1879.

This is a very remarkable book, it consists of about 350 pages in all, of which at least two thirds are occupied by Notes, critical, satirical, and biographical, dealing with the principal writers of the day, in a most unmerciful manner. Even The Saturday Review, which itself has a reputation for sharp speaking, remarked (June 28, 1879):—“The Obliviad is a laborious imitation of the Dunciad, somewhat more universally insolent in its treatment of contemporary authors than any other satire in prose or verse that we remember.”

Naturally a book which could speak with fearless truth of the writings of such men as Tennyson, Robert Browning, Swinburne, Dickens, Hepworth Dixon, and Robert Buchanan created a sensation, but unfortunately the author was almost too indiscriminate in his censures, for whilst everyone admits that the above named authors have occasionally written absurd and nonsensical works, it is equally certain that they did not, in the first place, make their names and fames in that manner.

The Obliviad has been attributed to Dr. William Leech of New York.

The Olympiad. A Satirical Poem.

The Puffiad, a Satire, with a dedication to “Those who don’t like it,” a Critique for their use, and copious Introductory Epistle to an Eminent Puffer. 1828.

The Rodiad, by George Coleman, 1813. This relates to Flagellation:

Delightful Sport! whose never failing charm

Makes young blood tingle, and keeps old blood warm.

The Rosciad. By Charles Churchill. 1761.

The Rolliad, or more correctly, Criticisms on the Rolliad, for the poem itself (except in some disjointed extracts introduced as examples) existed only in the fertile brains of the authors of this satire on Mr. Rolle (afterwards Lord Rolle), who was elected M.P. for Devon in 1784, in the Tory interest. When The Rolliad first appeared it had a great success, and rapidly ran through many editions, but time has cast into oblivion most of its allusions, and the characters introduced are well nigh forgotten. The Rolliad was written by several authors, and parts have been ascribed to George Ellis, General Fitzpatrick, and Joseph Richardson M.P. Lord Rolle died in 1842.

The Rational Rosciad, in two parts, 1767.

The Rape of the Bucket, an Heroi-Comical Poem by Tassoni, translated with Notes, by J. Atkinson. 1825.

The Scribleriad: an Heroic Poem. In six books. London: R. Dodsley in Pall Mall 1751, quarto, with curious illustrations. This satire was written to ridicule the errors of false taste and false learning, and was pronounced, by a contemporary critic, to be a work of great fancy and poetical elegance. The author, Mr. Richard Owen Cambridge, is highly spoken of by Boswell, in his life of Dr. Johnson.

The much enduring Man, whose curious Soul

Bore him, with ceaseless toil, from pole to pole,

Insatiate, endless knowledge to obtain,

Thro’ woes by land, thro’ dangers on the main,

New woes, new dangers destin’d to engage

By wrathful Saturn’s unrelenting rage,

I sing. * * * * *

The Siliad, or the Siege of the Seats. Beeton’s Christmas Annual, fourteenth season. London. Ward, Lock and Tyler. An Illustrated Political Satire, by the authors of “The Coming K—.” 1873.

Bobilloe’s spleen, to whigs the direful spring

Of votes ungiven, printed pages, sing!

That spleen which made the ballot-boxes tell

Of liberal candidates the funeral knell;

Whose names, dishonoured in the morning sheet,

Devouring scribes and hungry penmen greet:—

Since his bad-tempered way Bobilloe’s showed,

And made ill use of place on him bestowed;

Began to wane men’s confidence and trust

Which, to succeed in warfare, hold chiefs must.

The Spiritual Dunciad; or, Oxford “Tracks” to Popery. A Satire with Notes and Appendix by Robert Dick, M.D., C.M. London, C. Westerton, 1859. This was a bitter attack on the Roman Catholic religion;

If by antiquity, we judge what’s true,

Why halt a Roman? Why not turn a Jew?

Our noble Luther—he did nothing more

Than pristine pureness to Christ’s truth restore,

By ignorance and lies long crusted o’er.

The Tauroboliad; or, the Sacrifice of the Constitution. A Satire. 1831.

The Thespiad; a Poem. 1809.

The Tommiad; a Biographical Fancy, written about the year 1842. London. Anonymous.

The Toriad; a Poem. By Eupolis. London. Wightman & Co., 1837. 18 pp. octavo, Price one shilling.

“War and the Debt I sing-the giant crimes

Of Tories in the good old Tory Times.”

The Triad. By W. Wiekenden, 1855.

The Victoriad; or, New World, an Epic Poem. By E. Carrington. A curious work which the author modestly considered was written in the simple classic style of Dante.

——:o:——

There are many passages in Pope’s writings which might well be spared on account of their indelicacy, yet they are innocent and pure as compared with some of the satires launched at him by his enemies and rivals. The greater number of these are too gross to be republished in a work intended for general readers, as are also the three principal and most amusing parodies of his works.

Pope’s Essay on Man was the subject of a parody, entitled The Essay on Woman; his Eloisa to Abelard was burlesqued in Eloisa en Déshabille; and The Rape of the Lock was parodied in a poem entitled The Rape of the Smock.

183 In an article on John Wilkes published in The Athenæum in 1874, it was stated that the charge against him of having written the infamous Essay upon Woman must now be given up. “It is as clear as is any fact in history, that whoever wrote the Essay, Wilkes, at all events, did not. Wilkes was prosecuted for it, and was convicted, not however for being the author of the poem, but for having published it. All the statements on the trial go to show that the original Essay was printed in red letter, and with a frontispiece, and an engraved title.”

Much has been written about this parody, but its authorship is still shrouded in mystery. In 1763 The Rev. John Kidgell published “A Narrative of a scandalous, obscene, and exceedingly profane libel, entitled An Essay on Woman” to which an answer was printed in the same year. Both of these tracts are in the British Museum. The Essay on Woman has been recently re-published by private subscription, but is still what is called a scarce book.

Eloisa en Déshabille: Being a Parody of Mr. Pope’s celebrated Epistle of that young lady to Abelard. By a late celebrated Greek Professor, dedicated to the Loungers of Great Britain and Ireland. 1810.

This witty but indelicate poem has been generally ascribed to Professor Porson, the famous Greek scholar, who frequently quoted passages from it. But it seems more probable that it was written by Colonel J. Matthews, the brother of the author of “The Diary of an Invalid.”

Immur’d in this prison, so dull and so moping,

Where vows and high walls bar all hopes of eloping;

Where close-grated windows scarce show us the sun,

What means this strange itch in the flesh of a nun?

Why wander my thoughts in the midst of devotion

Why feels my fond heart its long smother’d emotion?

Still, still, love prevails! this unquenchable flame

Blazes fresh at the sight of my Abelard’s name.

* * * * *

The Rape of the Smock. An Heroi-comical Poem. In Two Books. London. R. Burleigh, in Amen Corner. 1717. Price one shilling. With a quaint illustration.

I sing a Virgin’s Smock, the direful cause

Of horrid Bloodshed, and of Breach of Laws;

That Linnen Veil, which pendant Ruffles grace,

Of Indian Muslin, or of Flanders Lace;

Wide stretch’d, and falling down in many a Plait,

From the fair Bosom, to the snowy Feet;

White as the Lilly, or the Skin it hides,

Where charming Nature shines, and Love resides.

Let Ozell sing the Bucket,[45] Pope the Lock,

My daring Muse prefers the Rape of Smock.

* * * * *

This poem, which is by no means difficult to obtain, is generally ascribed to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the friend and correspondent of Pope. The most remarkable feature about it is that it could have been written and published by a lady of rank and fashion.

An Elegy written in an Empty Assembly Room Published (anonymously) by R. & J. Dodsley, London, 1766, was a parody on some of the most remarkable passages in Pope’s Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, but the subject does not inspire interest, and the parody has little humour.

In scenes where Hallet’s genius has combin’d

With Bromwich to amuse and chear the mind;

Amid this Pomp of Cost, this Pride of Art,

What mean these sorrows in a Female Heart?

Ye crowded Walls, whose well enlighten’d Round

With Lover’s Sighs and Protestations sound,

Ye pictures flatter’d by the learn’d and wise,

Ye glasses, ogled by the brightest eyes,

Ye cards, whom Beauties by their touch have blest,

Ye chairs, which Peers and Ministers have prest,

How are ye chang’d! like you my fate I moan,

Like you, alas! neglected and alone—

For ah! to me alone no card is come,

I must not go abroad—and cannot Be at Home.

* * * * *

A French parody of this famous poem by Pope also exists, entitled “Histoire des amours et des infortunes d’Abelard et d’Eloise mise en vers satiré-comi-burlesques,” par M. Armand. Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1724.

From An Essay on Man. Epistle I.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

His soul, proud science never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has given,

Behind the cloud-topp’d hill, an humbler heaven;

Some safer world, in depth of woods embraced,

Some happier island in the watery waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold:

To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

A. Pope.

Lo! the poor toper whose untutor’d sense

Sees bliss in ale, and can with wine dispense,

—But sees, admitted to an equal share,

Each faithful swain the heady portion bear.

From Crabbe’s Inebriety.

A New Reading of Pope.

Lo, the lean Indian, whose bewildered mind

Sees naught of God, either in cloud or wind;

His soul, proud science never taught to stray,

It strayed itself, and now has lost its way.

Simple nature to his hope has given,

Beyond some cloud-capped hill, a sensual heaven,

Some place where science cannot grope its way,

Nor learning cast one single feeble ray;

No whites disturb. No Christian ’stablish laws.

But he can rest while work is done by squaws.

To loaf contents his natural desire;

He asks no angel’s wings to get up higher,

And if he did, no angel from the sky

Would think of taking Lo up very high.

But grant the burden of his Indian song—

Do as he likes, and take his dorg along.

Anonymous.

Another parody of the same passage is given “after a bad dinner” in “Anecdotes, Historical and Literary,” published in London by Vernor and Hood in 1796.

An imitation of Pope’s Universal Prayer will be found on page 115 of The Pleasures of Nature by D. Carey. 1803.

184

A Parody of Achilles’ Speech,

Pope’s Homer, Book I, line 309.

(Occasioned by the author hearing of a Clergyman who, in a violent fit of anger, threw his wig into the fire, and turned his son out of doors.)

“Now by this sacred perriwig I swear,

Which never more shall locks or ringlets bear,

Which never more shall form the smart toupee,

Forced from its parent head,—(as thou from me);

Once ’twas live hair; now form’d by th’ artist’s hand,

It aids the labours of the sacred band;

Adds to the vicar’s brow a decent grace,

And pours a glory round his rev’rend face.

By this I swear, when thou shalt ask again

My doors to enter, thou shalt ask in vain.”

He spoke, and furious with indignant ire

Hurl’d the vast hairy texture on the fire;

Then sternly silent sate—the active flame

Remorseless wastes the soft and tender frame:

Writhed to and fro consumes the tortured hair,

And lost in smoke attenuates to air.

From The Works of Richard Owen Cambridge. London. Cadell and Davies, 1803.

It is sometimes objected to parodies, that they tend to bring into ridicule the finest productions of genius; but this is an imaginary, rather than a real ground of complaint. Who does not admire the Mantuan Poet though Cotton has burlesqued his Æneid? And though the Iliad has been more than once travestied, do we not still dwell with enthusiastic pleasure on every line attributed to Homer? We see therefore no need of apology in submitting to our readers a parody of the following beautiful lines of Pope:—

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,

O’er heaven’s pure azure sheds her sacred light;

When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,

And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene;

Around her throne the vivid planets roll;

And stars unnumber’d gild the glowing pole.

O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,

And tip with silver every mountain’s head;

Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,

A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;

The conscious swains rejoicing in the sight,

Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.

Parody

As when an alderman just dubb’d a knight,

Doth his fat comrades to a feast invite;

His eager hand uplifts the deep tureen,

Beneath whose lid the smoking turtle’s seen;

Around the chair the ready waiters roll,

To fill the plate of every hungry soul.

O’er all the room the grateful odours spread,

And nods with pleasure every civic head;

Then shine their cheeks ne’er ting’d with deeper dyes,

The well made punch stands sparkling ’fore their eyes.

The aldermen rejoicing in the sight

Eye the rich treat, and bless the bounteous knight.

From The British Minerva, printed in Hamburgh, 1818.

In Posthumous Parodies (1814) there is a paraphrase of a passage in Pope’s “Temple of Fame,” it commences thus:

But lo! amidst the oratoric choir,

Six gorgeous columns o’er the rest aspire:

Around the chair itself of fame they stand,

Hold her chief honours, and her house command.

High on the first the son of Chatham shone,

(The British lion couching by his throne,)

Master of speech! His potent eloquence

Seems still to echo on the wond’ring sense:

Anxious, but firm, his lofty look appears,

And young he seems, with all the skill of years.

* * * * *

George Canning, C. J. Fox, R. B. Sheridan, Warren Hastings, Burke and Windham are the other politicians alluded to in this poem.

——:o:——

An Essay on Play.

A——r P——e.

“Who shall decide,” I asked some time ago,

“When doctors disagree?” None seemed to know,

But change one word, and let the question be,

“Who shall decide, when critics disagree?”

We all are critics, not alone the men

Who fail to make a living by their pen.

And though there’s nought,—at least so poets deem,—

“That’s half so sweet in life as love’s young dream,”

There’s nought, I think, for which one so much cares

As talking over other folks’ affairs.

And so we meet with those who sometimes say,

That men have too much work, too little play:

Others assert that men their duties shirk,

Have too much play, and do too little work.

What is the truth? Some men find life full sore,

Work fifteen hours of the twenty-four;

They say that work does nothing else but vex,

And vow the collar’s never off their necks.

Others declare the ancient precept stuff,

And say one day in seven’s not enough;

So half another day is, so to speak,

Transferred from work to pleasure every week,

While now we have, our hard-worked lives to cheer,

Four extra holidays in every year.

Truth is, to neither party should we lean,

But ’twixt them both essay to hit the mean;

Some of hard work get far too large a share,

And ere they’ve learned to live, they die of care.

Some do themselves as well as others too,

And still declare they’ve not enough to do,

Saunter through Life, and vow it is a gem,

And say they’re killing Time, while Time kills them.

II.

Pleasure just now indeed is quite the rage,

No matter sex or station, rank or age.

The child, we know, is tickled with a straw,

The boy is happy with his hoop or taw;

The girl at first with dolls enjoys a span,

But, older grown, the doll becomes a man;

And, in her quest for what can life enhance,

She gives her time to flirting and the dance.

Youth growing up assume a manly tone,

And seem to think the world is all their own,

And while at school imagine they are men,

And take to smoking and to billiards then;

At college, too, of classics seldom speak,

Think more of Cricket than they do of Greek;

185

Rowing and Football take up half their time,

Lawn-tennis too is voted “quite sublime.”

Thus time is spent in learning, it is true,

But not in learning what they ought to do.

Life is a game, so many people say,

And they win easiest who have learned to play.

III.

I’ve said before, and won’t my words forsake,

That “every woman is at heart a rake”;

Perhaps, I may with greater justice say,

Both man and woman dearly love to play.

A curious problem to the world they give:

Some live to play while others play to live;

And this phenomenon is seen to-day,

A whole profession given up to play.

Men its attractions cannot well refuse,

Their P’s neglect, but cultivate their cues;

While ladies, who in Fortune’s favours bask,

Make the pursuit of pleasure quite a task.

For what with concerts, and “four o’clock tea,”

With pictures that they “really ought to see,”

With conversaziones, routs, and balls,

And what so dear to women’s hearts, their “calls,”

With flower shows, and riding in the “Row.”

With dinners, drives, and all that’s “comme il faut,”

Worn out, half dead, when Saturday arrives

They meekly vow they’re tired of their lives,

But wake on Monday morning free from pain,

And vow they’re ready to begin again.

IV.

Then Sunday comes and, it must be confessed,

They wonder how to pass the “Day of Rest.”

Many, with wearied limbs and aching head,

Resolve to spend it cosily in bed;

Some drive to Richmond, if the weather’s fine,

And at the Star and Garter go to dine;

Some, as I’ve said before, to church repair,

“Not for the doctrine but the music there;”

While others, and indeed they’re not a few,

Resolve to spend some hours at the Zoo.

These seem to think Religion is displayed

In noting how their fellow Creature’s made:

They throng the walks, but oft so queerly dressed,

Although ’tis true they wear their “Sunday best,”

That e’en the animals opine, no doubt,

Their relatives have got a “Sunday out.”

The monkeys at each other grin and wink,

And whisper in Ape-language, “missing link!”

The grissly bear himself, with outstretched claw

Politely asks a passer for “his paw;”

The loving seal oft thinks he sees his kin,

But quite as often finds he’s taken in,

For now-a-days folks do not seem to feel

That seal-skin jackets are not always seal.

They see the lions feed, which call to mind

The fact that they themselves have not yet dined;

So home to dine, and pass with mis-timed jest

The rest of Sunday, not the Sunday’s rest,

Well-satisfied, howe’er, to feel and know

They’ve shown themselves, as well as seen the show.

A. W. Mackenzie. (Author of “The Idylls of the Rink.”)

From Pastime September 28, 1883.

Pope’s prologue to Addison’s tragedy of Cato is justly considered one of the finest prologues in the language. The following parody of it is taken from a little tract entitled “A Succinct Description of that Elaborate Pile of Art, called the Microcosm. With a short account of the Solar System.” Coventry. Printed for the Proprietor Mr. Edward Davis, 1763. The Microcosm was constructed by Mr. Henry Bridges of Waltham Abbey, architect, it was in the form of a Roman Temple, ten feet high by six feet broad in the basis, and was designed to give the spectator instruction in architecture, sculpture and astronomy.

“The following parody (on Pope’s prologue to Cato) was addressed to Mr. Henry Bridges, constructor of that elaborate piece of mechanism. The Microcosm, by Dr. Burton, of Yarmouth.”

To sooth the Soul by tender Strokes of art,

To raise the Genius and to rouse the Heart,

To make Mankind by Harmony elate,

Soften the Breast and banish direful Hate,

The ruffled Passions potent to asswage,

To conquer Fear and to enervate Rage,

Was music’s Power, by Orpheus first ordain’d;

Fierce Beasts were tam’d, and fiercer Tyrants Chain’d.

Th’ enchanting Sounds through their whole Fabrick crept,

And Savage Mortals wonder’d why they wept.

Our Artist shuns by vulgar Springs to move

His mimic Race below, or Orbs above,

Here Pleasure flows from Scientific Cause,

Whilst Ingenuity extorts applause:

He bids your breast with Emulation rise,

And tho’ you’re e’er so learn’d, e’er so wise,

By Arts Mechanick you will here be taught

More than Rome knew, or Grecian Sages thought.

Those Objects to your Senses he displays,

Which the Spectator of our Globe surveys;

The various Movements and the changing State.

Of Beings active and inanimate.

Whilst Bridges gives his Microcosm Laws,

What Bosom beats not in Invention’s Cause?

Who sees him work, but envies every Deed?

Who hears him lecture hears e’en Newton read.

Britons attend, be Worth like his approv’d,

And shew you have the Virtue to be mov’d.

With honest Scorn our wond’rous Artist view’d

Meer Machinations on the World obtrude:

French and Italian Puppets pleas’d too long,

And British sense was barter’d for a Song.

Dare to invent yourselves, to Fame aspire,

Be justly warm’d with your own native Fire.

Bridges! those Sounds must ravish every Ear,

Which Handel’s Self did not disdain to hear.

The Rape of the Cake.

A COVENT-GARDEN ECLOQUE.

Inscribed to the Musical Band of Covent-garden theatre, on account of the recent theft of their twelfth-cake.

“Quid Rapuisti?”

The night was dark! fast clos’d the plunderer’s hand!

And idle Jehu’s slept upon the stand!

The lone Piazza, erst the gay resort

Of flash and fun, and meritricious sport,

Then only echo’d to th’ unvarying sound

Of drowsy watchmen, pacing their dull round,

Kiddies no more at Glue or Brilliant sup,

And e’en the far-fam’d Finish was done up.

All rest in sleep! save—those who were awake—

The wicked wags who stole the fiddlers’ cake.

186

Not in more silence did Ulysses tread,

When he relentless struck king Rhesus dead;

Not with more caution did the invading Gaul

Attempt to storm the Capitolian wall;

Not with more care did valorous Smith advance

To burn the navy of insulting France;

Not with more ease did Belcher beat poor Burke,

Then those vile plunderers did the dreadful work!!!

But say, my muse, what prodigies appear’d?

The rain fast pour’d, and horrid screams were heard!

Loud thunder shook the gay theatric pile,

And Kemble first relax’d into a smile!

The theft announc’d, the band were in dismay,

And nought were heard, but ‘Oh!’ and ‘Well-a-day!’

The leader Ware, with anger in his soul,

While his limbs tremble, and his eyeballs roll,

“D—n!” cried, “this insults too imposing,

Shall we bear this, ye scraping sons of Rosin?”

The puffy Parke, who never was a starter,

Said, “In this cause I wish to die a Martyr!”

Hawtin, with face inflated like a crumpet,

“Lord bless us,” said, and dropp’d his brazen trumpet.

And smirking Davy, with his powder’d pate,

Plump’d snug upon his seat and grinn’d in state.

While feeble Woodcock let his anger loose,

And fix’d the theft on harmless Mother Goose!!!

But say, my muse, and then I’ll cry farewell!

Who stole the cake?—“Indeed I cannot tell!

And this I swear, in accents strong and slow,

I cannot tell!—because I do not know!”

A volume of poems by T. Flatman, published in 1674, contains a poem entitled A Thought on Death from which Pope must have borrowed his ode “The Dying Christian to his Soul:”—

“Vital spark of heavenly flame!

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!

Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying

Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!”

* * * * *

“Hark! they whisper; angels say,

Sister spirit, come away!”

So far Pope, compare Flatman:—

“When on my sick bed I languish,

Full of sorrow, full of anguish—

Fainting, grasping, trembling, crying,

Panting, groaning, speechless, dying.”

* * * * *

“Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,

Be not fearful—come away!”

Pope was the author of numerous imitations of other Poets, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Waller, Abraham Cowley, the Earl of Rochester, the Earl of Dorset, and Dean Swift. The poem in imitation of Chaucer is somewhat coarse, that after Dr. Swift will be quoted later on, under that author’s name.

COLIN’S COMPLAINT.

Nicholas Rowe, Born 1673, Died 1718.

Poet Laureate 1715 to 1718.

Despairing beside a clear stream,

A shepherd forsaken was laid;

And while a false nymph was his theme.

A willow supported his head:

The wind that blew over the plain,

To his sighs with a sigh did reply,

And the brook, in return to his pain,

Ran mournfully murmuring by.

Alas! silly swain that I was,

Thus sadly complaining, he cried;

When first I beheld that fair face,

’Twere better by far I had died:

She talk’d, and I bless’d her dear tongue;

When she smil’d, ’twas a pleasure too great;

I listen’d and cry’d when she sung,

Was nightingale ever so sweet!

How foolish was I to believe

She could doat on so lowly a clown,

Or that her fond heart would not grieve,

To forsake the fine folk of the town:

To think that a beauty so gay,

So kind and so constant would prove,

Or go clad like our maidens in grey,

Or live in a cottage on love?

What though I have skill to complain,

Tho’ the muses my temples have crown’d;

What tho’ when they hear my soft strain,

The virgins sit weeping around?

Ah, Colin! thy hopes are in vain,

Thy pipe and thy laurel resign,

Thy false one inclines to a swain,

Whose music is sweeter than thine.

All you, my companions so dear,

Who sorrow to see me betray’d,

Whatever I suffer, forbear,

Forbear to accuse the false maid.

Tho’ thro’ the wide world I should range,

’Tis in vain for my fortune to fly,

’Twas her’s to be false and to change,—

’Tis mine to be constant and die.

If while my hard fate I sustain,

In her breast any pity is found,

Let her come with the nymphs of the plain,

And see me laid low in the ground:

The last humble boon that I crave,

Is to shade me with cypress and yew

And when she looks down on my grave

Let her own that her shepherd was true.

Then to her new love let her go,

And deck her in golden array;

Be finest at every fine show,

And frolic it all the long day:

While Colin, forgotten and gone,

No more shall be talked of or seen,

Unless when beneath the pale moon,

His ghost shall glide over the green.

Nicholas Rowe wrote several tragedies and some poems, but the above is almost the only specimen which has any life in it. A Latin version, entitled “Corydon Querens” will be found in Vincent Bourne’s works.

187

A Parody.

(Ascribed to George Canning.)

By the side of a murmuring stream

An elderly gentleman sat;

On the top of his head was his wig,

On the top of his wig was his hat.

The wind it blew high and blew strong

Where this elderly gentleman sat,

And took from his head in a trice,

And plunged in the river his hat.

The gentleman then took his cane,

Which lay by his side as he sat,

But he dropp’d in the river his wig

In attempting to get out his hat.

And now in the depth of despair,

Though still from the place where he sat,

He flung in the river his cane,

To swim with his wig and his hat.

But cooler reflection at length,

As this elderly gentleman sat,

Said “Jump up and follow the stream,

And look for your wig and your hat.”

But, alas for the thought! for so soon

As he rose from the place where he sat,

He slipp’d and fell plump over head,

To swim with his wig and his hat.

Bow Bells.

At the brink of a murmuring brook

A contemplative Cockney reclined;

And his face wore a sad sort of look,

As if care were at work on his mind.

He sigh’d now and then as we sigh

When the heart with soft sentiments wells;

And a tear came and moisten’d each eye

As he mournfully thought of Bow Bells.

I am monarch of all I survey!

(Thus he vented his feelings in words)—

But my kingdom, it grieves me to say,

Is inhabited chiefly by birds.

In this brook that flows lazily by

I believe that one tittlebat dwells,

For I saw something jump at a fly

As I lay here and long’d for Bow Bells.

I am partial to trees, as a rule;

And the rose is a beautiful flower.

(Yes, I once read a ballad at school

Of a rose that was wash’d in a shower.)

But, although I may doat on the rose,

I can scarcely believe that it smells

Quite so sweet in the bed where it grows

As when sold within sound of Bow Bells.

No; I’ve tried it in vain once or twice,

And I’ve thoroughly made up my mind

That the country is all very nice—

But I’d much rather mix with my kind.

Yes; to-day—if I meet with a train—

I will fly from these hills and these dells;

And to-night I will sleep once again

(Happy thought!) within sound of Bow Bells.

From Carols of Cockayne, by Henry S. Leigh. London, Chatto and Windus, 1874.

LORD LYTTLETON.

A Burlesque Ode by Tobias Smollett.

Lord Lyttleton was not only the patron of poets, but was also a minor poet himself. He married, in 1741, Miss Lucy Fortescue, whose death five years afterwards gave him a theme for a monody which contained the following lines:—

In vain I look around

O’er all the well-known ground,

My Lucy’s wonted footsteps to descry;

Where oft we used to walk,

Where oft in tender talk

We saw the summer sun go down the sky;

Nor by yon fountain’s side,

Nor where its waters glide

Along the valley, can she now be found:

In all the wide-stretched prospect’s ample bound,

No more my mournful eye

Can aught of her espy,

But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns,

Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns,

By your delighted mother’s side:

Who now your infant steps shall guide?

* * * * *

Smollett, who considered that his merits had been neglected by Lord Lyttleton, wrote the following parody on this monody:—

Where wast thou, wittol Ward, when hapless fate,

From these weak arms mine aged grannam tore:

These pious arms essay’d too late,

To drive the dismal phantom from the door.

Could not thy healing drop, illustrious Quack,

Could not thy salutary pill prolong her days;

For whom, so oft, to Marybone, alack!

Thy sorrels dragg’d thee, thro’ the worst of ways!

Oil-dropping Twick’nham did not then detain

Thy steps, tho’ tended by the Cambrian maids;

Nor the sweet environs of Drury Lane;

Nor dusty Pimlico’s embow’ring shades;

Nor Whitehall, by the river’s bank,

Beset with rowers dank

Nor where th’ Exchange pours forth its tawny sons;

Nor where to mix with offal, soil and blood,

Steep Snow Hill rolls the sable flood;

Nor where the Mint’s contaminated kennel runs;

Ill doth it now beseem,

That thou should’st doze and dream,

When death in mortal armour came,

And struck with ruthless dart the gentle dame.

Her lib’ral hand and sympathising breast,

The brute creation kindly bless’d:

Where’er she trod grimalkin purr’d around,

The squeaking pigs her bounty own’d;

Nor to the waddling duck or gabbling goose,

Did she glad sustenance refuse;

The strutting cock she daily fed,

And turkey with his snout so red;

Of chickens careful as the pious hen,

Nor did she overlook the tomtit or the wren;

While redbreast hopp’d before her in the hall,

As if the common mother of them all.

188

For my distracted mind;

What comfort can I find;

O best of grannams! thou art dead and gone,

And I am left behind to weep and moan,

To sing thy dirge in sad funereal lay,

Oh! woe is me! alack! and well-a-day!

——:o:——

It is not that my Lot is Low.

(After Henry Kirke White.)

It is not that my “place” was low,

That bids my foolish tear to flow;

It is not that that makes me moan,

But ’tis, that all my money’s gone.

Thro’ slummy back-streets now I roam,

Whene’er I venture out from home;

To luckier souls I leave the rest,

The streets that once I knew the best.

Yet when the plates, of varied size,

With hunger-stirring symphonies

Resound, I think—“A nice grilled bone!”

And sigh that all my money’s gone.

My friends now pass me, cut me dead;

I’m only happy when in bed;

I cannot get more “whisker-dye”

Without committing felony.

My creditors, with angry wail,

Tell all the same relentless tale.

I’ve none to smile with, or make free

Or, when I want it, lend to me

Yet in my dreams a cheque I view,

That’s meant for me—a large one too.

I start, and when the vision’s flown,

I weep that all my money’s gone.

From The Lays of the Mocking Sprite. Cambridge. W. Metcalfe & Sons.

——:o:——

ODE,

(In the Manner of Dr. Samuel Johnson.)

Addressed to a Girl in the Temple, 1777.

While the calescent, sanguine flood,

By vile Vulgarity call’d Blood,

Pervades this mortal frame;

Amaz’d at your translucid charms,

You I solicit to these arms,

Tho’ of procacious name!

When in your dim nocturnal rounds,

Erratic from the Temple’s bounds

Thro’ devious lanes you stray;

With friendly auscultation deign

To audit amatorial pain

Subvected in this lay.

Satellite of the Paphian dame,

Whose rays, tho’ darken’d by thy fame,

Illuminate my mind:

Desert the street, resume the plain,

Rejoin your derelicted swain—

Be prudent, as you’re kind.

My brows, obumbrated with age,

Hang scowling o’er life’s latter-page—

But you, like Lunar beam,

Thro’ my nimbosity arise;

Dispensing, from your lucid eyes,

Refocillating gleam.

From The Wiccamical Chaplet. Edited by George Huddesford. London, Leigh, Sotheby & Son, 1804.

Dr. Johnson wrote the following lines as a skit on the style of Dr. Warton, then Poet-Laureate:—

Hermit hoar, in solemn cell

Wearing out life’s evening grey;

Strike thy bosom sage, and tell

What is bliss, and which the way.

Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed,

Scarce repress’d the starting tear,

When the hoary sage replied,

“Come, my lad, and drink some beer.”

Imitation of the Above.

“Crested warrior, on whose helm

Nodding plumes encircling bind,

Tell me in what happy realm

Valour such as thine to find?”

Thus I said, and envious sighed.

He, who ne’er from battle run,

The mighty warrior, eager cried,—

“Show me how to hold my gun!”

Dr. Johnson wrote the Prologue for the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, in 1747, which was spoken by David Garrick, it commenced with the well known lines:—

“When Learning’s triumph o’er her barbarous foes

First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;

Each change of many colour’d life he drew,

Exhausted Worlds, and then imagined new:

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,

And panting time toil’d after him in vain,”

* * * * *

This was the subject of a political parody in Posthumous Parodies (London, 1814) of which it is only necessary to quote a few lines:—

When Europe’s peril from her Gallic foes

First roused the age, immortal Pitt arose,

Each plot of many colour’d France o’erthrew,

Saved the old world, and overawed the new.

Commerce beheld him stretch her golden reign,

And jealous Whigs toil’d after him in vain:

His lofty thoughts his lofty phrase impress’d,

And admiration throbb’d in ev’ry breast.

* * * * *

189

EDMUND SPENSER.

Born 1553. | Died January 16, 1599.

Appointed Poet-Laureate 1590.

Although there are not many parodies extant of Spenser’s poetry, yet the beautiful metre which he invented, and used with such success in The Faerie Queene, has been since imitated, or adopted by many of our leading poets. This will be seen by the following list of works, written in the Spenserian stanza, which has been compiled with great care, by Mr. Jonathan Bouchier, of Ropley.

Allan’s ‘Bridal of Caolchaiarn’ and ‘Last Deer of Brenn Doran’ (or Dran).
Beattie’s ‘Minstrel.’
Bedingfield ‘The Education of Achilles.’
William Lisle Bowles ‘Childe Harold’s Last Pilgrimage,’ six stanzas.
Burns’s ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night.’
W. C. Bryant ‘The Ages.’
Byron’s ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’
Campbell’s ‘Gertrude of Wyoming.’
Campbell’s ‘Chaucer and Windsor.’
Cooper’s ‘Purgatory of Suicides.’
Edward’s ‘Tour of the Dove.’
Hood’s ‘Irish Schoolmaster.’
Howitt’s ‘Desolation of Eyam.’
Keats’s ‘Imitation of Spenser’ (his first, or nearly his first verses).
Keats’s ‘Eve of St. Agnes.’
Keats’s ‘The Cap and Bells.’
Keble’s ‘Mourners following the Cross.’
William Julius Mickle ‘The Concubine’ (title afterwards altered to ‘Sir Martyne’), a poem in two cantos.
Neale’s ‘Edom.’
Read’s (American) ‘New Village.’
Miss Frances Rolleston, ‘The Pilgrimage of Harmonia,’ 1874.
Sir W. Scott, Fitztraver’s Song in ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ canto vi.
‘Vision of Don Roderick,’ and introductory stanzas to each canto of the ‘Lady of the Lake,’ and the ‘Lord of the Isles.’
Shelley’s ‘Revolt of Islam’ (sometimes called ‘Laon and Cythna’), and ‘Adonais.’
Shenstone’s ‘Schoolmistress.’
Smith, Alexander ‘Lady Barbara.’
Edmund Neale Smith, obiit 1710: ‘Thales: a Monody, sacred to the memory of Dr. Pococke. In imitation of Spenser.’—First published in 1751, forty years after Smith’s death.
‘Psyche, or the Great Metamorphosis’ (query author), in Dodsley’s ‘Collection of Poems by Several Hands,’ ed. 1775, vol. iii.
Southey ‘A Tale of Paraguay.’
Tennyson’s ‘Lotos-Eaters’ (introduction).
Thomson’s ‘Castle of Indolence.’
Mrs. Tighe’s ‘Psyche.’
Walker, William Sidney: ‘Wandering Thoughts.’
West, Gilbert ‘Education’ and ‘On the Abuse of Travelling.’
White, Kirke ‘Christiad.’
Wiffen’s Translation of Tasso’s ‘Jerusalem Delivered.’
Isaac William’s, ‘Rule of Faith’ (‘Lyra Apostolica’).
Wilson’s ‘Children’s Dance’ and ‘Scholar’s Funeral.’
Wordsworth’s ‘Guilt and Sorrow,’ an imitation of Thomson, written in 1802.
Worsley’s Homer’s ‘Iliad.’
Worsley’s Homer’s ‘Odyssey.’

The Alley.

(A Burlesque imitation of Spenser.)

In every town, where Thamis rolls his tyde,

A narrow pass there is, with houses low;

Where, ever and anon, the stream is eyed,

And many a boat soft sliding to and fro.

There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,

The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall:

How can ye, mothers, vex your children so?

Some play, some eat, some lean against the wall,

And as they crouchen low, for bread and butter call.

And on the broken pavement, here and there,

Doth many a stinking sprat and herring lie:

A brandy and tobacco shop is near,

And hens, and hogs, and dogs are feeding by;

And here a sailor’s jacket hangs to dry.

At every door are sun-burnt matrons seen,

Mending old nets to catch the scaly fry;

Now singing shrill, and scolding oft between;

Scolds answer foul-mouth’d scolds; bad neighbourhood I ween.

The snappish cur (the passengers’ annoy)

Close at my heel with yelping treble flies;

The whimpering girl, and hoarser-screaming boy,

Join to the yelping treble, shrilling cries;

The scolding quean to louder notes doth rise,

And her full pipes those shrilling cries confound;

To her full pipes the grunting hog replies;

The grunting hogs alarm the neighbours round,

And curs, girls, boys, and scolds, in the deep bass are drown’d.

Hard by a sty, beneath a roof of thatch,

Dwelt Obloquy, who in her early days

Baskets of fish at Billingsgate did watch,

Cod, Whiting, oyster, mackarel, sprat or plaice;

There learn’d the speech from tongues that never cease.

Slander beside her, like a magpie, chatters,

With Envy, (spitting cat) dread foe to peace;

Like a cursed cur, Malice before her clatters,

And vexing every wight, tears clothes and all to tatters.

(One very coarse verse omitted.)

Such place hath Deptford, navy-building town,

Woolwich and Wapping, smelling strong of pitch;

Such Lambeth, envy of each band and gown,

And Twickenham such, which fairer scenes enrich,

Grots, statues, urns, and John’s dog and bitch,

Ne village is without, on either side,

All up the silver Thames, or all adown;

Ne Richmond’s self, from whose tall front are eyed

Vales, spires, meandering streams, and Windsor’s towery pride.

Alexander Pope.

The Holidayer.

The sportive swain in Sunday clothes is dressed,

And struts he proudly, head high held in air;

His sweetheart, who’s with charms like his impressed,

Thinketh, perdie, ‘Are we not both all there’?

190

Nor lacketh she adornment’s artful aid,

But with enticements rare is she yclout;

My pen, I ween, would fail describe the maid,

But she with practised skill is trickéd out,

And that she pleaseth Lubin fair Chloe doth not doubt.

From train and chaise they run to where the sands

Invite the lovers—many joys be there.

They foot it to the strains of German bands,

And at time-honoured Punch and Judy stare.

The wheedling portrait-taker catcheth them,

Their likeness taketh, and their cash also;

The wily boatman useth stratagem,

And out upon the billows they do go—

Not soon will they forget what followeth, I trow.

Then viands meet for holiday they buy—

Pork pies, fresh “natives,” sausages, cold beef—

And as, forsooth, such cakes make folk’s mouth dry,

The flowing cans do furnish much relief.

At length the railway bell doth loudly ring,

To tell them they no longer mote there stay;

They crowd in train, they songs again do sing,

As from the festive scene they go away.

When morrow cometh—ah, that dreadful holiday!

Funny Folks, June 12, 1886.

The following is the title of a small book written in imitation of Spenser’s style:—

“An original Canto of Spencer (sic): Designed as part of his Fairy Queen, but never Printed.”—Now made Publick by Nestor Ironside Esq.—The Second Edition. London. Printed for James Roberts, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, MDCCXIV.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

Born, 1667. | Died, October 29, 1745.

The State-Coach.

(In Imitation of the Manner of Dr. Swift.)

Once on a time a grand lord-may’r

(No matter when, no matter where)

Kept a huge pompous coach of state,

Of most enormous bulk and weight;

And on the times of public joy,

To wheel about the pond’rous toy,

He kept besides a noble string

Of horses, fit to draw a king;

All of high blood, all beasts of breeding,

But vicious from excess of feeding;

Of course, intractable and heady,

Yet in one point perversely steady,

Viz., each good steed was true and hearty

To his own interest and his party;

Nay, this curs’d spirit hast possest

To such degree each sturdy beast,

That not a single chuff would move

From threats or soothing, fear or love,

Unless in partnership he drew

With those of his confed’rate crew,

Though thus the clumsy and the clever,

Ill-pair’d oft hobbled on together.

Hence when the coach was order’d out,

Buck would refuse to match with Stout,

At least one inch would not proceed

Unless impetuous Di’mond led,

Who when of late our grand premier,

And then uncheck’d in his career,

While he tugg’d on the vast machine

O’er rough and smooth, through thick and thin,

Would often with their rapid turn

Make the wheels creak and axle burn;

Yet give the haughty devil his due,

Though bold his quarterings, they were true:

Yes, let us not his skill disparage,

He never once o’erset the carriage,

Though oft he whirl’d it, one would think,

Just o’er the pitfall’s headlong brink;

While at each hair-breadth ’scape, his foes

Would cry, there, there, by G—d, it goes!

And as stiff Buck would ne’er submit

But on these terms to champ the bit,

Stout in return was full as sullen,

Nor the same harness would he pull in,

Unless by cautious Duke preceded,

Or by pacific Sawney headed:

The body-coachman, hence unable

To rule the refractory stable,

Was forc’d to leave the saucy brutes

To terminate their own disputes;

And when they deign’d to wear the traces,

Chuse their own partners and their places;

But, tir’d themselves with these distractions,

Resolv’d at last the several factions

(For in their anger all had wit)

Some terms of union to admit,

Which, that more firmly they might bind,

Drawn in this form by all were sign’d:

We the contracting steeds, (exprest

Here was the name of each prime beast,

As Di’mond, Sawney, Duke) however

Determined not to work together,

Yet by these presents are agreed

Together peaceably to feed:

On this account then (work or play)

Let each receive his ’custom’d pay;

Confirm we by concurring votes

To each his daily peck of oats:

Besides, omit we by no means

Proportion’d quantities of beans;

Nor yet warm mashes when we chuse ’em,

Nor Bracken’s balls when pleas’d to use ’em;

For as ’tis likely from full feeding,

At times, diseases may be breeding,

’Tis right for ev’ry horse that is sick,

Who finds the food should find the physic.

These previous articles now clos’d,

Here prudent Di’mond interpos’d,

Long fam’d for his contempt of pelf,

And views which center’d not in self,

“How chang’d at present!” (or no more

Wears he that mask which once he wore.)

Quoth he (wrapp’d round with many a clout

His greasy heels, the horses gout)

“Snug now ourselves and our dependants,

Shall we neglect our dear descendants?

Nay e’en from Scripture we should learn

For our own households due concern;

Lest we incur then, to our shame,

Of infidels th’ accursed name.

Provide we next (if such your will is)

191

For all your present colts and fillies;

No matter, tho’ for this supply

We drain our master’s coffers dry:

Stretch we the grant too, if ye please,

E’en to the future colts of these;

Then to their coltlings in entail,

’Till issue of such issue fail:

Well, bullies, are you all content?”

Each steed here snorted his assent;

And now adjusted their pretensions,

And thus secur’d their long-breath’d pensions,

Like porkers fattening in the sty,

On their fat sides at ease they lie;

Uplitter’d to their ears in straw,

Yet not a single beast will draw.

Dogs! to reduce you all to reason,

I wish, at least, for some short season,

That in your present master’s stead,

Too meek to tame so rough a breed,

Too mild to curb your factious spirit,

Too good to treat ye as ye merit,

Stern boisterous Cromwell from the dead,

Or bluff old Hal would lift his head,

That I might see you bound and skip

Beneath their disciplining whip;

That I might see your pamper’d hides

Flogg’d, ’till from out your furrow’d sides

Spun, in each part, the sizy blood,

Too rich from sloth and copious food;

That thus let out at all these sluices,

It may purge off its vicious juices;

While I should hear you, at each jerk,

Cry, “Lash no more, we’ll work, we’ll work.”

From The Foundling Hospital for Wit, Vol. IV. 1786.

The Happy Life of a Country Parson.

(In Imitation of Dean Swift.)

Parson, these things in thy possessing

Are better than the bishop’s blessing.

A wife that makes conserves; a steed

That carries double when there’s need;

October store, and best Virginia,

Tithe-pig, and mortuary guinea;

Gazettes sent gratis down, and frank’d;

For which thy patron’s weekly thank’d;

A large Concordance, bound long since;

Sermons to Charles the First, when Prince;

A chronicle of ancient standing;

A Chrysostom to smooth thy band in;

The Polyglott—three parts,—my text:

Howbeit,—likewise—now to my next:

Lo here the Septuagint,—and Paul,

To sum the whole,—the close of all.

He that has these, may pass his life,

Drink with the Squire, and kiss his wife;

On Sundays preach, and eat his fill;

And fast on Fridays—if he will;

Toast Church and Queen, explain the news,

Talk with churchwardens about pews,

Pray heartily for some new gift,

And shake his head at Doctor Swift.

Alexander Pope.

In the works of Oliver Goldsmith two poetical imitations of Dean Swift appear, one is entitled “A new Simile in the Manner of Swift,” the other, and the more amusing, is given below.

The Logicians Refuted.

Logicians have but ill defin’d,

As rational the human mind;

Reason, they say, belongs to man,

But let them prove it if they can.

Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,

By ratiocinations specious,

Have strove to prove with great precision,

With definition and division,

Homo est ratione preditum;

But for my soul I cannot credit ’em.

And must in spite of them maintain,

That man and all his ways are vain;

And that this boasted lord of nature

Is both a weak and erring creature.

That instinct is a surer guide,

Than reason, boasting mortal’s pride;

And that brute beasts are far before ’em,

Deus est anima brutorum.

Who ever knew an honest brute

At law his neighbour prosecute,

Bring action for assault and battery,

Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?

O’er plains they ramble unconfin’d,

No politics disturb the mind;

They eat their meals, and take their sport,

Nor know who’s in or out at court;

They never to the levee go

To treat as dearest friend, a foe;

They never importune his Grace,

Nor ever cringe to men in place;

Nor undertake a dirty job,

Nor draw the quill to write for Bob;

Fraught with invective they ne’er go

To folks at Pater-Noster Row:

No judges, fiddlers, dancing masters,

No pickpockets, or poetasters,

Are known to honest quadrupeds,

No single brute his fellows leads.

Brutes never meet in bloody fray,

Nor cut each other’s throats for pay.

Of beasts, it is confess’d, the ape

Comes nearest us in human shape.

Like man he imitates each fashion,

And malice is his ruling passion;

But both in malice and grimaces,

A courtier any ape surpasses.

Behold him humbly cringing wait

Upon the minister of state;

View him soon after to inferiors

Aping the conduct of superiors:

He promises with equal air,

And to perform takes equal care.

He in his turn finds imitators,

At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,

Their master’s manners still contract,

And footmen, lords, and dukes can act,

Thus at the court both great and small,

Behave alike, for all ape all.

Oliver Goldsmith.

192

JAMES BROWN.

(“Baron” Brown, the Durham Poet.)

Hone’s Every Day Book, (Vol. II, p. 1218) contains a record of the career, and a portrait of this eccentric individual, who lived in Newcastle-on-Tyne during the first quarter of the present century, when he published a series of extraordinary writings which he considered Poems, and assumed the title of Poet-Laureate. Brown was known to be inordinately vain, and many letters were sent him purporting to come from the leading poets and authors of the day. All of these he believed to be genuine, and would show them to his friends, (who were frequently the real authors) with much pride. These letters, which were chiefly in verse, were produced by the law and medical students of Durham and Newcastle, and of the Catholic College of Ushaw. In 1821, Brown received a large parchment signed G.R. attested by Messrs. Canning and Peel, to which was suspended a large unmeaning seal, which he believed to be the great seal of Great Britain, conferring upon him the title of Baron Brown of Durham, in the County Palatine of Durham, in consequence of a translation of his works having been the means of converting the Mogul empire. From that moment he assumed the name and style of “Baron Brown,” and had a wooden box made for the preservation of his patent. Of the poems that were sent to him only the following fragments have been preserved:—

The first is an imitation of Wilson’s Isle of Palms.

Poetic dreams float round me now,

My spirit where art thou?

Oh! art thou watching the moonbeams smile

In the groves of palm in an Indian isle;

Or dost thou hang over the lovely main

And list to the boatswain’s boisterous strain;

Or dost thou sail on sylphid wings

Through liquid fields of air,

Or, riding on the clouds afar,

Dost thou gaze on the beams of the evening star

So beautiful and so fair.

Oh no! oh no! sweet spirit of mine

Thou art entering a holy strain divine

A strain which is so sweet,

Oh! one might think ’twas a fairy thing,

A thing of love and blessedness,

Singing in holy tenderness,

A lay of peaceful quietness,

Within a fairy street!

But ah! ’tis Brown. &c., &c.

The next was supposed to be written by Sir Walter Scott. (Lady of the Lake.)

The heath-cock shrill his clarion blew

Among the heights of Benvenue,

And fast the sportive echo flew,

Adown Glenavin’s vale.

But louder, louder was the knell,

Of Brown’s Northumbrian penance-bell,[46]

The noise was heard on Norham fell,

And rung through Teviotdale.

There was also a respectable burlesque of The Ancient Mariner, commencing:—

“It is a lion’s trumpeter,

And he stoppeth one of three.”

It is a pity that only these few extracts were preserved by Mr. John Sykes in his “Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events,” 1824.

The Bishop’s Wish.

(After Robert Bloomfield.)

Be mine a modest pension clear

Of just six thousand pounds a-year;

And to complete my humble lot,

Give Fulham Palace for my cot.

Let me enjoy a quiet life,

Away from controversial strife;

My daily meal should ne’er disturb

My tranquil mind! for meat or herb,

Or fish or fowl, I ne’er would look,

But leave it to my foreign cook.

My drink—I ask no better sort,

A bin of six-and-twenty port;

With now and then, to warm my veins,

Some Burgundy or brisk Champagnes.

Of cash I need no large amount,

But at the Bank a good account,

On which—(my tradesmen not to vex)—

To draw from time to time my cheques.

My simple wishes thus supplied,

I into privacy will glide;

My Bishop’s mitre I’ll resign,

And calm contentment shall be mine,

If they will only give me clear

For life—six thousand pounds a-year.

Punch. August 9, 1856.

The Pot-Boy.

Let poets sing the high-flown praise

Of shepherds and of rural joys,

Whilst I direct my humbler lays

To town, its bustle and its noise.

The Pot-boy’s joys shall be my theme,

Nor shall a barren subject be,

When rising from some lightsome dream,

Whitechapel streets he treads with glee.

Bliss is not always join’d to wealth,

Nor dwells beneath the gilded roof;

For poverty is bliss with health,

Of that my Pot-boy stands a proof.

See him with steady footsteps here,

How straight he bears the brimful jug,

And sips with thirsty lips the beer,

Which high o’ertops the pewter mug.

When night resumes her gloomy sway,

The object of his fond desire;

How happy then he’ll sport and play,

Around the blazing kitchen fire.

Then to beguile away the time,

He tells the kitchen nymphs his tale;

His left hand bears some doggrel rhyme,

And in his right—a pot of ale.

And hard must be that kitchen fair,

Who could his am’rous tale neglect;

And often Moll or Jenny dare,

For him some stouter swain reject.

Then weary to his garret hies,

Or if perchance the beds be spare,

Upon the straw he’ll close his eyes,

And sleep with Dapple or the mare.

These lines were written in August, 1808, by Connop 193 Thirlwall, a precocious youth of eleven years of age, on the occasion of receiving the present of a copy of Bloomfield’s poem, “The Plough Boy.” The little work from which “The Pot-boy” is extracted, is entitled “Primitiæ; or Essays and Poems,” by Connop Thirlwall, with a preface by his father, the Rev, Thomas Thirlwall, M.A., who asserts that these Essays and Poems were entirely composed by his son before he was eleven years of age, a statement which requires considerable credulity from the reader.

JOHN KEATS.

Born Oct. 29, 1796. | Died Dec. 27, 1820.

Who kill’d John Keats?

“I” says the Quarterly,

So savage and Tartarly;

“’Twas one of my feats.”

Who shot the arrow?

“The poet-priest Milman

(So ready to kill man),

Or Southey, or Barrow.”

Lord Byron. July, 1821.

The following imitation of two Odes by John Keats is taken from The Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor:—

Ode on a Jar of Pickles.

A sweet, acidulous, down-reaching thrill

Pervades my sense: I seem to see or hear

The lushy garden-grounds of Greenwich Hill

In autumn, when the crispy leaves are sere:

And odours haunt me of remotest spice

From the Levant or musky-aired Cathay,

Or from the saffron-fields of Jericho,

Where everything is nice:

The more I sniff, the more I swoon away,

And what else mortal palate craves, forego.

II.

Odours unsmelled are keen, but those I smell

Are keener; wherefore let me sniff again!

Enticing walnuts, I have known ye well

In youth, when pickles were a passing pain;

Unwitting youth, that craves the candy stem,

And sugar-plums to olives doth prefer,

And even licks the pots of marmalade

When sweetness clings to them:

But now I dream of ambergris and myrrh,

Tasting these walnuts in the poplar shade.

III.

Lo! hoarded coolness in the heart of noon,

Plucked with its dew, the cucumber is here,

As to the Dryad’s parching lips a boon,

And crescent bean-pods, unto Bacchus dear;

And, last of all, the pepper’s pungent globe,

The scarlet dwelling of the sylph of fire,

Provoking purple draughts; and, surfeited,

I cast my trailing robe

O’er my pale feet, touch up my tuneless lyre,

And twist the Delphic wreath to suit my head.

IV.

Here shall my tongue in other wise be soured

Than fretful men’s in parched and palsied days;

And, by the mid-May’s dusky leaves embowered,

Forget the fruitful blame, the scanty praise.

No sweets to them who sweet themselves were born,

Whose natures ooze with lucent saccharine;

Who, with sad repetition soothly cloyed,

The lemon-tinted morn

Enjoy, and find acetic twilight fine:

Wake I, or sleep? The pickle-jar is void.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

Oh, what can ail thee, seedy swell,

Alone, and idly loitering?

The season’s o’er—at operas

No “stars” now sing.

Oh, what can ail thee, seedy swell,

So moody! in the dumps so down?

Why linger here when all the world

Is “out of town?”

I see black care upon thy brow,

Tell me, are I.O.U.’s now due?

And in thy pouch, I fear thy purse

Is empty, too.

“I met a lady at a ball,

Full beautiful—a fairy bright;

Her hair was golden (dyed, I find!)

Struck by the sight—

“I gazed, and long’d to know her then:

So I entreated the M.C.

To introduce me—and he did!

Sad hour for me.

“We paced the mazy dance, and too,

We talked thro’ that sweet evening long,

And to her—it came to pass,

I breathed Love’s song.

“She promised me her lily hand,

She seemed particularly cool:

No warning voice then whispered low,

‘Thou art a fool!’

“Next day I found I lov’d her not,

And then she wept and sigh’d full sore,

Went to her lawyer, on the spot,

And talked it o’er.

“She brought an action, too, for breach

Of promise—’tis the fashion—zounds!

The jury brought in damages

Five thousand pounds!

“And this is why I sojourn here

Alone, and idly loitering,

Tho’ all the season’s through and tho’

No ‘stars’ now sing!”

The Figaro. September 15, 1875.

194 BEAUTY.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and oer’darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils,

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

’Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;

And such too is the grandeur of the domes

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or read.

John Keats.

Keats Improved.

“In his opinion, a railway was in itself a beautiful object.”—Mr. Labouchere in the Debate on the Ambleside Railway Bill.

A Locomotive is a joy for ever:

It’s loveliness enchants us; it shall never

Be blamed for noisiness, but still will keep

The country quiet for us, and our sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and easy breathing.

Therefore in every Railway Bill we’re wreathing,

An iron band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of the sentimental, who to mirth,

More manly natures, spite of foggy days,

Of all the unhealthy and smoke-darkened ways,

Made for our travelling: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty makes the whistle’s squall,

Sweet to our spirits. Such the bellman’s tune,

Roofs, old and rotten, leaking, a shady boon

For passengers; and such Excursion bills,

With the waste walls they cling to; and loud shrills,

With which the drivers nightly shindy make,

Sharp shunting shocks, the grinding of the brake,

The rich soot-sprinkling that befouls our homes;

And such too is the grandeur of the domes,

Art hath imagined for the Engine shed.

All lovely tales that ever we have read,

Of Attic temples on the river’s brink,

Before that roof at Cannon Street must shrink!

COVENTRY PATMORE.

The best known work of this poet “The Angel in the House,” published in 1855, was the subject of the following parody written by Shirley Brooks in 1860:

The Baby in the House.

By Poventry Catmore, author of the “Angel in the House,” etc.

The Doctor.

“A finer than your newborn child,”

The Doctor said, “I never saw,”

And I, but half believing, smiled

To think he thought me jolly raw.

And then I viewed the crimson thing,

And listened to its doleful squeal,

And rather wished the nurse would bring

The pap-boat with its earliest meal.

My wife remarked, “I fear, a snub,”

The Doctor, “Madam, never fear,”

“’Tis hard, Ma’am, in so young a cub

To say.” Then Nurse, “A cub! a Dear!”

The Glove.

“’Twere meet you tied the knocker up,”

The Doctor laughed, and said, “Good-bye.

And till you drown that yelping pup

Your lady will not close an eye.”

Then round I sauntered to the mews,

And Ponto heard his fate was near,—

Here few of coachmen will refuse

A crown to spend in beastly beer!

And then I bought a white kid glove,

Lucina’s last and favourite sign,

Wound it the knocker’s brass above,

And tied it with a piece of twine.

The Advertisement.

“But, Love,” she said, in gentle voice,

(’Twas ever delicate and low,)

“The fact which makes our hearts rejoice

So many folks would like to know.

My Scottish cousins on the Clyde,

Your uncle at Northavering Gap,

The Adams’s at Morningside,

And Jane, who sent me up the cap.

So do.” The new commencing life

The Times announced, “May 31,

At 16, Blackstone Place, the wife

Of Samuel Bobchick, of a son.”

The Godfathers.

“Of course your father must be one,”

Jemima said, in thoughtful tones;

“But what’s the use of needy Gunn,

And I detest that miser Jones.”

I hinted Brown. “Well, Brown would do,

But then his wife’s a horrid Guy.”

De Blobbins? “Herds with such a crew.”

Well love, whom have you in your eye?

“Dear Mr. Burbot.” Yes, he’d stand,

And as you say, he’s seventy-three,

Rich, childless, hates that red-nosed band

Of nephews—Burbot let it be.

The Godmother.

“We ought to ask your sister Kate,”

“Indeed, I shan’t,” Jemima cried,

“She’s given herself such airs of late,

I’m out of patience with her pride.

Proud that her squinting husband (Sam,

You know I hate that little sneak)

Has got a post at Amsterdam,

Where luckily he goes next week.

195

No, never ask of kin and kith.

We’ll have that wife of George Bethune’s,

Her husband is a silver-smith,

And she’ll be sure to give some spoons.”

The Christening.

“I sign him,” said the Curate, Howe,

O’er Samuel Burbot George Bethune,

Then baby kicked up such a row,

As terrified that Reverend coon.

The breakfast was a stunning spread,

As e’er confectioner sent in,

And playfully my darling said,

“Sam costs papa no end of tin.”

We laughed, made speeches, drank for joy:

Champagne hath stereoscopic charms;

For when Nurse brought our little boy,

I saw two Babies in her arms.

The Spoons.

By Coventry Flatmore.

’Tis six o’clock: at Jones’s house,

That stands in Russell Square,

And in his dining room there sit

The guests, while on a chair

That’s placed at top sits Jones himself;

Near him a loving pair.

His daughter Bertha and her swain

Young Chintip, who’s a clerk

In the War-Office, and who’s got

Good interest: Reader, mark

How snowy-white his shirt front is;

Not like his hair—that’s dark.

How happy looks the festive board!

The dishes too invite

Those present to begin; these do

As bid, with all their might;

Meanwhile the wine smiles and the cloth

Looks comfortably bright.

* * * * *

And so the Tailor goes to Jones

And says “I know that he

In six weeks’ time your loving childs’

Liege lord forsooth will be

And therefore p’rhaps you’ll pay the bill

Its all the same to me.”

“Such may have been the case,” says Jones.

“But now since he has spent

So much, he ne’er shall have my child;

I only willed consent

When all who did not dance stood still,

And Gent knew less of Gent.

“And as for your request, I pray

You list, sir: no one cares

To pay another person’s debts

Who gives himself such airs,

And so depart instanter, if

You’d not be kicked downstairs.”

* * * * *

When Chintip learned that Bertha was

Another’s bride, he swore

He should do some rash action in

His grief, that he no more

Could call her his—nor else her wealth,

Which last perplexed him sore.

For creditors now dunned alway

Each day without respite;

And he could ne’er meet their demands,

For he was cleared out-quite;

And they refused to be put off

Which on their part was right.

And so unto a Coffee-house

He went to take some tea;

And looking in the next box p’rhaps,

Saw spoons in number three

Therein his pocket with hands red

With guilt perhaps put he.

And when the white tied waiter came,

He talked about the skies

In low and silent tones perhaps,

That drown’d all the cries

Bawled in the street; the waiter though

Said “Sir I keep my eyes

Full-orbed about me and I saw

You take them spoons and so

You’ll perhaps be kind enough unto

The station house to go.”

* * * * *

And on the day on which his fate

In Newgate-list appears,

The lovely Bertha takes the Times

And reads “for seven years—”

Her rosy shoulders weep with grief,

Her tongue speaks only tears—

It was a very violent cold

That made her sight grow dim,

And o’er her shady eyes p’rhaps cast

A disagreeable film—

For Chintip figured as “Smith”

And so ’twas not for him.

From The Puppet Showman’s Album. Illustrated by Gavarni. No date.

MISS JEAN INGELOW.

The Apple-Woman’s Song.

The marten flew to the finch’s nest,

Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay:

The arrow it sped to thy brown mate’s breast;

Low in the broom is thy mate to-day!

“Liest thou low, love! low in the broom?

Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay,

Warm the white eggs till I learn his doom.”

She beateth her wings, and away, away.

“Ah, my sweet singer, thy days are told,

(Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay,)

O mournful morrow! O dark to-day!”

196

The finch flew back to her cold, cold nest,

Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay.

Mine is the trouble that rent her breast,

And home is silent, and love is clay.

This little ballad, which is taken from Mopsa the Fairy, by Jean Ingelow (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869) is supposed to have been the original which C. S. Calverley had in his mind when he composed the amusing parody commencing:—

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)

A thing she had frequently done before;

And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.

This ballad has already been alluded to, and some imitations of it given on p. 71 of this volume.

It will be found in Fly Leaves, by C. S. Calverley (London: George Bell & Sons, 1878), in which there is another burlesque imitation of Miss Jean Ingelow’s poetry, entitled—

Lovers, and a Reflection.

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter

(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;

Meaning, however, is no great matter),

Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together,

I and my Willie (O love my love):

I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,

And flitterbats wavered alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing

(Boats in that climate are so polite),

And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,

And O the sundazzle on bark and bight!

Thro’ the rare red heather we danced together,

(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:

I must mention again it was glorious weather,

Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours;—

By rises that flushed with their purple favours,

Thro’ becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,

We walked and waded, we two young shavers;

Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,

In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,

Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly

Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:—

Songbirds darted about, some inky

As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;

Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—

They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,

Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;

They need no parasols, no goloshes;

And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst His heather)

That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;

And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—

Our fingers at fate and her goddess-glooms.

And Willie ’gan sing (oh, his notes were fluty;

Wafts fluttered them out to the white-wing’d sea)—

Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,

Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry.”

Bowers of flowers encounter’d showers

In William’s carol—(O love my Willie!)

When he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow

I quite forgot what—say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”

I think occurred next in his nimble strain;

And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden—

A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:

* * * * *

O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,

And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,

Could be furled together, this genial weather,

And carted, or carried on “wafts” away,

Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!

How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be.

Admirers of Miss Ingelow’s fiction may be interested in knowing the history of those funny little bits of verse with which she enlivened the later chapters of “Fated to be Free.” There can be no doubt that they were intended as a delicate kind of retaliation to Mr. Calverley. As he, who was a cunning master of every kind of metre, had thought fit to directly parody Miss Ingelow’s most popular pieces, by exposing and exaggerating all her worst faults, it was only natural that she should seek to be revenged in kind. But it is clear that the lady cannot cope with Calverley in parody. Her verses read more like deliberate nonsense, and lack the faculty of imitation of style in which he excelled. The following satirical lines, from “Fated to be Free” illustrate this point, “Crayshaw” having been substituted for “Calverley,” doubtless for the sake of the rhyme:—

That maiden’s nose, that puppy’s eyes,

Which I this happy day saw,

They’ve touched the manliest chords that rise

I’ the breast of Clifford Crayshaw.

* * * * *

All day she worked, no lover lent

His aid; and yet with glee

At dusk she sought her home, content,

That beauteous Bumble Bee.

A cell it was, nor more nor less,

But oh! all’s one to me,

Whether you write it with an S,

Dear girl, or with a C.

* * * * *

Then doth Tuck-man smile, “Them there

(Ho and Hi and futile Hum)

Jellies three-and-sixpence air,

Use of spoons an equal sum.”

Trees are rich. Sweet task, ’tis o’er,

“Tuck-man, you’re a brick,” they cry.

Wildly then, shake hands, all four

(Hum and Ho, the end is Hi).

The Shrimp-gatherers.

Scarlet spaces of sand and ocean.

Gulls that circle and winds that blow;

Baskets and boats and men in motion,

Sailing and scattering to and fro.

Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning

With crimson sprinkles the broad gray flood;

And down the beach the blush of the morning,

Shines reflected from moisture and mud.

197

Broad from the yard the sails hang limpy,

Lightly the steersman whistles a lay;

Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy,

Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!

Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty,

Coffee is certain, and beer galore:

Coats are corduroy, and minds are thrifty,

Won’t we go it on sea and shore?

See, behind, how the hills are freckled

With low white huts, where the lasses bide!

See, before, how the sea is speckled

With sloops and schooners that wait the tide!

Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister,

Tyne-side boys may shout “Give way!”

Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster,

Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!

Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle,

Such are the sea-fruits lasses love:

Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle,

And the shutterless cottages gleam above!

From Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor.

In a volume of poems by Miss Jean Ingelow, published in 1880, there was a long one entitled The Letter L, which gave rise to the following parody, printed in “The Daily News” of December 4, 1885.

The Letter L.

By a Despairing Tory.

Oh, letter L, Miss Ingelow

Once wrote a poem all about you,

And what she meant I do not know,

I know I never thought to doubt you!

But now I fairly tell you this—

I wish I’d never learnt to spell,

You come between me and my bliss,

Oh, hated, hated letter L!

As daily to the Club I go,

My heart with honest ardour burns,

I hope for Gladstone’s overthrow,

Expect Conservative returns;

But where I long to see a C,

Of Tory victory to tell,

I only meet the face of thee,

Oh hated, hateful letter L!

The Labour and the Crofter vote,

I do not greatly dread them now,

Rather the influence I note

Of that once sacred beast, the Cow.

I mark a lot of N’s and P’s

That brand the people of Parnell;

I’m quite prepared to swallow these,

But not, oh not the letter L!

This was at the time of the general election, when the returns were daily being scanned with great interest, and the C’s and L’s and P’s were eagerly counted up by all politicians.

HORACE.

Messrs. George Bell & Sons have recently published an interesting collection entitled, “Horace’s Odes, Englished and Imitated” selected and arranged by Charles W. G. Cooper. This contains several burlesque imitations of Horace’s Odes, but not the following, which are certainly also worthy of preservation.

“Persicos odi, puer, apparatus.”

Buttons, you booby, I wish you would learn;

I don’t want the big lamp, nor yet the épergne

When I sit down to dine by myself.

I’ll have no made-dishes in future; tell cook

She may keep her receipts shut up close in her book,

Her stock in tureen, and her game on her hook,

And her Bang-Mary bright on her shelf.

And you lay the table-cloth neatly and straight

(You’re a stupid young owl, and you won’t learn to wait,

You’re always too slow, or too fast);

I’ll just have two chops, underdone, if you please,

Some stout in the pewter, a tin of stewed cheese,

Then some port, wherein flutter the wings of the bees,

Will make up my modest repast.

Shirley Brooks, 1859.

Mr. Shirley Brooks wrote many other humorous translations of Horace, which will be found in his Wit and Humour. London, Bradbury & Co. 1883.

On the Commencement of Term.

(See Horace. Book 1. Ode IV.)

Vacation’s o’er,—in every street

We soon shall many a Cantab meet;

For hither numbers daily hie,

Or by the Tele,[47] or the Fly.[47]

Once more the halls, so desert late,

With smoking cheer, our senses greet;

Freshmen and Sophs with one intent

Haste to the scene of merriment.

O’er Alma Mater’s sacred head,

Who widely late her banner spread,

Fell solitude,—to jocund song,

Now yields her reign usurp’d too long:

While Bacchus, rosy god of wine!

And Venus, with her joys divine,

Dispute the Empire with the Nine.

But would you reach the heights of fame,

And glory from Apollo’s claim;

Now, now, the Chaplet ’gin to weave,

Now, vows to favouring heaven give.

For Death, whose unrelenting hand,

No mortal prowess can withstand,

Strikes surely, with impartial dart,

Masters’ and under-graduates’ heart

And the short space that here we tarry,

At least “in statu pupillari,”

Forbids our growing hopes to germ

Alas! beyond the appointed term.

198

Nay, even now our time is o’er,

And January threatening lower,[48]

And warn us quickly to resign

The jovial monarchy of wine;

To freshmen yield the boasted claim,

As from the boards we take our name.

From Gradus ad Cantabrigiam by a Brace of Cantabs. London, 1824.

November 1858.

Derby. While Peel’s old ministry could twine

Thy lot political with mine;

Ere yet on corn were disagreed,

As colleagues we were blest indeed.

Gladdy. Whilst thou didst feel no rival flame,

Nor Gladdy next to Dizzy came,

O then thy Gladdy’s echoing name

Excelled its since Homeric fame.

Derby. My heart from Peelite loves outworn

By Dizzy’s corkscrew curls is drawn;

My forfeit life I’ll freely give.

So Diz—my better life—may live.

Gladdy. My bosom burns to yield possession,

Of all my charms to Bright next session;

I’ll face two several deaths with joy,

So fate but spare my broad-brimm’d boy.

Derby. What if our ancient love awoke

And bound us with its golden yoke;

If Diz were sent some Indian venture,

And Gladdy his old place re-enter?

Gladdy. Bright as the Morning Star is B.,

Thou rougher than the Adrian Sea,

And fickle as light bark; yet I

With thee would live—with thee would die.

Anonymous.

Thackeray also wrote some humourous versions of Horace, which are familiar to everyone. In 1862 a small volume entitled Railway Horace, by G. Chichester Oxenden, was published by Upham and Beet, London; the translations were not destitute of merit, but are now rather out of date.

——:o:——

JOHN GAY.

The Beggar’s Opera.

Macheath’s Song.

How happy could I be with either,

Were t’other dear charmer away!

But while ye thus teaze me together,

To neither a word will I say

But toll de roll, etc.

How happy could I be with ether,

Were mesmeric charmers away;

But whilst they perplex me together,

I’ll cut, and no longer will stay.

Sing Robinson, Thomson, and Cooper,

Tol lol de rol, lol de rol lay,

There’s nothing like ether and stupor

For making an hospital gay.

From The Man in the Moon, Vol. I.

In the same volume there was another parody, dealing with a similar topic, entitled—

A Lay of Guthrie.

Air—“Maiden, I will ne’er deceive thee.”

Patient, I will ne’er deceive thee,

Never pain thee, never grieve thee:

Take this tube, inhale it so,

Out carbonic acid blow.

From your lips the mouthpiece move,

Only when you senseless prove.

Patient I’ll before we part,

Amputate without a smart.

Patient, I will ne’er deceive thee, &c.

“The Beggar’s Opera,” written by Mr. John Gay, was first produced at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in 1728, and was so successful that it made “Gay rich and Rich (the lessee) gay.” This encouraged Gay to write a sequel to it, entitled “Polly,” which was produced in 1729, but met with far less approbation.

An anonymous play was produced in 1773, called “The Bow Street Opera,” on the plan of “The Beggar’s Opera,” in which the most celebrated songs were parodied.

John Gay was the author of the well-known song Black-eyed Susan, “All in the Downs the fleet was moor’d,” of which an excellent Latin translation will be found in the Poetical Works of Vincent Bourne.

Dr. ERASMUS DARWIN.

1731-1802.

The fame of this once popular poet has been so utterly eclipsed by the philosophical and scientific writings of his grandson, that there is some danger that the author of “The Loves of the Plants” and “The Botanic Garden” may soon be quite forgotten. Fifty years ago the Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden, taken from “The Loves of the Plants” was a favourite recitation, and was included in every book of Elegant Extracts.

This detached passage is quoted below, together with a modern parody upon it:—

Now stood Eliza on the wood-crown’d height,

O’er Minden’s plains spectatress of the fight;

Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife

Her dearer self, the partner of her life;

From hill to hill the rushing host pursued,

And view’d his banner, or believed she view’d.

Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread,

Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led;

And one fair girl amid the loud alarm

Slept on her kerchief, cradled on her arm:

While round her brows bright beams of honour dart,

And love’s warm eddies circle round her heart.

—Near and more near the intrepid beauty press’d,

199

Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest,

Heard the exulting shout—“They run!—they run!”

“He’s safe!” she cried, “he’s safe! the battle’s won!”

—A ball now hisses through the airy tides,

(Some Fury wings it, and some Demon guides,)

Parts the fine locks her graceful head that deck,

Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck;

The red stream issuing from her azure veins,

Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.

—“Ah me!” she cried, and sinking on the ground,

Kiss’d her dear babes, regardless of the wound:

“Oh, cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn,

Wait, gushing life, oh! wait my love’s return!”—

Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far,

The angel, Pity, shuns the walks of war;—

“Oh spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age!

On me, on me,” she cried, “exhaust your rage!”

Then with weak arms, her weeping babes caress’d,

And sighing, hid them in her blood-stain’d vest.

From tent to tent, the impatient warrior flies,

Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes:

Eliza’s name along the camp he calls,

Eliza echoes through the canvas walls;

Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,

O’er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,

Vault o’er the plain,—and in the tangled wood,—

Lo! dead Eliza—weltering in her blood!

Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,

With open arms and sparkling eyes he bounds,

“Speak low,” he cries, and gives his little hand,

“Mamma’s asleep upon the dew-cold sand;

Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake—

Why do you weep! Mamma will soon awake.”

—“She’ll wake no more!” the hopeless mourner cried,

Upturn’d his eyes, and clasp’d his hands, and sigh’d;

Stretch’d on the ground, awhile entranced he lay,

And press’d warm kisses on the lifeless clay;

And then upsprung with wild convulsive start,

And all the father kindled in his heart;

“Oh, Heaven!” he cried, “my first rash vow forgive!

These bind to earth, for these I pray to live.”

Round his chill babes he wrapp’d his crimson vest,

And clasp’d them sobbing, to his aching breast.

From The Loves of the Plants, by Dr. Erasmus Darwin.

Eliza.

Now stood Eliza on the wood-crown’d height

O’er Chobham’s plain, spectatress of the fight;

Sought with proud eye, amid the noisy strife,

Her own John Jenkins, private in the Life

Guards Blue. This day a holyday she’d got,

Telling her Missus (whether true or not,

Who knows?) her grandmother in danger lay

Of death, and might she go out for the day?

From hill to hill the Guards the foe pursued;

She viewed her Jenkins, or believed she viewed;

And in full uniform what female heart

Could look on Jenkins, and not feel Love’s dart?

Near and more near th’ exulting Housemaid press’d.

’Twas Jenkins! What emotions fill’d her breast!

She caught his eye,—then heard a shout, “They run!”

“Now, then,” she cried, “he’ll come—the fight is done!”

One Sergeant Jones approaches now her side,

(Some demon pow’r it is his steps doth guide.)

He smoothes the locks her graceful head that deck,—

Kisses her,—puts his arm about her neck,

And whispers softly in her ear a vow,

Swearing that he will love her then as now.

“Heigho!” she sighs,—then in half-smother’d tones

Consents, and so,—goes off with Sergeant Jones.

* * * * *

From tent to tent the impatient Jenkins flies;—

“Where is Eliza?” he despairing cries.

Eliza’s name through all the camp he calls,—

“Eliza!” echoes through the canvas walls.

Swift gains he the canteen. What horror’s here,

Eliza with the Sergeant drinking beer!

“Eliza false!” the hopeless Jenkins cried,

Upturn’d his eyes, and clasp’d his hands, and sigh’d.

“Have you, then, for a Sergeant, false one, scorn’d

The ‘private’ station I so well adorn’d?

I’ll be revenged.” The false Eliza smiles,—

“There’s not an area to be seen for miles.”

Hopeless, despairing, Jenkins dropp’d one tear;

And then upsprung, and wildly call’d for beer.

* * * * *

That night a whisper through the encampment went,

Jenkins was carried, drunk, unto his tent.

Diogenes, 1853.

But one of the most humorous parodies in the language, which was also founded upon Darwin’s poem, appeared in The Anti-Jacobin, it was entitled

The Loves of the Triangles.

A Mathematical and Philosophical Poem,

Inscribed to Dr. Darwin.

Stay your rude steps, or e’er your feet invade

The Muses’ haunts, ye sons of War and Trade!

Nor you, ye legion fiends of Church and Law,

Pollute these pages with unhallow’d paw!

Debas’d, corrupted, grovelling, and confined,

No Definitions touch your senseless mind;

To you no Postulates prefer their claim,

No ardent Axioms your dull souls inflame;

For you, no Tangents touch, no Angles meet,

No Circles join in osculation sweet!

For me, ye Cissoids, round my temples bend

Your wandering curves; ye Conchoids extend;

Let playful Pendules quick vibration feel,

While silent Cyclois rests upon her wheel;

Let Hydrostatics, simpering as they go,

Lead the light Naiads on fantastic toe;

Let shrill Acoustics tune the tiny lyre;

With Euclid sage fair Algebra conspire;

The obedient pulley strong Mechanics ply,

And wanton Optics roll the melting eye!

But chief, thou Nurse of the Didactic Muse,

Divine Nonsensia, all thy soul infuse;

The charms of Secants and of Tangents tell,

How Loves and Graces in an Angle dwell;

How slow progressive Points protract the Line,

As pendant spiders spin the filmy twine;

How lengthened Lines, impetuous sweeping round,

Spread the wide Plane, and mark its circling bound;

How Planes, their substance, with their motion grown,

Form the huge Cube, the Cylinder, the Cone.

* * * * *

This parody has two drawbacks, in the first place it is 200 much too long to be inserted here in full, in the second place, much of its humour depends on an acquaintance with the original poem, which comparatively few modern readers have. It will be found complete in The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin.

There were several other parodies of Darwin’s Loves of the Plants, such as The Loves of the Colours, and The Loves of the Lowlier Plants, both of which were published about 1824.

——:o:——

Natural Selection.

A Skit on the Darwinian Theory.

I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the cave men are

Laid, Skull femur and pelvis are there,

And spears that of silex they made.

But he ne’er could be true, she averred,

Who would dig up an ancestor’s grave;

And I loved her the more when I heard

Such filial regard for the Cave.

My shelves they are furnished with stones,

All sorted and labelled with care,

And a splendid collection of bones,

Each one of them ancient and rare.

One would think she might like to retire

To my study—she calls it a “hole,”

Not a fossil I heard her admire,

But I begged it, or borrowed,—or stole.

But there comes an idea-less lad,

With a strut, and a stare, and a smirk;

And I watch, scientific though sad,

The Law of Selection at work.

Of Science he hasn’t a trace,

He seeks not the How or the Why.

But he sings with an amateur’s grace,

And dances much better than I.

And we know the more modified males

By dance and by song win their wives,

’Tis a law that in “Aves” prevails

And that even in “Homo” survives.

Shall I rage as they twirl in the valse?

Shall I sneer as they carol and coo?

Oh, no! for since Chloe is false

I’m certain that Darwin is true.

From The Modern Apostle, by C. C. W. Naden.

To my Beloved.

Miss, I’m a Pensive Protoplasm,

Born in some pre-historic chasm.

I, and my humble fellow-men

Are hydrogen, and oxygen,

And nitrogen and carbon too,

And so is Jane, and so are you.

In stagnant water swarm our brothers

And sisters, but we’ve many others,

Among them animalculæ,

And lizard’s eggs—and so, you see,

My darling Vesta, show no pride,

Nor turn coquettish head aside,

Our pedigrees, as thus made out,

Are no great things to boast about.

The only comfort seems to be

In this—philosophers agree

That how a Protoplasm’s made

Is mystery outside their trade.

And we are parts, so say the sages,

Of life come down from Long Past Ages.

So let us haste in Hymen’s bands

To join our protoplastic hands,

And spend our gay organic life

As happy man and happy wife.

Shirley Brooks. 1869.

Parody Epitaph on Darwin.

What needs my Darwin for his honoured bones,

The labour of an age in pilèd stones?

He, to our wonder and astonishment,

Was hid beneath a grander monument,

And in such pomp doth here sepulchrèd lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die!

From Travels, by “Umbra.” 1865.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

In the second volume of this collection (p. 236) will be found several parodies of Matthew Arnold’s Sonnet to George Cruikshank, and The Forsaken Merman, which had been printed some years before. Yet a writer in the Saturday Review, in a notice of Arnold’s poems, made the following confession of his ignorance:—

“Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, and most of our lesser poets besides, have been parodied again and again; we do not remember to have seen a single parody of Mr. Arnold.… There is a subtlety about the structure of his verse and the harmony of his lines which defies imitation.”

The Superfine Review makes such claims to omniscience that it is refreshing to find a writer on its staff not only stating his belief that Arnold had not been parodied, but that his poetry defied parody, and this soon after the reading world had been delighted with the following successful burlesque, in Mr. W. H. Mallock’s The New Republic, published in London by Messrs. Chatto & Windus:—

“Softly the evening descends,

Violet and soft. The sea

Adds to the silence, below

Pleasant and cool on the beach

Breaking; yes, and a breeze

Calm as the twilight itself

Furtively sighs through the dusk,

Listlessly lifting my hair,

Fanning my thought-wearied brow,

Thus I stand in the gloom

Watching the moon-track begin

Quivering to die like a dream

Over the far sea-line

To the unknown region beyond.

201

“So for ages hath man

Gazed on the ocean of time

From the shores of his birth, and, turning

His eyes from the quays, the thronged

Marts, the noise and the din

To the far horizon, hath dreamed

Of a timeless country beyond.

Vainly: for how should he pass,

Being on foot, o’er the wet

Ways of the unplumbed waves?

How, without ship, should he pass

Over the shipless sea

To the timeless country beyond?

“Ah, but once—once long ago,

There came a ship white-sailed

From the country beyond, with bright

Oarsmen, and men that sang;

Came to Humanity’s coasts,

Called to the men on the shore,

Joyously touched at the port.

Then did time-weary man

Climb the bulwarks, the deck

Eagerly crowding. Anon

With jubilant voices raised,

And singing, “When Israel came

Out of Egypt,” and whatso else

In the psalm is written, they passed

Out of the ken of the land,

Over the far sea-line,

To the unknown region beyond.

“Where are they now, then—they

That were borne out of sight by the ship—

Our brothers, of times gone by?

Why have they left us here,

Solemn, dejected, alone,

Gathered in groups on the shore?

Why? For we, too, have gazed

O’er the waste of waters, and watched

For a sail as keenly as they.

Ah, wretched men that we are!

On our haggard faces and brows

Aching, a wild breeze fawns

Full of the scents of the sea,

Redolent of regions beyond.

Why, then, tarries the ship?

When will her white sail rise

Like a star on the sea-line? When?

“When?—And the answer comes

From the sailless face of the sea,

“Ah, vain watchers, what boots

The calm of the evening?

Have ye not watched through the day

Turbulent waves, the expanse

Endless, shaken with storm,

And ask ye where is the ship?

Deeper than plummet can dive

She is bedded deep in the ooze,

And over her tall mast floats

The purple plain of the calm.”

“Yes—and never a ship

Since this is sunken, will come

Ever again o’er the waves—

Nay, not even the craft with the fierce

Steersman, him of the marsh

Livid, with wheels of flame

Circling his eyes, to smite

The lingering soul with his oar.

—Not that even. But we

Drop where we stand one by one

On the shingles and sands of time,

And cover in taciturn gloom,

With only perhaps some tear,

Each for his brother the hushed

Heart and the limitless dreams

With a little gift of sand.”

Christmas Thoughts.

By a Modern Thinker.

’Tis Christmas-eve; a low wind breathes:

The windows of the church are bright,

And girls with happy eyes to-night

Are hanging up the Christmas wreaths;

And village voices by and by

Will reach my windows through the trees

With wild sweet music: “Praise on high

To God, on earth good will and peace!”

O happy girls that hang the wreaths

O village fiddlers, happy ye!

Christmas to you still truly breathes

Good-will and peace, but not to me!

Yes, gladness is your simple rôle

Ye foolish girls, ye labouring poor;

But ill would joy beseem my soul,

To sigh, my past is, and endure.

For as once Rousseau stood, I stand

Apart, made picturesque by grief

One of a small world-weary band,

The orphans of a dead belief

Through graveyards lone we love to stray,

And sadly the sad tombs explore,

And contradict the texts which say

That we shall rise again once more.

Our faith is dead, of course, and grief

Fills up its room; and Christmas pie

And turkey cannot bring relief

To such as Obermann and I.

Ah, Obermann! and might I pass

This English Christmastide with thee

Far by those inland waves whose glass

Brightens and breaks by Meillerie!

Or else amidst the loveliest dells

Alp-crags with pine we’d mix our sighs;

Mourn at the sound of Christmas bells

Sniff at the smells of Christmas pies;

But thou art dead, and long dank grass

And wet mould cools thy tired hot brain;

Thou art lain down and now, alas,

Of course you won’t get up again

Yet Obermann, ’tis better so;

For if, sad slumberer, after all

We were to re-arise you know

’Twould make us feel so very small.

Best bear our grief this manlier way,

And make our grief be balm to grief

For if in faith sweet comfort lay

There lurks sweet pride in unbelief.

Wherefore remembering this once more,

Unto my childhood’s church I’ll go

202

And bow my head to that low door

I passed through standing long ago.

I’ll sit in the accustomed place

And make, whilst all the unlearned stare

A mournful atheistic face

At their vain noise of unheard prayer.

Then whilst they hymn the heavenly birth

And angel-voices from the skies,

My thoughts shall go where Weimar’s earth

For ever darkens Goethe’s eyes;

Till sweet girls’ glances from their books

Shall steal towards me as they sigh,

“How intellectual he looks

And yet how wistful! and his eye

Has that vain look of baffled prayer.”

And then when church is o’er, I’ll run

Comb misery into my hair,

And go and get my portrait done!

W. H. M.

This parody of Matthew Arnold appeared in The World some years ago, so that the Saturday Reviewer before alluded to must either have been Rip Van Winkle, or very fresh from school.

——:o:——

Guido and Lita.

For the son of a Duke, and the husband of a Princess, to write and to publish a poem was a pretty piece of condescension, which was not properly appreciated. But, alas! we live in a busy age, and two thousand lines of verse have a deterring effect on the average modern mind. To overcome the difficulty, Funny Folks condensed the Marquis of Lorne’s dismal poem Guido and Lita into half a dozen stanzas, faithfully preserving the pith of the original.

Guido on the Riviera

Talketh verse unto his dad,

Brusquely says the father, “Bother!

Where is shelter to be had?”

For a storm is fiercely rising,

And the old man hath the blues—

Here a fisherman’s small cottage

Sentimental Guido views.

Guido there beheld his Lita

Frying fish—she turned to grin;

Guido, fired with sudden passion,

“Chucked” her underneath the chin,

Saying, “Sweetest maid, I love thee!”

Said the maiden unto him,

“Get out with your stuff and nonsense!

See, your parent’s looking grim.”

Soon the Paynim host came fiercely,

Slaughtering with fire and sword;

Aid was sought from Guido’s father,

But that crusty knight was bored.

Off they carried beauteous Lita—

Guido could not bring relief;

Sirad, Saracenic leader,

Made her of his Harem chief.

There a victim of that Paynim

A goblet of “cold pizen” brings.

“When the Saracenic chieftain

At the banquet drinks and sings,”

Says this personage vindictive,

“Give this gruel, dear, to he—

It will cure him of his tantrums,

Straightway then arise and flee.”

Escaping thus, the dauntless Lita,

Emulating Joan of Arc,

Dons bright armour, sword, and buckler,

And in battle makes her mark.

This the “Elder Knight” perceiving

(Guido’s father), though a churl,

Said, “I never more will hinder

Guido’s penchant for the girl.”

Meanwhile, screwing up his courage,

Guido, maundering no more,

Has again put on his armour,

Plunged into the battle’s roar,

Deeds of daring without number,

Paynims driven from the walls,

Dying father, “Bless ye children!”

Tableau!—and the curtain falls.

Funny Folks, November 27, 1875.

——:o:——

NUTSHELL NOVELS.

Vol. I.

A winning wile,

A sunny smile,

A feather;

A tiny walk,

A pleasant talk,

Together!

Vol. II.

A little doubt,

A playful pout.

Capricious;

A merry miss,

A stolen kiss,

Delicious!

Vol. III.

You ask mamma,

Consult papa,

With pleasure!

And both repent

This rash event

At leisure!

Marriage a la Mode.

A hat, a cane,

A nobby beau!

A narrow lane,

A whisper low.

A smile, a bow,

A little flirt!

An ardent vow—

That’s cheap as dirt!

A hand to squeeze,

A girl to kiss

Quite at one’s ease

Must needs be bliss.

A ring, a date,

A honeymoon,

To find too late

It was too soon!

One Sleigh Ride.

A sleigh—

A day

Of glorious weather;

A girl—

A whirl

Of man and maid together.

A freeze—

A squeeze—

A touching of cold noses;

A crash—

A blush—

And cheeks as red as roses.

A yearn—

A turn,

And homeward they go flying;

203

A sigh—

Good-bye,

And then some more good by’ing.

* * * * *

A span—

A man

The livery stable trusted;

A youth,

In truth,

Demented, quite, and busted.

No Doubt of It.

Carpets rise,

Dust flies,

Confusion reigns supreme;

Mouth dries,

Aching eyes,

Almost makes me scream.

Floors wet,

House upset,

I think you catch my meaning.

If not yet,

Soon I bet

You’ll see it is house-cleaning.

G. L. Harrison.

The four following examples originally appeared in Truth, February, 3, 1887, together with many others of a less amusing character:—

“Hansom quick!

Waterloo.

First-class tick-

ets for two.”

Wretched train;

Bray as last!

Will it rain?

Sky o’ercast.

Sudden shock!

Boat upset!

Brand new frock

Soaking wet.

Back to town

Feeling small,

Parents frown,

That is all!

Charon.

The Old Maid.

Seventeen

Fairy Queen!

Rich and rare,

Golden hair!

Wilful maid

Youths upbraid:

Twenty-one,

Will have none!

Twenty-eight,

Getting late:

Rather vexed,

Unannexed!

Years advance,

Lost her chance;

Thirty-six,

Cross as sticks!

Schlemil.

Celandine,

Violet;

Shower and shine,

Baby Pet.

Sunny days,

Roses rare;

Woodland ways,

Maiden fair.

Changing leaves,

Busy feet;

Golden sheaves,

Mother sweet.

Snowflakes white,

Angel cheer;

Hope grows bright,

Granny dear!

Delia.

Drinks.

Some like tea

Or cocoa;

Not for me—

Thank you, no!

B. and S.

After sup.?

Thank you, yes!

Finish up.

Sparkling “boy,”

If the best,

Bringeth joy,

Wit and jest.

But of the

Drinks that cheer

Give to me

Bitter beer!

H.M.D.

A COUNTRY QUARTER SESSION.

Three or four parsons, three or four squires,

Three or four lawyers, three or four liars;

Three or four parishes bringing appeals,

Three or four hands, and three or four seals;

Three or four bastards, three or four w——s,

Tag rag and bobtail three or four scores;

Three or four bulls, and three or four cows,

Three or four orders, three or four bows.

Three or four statutes not understood,

Three or four paupers paying for food;

Three or four roads that never were mended,

Three or four scolds, and the session is ended.

Anonymous.

Recipe for Lord Castlereagh’s Speeches.

Two or three facts without any foundation;

Two or three charges of party vexation;

Two or three metaphors warring on sense;

Two or three sentences ditto on tense;

Two or three knocks the table to hammer;

Two or three rants in defiance of grammar;

Two or three vows on economy’s plan;

Two or three hours ending but where you began;

Two or three novels in eulogium of tax;

Two or three hints about turning your backs;

Two or three boasts of venal majorities;

Two or three groans on dismal minorities;

Two or three cheers from two or three creatures;

Two or three fundaments, two or three features;

Two or three meanings which nobody reaches,

Will be certain to make one of Castlereagh’s speeches.

From The New Tory Guide. London, 1819.

A Receipt for Courtship.

Two or three dears, and two or three sweets;

Two or three balls, and two or three treats;

Two or three serenades, given as a lure;

Two or three oaths, how much they endure!

Two or three messages sent in one day;

Two or three times led out to the play;

Two or three soft speeches made by the way;

Two or three tickets for two or three times;

Two or three love-letters writ all in rhymes;

Two or three months keeping strict to these rules

Can never fail making a couple of fools.

A Stock Exchange Ballad.

The Grand Promotion Army.

I am Colonel North of the Horse Marines,

I began promoting when in my teens,

And I rather think I’m behind the scenes

In the Grand Promotion Army.

’Tis said to the early bird is due

The worm, and I’ve collared of worms a few;

For I came from Leeds, and “I’m Yorkshire too,”

In the Grand Promotion Army.

204

With Chili for long I cast my lot,

And made some money in that far spot;

And Chilies are strong and I make it hot

For the Grand Promotion Army.

The City imagination fails

To realise how the Nitrate Rails

Were boomed so high; but we tell no tales

In the Grand Promotion Army.

Two hundred and eighty from fourteen!

Why, what could a rise so tremendous mean?

’Twas simply that I was upon the scene

With the Grand Promotion Army.

What great financial soul confines

Itself to a pitiful few designs?

There’s a smaller crop of Nitrate lines

For the Grand Promotion Army.

So we run them up, and the rig succeeds,

And if some day there’s somebody bleeds,

You bet it isn’t the tyke from Leeds,

Of the Grand Promotion Army.

Of Tarapaca I might be dumb;

For the waterworks have only come

To a trumpery thirty premium

For the Grand Promotion Army.

In promoting schemes I still persist:

There are lines that pay, yet don’t exist.

Egad! I’m quite the philanthropist

Of the Grand Promotion Army.

As all my friends and admirers know,

I’ve mixed myself up with Whitley’s show,

That the organ-grinder’s tin might flow

To the Grand Promotion Army.

Although I am bald, with whiskers red,

There’s Ouless, R.A., who paints one, said

He thought I had a wonderful head

For the Grand Promotion Army.

Then vive le jeu! and the game for me

Is starting a merry companèe

And waltzing away with the £ s. d.

For the Grand Promotion Army.

For “some has brains and some has tin,”

As Orton remarked; and if you’d win,

Why, stick to the Colonel, and all stand in

With the Grand Promotion Army.

Owlet.

The Financial News, May 26, 1888.

For reasons which can be easily understood by those interested in public companies it has suited the Editor of The Financial News to cry down the ventures in which Mr. John Thomas North is interested. It is easy enough to sneer at him as the “Nitrate King,” and to laugh at his Volunteer Colonelcy, but we do not hear that the Editor of The Financial News is either so successful in business, or so hospitable in private life, as “Colonel North of the Horse Marines.”

Lines on a Dead Dog,

Seen floating in the Canal.

(Not by A. C. Swinburne.)

In the stir and the tumult of nations,

’Mid the wrestlings of right and of power,

It is good to lay hold upon Patience

And sit by her side for an hour;

Apart from the world and her wonders,

In a garden of poppies to wait,

And list to the tremulous thunders

Of the chariot of Fate.

O carcase not fragrant but fetid!

O wave whither all things are shot!

O dogs not in honour, but treated

As of brutes the most rotten that rot!

O moment not gladsome but gloomy,

When the threads of our Fates intertwined;

O sepulchre, spacious and roomy

For thee and thy kind!

Thou wert fair ere the doleful disaster,

Firm thy muscles, thy bones featly set,

And they moved at the voice of thy master

Though obedience were tinged with regret.

What moved him, old dog, to thy slaughter,

To cast to the pike and the eel?

When o’er thy bright form closed the water

No remorse did he feel?

Dost thou dream in the night of existence

’Mong the things that have been and but seem,

Of thy passionate pulseful resistance

To the cad that consigned to the stream?

Dost thou dream, when of terriers the gamest

Thou didst leap from the leash to be freed,

And the blood of the rats thou o’ercamest

Besprinkled the mead?

By the maidens who love us and flatter,

By the maidens who flout us and jeer,

By the friends who but bore with their chatter,

By the others whose chatting can cheer,

By the tutors who woefully work us,

By the tutors who don’t in the least,

We adjure thee, respond out of Orcus,

Unfortunate beast.

The desire of an aimless flirtation

Is more than the wisdom of years,

Though we’ve tasted its utter nugation,

Light laughter and fugitive fears.

For the lords of terrestrial treasures

Afflict us and rack us with pains,

And we fly to the palace of pleasures

Forgetting their chains.

And we smile pressing hands in the dances,

And we feign what we give not nor take,

And indulge in the gleaming of glances

Though the heart is as cold as a snake.

As lovers, though loving not truly,

We are filled with the fire of the eyes

And with langours and laughs that unduly

Depress and surprise.

We are tender and warm in the twilight,

But the day finds us tuneless and old;

Till equally low light and high light

Have faded from field and from fold.

For the world hath in humbug abounded

Since the fiends bade the game to begin,

And the motto hath ever resounded,—

‘Let those laugh that win.’

205

Like Lady Macbeth or like Pontius,

We wash us, of these to be rid;

For sadly the soul is subconscious

That the fitness of things doth forbid.

But the water of Lethè were powerless

To cleanse from the rust of the years,

And the heavens are sultry and showerless

And the eye hath no tears.

Shall we e’er know what Atè intended,

Libitina and Clotho to boot,

When on Sunday three ’varsity men did

Encounter the corse, of the brute?

Oh why, as they walked in their wisdom,

And cramped with conventional togs,

Were they brought into contact with his doom,

Defunctest of dogs?

From the sides of the dogs of the Dorians

Fur has fallen, but fur is on thine?

Ah, where shall we find the historians,

In their pages to give thee a line?

Where are they—Macaulay or Lingard—

Thy tale and thy troubles to write?

Would they touch and cry “faugh!” as they fingered?

Would they turn from the sight?

Thou shalt change, and the rot and the canker

Make mock of thy beauty and bloom;

Thou shalt swell with thy gases, and ranker

And ranker shall grow thy perfume.

We shall fade, and diminish, and perish,

As the Hours and the Fates shall decree,

But till then in our bosoms we cherish

Remembrance of thee!

Eremus.

From College Rhymes. Volume XI. 1870.

The following are extracts from an imitation of A. C. Swinburne which appeared in The Century Magazine, February, 1883. As to any meaning to be attached to the lines each reader is perfectly at liberty to make what sense out of them he can.

The Song of Sir Palamede.

“Came Palamede, upon a secret quest,

To high Tintagel, and abode as guest

In likeness of a minstrel with the king.

Nor was there man could sound so sweet a string.

* * * * *

To that strange minstrel strongly swore King Mark,

By all that makes a knight’s faith firm and strong,

That he, as guerdon of his harp and song,

Might crave and have his liking.

* * * ‘O King, I crave

No gift of man that king may give to slave,

But this thy crowned queen only, this thy wife.’”

Swinburne. Tristram of Lyonesse.

With flow exhaustless of alliterate words,

And rhymes that mate in music glad as birds

That feel the spring’s sweet life among light leaves

That ardent breath of amorous May upheaves

And kindles fluctuant to an emerald fire

Bright as the imperious seas that all men’s souls desire:

With long strong swell of alexandrine lines,

And with passion of anapæsts, like winds in pines

That moan and mutter in great gusts suddenly,

With whirl of wild wet wings of storms set free:

In mirth of might and very joy to sing,

Uplifting voice untired, I sound one sole sweet string.

* * * * *

And many a theme I choose in wayfaring,

As one who passing plucks the sunflower

And ponders on her looks for love of her.

Yea, her flower-named whose fate was like a flower,

Being bright and brief and broken in an hour

And whirled of winds: and her whose awless hand

Held flickering flame to fawn against the brand,

Till Meleager splendid as the sun

Shrank to a star and set, and all her day was done:

And her who lent her slight white virgin light

For death to dim, that Athens’ mastering might

Above all seas should shine, supernal sphere of night:

And her who kept the high knight amorous

Pent in her hollow hill-house marvellous,

And flame of flowers brake beauteous where she trod,

Her who hath wine and honey and a rod,

And crowneth man a king and maketh man a slave,

Her who rose rose-red from the rose-white wave:

And her who ruled with sword-blue blade-bright eyes

The helpless hearts of men in queenly wise,

And all were bowed and broken as on a wheel,

Yet no soft love-cloud long could sheath that stainless steel,

Her tiger-hearted and false and glorious,

With flower-sweet throat and float of warm hair odorous:

These sing I, and whatso else that burns and glows,

And is as fire and foam-flowers and the rose

And sun and stars and wan warm moon and snows.

Who hath said that I have not made my song to shine

With such bright words as seal a song to be divine?

Who hath said that I have not sweetness thereon spread

As gold of peerless honey is poured on bread?

Who hath said that I make not all men’s brains to ring,

And swim with imminent madness while I sing,

And fall as feeble dykes before strong tides of spring?

And now as guerdon of my great song I claim

The swan-white pearl of singers, yea Queen Fame,

Who shall be wed no more to languid lips and tame,

But clasp me and kiss and call me by my name,

And be all my days about me as a flame,

Though sane vain lame tame cranes sans shame make game and blame!

Helen Gray Cone.

MR. SWINBURNE’S PROSE.

As a critic and a scholar Mr. Swinburne ranks among the first of the day, yet his style has its defects, as was clearly pointed out by a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette in November 1886.

If one of Mr. Swinburne’s long and involved sentences is printed side by side with one selected from Mrs. Gamp’s repertoire, the comparison is not altogether to the advantage of the poet:

Mr. Swinburne.

We may even, and not unreasonably, suspect and fear that it must be through some defect or default in ourselves if we 206 cannot feel, as they do, the force or charm of that which touches others, and these our betters as often as our equals, so nearly; if we cannot, for example—as I may regretfully confess that I never could—feel adequately, or in full, the bitter sweetness that so many thousands, and most notably among them all a better man by far and a far worthier judge than I, have tasted in these pages of Dickens which hold the story of Little Nell, a story in which all the elaborate accumulation of pathetic incident and interest, so tenderly and studiously built up, has never, to speak truth, given me one passing thrill—in the exquisitely fit and faithful phrase of a great living poet, “one sweet, possessive pang” of the tender delight and pity requickened well nigh to tears at every fresh perusal or chance recollection of that one simple passage in “Bleak House” which describes the baby household tended by the little sister, who leaves her lesser charges locked up while she goes charing; a page which I can imagine that many a man unused to the melting mood would not undertake to read out aloud without a break.—Note on Charlotte Brontë, pp. 64-65.

Now for Mrs. Gamp.

To think as I should see beneath this blessed ouse which well I know it Miss Pecksniff my sweet young lady to be a ouse as there is not a many like—and worse luck, and wishin’ it were not so, which then this tearful walley would be changed into a flowerin’ guardian Mrs. Chuffy; to think as I should see identically comin’ Mrs. Pinch—I take the liberty though almost unbeknown—and so assure you of it Sir, the smilinest and sweetest face as ever Mrs. Chuzzlewit, I see exceptin’ your own, my dear good lady, and your good lady’s too Sir Mrs. Moddle, if I may make so bold as speak so plain of what is plain enough to them as need’nt look through millstones Mrs. Todgers to find out what is wrote upon the wall behind: which no offence is meant ladies and gentlemen none being took I hope: to think as I should see that smilinest and sweetest face which me and another friend of mine took notice of among the packages down London Bridge in this promiscuous place is a surprise indeed!

Six of One and Half-a-dozen of the Other.

(Some little way after the late Mortimer Collins.)

Oh, Summer said to Winter,

“Earth lovers love me best;

For I flush the mead, and I fill the rill,

And the violet and the daffodil,

And the red, red rose o’er the world I spill;

And my dawns are cool, and my eves are chill;

And don’t I run up the doctor’s bill

For bronchitis and all the rest!”

But Winter said to Summer:

“Earth-lovers best love me:

For I now bring slop instead of snow,

(Which comes in June, or mostly so;)

And roses and noses at Christmas blow,

And the birds their nesting-time don’t know,

But lay in December—a pretty go!

And your azure skies, and your sunny glow

Are silly legends of long ago;

Whilst as to the Doctor’s Bills, oho!

We are equally good at them I trow.

Fact is, the difference ’twixt us two

Is the purest fiddle-de-dee!”

Punch. December 15, 1888.

Several humorous parodies written by the late Mr. Mortimer Collins have already appeared in this collection, but his lines to Chloe, with her supposed burlesque reply to them, deserve to be quoted:—

Ad Chloen M.A.

(Fresh from her Cambridge Examination.)

Lady, very fair are you,

And your eyes are very blue,

And your hose;

And your brow is like the snow,

And the various things you know,

Goodness knows.

And the rose-flush on your cheek,

And your Algebra and Greek

Perfect are:

And that loving lustrous eye

Recognises in the sky

Every Star.

You have pouting piquant lips,

You can doubtless an eclipse

Calculate;

But for your cerulean hue,

I had certainly from you

Met my fate.

If by some arrangement dual

I were Adams minced with Whewell,

Then some day

I, as wooer, perhaps might come,

To so sweet an Artium

Magistra.

Chloe. M.A.

Ad Amantem Suam.

Careless rhymer, it is true,

That my favourite colour’s blue:

But am I

To be made a victim, Sir;

If to puddings I prefer

Cambridge pie?

If with giddier girls I play

Croquet through the summer day

On the turf,

Then at night (’tis no great boon)

Let me study how the moon

Sways the turf.

Tennyson’s idyllic verse

Surely suits me none the worse

If I seek

Old Sicilian birds and bees—

Music of sweet Sophocles—

Golden Greek.

You have said my eyes are blue:

There may be a fairer hue,

Perhaps—and yet

It is surely not a sin

If I keep my Secrets in

Violet.

Mortimer Collins.

——:o:——

207 The Comic History of England.

The following song was written by Mr. Collins in the days when George the Third was King. It was published, with music, by T. Broome, 15 Holborn Bars, London.

The Romans in England they once did sway,

And the Saxons they after them led the way,

And they tugg’d with the Danes ’till an Overthrow,

They both of them got by the Norman Bow,

Yet barring all Pother, the one and the other,

Were all of them Kings in their turn.

Little Willy the Conqueror long did reign,

But Billy his Son by an Arrow was slain:

And Harry the first was a scholar bright,

But Stephy was forc’d for his Crown to fight.

Yet barring &c.

Second Harry, Plantagenet’s name did bear,

And Cœur de Lion was his Son and Heir;

But Magna Charta we gain’d from John,

Which Harry the Third put his Seal upon.

Yet barring &c.

There was Teddy the first like a Tyger bold,

But the Second by Rebels was bought and sold

And Teddy the third was his Subject’s pride,

Tho his Grandson Dicky was popp’d aside.

Yet barring &c.

There was Harry the fourth a warlike wight,

And Harry the Fifth like a cock would fight

Tho Henry his son like a chick did pout,

When Teddy his Cousin had kick’d him out.

Yet barring &c.

Poor Teddy the fifth he was kill’d in bed,

By butchering Dick who was knock’d in head;

Then Harry the Seventh in fame grew big;

And Harry the Eighth was as fat as a Pig.

Yet barring &c.

With Teddy the Sixth we had tranquil days,

Tho’ Mary made Fire and Faggot blaze;

But good Queen Bess was a glorious Dame,

And bonnie King Jamie from Scotland came.

Yet barring &c.

Poor Charley the First was a Martyr made,

But Charley his Son was a comicle blade;

And Jemmy the Second when hotly spurr’d,

Run away, do ye see me, from Willy the Third.

Yet barring &c.

Queen Ann was victorious by Land and Sea,

And Georgey the First did with glory sway,

And as Georgey the Second has long been dead,

Long life to the Georgey we have in his stead,

And may his son’s sons to the end of the Chapter

All come to be Kings in their turn.

Prose Parodies.

In the following pages a selection, as nearly representative as it can be made, will be given from the parodies of the works of our greatest prose writers. Although the axiom le style c’est l’homme does not apply to prose with quite the same force as to poetry, yet there are many amusing prose burlesques, the originals of which will at once be recognised.

Unfortunately most prose parodies are very long, in dealing with these merely brief extracts can be given, and in some cases it will only be necessary to indicate the names of the works in which they occur.

A Prefatory Paper.

By the shade of Mr. Joseph Addison.

Lest my readers, and more especially the fair part of them, be startled to find themselves thus accosted from another world, I take the freedom in the first place, to assure them that I am a peaceable and altogether inoffensive ghost. In the many private transactions whereat I have been present unseen, I have ever observed a strict discretion.

The secrets of the rouge pot are as safe with me as with my lady’s own woman: and when I have found a lover in the closet of a dame of quality, I have taken no more notice, than her husband himself would have done of a like accident. Our Queen, Proserpine, being, as everybody knows, obliged entirely to the poets for her throne and title, and taking likewise, in her capacity of moon, no little share in their inspiration, hath ever distinguished the whole brotherhood of us with her singular grace: and from time to time, by her intercession with her grim spouse, one or other of us hath the liberty of paying a visit to the upper sphere.

All the condition set upon us is only this; that on our return, we shall make such corrections in our most popular works, as modern men and things may appear to need.

For the sake of mutual help in these our reforms, a few of us have united of late into a Society, of which I have been appointed (together with Dr. Samuel Johnson) to be the joint secretary, or Recorder. And it may be convenient, if, by way of introduction to the pieces now revised and put forth, I prefix a short catalogue of their authors, persons who, though born in different ages, do nevertheless marvellously harmonise and agree, insomuch, that a sincerer friendship is hardly to be met with at Court, or even among beauties themselves.

(Here follow descriptions of the principal authors whose works are imitated in “Posthumous Parodies.”)

However, it were almost too much to expect in either of us the perfection of later judges, who have carried the art of criticism to such a pitch of excellence, as that no mixture whatsoever of commendation is any longer let in, to weaken its spirit and effect.

For my own part, I am wonderfully pleased with this improvement; for it helps the main end of criticism, to wit, to make the public laugh.

And what author can be so blind to his own real interests, as not to discern, how much more truly those are his friends who point out his errors, than who puff up his vanity?

I know not how it hath happened, that in an assembly so 208 notable for ingenious persons as ours is, there is yet no mixture of the fairer sort. Their absence is always a subject of regret with me, the most unworthy of their admirers: and it is so now in a more especial manner, forasmuch as I foresee that many small wags will take occasion to draw therefrom a conclusion not a little disparaging to the sex’s wit, and so make themselves mighty merry, as little people are ever willing, at their better’s expence. C.

From Posthumous Parodies. London. J. Miller. 1814.

——:o:——

Dr. Johnson’s Ghost.

On the re-opening of Drury Lane Theatre.

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 lo be sacrificed for the accommodation 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 attitudinising 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 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 floodgate, 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 [49] has laid it down as a rule, that the best good thing uttered by the morning visitor 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 Madame 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 [50] 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 virid antiquity, 209 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.

From The Rejected Addresses, by James and Horace Smith. London, 1812.

There is a Prefatory Paper, in the style of Dr. Johnson, in “Posthumous Parodies,” published by John Miller, London, 1814, but it is greatly inferior to that contained in “Rejected Addresses.”

On Bookbinders.

(After Rasselas.)

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of noodles, and pursue with eagerness the phantom “collection,” who believe that binder’s promises are—binding, and that an inch of margin to-day matters not on the morrow, attend to the wisdom of Bonnardot, Prince of Book-Restorers. “The greatest merit of a rare book is indisputably a margin uncut, or at least, little and regularly cut in every way.” No hesitating words these; no room for doubt here. An uncut margin is the greatest merit a rare book can possess, and it is a merit which has a well ascertained commercial value. An eighth of an inch more or less of margin often makes a difference in value of hundreds of dollars. Now let the botcher-binder cut and slash as you will.

Anonymous.

Anonymous Journalism.

(From an unpublished Essay by Dr. Johnson.)

He that asserts the annexation of a correct cognomen to each production to be imperative upon every author, either strays from veracity for the sake of disseminating falsehood, or circulates error through the possession of congenital imbecility. Let it not be surmised that this declaration is expressed through sensitive timidity or supported by vacuous generalizations, for a further perusal will speedily discover a clinching dialectic. The individual that appends his hereditary appellation to a composition of transcendant ability, does but seek to enervate his intellect by encomiastic excess, and whilst he panders to his ambition, exaggerates his energies. Such a course indeed, is too ephemeral for the attainment by an author of immortality, because too invidious for the approbation of his colleagues. Of the many who consider their cerebral progeny worthy of attentive investigation, but few have the right to predicate correctness of their hopeful conviction; and he that inscribes his signature on a piece of somniferous fatuity, involves his relatives in unmerited obloquy, whilst he exposes himself to dedecorating derision. Amid the multitude of periodical productions it is but reasonable that some should be devoted to the analysis of individual idiosyncracies, and the maxims previously unfolded may to these be pertinently applied.

An anonymous panegyric by an unknown friend is more acceptable than the cringing adulation of a patent parasite, whilst unsigned reproofs are more meritorious than personal vituperations.

He that panders to an inflamed irascibility by affording it an opportunity of illicit flagellation, does but incite an infuriated man to rebel against the legal institutions of his country.

To the contemptible criticisms of those whose opinions are in contrariety with the superscribed, we merely reply, that, whilst the procrastination of judgment is essential to the perfectibility of Truth, their future ratiocinations will still be treated with dignified derision by their magnanimous admonishers.

From The Shotover Papers, Oxford, 1874.

“Lexiphanes, a Dialogue, imitated from Lucian, and suited to the present times,” (1767), was a malicious piece of drollery directed against Dr. Johnson; this has been attributed to Sir John Hawkins, the real author, however, was Archibald Campbell, the Purser of a Man-of-War.

A continuation of Rasselas, entitled Dinarbas, was published in 1793, it had little merit.

Rev. LAURENCE STERNE.

Born 1713. Died March, 18, 1768.

A Sentimental Journey.

By a Sterne Shade.

CHAPTER I.

“I’ll be hanged if I do!”

I was standing at the verge of the pavement at the bottom of Ludgate-hill, with one foot on the kerb and the other in the kennel.

’Tis an attitude of irresolution and uncertainty, and throws a man off his level. And when a man is thrown off his level there’s no telling what may be the end of it. I took my foot out of the kennel, and as I set it down beside its companion on the granite I repeated my exclamation—

“I’ll be hanged if I do!”

Now, ’tis an undertaking no man in the possession of his senses would make if he was not quite sure of avoiding the penalty. There are many inconveniences connected with being hanged, which would incline us to hesitate. A man of sentiment and refinement would shrink from it. The idea of engrossing the attention of so many people, from the Sheriff and the Ordinary down to the most ragged beggar in the crowd, is a shock to delicacy.

Besides, hanging entails early rising, and early rising is bad. Oh! great Sun! for what dost thou quit thy roseate couch at so unearthly an hour, but to air the world for us poor mortals?

Whip me the man who would rise before eleven, if he could help it. If he couldn’t—well, ’tis different, and there’s an end on’t.

But early rising is a thing I never cared for or practised; and indeed I can think of no worse way of beginning a day than getting up at eight to be hanged.

And this brings me back to my first proposition. “I’ll be hanged if I do!” said I.

As I uttered the words I brought down my cane with a smart rap on the stones—for if the intention and the deed 210 be the same thing, as learned legists tell us, it was on the stones that I brought it down. But between the deed and the intention a plaguy fellow must needs thrust the foot on which he wore his largest and tenderest corn.

Mine is a sensitive heart, and of a truth tenderness is a failing that is always leading me into difficulties.

I could not support the sight of his anguish; and as soon as he found the use of his voice—which was pretty soon—I thought it best to move away.

CHAPTER II.

I had not gone many steps ere I fell in with a donkey. Now an ass is an animal I can never pass without giving him the time of day. There is a gentle patience with which he listens to my discourses that wins my heart in spite of myself.

He was harnessed to a sort of barrow, laden with mackerel, and he was standing in Farringdon-street to allow the stream of traffic to pass up Ludgate-hill.

“’Tis ever so, Honesty!” said I; “thou and I must e’en wait to let our betters go by. See how yon ‘Bow and Stratford’ rolls by—mark that Pickford’s van—and thou’rt obliged to wait with thy fish, though they be perishable goods at best.”

As I said this I had taken up one of the mackerel, and was moralizing over it.

“Come, I say, jest drop that ’ere?” said a voice. I looked up. It was Jack’s master. “And this is thy tyrant, then!” I thought to myself. “Thine must be a hard lot, with one so suspicious of his kind—so devoid of sentiment.” But I said nothing, and replaced the fish.

Just at this moment the tide of traffic was broken for an instant, and the ass’s master hastened to take advantage of it. “Kim up!” said he to Jack; and before the poor animal could obey him, he seized him by the head and dragged him along, dealing him at the same time a score of heavy blows with a thick stick that he carried in his right hand.

I could have found it in my heart to have given the rascal a sound drubbing for his pains. But I refrained. I protest I am too soft-hearted. I feared I might by chance hurt him, or he me.

“Farewell, Honesty!” said I, as Jack shambled off with his load. And then I knew not what tender emotion stirred me, but I felt a tear trickling down my cheek. “Farewell, Honesty!” said I again, as I put my hand into my pocket for my kerchief.

It was gone!——

CHAPTER III.

I have come to the conclusion that ’tis not the best way to get through a story to begin at the end.

’Tis an unprofitable way at best, and tends to lead one into digressions.

Now, digressions will be the ruin of me in this world and the next. I shall be so beset with digressions I shall never reach my destination.

’Tis a very butterfly-like temptation. Here was I set down to write you out my journey, and I’ve not got three steps from the bottom of Ludgate-hill.

And this because of my fatal failing for digression. I had proposed to write a chapter on Pickford’s vans, and another on Public Executions; but here’s the end of my letter, and I am still standing with one foot on the kerbstone and the other in the kennel.

* * * * *

As I was writing that last sentence, I felt I could bear it no longer. It had rung in my ears all day. I had looked out of windows, and out of doors, and upstairs, and downstairs, but I could not discover whence it came.

“I can’t get on! I can’t get on!”

’Twas a little plaintive voice like a child’s.

“I can’t get on!” This time I traced it to its source. ’Twas nothing but a little squirrel in a revolving cage. As he ran, so his prison turned, and he still kept crying, “I can’t get on!”

Oh! great principle of Liberty! was I wrong to make the instant determination to set that poor little captive free? My heart assures me I was not. I fumbled at the wire-fastening. It resisted my efforts; but the squirrel bit my fingers all the same.

* * * * *

Another digression. But it shall be the last. I have sworn it, and so there’s an end of the matter. And ’tis no much matter either, for after all ’tis no more than this:—

As I stood on the pavement at the bottom of Ludgate-hill, with one foot on the kerb and the other in the kennel, I suddenly remembered that it was Lord Mayors Day.

“Shall I go and see the show?” said I to myself. And myself answered—

“I’ll be hanged if I do!” And I didn’t.

Anonymous.

AFFECTING APPEAL.

Linton, a musician belonging to the orchestra of Covent Garden Theatre, was murdered by street robbers, who were afterwards discovered and executed. A play was given for the benefit of his widow and children; and the day preceding the performance the following appeared in one of the public prints.

“Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.

“For the Benefit of Mrs. Linton, &c.”

“The Widow,” said Charity, whispering me in the ear. “must have your mite; wait upon her with a guinea, and purchase a box-ticket.”

“You may have one for five shillings,” observed Avarice, pulling me by the elbow.

My hand was in my pocket, and the guinea, which was between my finger and thumb, slipped out.

“Yes,” said I, “she shall have my five shillings,”

“Good heaven!” exclaimed Justice, “what are you about! Five shillings? If you pay but five shillings for going into the Theatre, then you get value received for your money.”

“And I shall owe him no thanks,” added Charity, laying her hand upon my heart, and leading me on the way to the Widow’s house.

Taking the knocker in my left hand, my whole frame trembled. Looking round, I saw Avarice turn the corner of the street, and I found all the money in my pocket grasped in my hand.

“Is your mother at home, my dear?” said I, to a child who conducted me into a parlour.

“Yes,” answered the infant; “but my father has not been at home for a great while; that is his harpsichord, and that is his violin.—He used to play on them for me.”

“Shall I play you a tune, my boy?” said I.

“No, sir,” answered the boy, “My mother will not let them be touched; for since my father went abroad, music makes her cry, and then we all cry.”

I looked on the violin—it was unstrung. I touched the harpsichord—it was out of tune. Had the lyre of Orpheus 211 sounded in my ear, it could not have insinuated to my heart thrills of sensibility equal to what I felt. It was the spirit in unison with the flesh.

“I hear my mother on the stairs,” said the boy.

I shook him by the hand—“Give her this, my lad,” said I, and left the house.—It rained—I called a coach—drove to a coffee-house, but not having a farthing in my pocket, borrowed a shilling at the bar.

The Citizen.

I took a fat citizen, and having first shut him up in his little sitting-room, I proceeded to take his picture. I beheld his body gorged with long gratification and confinement to the house, and I felt what kind of sickness of the stomach it is that arises from having eaten too much. On looking nearer, I beheld him bloated and feverish. In sixty years the country breeze had not once fanned his blood, and he had seen the sun and moon but indistinctly in all that time. He was seated, or rather buried in a large arm-chair, which stood in front of the fire-place, and which might have served either for a chair or a bed. A bundle of promissory notes lay on the table, scrawled all over, the fruits of the dark and dismal days and nights he had spent there. He had one of these small slips of paper in his hand, and with a pen he was etching his own signature and the day of the month, to add it to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up an eye, swimming in fat, towards the door, bent his head forward earnestly to listen, and then went on with his work of delight.

I heard the rubbing of his hands when he had with difficulty turned his body round to place the note on the bundle—he gave a sigh of joy. I saw the ecstasy that entered into his soul—I burst into a laugh—I could not contain myself at the picture which my fancy had drawn.

Togatus.

From The Gownsman, Cambridge, 1830.

Fragments in the Manner of Sterne, by Isaac Brandon. Published in 1797, with fine plates, by Kirk, contained the following chapters:—Address to the Shade of Yorick—War—Prosperity—and Humanity—A Shandean Minister—Justice—Necessity—Anna and an “Apostrophe to the Genius of Yorick Redivivus.”

A second edition was published in 1798, with some additional matter.

The Rambles of Mr. Frankly, published by his Sister, 1772, was written in imitation of Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.

A Sentimental Journey (intended as a sequel to Mr. Sterne’s) through Italy, Switzerland, and France. By Mr. Shandy. 2 vols. 1793.

Yorick’s Sentimental Journey, continued.

The Sentimental Journey, a continuation by Eugenius.

Maria, or a Shandean journey of a young Lady through Flanders and France, in 1822, by my Uncle Oddy. 1823.

These are the titles of a few only of the principal imitations of Sterne, in which his maudlin sentiment is easily burlesqued, but in which little of his wit can be found.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Born Dec. 4, 1795. Died Feb. 5, 1881.

A Latter-day Fragment, 1851.

(Carlyle on Bloomerism.)

“A mad world this, my friends, a World in its lunes, petty and other; in lunes other than petty now for sometime; in petty lunes, pettilettes or pantalettes, about these six weeks, ever since when this rampant androgynous Bloomerism first came over from Yankee land. A sort of shemale dress you call Bloomerism; a fashion of Sister Jonathan’s.

Trowsers tight at ankles, and for most part frilled; tunic descending with some degree of brevity, perhaps to knees, ascending to throat and open at chemisette front, or buttoned there; collar down-turned over neckerchief; and crowning all, broad brimmed hat; said garments generally feathered, trimmed, ribboned, variegated, according to the fancies and the vanities: these, chiefly, are the outward differences between Bloomer dress and customary feminine Old Clothes. Not much unlike nursery-uniforms, you think this description of costume, but rather considerably like it, I compute. Invisible are the merits of the Bloomer dress, such as it has. A praiseworthy point in Bloomerism the emancipation of the ribs; an exceeding good riddance, the deliverance from corset, trammelling genteel thorax with springs of steel and whalebone, screwing in waist to Death’s hour glass contraction, and squeezing lungs, liver, and midriff into unutterable cram. Commendable, too, the renouncement of sous-jupe bouffante, or ineffable wadding, invented, I suppose, by some Hottentot to improve female contour after the type of Venus, his fatherland’s, and not Cythera’s. Wholesome, moreover, and convenient, the abbreviation of trains, serving in customary female old clothes the purpose of besom, and no other: real improvements, doubtless, these abandonments of ruinous shams, ridiculous unveracities, and idolatries of indescribable mud-Pythons.… Disputes about surplices in pulpit, and also elsewhere, give place to controversies in theatres and lecture-halls concerning petty lunes and frilled trowsers; paraphernalia, however, not less important than canonicals, as I judge for one.… But here are we, my friends in this mad world, amid the hallooings and bawlings, and guffaws, and imbecile simperings, and titterings, blinded by the November smoke fog of coxcombries and vanities, stunted by the perpetual hallelujahs of flunkeys, beset by maniacs and simpletons in the great lunes and the petty lunes; here, I say, do we, with Bloomerism beneath us bubbling uppermost, stand, hopelessly upturning our eyes for the daylight of heaven, upon the brink of a vexed unfathomable gulf of apehood and asshood simmering for ever.”

Anonymous.

The Tichborne Trial.

By Thomas Carr Lisle.

The Tichborne Trial is ended! Yea, my brother and other things are ended of which that is but a type, Looming Portentous; verily, a sort of Fire-balloon of paper, or of papers rather, Standard, Telegraph, and what not.

Men say “The truth is out at last.” The Truth out! my poor brothers-nay, was the Truth ever in. Surely there was no Truth, rather other than that.

And yet doth it not mean something, think you, this Tichborne 212 Trial, its Solicitor-Generals, Tichborne bonds, and legal Inanities? Says it not “Is there Truth in the land, O Israel?” “What is Truth?” said jesting Pilate, or rather where is it? Cry the question into the bottomless Inane of this our world, and what answer? Nothing but an inarticulate response of Tichborne bonds, Solicitor-Generals, and such.

Yea, they mean something, these Solicitor-Generals and Tichborne bonds:—a Partridge-shooting, Salmon-preserving, Dilettante Aristocracy have said so much, have said so with lifting of hands and Reverence—we fear somewhat of the Rotatory Calabash kind. They mean this much, which is perhaps somewhat other than Double-barrelled Dilettantisms would have them mean. They mean this much. This England of ours believes no longer in Truth, believes rather in a kind of Sham Truth, a stucco business, much to be lamented; at least, by all such as hold their soul for a purpose other than to save salt, to keep them from Rottenness, Stinking, and utter Unsavouryness. “They say unto us ‘make brick,’ and no straw is given unto thy servants.” So might cry our men of law, lacking Truth to work upon; but for straw they cry not, thinking to make brick without straw; and they make no brick, rather Falsity, Puffery, and Unnature.

O, great Roger! these matters of thine call with a tolerably audible voice of Proclamation, and a universal “oyez,” and we English Microcosms may know that it was verily meant in earnest that same Phenomenon, and had its reasons for appearing there—Just and Unjust cause—Dikaios and Adikos Logos—trying to settle or get themselves settled, incessantly protesting against each being the other, and with it may be another kind of Logos from the great Universe with silent continual Beckonings trying to revenge itself, revancher itself, make itself good again.

For does not the Universe hold an inarticulate Sympathy with Justice, yearning that meum be mine tuum thine. That meum be mine! There is surely something Respectable in that.

And what is the outcome, ask Practical men, of all this? What is the import of the matter to us who are not Rogers? Verily, my friends, this—that England is in a state of Chronic Atropos, hath made her a covering of Asses-ears, Midas-leavings, Sermons, parchment and what not, hoping to sleep through it in such caloric apparel in this Glass house of hers, knowing that glass is no conductor—to Heaven’s lightning at least.

The Outcome of ninety-one days’ sittings, Red-tape Philosophies, Club-room jaw-clackings, and Infernal Babel of Telegraphs and Morning Stars is little other than—for Rogers Newgate and the Blackness of Darkness, for those who are not Rogers, discovery of Chronic Atropos in a Rampant state, wholly Insuppressible, Irrepressible, and Mad.

After all, is not Insanity just what is the matter with this English Bull just now? Is there Sanity at all among us butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers, red tape dummies, black crape ludicrousnesses, Puseyisms, Benthamee Radicalisms, Church and Statisms, Dilettantisms, Mammonisms, double-barelled Aristocracies, and inane Chimæras generally? Literature is, perhaps, the Sanest thing we have just at present, at least tolerabler, impressibler, beneficenter than mere Chaos, articulate or inarticulate. Writers, at least, have a Meaning, must have a Meaning; state some Fact or Facts, or what they take for Fact or Facts, intelligibly, so that men may say “Thus thinks a Man, whether he think wrong or right.”

And the Tichborne Trial was mad, utterly mad, with no Truth, hardly even Untruth in it, but Confusion and Roaring as of the Pit and Abyss of stupidity.

Did the Insanity thereof dawn upon many, think you? One might have hoped so, have hoped that such had been the Outcome which Practical Men require. One might have hoped that the sense of the World, Judicial, Social, and Otherwise, would have got itself resuscitated from Asphyxia, or proved for ever irresuscitable. But, instead thereof, we have Times Subscription-list actually now present, and Impending Ominous Perjury-trials, fresh Chaotic Incongruities, diabolic Floppings and Caterwaulings hitherto thought moribund, scattering incalculable Contagion.

Thus clearly doth this Roger matter preach its lesson to mankind, teaching and preaching clearly as these Words writ down here the Unveracity of Demiurgurships, of Solicitor-Generals, and such Parchment Kings.

But, my friends, such things will not last, at least not longer than Doomsday in the afternoon. It is very notable, Demiurgurship of Judges, that loud Inane Actuality with justice in its pocket, which rolls along there with trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world escorting it as mute or vocal Flunkey—go thy way. Escort it not thou, my brother. Say unto it rather, “Loud blaring Nonentity, no force of wigs, spectacles, and trumpets can make thee an Entity. Thou art a Nonentity and deceptive Simulacrum.” Storm-clothed Caverns Cheese and Earwigs! French and Phrygians, Zero. Ba! Moo! Hee Haw! Hee Haw.

From The Light Green, Cambridge, 1872.

The Editor of The World offered two prizes for compositions (in the style of Thomas Carlyle) describing Mr. Gladstone’s portrait by Millais, and on August 6, 1879, it published the two following parodies:—

First Prize.

Turn we, therefore, from this jaunting, jostling, pestering Piccadilly into the Academy—whether really Royal this year I know not, or whether it be no more than the grandest Graphic we have had this many months, the most illustrious Illustrated of the year. Pause not to catch glamorous glancing glimpses of the besodden (with rain only, think you?) Season’s Beauties—drawn verily, each of them, by most Special Correspondents—but step sternly on, and stop face to face with this William—the People’s William, as the mob hath not dubiously dubbed him. Is it the Portrait merely or the Man himself that ye have come out for to see? Be you friend or foe to him, is there not in this counterfeit presentment of him—this wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting (not on trees only) man—something which almost attaches you? Is it not the attitude and face of a man who hath said to Cant, ‘Begone!’ to Dilettantism, ‘Here canst thou not be!’ and to Truth, ‘Be thou in place of all—ay, of ‘place’ itself to me!’—a man who hath manfully defied the ‘Time-Prince’ or Devil to his face, by all weapons, in all places, at all times? See you not, in the earnestly, sternly eagle-eyed look of him the ground of the enthusiasm,—The Schwärmerei,—for him? Contrast him not odiously, but in sober, sensible silence, with the dazzling Dizzy, the bright Beaconsfield. Which of them, both great, is really greatest? Which the grandest Thing and thoughtfullest we have done lately? Which will we send to the next Exhibition, Paris or otherwise? Which of them will we show for our Honour, with Peace or without it, amongst foreign nations, and for our Peace with Honour surely amongst ourselves? Which? Consider now, if they asked us, “Choose ye not this time, like ill-starred princess 213 ’twixt axe and crown,’ but twixt the man who sways the axe, and him who rejects (rightly doubtless) the crown; ’twixt the lopper of laurels, and the creator of crowns, Imperial and other, that fade.” Consider now, if they asked us, “Will you give up your William or your Benjamin,—not little truly, and just now your Ruler—O ye lost Tribes of Israel? Never have had any William, or never have had any Benjamin?” Consider now both of them, all of you, as Men of State, of Letters, ay, of Post-cards also if you will! Really it were a grave question. Official persons would doubtless answer in official language; but we, for our part, should not we also be forced to answer, ‘Benjamin or no Benjamin, we cannot do without William’? He is verily ours,—not with us here and there only, in Oriental mystery amongst us; but ours always,—Fortnightly, our own Contemporary (or a large part of it), our best Nineteenth Century Man.

Conservative.

Second Prize.

Here, O belated wayfarer, in thy weary march in search of the Beautiful, after painful journeying through a Realm of æsthetic Unrealities, pause! Thou art verily at last in presence of a Man. No mere clothes-bundle of humanity this, presented before thee, smirking, pomatumed, garnered from the Dustbin of the Ages—marvelling by what blundering Miracle of the Destinies he finds himself there. Wandering in this bewildering waste of ruined canvas, that by wise guidance might have evolved itself into practical Breeches for the Breechless in this howling naked world—this many-tinted appalling array of painted, but, alas, soulless Flesh—of bewigged Pomposity, of empty Dead-Sea faces with no Souls behind them, children of the Inane begotten in Vanity and brought forth in Vexation of Spirit, acres of æsthetic Upholstery, Sugar-loaf Confectionary, perpetuated Blockheadism, respectable Giggery, and other like phenomena,—all jumbled together, gibbeted in veneer and gold;—here, at last, I say, amid this motley throng, come we on a glimpse of the Ideal, a Giant among pigmies, a Man surrounded by Tailor-puppets, a human Soul gazing out from an earnest human face intent upon things other than mere cultivation of the Digestive faculty. Yea, look upon him! An earnest, passionate, restless, lean, but withal noble face. An eager eye, but pathetic in its eagerness, looking out compassionately on this sad oppressed world. Stern compressed lips, an undaunted brow, with a Stormy Force hidden under the calm exterior. Straight he looks into the Shams and Chicanery of our insincere Charlatan age,—the keen lightnings of his eye, and fierce thunderbolts of his tongue, cleaving, piercing, exploding the Windbags and inflated Bladders that in our noodle, jabbering, screech-owl Parliament try to pass themselves as Verities and Realities. O my brothers, look on this, a fragment of the Real flung by some miracle amid the Unreal, of the Invisible made Visible, embodying for us, and for those who come after us, a picture, a semblance, an apparition, a Verisimilitude of Greatness that will survive the cacklings and hissings and venom-squirting propensities of a purblind Age!

TEUFELSDRÖCKH JUNIOR.

On March 5th, 1882, The Weekly Dispatch published the result of a Prize competition for parodies on Carlyle’s style. Four imitations were printed, but the prize was awarded to the following:

On the Parliamentary “Closure.”

Business in these latter days the national palaver has mostly ceased to do; talk in every variety, perorations, objurations clamorously vehement have inundated the poor palaver, well-nigh swamping what of sense and work remained to it. Strange have been the sights of late, honourable members struggling all day, all night, stormful, impetuously rampant, found still by saffron Phœbus motioning, dividing, weary, and reckless of everything, wishful only to make an end. Sacred truly are the rights of minorities, sacred too are other rights, for one the right to work and to progress; but this right of the not honourable member, shameless, unreasonable, treasonable to drone, and adjourn, and divide, senselessly and hopelessly seems not sacred; not to me, nor to the Eternal Reason. For from of old was it not given to the strong to rule, and rule well, at peril of their souls; and is not strength with the many and not the few, shriek and expostulate though they may, passionate, hysterical, futile—now to be overborne by the “evident sense of the majority” arresting the inane jabberings with true Puritan earnestness and vigour, rejoiced in by the Empyreans, enemies of froth and the Pit. The sense of the majority cannot too often be “evident.”

J. W. Hale.

People of the Present.

Omitted from Carlyle’s “Reminiscences.”

BROWN, THE POET.

Went last night in wet, bad weather to Dash’s to meet Brown. A lean, long, clothes-prop of a man, with a bilious complexion-spectral, hideous, discordant, almost infernal. Much common-coloured hair streaming over narrow shoulders. Asked leave to present me with his new volume of poems, the result being that I got to talking in the Annandale accent, and communicated large masses of my views on weak verse to all within hearing. Tuneful Brown shaken as with a passing earthquake. A very questionable impression of myself left in that quarter, I imagine.

ROBINSON, THE PAINTER.

In the evening an Oscarian rout. Dauber Robinson was the only novelty, for I have never noticed him before—a man with huge bush of beard, spectacled, staring, owlish. For the rest, a podgy man with loose mouth (spout mouth), cock nose, and shallowest brow. A sandy, barren character, dissonant speaking, dogmatic, trivial, with a singular exasperation on a question of perspective. Let him go on spoiling good canvas with his pictures—save the mark!—in the name of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron, who seems to be his god: but don’t let him flatter himself that he will ever get an order from me—ach Gott!

Funny Folks, November 1884.

——:o:——

The Ghost of Carlyle at the Inventories.

His observations on the equestrian statue of
the Prince of Wales in the Entrance Hall.

Beyond doubt a horse—breed questionable—a horse nevertheless. A horse, charging like an unbottled whirlwind, kicking up behind and before; dash, plash! 214 Symptoms unmistakable. Too much other charging for the equine-imity of this full-bodied charger from the stables of Gulliver Swift’s Brobdingnag. Wo, intrepedest! carriest thou not a prince astride; he that is of Wales, yet no Welshman, no Taffy-stick; man of Three Feathers simply! He is the great chum-chum of the sociabilities, knowest thou not? not to be sneezed at like everyday clay. This clay that thou upbearest on that square back of thine is of the Pottery-Royal, good steed; hall-marked from Plantagenet to Guelph with despisable and undespisable Saxon-Norman-Dutch-German interweavings; yet a sound clay, and transparent withal, not mere bric-a-brac. All other sons of Adam bow to him; throw him, therefore, at thy peril. See, the Inanities are coming, with them the Lack-lustres, the Sham-aristocrats, the Brass-brains, the Tittle-tattlers, and the Bubble-mongers. What! still kicking! Do not these High Mightinesses affright thee? What sayest thou to the feminine new clothes-screens that come lilting in, puffy, protuberant, patchy? piquancy personified; all that. Burlesques of anatomy notwithstanding. Nunquam non paratus.

Oh, Bucephalus, I am ashamed of thee; all the fineries are here, and thou shouldst be of the inaudibles. Else, better wert thou with thy commemorative counterpart, in distant, hot-as-Hades Bombay. Dost thou not, like the Heine-immortalised palm, have internal yearnings towards the other self out there in the land of the palanquin—that other self-made gift of to the Bombayliffs by Sir Albert Sassoon, C.S.I.? Ridden by an H.R.H., K.G., G.C.S.I., and presented by a C.S.I. Kt., thou shouldst, with thy O B C T, abide by the letter of thy compact. Look around thee; the show is now going on; the asinines are upon us; “Walk up! walk up!” See how they stream through the turn-stiles; pay here, pay there, pay everywhere; halt cabs, halt carriages; crush; press. Whoogh! Hotter work this than shelling peas in the back kitchen with Gretchen. Why, the very mural panels blush for thee in all their Doulton red-hotness. Yes, they have panelled all the inventions on these walls, from Agricola to Bessemer, from Caxton to Walter, from Jost Amman to Arkwright. These panels empanel thee, kicker. Ach Gott! an’ thou dost not stop thy cursed racket, thou shalt seek the Evermore with a walking-stick betwixt thy ribs! A full score peelers (well I remember Robert o’ that ilk) stand sentry, Right over Wrong, or vice versa, in this Hall of no entrance sans the cash, and yet thou art not mollified.

See, the crowds come in by the Subway also—Subwayters they, with a vengeance, and mix and muddle. Mark, too, the seats for the Demi-semi Flirts and their victims. Followers allowed there, Bucephalus, I surmise. See, how the crowd streams down the broad steps that lead to the great South Gallery in the West. A sunny south it is, methinks, this day of autumn. Wo, wo; gently, gently; thou wilt be Hors de combat of a verity one of these days; and this entrancing Hall of Entrance will be disinvented for its entrance upon the chaos of Do-Nothingness, which will surely come with the Inevitable that lies round the corner of Time’s next street, waiting for the ding of doom. Ah, here comes another tribe of the Monetaries, with parboiled visages, and permeations of fashion—starch all over them, head to foot. Boy, bring me a mushroom!

Gaiety, October 17, 1885.

From the “World-Harmonic-Æolian-Attachment.”

A burlesque notice of “The Biglow Papers.”

Speech is silver: silence is golden. No utterance more Orphic than this. While, therefore, as highest author, we reverence him whose works continue heroically unwritten, we have also our hopeful word for those who with pen (from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph God-commissioned) record the thing that is revealed.… Under mask of quaintest irony, we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh shipwracked) soul, thunder-scarred, semi-articulate but ever climbing hopefully toward the peaceful summits of an Infinite Sorrow.… Yes, thou poor, forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew fire-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this life of ours has not been without its aspects of heavenliest pity and laughingest mirth. Conceivable enough! Through coarse Thersites cloak, we have revelation of the heart, wild glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Bravely he grapples with the life-problem as it presents itself to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless of the “nicer proprieties,” inexpert of “elegant diction,” yet with voice audible enough to whoso hath ears up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the splashy, Indiarubber-like salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul also the Necessity of Creating somewhat has unveiled its awful front. If not Œipuses and Electras and Alcestises, then in God’s name Birdofredum Sawins. These also shall get born into the world, and filch (if so need) a Zingali subsistence therein, these lank, omnivorous Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, since the Unseen will not sit to him. Yet in him also are Nibelungen-lays and Iliads, and Ulysses-wanderings, and Divine Comedies—if only once he could come at them! Therein lies much, nay all; for what truly is this which we name All, but that which we do not possess?... Glimpses also are given us of an old father Ezekiel, not without paternal pride, as is the wont of such. A brown, parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic species, gray-eyed, we fancy, queued perhaps, with much weather-cunning and plentiful September-gale memories, bidding fair in good time to become the Oldest Inhabitant. After such hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no more.… Of “Rev. Homer Wilbur, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam,” we have small care to speak here. Spare touch in him of his Melesigenes namesake, save, haply, the—blindness! A tolerably caliginose, nephelegeretous elderly gentleman, with infinite faculty of sermonizing, muscularized by long practice, and excellent digestive apparatus, and, for the rest, well-meaning enough, and with small private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it is to be feared) of his own. To him, there, “Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam,” our Hosea presents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx-riddle. A rich poverty of Latin and Greek,—so far is clear enough, even to eyes peering myopic through horn-lensed editorial spectacles,—but naught farther? O purblind, well-meaning, altogether fuscous Melesigenes-Wilbur, there are things in him incommunicable by stroke of birch! Did it ever enter that old bewildered head of thine that there was the Possibility of the Infinite in him? To thee, quite wingless (and even featherless) biped, has not so much even as a dream of wings ever come? “Talented young parishioner”? Among the Arts whereof thou art Magister, does that of seeing happen to be one? Unhappy Artium Magister! Somehow a Nemean lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad-howling sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit—Libya (it may be supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already he stands wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little fold. In Heaven’s name, go not near him with that fly-bite crook of thine! In good time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the appointed place of departed Artillery-Election Sermons, Right-Hands of Fellowship, and Results of Councils, gathered to thy 215 spiritual fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort; thou, too, shalt have thy reward; but on him the Eumenides have looked, not Xantippes of the pit, snake-tressed, finger-threatening, but radiantly calm as on antique gems; for him paws impatient the winged courser of the gods, champing unwelcome bit; him the starry deeps, the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splendors await.

——:o:——

In Banter (Edited by G. A. Sala) for November 11, 1867, there is a parody on Carlyle entitled Shows and Shams, dealing with the Lord Mayor’s Show for that year. But the topic is exhausted, and the parody is exhausting.

In the Christmas Number of the World for 1879 there is an imitation of Carlyle, descriptive of a picture called Music in the Drawing Room, this parody is of no interest apart from the illustration.

“Carlyle Redivivus, being an occasional discourse on Sauerteig” by Smellfungus, Edited by P. P. Alexander, M. A., was a pamphlet published in Glasgow by Mr. James Maclehose. It was first published during Mr. Carlyle’s lifetime, and ran through several editions. It not only parodied Carlyle’s style, but criticised his theories.

Here then, by way of conclusion, is a piece of real genuine Carlyleism, printed in The Times as long ago as 1877, and not now so generally remembered as it deserves to be.

Mr. Carlyle on the Crisis.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—A rumour everywhere prevails that our miraculous Premier, in spite of his Queen’s Proclamation of Neutrality, intends, under cover of “care for British interests,” to send the English Fleet to the Baltic, or do some other feat which shall compel Russia to declare war against England. Latterly the rumour has shifted from the Baltic and become still more sinister, on the eastern side of the scene, where a feat is contemplated that will force not Russia only, but all Europe, to declare war against us. This latter I have come to know as an indisputable fact; in our present affairs and outlooks surely a grave one.

As to “British interests,” there is none visible or conceivable to me, except taking strict charge of our route to India by Suez and Egypt; and, for the rest, resolutely steering altogether clear of any copartnery with the Turk in regard to this or any other “British interest” whatever. It should be felt by England as a real ignominy to be connected with such a Turk at all. Nay, if we still had, as, in fact, all ought to have, a wish to save him from perdition and annihilation in God’s world, the one future for him that has any hope in it is even now that of being conquered by the Russians and gradually schooled and drilled into peaceable attempt at learning to be himself governed. The newspaper outcry against Russia is no more respectable to me than the howling of Bedlam, proceeding, as it does, from the deepest ignorant egotism, and paltry national jealousy.

These things I write not on hearsay, but on accurate knowledge, and to all friends of their country will recommend immediate attention to them while there is yet time lest in a few weeks the maddest and most criminal thing that a British Government could do should be done, and all Europe kindle into flames of war. I am, &c.,

T. Carlyle.

5, Cheyne-row, Chelsea, May 4.

CHARLES DICKENS.

Born, February 7, 1812. Died, June 9, 1870.

On the second of August, 1879, there was a severe storm in London, and the Editor of The World offered prizes for the two best descriptions of it to be written in imitation of the style of the fifteenth chapter of Martin Chuzzlewit. This, it will be remembered, recounts the experiences of Martin and Mark Tapley, on their voyage to the States. The following were the successful compositions, which appeared in The World, August 27, 1879.

First Prize.

A bright warm close to a dull dripping week; Labour, just paid his weekly wages by Capital, taking a friendly cup in the alehouse porch; Capital giving a last look to his horses and wagons, as he saunters across the Home-meadow to his evening meal; youth of the village disporting itself on the village green; fishers’ boats coming in, booty-laden, from the open-sea; coastguardmen looking anxiously out for what neither village youth, nor Labour, nor keen-eyed Capital himself can see—a thin dark cloud-line upon the horizon, with grey curling fringes that point upwards and move slowly on, just as the advance guard of a mighty army crests with its bayonets the distant hill.

An hour passes. The sun sets, the cloud-bank rising over him, and his struggling beams throwing a wan unearthly glare across the western heavens. Ever and anon as the wind rises, the tall poplars shake their heads and whisper to the oaks and shrubs beneath them; then the breeze as suddenly dies away, and again over all Nature is spread the sable pall and deathlike silence of an impenetrable night; or a few heavy drops patter down on the still pool, and then cease—all again is hushed, all restful, but yet pregnant with the rest and hush that precedes the hurricane.

Ten, eleven, twelve! Does some relentless demon of the storm, from the old church-tower, give the signal for the war of the elements? Scarce has the midnight chime died away when the tempest wakes. First one vivid flash, then, before the crash reverberates from hill to hill, another succeeds it, and another—not the ordinary fitful change from gleam to gloom, from darkness to light, but the mad meeting of storms from every quarter of the heavens, in all the fulness of rage and strife, and never ceasing turmoil.

Again, again! The rain seems to crash down rather than to fall, streaming with a torrent’s force from the hillside, foaming, rushing, seething in a thousand eddies down to the swollen river, till the banks no longer endure the awful pressure, and the wild flashes laugh out, fiend-like, at trees and flocks and newly-stacked hay, all swept adrift, all whirled oceanwards.

Again, again! What further ruin can the storm-demon work? Gradually, unwillingly, the tempest departs; only the gray scattered clouds remain, hanging on the hill slope. Yet, as the daylight dawns, one sad cry is heard from all, “God’s house!”

The chimes are for ever silent, for God’s house has fallen! Just before the storm passed away a vivid flash struck the topmost pinnacle and caught the oaken rafters in the belfry—and now the roof has fallen in; the pillars 216 crumble beneath the still-consuming flame; the bells crash down from the steeple one by one, a smoking mass of blackened walls and arches alone bears witness to the past, alone tells of anthems raised to heaven by the white-robed choir, and earnest words of God’s chosen messengers, and the all-pervading incense of hushed and solemn prayer.

New Sarum.

Second Prize.

Murk midnight. Some in their beds for a moment waking only to hear the buffeting of the elements. Policemen, wetter than Ramsgate bathing-men, seeking the shelter of doorways. The bells of St. Paul’s unwillingly giving utterance to their dissatisfaction with their position by twelve muttering growls. The town, dry in the early spring, now ankle-deep in mud; the wind is no longer still, but, stealthily following the unwary foot-passenger, whirls off his hat, and, stopping for a moment in glee at his discomfiture, rushes on, eager for more mischief.

Now crowds, freed from their cramped postures in the playhouse, rush out upon the wild waste of the dripping Strand.

Here, roaring, fighting, pushing, elbowing each other into the howling fury of the night. Hither come chattering voices from the stalls, pit, and recesses of the theatre, where the chairs remain sole occupants of the place, and seem to say, “Ah, ha, here we are, snug for the night!”

Here in the eagerness of regained liberty, they storm and push each other, while the tempest falls in sheets of water, and howls above them. On and on in countless crowds they rush, like human billows. Men and women, hats, bonnets, and umbrellas, draggled dresses in one rushing wet mass. Pursuit of cabs, and fruitless return to the shelter of the passage; savage struggle of humanity enlivening the black night; little forbearance, but eternal fighting. On and on they surge, backwards and forwards, and darker grows the night, fiercer falls the hail, louder roars the thunder, more clamorous and angry the numberless voices in the street, when a wild cry goes forth, “A cab!” Onward it comes, fighting its way through the elements, the crazy door rattling; onward it comes, now free as the surging crowd falls back, now overwhelmed in a sea of human forms. And every voice in the multitude, answered by storm-voices in the air, shrieks more loudly, “A cab!”

Still he comes driving on, and at the boldness and determination of one man the angry crowd rise up, peering over each other’s heads, and round about the cab they press upon him, forcing each other down, and starting up and rushing forward in reckless eagerness.

Round it they surge and roar, and, giving way to others, moodily depart, still this one fights on bravely….

At last the eager multitude fall back, and dawn of day discovers the happy occupant within, with the elements still pouring their fury upon the devoted driver in an eternity of hail and rain, as on and on he goes into the far suburbs, with his dim lamps burning, and the fare inside asleep and snoring, as if there were no tempest trying every chink and cranny of the shaky vehicle, and no half-drowned cabby outside with only a moist billycock on his head, and sleepily yawning so wide that the spirits of the air, if they could exist on such a night, might look into the unfathomable depths below.

Robert le Diable.

The Age of Lawn-Tennis.
(After Charles Dickens’s “Pickwick.” A fragment.)

CHAPTER I.

The first record we have of the Hitquick Club, which has since assumed a position of proud eminence in the ball-playing world, is embodied in the following resolution, which appears in an old minute book, lately disinterred from the cloisters of Wymbledoune Priory.

“It is proposed by Mr. Pleycynge, and seconded by Mr. de Vorley,—

“That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction, the paper communicated by Verdant Hardcourt Hitquick, Esq., A.E.L.T.C.,[51] P.H.C.,[52] etc., etc., entitled, ‘Speculations on the origin of ball-playing, with some observations on the theory of the back-hander, and the parabola of the lob;’ and that this Association returns its warmest thanks for the same.”

It further appears that an amendment was suggested by Will. O’Bye Wisp, Esq., who had failed as a ball-player, and was better known as an enthusiastic Pyramidalist,—

“That the study of the triangular must inevitably result in greater benefits to the human race than the consideration of the sphere;” but, as this was unsupported by any further argument than that the triangle had more point than the ball, the original resolution was carried, Mr. Will. O’Bye Wisp alone dissenting.

It was further agreed, that V. H. Hitquick, Esq., should be President; that he, with Mr. Cutman, Mr. Shortgrass, and Mr. de Vorley, should be the Committee; and that Mr. Pleycynge should be the Secretary.

“A casual observer,” adds the Secretary, to whose notes we are indebted for the following interesting remarks, “A casual observer might have remarked nothing extraordinary in the appearance of V. H. Hitquick, Esq., during the reading of these resolutions; but to those who knew that there sat the man who had traced the origin of the ball into the early ages, when globular masses had been created by the introduction of the laws of gravity among shapeless matter; who had detected how, true to the model of the planetary system, the earliest balls had been ellipsoidal; how prehistoric men, in their primæval pastimes, had been driven nigh to frenzy by the false bounds arising out of this apparently heaven-directed shape; how, in such times, the advantages of service had been all preponderating; how certain crafty Chaldean astrologers in their studies had discovered the shape of the true sphere, and how, having backed themselves with wagers of corn and oil and wine, they had cheated in their international games by substituting the true spheres when they were being served to, and by using the ellipsoids when serving; to those, I say, who knew that there sat the man who had traced out all this and much else, by the research of half a lifetime, the sight, indeed, was an interesting one. Mr. Hitquick’s oration in response was remarkable;” but the damp of the Wymbledoune cloisters had here much obliterated the Secretary’s notes. It was gathered, however, that he was comparing the life of man to that of a tennis-ball, and was congratulating them “that the philanthropists and the ball-makers were rapidly, in both cases, eliminating the seamy side, though he was fain to acknowledge that some hollowness still remained in both.” Here the entry becomes illegible, and we have had to fall back upon tradition, and other sources, for what we are about to record further of the doings of the Hitquick Club.

CHAPTER II.

Mr. Hitquick, who had been delivering over-night, amidst much applause, an impressive lecture to the members of the Hitquick Club on various phases of Lawn-tennis dynamics, was with some difficulty roused from his slumbers on the particular morning of which it now becomes our duty to write.

217 “What’s that, Samuel?” he proceeded to say to his servant, as he sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes,—“a letter?”

“Yes, sir,” was the reply.

“Then bring me my spectacles,” said Mr. Hitquick.

“If you please, sir, a boy have walked over with this from Little Mugborough, and he’s a-vaiting below for a hanswer.”

“Very well, Samuel,” said Mr. Hitquick, as he adjusted his spectacles and opened the letter. “Why! dear me! What’s this?”

‘The Secretary of the Little Mugborough Lawn-Tennis Club presents his compliments to Mr. Hitquick, and begs to inform him that two members of his Club will be glad to play any two members of the Hitquick Association at four o’clock this afternoon.’

“Why! a challenge,” said Mr. Hitquick. “Of course, we will meet them. Let me see there’s Shortgrass and Cutman, two active men in the prime of life, who tell me they generally offer half-thirty in mixed country society; the very thing. Here, take this, Samuel.”

“It strikes me wery forcibly,” said Samuel to himself with a wink, “that, if those two gents don’t look a bit more spry this afternoon than I have ever seen them ven I have had the extreme privilege of vatching their performances, the Hitquick Club will have a very considerable wopping,”—and, whistling to himself, he went off with the letter.

Now, it must be confessed that neither Mr. Shortgrass nor Mr. Cutman were such performers on the Tennis-lawn as they had led their worthy President, Mr. Hitquick, to believe, nor as they had described themselves in their after-dinner conversations, as they sipped the soft claret for which the Hitquick Club was so deservedly famous; though certain papers which they had read before the members of the Association had, no doubt, stamped them as theoretical professors of no mean order.

Notably, a paper by Mr. Cutman on “Atmospheric resistance to the Cutman service in the latitude of Greenwich” (a lecture suggested by certain accurate memoranda, prepared by the statist of the Club, to the effect that only ’17 of these services so far overcame it as to pass over the net), had placed him in the front ranks of Lawn-tennis theorists; while a lecture by Mr. Shortgrass, on “Suspected tidal attraction on the Shortgrass lob” (accounting for the discovery by the same scientific observer that it almost always completed its parabola on Mr. Shortgrass’s side of the net), had brought him, too, into a leading position amongst spheric scientists.

At four o’clock, however, Mr. Shortgrass and Mr. Cutman stepped upon the lawn, prepared to do battle for the Hitquickians, and were soon confronted by the team from Little Mugborough.

The game began, A sharp service was sent to Mr. Shortgrass, who shut his eyes, hit wildly, and returned it accidentally. No one’s astonishment was greater than his own; he felt he had done enough; he shouted “yours” to balls which kept striking him on head, stomach, and legs, and did not appear to recover from his intense surprise till the umpire called, “Set the first, six games to love, Little Mugborough wins.”

“Call that placing, Samivel, my boy,” said a stout elderly gentleman, of horsey dress, to his son, who was no other than Mr. Hitquick’s servant; “call that placing? Vy! I should like to see one of these ere ball-placers as could flick a fly off a leader’s ear! That’s wot I calls placing, Samivel.”

Mr. Hitquick’s face had now begun to lengthen to such an extent as to cause a bystander to inform him that a curious compound of brandy and soda-water was to be obtained in the marquee close by, whither Mr. Hitquick, taking such bystander’s advice now adjourned.

“Capital game—smart sport—rare exercise—very,” were the words that fell upon Mr. Hitquick’s ear as he entered the marquee.

“What! Jangle?” said he, recognising an old acquaintance, “What brings you here?”

“ Me here—Wymbledoune Arms—met a party—capital fellows—gin and water—Lawn-tennis—great match—Little Mugborough—came on here—and here we are. What name? Know your face.”

“My name, sir, is Hitquick, author of a ‘Treatise on Balls;’ at your service, sir.”

“Ah! Hitquick—much pleasure—great man—good book—read it myself—Spheric lore—Sun, Saturn—Earth—Jupiter—pumpkins—balls—inter-threaded—human race—round games—round robins—general idea—deuced clever.”

“And do you—er—join, Mr. Jangle, in this—er—healthgiving pastime?”

“Play, Sir,” said Jangle—“I think I did—never heard?—queer thing—deuced strange—great traveller—round the world—visited Madagascar—met a stranger—said he could play—offered to play him—gave fifteen—thermometer 110 degrees in the shade—threw in a bisque—beat him hollow—no umpire—stranger riled—disputed scoring—they always do—ex-champion—name Shadow—all love-sets—play? rather.”

As Jangle and Mr. Hitquick reapproached the game, it had just become the duty of the umpire to cry: “Three sets to love, Little Mugborough wins,” thus deciding the match adversely to the Hitquickians. Mr. Hitquick retired a few paces from the bystanders, and, beckoning Shortgrass to approach, fixed a keen and searching glance upon him, and uttered in a low tone these remarkable words:—

“Sir, you’re a humbug.”

Turning to Cutman, who was trying to conceal himself behind his late partner, he added,—

“And you, too, sir.”

“What?” they both exclaimed, starting.

“Humbugs, sir. I will speak more plainly, if you desire it. Imposters, sir. Yes; imposters.”

And with these words Mr. Hitquick turned slowly on his heel, and proceeded to rejoin his friends.

This Parody originally appeared in Pastime, July 20, 1883. It was afterwards reprinted in Tennis Cuts and Quips, an amusing volume ably edited by Mr. Julian Marshall, and published by Field and Tuer, London.

The late Mr. Charles Stuart Calverley, the author of many clever parodies, was a diligent student of the works of Dickens, and when he entered at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in October 1852, it was generally admitted that he was more familiar with the Pickwick Papers than any other man in the University. Hence arose the jocular notion of having a competitive examination on that work, and Calverley drew up an ingenious syllabus of questions, from which it may be gathered how accurate and minute was his acquaintance with Pickwick. The examination was open to all members of Christ’s College, the first prize was taken by Mr. Walter Besant, and the second by Mr. (now Professor) Skeat, two gentlemen whose names have since become familiar in the literary world. The Pickwick Examination Paper will be found in Fly Leaves, by C. S. Calverley, published by G. Bell & Sons, a few specimen questions will show the humour of the thing:—

1. Mention any occasions on which it is specified that 218 the Fat Boy was not asleep; and that (1) Mr. Pickwick and (2) Mr. Weller, senr., ran. Deduce from expressions used on one occasion Mr. Pickwick’s maximum of speed.

2. Translate into coherent English, adding a note wherever a word, a construction, or an allusion requires it:

“Go on, Jemmy—like black-eyed Susan—all in the Downs”—“Smart chap that cabman—handled his fives well—but if I’d been your friend in the green jemmy—punch his head—pig’s whisper—pieman, too.”

Elucidate the expression, “the Spanish Traveller,” and the “narcotic bedstead.”

4. What operation was performed on Tom Smart’s chair? Who little thinks that in which pocket, of what garment, in where, he has left what, entreating him to return to whom, with how many what, and all how big?

5. Give, approximately, the height of Mr. Dubbley; and, accurately, the Christian names of Mr. Grummer, Mrs. Raddle, and the Fat Boy; also the surname of the Zephyr.

8. Give in full Samuel Weller’s first compliment to Mary, and his father’s critique upon the same young lady. What church was on the valentine that first attracted Mr. Samuel’s eye in the shop?

11. On finding his principal in the pound, Mr. Weller and the town-beadle varied directly. Show that the latter was ultimately eliminated, and state the number of rounds in the square which is not described.

12. “Any think for air and exercise; as the wery old donkey observed ven they voke him up from his deathbed to carry ten gen’lmen to Greenwich in a tax-cart.” Illustrate this by stating any remark recorded in the Pickwick Papers to have been made by a (previously) dumb animal, with the circumstances under which he made it.

15. Describe Weller’s Method of “gently indicating his presence” to the young lady in the garden; and the Form of Salutation usual among the coachmen of the period.

20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. S. Weller’s song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man’s excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that he (Sam) had more brothers than one?

23. “She’s a swelling visibly.” When did the same phenomenon occur again, and what fluid caused the pressure on the body in the latter case?

24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds, and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? in what terms is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the name of the meeting?

30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have worn gaiters?

In connection with this examination reference may be made to the “Death of Mr. Pickwick,” by Messrs. W. Besant and J. Rice in “The Case of Mr. Lucraft, and other Tales.”

The Battle won by the Wind.
By the author of the “Picnic Papers,” “Barnaby Fudge,” &c.

Night! Night and a thick darkness on the dreaming city. It was o’er all—that pitchy veil—o’er lone deserted streets and broad suburban roads, along which wagons with their great clamped wheels jolt forward to the early market—o’er square and terrace, and stately dome and carved pinnacle—a deep dense obscurity, into which tower and steeple rose and were lost to the eyes of the gazer from below!

Night! black, stormy, dreary night. Driving in long dim lines athwart the starless sky—lashing the sloping roofs of dripping houses—flooding kennel and gutter and choked-up drain—pattering like a loud chorus of rolling spectre drums at rattling windows and on streaming sky-lights—down—in one steady, uninterrupted, continuous pour—drove the wild storm of lashing hail and rain! A dismal night! A night for the well-housed to snoozle themselves up beneath the bed-clothes, and listen all crouchingly to the roaring of the tempest! A night for the homeless pauper to lie down on the lee side of hedge and stack—and stretching his stiffening limbs in the icy sludge, wait patiently until Death came by and touched him with its sceptre!

Night—a dreary, dismal, rainy, windy night! A night of unchained gale and unbridled hurricane! How the fierce wind roared, to be sure! How it roared in its wrath, and muttered in its sulkiness, and sung in its glee, and howled and shrieked and whistled and raved in the full swing of its fury. It was a jubilee—be certain of it—a time of jubilee with the Wind!—a night when it had full license and authority, and power and sanction, to do its best and its worst—by sea and by land—above and below. And did not the fierce wind avail itself of the opportunity? Did it not muster its forces, and its energies, and its powers, far up amongst the dim-driving clouds, preparing for the onset—preparing for its night of empire and of pillage and of mischief? And then, when its time of liberty came, did it not burst out with a roar, and a shout, and a clang, as of victorious trumpets—did it not career all madly over land and sea, beating down the weak and broken corn, and roaring over the stark brown moors, and catching the big leafy limbs of gnarled trees—gnarled old mighty trees which had stood there for centuries—and wrenching them all torn and riven and splintered from the groaning trunks, and then grappling and wrestling with them as strong men fight, until the victorious wind, with a loud shriek of triumph, would drag the huge branch out, and toss it contemptuously away!

Who—o—o—op! for the Battle won by the Wind!

But that was not all. No, no. It attacked the city too, as well as the country. It did. The wind! Coming with a sweep and a pounce and a roar and a whistle-shrieking up through empty streets—groaning with a hollow sound in dim big archways—catching as with a muscular grasp, vanes and weathercocks—coming to the outside of windows—laying hold of the glazed sashes—shaking and rattling them and shouting hoarse mad greeting to the people within—lingering, I say, an instant at such places, and then departing with a burst of uproarious joy to lay siege to some high old tottering ricketty gable, which it would so shake, and push, and pull, and cause to waver and quake—that the whole crazy old tenement to which it belonged would wheeze and creak and groan in sympathy, until the old men and the old women, who dwelt there for long years, would be terrified and frightened, and would cower down upon the hot hearths or in their beds, crying—“Woe is me, but this is a wild night!”

And it was—it was—a wild night.—Who—o—o—op for the Battle won by the Wind!

On a bridge which spans a black, swollen, mightily rushing river. Dim lights twinkle along its great massive, girding, granite parapets. The wind sweeps over it, and roars in the arches below, and catches up the bright foam from the water, and rushes along with it, scattering the spray in white handfuls aloft, so that the passenger 219 who looks into the gulf from between the balustrades of carven stone which fence the footpath, shrinks to see the driving masses of blurred whiteness—the vexed surface of the waters torn up and carried along by the strong broad hands of the blast!

Where a flickering lamp flashed and paled, and rose and fell within the streaming and storm-lashed crystal of its dripping prison, stood a woman—a woman, beautiful and alone. Black clusters of rain-drenched hair waved and streamed from her pale cheeks. Her garments were mean and sodden, and saturated with the storm; but her eye was bright and fierce, and burning with a fire not of this world—with a fire which once—when the western heaven opened, and the forked lightning leaped out into the darkness—confronted the fierce blaze—and gave it back glare for glare!

She stood beneath the flickering lamp. For a moment only. The next she was erect upon the parapet—her arms extended—her drapery streaming free—like a bird that preens its plumage for a new flight—a flight into another world?

Ha!—a voice! Yes—the woman’s—hark!

What says it? The words—the last words—have gone forth; and as the dark form disappears from its granite resting-place—disappears into the black, howling, lashing gulf beneath—these words ring up and away into the air—being carried on the wings of the tempest whithersoever it will—these awful words—

“Who—o—o—op for the Battle won by the Wind!”

Yes, yes—the wind of Passion—the breath of hopeless, homeless, heartless, Despair!

From The Puppet-Showman’s Album. Illustrated by Gavarni. London, no date.

Amongst the Sensation Novels, so skilfully condensed by Bret Harte, is a humourous parody of the most popular of Charles Dickens’s Christmas books. In it the leading characteristics and failings are admirably hit off, not only of Dickens, but also of Scott, Charles Lever, Marryat, Fennimore Cooper, Hawthorne, and Thackeray, as will be seen from the following extracts:—

The Haunted Man.

A Christmas Story.

Part I.

THE FIRST PHANTOM.

Don’t tell me that it wasn’t a knocker. I had seen it often enough, and I ought to know. So ought the three o’clock beer, in dirty highlows, swinging himself over the railing, or executing a demoniacal jig upon the doorstep; so ought the butcher, although butchers as a general thing are scornful of such trifles; so ought the postman, to whom knockers of the most extravagant description were merely human weaknesses, that were to be pitied and used. And so ought, for the matter of that, etc., etc., etc.

But then it was such, a knocker. A wild, extravagant, and utterly incomprehensible knocker. A knocker so mysterious and suspicious that Policeman X 37, first coming upon it, felt inclined to take it instantly in custody, but compromised with his professional instincts by sharply and sternly noting it with an eye that admitted of no nonsense, but confidently expected to detect its secret yet. An ugly knocker; a knocker with a hard, human face, that was a type of the harder human face within. A human face that held between its teeth a brazen rod. So hereafter in the mysterious future should be held, etc., etc.

But if the knocker had a fierce human aspect in the glare of day, you should have seen it at night, when it peered out of the gathering shadows and suggested an ambushed figure; when the light of the street lamps fell upon it, and wrought a play of sinister expression in its hard outlines; when it seemed to wink meaningly at a shrouded figure who, as the night fell darkly, crept up the steps and passed into the mysterious house; when the swinging door disclosed a black passage into which the figure seemed to lose itself and become a part of the mysterious gloom; when the night grew boisterous and the fierce wind made furious charges at the knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it away in triumph. Such a night as this.

It was a wild and pitiless wind. A wind that had commenced life as a gentle country zephyr, but wandering through manufacturing towns had become demoralised, and reaching the city had plunged into extravagant dissipation and wild excesses. A roystering wind that indulged in Bacchanalian shouts on the street corners, that knocked off the hats from the heads of helpless passengers, and then fulfilled its duties by speeding away, like all young prodigals—to sea.

He sat alone in a gloomy library listening to the wind that roared in the chimney. Around him novels and storybooks were strewn thickly; in his lap he held one with its pages freshly cut, and turned the leaves wearily until his eyes rested upon a portrait in its frontispiece. And as the wind howled the more fiercely, and the darkness without fell blacker, a strange and fateful likeness to that portrait appeared above his chair and leaned upon his shoulder. The Haunted Man gazed at the portrait and sighed. The figure gazed at the portrait and sighed too.

“Here again?” said the Haunted Man.

“Here again,” it repeated in a low voice.

“Another novel?”

“Another novel.”

“The old story?”

“The old story.”

“I see a child,” said the Haunted Man, gazing from the pages of the book into the fire—“a most unnatural child, a model infant. It is prematurely old and philosophic. It dies in poverty to slow music. It dies surrounded by luxury to slow music. It dies with an accompaniment of golden water and rattling carts to slow music. Previous to its decease it makes a will; it repeats the Lord’s Prayer, it kisses the ‘boofer lady.’ That child——”

“Is mine,” said the phantom.

“I see a good woman, undersized. I see several charming women, but they are all undersized. They are more or less imbecile and idiotic, but always fascinating and undersized. They wear coquettish caps and aprons. I observe that feminine virtue is invariably below the medium height, and that it is always babyish and infantine. These women——”

“Are mine.”

“I see a haughty, proud, and wicked lady. She is tall and queenly. I remark that all proud and wicked women are tall and queenly. That woman——”

“Is mine,” said the phantom, wringing his hands.

“I see several things continually impending. I observe that whenever an accident, a murder, or death is about to happen, there is something in the furniture, in the locality, in the atmosphere that foreshadows and suggests it years in advance. I cannot say that in real life I have noticed it—the perception of this surprising fact belongs——”

220 “To me!” said the phantom. The Haunted Man continued, in a despairing tone:

“I see the influence of this in the magazines and daily papers: I see weak imitators rise up and enfeeble the world with senseless formula. I am getting tired of it. It won’t do, Charles! it won’t do!” and the Haunted Man buried his head in his hands and groaned. The figure looked down upon him sternly: the portrait in the frontispiece frowned as he gazed.

“Wretched man,” said the phantom, “and how have these things affected you?”

“Once I laughed and cried, but then I was younger. Now, I would forget them if I could.”

“Have then your wish. And take this with you, man whom I renounce. From this day henceforth you shall live with those whom I displace. Without forgetting me, ’twill be your lot to walk through life as if we had not met. But first you shall survey these scenes that henceforth must be yours. At one to-night prepare to meet the phantom I have raised. Farewell!”

The sound of its voice seemed to fade away with the dying wind, and the Haunted Man was alone. But the firelight flickered gaily, and the light danced on the walls, making grotesque figures of the furniture.

“Ha, ha!” said the Haunted Man, rubbing his hands gleefully; “now for a whiskey punch and a cigar.”

Book II.

THE SECOND PHANTOM.

One! The stroke of the far-off bell had hardly died before the front door closed with a reverberating clang. Steps were heard along the passage; the library door swung open of itself, and the Knocker—yes, the Knocker—slowly strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his eyes—no! there could be no mistake about it—it was the Knocker’s face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon.

“It’s a cold evening,” said the Haunted Man.

“It is,” said the Goblin, in a hard, metallic voice.

“It must be pretty cold out there,” said the Haunted Man, with vague politeness. “Do you ever—will you—take some hot water and brandy?”

“No,” said the Goblin.

“Perhaps you’d like it cold, by way of change?” continued the Haunted Man, correcting himself, as he remembered the peculiar temperature with which the Goblin was probably familiar.

“Time flies,” said the Goblin coldly. “We have no leisure for idle talk. Come!” He moved his ghostly truncheon towards the window, and laid his hand upon the other’s arm. At his touch the body of the Haunted Man seemed to become as thin and incorporeal as that of the Goblin himself, and together they glided out of the window into the black and blowy night.

In the rapidity of their flight the senses of the Haunted Man seemed to leave him. At length they stopped suddenly.

“What do you see?” asked the Goblin.

“I see a battlemented medieval castle. Gallant men in mail ride over the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntletted fingers to fair ladies, who wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray and tournament. I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of delicate women, and shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I see a Jewess about to leap from a battlement. I see knightly deeds, violence, rapine, and a good deal of blood. I’ve seen pretty much the same at Astley’s.”

“Look again.”

“I see purple moors, glens, masculine women, barelegged men, priggish bookworms, more violence, physical excellence, and blood. Always blood—and the superiority of physical attainments.”

“And how do you feel now?” said the Goblin.

The Haunted Man shrugged his shoulders.

“None the better for being carried back and asked to sympathise with a barbarous age.”

The Goblin smiled and clutched his arm; they again sped rapidly through the black night and again halted.

“What do you see?” said the Goblin.

“I see a barrack room, with a mess table, and a group of intoxicated Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving challenges to duel. I see a young Irish gentleman capable of performing prodigies of valour. I learn incidentally that the acme of all heroism is the cornetcy of a dragoon regiment. I hear a good deal of French! No, thank you,” said the Haunted Man hurriedly, as he stayed the waving hand of the Goblin, “I would rather not go to the Peninsular, and don’t care to have a private interview with Napoleon.”

Again the Goblin flew away with the unfortunate man, and from a strange roaring below them, he judged they were above the ocean. A ship hove in sight, and the Goblin stayed its flight, “Look,” he said, squeezing his companion’s arm.

The Haunted Man yawned. “Don’t you think, Charles, you’re rather running this thing into the ground? Of course, it’s very moral and instructive, and all that. But aint there a little too much pantomime about it! Come now!”

“Look!” repeated the Goblin, pinching his arm malevolently. The Haunted Man groaned.

“Oh, of course, I see Her Majesty’s ship Arethusa. Of course I am familiar with her stern First Lieutenant, her eccentric Captain, her one fascinating, and several mischievous midshipmen. Of course, I know it’s a splendid thing to see all this, and not to be sea-sick. Oh, there the young gentlemen are going to play a trick on the purser. For God’s sake let us go,” and the unhappy man absolutely dragged the Goblin away with him.

* * * * *

The Haunted Man started, and—woke. The bright sunshine streamed into the room. The air was sparkling with frost. He ran joyously to the window and opened it. A small boy saluted him with “Merry Christmas.” The Haunted Man instantly gave him a Bank of England note. “How much like Tiny Tim, Tom and Bobby that boy looked—bless my soul, what a genius this Dickens has!”

A knock at the door, and Boots entered.

“Consider your salary doubled instantly. Have you read David Copperfield?”

“Yezzur.”

“Your salary is quadrupled. What do you think of the Old Curiosity Shop?”

The man instantly burst into a torrent of tears, and then into a roar of laughter.

“Enough. Here are five thousand pounds. Open a porter-house, and call it ‘Our Mutual Friend.’ Huzza! I feel so happy!” And the Haunted Man danced about the room.

And so, bathed in the light of that blessed sun, and yet glowing with the warmth of a good action, the Haunted Man, haunted no longer, save by those shapes which make the dreams of children beautiful, reseated himself in his chair, and finished Our Mutual Friend.

“Sensation Novels,” first introduced to the British public by the late John Camden Hotten in 1871, has been since republished by Ward, Lock & Co., London.

221 “Dombey and Son” Finished.

Part the Best and Last.

CHAPTER I.

It was ten o’clock! In the morning! The Easterly sun came down bright upon busy streets and grimy thoroughfares, and quiet places in the far off country. It was eleven o’clock! In the morning! The sun lighted up city churches and the broad river, and shone into death chambers, in houses at the doors of which stood mutes. It was twelve o’clock! Noon! Broad, bright, unwinking noon! The sun gleamed on many roofs—and on market gardens in the suburbs, and on potato cans in the streets, and into the counting house of Dombey and Son.

The clerks worked noiselessly that day—almost breathlessly. Many pens scratched on the paper, and yet no word was spoken. For Carker was there! Carker the smooth, the oily—the velvetty—the sly.

The sun gleamed through the window panes—it fell on Carker—and on Carker’s teeth. And still it gleamed—still it sparkled after the glass door had noiselessly opened, and before Carker was seen standing the form—the stately—cold—wifeless—childless form of Mr. Dombey!

There was a long pause. You could have heard all the pens going in the outer office. A long pause—long—very—very long. Carker spoke first, and when he spoke he seemed all teeth—white glistening teeth—like a shark of smooth tongue and oily address—accustomed to good society.

“Mr. Dombey—I delight to see you—I feel honoured—much honoured—deeply honoured—by this visit.”

There was another pause—longer than the first—Oh, yes! much longer! Eight minutes longer!

And Mr. Dombey drew himself up—up! High! higher! like the Genie in the Arabian Tales, till it appeared (to the eye of Perch which eye happened to be accidentally applied at the keyhole)—that the top of Mr. Dombey’s hat had touched—nay lifted off the roof of the counting house of Dombey and Son.

“Ha!” said Mr. Dombey, and Perch being frightened fell backwards upon a nail, and the pens in the outer office stopped.

“Ha! ha!” said Mr. Dombey—“here—come here—all of you,—and learn how to crush a viper.”

The clerks came accordingly—thronging about the door—with white faces and clenched hands—excepting Robinson, who was of a merry turn of mind, and who said audibly “here’s a lark.”

“Thus”—said Mr. Dombey, “thus it is I crush a viper.” His wild, big, grey eyes were fixed, yet flashing,—his long gaunt form worked and quivered like a galvanized corpse,—his face was as the face of a roasting demon!

Nobody saw anything of Carker but his teeth: yet from these teeth issued a hissing sound of “now.”

Could it be? It could! It was! Four policemen sprung from under the table and held four staffs up to Mr. Dombey’s nose!

“Now,” said the Teeth, “remove that man.”

Dombey stood like a statue carved out of Parian marble, but dressed in a hat, coat, pantaloons, wellingtons, and other minor articles of costume. He waved his hand and the constables fell back.

“Remove me—remove Dombey from the counting house of Dombey and Son?”

These were the only words he spoke; then his tongue clave unto the roof or ceiling of his mouth.

The Teeth spoke not—but they held up a board, a white painted board, such as may be seen at the doors of merchants’ offices. All started. For on the board was painted:—

CARKER. LATE DOMBEY AND SON.

“Mine”—hissed the Teeth—“mine—all is mine Dombey! Dombey! you have fallen! Dombey—you’re a beggar! Dombey—here’s a penny for you! Dombey—move on!”

A pause. Dombey as motionless as the figure-head of a stranded ship.

“You left me to manage your business—you did.—I managed it—ha! ha! ha!—till I made it mine! mine! ha! ha! Take the penny, Dombey! take it, that’s a good man, and go! go! go!”

“No!”

“No”—was it an echo? More actors on the scene? Aye. More! more!

The old woman—the old woman and the handsome daughter!—Edith’s counterpart—Edith in rags—Edith an outcast—Edith—Edith—Still—Still, Edith.

Oh! how the Teeth chattered—the Teeth—they did—as the lightening of that outcast’s eye flashed—and the cataract of that outcast’s hair streamed, and the trumpet of that outcast’s voice rang and re-echoed in God’s sunshine!

“Forger—Felon—Murderer! Ha! ha! ha! The hour is come—it is!”

And the old crone screamed in chorus “Felon!—it is!”

And where was Carker?

On the floor in a strong fit. Smitten—smitten—in his pride and his power. Smitten by the voice of the woman he had ruined—the woman he had tried to hang.—Now it was her turn! It was!

The policemen were gentle and not rough. They lifted the fallen man and took him away. Perch saw handcuffs on the manager’s wrists.

Then the counting house was locked up and seals put upon the doors. A great crowd stood long opposite to it. In the midst, Mr. Perch found Dombey with Carker’s penny still in his hand, and so led him away gently and gave him shelter at Ball’s-pond.

CHAPTER II.

“Ding-a-dong—a-ding-dong—ding-dong-boum.” Joy-bells—joy—for the wedding! the wedding! Ha! And at the Wooden Midshipman’s! Cap’en Cuttle was magnificent. He had had his hook polished with black lead, and looked himself as radiant as his hook—aye as radiant as he did, when, undressing the night before old Sol Gills tumbled into the garret through the skylight. Where had that old man been! Where—indeed where?

It was the question Cap’en Cuttle put—and in these terms.

“Whereby and awast—keep her head to the wind, and when kitched make a note on. Therefore—if so—say so—what’s in the log? Let dogs delight to bark and fight—for which see Dibdin—therefore—stand by it is—and that steady.”

Thus solemnly adjured Gills spoke—

“Where I have been—and what I have been doing” the old man said “is nothink to nobody.”

Ding-dong-bell—ding-a-dong—a-ding-dong! The wedding at the Wooden Midshipman! It was on the very day, almost at the very hour that the house of Dombey and Son was shut up, that the wedding party left the Wooden Midshipman. And did he not look happy—that Wooden Midshipman? A credible person, a Beadle, avers that the timber face smiled and the 222 timber lips shouted a loud “Hooray” in cadence with those joy-bells which still rung merrily from the grey towers of St. Koweld-without. Aye, and so they rang when, before the altar, stood Old Gills with a radiant countenance and flowing tears—and Captain Cuttle with a prayer-book in his hand (in order to check the parson and keep him right) and his silver chronometer hung on his hook “whereby to see fair play to all—awast and belay”—and Susan Nipper shedding tears indefatigably—and Wall’r and Florence.

The sun was in the heavens! But lo! through the stained glass, amid the saints and angels—gorgeous on that chancel window—fell its blessing light! Walter Gay and his bride stood hoping in the sun-shine!

“Wilt thou take this woman to be thy wedded wife?”

“Of course—no—that is—oh dear—dear—I beg pardon—its of no consequence—none in the least—don’t mind me,” ejaculated a voice from a dimly seen pew beneath the organ.

Thither repaired the Beadle full of wrath—and found the unhappy Toots fainting on a hassock. But the Game Chicken advancing, doubled the Beadle up—carried off Mr. Toots—deposited him in a patent safety, and conducted him—for the improvement and development of his mind, to see three hundred rats killed in five minutes, by a terrier much famed in Whitechapel.

So the sun had not begun to descend towards the west—ere the marriage party left the church, and—Wall’r and Florence, now Mr. and Mrs. Gay leading them on—took their way towards London-bridge.

CHAPTER III.

In a spacious room—sat Edith! In a spacious room—richly furnished—but dim—dim—as her aching soul. Gorgeous curtains shut out the light—the blessed light! It fell on all alike—that day—on the infant in his cradle—on the dead man in his coffin. On the kennel—on the palace—on Dombey straying away from Ball’s-pond—on Perch looking after him fruitlessly (in public houses). On Mr. and Mrs. Gay, and the Captain and Gills—all on the steamer’s deck going to eat the marriage feast at a pleasant suburban tavern called the Red House, Battersea—on Toots in the patent safety—on Carker with the teeth, in a cell of Newgate. On all—on all! But on Mrs. Dombey. There, there was darkness—darkness in the air—darkness in the soul—darkness in the light! Dim—aching—lonely—alone! Alone! but for her fearful thoughts! Which haunted her! Spectres—looming ghastly gray in the gloom! Spectres with rods and serpents! Gnawing in her soul—like unblessed things potent for evil and foul thoughts, and things accursed of man! Out—out—awful shadows!

But she sat there—rigid—unmoved. The mortal and the immortal. Edith and the shadows!

Suddenly a voice arose—cleaving the darkness—She listened—mechanically.

“A full, true, and particular account of the harrest of Mister Carker of the ’ouse of Dombey and Son in the City on three distinct charges hof forgery, perjury, and murder all for the small charge of one halfpenny.”

She fell on her knees, That erring woman—on her knees and her hands were uplifted, and on the bright face—tense and passion strung—played strange awful thoughts!

The shadows gathered round her!

Her head drooped—dropped until with a sudden clash the marble forehead smote the floor.

Still the shadows gathered round her! There was silence—but the low deep roar of humanity—the surges of the million-peopled city—spoke voiceless things in the summer air.

Listen to the music?

The shadows listened!

Edith lay on the floor beneath the music and the shadows! When the people of the house came, they found her——asleep!

“Ding-a-dong-a-ding-dong.” The echoes of the joy bells rung in the ears of the wedding party, even after they had got by steamer—as far as Hungerford. They were still there—lying close to the wooden pier—when there was a great outcry and a confusion, and many shouts of “He’s in—he’s in—a man in the river.” But the Cap’en was all presence of mind.—He saw the struggling form! and clambering down to the water by the paddle-wheel—with his hook—hooked it out. It was Dombey!

CHAPTER IV.

Walter Gay is now the head of the old city house of Dombey and Son.

Carker was hanged; and the Charitable Grinder was transported for picking Joey Bagstock’s pocket on that melancholy occasion.

Mr. Toots, under the tuition of the Game Chicken, set up for a sporting character—took in twelve dozen copies of Bell’s Life every week, and read them all one after the other.

The old woman and the handsome daughter are frequent guests at the Mansion House—where they are usually charged with breaking from 35 to 89 panes of glass in the West London Union.

The Game Chicken espoused Mrs. Pipchin, and the young couple set up a public-house called the “Peruvian Mines,” where Miss Tox is barmaid.

The Cap’en got a medal from the Humane Society for saving Dombey. He always carries it on his hook. Captain Bunsby married Mrs. Macstinger.

As for Dombey, he took to drinking at first—and then to being a church-rate martyr. He has since, however, become a reformed character, and is now a clerk in a saving’s bank at 18s. a-week. Occasionally, however, he and Perch have something comfortable together.

And what of Edith—erring, beauteous, haughty, impassioned Edith. She, too, was repentant. At first she officiated as a pew-opener at a very fashionable chapel. But here she was persecuted by Major Bagstock and Cousin Feenix—both of whom used to squeeze her hand when she showed them into pews. At length she retired from the world, and now gets up fine linen at Tooting.

As for Joey B. and Cousin Feenix they challenged each other with respect to Mrs. Dombey. Neither of them, however, appeared at the place of mortal combat, and neither has been seen, nor heard of since.

From The Man in the Moon, Edited by Angus B. Reach. Volume III. London, no date, but about 1848-9.

Our Miscellany (which ought to have come out, but didn’t); edited by E. H. Yates and R. B. Brough, and published by G. Routledge & Co., London, in 1856, contained several prose parodies, and amongst them one upon Charles Dickens. This was written by Brough, and 223 consisted of three chapters, of which it will suffice to quote the first:

Hard Times.[53]
(Refinished.)

By Charles Diggins.

CHAPTER XXXV.

They coovered poor Stephen Blackpool’s face!

The crowd from the Old Hell Shaft pressed around him. Mr. Gradgrind ran to look at the sufferer’s face, but in doing so, he trod on a daisy. He wept: and a hundred and sixty more of his hairs turned gray. He would tread on no more daisies!

He was not, however, to be baulked in his humble, honest purpose of self-reform. As he passed over the common, a donkey kicked him. It reminded him that facts were stubborn things: and he had done with facts and stubbornness. He wept again.

“Rachel, beloved lass, art thou by me?”

“Ay, Stephen; how dost thou feel?”

“Hoomble and happy, lass. I be grateful and thankful. I be obliged to them as have brought charges o’ robbery agin me; an’ I hope as them as did it will be happy an’ enjoy the fruits. I do only look on my being pitched down that theer shaft, and having all my bones broke, as a mercy and a providence, and God bless ev’rybody!”

“Stephen, your head be a wandering.”

“Ay, lass; awlus a muddle.”

“Will you take anything, Stephen?”

“I do hoombly thank thee for a good and trew lass thou hast awlus been to me; and I dunnot care if I do take a little soomut warm—wi’ a little sugar.”

The sobered man had still credit at the neighbouring tavern. In two seconds he appeared with a steaming glass of rum-and-water, scarcely stopping to sip it by the way.

“Can thou drink rum, Stephen?” asked Rachel, taking the tumbler from the hands of the sobered man for fear of accidents.

“I do hoombly and kindly thank thee, lass,” said poor Stephen; “I can drink anything.”

Rachel placed the goblet to his parched and quivering lips.

There was a moment of breathless silence. Mr. Bounderby rattled three-and-sixpence in his breeches pocket, and finding that his ostentation was unnoticed, kicked a little boy down the Old Hell Shaft. Mr. Gradgrind purchased a pennyworth of violets from a blue-eyed flower-girl, and true to his new and trusting creed, accepted two counterfeit farthings as change for a sovereign without looking at them. The Whelp glared fiercely at the rum-and-water, and barked.

Stephen drank it, every drop. Finished. Down to the dregs. No heel-taps.

“I do hoombly thank thee, Rachel, good and trew lass as thou hast been to me; but I do feel much better.”

“Oh, here!” Mr. Bounderby blustered forward: “I’m not going to stand this. If a man suspected of robbing Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown’s Bank, is to feel ‘much better,’ I should like to know what’s the use of Old Hell Shafts. There’s a touch of the gold-spoon game in that; and I’m up to the gold-spoon game—rather! And it wont go down with Josiah Bounderby. Of Coketown. Not exactly. Here! Where’s a constable?”

There was none. Of course not. There never is, when wanted.

Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer pressed officiously forward, and volunteered to take Stephen into custody.

“Shame!” cried the populace.

“Oh, I daresay,” said Mr. Bounderby; “I’m a self-made man, and, having made myself, am not likely to be ashamed of anything. There, take him along.”

There was a movement, as if for a rescue. The sobered man had been sober quite long enough without a fight, and tucked up his sleeves.

Stephen prevented this explosion.

“Noa, lads,” he said, in his meek broken voice; “dunnot try to resky me. I be fond o’ constables. I like going to prison. As for hard labour, I ha’ been used to that long enough. Wi’ regard to law—it’s awlus a muddle.”

“Off with him!” said Mr. Bounderby. “When I used to commit robberies, I never had any rum-and-water given to me. No, nor didn’t talk about muddles. And I’m worth sixty thousand pounds, and have got ladies of family—ladies of family;”—he raised his voice to call attention to Mrs. Sparsit, who was ambling gently along with the submissive Stephen on her august shoulders—“acting as beasts of burden for me. Come up, madam!” and he gave Mrs. Sparsit a gentle touch of his whip, causing that high-nosed lady to prance a little.

They moved on, towards Coketown. The lights were beginning to blink through the fog. Like winking. The seven o’clock bells were ringing. Like one o’clock. Suddenly the tramp of horses and the fierce barking of a dog were heard.

With a wild cry, Sissy recognised Sleary’s company galloping towards them—all mounted; Mr. Sleary himself, grown much stouter, on his wonderful trained Arab steed, Bolivar; J. W. B. Childers, who had apparently not had time to change his dress, as the Indian warrior on the celebrated spotted Pegasus of the Caucasus; Kidderminster following, on the comic performing donkey, Jerusalem.

A dog, far in advance of the horse-riders, dashed amongst the astonished crowd, and singling out Mr. Bounderby, seized him by the scruff of the neck.

“Thath wight, Mewwylegth,” cried Mr. S., coming up panting (in addition to his former lisp, advancing age had afflicted him with a difficulty in pronouncing his r’s). “Thath the vewy identical cove: pin him! Good dog!”

“Help! murder!” cried the bully of humility, struggling with the animal. “Will you see a man worth sixty thousand pounds devoured by a dog?”

The prospect seemed to afford the bystanders considerable satisfaction.

“Ith no uthe, Thquire,” said Sleary, calmly; “the dog wont let go hith hold of you;” and he added, in a hissing voice, “ith Jupeth dog!”

“It’s a lie,” Bounderby faltered; “I didn’t murder him—he did it himself. I never saw the man. He hit me first. I never spoke to a clown in my life. Tear this hound off.”

“Quite enough, Thquire,” said Sleary. “I call on everybody in the Queenth name to athitht me in arethting 224 thith man, Jothiah Bounderby, for the murder of my clown, Jupe, thickthteen yearth ago.”

Sissy fainted into the Whelp’s arms. From that moment the latter quadruped resolved to lead a virtuous life.

Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer, with the alacrity of timeservers, released Stephen, and seized on their former patron. Stephen slipped quietly away in the confusion of the moment, remarking, with a wink of satisfaction to Rachel, “Awlus a muddle!”

Merrylegs retained his hold on his victim’s throat. Like a vice.

“Murder!” cried Bounderby! “release me from this dog, or demon, and I will confess all.”

“Mewwylegth, come here, thir!”

Merrylegs released his victim.

“Well, then,” said the detected miscreant, desperately—“sixteen years ago I murdered the man, Jupe, to obtain possession of eighteen-pence, with which I entered Coketown, and set up in business. And now, do your worst.”

The crowd recoiled in horror. The sobered man picked up Mr. Bounderby’s hat, that had dropped off in the scuffle, and immediately pawned it.

“Off with him!” cried Sleary, in a tone of theatrical authority,—“to jail!”

To jail! to jail! to jail!

* * * * *

——:o:——

The Political “Mrs. Gummidge.”

A “Dickens” of a Situation.

Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone had been in a low state for some time, and had almost burst into tears when a chill gust from the North, coming suddenly, and—to her—unexpectedly down the chimney, had blown the lid off the bubbling saucepan, and the soot into the stew therein.

“I am a much-crossed cretur’,” were Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, “and everythink goes contrairy with me.”

“Oh, it’ll soon leave off,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull—meaning the North wind,—“and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than it is to us.”

“I feel it more,” said Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone.

It was indeed a very cold, cheerless day, with cutting blasts of wind, which seemed to blow from every quarter at once, but from the North and East for choice, Mrs. Gummidge’s peculiar corner of the fireside seemed—to her at least—to be the chilliest and most uncomfortable, as her seat was certainly the hardest. She complained of the North-Easter, and of its visitation just at this time and at her back, which she said gave her the “creeps.”

“It is certainly very uncomfortable,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull. “Everybody must feel it so.”

“I feel it more than other people,” said Mrs. Gummidge.

So at dinner. The fish—from which she had expected great things—were small and bony, and the stew was smoky and burnt. All acknowledged that they felt this something of a disappointment, but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than they did, and again made that former declaration with great bitterness—“I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and every think goes contrairy with me.”

Later, when Mr. Peggotty-Bull came home to tea, this unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched and miserable condition. Her knitting—a nondescript piece of work—seemed to be a regular Egyptian labyrinth for complicated tangle, and a very Penelope’s web for inconclusiveness and power of alternate weaving and unweaving. “Cheer up, Grand Mawther!” cried Mr. Peggotty-Bull. (Mr. Peggotty meant Grand Old Girl.)

Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She dropped her knitting with a gesture of despair.

“What’s amiss, Dame?” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull.

“Everythink!” returned Mrs. Gummidge. “Including you,” she continued, dolefully. “You’ve a willing mind to face the troubles before you, but you ain’t ready. I’m sorry it should be along o’ me that you’re so unready.”

“Along o’ you? It ain’t along o’ you!” said Mr. Peggotty, good naturedly, and perhaps without quite meaning it. “Don’t ye believe a bit on it,”

“Yes, yes, it is!” cried Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone. “I know what I am. I know that I am a much-crossed cretur’, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It’s my misfortun.”

One really couldn’t help thinking that the misfortune extended to some other Members of that House, besides Mrs. Gummidge.

“I ain’t what I could wish myself to be,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrairy. I feel my troubles, and they makes me contrairy. I wish I didn’t feel them, but I do. I wish I could be harden’d to ’em, but I ain’t. If I felt less, I could do more. I make the House uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. It’s far from right that I should do it. I’d better leave the House. I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and had better not make myself contrairy here. If thinks must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy myself, let me go contrairy alone at my own place. I’d better leave the House, and retire and be a riddance.”

Mr. Peggotty-Bull, whose countenance had exhibited the mixed traces of many feelings, including puzzlement, impatience, and profound sympathy, looked upward at a portrait of an ancient, but buck-like and somewhat Hebraic personage upon the wall, and, shaking his head, with a lively expression of those mixed sentiments still animating his face, said, in a solemn whisper,

“She’s been thinking of the Old ’Un!”

This parody of “David Copperfield” appeared in Punch May 2, 1885, it was illustrated by an excellent cartoon of Mr. Gladstone as “Mrs. Gummidge.”

——:o:——

Space will not permit of the insertion of further extracts from the parodies on Dickens, it remains, therefore, to enumerate his principal works in chronological order, followed by a list of the parodies, imitations, and plays founded upon them:—

A Chronological List of the Works of Charles Dickens.
Sketches by Boz	1836-37
Sunday under Three Heads	1836
Pickwick Papers	1837
Oliver Twist	1838
Sketches of Young Gentlemen	1838
Nicholas Nickleby	1839
Sketches of Young Couples	1840
Master Humphrey’s Clock (The Old Curiosity Shop & Barnaby Rudge)	1840-1
American Notes	1842
Christmas Carol	1843
Martin Chuzzlewit	1844
The Chimes	1845
Cricket on the Hearth	1846
Pictures from Italy	1846 225
Battle of Life	1846
Dombey and Son	1848
Haunted Man	1848
David Copperfield	1850
Mr. Nightingale’s Diary	1851
Child’s History of England	1852-4
Bleak House	1853
Hard Times	1854
Little Dorrit	1857
Hunted Down	1859
Tale of Two Cities	1859
Great Expectations	1861
Uncommercial Traveller	1861
Our Mutual Friend	1865
Mystery of Edwin Drood	1870

Sam Weller, a Journal of Wit and Humour. Edited by Sam Slick, with illustrations. 1837.

Posthumous Papers of the Cadgers’ Club. With sixteen engravings. London. E. Lloyd, about 1837.

Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club, formerly of Camden Town. Established by Sir Peter Patron. Edited by “Poz.” With eleven illustrations, designed by Squib, and engraved by Point. London. 1838.

The Post-humourous Notes of the Pickwickian Club. Edited by “Bos.” 2 vols, with numerous illustrations. London.

Pickwick in America, detailing all the adventures of that individual in the United States. Edited by “Bos.” Illustrated with forty-six engravings by “Phis.” London. E. Lloyd, about 1837.

Pickwick Abroad, or a Tour in France, by G. W. M. Reynolds. This is a thick octavo volume, published in 1839, with numerous illustrations. The first edition is rather scarce, but reprints (published by Willoughby & Co., London) are not difficult to procure. The woodcuts, in the body of the book, are curious, as showing the architecture and appearance of the principal streets of Paris fifty years ago.

The Adventures of Marmaduke Midge, the Pickwickian Legatee. (Particulars of this work are wanting.)

Amongst the many piracies and imitations of The Pickwick Papers, was “The Penny Pickwick,” edited by “Bos,” with illustrations. The preface is signed “Bos,” Rose Cottage, St. John’s Wood. Printed and published by E. Lloyd, Bloomsbury. 1838.

There were also numerous song and jest books named after either Mr. Pickwick or Sam Weller, but these scarcely come within the scope of this list.

The Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss, the Workhouse Boy. Edited by “Bos.” London. No date, about 1840.

Scenes from the Life of Nickleby Married, containing certain Remarkable Passages, Strange Adventures, and Extraordinary Occurrences that befel the Nickleby Family in their further Career, being a Sequel to “Nicholas Nickleby.” Edited by “Guess.” With twenty-one illustrations by “Quiz.” London. John Williams, Paternoster Row. 1840.

Nickelas Nickelbery. Containing the Adventures, Misadventures, Chances, Mis-Chances, Fortunes, Mis-fortunes, Mysteries, Mis-eries, and Miscellaneous manœuvres of the Family of Nickelbery. By “Bos.” With forty-three woodcut illustrations. London. E. Lloyd, about 1838. An impudent piracy upon Nicholas Nickleby, published in penny weekly numbers, and parodying the whole of the story and characters, under very slightly altered names. This has been ascribed to Mr. J. P. Prest.

The Nickleby Papers, by “Poz.” In penny numbers.

Mister Humfries’ Clock. “Bos,” maker. A Miscellany of striking interest. Illustrated. London, 1840.

Master Timothy’s Bookcase; or, the Magic Lanthorn of the World. By G. W. M. Reynolds. London, 1842.

A Girl at a Railway Junction’s Reply [to an article in the Christmas number for 1866 of “All the Year Round,” entitled “Mugby Junction.”] London.

Parley’s Penny Library. Containing piratical versions of Barnaby Rudge, the Old Curiosity Shop, and the Picnic Papers. About 1841.

Change for the American Notes; or, Letters from London to New York. By an American Lady. London. Wiley and Putnam. 1843. (This was written by a Yorkshireman, Mr. Henry Wood.)

Current American Notes. By “Buz.” London. No date.

Christmas Eve with the Spirits, with some further tidings of the Lives of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. London, 1870.

A Christmas Carol. Being a few scattered staves from a familiar composition, re-arranged for performance by a Distinguished Musical Amateur, during the Holiday season, at Hawarden.—Punch. December 26, 1885. This is a political skit, the only present interest of which consists in the four very humourous illustrations by Harry Furniss, which are exquisite parodies of those by John Leech, in the original book.

The Faces in the Fire; a Story for the Season. By Redgap. With illustrations by T. H. Nicholson: London. Willoughby & Co., Warwick Lane. No date. Dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle. Pp. 165. (Written in imitation of Dickens’s Christmas Books, and published about 1845.) In a second edition, published by James Blackwood, in 1856, the name of George Frederick Pardon is given on the title page as the author.

January Eve. A Tale of the Times. By George Soane, B.A. London: E. Churton, 1847: pp. 180. Dedicated to Lord John Russell. In his preface the author not only admits that a similarity exists between his writings and those of Dickens, but is bold enough to assert that he, and not Dickens, is the original “Simon Pure.” “A little tale of mine, the Three Spirits, was thought by many to be exceedingly like Boz’s ‘Christmas Carol,’ yet the Carol was not published till some years after it. If then, there be any imitation in the case at all, it is Boz—glorious Boz—who has taken a hint from my writings.”

The Battle of London Life; or, “Boz” and his Secretary. By Morna. With a portrait and illustrations by G. A. Sala. This is a scarce little volume of 106 pages, which was published by George Peirce, of 310, Strand, London, in 1849. It was written by Thomas M. O’Keefe, although it is generally attributed to Mr. George Augustus Sala; he certainly furnished several illustrations, which are signed G. Sala, and on the cover there is an advertisement of “The April Fool Book,” written by the author of “The Battle of London Life,” also illustrated by George Sala.

Old Jolliffe: Not a Goblin Story. By the Spirit of a little Bell, awakened by “The Chimes.” London: W. N. Wright, 1845. Dedicated to Queen Adelaide. Pp. 56.

The Wedding Bells, an Echo of “The Chimes,” with coloured illustrations by the Author, who states that the work was suggested by “The Chimes” of Charles Dickens.

Facts and Figures from Italy. Addressed during the last two winters to C. Dickens, being an appendix to his “Pictures.” By Don Jeremy Savonarola. London, R. Bentley, 1847. This was written by Francis Mahony. (“Father Prout.”)

The Sketch Book. By “Bos.” Containing tales, sketches, etc. With seventeen woodcut illustrations. London.

226 Dombey and Daughter: A Moral Fiction. By Renton Nicholson, Lord Chief Baron of the celebrated Judge and Jury Society, held at the Garrick’s Head Hotel, Bow Street. London. Thomas Farris. No date, about 1847. With illustrations. Pp. 94. At the end of the story Baron Nicholson bids his readers Farewell, and remarks, “I think I may, without arrogance, predict that these pages will be read with pleasure by those whose tastes are not vitiated, and who prefer a simple story, representing scenes of real life, to the monstrous productions of a feverish imagination, which of late have been received with unmerited though almost universal applause.” This was published in monthly parts.

Renton Nicholson also wrote Cockney Adventures, and Tales of London Life, in imitation of the Pickwick Papers.

Dombey and Father, by Buz. A Satire on Charles Dickens. New York, 1868.

Micawber Redivivus; or, How to make a fortune as a Middleman, etc. By Jonathan Coalfield [i.e. W. Graham Simpson?].

Bleak House; a Narrative of Real Life. Being a faithful detail of facts connected with a suit in the Irish Court of Chancery, from the year 1826 to 1851. London, H. Elliott. 1856.

Characteristic Sketches of Young Gentlemen. By Quiz Junior. With Illustrations. London. W. Kidd.

A Child’s History of Germany. By H. W. Friedlaender. A pendant to a “Child’s History of England,” by Charles Dickens. Celle, 1861.

No Thoroughfare; the Book in Eight Acts. This parody appeared in “The Mask,” No. 1, February, 1868.

No Thoroughfare. A parody upon Dickens’s N.T. By C—s D—s, B. Brownjohn and Domby. Boston U.S.

The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. Specimen of an Adaptation. By Orpheus C. Kerr. (Three and a half pages.) Published in The Piccadilly Annual. London. John Camden Hotten. December, 1870. This very scarce little work contains Hunted Down, by Charles Dickens, which is not generally included amongst his collected writings. It was originally written for an American publisher.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Complete. Part the Second by the Spirit Pen of Charles Dickens, through a medium; embodying also that Part of the Work which was published prior to the Termination of the Author’s Earth-Life. 1873. The medium was Mr. J. P. James, of Brattleborough, Vermont, U. S.

John Jasper’s Secret, being a Narrative of Certain Events following and Explaining “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” with illustrations. Philadelphia, about 1871. Also published in London in 1872.

The Cloven Foot; being an adaptation of the English novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” to American scenes, characters, customs, and nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr. New York, 1870.

A Great Mystery Solved: Being a Sequel to “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” By Gillan Vase. In three vols. London, Remington and Co, 1878. Preface dated Hanover, July 12, 1878.

Rifts in the Veil, a Collection of Inspirational Poems and Essays, given through Various Forms of Mediumship. London, W. H. Harrison. 1878. This work on Spiritualism contains particulars of a continuation of “Edwin Drood,” which is said to have been dictated through a medium. The article occupies 30 closely printed pages, and is entitled “An alleged Postmortem work by Charles Dickens.”

Plays founded upon the Novels of Charles Dickens.

As is well known Charles Dickens strongly objected to his Novels being adapted for the Stage, yet scarcely one of his better known works escaped that penalty of popularity. As most of these stage adaptations are little better than parodies, or imitations, a catalogue of them may be fitly inserted here.

In this compilation some assistance has been derived from the life of Dickens, by Mr. F. T. Marzials, (London, Walter Scott, 1887), but the following list contains more entries, and fuller details than he gave. It is, in fact, the only approximately complete list of plays founded on Dickens’s Works, giving the date and place where first performed, and the names of the publishers, where they could be ascertained.

Sam Weller, or the Pickwickians, a Drama in three acts, first performed at the Strand New Theatre, London, July 17, 1837. By W. T. Moncrieff. (Dicks 541.) This has a long preface, in which the author defends himself against the charge of having merely transferred Dickens’s characters and incidents from the story to a play. He says, indeed, that he thinks Dickens ought to be grateful to him, for the popularity of the play had greatly extended the fame of the story.

The Pickwickians; or, the Peregrinations of Sam Weller. Arranged from Mr. W. T. Moncrieff’s adaptation by T. H. Lacy. London. 1837. (Lacy 315.)

The Pickwick Club. A Burletta in three acts, by E. Stirling. City of London Theatre, April 27, 1837. (Duncombe.)

The Peregrinations of Pickwick, an acting Drama. By William Leman Rede. London, W. Strange. 1837.

Bardell v. Pickwick: versified and diversified. Songs and choruses. Words by T. H. Gem. Leamington, 1881.

The Great Pickwick Case, arranged as a Comic Operetta. The words of the songs by Robert Pollitt. Manchester, Abel Heywood & Son, 1884.

Bardell v. Pickwick. (Dicks 636.)

Last of the Pickwickiana comes Mr. F. C. Burnand’s dramatic Cantata, Pickwick, with music by Mr. Edward Solomon, which was produced at the Comedy Theatre, London, early in 1889. The parts were thus distributed, Pickwick by Mr. Arthur Cecil, Mrs. Bardell by Miss Lottie Venne, and “The Baker” by Mr. Rutland Barrington.

This Cantata has not yet been published.

There can be no doubt but that the character of Sam Weller made the fortune of The Pickwick Papers when they first appeared in monthly parts, and sent the circulation up from a poor 400 to 40,000. The germ of this character has been traced back to a play, written by Mr. Samuel Beazley, entitled “The Boarding House,” and produced at what is now called the Lyceum Theatre, in 1811. That there is a slight resemblance in Simon Spatterdash in this play to Sam Weller cannot be denied, and Dickens may have seen or read the play, and have been struck with the possibility of converting the character of Spatterdash into that of his own immortal Sam.

Oliver Twist; or the Parish Boy’s Progress. A Drama in three acts. By C. Z. Barnett. First performed at the Pavilion Theatre, May 21, 1838. (S. French.)

Oliver Twist. A serio-comic Burletta, in three acts, by 227 George Almar. Performed at the Royal Surrey Theatre, London, November 19, 1838. (Dicks 293.)

A similar adaptation, but in four acts, was published in New York.

Bumble’s Courtship. From Dickens’s “Oliver Twist.” A Comic Interlude, in one act. By Frank E. Emson. London. (Lacy.)

Nicholas Nickleby, a Farce in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling. Produced at the Adelphi Theatre, London 1838. (S. French 264.)

Nicholas Nickleby, a Drama in Four Acts. Adapted by H. Simms. First performed at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, 1875. (Dicks 469.)

The Infant Phenomenon; or, a Rehearsal Rehearsed. A Dramatic Piece in one Act. Being an episode in the adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Adapted by H. Horncastle, and originally produced at the Strand Theatre, London, July 8, 1842. (Dicks 572.)

The Fortunes of Smike, or, a Sequel to Nicholas Nickleby; a Drama in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling, London. Adelphi Theatre. London, March 2, 1840. (Webster’s Acting Drama 94.)

Nicholas Nickleby; an Episodic Sketch; in three tableaux, based upon an incident in “Nicholas Nickleby.” Not published. Strand Theatre, Sept. 10, 1885.

Barnaby Rudge. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts. By Charles Selby and Charles Melville. First performed at the English Opera House, June 28, 1841. (Dicks 393.)

Barnaby Rudge; or, the Murder at the Warren, a Drama in Three Acts, by Thomas Higgie. No date. (Lacy.)

Barnaby Rudge. A Burlesque upon the Version now being played at the Princess’s Theatre, London. Fun. November 24, 1866.

Master Humphrey’s Clock; a Domestic Drama, in Two Acts. By Frederick Fox Cooper. Victoria Theatre, London, May 26, 1840. (Lacy.)

The Old Curiosity Shop. A Drama in Four Acts. Adapted by George Lander. First produced at the Theatre Royal, York, May 14, 1877. (Dicks 398.)

The Old Curiosity Shop; a Drama in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre, November 9, 1840. (French 1147.)

The Old Curiosity Shop; a Drama, in Four Acts. Adapted by Mr. Charles Dickens, Junr., from his Father’s Novel. Not published. Opera Comique Theatre. 1884.

Mrs. Jarley’s Far-Famed Collection of Wax-Works, as arranged by G. B. Bartlett. In Two Parts. London.

Yankee Notes for English Circulation. A Farce in One Act, by Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre. London. 1843. (Duncombe’s Theatre.)

Martin Chuzzlewit, a Drama in Three Acts by Charles Webb. London. (Barth.)

Martin Chuzzlewit; or, his wills and his ways, what he did, and what he didn’t. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts, by Thomas Higgie and T. H. Lacy. Lyceum Theatre, London, July 8, 1844. (S. French 330.)

So says the acting copy, but see next entry:

Martin Chuzzlewit; a Drama in Three Acts. By Edward Stirling. This, it is stated on the acting copy, was produced at the Lyceum Theatre July 8, 1844. The two versions are unlike, and it is clearly impossible that both could have been produced on the same night at the same theatre. It is probable that Higgie and Lacy’s version was that which was produced at the Strand Theatre July 15, 1844. (Duncombe’s plays.)

Tom Pinch. Domestic Comedy in Three Acts By Joseph J. Dilley and Lewis Clifton. Vaudeville Theatre, London, March 10, 1881. (S. French 1803.)

Mrs. Sarah Gamp’s Tea and Turn Out; a Bozzian Sketch, in One Act, by B. Webster. Adelphi Theatre, London, October 26, 1846. (Webster’s Drama 136.)

Tartuffe Junior, Von H. C. L. Klein. Neuwied, 1864. (A Play in Five Acts after “Martin Chuzzlewit.”)

Mrs. Gamp’s Party. An adaptation in One Act. Manchester. Abel Heywood & Son.

Mrs. Harris. A Farce in One Act, by Edward Stirling. Lyceum Theatre, October, 1846. (Duncombe.)

The Cricket on the Hearth, a Fairy Tale of Home, in two acts. By Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 31, 1845. (Webster’s Drama 124.)

The Cricket on the Hearth; or, a Fairy Tale of Home. A Drama, in three acts. Dramatised by Albert Smith, by the express permission of the Author. First produced at the Lyceum Theatre, 1845, and at the Winter Garden, New York, September 14, 1859. (Dicks 394.)

The Cricket on the Hearth, a Fairy Tale of Home in Three Chirps. By W. T. Townsend. London. (Lacy 649.)

This was another version which was produced at the City of London Theatre, January 7, 1846.

A Christmas Carol; or, the Miser’s Warning, by C. Z. Barnett. Produced at the Surrey Theatre, February 5, 1844. This adaptation was published with a note stating that “the extreme necessity (the consequence of its high and deserved popularity) that so imperatively called for its representation on the stage, has also demanded its publication as a Drama, which it is the Adapter’s sincere wish, as it is his conviction, will considerably augment the sale of the original lovely and humanizing creation upon which it is founded.” (Lacy 1410. Dicks 722.)

Dot, a Fairy Tale of Home. A Drama in Three Acts, from “The Cricket on the Hearth.” Dramatised by Dion Boucicault. Not published.

The Haunted Man, a Drama. Adapted from Charles Dickens’s Christmas Story. Not published.

The Chimes, a Goblin Story, of some Bells that rang an Old Year out, and a New Year in; a Drama, in Four Quarters, by Mark Lemon and Gilbert Abbott à Beckett. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 19, 1844. (Webster’s Drama 115.)

La Bataille de la Vie. Pièce en Trois Actes, par M. M. Mèlesville et André de Goy. Vaudeville Theatre, Paris, 1853.

The Battle of Life, founded on the Christmas Annual of Charles Dickens, dramatised by Albert Smith. In Three Acts and in Verse. Lyceum Theatre, London, December 21, 1846. (W. S. Johnson.)

The Battle of Life, a Drama in Three Acts, by Edward Stirling. Surrey Theatre, London. January, 1847. (Duncombe’s Theatre 456.)

Dombey and Son. In three acts. Dramatized by John Brougham, and produced at Burton’s Theatre, New York, 1850. (Dicks 375. French 126.)

Dombey and Son; or, Good Mrs. Brown, the Child Stealer. A Drama, in two acts. “From the pen of the inimitable Charles Dickens, Esq. As performed at the Royal Strand Theatre.” No date.

An impudent theft, in which many liberties are taken with Dickens’s plot. This was published whilst the novel was in progress, and is now very scarce.

Captain Cuttle; a Comic Drama, in one act. By John Brougham. Burton’s Theatre, New York, January 14, 1850. (Dicks 572.)

228 David Copperfield, a Drama in two acts. Adapted by John Brougham, and first performed at Brougham’s Lyceum, January 6, 1851. New York. (French 133. Dicks 374.)

David Copperfield, a Drama in three acts, by John Brougham. Brougham’s Lyceum Theatre, January 6, 1851. (French.)

Little Emily, a Drama in four acts. Adapted from Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” by Andrew Halliday.

Lady Dedlock’s Secret, a Drama in Four Acts. Founded on an episode in “Bleak House,” by J. Palgrave Simpson. Opera Comique Theatre, London, March 26, 1884. (French.)

“Move on,” or Jo, the Outcast, a Drama in Three Acts. Adapted by James Mortimer. Not published.

Poor Jo, a Drama in Three Acts. Adapted by Terry Hurst. Not published.

Jo, a Drama in Three Acts, by J. P. Burnett. Not published.

Bleak House; or Poor “Jo.” A Drama, in Four Acts. Adapted by George Lander. Pavilion Theatre, London, March 27, 1876. (Dicks 388.)

Hard Times. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts, by T. Fox Cooper. Strand Theatre, London, August 14, 1854. (Dicks.)

No Thorough Fare; a Drama in Five Acts, and a Prologue. By Charles Dickens and W. Wilkie Collins. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 26, 1867, and afterwards in Paris. Printed in New York.

Identity; or, No Thoroughfare. A Drama in Four Acts. By Louis Lequel. New York. (French.)

L’Abime, drame en cinq actes. (Founded on “No Thoroughfare.”) Paris, 1868.

The Tale of Two Cities; or, the Incarcerated Victim of the Bastille. An Historical Drama, in a Prologue and four acts. Adapted by T. Fox Cooper. First performed at the Victoria Theatre, London, July 7, 1860. (Dicks.)

A Tale of Two Cities; a Drama in two acts and a Prologue. By Tom Taylor. Lyceum Theatre, London, January 30, 1860. (Lacy 661.)

The Tale of Two Cities; a Drama in three acts and a Prologue. Adapted by H. J. Rivers. London.

A Message from the Sea, a Drama in Four Acts. Founded on Charles Dickens’s tale of that name, by John Brougham. Britannia Theatre, London, 1861. (Dicks 459.)

A Message from the Sea; a Drama in Three Acts. By Charles Dickens and W. Wilkie Collins. London, 1861.

The Dead Witness; or Sin and its Shadow. A Drama in Three Acts, by Wybert Reeve, founded on “The Widow’s Story” of The Seven Poor Travellers, by C. Dickens. First produced at the Sheffield Theatre. (S. French 1472.)

Great Expectations, a Drama in Three Acts, and a Prologue. By W. S. Gilbert. Not published.

Dickens himself did not often attempt parody, but his Reports of the Meetings of the “Mudfog Association” are admirable prose burlesques of the early proceedings of the British Association. These originally appeared in “Bentley’s Miscellany,” but have recently been republished.

Sam Weller’s Adventures.

A Song of the Pickwickians.

Who caused the smiles of rich and poor?

Who made a hit so slow, but sure?

And rose the worth of literature?

Sam Weller.

I’m pretty well known about town,

For to gain a repute is my pride,

Though no vun can doubt my renown,

I’m a covey of polish beside!

I renovates cases for feet,

Whether high-lows or tops is the same,

I turns ’em off hand werry neat,

And Samivel Veller’s my name!

In the Borough my trade I dragged on,

Vith no vun to envy my sphere;

I polish’d the soles of each don,

From the cadger bang up to the peer.

Their understandings I greatly improved,

Vot happen’d to fall in the vay;

And many a gen’leman mov’d

To me in the course of the day.

Vun gen’leman—Pickwick, Esquire,

The head of the noted P. C.

Vun day tumbled in to enquire,

If I’d had the fortin to see

A cove vearing Vellington kicks,

And a Miss Rachel Vardle beside,

Vot the gent had lugged off by the nicks,

And promis’d to make her his bride.

I knowed by the cut of his boot,

As the cove had put up at our inn,

So Pickwick, without a dispute,

Comes tumbling down with the tin!

And me arter that he engages,

To follow him in his career—

Good togs and twelve shiners for vages,

Paid every annual year.

Some coves when they rises you know,

They stick to vulgarity will;

But that vos my notice below,

’Cos as how I’m a gen’leman still,

“For riches is nothing to me,

If ever them I vos among—”

As the gen’leman said, d’ye see,

At the time he vos goin’ to be hung!

(For remainder of this old street ballad see p. 276 of The Life and Times of James Catnach, by Charles Hindley. London. Reeves & Turner, 1878.)

It should have been stated that the Parodies on Dickens, quoted from The World on p. 215, were written by the Rev. W. H. A. Emra, of Salisbury (“New Sarum”) and by Mr. Walter Fletcher, of Hornsey. (“Robert le Diable.”)

229 COVENTRY PATMORE.

Amongst the parodies of Coventry Patmore which appeared on p. 194, mention should have been made of one which will be found in Mr. A. C. Swinburne’s Heptalogia, published by Chatto & Windus. It is called The Person of the House, and is in four Idyls, “The Monthly Nurse,” “The Caudle,” “The Sentences,” and “The Kid.”

When Mr. Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House” was first published, the Athenæum furnished the following unique criticism:—

“The gentle reader we apprise, that this new Angel in the House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another ‘In Memoriam.’ How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we quiz The poet’s record of his she, Some little pictures you shall see, Not in our language but in his:

‘While thus I grieved and kissed her glove,

My man brought in her note to say

Papa had bid her send his love,

And hoped I dine with them next day;

They had learned and practised Purcell’s glee,

To sing it by to-morrow night:

The postscript was—her sisters and she

Inclosed some violets blue and white.

* * * * *

‘Restless and sick of long exile,

From those sweet friends I rode, to see

The church repairs, and after a while

Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.

They introduced the Cousin Fred

I’d heard of, Honor’s favourite; grave,

Uark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,

And with an air of the salt wave.’

Fear not this saline Cousin Fred; He gives no tragic mischief birth; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless they may be tears of mirth. From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest will come another day, If public sympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the ‘Angel in the House.’”

——:o:——

OXFORD COMMEMORATION.

“The Encænia,” or Commemoration of Founders and Benefactors which took place in June last, was marked by all the customary boisterous merriment on the part of the undergraduates. The ladies were cheered as usual, whilst marks of disapprobation were addressed at all persons whose attire presented any features of singularity. The Vice-Chancellor’s Latin address was inaudible on account of the interruptions, many of which were in excessively bad taste. The Proctors were loudly hissed, and called upon to retire, and as they did not attempt to do so, they were requested to sing a duet.

It is only perhaps in Oxford that such conduct on the part of educated men, presumably gentlemen, would be tolerated; as it was described (in imitation of Carlyle) fifteen years ago, so it remains:—

“What is Commemoration? Wherefore? Whereunto? Why? Is it a mere vacuous Inanition, or speck cut out of this little world, or has it not rather contrariwise some Meaning, apart from that which is wrapt up in meness and youness and every-one-else-ness, and two or three more beside?

Nay, is it not Portentous, Big with Signs, with its show Sunday, its Dances, its Encænia and what not?

Is it not a time when it is permitted to Man to wriggle out of the inextricable snares of the Fowler with his Attorney-logic, and the frothy effervescences of defunct and buried-in-dusty tomes Antiquity which are nomen-clated Lectures? And to be Oblivious of these Gehenna-Bailiffs emissaried by professors in Tailor-craft, Wine-craft, and the innumerable other crafts and mysteries ranking under the genus Productive Industry. Aye, and those gaily apparelled young ladies (Madchen) who confluctuate hither as to a Focus, or centre of Attraction, though they themselves are also an Attraction, which is an inextricable mystery of Involvedness; do not these too teach a lesson to the gawks, in whose heads is nothing but the Roots of their World restored Hair, and who imagine that the whole Furniture of that digesting mechanism, Man, is but a Lay-figure, gifted indeed, with struttableness and swagger, on which to hang their Peacock-plumes, fringes, cobwebs, and such.

And there is the Encænia too, with its Chaotic Hubbub of Tympanum-splitting Noise, Undergraduates Noise, Ticket admitted Noise, as it were a sort of Tenfold Bedlam smitten with Interjectional Rabies, of groanings and yelpings, Approbation, Depreciation, and the like.”

* * * * *

From The Shotover Papers. Oxford. 1874.

“The Irish Revolution, a history in three books.” By Thomas Snarlyle. Such is the title of a parody, to be found in The Puppet-Showman’s Album, published about 1848, which concludes with a sentence curiously appropriate to these times:—

“Ireland, Ireland, thy leaders are in jail. But be not a Rachel weeping for these children, be comforted!”

——:o:——

JOHN RUSKIN.

Let us take a small extract from his notes on Samuel Prout and William Hunt’s loan collection of pictures:—

“That little brown-red butterfly [142] … is a piece of real painting; and it is as good as Titian or anybody else ever did, and if you can enjoy it you can enjoy Titian and all other good painters; and if you can’t see anything in it you can’t see anything in them, and its all affectation and pretence to say that you care about them. And with this butterfly in the drawing I put first, please look at the mug and loaf in the one I have put last of the Hunt series, No. 171. The whole art of painting is in that mug—as the fisherman’s 230 genius was in the bottle. If you can feel how beautiful it is, how ethereal, how heathery, and heavenly, as well as to the uttermost muggy, you have an eye for colour and can enjoy heather, heaven, and everything else below and above. If not, you must enjoy what you can contentedly, but it won’t be painting; and in mugs it will be more the beer than the crockery, and on the moors rather grouse than heather.”

For those who have neglected the opportunity of testing their taste for art on this butterfly, and on this mug, I would advise a visit to Venice, to learn whether they can appreciate Bassano’s hair trunk, as shown in his grand picture of the Pope Alexander and the Doge of Venice. It is not Ruskin, but Mark Twain who thus describes it:

“The hair of this trunk is real hair, so to speak, white in patches, brown in patches. The details are finely worked out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and inactive condition, is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about this part of the work, which lifts it to the highest altitudes of art; the sense of sordid realism vanishes away—one recognizes that there is soul here. View this trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a miracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching even to the boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and the Byzantine schools. Yet the master’s hand never falters—it moves on, calm, majestic, confident; and, with that art which conceals art, it finally casts over the tout ensemble, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtle something which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid components, and endues them with the deep charm and gracious witchery of poesy. Among the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach the hair trunk—there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly—but there is none that surpasses it.”

On All Fours Clavigera;

OR, Right at Last.

It may be remembered that Professor Buskin during the Spring addressed a letter to a provincial paper, respecting the projected new railway for Derbyshire. As he therein expressed some very strong opinions against the scheme, as one likely to give the miserable, melancholy, and toiling millions who dwell in smoke-stifling and unwholesome towns, an occasional chance of letting a little bright fresh air and sunlight in upon the gloom of their darkened lives, it is satisfactory to know that the letter in question is now believed to have been a clever hoax. At any rate, the zenith of that boon to millions, the summer excursion season has produced a second communication to the same journal: and, as it not only bears the Professor’s signature, but breathes with the spirit of his larger philanthropy, there can be little doubt as to its authenticity.

In the course of this second letter, Professor Buskin says:—

“I do not know how this mental revolution has come about within me, nor, were you to ask me, could I tell you. I only recognise the stupendous fact that I feel, and am not ashamed to avow, that I no longer regard the wild witchery of the Derbyshire glens as a precious and special property held by Providence in trust for me and a few exclusive well-to-do Sybarites for our sole select and selfish delectation.

* * * * *

Here it is, this Derbyshire Garden of Eden, with its magic-lantern-slide effects, lost for ever and for ever to everyone save to you and to me and the lucky Stall-sitters who hold, out of the overflowing fulness of their purses, the front places in the world’s glittering show, to the shifting and shutting out of the humbler and poorer from the sight and sense of it.”

“Follow, if you can, without wetted feet, the floretted banks and foam-crisped wavelets of the slyly wilful stream. Into the very heart and depth of this, and politely bending with the bends of it, your railway introduces its close-clinging attention. The rocks are not big enough to be tunnelled, they are cheerily blasted away; the brook is not wide enough to be bridged, it is comfortably covered in, and is thence-forward no physical obstacle to an enterprising Railway Company. I have not said, I leave the clergyman and physician to say, what moral and sanitary changes follow a free access to the gifts of Nature. But I may, at least, advise your correspondent that envenomed air is deadlier to the young than the old, and that the sooner a completed line of railway enables the pent-up thousands of pestiferous cities to figure as three-and-sixpenny excursionists, if only for a few hours, amidst these hitherto inaccessible fairy haunts, the sooner will English children who have been reared in mephitic fume instead of mountain breeze, who have had for playground heaps of ashes instead of banks of flowers, whose Christmas holidays brought them no memory, whose Easter sun no hope, enjoy some of the blessed delight of breezy hillside and sunlit glen hitherto claimed as the special and peculiar heirloom of that unreasoning and wrong-headed class who, singing the sweet song of Nature’s praise, defame that priceless metal line which, like some mighty wizard, alone has borne their welcome echo to a myriad aching city hearts.”

Punch. August 23, 1884.

On Toothpicks.

By Professor Buskin.

I came the other day quite by chance on this piece of news in my Daily Telegraph:—“It is said that no less than 25 millions of Toothpicks are annually made in England. This is just one to each person.” “Just one?” No, there is no justice here, it is all injustice. Think of this—25 millions, and think further of the 25 millions of Englishmen who can use them. Yes, this is what England has come to be—a nation of Toothpickers; for mark this, each man can use a toothpick if he will; if he can by fair means or foul (too often, alas, by foul!) obtain the paltry coin to purchase the Tooth-pick with.

But then these dilettanti-scribblers, these writers in the newspapers who are paid for their scribbling, these folk (forsooth!) say, “what have you to do with this—this Toothpicking?” I answer we have all to do with it. For hear, yea, and forbear with me a minute while I speak to you of this same Toothpicking.

Friends, it comes to this. Picking is a natural attribute of man. He must throughout life be a picker. But now comes the momentous question, a picker of what? A picker of knowledge, a dabbler in all the ’ologies, an admirable Crichton, veriest of prigs, or a picker of locks, a red-handed burglar, a hero of penny novels, or will he be a picker of teeth, a drawling vacuity weary of himself, weary of every thing, an inane hanger on to the skirts of the Universe? Will not the brave man, the wise man, the man of resolve, of energy, of endurance, a picker of roads, will he not go forth to beautify Hincksey, to plant the new 231 Utopia, to commence the Era of Æstheticism, and of the Fors?

Now, turning his picking propensities to some real use, he will learn to do hard work, to blister his hands, to wheel barrows, to preach Buskinism.

From The Shotover Papers. Oxford, 1874.

Mr. Ruskin is a depressing pessimist, according to whom nearly everything that was done in England three centuries or so ago was lovely and true, whilst all nineteenth century progress is in the wrong direction. “I know of nothing” he writes “that has been taught the youth of our time except that their fathers were apes, and their mothers winkles; that the world began in accident, and will end in darkness; that honour is a folly, ambition a virtue, charity a vice, poverty a crime, and rascality the means of all wealth and the sum of all wisdom.” Now these sweeping assertions are false, and Mr. Ruskin knows they are false, he could not advance a tittle of proof that any professor in modern times had inculcated any such doctrines. Those who want an antidote to Mr. Ruskin’s views should read “Pre-Raffaelitism; or a Popular enquiry into some newly-asserted Principles connected with the Philosophy, Poetry, Religion and Revolution of Art” by the Rev. Edward Young, M.A. London: Longmans & Co., 1857.

OUIDA.

Moll Marine:

(By “Weeder.”)

Moll Marine! A simple, touching name! It had been bestowed upon her by the rude country hinds among whom she dwelt. It was all she received at their hands besides blows and curses. Moll was a common name in those parts, but none knew what it meant, none discerned the hidden poetry in that brief monosyllable. Moll Marine they called her, because she came among them as a waif from the wild waves, as a white foam fleck that the winds toss on to the cold rocks to gleam a moment in the setting sun, and then dissolve for ever into the dews of night.

She was only fifteen, tall and graceful as a young poplar, with a warm brown skin and a scented wealth of amber hair. Everybody hated her. “It was natural,” she thought. They beat her, but she cared not. She was like a lucifer; they struck her, and she blazed forth resplendent; beautiful as the spotted panther of the forest, as the shapely thistle that the ass crops unheeding, as the beaming comet that shakes out her golden tresses in the soft hush of summer nights.

And she loved. Loved madly, passionately, hopelessly.

He knew it. He knew that he had but to say, “Come!” and she would follow him to disgrace or death, to polar snows or deserts arid as Gehenna. To him she was nothing. No more than the painted fly he pinned in sport, than the yellow meadow flowers that he crushed beneath his heel, than the soft tender doves whose downy necks he wrung and whose bodies he eat with cruel relish.

[We regret to say that the rest of this contribution is improper, and unfit for publication.—Ed.]

From The Light Green. Cambridge, 1872.

The World prize competition, for parodies on Ouida’s Under Two Flags, subject “The Cambridgshire Stakes.”

First Prize.

‘Seven to 5 on Leoville; 9 to 3 on Lartington; 10 to 2 on Falmouth; 13 to 4 Flotsam; 17 to 9 Exeter; the Field bar one; 22 to 8 Lord Clive; 33 to 12 Discord! Take the Field bar one; take the Field!’ yelled a burly bookmaker, as an elegant young patrician redolent of Jockey Club sauntered past him.

‘I do take it in; also the Life,’ said the noble, as he flicked some dust from his spotless boots, and then he blew his nose gracefully.

‘O, stow yer larks!’ said the other; but the next moment he repented using such language; for the apparently delicate nobleman had carelessly taken him by the seat of his trousers and thrown him over the rails, as though he had been a feather, instead of weighing at least 15 stone.

‘Curse him!’ he muttered, as he came back trying to look pleased. ‘What d’yer want to do, my lord?’ he said, with a ghastly smile.

Mentioning a horse, the haughty young aristocrat asked what he would lay against it.

‘Against it?’ said the welcher. ‘Well, it ain’t usual for us to lay against ’em; but I’ll give yer 4 to 2.’

‘Very well,’ wearily replied the marquis; ‘in half millions. I also want to back it for a lady, in gloves.’

‘Wery good, my lord; dogskin or kid?’

This of course could only be meant for insult. The peer looked at him half amused, half disgusted, and walked listlessly away.

The welcher scowled after him with bitter hatred; but just then the bell rang, and he hurried off to see the horses and jockeys weighed. When he arrived at the shed he found all ready but one, the jockey who was to ride the horse he had laid against. He was just sitting down to dinner.

‘They’re waiting for you,’ said a steward, rushing into the room.

‘Ask them to wait a little longer; I shall be ready in forty minutes,’ said the jockey, taking a spoonful of potage à la Tortue.

The steward rushed out somewhat excitedly.

‘Now’s my time,’ said the welcher, and creeping behind the light weight he gently unfastened one of his spurs, and put another in its place. He had scarcely finished when the referee came in to say that the starter would wait no longer. Quaffing a large goblet of champagne, the jockey murmured, ‘Che, sara, sara,’ and staggered out. Why did the welcher look so fiendish. He had fastened on the jockey’s boot a spur with painted rowels.

Following him out, he could just see him galloping down the course, and hear the people cheer as their favourite went by in his crimson jacket, with scarlet sash, green hoops, pink sleeves, and yellow cap. Before he could get to the starting-box the horses were off; but disdaining to join them in the middle of the race, and wishing also to exchange a few compliments with the starter, he rode up to him, and after relieving his mind, dashed after the others. By the time he got to the ‘Corner’ he was only two furlongs behind; at the distance a hundred yards; at the Red House fifty; and as they passed the Stand he was but a length from the leaders. He touched his gallant steed with the spur for a final effort; but instead of leaving the others behind as usual, it staggered, stopped, and went to sleep. The laudanum had done its work. Just then his rider heard a great shout, and looking up saw thousands of arms carrying the victorious jockey back to the scales. La Merveille had won the Cambridgeshire.

Oracle. (E. E. D. Davis.)

232

Second Prize.

‘Four to none against Hartington!’ ‘8 to none against Sarserperiller!’ ‘25 to none against Stylites!’ (pronounced by the ‘welchers’ as a dissyllable, like Skylights). ‘20 to none against Lar Mervilly!’ (La Merveille). ‘2 to none bar none!’ These and a hundred other cries rose high above the roar of the Ring on the bright October afternoon that shone for the nonce over the wide windy fens and sandy loams of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk on the day of the last great scrambling handicap of the year.

Maunderers muttering to their moustaches, layers, takers, ‘ossy’ cards, tiptop swells, who had ‘put the pot on’ to any extent, ladies of rank and ladies of pleasure (the latter in sealskin and velvet, and gracefully puffing the daintiest of papilitos)—all, with an instinct of stupidity, came down eager for a ‘go in’ on the scratching Cambridgeshire.

The bell was throbbing and sobbing spasmodically; and, as that cynosure of all eyes, Hartington, whose magnificently-desiccated veins bulged out black as the bloody cords of an injected ‘subject,’ strode grandly forth, a roar, deep as the voice of forests or the moan of the sea, went suddenly up—‘the crack!’

La Merveille, the blue filly, whose neck had the Arch of Marble, was a thick, short, long-barrelled horse, with superb Watteau eyes, and an I’ll-take-the-conceit-out-of-a good-many-of-you-if-I-choose-looking head. She belonged to the Lord of the Durdans, Earl Elderberry, whose colours were Hebrew lily inclining to Primrose.

See! Twice ten thousand starters are hoisted in admirable time; the competitors muster at the post, and the coup d’œil, as they glimmer and shimmer there in the sunlight, is as that of an early Turner sunset gone ineffably mad.

Three breaks; the flag falls; a glorious start, and away they go like no end of a line of eager harlequins before their creditors. ‘Off!’ and Out of Pounds, after taking up the running, ‘compounded;’ Adamite fell; Sunburn cooled down; Caxtonian ‘pressed’ onward; Fitz-Pluto ‘warmed’ to his work. ‘Now!’ Blood lashes to fury. The Ring roars—‘It’s a skinner!’ And Breadloser, Lord Strive, Hartington, and Lar Mervilly dash like fiends through the cold, fresh, wild winter wind, blowing as it might have done in Stuart times, when Mistress Nell Gwynn, the fat King’s ‘fancy,’ was here to inhale it.

Hark! ‘The foremost wins!’ ‘Rob Boy’s a “teaser”!’ ‘Mervilly’s lost!’ ‘Flash Man’s a brilliant failure!’

Lost? A palpitating lie!

’Send me a cropper!’ exclaimed Constable, a ‘clipping’ jock who had landed many a mount. ‘Send me a cropper, if you like, but “plant” me a winner!’

The blue filly answered with lightning spontaneity. Game to the last, Constable, a great Pickwick in his mouth, coaxed a final effort out of her. The delirium of pace was upon him. ‘Go in a perisher!’

On came the trio—on, until one last convulsive impulse of the outstretched limbs, and—hark! The cry has changed. ‘Mervilly wins!’

A thousand jewelled hands hold forth bouquets of hissing eau de Cologne. And Constable, true to the canons of his Order, ‘runs her in.’

A cry as of the disappointed, the desperate, or the d—d, went out over the ghastly fens; seemed to reel from many a gallant ‘plunger’ in anticipation of an approaching ‘weigh-in.’ Next to first was Second; Better Last than Never, whose dominant instinct it was to lose, third.

There was much wisdom after the event. Two minutes eight seconds! A man on a bicycle might have done it in less time!

Cyril. (James Silvester.)

The World November 12, 1879.

A parody of Ouida’s Ariadne was published in The Weekly Dispatch parody competition, September 13, 1885, but owing to the enforced brevity of the compositions, this one consisted of little more than a catalogue of names and facts, without any fun, or humour.

Of course Mr. F. C. Burnand wrote a parody on “Ouida,” it appeared in Punch in 1878, and was entitled “Strapmore! A Romance by Weeder, author of Folly and Farini, Under Two Rags, Arryadn’ty, Chuck, Two Little Wooden Jews, Nicotine, A Horse with Glanders, In Somers Town, Shamdross, &c., &c.” This wild weird story of blood and crime was republished in book form by Bradbury, Agnew & Co.

Judy also published a parody, entitled “Bluebottles. A Novel of Queer Society” Idylised à la Ouida. This was commenced July 7, 1880.

——:o:——

The following very happy burlesque of the nautical tales in the style of Captain Marryat and Captain Chamier, was written in 1842 by the late Professor W. E. Aytoun, who, in conjunction with Sir Theodore Martin, wrote the Bon Gaultier Ballads.

The Flying Dutchman.

A Tale of the Sea.

We were in the midst of the storm-tossed Atlantic. A heavy simoom, blowing N.E. by S., brought in the huge tropical billows mast-high from the Gulf of Labrador, and awoke old ocean, roaring in its fury, from its unfathomable depths. No moon was visible among the hurricane rack of the sky—even the pole-star, sole magnet of the mariner’s path, was buried in the murky obscurity of the tempest; nor was it possible to see which way the ship was steering, except by the long track of livid flames which followed in the wake of the bow, or when, at times, some huge leviathan leapt up from the water beside us, and descending with the vehemence of a rock hurled from heaven, drove up a shower of aquatic splinters, like a burst of liquid lava from the sea. All the sails which usually decorated the majestic masts of H.M.S. Syncope (a real seventy-nine of the old Trafalgar build, teak-built and copper fastened) were reefed tightly up, with the exception of the mainsail, the spritsail, the mizzen-boom sail, and a few others of minor consequence. Everything was cleared away—halyards, hencoop, and binnacle had been taken down below, to prevent accidents; and the whole of the crew, along with the marines and boarders, piped to their hammocks. No one remained upon deck except the steersman, as usual lashed to the helm; Josh Junk, the first bos’un; and the author of this narrative, who was then a midshipman on board the vessel, commanded by his uncle, Commodore Sir Peregrine Pendant.

“Skewer my timbers!” exclaimed Mr. Junk, staggering from one side of the deck to the other as an enormous wave struck us on the leeside, and very nearly unshipped the capstan—“Skewer my timbers, if this a’n’t enough to put an admiral’s pipe out! Why, Master Tom, d’ye see, it’s growing altogether more and more darkerer; and if it a’n’t clearer by twelve bells, we’ll be obligated to drop anchor, which a’n’t by no means so pleasant, with a heavy swell like this, running at nineteen knots an hour in the middle of the wide Atlantic. How’s her head, boy?”

“North by south it is, sir,” replied the steersman.

“Keep her seven points more to the west, you lubber! Always get an offing when there’s a wet sheet and a flowing sea. That’s right, Jem! Hold her hard abaft, and she’ll go slick before the wind, like a hot knife through a pound of 233 butter. Halloo, Master Tom, are you holding on by the seat-railings already—you a’n’t sick, are you? Shall I tell the steward to fetch a basin?”

“No, no, Josh,” I replied, “’tis nothing—merely a temporary qualm. But tell me—do you really apprehend any danger? If so, would it not be prudent to call up the commodore, and hang out the dead-lights?”

“Why, Master Tom,” replied the bos’un, turning his quid, “them ere’s kevestions as I can’t answer. ’Cos, first—there’s no knowing what danger is till it comes; secondly, it’s as much as my place is worth to disturb old Fire-and-Faggots—axing your pardon for the liberty—afore he’s finished his grog with the mates below; and, thirdly, it’s no use hanging out the dead-lights, ’cos we’re entirely out of oil.”

“Gracious heavens!” cried I, “and suppose any other ship should be in the same latitude?”

“Then,” said the bos’un with all imaginable coolness, “I reckon it would be a case of bump. Oak varsus teak, as the law-wers say, and Davy Jones take the weakest.—But hitch my trousers! what’s that?”

As the non-commissioned officer spoke, a bright flash was seen to the seaward immediately ahead of our vessel. It was too bright, too intense to proceed from any meteoric phenomena, such as sometimes are witnessed in those tropical climate, and the sullen report which immediately followed, indicated too clearly that it proceeded from some vessel in the vicinity.

“A first-rater, by jingo!” said Mr. Junk, “and in distress. Hold my telescope, Master Tom, till I go below and turn out the watch,”——but that instant his course was arrested.

Scarce a second had elapsed after the sound of the discharge reverberated through our rigging, when, only a hawser’s distance from our bowsprit, a phosphoric light seemed to rise from the bosom of the shadowy deep. It hung upon the hull, the binnacle, the masts, the yards of a prodigious ship, pierced apparently for three tier of guns, which, with every sail set, bore down direct upon us. One moment more and collision was inevitable; but Junk, with prodigious presence of mind, sprang to the helm, snatched the wheel from the hands of the petrified steersman, and luffed with almost supernatural force. Like a well-trained courser who obeys the rein, our noble ship instantly yielded to the impulse, and bore up a-lee, whilst the stranger came hissing up, and shot past us so close that I could distinctly mark each lineament of the pale countenances of the crew as they stood clustered upon the rigging, and even read—so powerful was that strange, mysterious light—the words painted within her sides,—“Those who go abaft the binnacle pay Cabin fare!” On, on she drove—a lambent coruscation, cleaving the black billows of the Atlantic main, about to vanish amidst the deep darkness of the night.

“That was a near shave, anyhow,” said Mr. Junk, relinquishing the wheel, “but we must know something more of that saucy clipper,” and catching up a speaking trumpet, he hailed,—

“Ship ahoy!”

“Ship yourself!” was the response.

“What’s your name?”

“What’s yours!”

“Syncope—Britannic Majesty’s seventy-nine—for Trinidad.”

“Yung Fraw—merchant ship, for Rotterdam.”

“What cargo?”

“Soap!” was the reply. “How are YOU off for it? Ha! ha! ha!”

A peal of diabolic laughter rolled across the deep, mingled with the rushing of the waves and the whistling of the winds. Another flash—another report—and the meteor light sunk as noiselessly as it had arisen into the bosom of the watery surge. At that moment the moon burst out from behind a cloud, clear and queenlike, illuminating the ocean for miles. We rushed to the stern and looked back. In vain! no vestige of a ship was there—we were alone upon the warring waters!

“By the Lord Harry!” said the bos’un, dropping the trumpet—“as sure as my name’s Josh Junk, that ’ere was the Flying Dutchman!” - - - - -

That night we were SWAMPED AT SEA!

——:o:——

OUR NEW ACTORS.

Three imitations of Charles Lamb’s essay on “Some of our Old Actors” were published in a Parody Competition in The World, October, 15, 1879. The first prize was awarded to the following:—

Taking up a to-days Standard—I know not by what freak of fancy I came to purchase one—I glanced at a few of the theatrical advertisements, which occupy no inconsiderable space in its columns. One of these presented the cast of parts in the Iron Chest at the Lyceum Theatre—Sir Edward Mortimer, by Henry Irving. What an ambitious sound it has! How clearly it brings before me the comely sad face—thoughtful and therefore sad—and the almost painfully-intense manner of the modern actor!

Of all the ‘Sir Edwards’ who have flourished in my time—a dismal phrase if taken aright, reader—that mad genius, the great little man with the fine Italian face and flashing eyes, Edmund Kean, is the most unforgetable. That of Irving comes next. He, since Kean, most fully realises the author’s idea of the style of man best suited to fill the part—‘a man of sable hue, and one in whose soul there’s something o’er which his melancholy sits and broods.’ But the secret of Irving’s success lies in his fine annihilation of self—a rare quality among players—combined with an originality which triumphs over tradition. There is a marked naturalness about his acting of this character, bottomed on enthusiasm. Like genius, he seems at times to have the power of kindling his own fire into any degree of intensity.

Kean, of whom Mrs. Siddons said, ‘There is too little of him to do anything;’ but of whom his landlady said, ‘There is something about Mr. Kean, ma’am, that tells me he will be a great man;’ Kean, whose exclamation, ‘My God, if I should succeed now, I think it will drive me mad!’ was prophetic, and who, when successful, cried, ‘D— Lord Essex, Mary; the pit rose at me!’—Kean tore the passion of the play to tatters.

Irving’s recenter style does not go to work so grossly. Seemingly convinced of the facts that whatever is done for effect will be seen to be done for effect, and that Nature for ever puts a premium on reality, he interests, as all may, by being persistently and intensely human. There is a consonancy, so to speak, which the green probationer in tragedy spoils by failing to exercise that repression which is an index of power.

In Hamlet, Mathias, in the remorseful rant of Eugene Aram, and the rest, Irving has proved himself histrionic to a degree that will always command intelligent recognition.

All have seen Sothern! What a Dundreary the world has in him! What witty conceits that pleasant creature has to trifle an hour or two away!—he whose ineffable fooling, if done by another, would partake of the essentially ludicrous. Then there is my beloved Toole, whose quirks never left a sting, who drolls inimitably, and whose quality is so irresistible 234 that like a sunbeam, he exists but to cheer—a touching function, reader. My beloved Toole is, in his walk, in no way inferior.

Shakespeare foresaw the existence of Miss Ellen Terry when he created Portia, as Sir Walter might that of Miss Neilson when he spake in Kenilworth.

There are who say that Barry Sullivan is the leading legitimate actor of the British stage—a big distinction, which few will, perhaps, be disposed to deny him. But the difference between Sullivan and Irving is, I take it, this: Sullivan has the toga virilis, and the old and obvious canons of his art; Irving is an actor less by tradition than instinct. Sullivan’s rich baritone, with its harmonious and not-without-skill-delivered periods, stirs the whole house like the sound of a trumpet: Irving’s shriller pipe is fuller of Nature’s own rhetoric for a finer few. Sullivan may fill the theatre; Irving may find an empty seat or two in the gallery.

Cyril. (James Silvester.)

LORD MACAULAY.

The Quarterly Review, for April 1868, contained a review of Lady Trevelyan’s edition of the works of Lord Macaulay, in which the following passage was quoted as a specimen of his style:—

“The misgovernment of Charles and James, gross as it had been, had not prevented the common business of life from going steadily and prosperously on. While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreign Power, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws were violated, hundreds of thousands of quiet, honest, and industrious families laboured and traded, ate their meals and lay down to rest, in comfort and security. Whether Whig or Tories, Protestants or Jesuits were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market; the grocer weighed out his currants; the draper measured out his broadcloth; the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; the harvest-home was celebrated as joyously as ever in the hamlets; the cream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed in the presses of Herefordshire; the piles of crockery glowed in the furnaces of the Trent; and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timber railways of the Tyne.”—(Vol. iv. p. 189.)

There is no reason why this rhetorical diarrhœa should ever stop so long as there was a trade, calling, or occupation to be particularised: the pith of the proposition (which required no proof) being contained in the first sentence. Why not continue thus:—

“The apothecary vended his drugs as usual; the poulterer crammed his turkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels: the wine-merchant adulterated his port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, as many pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas-pies on Christmas-day; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth of the chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars the feline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cats’-meat man; the painted courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cabs rattled through the Strand; and from the suburban regions of Fulham and Putney the cart of the market-gardener wended its slow and midnight way along Piccadilly to deposit its load of cabbages and turnips in Covent Garden.”

——:o:——

A Page by Macaulay.

(From the History of the Beadleship of Brown.)

When Brown grasped the staff of office, he was in need of the staff of life. Raised at once from want to wealth, from obscurity to renown, from the practice of submission to the habit of command, he did his work sternly; but not too sternly to do it well. The unexpectedly chosen Beadle became a correspondingly energetic Beadle. The new broom swept clean. A week had not passed ere abuses were remedied—the indolence of one portion of the parish officers pricked into action—the disaffection of another crushed into obedience. A benevolent despotism is the best form of government—Brown was despotic, benevolent, and a Beadle.

Let us review the state of affairs as they existed when he first assumed the cocked hat of office as Beadle of St. Tomkins. Apple-women usurped the pavement. Piemen obstructed the roadway. Professed beggars demanded alms at every door—impostors exhibited artificial sores at every corner. What the parish of St. Giles is to the parish of St. James, the parish of St. Tomkins was to the parish of St. Giles. Nuisances of another nature throve also and waxed great from day to day. The pew opener grumbled; the turncock muttered to himself; the churchwardens squabbled, and the rate-payers complained. There was murmured disaffection in the vestry—open revolt amongst the charity boys. It was a time of mutual recrimination—of mutual dissatisfaction. Jones abused Smith, Smith retorted upon Jones. Robinson hated Thomson, Thomson repaid the compliment with interest to Robinson. There was an unruly license of tongue, a general saturnalia of speech. Whispered scandals grew into outspoken charges, and the malicious reports hatched from the tea and muffins of old maidish parties were repeated with envenomed aggravations over the port and sherry of parish dinners. Then it was that short weights were publicly attributed to Smith, and a false steelyard confidently asserted to belong to Jones. Johnson, heated with gin, said that Jackson beat his wife—Jackson, inflamed with rum, said that Mrs. Johnson beat her husband. Charges, counter-charges, insinuations, inuendos, ran riot. No man looked with complacency on his neighbour; no husband looked with confidence upon his wife; no wife looked with respect upon her husband. As yet the band of Reformers who were shortly to arise was unheard of. Thomas Styles was but sixteen; John Nookes but thirteen-and-a-half. The pen of the great Smythe Smithers was yet employed upon half text. No word indicating his future destiny had fallen from Tomkin’s lips—Gubbins had not yet been born—Snooks was in long clothes—and Trother yet unemancipated from parish leathers.

On Brown then it alone devolved to grapple with the task. He was the dauntless pioneer of a dauntless army, a champion destined to show the world that the glitter of a Beadle’s staff may outshine the splendours of a Marichall’s baton, if it did not dim the magnificence of a Monarch’s sceptre.

From The Man in the Moon, edited by Angus B. Reach. February, 1849.

——:o:——

235 A Bit of WHIG His-TORY.

(From what we “Macaulay” History of our own.)

The King had been thrown from his horse at Hampton Court, and was dead. Great were the rejoicings in Paris and Rome on receipt of the tidings, and the hopes of the Jacobite party rose; however, the accession of the second daughter of the last Stuart monarch to the throne as Anna Regina once more clouded their prospects. Her Court, adorned by Marlborough (who did not sell his pictures), Bolingbroke and Swift, would have been as nothing without the genius of one whose name does not figure in the accepted histories of that reign, but whose influence at Court not even the imperious Sarah Jennings, nor her rival, Lady Masham, nor any of the Whigs or Tories of that distracted period, could afford to ignore. A peaceful citizen, whose Hair Preparations gave that graceful brilliancy and tone to the brown hair of the Sovereign, and whose marvellously manufactured Wigs adorned the heads of the noblest in the land, was not one to be lightly passed by, and thus it was Professor Browne was the ruling spirit at the Court of Queen Anne. No Wigs could equal his in form, graceful folds, and luxuriant masses of hair; they covered the heads of the wisest and best in the land, so that it was no wonder the Professor, who had long studied the heads of the people, was universally consulted on all matters of such vital importance. Unfortunately, however, Prince Eugene of Savoy, who at this time came over on a secret mission from the Emperor to the Queen, foolishly declined to pay a visit to Fenchurch Street, and procured from some opposition hairdresser a short campaigning Wig in which to appear at Court. The same evening, the Prince, smoking his cigar at his hotel, happened to be trying on this new head gear when the Hanoverian Minister, Baron Hoffman, called, and seeing that neither in style, make, nor effect was it equal to Browne’s, endeavoured to induce the Prince, but in vain, to discard it and patronize F. B. Bye and bye Bolingbroke, who had a secret partiality for the Jacobites, and mistrusted the Prince’s mission, arrived, and affected such admiration for the periwig that the Prince actually did wear it the next day in the throne-room, to the horror of the Lord Chamberlain and Gentlemen Ushers, while the crafty Bolingbroke took care himself to appear in one of Browne’s most artistic and luxuriant head-coverings that could possibly be procured; the result being a perfect triumph for the Professor. The Queen expressed high disapproval of the Prince’s Wig, whose mission thereby failed, and once again the hopes of the Jacobites fluttered. At length the wily Bolingbroke was dismissed from Office, and Her Majesty, who had secured the succession to the Crown of the son of her cousin Sophia, ordered that Professor Browne, should henceforth be appointed Wig Maker in ordinary to the British Public.

From Professor Browne’s Almanack, 1885.

——:o:——

The Next Armada.

A Brief Chapter from the History of Macaulay Junior.

* * * * *

In the City the agitation was fearful. None could doubt that the decisive crisis was approaching. It was known, from the second edition of the Times, that the joint Armada, carrying everything before it, was continuing its victorious progress up the Channel. Plymouth had fallen without firing a shot. Portsmouth had speedily followed suit. The former had found itself, at the eleventh hour, unprovided with a single gun. The latter, at the crucial moment, discovered that it was still waiting the arrival of its ammunition. When these facts, mysteriously whispered at first with bated breath, became, later in the day, authenticated by the appearance of succeeding editions of the morning papers, the public excitement knew no bounds. A hideous panic seized the Stock Exchange. “Goschens” went down to sixty at a single leap. Five well-known Stockbrokers went off their heads, and were removed in cabs by the police in violent hysterics. The Lord Mayor appeared on the steps of the Mansion House, and endeavoured to quell the riot. He was at once recognised by the mob, and pelted with Pass-Books.

But things assumed a most threatening aspect at the Admiralty. A vast multitude had assembled at Whitehall, and rendered Parliament Street impassable. There was an angry howl at the “Board.” The Police took the precautionary measure of closing the gates. The First Lord appeared inside the enclosure, and his presence was the signal for an ominous roar. He was deathly pale and trembling, but he managed to scramble up the balustrade, and gazed feebly down on the raving thousands below. He was understood to say that when next Parliament met it would be asked to appoint another Committee to inquire into the naval administration of the country. His speech was cut short by execrations, and he hastily withdrew. Ten minutes later it was understood that he had escaped by the back way over the palings into the Park, and was hiding himself from the fury of the mob in an unfrequented slum in Pimlico.

But while these events were transpiring in the Metropolis of the Empire, still graver issues were being arrived at on that “silver streak,” which, up to now, had popularly, but erroneously, been regarded as its sure defence. What had been left of the British Channel Fleet after its first disastrous encounter with the joint Armada off the Lizard had rallied, and was now awaiting the attack of the again on-pressing and advancing enemy, in what promised to be a decisive encounter for the possession of the Mouth of the Thames, in the immediate neighbourhood of Herne Bay. The Admiral, in his hasty retreat, had collected about the shattered remnant of his forces some auxiliary adjuncts. He had been joined by Her Majesty’s ironclads, Styx and Megatherium, and by the belted cruiser, Daffodil; but owing to the fact that these vessels, not possessing any guns, had had to put to sea without their armaments, the recent arrivals could scarcely be counted on by him as an addition to his fighting power in any pending action. Nor was he sure of his own ship. Her Majesty’s ironclad Blunderer, which carried his flag, was armed with four of the famous 43-ton Collingwood exploding guns, and though hard pressed in the recent engagement, he had not thought it wise to give the order to “fire.”

Such was the position of the British Admiral at the commencement of that fatal afternoon which saw the last blow struck for the preservation of the Empire. The fight commenced by a general attack of the enemy. But it did not last long. In a very few minutes seven of the British ironclads, including that of the Admiral, were blown up by the explosion of their own guns. The rest found that they were supplied with the wrong-sized ammunition, and were rapidly put hors de combat. Within a quarter of an hour of the firing of the first shot the action was over, and the last remnant of the British Fleet had practically disappeared. That evening the advance despatch boats of the joint Armada anchored off Gravesend, and 120,000 men were landed on the Kentish coast between Margate and Whitstable.

236 When the news of the disaster appeared in the evening papers, the panic, which had been gathering strength as the day progressed, culminated in fever-heat. Everybody was in the streets asking, with staring eyeballs, for the latest news.

Gradually it became known that 75,000 of the enemy were advancing on the capital by way of Aldershot, and that the General in command at the camp, who had 1,371 men of all arms under him, all told, had received orders to oppose them, and this announcement seemed to restore in some measure the public confidence.

Meanwhile a quite phenomenal activity prevailed at the War Office, and the horses of the General Omnibus Company were at once requisitioned for the service of the Royal Artillery. The Duke of Cambridge, on hearing of the catastrophe, had applied to the Authorities instantly for the 11,000 men he had recently insisted on. With that force, he said, even at the eleventh hour, he would guarantee the safety of the country. Mr. Whitely forthwith undertook to furnish them within twenty-four hours. His offer was accepted with enthusiasm. It was known too that Lord Wolseley had already started with a miscellaneous force of Volunteers, Guards, and Policemen, hurriedly collected, for Sydenham, with the intention of taking up a defensive position among the antideluvian animals, and there waiting the course of events.

The Authorities were fairly on their mettle. They instantly supplied three Volunteer regiments with rifles of an obsolete and antiquated pattern. Nor was this all. They telegraphed to Woolwich to expedite the selection of a model for the new magazine rifle, and marked their communication “urgent.” Matters, meanwhile, at headquarters were not less vigorously pushed forward. Inquiries were made for Mr. Stanhope’s plan of “defending the Thames.” Every pigeon-hole was examined, but it could not be found. Still, the Department did not despair. They despatched a third-class War Office clerk to Greenwich to report on the situation and say what he thought of it.

When, however, it transpired the next morning that, spite all the efforts to stay their advance, 50,000 of the enemy had taken possession of the Bank of England, seized the Lord Mayor and Aldermen as hostages, and were prepared to treat with the Government, with a view to evacuation, on the cession of Margate, Canada, India, Gibraltar, Malta, Australia, and Madame Tussaud’s Wax-work Collection, together with a preliminary payment of fifteen milliards. Englishmen began soberly to recognise that what they had so long regarded as an impossible vision had really come about, and that the “Next Armada” was an unhappily accomplished fact.

Punch. May 19, 1888.

——:o:——

The Age of Lawn-Tennis.

(After Macaulay’s “History of England”) 1880-81.

CHAPTER LV.

“But while these stirring events were passing in the East, the mind of England was turned into a very different channel. No faithful historian could pass over this period without touching upon a pastime which was now taking a remarkable hold upon the nation, and pervading with its influence the upper and middle classes of British society.

“Rackets, and the old French game of Tennis, had long been popular with the English youth; but by those who had left the public schools and universities they were generally unattainable. It was left for Major Wingfield, the scion of a Shropshire family, to bring home, I may almost say to every door, a game which, little inferior to the classic games which I have just mentioned, was open, without the paraphernalia of a costly court, to every one at least who possessed a moderate-sized and level lawn. Lawn-Tennis was now rapidly elbowing out Archery, a thoroughly English and deep-rooted institution, and Croquet, its younger sister. Cricket was losing many of its most earnest devotees. In some parts of England there was an almost daily rendezvous at one or other of the great houses of the neighbourhood for the new and popular pastime. In country circles, tournaments were rousing the keenest excitement. Society was being differentiated into the good players and the bad. Crowds flocked annually to Wimbledon to watch the great match for the Championship of the world, to which a silver goblet had been added by The Country Gentleman’s Newspaper. Masters of hounds deferred cub-hunting that the Lawn Tennis season might be still further prolonged. A game of Lawn-Tennis was not unfrequently the innocent finish of the Ruridecanal meetings of the clergy. “Will he make a fourth?” was the first question to be asked about the new curate in many a country parish. All-popular among the public schools was Harrow-on-the-Hill, which had now furnished the Lawn-Tennis Champion for four consecutive years. Politics were laid aside in the public press while the rules of the game were discussed. On one side were ranged the net-volleyers: on the other those who thought that net-volleying spoilt all the beauty and elegance of the game. Never, by this latter party, since the time of Guy Fawkes, had man been so intensely hated as he who, standing close to the net with uplifted racket, stifled stroke after stroke as they came to meet him. We shall not enter very fully into the merits of this controversy; to do so would be dull, and possibly, to future generations, unintelligible. It is sufficient to say that while the skilled players defied “the man at the net” to do his worst, another and a larger party, looking, be it supposed, to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, was clamouring for such Lawn-Tennis legislation as would degrade the game to the capabilities of mediocrity, and drive the odious net-player from the courts. So numerous were the grades of dexterity that a leader in the Tennis world, and an author of some repute, had formulated a handicap table by which players of as many degrees as the letters of the alphabet might be brought together on even terms; while Henry Jones, the “Cavendish” of the whist-table, and other mathematicians, had worked out to several places of decimals the advantages of service. * * * * Such was the state of things which was distracting the mind of England while the fleets of Europe patrolled the Mediterranean, and peace and war were trembling in the balance.”

From Tennis Cuts and Quips. Edited by Julian Marshall. London, Field and Tuer.

There are numerous other imitations of Lord Macaulay’s prose writings. One, written by the late Dean Hook, is to be found in his “Life and Letters” by W. R. W. Stephens (vol ii., p. 476), it relates only to ecclesiastical affairs.

Another, entitled The Story of Johnnie Armstrong, the Scotch outlaw, appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, September 22, 1888. It was a prize composition of considerable merit, written by Mr. J. T. Milne, but it is unfortunately too long to be here inserted.

237

Mrs. Brown at Cambridge.

By Arthur Sketchey.

Of all the railroads as I ever came across that Great’rn is out and out the worst, thro’ bein’ that tejus slow and the carridges a mask of dirt as you might grow cabbidges on, as the sayin’ is, and took all the freshness out of my light blue pollynaise, as I’d thought the kerrect thing at Cambridge, thro’ Mrs. Burgess a-wearin’ the same at the Boat-race, and some young Cambridge gents a-sayin’ “Mum, you’ve ’it the right colour this time and no mistake,” as pleased ’er no end, tho’ all the time larfin’ at ’er, I’ve no doubt, thro’ bein’ a orkard figger from a child and not one to look well in a Joseph’s coat of many colours, as the sayin’ is.

’Ow ever I met Mrs. Vagg on that everlastin’ endless platform I don’t know, but I says to ’er, “a pint of four ale I must ’ave,” as I saw a refreshmint bar ’andy, but of all the stuck-up trollopin’ things that barmaid was the most orful, as ’ad dressed ’er ’air within a hinch of ’er life, as the sayin’ is, in four false plaits, and three young men a-hoglin’ of ’er across the slab, as might ’ave known better, and took cheek from that gal, as I’d ’ave paid ’er back, and let ’er know ’er place.

I never wish to swaller a better cup of tea than Mrs. Vagg gave me that evenin’ thro’ ’er bein’ a Bed-maker and in course tea a perkisite, and is only fair with ’er maid-of-all-work to seven gentlemen and board and lodge ’erself, not but what ’er house wasn’t very nice, as bein’ in Regint Street with Wictor Emmanivel’s Collidge opposight, for all the world like Clerkenwell jail, with bars to the winders and all, mayhap thro’ fear of burglars a-breakin’ in, and a-carryin’ off the Uniwersity chest, as I’m told would only be poor pickins, and not worth the trouble.

Whether it was that cup of tea, or whether it was talkin’ over old times with Mrs. Vagg, as ’ad been in service with me as a gal, but nine o’clock struck and took me all of a ’eap, thro’ ’avin’ promised Brown as I’d send ’im a ’a-penny card just to say I was all right. So I says “What time do the Post go out?”

“Ten o’clock,” says she, “but you’re never goin’ out there to-night, and a Town and Gown row on too, as is what no decent woman would face.”

“Beggin’ your parding, mum,” says I, “their aint no Town nor Gown neither as shall stand in the way of my duty to my lawful ’usband.”

So seen’ I was in earnest, she ’eld ’er tongue, and ’elped me on with my shawl, and says “Turn to the left and foller your nose, and that’ll bring you straight to the Post Office.”

Well up the hairy steps I went, thro’ ’er a-occypying the ground floor, and a-lettin’ the first, and the very first thing as I sees were a roamin’ candle goin’ off on Parky Peace as they call it, tho’ a poorish Park to me as knows Grinnidge, and as for Peace, it’s a-callin’ peace where there’s no peace, thro’ bein’ a mask of folk all a-’ustling and a-jeerin’, and a-lettin’ off fireworks, as is things I don’t ’old with, thro’ John Biggen as was my first cousin on the mother’s side bein’ blinded with a rocket at Vaux ’all, as were a piece of luck for Mrs. Biggin, as no one would ’ave married with ’is eyes open thro’ ’er face bein’ a puffect cullender from the smallpox.

What the rumpus was all about I don’t know, but the streets was full of young men as would ’ave been better in their beds, some on ’em a-walkin’ two and two and a-smokin’ pipes, and some jinin’ arms, and marchin’ up the streets singin’ for all the world like as if they was tipsy, and the pavemint that narrer as I was shoved off the kerb, and into a gutter, as was a foot deep and wetted me up to my knees, and clean spilte a new petticut, as such things should’nt be allowed in the public streets,—and where’s their Board of ’Ealth?

There was two young fellers a-walkin’ be’ind me, and says one, a-larfin’, and a-pintin’, “That’s a good make up,” meanin’ me, as turned round sharp on ’im, and told ’im to mind ’is own business and not talk about makin’ up to me as were old enough to be ’is mother, let alone ’avin’ twice ’is wits, as were not much better than a fool, and looked only three days in the week, as the sayin’ is. But law bless you, my lord only larfed, and just then I saw a great rampagious mob a-tearin’ up the street as looked the scum of the earth, and gave me that turn as I thought swound away I must, and ketched ’old of ’is arm, and says, “’Elp a lady in distress, and conduc me past them willains.”

Says he, a-takin’ off ’is ’at quite perlite, “With pleasure, mum,” and off he walked with me a-’angin’ on to ’is arm, and my ’eart a-thumpin’ with pannikin’ fear as might ’ave been ’eard ’arf a mile away.

Well I was just a-slippin’ my ’a-penny card into the Post, when up comes an elderly gent a-stridin’ along and a-lookin’ very big, with a gownd a-trailin’ in the mud, and the banns of marridge round ’is neck for all the world like a parson, as no doubt was, and says to the young gent, “Which I must trouble you for six and eightpence for not a-wearin’ of your hacademic dress,” and pulls out a sort of bettin’-book for to enter ’is name and Collidge.

Says the young gent, quite cool and brazen-like, “Excuse me, sir, but I was a-escortin’ of my mother ’ome, and didn’t put on my gownd for fear of the cads.”

This put my blood up, as never could abear anything deceitful or under’and, and I lets go of ’im, and says, “You hartful young ’ypocrate, and me never ’avin’ set my eyes on you before this evenin’, as must ’ave took ’im aback like and serve ’im right, but he didn’t wait for no more, but ran off like a harrer from a bow, as the sayin’ is, and the old chap sets a long legged feller to run after ’im, as I ’ope didn’t ketch ’im, thro’ bein’ a kind-’earted young man spite of ’is owdacious fibbin’.”

By this time there was a reglar Punch and Judy crowd round us, but I grabbed tight on to my umbreller, and thinks I “’it me any of you who dare,” when the elderly gent says, “If so be as you’re a decent woman, you’ll go ’ome.”

Says I, “who says as Martha Brown aint a decent woman, you old waggerbone! I aint a goin’ to stand ’ere to be hinsulted,” and was bouncin’ off feelin’ quite ’urt like, and the crowd a cheerin’ and a sayin’, “Go it, old Fatchops,” when if that old fool didn’t take and say as it were ’is duty to see me ’ome.

Says I, “Thank you for nothin’, as would prefer you did no such thing, thro’ me not bein known ’ere and people might make remarks,” but, law bless you, words wasn’t no good with ’im, as walked along side of me all the way with the crowd a-follerin’ and a-hollerin’ and a-pokin’ their fun at ’im and me.

Right glad I was to stand on Mrs. Vagg’s door-step, and fainted clean away as soon as hever I got down to the kitchen, and you don’t ketch me a-goin’ down that street after dark again, and, tho’ boys will be boys, yet I don’t ’old with all their squibbin’ and fibbin’, nor yet with helderly gents as is paid to hinsult respectable fieldmales, as I wish my ’usband ’ad been there, as would ’ave broke hevery bone in ’is skin and serve ’im right.

From The Light Green. Cambridge, W. Metcalfe and Sons, 1873.

238

BENJAMIN DISRAELI,

Lord Beaconsfield.

It must be confessed that the burlesques of the novels of Disraeli are not, as a rule, very amusing, but there is one brilliant exception, namely, that written by Bret Harte.

It is entitled “Lothaw, or the Adventures of a Young Gentleman in Search of a Religion,” by Mr. Benjamins. This was first printed in England by the late Mr. J. C. Hotten in 1871. It consists of nine short chapters.

Lothaw.

Chapter I.

“I remember him a little boy,” said the Duchess. “His mother was a dear friend of mine: you know, she was one of my bridesmaids.”

“And you have never seen him since, mamma?” asked the oldest married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.

“Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself, but it is so difficult to see boys.”

This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters.

One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than £1,000,000 sterling; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality of gold-leaf.

Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Others, more remote, occasionally burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.

The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms.

Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy.

They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been taken for their own children’s elder son and daughter.

The daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest nobles in the land.

That exception was the Lady Coriander, who—there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of £1,000,000—waited.

Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial respect to their father’s Tory instinct and their mother’s Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling as it was refined.

It was this peculiarity and their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humoured St. Addlegourd, to say that, “’Pon my soul, you know, the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards—don’t you know?”

St. Addlegourd was a radical.

Having a rent-roll of £15,000,000, and belonging to one of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be.

“Mamma, I’ve just dropped a pearl,” said the Lady Coriander, bending over the Persian hearth-rug.

“From your lips, sweet friend,” said Lothaw, who came of age and entered the room at the same moment.

“No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs and Sons £50,000 for the two.”

“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising; “let us go to luncheon.”

“But your Grace,” interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and had dropped on all-fours on the carpet in search of the missing gem, “consider the value——”

“Dear friend,” interposed the Duchess, with infinite tact, gently lifting him by the tails of his dress-coat, “I am waiting for your arm.”

Chapter II.

Lothaw was immensely rich.

The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates of which he had not even heard.

Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly.

Next to their purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this accomplishment.

Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to “tight croquet” the Lady Aniseed’s ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.

“I’m going to the hennery,” she said.

“Let me go with you. I dearly love fowls——

* * * * *

broiled,” he added, thoughtfully.

“The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,” continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.

“Lady Montairy,

Quite contrairy,

How do your cochins grow?”

sang Lothaw gaily.

The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence, Lothaw abruptly and gravely said—

“If you please, ma’am, when I come into my property I should like to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander.”

“You amaze me, dear friend, and yet both your aspirations are noble and eminently proper,” said the Duchess; “Coriander is but a child—and yet,” she added, looking graciously upon her companion, “for the matter of that, so are you.”

Chapter III.

Mr. Putney Padwick’s was Lothaw’s first grand dinner-party.

Yet, by carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself creditably, and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first secretly testing its contents with a spoon.

The conversation was peculiar, and singularly interesting.

“Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the thermometer?” said Mrs. Putney Padwick to her companion.

“I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal lines,” replied Lothaw.

239 “I should say it was a matter of latitude,” observed a loud, talkative man opposite.

He was an Oxford Professor, with a taste for satire, and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, during dinner, by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known Chancellor of the Exchequer—a great statesman, and brilliant novelist,—whom he feared and hated.

Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill.

His Eminence, the Cardinal, was announced.

He entered with great suavity of manner, and after shaking hands with everybody, asking after their relatives, and chucking the more delicate females under the chin with a high-bred grace peculiar to his profession, he sat down, saying—

“And how do we all find ourselves this evening, my dears?” in several different languages, which he spoke fluently.

Lothaw’s heart was touched.

His deeply religious convictions were impressed.

He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, and received absolution.

“To-morrow,” he said to himself, “I will partake of the Communion, and endow the Church with my vast estates. For the present I’ll let the improved cottages go.”

* * * * *

Novels by Eminent Hands, a series of burlesques upon the works of Bulwer Lytton, Harry Lorrequer, G. P. R. James, and B. Disraeli, which first appeared in Punch were written by W. M. Thackeray. That upon Disraeli came out in 1847, it commenced thus:—

Codlingsby.

By B. De Shrewsbury.

The noise in the old town was terrific; Great Tom was booming sullenly over the uproar; the bell of Saint Mary’s was clanging with alarm; St. Giles’s tocsin chimed furiously; howls, curses, flights of brickbats, stones shivering windows, groans of wounded men, cries of frightened females, cheers of either contending party as it charged the enemy from Carfax to Trumpington Street, proclaimed that the battle was at its height.

In Berlin they would have said it was a revolution, and the cuirassiers would have been charging, sabre in hand, amidst that infuriate mob. In France they would have brought down artillery, and played on it with twenty-four-pounders. In Cambridge nobody heeded the disturbance—it was a Town and Gown row.

The row arose at a boat-race. The Town boat (manned by eight stout bargees, with the redoubted Rullock for stroke) had bumped the Brazennose light oar, usually at the head of the river. High words arose regarding the dispute. After returning from Granchester, when the boats pulled back to Christchurch meadows, the disturbance between the Townsmen and the University youths—their invariable opponents—grew louder and more violent, until it broke out in open battle. Sparring and skirmishing took place along the pleasant fields that lead from the University gate down to the broad and shining waters of the Cam, and under the walls of Baliol and Sidney Sussex. The Duke of Bellamont (then a dashing young sizar at Exeter) had a couple of rounds with Billy Butt, the bow oar of the Bargee boat. Vavasour of Brazennose was engaged with a powerful butcher, a well-known champion of the Town party, when, the great University bells ringing to dinner, truce was called between the combatants, and they retired to their several colleges for refection.

During the boat-race, a gentleman pulling in a canoe, and smoking a Nargilly, had attracted no ordinary attention. He rowed about a hundred yards ahead of the boats in the race, so that he could have a good view of that curious pastime. If the eight-oars neared him, with a few rapid strokes of his flashing paddles his boat shot a furlong ahead; then he would wait, surveying the race, and sending up volumes of odour from his cool Nargilly.

“Who is he?” asked the crowds who panted along the shore, encouraging, according to Cambridge wont, the efforts of the oarsmen in the race. Town and Gown, alike asked who it was, who, with an ease so provoking, in a barque so singular, with a form seemingly so slight, but a skill so prodigious, beat their best men. No answer could be given to the query, save that a gentleman in a dark travelling-chariot, preceded by six fourgons and a courier, had arrived the day before at the Hoop Inn, opposite Brazennose, and that the stranger of the canoe seemed to be the individual in question.

No wonder the boat, that all admired so, could compete with any that ever was wrought by Cambridge artificer or Putney workmen. That boat—slim, shining, and shooting through the water like a pike after a small fish—was a caique from Tophana; it had distanced the Sultan’s oarsmen, and the best crews of the Capitan Pasha in the Bosphorus; it was the workmanship of Togrul-Beg, Caikjee Bashee of his Highness. The Bashee had refused fifty thousand tomauns from Count Boutenieff, the Russian Ambassador, for that little marvel. When his head was taken off, the Father of Believers presented the boat to Rafael Mendoza.

* * * * *

——:o:——

Nihilism in Russia.

(In imitation of Disraeli’s Sybil.)

For there opposed each other but two elements in this society at once strange and simple. Around the throne of the Great Peter, and in the marble city which is his monument, the gay circles of the Aristocracy frittered away a frivolous existence amid the blaze of diamonds, the strains of music, and all those Circean enchantments that dull the energy and bid care repose. Here was wealth to make life easy, and here luxury to give it splendour; here was beauty to stir the pulse of youth, and here wit to waken even the most thoughtless to a sense that for them too there were pleasures of the intellect. So lived the lords of those vast plains, whose immensity made aptly significant the proud title of “All the Russias.” And the tiller of those plains, what of him? Surrounded by the sad and sombre Steppe, that breathed its melancholy over him from the cradle, broken by toil and of untutored mind, his life was suffering without interval of enjoyment, degradation without hope of change. Too brutish for the aspirations of Religion, he was well-nigh bereft of that supreme solace wherewith the ingenuity of the sophistical rhetorician may seek to sooth even the aged pauper of St. Pancras. And yet Revolution was as impossible for him as content. For Revolution is the explosion of an Idea, that overturns Society in its struggle to the light. To the Scythian serf was altogether wanting the initial force of the fulminating Idea. Steeped in ignorance, he was also isolated. Through his dreary continent had never permeated the Secret Societies of other lands, and for him there was no magic potency in the mysterious name of “Mary-Anne.” So he thought not of overturning Society, but of effacing it. For the first time in man’s history was seen that portentous birth, an Apostle of Nothing. In a word, he was a Nihilist!

240 Vainly was it attempted to divert his purposes by the lure of foreign conquest and a fresh Crusade; in vain was dangled before him by the astute Ministers of Muscovy the long-sought guerdon of his efforts—the sacred city of the Sultans. One was on the watch who came of a race not lightly to be beguiled, a race that was ancient thirty centuries before these Scythian hordes had claimed to be a nation. The Great Minister of the West, strong with the might and majesty of England, saw that it was reserved for him to crown that Royal Mistress, on whose brow he had recently set a new and Imperial coronet, with the fresh garland of a bloodless triumph. In the lofty language of the sacred records of his people, ‘Let there be Peace!’ he said; and that which he achieved became known to the world in his own historic phrase of “Peace with Honour!”

BROUGHSHANE.

This imitation won the first prize in a parody competition, in The World, September 17, 1879.

——:o:——

De Tankard.

By Benjamin Dizzyreally, Esq., M.P.

Chapter XL.

“What majority had they last night, my lord?” asked a fair young man in the Carlton, from a stately personage who was sitting at a table near him, occupied with a bottle of Lafitte.

“Fifty-two,” was the reply.

“How did Peel look when he heard it?”

“Oh, he smiled in his usual quiet triumphant way,” said Lord Mannerley.

“Ah! while Peel is sultan there will be no want of ruined villages for our political owls to make their nests in,” remarked the youth.

“Yes, these cursed free-traders flourish on the ruins of the agriculturalists,” said Lord Mannerly savagely.

“And they will be soon howling like jackals in the ruins of the constitution,” added his young companion, with a sigh.

“This Lafitte is capital,” said the ruined landowner.

At this moment a young man approached the table. His bearing was proud, his eyes dark and luminous, his figure stately as a palm-tree. His aquiline nose betrayed his superb organisation. You saw at once that he was of the purest Caucasian race. Yes! his lineage sprung from the families who peopled the noble mountain which received the Divine Ark, and cherished the snowy dove that spread its white wings over the waters, that had swallowed up the inhabitants of a world! As he passed up the noble room, how insignificant in his presence appeared the children of the semi-civilized barbarians, spawned in a northern swamp!

“May I offer you a glass of claret, De Tankard?” asked Lord Mannerley.

“Thank you, I only drink sherbet, just now,” replied the youth.

“You can get some Persian sherbet at a penny a glass,” said a witty Milesian lord.

De Tankard smiled compassionately on the aristocratic buffoon. “’Tis doubtless worthy of your English civilization,” was his calm scornful reply.

* * * * *

Chapter XLIV.

De Tankard stood at the window of a small country inn, and watched the storm raging in the forest. Lithely bent the straight poplar with a low wail beneath the breath of the north wind. The oak roared, the beech howled, and the wild leaves, caught in the eddies of the winds, were wreathed by them into chaplets, as though the Spirit of the Storm wished to crown with them the noble gazer on his work.

“’Tis a great spectacle,” remarked De Tankard, to a man who stood beside him, of an air—oh, how grand!

Benonia (for it was indeed he!) sneered. “Have you ever seen a Mediterranean white squall, or a whirlwind in the Desert?” he asked.

“Alas, no!” was the reply. “I must soon visit the glorious East, the parent of religion, civilization, science, and art,” and the dark eyes of De Tankard glowed with Eastern fire.

“Ah, you are young,” exclaimed Benonia, with enthusiasm. “Glorious youth! By youth have all great deeds been accomplished. Ransack the history of ages. The fact is stamped on every line. The Trojan, Paris, was but a youth when he ran away with the fair Grecian, and got his native town destroyed for it ten years after! Cæsar was in the freshness of life when he destroyed the Republic and founded a despotism. Nero developed his villany early, and Heliogabalus was a confirmed glutton before his minority was over! Nay, to come to our own country, what was the age of the Boy Jones when he passed the sacred precincts of a Royal palace, and stood where none but Royal feet had ever trod before?—Barely sixteen! Look at Lord William Lennox—how young he was when he wrote his great works!”

Benonia paused. De Tankard dropped a warm and sparkling tear. “I will start to the East to-morrow!” he exclaimed.

“You had better have a couple of millions,” said Benonia. “I have got about half-a-dozen in my pocket to carry me over the night.”

* * * * *

Chapter XLVIII.

Silence reigns beneath the brilliant azure of an Oriental sky;—silence, broken only by the silver tinkling of the camel’s bell. A noble creature is the camel. Compared with that Caucasian of beasts, the shapeless quadruped of the Northern, is but an ass!

Ever and anon, through the moist perfumed twilight, steals a delicious breeze. Delicious, but melancholy. For in that breeze floats a prophet’s sigh. The cypress moans as it passes; and the palm-tree bows its proud head in honour to it, as it flies along! On the holy barrenness of the saintly brow of Lebanon, the moon’s rays fall reverently, and Lebanon looks holier under their light.

In the court in front of the counting-house of an Emir, sits De Tankard. From among the round pebbles of the pavement, springs a fresh fountain. On the branches of the trees gleam ripe oranges.

The young man looked sad and solemn. He had that morning seen an angel, as usual! By his side was a lovely female, and near him the lively young Emir Baboo smoked his nargilly.

“Do you often see angels, De Tankard?” he asked, laughing.

“Peace!” was the reply.

“I have a combination!” cried out the Emir, jumping up with a violence which smashed the nargilly. “Let us 241 get the Druses and Maronites to unite, and we’ll go down to Djouni, and seize the English frigate there! What would Palmerston say to that?”

De Tankard laughed. “The East is the cradle of glory,” said he after a pause, with an enthusiastic look.

The Emir stared.

“Ah”! said he, “I had a brave chase yesterday, and ran off with the baggage of a caravan.”

The lady frowned. The Emir fell at her feet, and began to cry.

Next day, De Tankard started off with him on an excursion.

When employed in these ennobling diversions, he learned that his rich maiden aunt had arrived at Jerusalem.

* * * * *

From The Puppet-Showman’s Album. London.

Another parody on Tancred, written by “Cuthbert Bede” (the Rev. Edward Bradley), appeared in The Shilling Book of Beauty, it was entitled “Tancredi; or, the New Party.” By the Right Hon. B. Bendizzy, M.P.

In 1887, Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London, published a shilling volume of prose burlesque novels, written by H. F. Lester. The first, entitled Ben D’ymion, was a parody of Lord Beaconsfield’s novel Endymion. The other authors imitated in this collection were William Black, George Elliot, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and J. H. Shorthouse.

Ben D’ymion had originally appeared in Punch in 1880.

——:o:——

The Age of Lawn-Tennis.

(After Lord Beaconsfield’s “Sybil”.)

Chapter I.

“Advantage, we win,” shouted Sphairistikos.

“Never,” replied Retiarius, as he made his favourite stroke, which came speeding, whirling, hissing, the one-thousandth part of an inch over the top of the net, and fell twisting, twirling, shooting, in the extreme left-hand corner of the great twelve-yard court, only to be returned, however, by the flexibility of a wrist which had been famous in Harrow’s playing-fields in days of yore.

“Forty-thirty.”

“Deuce.”

“’Vantage against you!” “Game and set!” Such were the Babel-like cries which greeted our ears, as we approached Tong Castle’s level lawn, one fine autumnal afternoon.

And what was the scene that confronted us?

Ambitious adversaries, on all sides, were hitting to and fro, in alternated strokes, a gyratory ball, and loudly vociferating amœbean numerals as either side became involved in some reticular difficulty.

Here was to be seen, in variegated garb, such a galaxy of beauty as Shropshire seldom sees, assembled to render homage to the great Lawn-Tennis Champion, and to witness the feats of some of England’s doughtiest players.

Here were to be seen the eagle-eyed volleyer, the deft half-volleyer, the swift server, and the nimble net-player; while here, too, the quick cut, the treacherous twister, and the brilliant back-hander were exhibited on all sides in their purest perfection.

“Advantage, we win,” repeated Sphairistikos.

“Deuce,” said Retiarius, as his great stroke passed and shot lightning-like past his adversary’s racket.

And so they played and played on, till the balls began to glance in the golden light of a glorious sunset, and then to grow dimmer and dimmer in the deepening shadows of a rich twilight.

Chapter II.

But to what was all this tending, and to what condition had the Lawn-Tennis players brought the Great Western State which they inhabited?

A monarch on the throne, whose age alone prevented her from casting in her lot with an aristocracy of wealth and learning, who had already commenced to narrow life within the limits of the twelve-yard court!!

A gentler sex, forsaking the sacred duties of domesticity that they might lend grace and elegance to the all-prevailing pastime!!

A degraded peasantry, living but to delineate on level lawns the bounds past which England’s greatest and noblest born must not propel the gyrating sphere!!

A rustic generation, rising but to collect for their oppressors the distant-driven ball, and developing into manhood merely to tend and trim the smooth-shaven Lawn-Tennis ground, which had now become a necessary adjunct alike to glebe and manor!!

It was an age of Lawn-Tennis!!

“My prophetical instincts tell me,” said Retiarius, as he and his friends were waiting for the nets to be arranged,—“My prophetical instincts tell me that the great coming stroke will be the volley.”

“Why, so?” said Sphairistikos.

“It is as yet,” replied he, “only half-developed. A nation young in Lawn-Tennis has much to learn; much to forget. My impression is that the volley, properly understood, will convulse the future.”

“I believe in service for my part,” remarked Sphairistikos,—“Secure your first stroke. Demoralize first, win afterwards; I would borrow from the great nation which gave us Tennis, and say, ‘Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte.’”

“But I am looking to a distant future,” continued Retiarius. “We shall see great changes. There will be hereditary volleyers. The theories of Darwin must prevail. Volleyers will play with volleyers. The pastimes of a country lead to its courtships. It has always been so. A generation of volleyers will rise up who will volley from the service-line as accurately as their grandfathers have done from the nets.”

“What news from Afghanistan?” asked a fair player, who was putting on her shoes.

“Fifteen, the Government loses,” replied a Tennis-steeped youth; “they have served two faults,—one into Afghanistan; one into Zululand.”

“Bother Afghanistan,” said another damsel in short petticoats, “I want the scoring question settled.”

But the attendants now announced that the courts were ready.

“Fifteen, I win.”

“Fifteen, all.”

And so on, and on, and on, the adversaries played, with constantly-varying fortunes, till another day was nearly done, and they were once more compelled to surrender before the flickering blaze of a vanishing sun.

From Tennis Cuts and Quips. Edited by Julian Marshall. London. Field and Tuer.

——:o:——

242 It was known that Lord Beaconsfield had drawn many of the characters in Endymion from prominent members of society, and much curiosity was felt as to the identification of these individuals. Notes and Queries published a conjectural list of them, but it must be borne in mind that Lord Beaconsfield was sufficiently cautious not to paint his portraits too distinctly like his originals, in fact some of his puppets represent two or three individuals merged into one

Endymion	Benjamin Disraeli
Zenobia	Lady Jersey
Berengaria (Lady Montfort)	Hon. Mrs. Norton
Agrippina	Queen Hortense
Adriana Neufchatel	Lady Burdett Coutts
The Neufchatels	The Rothschilds
Col. Albert (Prince Florestan)	Napoleon III
Lord Roehampton	Lord Palmerston
Myra Roehampton	Empress Eugenie
Enoch Craggs	Co-operation.
Lord Montfort	The late Lord Hertford
Lord Rawchester	Earl Granville
Earl of Beaumaris	The late Earl of Derby
Mr. Bertie Tremaine	Lord Houghton
Count of Ferroll	Prince Bismarck
Nigel Penruddock	Cardinal Manning
Mr. Ferrars (the grandfather)	Rt. Hon. George Rose
George Waldershare	Mr. George Smythe (afterwards Lord Strangford)
Job Thornberry	Richard Cobden
Mr. Vigo	Mr. Poole
Mr. Jorrocks	Mr. Milner Gibson
Hortensius	Sir W. Vernon Harcourt
Sidney Wilton	Sidney Herbert
Mr. Sainte Barbe	W. M. Thackeray
Mr. Gushy	Charles Dickens
Topsy Turvy	Vanity Fair
Scaramouch	Punch

——:o:——

A curious story of a plagiarism is related of Disraeli in the Life of Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., who was formerly on the staff of the Morning Chronicle.

Early in the “fifties,” Mr. Disraeli made sundry depreciatory remarks on the speeches of military members of Parliament, classing them contemptuously as effusions of “the military mind.” The men of the Morning Chronicle replied to Mr. Disraeli’s attack on the intellect of soldiers by printing a translation of a magnificent eulogium on the Maréchal de St. Cyr by M. Thiers, setting forth the qualities necessary to a military commander. Mr. Disraeli was evidently struck by the brilliancy of the counter hit, for a few years later, when the Duke of Wellington died, he interpolated the translation, errors and all, in the oration which as leader of the House of Commons it was his duty to deliver on the death of that great general. The old writers of the Chronicle secured the insertion of the speech and the translated passage in the Globe. Mr. Disraeli’s friends made every attempt to explain away the plagiarism till an article in Fraser’s Magazine, written by Mr. Hayward, showed clearly that the passage was not even taken from the French original, but directly from the translation which appeared in the Morning Chronicle. Mr. Hayward was very proud of this article of his, in which he also handled Mr. Disraeli’s “Revolutionary Epick” very roughly.

The Woman in Tights.

By Wilkie Collins.

The narrative commenced by Walter Heartbright, teacher of jig-dancing, of Fulwood’s-rents, Holborn. This is a story of what a woman’s impatience can procure, and what a man’s irresolution can achieve. If the law were not such a blundering battering-ram the events which fill these pages might have merited its attention. I live with my mother, who keeps a general shop. Events alter my life. I go to Cumberland to attend on a gentleman. The story continued by Mr. Bearly, Gummeridge House, Cumberland: I am all self, etchings, and nerves. Why? I know not. Perhaps Laura knows, or Sir Pursefull. I am asked to make a statement. Aided by a galvanic battery I make it. Laura has gone on the stage. I am worried. Why should I be? I give it up. Thank you. Don’t bang. Send Heartbright here. I would see him dance. Statement by Hester Teecloth, cook at Count Bosco’s: I remember a lady being brought to our house last June. She came in a temper and a brougham. She was laid on the sofa. She looked wildlike, and kept shouting “There they go, millions of ’em.” When the doctor saw her he winked at the count and whispered, “Delicious trimmings,” but the poor thing was plainly dressed. That’s all I know. Heartbright finishes the story: We are to be married in a week’s time. Laura’s faculties have returned. Mr. Bearly and his nerves have found Nirvana. Sir Pursefull was drowned while showing off a lifebelt of his own invention. Bosco is in an asylum. His time is occupied in plucking green mice from his beard, and chirruping to pink canaries which he fancies he sees on the wall. My mother, always of a retiring disposition, has given up business. I am heir of Gummeridge House. Thus it ends.

William Evison Rose.

The Weekly Dispatch. February 25, 1883.

In this parody competition the compositions were limited to 300 words, a regulation which sadly hampered the competitors.

In Bret Harte’s Sensation Novels Condensed, there is a parody of Wilkie Collins, called “No Title.”

The Luck of Tory Camp.

By Bread Tart.

There was commotion in Tory Camp. Outside a rude cabin waited an excited crowd, headed by Solly, a stalwart digger, with a Raphael face and profusion of dark beard, whose duel with Harden Bill, the Rad-Dog Woodcutter, was still talked of with bated breath. The name of a woman was on every lip, a name familiar in the camp—Poll Icy. The less said of her the better; no better than she should be perhaps; half foreign, half Ingin; but yet the only woman in camp, and now in woman’s direst extremity. Suddenly an excited Celestial joined the group. “Lemme investigate, John,” said he; “me Pal-Mal, me washee-washee dirty linen, me go see her.” “Scoot, you dern skunk!” thundered Solly; “none but a down-east johnny-cake ’ud trust you with any woman nowadays.” At that moment a wail, feeble, yet sufficient to quell the laughter that greeted Solly’s sally, announced a birth in Tory Camp.… Little Randy, or the Luck—for by these names the frolicsome miners had christened the infant (in beer)—grew and throve, and soon became a power in the camp. His childish jokes with 243 Sairey Gamp, his nurse, were the delight of the brawny getters of gold from quartz (s), and even Solly smiled when the Luck “tackled the old ’un,” which he did when Harden Bill visited the camp now and then. “Rastled with Bill’s little finger, the derned little cuss,” roared Solly; “rastled with it, dern my skin.”

The winter of 1885 will long be remembered in California. One night Tea-Pot Gulch and Rad-Dog Fork leaped suddenly over their banks, and descended in ruin upon Tory Camp. When morning dawned the Luck lay lifeless in Solly’s arms, and Harden Bill smiled grimly as he watched the strangely assorted pair floating quietly towards the Sea of Oblivion.

J. C. Rose.

The Weekly Dispatch. September 13, 1885.

There is a parody on Bret Harte’s prose in The Shotover Papers (Oxford, 1874) entitled His Finger, but it is not sufficiently characteristic to merit reprinting.

Mr. Midshipman Breezy.

A Naval Officer.

By Captain Marryat, R.N.

CHAPTER I.

My father was a north-country surgeon. He had retired, a widower from Her Majesty’s navy many years before, and had a small practice in his native village. When I was seven years old he employed me to carry medicines to his patients. Being of a lively disposition, I sometimes amused myself, during my daily rounds, by mixing the contents of the different phials. Although I had no reason to doubt that the general result of this practice was beneficial, yet, as the death of a consumptive curate followed the addition of a strong mercurial lotion to his expectorant, my father concluded to withdraw me from the profession and send me to school.

Grubbins, the schoolmaster, was a tyrant, and it was not long before my impetuous and self-willed nature rebelled against his authority. I soon began to form plans of revenge. In this I was assisted by Tom Snaffle—a school-fellow. One day Tom suggested:

“Suppose we blow him up. I’ve got two pounds of gun-powder!”

“No, that’s too noisy,” I replied.

Tom was silent for a minute, and again spoke.

“You remember how you flattened out the curate, Pills! Couldn’t you give Grubbins something—something to make him leathery sick—eh?”

A flash of inspiration crossed my mind. I went to the shop of the village apothecary. He knew me; I had often purchased vitriol, which I poured into Grubbins’s inkstand to corrode his pens and burn up his coat-tail, on which he was in the habit of wiping them. I boldly asked for an ounce of chloroform. The young apothecary winked and handed me the bottle.

It was Grubbins’s custom to throw his handkerchief over his head, recline in his chair, and take a short nap during recess. Watching my opportunity, as he dozed, I managed to slip his handkerchief from his face and substitute my own, moistened with chloroform. In a few minutes he was insensible. Tom and I then quickly shaved his head, beard, and eyebrows, blackened his face with a mixture of vitriol and burnt cork, and fled. There was a row and scandal the next day. My father always excused me by asserting that Grubbins had got drunk—but somehow found it convenient to procure me an appointment in Her Majesty’s navy at an early day.

CHAPTER II.

An official letter, with the Admiralty seal, informed me that I was expected to join H.M. ship Belcher, Captain Boltrope, at Portsmouth, without delay. In a few days I presented myself to a tall, stern-visaged man, who was slowly pacing the leeward side of the quarter-deck. As I touched my hat he eyed me sternly:

“So ho! Another young suckling. The service is going to the devil. Nothing but babes in the cockpit and grannies in the board. Boatswain’s mate, pass the word for Mr. Cheek!”

Mr. Cheek, the steward, appeared and touched his hat.

“Introduce Mr. Breezy to the young gentlemen. Stop! Where’s Mr. Swizzle?”

“At the masthead, sir.”

“Where’s Mr. Lankey?”

“At the masthead, sir.”

“Mr. Briggs?”

“Masthead, too, sir.”

“And the rest of the young gentlemen?” roared the enraged officer.

“All masthead, sir.”

“Ah!” said Captain Boltrope, as he smiled grimly, “under the circumstances, Mr. Breezy, you had better go to the masthead too.”

CHAPTER III.

At the masthead I made the acquaintance of two youngsters of about my own age, one of whom informed me that he had been there 332 days out of the year.

“In rough weather, when the old cock is out of sorts, you know, we never come down,” added a young gentleman of nine years, with a dirk nearly as long as himself, who had been introduced to me as Mr. Briggs. “By the way, Pills,” he continued, “how did you come to omit giving the captain a naval salute!”

“Why, I touched my hat,” I said, innocently.

“Yes, but that isn’t enough, you know. That will do very well at other times. He expects the naval salute when you first come on board—greeny!”

I began to feel alarmed, and begged him to explain.

“Why, you see, after touching your hat, you should have touched him lightly with your forefinger in his waistcoat, so, and asked, ‘How’s his nibs?’—you see?”

“How’s his nibs?” I repeated.

“Exactly. He would have drawn back a little, and then you should have repeated the salute, remarking ‘How’s his royal nibs?’ asking cautiously after his wife and family, and requesting to be introduced to the gunner’s daughter.”

“The gunner’s daughter?”

“The same; you know she takes care of us young gentlemen; now don’t forget, Pillsy!”

When we were called down to the deck I thought it a good chance to profit by this instruction. I approached Captain Boltrope and repeated the salute without conscientiously omitting a single detail. He remained for a moment livid and speechless. At length he gasped out:

“Boatswain’s mate!”

“If you please, sir,” I asked, tremulously, “I should like to be introduced to the gunner’s daughter!”

“O, very good, sir!” screamed Captain Boltrope, rubbing his hands and absolutely capering about the deck with rage. “O d—n you! Of course you shall! 244 O ho! the gunner’s daughter! O, h—ll! this is too much! Boatswain’s mate!” Before I well knew where I was, I was seized, borne to an eightpounder, tied upon it and flogged!

* * * * *

From Sensation Novels Condensed, by Bret Harte. London. Ward, Lock and Co.

The Pale-Faced Warriors.

By Captain Mayne Reid.

CHAPTER I.

“I feel kinder dull,” said Tiger Tom to me one day. “Let us go and kill some ‘Injins.’” We soon reached the forest, but not a Redskin was in sight. Tom examined the trail closely, and with an old backwoodsman’s unerring instinct declared we should see no “Injins” that day. As I was complimenting him upon his wonderful sagacity, we were suddenly surprised by a band of the dreaded Chickatoos. With one thought for those at home Tom took to his heels and vanished. The savages bound me to a tree, and told me not to run away. I promised not to.

CHAPTER II.

An exciting discussion upon cookery, of which I was the central object, followed. One advocated roasting, another baking me! I did not favour either. Between them I got into a stew. At night, whilst the rascals slept, I perceived an Indian maiden by my side. She unbound me, and gave me the full dress of a chief, and some pigment to stain my skin with. To disguise myself was the work of a minute and three-quarters, when the savages awoke, and missing me, set up a terrific yell, and started in pursuit. To avoid observation, I accompanied them.

CHAPTER III.

The chase was particularly close. I was anxiously awaiting nightfall to escape them, when, horror! something wet touched my cheek. It was raining. The rain fell in torrents, and as it washed my colour off and I gradually became white, the Chickatoos saw through my disguise. Seizing his rifle, the chief told me to stand apart. He fired, but missed me. I feigned to be hit, and springing into the air, turned sixteen distinct somersaults. Before they recovered from their surprise, I disappeared in the forest.

F. P. Delafond.

The Weekly Dispatch Competition. February 25, 1883.

In this competition, the compositions were limited to 300 words, which prevented the authors from giving more than a very rough caricature of their originals. But in 1867, Mr. Walter Parke contributed a parody of Captain Mayne Reid to Judy free from any such harrassing restriction, and succeeded in producing a most blood-curdling romance. It was entitled “The Skull Hunters: A Terrific Tale of the Prairie!!” By Captain Rayne Meade; and consisted of twenty-one chapters of thrilling adventures, and daring exploits with illustrations to match. This was published in book form in 1868, another and revised edition was brought out in 1887, during the excitement about Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. This had a tremendous sale, it was called “sportmans; or, The Warriors of the Wild West.” Judy Office, London.

ANTICIPATIONS OF THE DERBY.

By a French Visitor.

I. L’Homme qui Rit.

“In England, everything is great, even that which is not good, even oligarchy itself!” Thought profound and sublime of the Master; apothegm initiatory and bitter of the Man who Laughs—who laughs, but who can also bite.

For Genius, as for Ambition—for Prometheus who thinks, as for Prometheus who wields the great battalions—seems it not that there is reserved, by the derisive irony of Fate, an expiatory rock, an island exile?

For Victor Hugo, this rock, expiatory but glorious, calls itself Guernsey.

For Napoleon, it had two names; it was Elba, and it was Ste. Hélène.

Patience, Master! Watching the brumous clouds, tainted with Britannic fogs, that roll around the Islands of the Sleeve in the crepusculary sadness of an English spring—listening to the breeze, keen, acute, Arctic, Polar, which groans, which growls, which howls, which whistles menacing but impuissant, around the walls of Hauteville House—remember thyself, Master, that History, as for Ambition, so for Genius, repeats herself, in moments, for the one of remorse, for the other of caprice!

After Elba, the Hundred Days.

After Ste. Hélène, the voyage of the Belle-Poule.

“He laughs best who laughs last,” says the Proverb.

Proverbs are the wisdom of nations.

And thou, oh Master, oh author of the Man who Laughs, thy laugh is as the laugh of Gwynplaine, sombre but not cynical, permanent but full of pity, of compassion—a laughter broken with tears—above all, a laughter which endures!

II. The Solidarity of the Sportmans.

Yes; in England, everything is great. Even in her sports, she is the Titaness of the Ocean.

There is a solidarity of peoples; above all, there is a solidarity amongst the votaries of Diana, huntress pale, chaste, ferocious, formidable, but ravishing, but divine!

The sportmans of France, the sportmans of England, they are as the brothers of Corsica. What says your Williams? “As we were being washed by nurse, we got completely mixed!”

Touching and tender fantasy of this grand old Swan of Stratford-upon-Thames! Or, what say I—of Corsica? Of Siam—melancholy but affecting type of the rudimentary solidarity of the Orient!

I had long desired to watch you insularies in the sports of the hippodrome, in which I am myself not without skill; but the furious storms of the Sleeve twice detained me at Calais, and once at Boulogne. I consoled myself in the hope that everything comes to him who knows how to wait.

I knew how to wait. I waited.

After Chantilly, Epsom’s courses!

The sea appeared calm; not a wrinkle in the folds of the steel-blue Sleeve.

I embarked myself, with my luggage in my left hand and my “Ruff’s Guide to the Turf” in my right.

I shall see them, then, at last—these courses, sacred in the past by the memory of Eclipse and the Flying Admiral Childers, dear to the patriotic heart of France in the present days by the triumph of Gladiateur!

245 III. Ocean less Perfidious than the Aristocracy of Albion.

The sun was shining. The Ocean stirred gently in its sleep. Its ripples were as tender, as voluptuous, as the sighs of pleasure which scarcely derange the diaphanous scarf that lies upon the bosom of beauty. Oh, Phœbus! Oh, Neptunus! Oh, Venus!

I told you the sun was shining. My heart also. That I was gay! Gaiety premature, unreasonable, absurd!

As we cross Calais Bar the vessel rolls. I like it not. Can she be strong enough for the traverse, often fearful and stormy, to Douvres? I begin to marvel whether she is made of iron, or only made of wood.

I address the question, politely, to a young English sportmans by my side—“Pardon, Mister! but what is the vessel made of?”

A spasm of uncertainty, if not of pain, passes across his face as he points to an inscription inside the paddle-boxes.

One can only die one time; nevertheless, it is permitted to exclaim against the perfidy of the Steam-Lords of the Board of Commerce for London and Douvres. I read the inscription. Hope abandons me. The vessel is not made of iron!

She is not even made of wood!!

She is only “Maid of Kent!!!”

IV. Portentosum Mare.

An agitation which I have never felt before seems to seize upon me.

The further we go, the more it increases.

The young English sportmans, with the cynical indifference of the patrician, contemplates my sufferings, and lights his cigar. Is it that he calls that “solidarity”?

Two blonde misses with their papa—oligarch, fat, and without sympathy—sit near me. They talk to each other freely. At times they laugh. I laugh not, I!

Nor would they laugh, spoilt infants of Fashion, if I were to express the ideas that are struggling in my bosom—if I were to show them all that is within me!

V. After Convulsion, Despair.

I have shown them all that was within me.

They have moved away—it was a prudent step.

Now that they are gone, I could almost wish that I were dead!

VI. Noblesse Oblige.

The young English sportmans is, after all, a good infant. He brings me a big goblet and a biscuit, which comfort me, and tries to speak to me in French.

Words sympathetic, but mysterious.

“Ah, Monsieur,” he says, “il faut décidément maintenir votre pivert!”

Enigma! “I must keep up my wood-pecker?” I have no wood-pecker! I tell him so in his own tongue; adding that I am very fond of shooting at the doves.

“Ah,” he rejoins, “we don’t call ’em Doves, we call ’em les hiboux du coiffeur—Barbers’ Owls!”

We become more and more friendly, as the pain subsides. When we reach Douvres, I give him my card.

He says that he has forgotten his; but that I shall have no difficulty in finding him at any of the tambours de la chasse—Sporting Drums—especially if I ask for Lord William Wiggins, of Wapping.

What a droll of a name! Not facile to pronounce, that! Let us essay, with the help of the dictionary of pronunciation:

“Ouilliam Ouiggins—of Ouapping.”

VII. The Babylon of Britain.

Yes: in England everything is great. Behold this London, confused and chaotic amalgamation of bourg upon bourg, of city upon city, almost of county upon county—behold its administration, vague, contradictory, without doubt, but immense, but Titanic, but sublime.

To-day London has but one heart, which palpitates—one thought, which engrosses—one dream, which possesses—one hope, which enchants. To the heart, the thought, the dream, the hope, there is one key.

It is the Epsom’s Courses, at Derby!

VIII. Explications.

Questions to resolve:

“Who is Epsom?”

“And where is Derby?”

Mystery strange and inexplicable, this Epsom! Not one of my interlocutors, of French or English, can give me any particulars of his life. Oh fame, oh renown, oh fickleness of popular affection! We go to the Courses he has founded; and yet the very day of his death is forgotten or unknown!

Another mystery. Derby is a hundred and twenty miles from London; and yet many of my friends assure that they will drive down without a single change of horses! Ah, then, it is no marvel, this predominance of the old England in the hippic arena, when even the ordinary horses of the carriage can travel a hundred and twenty miles—two hundred kilomètres—without fatigue.

These facts were new to me. They were also new to most of my countrymen with whom I conversed.

The Unknown—behold the Redoubtable!

IX. Vieille Ecole, Bonne Ecole.

Happily, I encounter Lord Ouiggins.

He is an aristocrat of the old rock—a little mocking, perchance, a little reserved, cold, indifferent, proud, but of an antique probity, a disinterestedness more than Roman.

He takes me under his charge.

I had been deceived. They were mocking themselves of me, those who told me the courses were at Derby. They are run on Epsom’s Salt-Downs.

“Derby” is only the title of their founder, one of those English eccentrics of whom the type is so familiar in France—poet, politician, jockey—Premier Minister of Great Britain until he was overthrown by the intrigues of Sir Benjamin Gladstone!

After one thunder-stroke, another:

Gladiateur is not to run!

Is this, then, the old Britannic chivalry—the love of what the poet has proudly called “Greenwich Fair-Play”? Is this the entente cordiale? I survey Lord Ouiggins. He can scarcely meet my eye. He turns aside.

Let us hope it is to blush!

He tries to defend the invidious exclusion. He pretends that in the Derby-Course the horses must not exceed a certain age; also that Gladiateur was at least quite sufficiently near that age when he did run. Puerile evasion! False pride of nationality!

What is to become of the money I have wagered?

Lord Ouiggins tells me to console myself. He has private information. He will not see a foreign gentleman wronged.

X. Les Nuits de Londres.

We are inseparable.

Milord has backed a favourite to win him thousands of sterlings.

Curious, almost cynical nomenclature of the Turf!

246 The horse is named Ventre-Tambour, Bellydrum!!

He is assured to win; Milord dreamt, last night, that he saw him four lengths ahead at Tattenham-court-road Corner.

I wager freely on Ventre-Tambour.

Lord Ouiggins says we had better not go down to his baronial hall at Ouapping, but “make a night” and start early.

Ah, nights of London, you have not, effectively, stolen your reputation! What contrasts, fascinating but terrible—here, the noblesse, like Ouiggins quaffing champagne with visitors from France; and there the miserables, the Tom-Dick-Harries drinking gin—the blonde misses, casting aside the Puritanic pudor of the saloon, and dancing freely with foreign gentlemans at the Duke of Argyle’s Casino—what contrasts, but also, alas, what jealousies still existing, what internecine hatred still in rage!

That the English should hate the Irish is but natural.

We always hate those whom we have wronged!

It is less reasonable that they should continue to hate the children of Cambria, with whom they have been so long in friendly union.

And yet, more than once during this exciting evening, I have heard Lord Ouiggins spoken of—my patrician pur sang—as a Welsher, with evident contempt.

Brutal antipathies unworthy of the century!

They shall have no influence on the mind of a son of France.

“Lord Ouilliam,” I exclaimed, “regard them not! Generous compatriot of Llewellyn, I pledge thee in another bumper to the victory of Ventre-Tambour!”

——:o:——

Realities of the Derby.

I. Selters waters, or S. and B?

After Light, Shadow; after Pleasure, Pain; sad but inevitable oscillations of the pendulum of life!

Alas, to wake—it is to remember, and to remember is to repent.

Last night, I banqueted with the merchant-princes of London and with the ancient nobility of Wales; the leaders of the Fashion World, the Sport, the Turf, the boxers of the most renowned, the comics of the musical saloons—Lord Ouiggins signalised them all to me. Foaming, sparkling, vivacious, the wines of Champagne led the way for the stronger Grogs. A vision, confused indeed, but magnificent in its confusion, will long recall to me the night before the Derby.

I awoke.

Sad and supreme moment of mortality when awakening means isolation!

For some time, I knew not where I found myself. Presently, as the dim light of the dawn penetrated, first through the folds of the fog, and next through the dirt of the windows, I recollected that Lord Ouiggins had advised me to stay with him at a fashionable hotel, adding that his own drag would call for us in the morning.

It was still of a good hour. I turned myself to sleep; but heard, with dreamy ears, the fall—or so it seemed—of cataracts of rain, around me, beside me, overhead. The sound gave me a strange sensation of thirst, which I cannot otherwise explain.

Instinctively, I rang the bell, and shouted “Selters! Selters! Selters!”

A tap at my door; and Lord Ouilliam, in half-toilette, appeared. I saluted him.

“Is it that the rain will make to be deferred the Courses?”

“What rain?”

“Listen, then!”

“That? Why, it’s only the men tubbing!” (Idiom untranslatable.)

“What did you ring for?” pursued Lord Ouilliam.

“But, for Selters then!”

“Tout droit.” he rejoined. “Vous etiez horriblement coupé, mon ami; bien roide!”

Strange and picturesque argot of intoxication: “awfully cut,” “very tight.”

“Listen,” continued Milord, “My carriage is not yet arrived. It has probably been stopped by the Thames Embankment, which is to run outside my park at Ouapping. Look you, I will take places for two, outside an omnibus. It is the usual plan amongst nobility. Admiral Rous will be one of us. You may easily know him by his wearing a white hat, a veil, and a flower in his button-hole. Meanwhile, better not have Selters. Try S. and B!”

Enigma, of which the solution—when it came—was far from disagreeable.

II. Lux.

The morning at first was dull and brumous. The spleen of Britannia seemed to possess me. I had atrocious pains in my head. Every noise bore upon my nerves. The very sight of food seemed to nauseate me.

Lord Ouiggins, on the contrary, made a breakfast of the most substantial.

I cannot say much in favour of the cuisine at this fashionable hotel, one of the first in London, the well-known “Spotted Dog” in the aristocratic quarter. Route de la Chapelle Blanche (White-Chapel-road), the Faubourg St. Germain of London. Strange: the hotel is not mentioned in any of the ordinary London Guides.

We take our places. The best seat is reserved for the Admiral—that famous old warrior, who turned the fortune of the day at Chillianwallah by his historical charge at the head of the Naval Reserve and the Royal Horse Marines. Combination eccentric, but not without precedent. The horse was sacred to Neptunus. This Rous, see you, this Admiral so passionately equine in his tastes, he is Jean-Bart and he is also Murat; he is Kellermann and he is also La Pérouse! All the great men touch, and recognise one another!

The light still brightens. Behold us then effectively departed!

Hourrah! Hep, hep, hep!

Vive Ventre-Tambour!

III. Nothing is Certain to Happen but that which is Unforeseen.

We have gone a few miles on our road, still through the streets of the fashionable quarter, to-day as democratic as the Faubourg St. Antoine, and crowded with other Derbyites, before we speak much to each other. Reserve characteristic of the oldest and proudest aristocracy on earth.

At length Lord Ouiggins whispers me—

“I knew I had forgotten something. I’ve left my purse on the piano!”

For the moment I wished that I had done the same.

Suspicion dishonouring and ignoble!

IV. Si Jeunesse Savait.

Fog, obscurity, cold—yes, you will find them all in the climate of Great Britain; in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, and in the mountains of Wales, the cradle of Lord Ouilliam! It is true, but it is not the only verity. Great Britain also has her moments of fine weather. There are 247 no such trees in the world as the tall poplars of my own, my beautiful France—none planted in such mathematical, such symmetrical order, so methodical, logical, and straight. Nevertheless, Nature is infinite. Even the chestnuts, hawthorns, lilacs, and laburnums of the Surrey lanes are not absolutely offensive to the eye. To-day, also, Phœbus pierces. Lux!

There are no women in the world like those of Paris; but there is still a pleasant freshness in the faces of the young pensionaries who watch us, at times, over garden walls. To several of these, I kiss my hand. They smile in reply. Laugh, rosy daughters of Albion, laugh; for it is still day, and you are young—too young for reverie.

V. When Poverty becomes ironical, let Wealth take care.

The old Britannic humour, as exhibited in Samuel Benjamin Jonson, in Jonathan Smith, and Dean Sydney Swift, is not absolutely extinct upon the road.

More than one little Arab of the highway shouts out to me, “I’ll have your hat!” Wild caprice of the imagination, playfully misrepresenting the probable eventualities of the future, and yet, at bottom, profound, almost terrible—a mockery, yes, but a menace—a jest, without doubt, but a threat also—the voice, grotesque but strident, of the Miserables.

I impart the reflections to Lord Ouiggins. Alas, to what good? The pride of his class is too strong for him. His natural instincts are noble; but he is spoiled by the mephitic atmosphere of the Upper Chamber. With a laugh cold, sardonic, and glacial, he replies:—

“Throw the little beggar a copper, and let him go!”

He does not even, generous though he is, offer to provide the copper.

Again, ignoble suspicion! I forget that he has left his purse on the piano!

The Arab—delirious with joy—saved, perhaps, from starvation by the casual bounty of a foreign sportmans, would fain express his thanks. His emotion overpowers him. He staggers; horror, he falls! No! again! Gallant child of Poverty, the struggle is vain. Once more he wavers, he oscillates, he falls, and turning wildly head over heels, in the convulsion of his death agony, he disappears in a cloud of dust—doubtless to be driven over by the omnibuses of the haughty, and the phaetons of the Stock Exchange!

Shocked, but masking my horror under the veil of a politeness a little cynical I say to Lord Ouiggins.

“And well, then, Milord, did you see what he did? and do you know what will be his fate?”

Question terrible!

He does not even remove the cigar from his mouth, this impassive patrician, as he answers, with a laconism which lacerates, which vibrates on my nerves, which almost makes me bound.

“Yes; cart-wheel!”

VI. London at Epsom.

Dust, heat, emotion—all stimulate thirst.

I soon forget the little Arab. There are plenty of others remaining! There are worse things in the world, too, than bottled stout. Lord Ouilliam tells me that none of the aristocracy now drink champagne in public. It excites a feeling of envy among the lower orders. On Derby’s Day, the populace gives the tone to the peerage.

The crowd; my faith, and what a crowd! There are two things in the world which a man never forgets: his first sight of the sea, and his first sight of the multitude on Epsom Downs!

What a sound, as of ocean! What infinite discords, subdued, by very force of number and of contradiction, into one sublime monotone! What minstrelsy, cosmopolitan and comprehensive—the audible expression of a Colonial System unparalleled in grandeur and extent! The Hindoo may think in his heart of the days when he fought for his country’s municipal freedom under the banner of Rammohun Roy and Nana Sahib; but look! Plaintively submissive, he strikes his tom-tom to amuse the destroyers of his race.

VII. Messieurs, faites votrejeu! Le jeu est fait!

“Would you like to see the horses a little nearer?” says Lord Ouiggins. “You had better buy a couple of tickets for the Padwick.” I do so. The Padwick—so called of an eminent British sportmans—is an enclosed space in which the true connoisseurs survey the horses before they start. As I gaze at Ventre-Tambour, I can hardly refrain from shouting, amongst all these impassible patricians, “Hourrah! Hep, hep, hep!”

Lord Ouilliam Ouiggins comes to me, hurriedly, and whispers, “Hush, I have just got the straight tip from the Admiral himself. It’s a moral; and the horse at twenty-five to one! We must get on every sov. we have. There is barely time before they start. Quick.” I hand him my purse—not without a moment of hesitation—of which I am speedily ashamed.

VIII. Rien ne va plus.

A minute sometimes seems like hours. Fortune was in my grasp.

The interval of suspense was horrible; and yet its termination, when it did come, seemed abrupt, sudden, incredible.

I was still struggling with the crowd, when a hoarse sound suddenly rose like the roar of a tempest on a rocky coast—it rose, and rose, and grew stronger; I looked; I saw a wonderful white flash of faces as the heads of the multitude turned all, in one instant, one way; and my pulses seemed as though they would kill me with their throbbing as, with one voice, that innumerable assemblage cried—

“They’re Off!”

IX. The Word of the Enigma.

They were indeed; and so was Lord Ouilliam Ouiggins of Ouapping!

Anonymous, 1869.

——:o:——

One-and-Three.

In 1874, Punch published a novel under the above title ascribed to “Fictor Nogo,” but which was popularly (and correctly) attributed to Mr. F. C. Burnand. Later on it was published in book form by Bradbury and Co. The fun is rather long drawn out, but Hugo’s style is admirably parodied. The following is an extract from the preface:—

Letter from M. Fictor Nogo (author of “Une-et-trois”) to our eminent translator:—“My Honourable Co-Labourer,—Your noble and glorious translation of my immortal work touches me profoundly. I felicitate London. London, in publishing a work of mine, draws to itself the attention of the civilised world. London swells with pride under the benignant sway of a Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor crowns poets, glorifies literature. He decks you with turtle, and this does homage to 248 genius. You represent genius, for you represent me. Thus I am shadowed: for this I embrace you in spirit, You have co-mingled your ideas with mine. You and I, the Translator and the Translated, the Adapter and the Adapted, it is grand. More than grand—it is stupendous. More than stupendous—it is colossal.”

——:o:——

“Thirty-one.”

(By the Author of “93,” “The History of a Grime,” &c., &c.)

Chapter I.—Searching.

She was lost! In this world nothing is lost. It is only mislaid. She was Miss Lade: yet she was lost! Where was she? She was in London. London is in England. It is a great city—as large as Paris! It is as hard to discover a person in London as “to find a needle in a bottle of hay.” This is an English phrase. They bottle hay, and rack it, like wine! It is made into chaff. The people are fond of chaff. The Scotchman lives on oats, the Irishman on potatoes, the Englishman on chaff.

Tom Harry sought her. He wanted to marry her! He hoped she also wanted Tom Harry. But he had lost her. He knew she was in London, therefore he was in London. He inquired of many. They gave him chaff. He could not find the needle in it. She was his needle. He was a Pole—an English naturalized Pole. He would stick at nothing to find her. They were true to each other as Needle and Pole! but were now as far apart as two Poles!

Chapter II.—Cum Grano Salis.

The world is always large. Society is small. But Tom Harry and Miss Lade were in the world. They were not in Society! He had to seek her out of Society. Endeavour to catch a globule of mercury in a drawer. It flies—it escapes—it separates into atoms—it joins again and rolls away—it is lost—it is found—it is never secured! It eludes you—it is a demon—a wild spirit that vanishes as you think you grasp it! So was Miss Lade to Tom Harry! He thought that he saw her—but she became invisible! He could not find her. She found herself—it was in furnished apartments!

Chapter III.—Arithmetic.

He had a clue! But what was a clue in so wild a maze as the great London? In Paris the police would have found her, In London there were, at that time, no police. They were “reserved forces,” and had been called out in case of war! When so used there are no police. The authorities then make constables of the prisoners. It is a maxim of English law, “Set a thief to catch a thief.” But Miss Lade was not a thief—except that she had stolen the heart of Tom Harry! This was not a legal felony—therefore the police could not catch her! The clue was a piece of paper found in her room in Paris. On it was written the number “31” and “London.” That was all!

Chapter IV.—Circumambient.

How to find this number 31? That was the problem. Tom Harry had graduated at Oxford—not Cambridge. This was the error! A Cambridge man would have been able to calculate the probabilities, and obtained a result. Tom Harry had to discover her equation. She was X (an unknown quantity). He was A, but he was also—C (that is minus cash)! The postulate was that A - C + B = X. What was the B in the equation?—probably a book. What book?—decidedly a London directory! He bought one. It is a large book—a heavy one! He could not carry it—yet it was a necessary work of reference. Difficulties must be conquered. Man was made to overcome them! Tom Harry succeeded! He purchased a “single” perambulator—not a “double”—one they double up! The leaves of the directory were doubled down. Therefore the perambulator and the book were in accord! He wheel’d about his book. It was his child!—he had bought it! They allow this in England, where they sell wives at Smithfield! He found his way about. This child was his guide! Is not childhood the very best and purest guide to manhood? and does not manhood only lead us into a second childhood? But among all the numbers “thirty-one,” he had not found her! He was in a fog. She was mist. He was in a London fog! It was dark and thick as Erebus! But he could not see e’er a “bus.” They could not run; nor could he. He had lost Miss Lade—he had now lost himself? He asked a sweeper of crossings where was he? He was told that he was at the corner of the Park of Hyde! It was true.

Chapter V.—What Happens is Always the Unforeseen.

There are dark periods in the history of nations. It is the same with individuals. It was so with Tom Harry. He was at the Park of Hyde—at one corner of it! It was a place to hide in—hence the name. Was she hidden there? It was a natural thought. He would search it, and would find her! But how? He knew not the way! Here steps in Fate, which governs all things. It was a policeman! There were only two left of the reserves—one to guard the Tower, where the Queen resides; the other in charge of Constitution Hill, which is by the corner of Hyde Park. Under ordinary circumstances the police of London are not permitted to talk. They are only allowed to say, “Move on!” This is the Englishman’s watchword! The Americans have the same, in effect; they say, “Go ahead!” The policeman in charge of Constitution Hill was absolved from this rule by an Order in Council. It was an important office. The preservation of the Queen and Constitution (which is kept on the Hill named from it) is of the greatest national consequence. Therefore the policeman was a high official, and allowed to speak. Tom Harry addressed him, explaining his position and quest for Miss Lade. The policeman pointed to his collar and the figures on it, exclaimed—“I am number ‘31’! Miss Lade lodges with my wife!” The clue was right! She was found!

Finis.

C. H. Waring.

Fun. August 14, 1878.

——:o:——

In Bret Harte’s Sensation Novels Condensed there is an imitation of Victor Hugo, in ten chapters, entitled “Fantine.” The Prologue is as follows:—

“As long as there shall exist three paradoxes—a moral Frenchman, a religious Atheist, and a believing sceptic—so long, in fact, as booksellers shall wait—say twenty-five years for a new gospel; so long as paper shall remain cheap and ink at three sous a bottle, I have no hesitation in saying that such books as these are not utterly profitless!

Victor Hugo.”

“Grinplaine, or the man who doesn’t laugh.” A serial burlesque of Victor Hugo’s “L’homme qui rit,” by Walter Parke, appeared in Funny Folks, 1875.

249 The Bat of June 2, 1885, contained a parody of Victor Hugo, called Quel bonheur Marie (What Cheer ’Ria?) somewhat coarse in tone, and not very amusing.

——:o:——

The House that Victor Built.

On January 24, 1885, the following announcement appeared in Punch:—

It being reported that Victor Hugo has just purchased for the sum of £13,000 a piece of land in the immediate vicinity of his present abode, with a view of building on it an entirely new house “of his own designing,” the following extract from a preliminary letter of instructions to the contractor who has undertaken the work will be read with interest.

* * * * *

“You will ask me whether I am an Architect; and I reply to you, ‘An Architect is one who constructs.’ Do I construct? Yes. What? Never mind; let us proceed. To construct a house you require a basement. This is the language of the Contractor. But the Poet meets him with a rejoinder. A basement is a prison, and Liberty can not breathe through a grating. This was the case at the Bastille! What has been done at the Bastille does not repeat itself. What then? You will commence the house on the first floor.”

Does this stagger the Architect? Unquestionably! Yet to commence a house on the first-floor is easy enough. To the Contractor? No. To the Poet? Yes. How? By a flight. Two flights will take anyone somewhere. Upstairs? Yes. Downstairs? Certainly! In my lady’s chamber? Why not? This is a phenomenon, and surprises you. Just now you were on the stare. Now you are on the first-floor landing. Therefore, you have taken a rise. Out of whom—the Architect? Possibly. Let us resume.

And now for the drawing-room.

This will be colossal. Why? Because the furniture in it will be stupendous. To talk of stupendous furniture is to suggest the opening scene of a Pantomime. A big head! Whose? No matter. But you will inquire as to this furniture. You will probably say, ‘Will there be chairs?’ No. ‘Arm-chairs?’ Useless. ‘Sofas with six legs?’ A phantom! ‘What then? Canopied thrones for four-and-twenty, with one of a superior make and quality?’ Quite so. ‘Why?’ Because it is here that Genius, after dinner, will meet the Kings and Emperors that aspire to pay it homage. ‘Will there be windows?’ Rather—and there is this convenient thing besides—eight-and-forty balconies. You will say at once, ‘Two a-piece?’ But you will quickly add—‘What of the gardens beneath?’ To this there is only one answer possible—‘Fireworks!’

Roman candles, rockets, and Bengal lights? No.—A set piece? Yes. Representing what? Somebody! Now there is this advantage about a set-piece that represents somebody—if carefully prepared, regardless of expense, and covering an area of 90 feet by 120. It may be permanent. Some one whispers ‘Advertisement.’ To this I make a supreme reply, ‘Fame!’

And now let us pass to another room. Shall we put our foot in it? Yes. Why? Because it is the kitchen.

——:o:——

The Spoiler of the Sea.

By Victor Hugo.

Chapter I. Gaillard was a wrecker, a smuggler. He was an honest man. Ships are the effect and cause of commerce. Commerce cheats, commerce adulterates, commerce is bad. To wreck ships engaged in knavery is good. Gaillard the smuggler robbed the revenue, you say; so do monarchs. You take off your hat to a king. I raise mine to Gaillard—to a man. You call me crazy. Keep your temper; I keep mine. You are an idiot. I should like to punch your head. Chapter II. Gaillard was considered ugly. He was not. He had a bump. A dromedary has a hump. The dromedary is beautiful. He had a squint—it is better to squint than to be blind. His eyes were green—that is the colour of Nature’s beauteous sylvan dress. His mouth was extremely large—so is that of the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus is a charming fellow. Gaillard had the beauty of the dromedary, the loveliness of Nature in his eyes, the charm of the hippopotamus. Gaillard was sublime. Chapter III. Gaillard sprang into the sea to bathe; this happened once a year. You will admit that once in three hundred and sixty-five days was not too often. An octopus—a devil fish—was watching him. Man and monster, they eyed each other. Gaillard trembled at its glance—he was not brave. I saw it once, and did not tremble; I am brave. It was at the Aquarium. The octopus has eight legs; Gaillard wished for eighty, but his two sufficed. Fear gave them the swiftness of two hundred. He ran. You would have run. Should I have done so? Everything is possible. It is possible I should have run.

F. P. Delafond.

The Weekly Dispatch. September 13, 1885.

——:o:——

The Cat.

The cat is the concrete symbol of a vacillating politician.

It is always on the fence.

It is the feline embodiment of one of the profoundest human principles wrenched from the circumambience of the Unknown, and hurled into the bosom of consciousness.

Nine tailors make one man. The cat has nine times the life of one man, for it has nine lives. Possession, also, is nine points of the law. Behold a legal possession of existence equal to the span of eighty-one clothiers’ lives.

Let us bow reverently before this august fact.

The wanderer by the midnight seashore, when the moon—that argent cornucopia of heaven—is streaming forth her flowers and fruits of radiance, and the illimitable is illuminated by the ineffable, will have remarked the phosphorescent ridges that scintillate along the billows’ tops, until the breakers seem to curve and snort like horses’ necks with manes of lightning clad.

So, O man, when in the darkness of thine own chamber, thou passeth thine hand along the furry spine of this feline phantom of the back yard, the electric sparks dart forth, and a flash of lightning fuses together the fingers and the fur.

Exquisite antithesis of Nature! The fireside embraces the ocean. The hearthstone is paved with seashells. The monsters of the deep disport, reflected in the glowing embers. The infinite Abroad is brought into amalgamation with the finite at Home.

The ocean roars.

The cat only purrs.

The billows rise and culminate and break.

250 The cat’s back rises. The feline tide is up, and we have a permanent billow of fur and flesh.

O impossible co-existence of uncontradictory contradictions!

The duke of Wellington was pronounced the greatest captain of his age. Gen. Grant is pronounced the greatest captain of his.

The greatest captain of any age was the captain with his whiskers.

Let us not call this the tergiversation of history. Call it rather the tergiversation of nature.

The whiskers of the captain.

The whiskers of the cat.

The hirsute exponent of martial supremacy. The feline symbolism of the Bearded Lady, crossing her claws before the family fire.

Jealousy has been called the green-eyed monster.

The cat is the green-eyed monster.

Both lie in wait. Neither destroys its victim without toying with it. One is the foe, the other the friend, of the fireside. Either is to be met with in almost every family. Each is of both sexes.

“Old Tom” gin, in excess, is one of man’s bitterest bibulous foes; man is the bitterest bibulous foe of old tom cats.

Osculations between sky and earth! O lips of the Seen touching the lips of the Unseen! O wave of thought careering through the asymptotes of cloudland, crystalizing into angelic foci the tangents of humanity.

The stars are out at night.

So are cats!

——:o:——

A MANIFESTO BY HICTOR VUGO

We live and move and have our being. By we I express civilisation, which consists first of Paris, then the world at large. We are born with generous instincts. We are naturally humane. I call upon the French Revolution of ’92-3 to prove this theory. We cannot all be Arabis. That would be too supreme a dream. But we can all admire him at a distance. Those horrible canaille the English have warred against a weak race of striplings, descendants of the glorious mummies. They have fought, and aided by the magnificent single-minded abstinent France have won. Mon dieu! Why was I not there? With one impassioned foot firmly planted on the escarpment of Tel-el-Kebir, I would have kept these British brutes at bay. I would have quoted one of my rhythmic poems, and they would have piled arms, awe-stricken and listened. Or, perhaps, these island savages in their ignorance, would have shot me. They are sufficiently unrefined for that. Ah! the thought is too dreadful. France, my beloved France, would in such a case have died also, for with me will perish all the ideas which go to make a great race—Adolphe, bring me a cigarette and a café noir. I would be calm.

The Ninety-nine Guardsmen.

By Alexandre Dumas.

This parody, which is to be found in Bret Harte’s Sensation Novels Condensed is an ingenious mixture of “The Three Musqueteers” and “The Vicomte de Bragelonne.”

The second chapter is the best:—

Chapter II.

THE COMBAT.

On leaving Provins the first musketeer proceeded to Nangis, where he was reinforced by thirty-three followers. The second musketeer, arriving at Nangis at the same moment, placed himself at the head of thirty-three more. The third guest of the landlord of Provins arrived at Nangis in time to assemble together thirty-three other musketeers.

The first stranger led the troops of his Eminence.

The second led the troops of the Queen.

The third led the troops of the King.

The fight commenced. It raged terribly for seven hours. The first musketeer killed thirty of the Queen’s troops. The second musketeer killed thirty of the King’s troops. The third musketeer killed thirty of his Eminence’s troops.

By this time it will be perceived the number of musketeers had been narrowed down to four on each side.

Naturally the three principal warriors approached each other.

They simultaneously uttered a cry:

“Aramis!”

“Athos!”

“D’Artagnan!”

They fell into each others arms.

“And it seems that we are fighting against each other, my children,” said the Count de la Fere, mournfully.

“How singular!” exclaimed Aramis and D’Artagnan.

“Let us stop this fratricidal warfare,” said Athos.

“We will!” they exclaimed together.

“But how to disband our followers?” queried D’Artagnan.

Aramis winked. They understood each other. “Let us cut ’em down!”

They cut ’em down. Aramis killed three. D’Artagnan three. Athos three.

The friends again embraced. “How like old times!” said Aramis. “How touching!” exclaimed the serious and philosophic Count de la Fere.

The galloping of hoofs caused them to withdraw from each other’s embraces. A gigantic figure rapidly approached.

“The innkeeper of Provins!” they cried, drawing their swords.

“Perigord, down with him!” shouted D’Artagnan.

“Stay,” said Athos.

The gigantic figure was beside them. He uttered a cry.

“Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan!”

“Porthos!” exclaimed the astonished trio.

“The same.” They all fell in each other’s arms.

The Count de la Fere slowly raised his hands to Heaven. “Bless you! Bless us, my children! However different our opinions may be in regard to politics, we have but one opinion in regard to our own merits. Where can you find a better man than Aramis?”

“Than Porthos?” said Aramis.

“Than D’Artagnan?” said Porthos.

“Than Athos?” said D’Artagnan.

——:o:——

Eugene Sue.

Sir Brown: A mystery of London, by Mons. Dernier Sou. (Illustrated). See The Shilling Book of Beauty by Cuthbert Bede.

Parodie du Juif Errant, par Ch. Philipon et Louis Huart. 300 Vignettes par Cham. Bruxelles, 1845. This 251 is a remarkable book, it consists of 291 pages octavo, and the illustrations are very droll.

This was translated, and published in London, 1846, by E. Appleyard, under the title The Parody of the Wandering Jew by Charles Philipon and Louis Huart.

The first four chapters contained some copies of the illustrations of Cham very badly executed, the other half of the book had no illustrations.

IZAAK WALTON’S COMPLETE(LY) DONE ANGLER.

Ghost of Piscator. Ghost of Viator.

Viator. Whither away, Master? A good morning to you! I have stretched my legs to catch the train to Tottenham and here I find you with rod and basket, as of old.

Piscator. Faith, Scholar, I have even been too long an angler with Nero, in the lake of darkness, and would fain take a chub, Tottenham way, and see mine old haunts.

Viator. Then have with you, Master; and I do mind me of pretty Maudlin that hereabouts would sing us, “Come, Shepherds, deck your heads!”

Piscator. Ay, Scholar, methinks Maudlin was the Siren that led thee to the River Lea more than all my wisdom. But here we are got to Tottenham, and to the waterside.

Viator. Oh, oh, Master, what place is this, and what smell cometh to my nostrils? See, see, Master, here be no chub, but two dead dogs and one departed cat!

Piscator. In sooth, Scholar, the country seemeth strange, and no man may live, nor fish neither, hard by such an open sewer. Can this be the Lea! Nay, Scholars, this is no place for honest anglers more. But hither walks Corydon. Let us ask him what makes this blackness in the water, and the smell that abides here, as they say frankincense and myrrh do cling, more sweetly, to the shores of the blessed Arabia. What ho, Corydon, what cheer?

Corydon.[54] Sir, the condition of the River Lea is something really fearful. From Tottenham downwards the water is a mere open sewer, emitting the most noxious exhalations. Boating and bathing have ceased, and the River is now only a danger to the neighbourhood.

Piscator. Say you so? And what maketh that it should be so?

Corydon. Ah, Master, the drainage of Tottenham is turned bodily into the stream, and, in spite of Local Boards, the nuisance continues unaltered.

Piscator. And why right they not this wrong; for, marry, the poor folk here will die, and a pestilence be bred, if ye live not more cleanly.

Corydon. Sir, no man knows this better than the Tottenham Authorities themselves, who cause a horrible, disgusting nuisance to the dwellers on the Lea. They simply sow disease broadcast among thousands of helpless people, to save the expenditure of a certain sum of money.

Piscator. Penny wise, and pound foolish—penny wise, and pound foolish! Soon shall we have the Great Plague here again, and none to blame but the chuckled-headed “Authorities,” my Masters! Come away, Scholars, come away. The silver Lea is bedraggled. ’Tis no place for peaceful ghosts, that would be quiet, and go a-fishing.

[They vanish.

Punch. August, 15, 1885.

The Incompleat Angler, after Master Isaak Walton, by F. C. Burnand, also appeared in Punch. It was afterwards published in book form by Bradbury Agnew & Co., London, in 1876, and again, with numerous illustrations by Harry Furniss, in 1887.

Walton’s Angler Imitated, in several Parts, another parody, appeared in Punch and Judy, London, 1869.

——:o:——

LORD LYTTON.

In Volume V. of this Collection, (p. 222) parodies upon Lord Lytton’s Poems and Plays were given, burlesques upon his prose works remain to be noted.

Praises of the Ideal, the Beautiful, the True, and the Virtuous, abound in Lord Lytton’s Novels, of which desirable qualities his own life and character were singularly destitute.

Tennyson satirised him as a fop, whilst Thackeray treated him with well-merited ridicule and contempt, both in the “Epistles to the Literati,” and in “Novels by Eminent Hands.” The latter series originally appeared in Punch, and the parody of Lytton was entitled “George de Barnwell.” In this, a paltry thief and murderer was elevated into a hero, in much the same manner that Lytton had treated Eugene Aram.

It is quite unnecessary to give any extract from this well-known and accessible burlesque.

In connection with Thackeray’s well-known burlesque criticism on The Sea Captain by Lord Lytton (p. 225. Vol. V.) it should be mentioned that when that play was reproduced at the Lyceum Theatre under the lessee-ship of Mr. E. T. Smith, a continuation of Thackeray’s criticism appeared in The Mask, London, November 1868.

In this Thackeray’s style and orthography were mimicked, and Mr. Bandmann, who took the part of the prating hero Vivyan, was severely criticised for his stagey acting.

The Sea Captain had been damned in 1839, and The Rightful Heir scarcely merited a better fate, but it gave rise to a splendid burlesque, The Frightful Hair, by F. C. Burnand produced at The Haymarket Theatre, in December 1868, with Compton, Kendal, and Miss Ione Burke in the Cast.

The Diamond Death.

By Sir Pelham Little Bulwer, Bart.

Alphonsine Fleury, modiste of Paris, determined that she should die. And, all things considered, it was hardly wonderful that the pretty little girl should come to such a conclusion. Poor child. Fickle woman! Thou hast hardly known Life these eighteen winters, and, yet, would’st be already toying with his brother Death! Die, then, child, if such be thy will. Facilis descensus Averni.

Everybody must admit that she had reason. She called him her lover, that false and whiskered Jules, hero of the barricades, best polker at the Chaumière. And he had sworn to love her, and perhaps he meant it. For between Truth and Falsehood, there lies the Paradise of the 252 Purposeless (shrouded, as the Doric poets sing, in a sapphire cloud), and there are kept the vows which expire on earth for lack of the vivifying presence of the undying Earnest.

Jules was false, and Alphonsine would die. But when one has decided on doing a thing, one has still to decide on the way of doing it. And in regard to dying, one ought really to be careful; because (so far as one sees) there is no way, if one does it awkwardly, of repairing the blunder. The Biggest can die but once. There ran the Seine, and the Pont-Neuf was toll-less, which was a consideration, as Alphonsine’s last sou had gone to purchase her last roll. But the Seine was so muddy, and then the Morgue, and its wet marble. The poor child shuddered at the thought. And the costume, too, for she was French, and, moreover, had instinctive delicacy. Clearly not the Seine.

The towers of Notre Dame. Better, certainly; and she would go rushing into the arms of Death, with a heart full of Victor Hugo, Peer of France. But no! Why, she had been quite ill going down one of the montagnes Russes at the last carnival, even though Jules had held her in the car. She would never be able to look down from the giant tower. Could it shake its grim head and hurl her quivering away, it might be done. But a leap thence! M. D. Lamartine himself never dreamed of such a Chute d’un ange.

Poison. But Jules had taken her to see Frederic Lemaitre, poisoned by la Dame de St. Tropez. His contortions under the arsenic—quel horreur! There would be nobody to see her make faces, certainly, but what of that? Is one to lose all self-respect because one is going to kill oneself? Alphonsine’s mind rejected the poison.

It should be charcoal. Certainly, charcoal. Alphonsine would die like a Countess who had betrayed her husband, gambled away her fortune, and found a pimple on her nose. It was a lady’s death; and Alphonsine, a skilful little milliner, had been among ladies until she had taken measure of their minds as well as of their waists. So she would leave the world gracefully, and comme il faut.

Glow, thou ebon incense for the Altar of Doom; glow in thy little censer there beside her, in other days the lid of her saucepan. Glow, for there lies the poor child, Bride of Death, expectant of her Bridegroom. She has arrayed her mansarde so neatly, that, when the rough Commissaires de Police force the door, they will pause upon the threshold—perhaps touch their hats. And she lies with clasped hands, and upon her maiden bosom rests a daguerreotype of her faithless lover. Glow, dark charcoal, glow, and let thy fames waft her spirit from this cold world, to realms where Anteros smiles upon the True and the Beautiful.

She is dying. But, O kindly Mother of the Dead, thou sendest through the Portal of Ivory a gentle Dream. Through the closing eyes of Alphonsine that Dream looks forth, and its look falls upon that glowing censer, which glares like the eye of a Demon. Full into that Demon-eye looks the Dream, unscared, and what sees it there? Alphonsine dreams that a mighty and a pitying Voice hath come forth from the Treasure-house of Fate, and hath said unto that fiery charcoal, Be as thou wert wont to be.

The modest charcoal knows its Lord, and blushes. Then, suddenly paling its fires, they soften into crystal light; and as they subside, the charcoal glitters in its other and more glorious form, the Diamond! Countless treasures roll at the feet of the expiring Alphonsine. * * *

Expiring?—Oh, no! The world has rose-joy for her yet. Jules, repentant and terrified, has shattered her door, has dashed her window into air, has kicked her charcoal to earth: and as he restores her to life with cold water and warm kisses, he shows her a ticket for them both for to-night’s Bal Masqué.

Clouds and sunrays, ye are Life! But beyond, beyond, whirls and roars the dread Maelstrom of Inexplicability.

The Puppet Showman’s Album. London. No date.

The Dweller of the Threshold.

By Sir Ed-d L-tt-n B-lw-r.

BOOK I.

The Promptings of the Ideal.

It was noon, Sir Edward had stepped from his brougham and was proceeding on foot down the Strand. He was dressed with his usual faultless taste, but in alighting from his vehicle his foot had slipped, and a small round disc of conglomerated soil, which instantly appeared on his high arched instep, marred the harmonious glitter of his boots. Sir Edward was fastidious. Casting his eyes around, at a little distance he perceived the stand of a youthful bootblack. Thither he sauntered, and carelessly placing his foot on the low stool, he waited the application of the polisher’s Art. “Tis true,” said Sir Edward to himself, yet half aloud, “the contact of the Foul and the Disgusting mars the general effect of the Shiny and the Beautiful—and yet, why am I here? I repeat it, calmly and deliberately—why am I here? Ha! Boy!”

The Boy looked up—his dark Italian eyes glanced intelligently at the Philosopher, and, as with one hand he tossed back his glossy curls from his marble brow, and with the other he spread the equally glossy Day and Martin over the Baronet’s boot, he answered in deep rich tones: “The Ideal is subjective to the Real. The exercise of apperception gives a distinctiveness to idiocracy, which is, however, subject to the limits of Me. You are an admirer of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots blacked. The Beautiful is attainable by means of the Coin.”

“Ah,” said Sir Edward thoughtfully, gazing upon the almost supernal beauty of the Child before him; “you speak well. You have read Kant.”

The Boy blushed deeply. He drew a copy of Kant from his bosom, but in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom on the ground. The Baronet picked them up.

“Ah!” said the Philosopher, “what’s this? Cicero’s De Senectute, and at your age, too? Martial’s Epigrams, Cæsar’s Commentaries. What! a classical scholar?”

“E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!” said the Boy, enthusiastically. The Philosopher gazed at the Child. A strange presence seemed to transfuse and possess him. Over the brow of the Boy glittered the pale nimbus of the Student.

“Ah, and Schiller’s Robbers too?” queried the Philosopher.

“Das ist ausgespielt,” said the Boy modestly.

“Then you have read my translation of Schiller’s Ballads?” continued the Baronet, with some show of interest.

“I have, and infinitely prefer them to the original,” said the Boy with intellectual warmth. “You have shown how in Actual life we strive for a Goal we cannot reach; how in the Ideal the Goal is attainable, and there effort is victory. You have given us the Antithesis which is a key to the Remainder, and constantly balances before us the conditions of the Actual and the privileges of the Ideal.”

“My very words,” said the Baronet; “wonderful, wonderful!” and he gazed fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial employment. Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student had been absorbed in the Boy.

But Sir Edward’s boots were blacked, and he turned to depart. Placing his hand upon the clustering tendrils that surrounded the classic nob of the infant Italian, he said softly, like a strain of distant music:

“Boy, you have done well. Love the Good. Protect the Innocent. Provide for The Indigent. Respect the Philosopher.”... “Stay! Can you tell me what is The True, The Beautiful, The Innocent, The Virtuous?”

253 “They are things that commence with a capital letter,” said the Boy, promptly.

“Enough! Respect everything that commences with a capital letter! Respect Me!” and dropping a halfpenny in the hand of the Boy, he departed.

The Boy gazed fixedly at the coin. A frightful and instantaneous change overspread his features. His noble brow was corrugated with baser lines of calculation. His black eye, serpent-like, glittered with suppressed passion. Dropping upon his hands and feet, he crawled to the curbstone and hissed after the retreating form of the Baronet, the single word:

“Bilk!”

* * * * *

There are three more Chapters of this amusing parody to be found in Bret Harte’s Sensation Novels Condensed.

Another imitation of Lytton’s prose was published in The Individual November 8, 1836 (Cambridge), but it is not of sufficient interest to reprint.

On a Toasted Muffin.

By Sir E. L. B. L. B. L. B. Little, Bart.

Object belov’d! when day to eve gives place,

And life’s best nectar thy fond vot’ry sips,

How sweet to gaze upon thy shining face,

And press thy tender form unto my lips!

Fair as the Naiad of the Grecian stream,

And beautiful as Oread of the lawn;

Bright-beaming as the iv’ry palac’d dream,

And melting as the Dewy Urns of dawn.

For thee I strike the sounding Lyre of song,

And hymn the Beautiful, the Good, the True;

The dying notes of thankfulness prolong,

And light the Beacon-fires of praise for you.

Butter’d Ideal of Life’s coarser food!

Thou calm Egeria in a world of strife!

Antigone of Crumpets! mild as good,

Decent in death, and beautiful in life!

Fairest where all is fare! shine on me still,

And gild the dark To-Morrow of my days;

In public Marts and crowded Senates thrill,

My soul, with Tea-time thoughts and Muffin lays.

Cuthbert Bede.

The Shilling Book of Beauty. London. J. Blackwood & Co.

——:o:——

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

Chesterfield Travestie; or School for Modern Manners. Anonymous. Dedicated to George Colman, whose name is incorrectly spelt “Coleman,” on the title page. London, Thomas Tegg, 1808.

This has ten Caricatures drawn by Rowlandson. A later and enlarged edition was published entitled Chesterfield Burlesqued.

Lady Chesterfield’s Letters to her Daughter, by George Augustus Sala. London, Houlston and Wright, 1860.

The first edition of this humorous, but rather lengthy burlesque (it consists of fourteen chapters), contains many excellent woodcuts by Phiz, and is now very scarce.

Good Manners; or, the Art of being Agreeable.

(Being Maxims and Extracts from Lord Jesterfield’s Letters.)[55]

On Conversation.—The basis of all conversation is Flat Contradiction. The flatter and the stronger the contradiction, the more certain and secure is the basis on which the structure of Conversation is to rise.

Where there is no contradiction, “nothing more need be said,” and consequently there and then is an end of all conversation.

The word conversation in itself expresses and implies an assertion of a fact and a denial. It is compounded of two Latin words, “verso” to turn, and “con” together, and means, therefore, two people turning together, or having “a turn at one another,” or a “set-to.” Were everybody to agree with everybody else, it is evident that there would be no matter for discussion, and, therefore, no real conversation.

Persons in love, who are, for the time being, in perfect agreement with each other, never converse. They can’t. It is from this universally-observed fact that in every language may be found the significant proverb, “Silence gives consent,” i.e., where all agree there is, as we have said, no conversation.

A knowledge of Human Nature is absolutely necessary for the cultivation of good manners, and for getting oneself generally liked in all sorts and varieties of Society.—This is an extensive subject, but its study will well repay the most attentive perusal:—

Rules and Advice.—In whatever society you may be, a moderate share of penetration will enable you to find out everybody’s weak points. You may not hit upon them all at once, but make your own private list, and then try them all round. Enter any room as though you were a general practitioner called in to pronounce on everybody’s ailments. You do not want to see their tongues, but only hear how they use them. You can feel the pulse of each one discreetly.

How to make yourself Agreeable with a Nouveau Riche.—Be playfully familiar. Lower yourself to his level; so as not to appear proud of your superior birth and training. Ascertain how he made his money, what was his origin; and, if unable to discover what he sprang from, you can make a safe guess in supposing him to have been a scavenger, a dustman, or as boy engaged in sweeping out an office (many illustrious men who have discharged the highest offices, may have themselves been discharged from the lowest offices for not having kept them clean and tidy), and on this supposition you can at once address him, and proceed to compare his former state of abject poverty with his present apparently inexhaustible wealth, a subject that must afford him the greatest possible pleasure, especially in a mixed company.

* * * * *

Punch. April 26, 1884.

——:o:——

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

His extraordinary work The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater published in 1822, (having originally appeared in the London Magazine), was the subject of an exceedingly clever parody in Blackwood for December, 1856, attributed to the pen of Sir E. G. Hamley.

254 “A Recent Confession of an Opium-Eater” tells how the O.E., somewhere about the year 1828, found himself in the sixteenth storey of a house in the old town of Edinburgh in company with three most unprepossessing personages, one of the feminine gender. He is at first disposed to entertain a favourable opinion of the intellectual status of his entertainers by the sympathising reception accorded to some appreciative remarks offered by him on the greatness of Burke, but afterwards sees reason to question whether their Burke and his were the same person. By-and-by it becomes apparent that his companions are intent upon drugging him. The idea of anyone presuming to hocus the opium-eater tickles his fancy immensely; he enters into the joke, toasts his hosts in laudanum, and obliges them to respond, and in due time has them all under the table. As he goes down-stairs, a little misadventure occurs with a candle, and by next morning the sixteen storeys and the occupants have entirely disappeared. The style of the parody is excellent, a compound of the Opium-Eater and “Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts.”

——:o:——

LADY MORGAN.

As a specimen of her eccentric style take the following passage from “The Wild Irish Girl:” “I was chez moi, inhaling the odeur musquée of my scented boudoir, when the Prince de Z—— entered. He found me in my demi-toilette blasée sur tout, and pensively engaged in solitary conjugation of the verb s’ennuyer, and, though he had never been one of my habitués, or by any means des nôtres, I was not disinclined, at this moment of délassement, to glide with him into the crocchio ristretto of familiar chat.” The above has been done into French by M. H. Cocheris in the following style: “J’etais at home, aspirant la musky smell de mon private room lorsque le Prince Z—— entra. Il me trouva en simple dress, fatigued with everything, tristement occupée à conjuguer le verbe to be weary, et quoique je ne l’eusse jamais compté au nombre de mes intimates, et qu’il n’etait, en aucune façon, of our set, j’etais assez disposée à entrer avec lui dans le crocchio ristretto d’une causerie familière.”

——:o:——

ARCHIBALD FORBES.

An American paper has the following amusing burlesque of Mr. Archibald Forbes’ style. Mr. Forbes is supposed to be replying to the toast of the English press. “Mr. Chairman—I am Mr. Archibald Forbes. I have been everywhere. I have done everything. I am a very smart fellow. I am not to be out-done. I know the Emperor of China. I know the King of the Cannibal Islands. I am intimately acquainted with the Grand Llama. I have lived with the Shah of Persia. I am the dearest friend of the Emperor of Russia.” The report comes abruptly to an end with the editorial remark. “Here our sorts of I’s gave out.”

——:o:——

COOKERY BOOKS.

During the Crimean War, when there was a great outcry about the starving condition of our troops, and the utter breakdown of the Commissariat, the following parody on Mr. A. Soyer’s cookery book appeared in “Our Miscellany,” by Yates and Brough:—

Camp Cookery.

By Alicksus Sawder

To boil cabbage.—It is necessary to procure a cabbage. Wash in cold water; which, throw down a gutter, or outside a tent if no gutter be procurable. Be careful not to splash trousers, especially in frosty weather. Stick a two-pronged fork boldly into the cabbage (a bayonet will do equally well), and plunge it into a saucepan of water just at boiling point. When it has boiled for eight minutes, twenty-five seconds, throw eleven-fifteenths of a teaspoonful of salt into the water. Let the cabbage boil till it is thoroughly done. At that moment be on the watch to take it out of the saucepan (taking care to avert the face from the steam), and place in a vegetable dish. Put the cover on, and serve up with roast beef, ortolans, venison, pickled pork, or whatever may come handiest. An old helmet will supply the place of a saucepan. Cauliflowers may be cooked in the same manner; and, indeed, most things.

To fry Bacon.—Cut your bacon into long strips, or rashers. Wipe your frying-pan out with a coarse towel, or lining of old dressing-gown. Then place it gently (so as not to knock the bottom out) over a brisk fire. Place the rashers in, one by one. When they are done on one side, turn them over to do on the other. When they have attained a rich brown, take them out and arrange them on a dish, or slice of bread, or anything. Watch your rashers, so that the sentinel outside doesn’t get at them; and eat when you feel inclined. The gravy may be sopped up from the frying-pan with crumbs of bread. If only biscuit is to be obtained, use the fingers, which lick carefully. The rind may be preserved in the waistcoat pocket, for sucking while on duty.

Roast Potatoes.—Put your potatoes under the stove, and rake hot embers over them. While they are cooking get as much butter as the commissariat will allow you, and put it on a clean dish, or, a dirty one, with half a sheet of writing-paper on it (indeed, in an extreme case, the writing-paper will enable you to dispense with the dish altogether). Taste the butter, but don’t eat it all up till the potatoes are done. Great care will be required for the observance of the latter regulation. Cut the butter into dice of from six to seven-eighths of a cubic inch. When the potatoes are done, cut them open and insert a dice of butter in each, closing the potato rapidly to prevent evaporation. Eat with pepper and salt, or whatever you can get.

Another Method.—If you can’t get any butter, do without it.

Potatoes and Point.—This is a very popular dish in Ireland, and one which I have frequently partaken of in that country. The method of preparing it in the Crimea is as follows:—Boil a dish of potatoes, and serve up hot, with a watch-glass full of powdered salt. When they are ready for eating, point, with the fore-finger of the right hand, in a north-westerly direction, where the regions of beef are supposed to exist.

* * * * *

There was also an old parody, by Dr. King, on The Art of Cookery.

The Military Cookery-Book.

How to make a Recruit.—Take a raw lad from the country (the younger the better) and fill his head with military froth. Add a shilling and as much beer as will be covered by the bounty-money. Let him simmer, and serve him up thick before a Magistrate the next morning. Let him be sworn in, and he then will be nicely done.

How to make a Soldier.—Take your recruit, and thrust him roughly into a depôt. Mix him up well with recruits from other regiments until he has lost any esprit de corps which may have been floating upon the surface when he enlisted. Now let him lie idle for a few years until his 255 strength is exhausted, and then, at ten minutes’ notice, pack him off to India.

Another Method.—Take your recruit, and place him at headquarters. Let him mix freely with all the bad characters that have been carefully kept in the regiment, until his nature has become assimilated to theirs. For three years pay him rather less than a ploughboy’s wages, and make him work rather harder than a costermonger’s donkey. Your soldier having now reached perfection, you will turn him out of the Service with Economical Dressing.

How to make a Deserter.—A very simple and popular dish. Take a soldier, see that he is perfectly free from any mark by which he may be identified, and fill his head with grievances. Now add a little opportunity, and you have, or, rather, you have not, your deserter.

Another and Simpler Method.—Take a recruit, without inquiring into his antecedents. Give him his kit and bounty-money and close your eyes. The same recruit may be used for this dish (which will be found to be a fine military hash) any number of times.

How to make an Army.—Take a few scores of Infantry Regiments and carefully proceed to under-man them. Add some troopers without horses, and some batteries without guns. Throw in a number of unattached Generals, and serve up the whole with a plentiful supply of Control Mixture.

Another and Easier Method.—Get a little ink, a pen, and a sheet of paper. Now dip your pen in the ink, and with it trace figures upon your sheet of paper. The accompaniment to this dish is usually hot water.

How to make a Panic.—Take one or two influential newspapers in the dead season of the year, and fill them with smartly written letters. Add a few pointed leading articles, and pull your Army into pieces. Let the whole simmer until the opening of Parliament. This once popular mess is now found to be rather insipid, unless it is produced nicely garnished with plenty of Continental sauce, mixed with just an idea of Invasion relish. With these zests, however, it is always found to be toothsome, although extremely expensive.

Punch. November 21, 1874.

——:o:——

Henry Labouchere and Edmund Yates.

It is customary for the Editors of Truth and The World to publish the latest on dits of Society, and each delights in contradicting the other on little matters of detail. This sport does not much interest the general public, but it appears to afford great amusement to the two Editors. Some of their paragraphs are scarcely less absurd than the following:—

[“Henry” has promised that he will go and see “Edmund” in Holloway Prison.]

Extract I. (From “Truth.”)

“I made a pilgrimage to Holloway Castle one day last week, and was pleased to find poor Edmund in excellent spirits. He was lounging in a handsomely upholstered chair from Gillow’s, while he smoked a capital Manilla.From “Truth.” In the course of our conversation, I learnt that it is his intention to publish a volume of ‘Prison Recollections’ when he again emerges into the outer world. Edmund has lost flesh, but is otherwise in his usual health.”

Extract II. (From “The World.”)

“Really, Henry, I am getting quite tired of correcting your blunders. The chair in which you found me seated was supplied to me by Maple, whom I much prefer to Gillow. You have also put your foot in it about the cigar, which was an Intimidad and not a Manilla. Thirdly, I don’t intend to publish any ‘Prison Recollections;’ and as for my having lost flesh, that is pure rubbish. How can one lose flesh when one continues to feed as well as usual, and is at the same time obliged to drop one’s horse exercise in the Row?”

Extract III. (From “Truth.”)

“I have always maintained that you are far too impetuous, Edmund. Perhaps you are correct about your not having lost flesh, though I could have sworn that I counted one chin less than usual upon your face. I may also have been in error regarding the ‘Recollections’ and the chair, but I cannot for a moment admit that your Manilla was an Intimidad. You are no judge of tobacco. I am, and the illustrated advertisement of Somebody’s cigarettes is sufficient proof of the fact.”

Extract IV. (From “The World.”)

“Upon certain subjects, Henry, pig-headed ass is not the name for you. Don’t visit me again, please.”

Extract V. (From “Truth.”)

“Catch me at it, my dear Edmund.”

Funny Folks, January 31, 1885.

——:o:——

The Real Little Lord Fauntleroy.

A short parody, having the above title appeared in Punch, May 19, 1888, with an illustration by Linley Sambourne, representing Lord Randolph Churchill, and the Duke of Cambridge. At the time it appeared Lord Randolph was posing as an advocate of Retrenchment and Reform. That a member of the Marlborough family of national bloodsuckers should appear as the advocate of economy was a joke that was far too good to last, and Lord Randolph having remained in the cabinet long enough to earn a pension, found it convenient to resign.

(An imaginary conversation. With apologies to Mrs. F. H. Burnett.)

And then the Duke looked up.

What Little Grandolph saw was a portly old man, with scanty white hair and bushy whiskers, and a nose like a florid bulb between his prominent imperious eyes.

What the Duke saw was a smart, small figure in a jaunt, suit, with a large collar, and with trim, accurately-parted locks curved carefully about the curiously canine little face whose equally protuberant eyes met his with a look of—well, perhaps the Duke would have found it difficult exactly to define the character of that look, but it combined in an emphatic way the interrogative and the ironical.

It was thought that Little Lord Fauntleroy was himself rather like a small copy of a grander and older original, and he himself was supposed to be well aware of the fact. But there was a sudden glow of emotion in the irascible old Duke’s face as he saw what a sturdy, self-confident little fellow Lord Fauntleroy was, and how unhesitatingly he stood to his guns in all circumstances. It moved the grim old nobleman that the youngster should show no shyness or fear, either of the situation or of himself.

“Are you the Duke?” he said. “I’m a Duke’s son, you see, and know something about such things. I’m Lord Grandolph Fauntleroy.”

He nodded affably, because he knew it to be the polite and proper thing to do, even from young and clever Lords to old and (the adjective he mentally used may be suppressed) 256 Dukes. “I hope you—and the Army—are all right,” he continued, with the utmost airiness. “I’m very glad to see you here.”

“Glad to see me, are you?” said the Duke.

“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy, “very.”

There was a chair at the head of the table, and he sat down on it; it was a big chair, and, physically, he hardly filled it perhaps; but he seemed quite at his ease as he sat there, and regarded a Monarch’s august relative intently and confidently.

“I’ve often wondered what a Commander-in-Chief would look like when being cross-examined,” he remarked. “I’ve wondered whether he’d be anything like my great ancestor of the Queen Anne epoch.”

“Am I?” asked the Duke.

“Well,” Grandolph replied, “I’ve only seen pictures of him, of course, and I can’t exactly say how he would have looked in a similar case, but I don’t think you are much like him.”

“You are disappointed, I suppose?” suggested his august interlocutor.

“Oh no!” replied Grandolph, politely. “Of course you would like any great military contemporary to look like your own illustrious ancestor; but of course you might admire the way your great military contemporary looked, even if he wasn’t like your illustrious ancestor. You know how it is yourself, about admiring your contemporaries.”

The Duke stared. He could hardly be said to know how it was about admiring his contemporaries, many of whom he didn’t admire at all, and some of whom did not altogether admire him.

“Well, and how’s our bit of an Army getting on?” asked little Lord Fauntleroy, airily.

“Our—bit—of—an—Army?” repeated the Duke, in a scattered sort of way.

“Yes,” explained Grandolph, “the bit of an Army we pay such a pile of money for?”

“Ha!” ejaculated his Lordship. “That’s it, is it? The money isn’t spent as you like. You’d like to have the spending of it. What would you buy with it? I should like to hear something about that.”

“Doubtless,” replied Lord Fauntleroy, coolly. “Some day you may. At present I’m asking questions, and your business is to answer them.”

“The D——!” began the Duke, hotly.

“Quite so—the D—— etails,” interjected Little Lord Fauntleroy, blandly. “As you were doubtless about to say, the details are the things! All very well to say in a general sort of way that the Army is going to—its usual destination, Duke; that Party Spirit and Financial Cheese-paring are the cause of it, and that more men and money are urgently required. That won’t do for me. I want to know—so does the Country—much more than that. How? Why? What? When? How many? How much? These, my dear Duke, are the pertinent questions to which we—the Country and I—demand precise answers. When we get them, instead of vague denunciation and big D’s, we shall know what to do.”

The sensations of his Royal Highness the Duke, could scarcely be described. He was not an old nobleman who was very easily taken aback, because he had seen a great deal of the official world; but here was something he found so novel that it almost took his lordly breath away, and caused him some singular emotions. A civilian had always seemed to him a most objectionable creature—impertinent, parsimonious, and with inadequate conceptions of discipline. But this composed, precise, insolently interrogative little personage was a portent. The Duke’s martinet manner was quite shaken by this startling surprise.

* * * * *

The Standard (London) in 1885 ventured to criticise the political character and conduct of Lord Randolph Churchill, but three years later it contained an article which read like a parody of its former utterances about this Boulanger of the Fourth Party:—

(From the Standard,
July 31, 1885.)

It is time to speak plainly. Lord Randolph Churchill has been puffed by his friends in the daily and weekly press with admirable assiduity. He has dined with them and they have dined with him, and the well-organised claque are ready to cry “Prodigious!” whenever he opens his mouth. But it is all in vain. We no longer live in days when the public can be gulled by such arts.… The truth is, that Lord Randolph Churchill is a much over-rated man. He is now verging upon middle-age and has reached a time of life when even flighty minds ought to sober down. But this is what he cannot do. His almost incredible ignorance of affairs, his boyish delight in offering the crudest insults to men who have been fifty years in the service of the State, his pranks, his blunders, are ceasing to amuse.… Instead of his being broken in by his colleagues, his colleagues have been broken in by him, and he has been able to make them adopt as the deliberate and well-digested convictions of sagacious and practical Englishmen, the crude conceits of a political neophyte, which his own little Senate labour hard to represent as the language of a new Tory gospel.… We will follow Lord Salisbury, but we will not be governed by a sort of overgrown schoolboy, who thinks he is witty when he is only impudent, and who really does not seem to possess sufficient knowledge even to fathom the depths of his own ignorance of everything worthy of the name of statesmanship.

(From the Standard,
July 29, 1888.)

The interest excited by the other appointments sinks into nothing compared with that which must be felt in the promotion of Lord R. Churchill to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons. There is, doubtless, much that may be said against the appointment to so responsible a position of one who has had so brief an experience of official life, and who has hitherto been more remarkable for brilliancy than discretion. On the other hand, Lord Randolph Churchill possesses the debating power and the dauntless spirit which are indispensable to a successful leader. There are times and seasons when self-confidence, readiness, and a command of that pungent rhetoric which often tells better in the House of Commons than the closest and most judicial argument, are of more service to a party than any other qualities which a Parliamentary statesman can possess. Lord Randolph Churchill moreover, is eminently popular with “the masses,” and so far has a title to confront Mr. Gladstone which no other man on the Conservative side of the House can show. In short, he is an orator and a wit; and in a popular assembly these are titles to pre-eminence which it is not very easy to dispute. It remains for Lord Randolph Churchill to demonstrate that the great confidence that has been reposed in him has not been misplaced.

Taken in connection with the above extracts, 257 it is amusing to read the leader which appeared in The Standard, July 31, 1889:—

Lord Randolph Churchill used his opportunities at Birmingham yesterday to illustrate, on a more ambitious scale than he has yet attempted, his constitutional incapacity for public life. A Statesman should be discreet; and even the hack politician is expected to be loyal to his associates. Lord Randolph has been at some pains to prove that no colleagues can trust him, and that no school of opinion can rely upon him for six weeks together. He made several speeches yesterday, and discussed at considerable length, and with an air of dogmatic assurance, a variety of topics. But the miscellaneous heads were all firmly held together by one pervading principle. Lord Randolph Churchill, his position and prospects, and the supreme importance of improving both at any cost, constituted the informing element of the whole medley. It does not, of course, follow that because Lord Randolph played a selfish game, he played a wise one. His addresses, we imagine, will strike him as poor reading by daylight. Even in the atmosphere of the City Hall, the reception was not altogether encouraging. It is not flattering to an orator to find that sayings which he meant to be oracular provoked merriment; that his serious things were taken as jokes and his jokes as serious things; and that solemn declarations of policy, which were designed to draw ringing cheers, were listened to in chilling silence, or, still worse, excited immediate and emphatic protest.

——:o:——

H. Rider Haggard.

He, by the author of “It,” “King Solomon’s Wives,” “Bess,” and other Romances. London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1887. This, of course, is a parody of “She; a History of Adventure,” by H. Rider Haggard, author of “King Solomon’s mines,” etc. Also published by Longmans and Co. London.

She was also dramatised, and produced at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in September, 1888.

Punch had a humorous skit on this adaptation (September 15, 1888) entitled “She-that-ought-not-to-be-played! A Story of Gloomy Gaiety.”

A burlesque of “She” had also previously appeared in Punch, February 26, 1887, entitled “Hee! Hee!” by Walker Weird, author of “Solomon’s Ewers.”

American publishers not only pirated the popular works of Mr. Rider Haggard, but one firm proceeded to father upon him a work of which he knew nothing. This was entitled “Me, a companion to She.” By H. Rider Haggard; published by Butler Brothers, of New York and Chicago. In justice to that firm, however, it must be said that they withdrew the work from circulation as soon as they discovered that Mr. Haggard objected to having his name coupled with it. Copies of this are consequently very difficult to procure.

King Solomon’s Wives; or, The Phantom Mines. By Hyder Ragged. With numerous illustrations by Linley Sambourne. London, Vizetelly and Co., 1887.

The jocular introduction to this is signed A. Quaterman.

——:o:——

Samuel Richardson.

It is well known that Fielding’s Joseph Andrews was written with the intention of ridiculing Richardson’s tediously moral novel Pamela, of which to a certain extent it is a parody, Joseph, the virtuous footman, being the brother of Pamela, and subjected to similar temptations. Fielding had a contempt for the priggish tone of Richardson’s works, and his ridicule succeeded in almost killing Pamela.

There was another curious attack on Richardson entitled “Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, in which the Falsehoods of Pamela are Exposed, together with a full Account of all that passed between her and Parson Williams,” by Mr. Conny Keyber. 1741.

The History of Clorana, the Beautiful Arcadian, or Virtue Triumphant, 1737. (Pamela, with slight variations.)

——:o:——

MISS BRADDON.

Dr. Marchmont’s Misery.

This was a burlesque of “Lady Audley’s Secret” which appeared in Judy, 1868. It was written by Mr. Walter Parke. The following is an extract from this humorous work:—

Chapter xii.

Day had broken (though Martin was still solvent) and was casting brilliant Holborn Bars of light through the windows of Tredethlyn Abbey on to the artistic Phiz of Lady Aurorabella.

She was very very weary—tired of her own life, and of several other people’s lives, also she had not the heart to eat, and probably would not have eaten it if she had. Beyond trifling with the wing of a rabbit, cutting a morsel from a cold surloin of grouse, and drinking a single glass of Chiaroscuro, her breakfast was untouched.

For she had just received intelligence that, in spite of all her exertions, her Five Husbands were again at liberty!

“Oh! why did they not all perish?” she sobbed. “I have tried to get rid of them over and over again by every species of assassination, but now I am tired of mild measures. I must do something Desperate!”

So she summoned that ubiquitous detective officer, Inspector Weasel, who, from any quarter of the globe, would come by telegraph to obey her slightest word.

“Weasel” she said “I can endure this no longer, I have made a resolve. By the tyrannical laws of this hateful country, my quintette of husbands have been allowed to keep the marriage certificates. Once in possession of them, I could defy the world. If you value my peace or your own, you must get them for me.”

“I will,” replied the all accomplished detective and he set about it at once.

First, to pursue the fugitive Dr. Marchmont, “Ah” murmured the Detective “my experience tells me that when a fellow on the bolt says he is going to one place, he is certain to set off in exactly the opposite direction. Let me see,” And he carefully examined his Government survey of the World.

* * * * *

Inspector Weasel hastened to the Snoozington Railway Station.

“What time does the next train start for Kamtschatka?” “At 6.85,” was the reply.

The detective chafed with impatience. Two minutes to wait! It seemed an eternity-and-a-half to him! At length the train arrived and the detective jumped up behind the Engine Driver. “Off we go!” he cried, “bother stations, and signals, and all that sort of thing, never mind bursting the engine, or blowing up the passengers. I’m in a hurry!”

——:o:——

258

THE POLITE LETTER WRITER.

At the distribution of prizes to the art classes at Chesterfield in November, 1880, the secretary read a communication purporting to come from Mr. John Ruskin, in answer to one asking him to give them a lecture. It was as follows:—

“Harlesden, London, Friday.

“My dear Sir,—Your letter reaches me here. I have just returned from Venice, where I have ruminated in the pasturages of the home of art; the loveliest and holiest of lovely and holy cities, where the very stones cry out, eloquent in the elegancies of Iambics. I could not if I would go to Chesterfield, and I much doubt whether I would go if I could. I do not hire myself out—after the fashion of a brainless long tongued puppet—for filthy ducats. You, and those who told you to write me, want me, I presume, to come that you may make money for your art class; and if I should get you much money, you will then tolerate some good advice from me. No, I will not come.

“I have heard of Chesterfield. Hath it not a steeple-abomination, and is it not the home—if not the cradle—of that arch abomination-creator, Stephenson? To him are we indebted for the screeching and howling and shrieking fiends fit only for a Pandemonium, called locomotives, that disfigure the loveliest spots of God’s own land.

“I will not come to Chesterfield. Tell your students that art is a holy luxury, and they must pay for it. Tell them to study, to ponder, and to work with a single thought for perfection, observing loving and strict obedience to the monitions of their teacher. Let them learn to do things rightly and humbly, and then, by the conviction that they can never do them as well as they have been done by others, they may be profited.

“My good young people, this is pre-eminently the foolishest—yes, quite the foolishest—notion that you can get into your empty little egg-shells of heads; that you can be a Titian, or a Raphael, or a Phidias; or that you can write like Seneca. But because you cannot be great, that is no reason why you should not aspire to greatness. In joy, humility, and humbleness, work together. Only don’t study art because it will pay, and do not ask for payment because you study art. Art will make you all wiser and happier, and is worth paying for. If you are in debt—as I suppose you are, or why pester me?—pay off your debts yourselves. If you write to me only that you may get money, you are on the foolishest of all errands. Wisdom is more precious than rubies, and is offered to you as a blessing in herself. She is the reward of industry, kindness and modesty. She is the prize of prizes, the strength of your life now, and an earnest of the life that is to come. This advice is better than money, and I give it to you gratis. Ponder it and profit by it.—Ever faithfully yours,

John Ruskin.”

Many were the comments which this letter, widely published, as it was, created; for scarcely any one doubted the authenticity of the letter addressed to Chesterfield, a name which recals that of a celebrated Earl who also wrote letters, but his were on the art of politeness.

But a few days afterwards Mr. Ruskin denied that he had composed the epistle; it is, therefore, only of interest now as so clever a parody of his style that the whole London press was deceived by it. The following letter, however, was certainly genuine. In June 1886, a circular was addressed to Mr. Ruskin appealing for subscriptions towards extinquishing the debt of the Baptist Church at Richmond, to which he replied:—

Sir,—I am sorrowfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing. My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is “Don’t get into debt. Starve, and go to heaven; but don’t borrow. Try first begging. I don’t mind, if it’s really needful, stealing. But don’t buy things you can’t pay for.” And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can’t pay for are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can’t you preach and pray behind the hedges, or in a sandpit, or in a coal-hole first? And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the damnablest to me. And of all the sects and believers in any ruling spirit, Hindoos, Turks, Feather Idolators, and Mumbo Jumbo Log and Fire Worshippers, who want churches, your modern English Evangelical sect is the most absurd and entirely objectionable and unendurable to me. All which you might very easily have found out from my books. Any other sort of sect would, before bothering me to write it to them.—Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant,

John Ruskin.

Having enumerated the most important parodies of our great novelists, and given such extracts as the limits of space would permit, it only remains to mention such other prose parodies of works of fiction, which are either of less merit in themselves, or mimic authors of less importance than those already dealt with. This list can only be approximately complete, as there are hundreds of such parodies buried away in the back numbers of the Magazines and Comic Journals.

W. Harrison Ainsworth.

The Age of Lawn Tennis. A fragment after Harrison Ainsworth’s “Rookwood.” See Tennis Cuts and Quips.

Old Temple Bar; by W, Harrissing Ainsworth. See The Puppet Showman’s Album.

Blueacre. A Romance, by W. Harrising Painsworth. See Our Miscellany, by E. H. Yates and R. B. Brough.

William Black.

In Silk Attire. By W——m B——k. See The Tomahawk, July 17, 1869.

There was also a parody of Mr. Black, in The World.

A Princess of Lundy. By W——m B——k. See Ben D’Ymion and other Novelettes, by H. F. Lester. London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1887.

This volume also contains:—

Muddlemarsh, by George Eliot.

The Portrait of a Hybrid, by Henry James.

A Rustic Zenobia, by Thomas Hardy.

James Fribblesaint, by J. H Shorthouse.

259 Countess of Blessington.

Portraits of Children of the Mobility, drawn from Nature, with Memoirs and Characteristic Sketches by the Author of the “Comic English Grammar” (Gilbert A. à Beckett), plates by John Leech. London, 1841.

A remarkably clever parody upon a publication entitled “Children of the Nobility,” issued under the auspices of the Countess of Blessington, the first Edition of which is scarce.

Charlotte Brontë.

Miss Mix. By Charlotte Brontë. See Sensation Novels Condensed, by Bret Harte.

Miss Braddon.

Selina Sedilia. By Miss M. E. Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood. See Sensation Novels Condensed, by Bret Harte.

Miss Rhoda Broughton.

Gone Wrong. A new Novel by Miss Rhody Dendron, Authoress of “Cometh down like a Shower,” “Red in the Nose is She,” etc.

By F. C. Burnand. London, Bradbury, & Co, 1881.

Colonel F. Burnaby.

The Ride to Khiva. By F. C. Burnand. London, Bradbury, Agnew & Co, 1879. This burlesque of Colonel Burnaby’s A Ride to Khiva originally appeared in Punch.

Samuel Butler.

The Irish Hudibras, or Fingallian Prince. 1689.

The Whigs’ Supplication; or, Scotch Hudibras, a mock Poem. By Samuel Colville. First published in 1681, there have since been several editions.

The Lentiad; or, Peter the Pope pommelled and Pounded with a Hudibrastic Cudgel. Edited by Rev. John Allan. (Violently Anti-Catholic.) London, William Freeman, 1863.

Butler’s Ghost; or Hudibras, the fourth part, with reflections upon these times. Tom D’Urfey. 1682.

The Modern Hudibras, a poem in three cantos. By George Linley. London, J. C. Hotten, 1864.

“Cœlebs in search of a Wife.”

Cœlebs Deceived, a Novel. 1817.

Celia in search of a Husband, by a Modern Antique. 1809.

Miguel Cervantes.

A Chapter from the Book called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha, which by some mischance has not till now been printed. London, George Redway, 1887.

(A curious dissertation on the literature of the Occult Sciences.)

Don Quixote; or, the Knight of the woeful Countenance. A Romantic Drama, in two acts. By George Almar, Surrey Theatre London, April 8, 1833. (Dicks).

Don Quixote was also dramatised at the Alhambra Theatre, London, a few years ago.

Wilkie Collins.

The Moonstone and Moonshine, after Wilkie Collins. This parody appeared in The Mask, London, August 1868.

No Title, by Wilkie Collins. See Sensation Novels Condensed, by Bret Harte.

Thomas Day.

The New History of Sandford and Merton. Being a True Account of the Adventures of “Masters Tommy and Harry,” with their Beloved Tutor, “Mr. Barlow.” By F. C. Burnand, with 76 Illustrations by Linley Sambourne.

London, Bradbury, Agnew & Co. 1871.

Of all Mr. Burnand’s burlesques, this is probably the most humorous; the immortal tutor prig, Mr. Barlow, the funny moral tales, and the equally funny illustrations, can scarcely be surpassed.

Daniel Defoe.

The New Robinson Crusoe, an Instructive and Entertaining History for the Children of both sexes. Thirty-two woodcuts by John Bewick. London, 1811.

Robinson Crusoe was translated into Latin by F. J. Goffaux in 1823, there are several French versions of it, the “Swiss Family Robinson,” and one in German called “Robinson the Younger,” by J. H. Campe.

Robinson the Younger, translated from the German of J. H. Campe. Hamburg, 1781.

Benjamin Disraeli.

Anti-Coningsby, or the New Generation grown old. By an embryo M.P. (Mr. W. North). 1844.

Hythair. By Walter Parke, Funny Folks, 1876.

Splendimion, or, the Asian Mystery. A Grand “Diz”-torical Romance. By Walter Parke. Funny Folks, 1880.

Charles Dickens.

In the list of plays founded on his novels, given on p. 226, the following should have been included:—

A Christmas Carol. By E. Stirling. Adelphi Theatre. February 5, 1844. (Barth.)

The Chimes. By E. Stirling, Lyceum Theatre, December, 26, 1844.

A Christmas Carol. By Charles Webb, (Barth.)

Martin Chuzzlewit. By Harry Minus, Oxford Theatre, Easter Monday, 1878, (Dicks).

These entries have been courteously supplied by Mr. T. F. Dillon Croker.

Hugh Conway.

Much Darker Days. By A. Huge Longway, author of “Scrawled Black,” “Unbound,” etc.

London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1884. Anonymous, preface signed A. H. L.

A later edition of this parody of Hugh Conway’s Dark Days was published in 1885, with an apologetic Preface.

Hauled Back, by his Wife. By Ugo Gone-away Hugaway. (Anonymous) London, J. and R. Maxwell, 1885.

Henry Fielding.

The History of Tom Jones the Foundling, in his Married State, London, 1750.

Tom Jones, a Comic Opera, as performed at Covent Garden Theatre, the words by Joseph Reed.

Tom Jones was also dramatised by Robert Buchanan, as well as Joseph Andrews, the title of which he changed to Joseph’s Sweetheart.

Mrs. Gore.

Mammon’s Marriage, by Mrs. Bore. See The Shilling Book of Beauty, by Cuthbert Bede.

Fergus W. Hume.

A Blood Curdling Romance.

The Mystery of a Wheelbarrow; or, Gaboriau Gaborooed. By W. Humer Ferguson. London, Walter Scott, 1888. A parody of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, by Fergus W. Hume, of Melbourne, Australia.

260

G. P. R. James.

The Page. A Romaunt from English history, by Gustavus Penny Royal Jacobus. See Our Miscellany, by E. H. Yates and R. B. Brough.

The Passage of Prawns. A Tale of Picardy, by George Prince Regent James. See The Puppet Showman’s Album.

In Cruikshank’s Almanac for 1846, will be found an article entitled “Hints to Novelists,” in which short imitations are given of G. P. R. James, C. Dickens, and Fennimore Cooper.

Barbazure, by G. P. R. Jeames, Esq. See Novels by Eminent Hands, by W. M. Thackeray. (These originally appeared in Punch.)

Magnum of Burgundy. A Romance of the Fronde. See A Bowl of Punch, by Albert Smith.

The Robber of Idleburg, by Walter Parke. See The Comic News, London. 1864.

Charles Lever.

Phil. Fogarty. A Tale of the Fighting Onety-oneth. By Harry Rollicker. See Novels by Eminent Hands, by W. M. Thackeray.

Terence Deuville, by Charles L—v—r. See Sensation Novels Condensed, by Bret Harte.

Tom Kinnahan, or the Frays and Fights of a Horse Marine. By Charles Heaver, author of the “Confessions of Larry Jollycur,” etc. See The Puppet Showman’s Album.

Lord Lytton.

The Wrongful Heir; or, What will they do with him? A Strange Story. By Walter Parke. Judy, 1869.

Baron Munchausen.

The Travels and Surprising adventures of Baron Munchausen. First English Edition Oxford, 1786.

There can be little doubt but what this amusing piece of nonsense was written to ridicule certain German memoirs, some say those of Baron de Tott, others say those of Baron Von Trenck. The authorship of the work was also the subject of dispute, but it is now generally ascribed to G. A. Bürger, the German poet, who died in 1794.

In 1792 there appeared A Sequel to the Adventures of Baron Munchausen which was humbly dedicated to Mr. Bruce, the celebrated Abyssinian traveller.

The Surprising, Unheard of, and Never-to-be-surpassed Adventures of Young Munchausen, related and illustrated by C. H. Bennett. In twelve “Stories.” London, Routledge & Co., 1865.

This originally appeared in Routledge’s Every Boy’s Annual.

“Ouida.” (Louise de la Ramée.)

Blue Blooded Bertie, or under two fires. A serial burlesque of Ouida’s “Under Two Flags,” by Walter Parke. Funny Folks, 1875.

Samuel Pepys.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys Esq., while an undergraduate at Cambridge. With notes and appendix. Cambridge: Jonathan Palmer, 1864. This clever parody ran through several Editions, it was thought to be the production of Mr. Cooke, a student of Emanuel College, Cambridge.

Mr. Pips, hys Diary. Manners and Customs of ye English, 1849. By Percival Leigh, with illustrations by Richard Doyle.

The University Commission, or, Lord John Russell’s Postbag, containing Mister Anthony Pepys his Diary, he being a member of the said Commission. Oxford, W. Baxter, 1850.

(Written in the style of Pepys’ Diary.)

Charles Reade.

Chikkin Hazard. A Novel by Charles Readit and Dion Bounceycore. This parody on Fowl Play, written by Mr. F. C. Burnand, first appeared in Punch, it was afterwards issued in book form by Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 1881.

Sir Walter Scott.

Rebecca and Rowena. A sequel to Ivanhoe. By W. M. Thackeray.

Pontefract Castle, a novel attributed to Sir W. Scott. Contained in Tales of my Landlord, new series, published in 1820.

Sir Walter Scott formally disavowed this work at the end of his introduction to “The Monastery,” 1830.

Waverley. An abridged edition was published by Knight and Lacy, London, 1827, with the title page “Novels, Tales, and Romances” by Sir Walter Scott, abridged and illustrated by Sholto Percy. This appears to have been a gross piracy.

Moredun: A tale of the Twelve Hundred and Ten, by W. S. This was published in 1855, as a newly discovered Waverley novel.

Walladmor. (2 vols. 1855). A Novel, by De Quincey, which purported to be “Freely translated into German from the English of Sir Walter Scott, and now freely translated from the German into English.” It appears that German readers were actually hoaxed into the belief that this novel was by Scott.

Hawley Smart.

What’s the Odds? or, The Dumb Jockey of Teddington. A sporting novel by Major Jawley Sharp.

By F. C. Burnand, London, Bradbury and Co., 1879.

(This originally appeared in Punch.)

Horace Smith.

Whitehall; or, the Days of George IV. Dedicated to Sir Edmund Nagle, K.C.B. London. W. Marsh, 1827.

Horace Smith, one of the authors of Rejected Addresses, wrote a number of historical novels, most of which are now entirely forgotten. One of these was called Brambletye House, to ridicule which Dr. William Maginn wrote Whitehall.

“The author’s object,” said the Quarterly Review, in January 1828, “is to laugh down the Brambletye House species of novel; and for this purpose we are presented with such an historical romance as an author of Brambletye House, flourishing in Barbadoes 200 or 2,000 years hence, we are not certain which, nor is the circumstance of material moment, might fairly be expected to compose of and concerning the personages, manners, and events of the age and country in which we live * * * * The book is, in fact, a series of parodies upon unfortunate Mr. Horace Smith,—and it is paying the author no compliment to say that his mimicry (with all its imperfections) deserves to outlive the ponderous original.”

But Whitehall is itself, almost as heavy and as tedious, as the work it parodies.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. This weird and powerful story was dramatised by Mr. T. Russell Sullivan, and produced at the Lyceum Theatre in August 1888, Mr. Richard Mansfield performed the two title parts.

261 Another, but very inferior version, was brought out at the Opera Comique, London, by Mr. Bandmann about the same time, which the critics very unkindly laughed at as a ridiculous burlesque. Legal proceedings, however, soon compelled Mr. Bandmann to withdraw his unfortunate adaptation, and hurriedly close the theatre.

The Strange case of the Prime Minister and Mr. Muldoon, by Arthur Law, (London, 1886) was a sixpenny political pamphlet written to ridicule the Earl of Granville, Lord Hartington, Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone.

The best thing in it was the following little parody:—

“You are old, father William,” the young man said,

“You are not far off eighty, I ween;

And yet you can speak for an hour or two

And no one find out what you mean.”

“In my youth,” father William replied to his son,

“All my scruples I laid on the shelf;

And now to drag from me a plain yes or no

Would puzzle the devil himself.”

The Pirate’s Hand. A Romance of Heredity. By the Author of “The Strange case of Doctor Shuffle and Mister Glyde.” London, “Judy” office, 1888.

Jonathan Swift.

Hints to Servants; being a poetical and modernised version of Dean Swift’s celebrated “Directions to Servants.” By an Upper Servant. 1843.

Swift himself wrote some burlesques, amongst them one in prose, A Meditation on a Broomstick, in imitation of the style of the Hon. Robert Boyle’s Meditations.

His witty Directions to Servants, and The Polite and Ingenious Conversations, satirical and frequently indecent as they are, are also burlesques of their topics, treated in a very original manner.

Various imitations of the Directions to Servants have been written.

Swift’s Tale of a Tub Reversed for the universal improvement of mankind. 1750.

Gulliver Revived; or, the Vice of Lying properly Exposed, containing singular travels, campaigns, adventures, &c. by Baron Munchausen, also, a Sequel to the Adventures dedicated to Bruce, the Abyssinian Traveller. 1789-92.

Lilliput, being a new journey to that celebrated island, with an account of the manners, customs, &c., of those famous little people, by Lemuel Gulliver, 1766.

A political skit. The names are thinly disguised by the transposition of letters.

Voyage to Locuta; a Fragment, with etchings and notes of illustrations. By Lemuel Gulliver Junr. London, J. Hatchard 1818. A curious little grammatical work written in the form of an allegory, and as a sequel to Gulliver’s travels. (Scarce).

Gulliver and Munchausen outdone, by Peter Vangergoose. London, 1807.

W. M. Thackeray.

The Coachman, the Cook, and their Prodigy the Page. By Wm. Breakpeace Thwackaway.

See The Shilling Book of Beauty. This parody was written by the late J. H. Friswell.

Mrs. Tippikens’ Yellow Velvet Cape. By W. M. Thwackaway. (With an illustration by the author).

See The Puppet Showman’s Album. This little brochure also contains prose imitations of Lytton, G. P. R. James, B. Disraeli, C. Dickens, Charles Lever, T. Carlyle, W. H. Ainsworth, Douglas Jerrold, W. S. Landor, Mrs. Trollope, J. W. Croker and Albert Smith, most of which have already been quoted.

Anthony Trollope.

The Beadle! or, the Latest Chronicle of Small-Beerjester, by Anthony Dollop. Punch, 1880.

The Age of Lawn-Tennis. After Anthony Trollope. See Tennis Cuts and Quips. London, Field and Tuer.

Edmund Yates.

Ba! Ba! Black Sheep. An imitation, with a portrait of Mr. Yates, appeared in The Mask. London. June, 1868.

——:o:——

Guy Dyingstone, or the Muscular Patrician. A burlesque Novel by Walter Parke. Funny Folks, 1875.

Guy Deadstone. Another burlesque of “Guy Livingstone,” by the same author, appeared in Judy, 1869.

The Desperado of the Wilderness: or, The Maid, the Murderer, and the Demon Huntsman of Ashantee. This was a thrilling narrative of the “Boys of England” type, it appeared in Gleanings from “The Blue” 1881.

Our Boys Novelist, being stories of Wild Sport for the Youths of all Nations, with illustrations of the correctly exaggerated type by Harry Furniss, appeared in Punch, 1882.

The Approach of Winter.

——pull up the wicket and the stake,

And put by the mallet and the ball;

For no more Croquet will be played this year,

It’s getting much too late in the fall.

PROGRAMMES AND PROCESSIONS.

YE ANNUALE WHYTEBAITE DINNER

HYR MAJESTYE’S MINISTERS,

On Wednesdaie, ye 14th August, 1878,

Atte ye Hostelrie yclept

Ye Shippe, atte Greenwiche.

This Bille of ye Fare is drawn in playne Englysh, without any cloake of Frenche or other foreygne tongue, for the sadde and sobere comforte of frendes, and that ye maye know what ye are asked to accept.

Ye Bille of ye Fare.

Ye Soupe.

Soupe made from ye Turtle, and alsoe

Soupe made from ye Greene Fatte of ye same.

Ye Fyshe.

Ye Flounders curyously cooked, and

Salmonne servyd inne lyke mannere.

Ryssoles of ye Lobstere.

Ye lyttel Soles, fryed.

Ye Pudynges of ye Whyting.

Ye Eles skynned and stewed inne ye riche wyne of Oporto.

Ye Omelette of Crabbe inne ye style as servyd to ye Guardes of ye Blue Seale.

Ye Troute from ye River Spey, grylled with ye sauce of Tartar.

Salmonne inne collopes, with ye sauce inne ye Cyprus fashonne.

Ye Whytebaite, be-frizzled, and alsoe be-devylled.

262

Fleshe and Fowle.

Sweetbreades with ye Mushroomes added thereunto.

Ye Haunche of ye Royale Bucke, with Haricotte Beans servyd therewith.

Ye Antient Hamme, from ye Citye of Yorke, grylled inne wyne of Champagne.

Ye Grouse from ye Northe Countree.

Hogge Bacone and younge Beanes.

Ye Sweetes, &c.

Apprycottes flavoured with Noyau.

Pudynges iced, after ye Nesselrode mannere.

Lyttel Cakes made with ye Cheese from Parma, inne Italie.

Ye Ices flavoured with Oranges and Strauberres.

Divers Fruytes which are your Desertes, and ye Wynes of Champagne and manie outlandysh countrees.

Ye Dinner will be servyd after ye mannere of ye Russian people.

Ye Guestes are bydden to eate after ye Hungarie mannere.

W. T. Bale, Mastere.

——:o:——

Miss Louisa Alcorn, a musical lady of New York, gave a dinner to a party of operatic friends. Here is the menu:—

Overture of Blue points.
Soup with vermicelli obligato.
Crabs al largo.
Andante of Veal.
Maccaroni scherzo.
Gavotte of Pork and Beans.
Pepper Sauce allegretto.
Roast Beef maestoso.
Tomato torcata, and bourrée of Yorkshire pudding.
Ducks with accompaniments in P.’s.
Game (in not too high a key).
A symphony in Sweets.

——:o:——

The following was the menu of the Capital Club dinner, held on January 31st 1885.

MENU.

“Man shall not live by bread alone.”—Matthew iv., 4.

[Entries close at 8 o’clock. Open to all members. Start from scratch.]

Oysters.

Bluepoints, double geared. Fluted forks.

Soup.

Volaille au Riz l’Allemande tra la la le.

Fish.

Red Snapper, elliptical backbone, Shrimp sauce.
Hollandaise Potatoes, tandem.

Releve.

Saddle of Southdown mutton, long distance.
Capon braise, a la Toulouse, not too loose.

Entrees.

Filet de Bœuf, piqué, with laced spokes.
Cotelettes de Mouton, with power traps.
Spring Chicken, fried, with noiseless ratchets.
Quail on toast, with rat-trap pedals.
Punch, a la Cardinal, Pope M’f’g Company.

Game.

Canvas Back Duck, buckled, with Croton Waste.
Venison, with Currant Jelly, shrunk on.
Pool, with set ups. Billiards, with ball-bearings.

Salads.

Lobsters narrow-tread. Chicken, with gunmetal hubs.

Vegetables.

Green Peas, droped forged. Sweet Corn, half-nickled.
Baked Mashed Potatoes, on the dead centre.
Stewed Tomatoes, anti-friction.

Dessert.

Tapioca Pudding, non-corrodent sauce.
Assorted Cakes, enamelled and striped.
Strawberry Ice Cream, on one wheel.
Macaroons, Invincible double section hollow rims.
Fruits, sociable. Champagne Jelly, hands-off.
Roquefort Cheese, hill climbing.

Liquors.

French Coffee. Aqua Pura, Glace à la Artesian.

Music by Schrœder.

——:o:——

Prescription for feelin’ bad.

iii gr. Aquy pury.
About ¼ pint Whiskii Hyberniæ.
⅛ inch Lemoni	}	ad discretionem.
iii dr. Lumpi sugari

Mixiter cum crusher.

Directions for application.

Foment the interior of the mouth with ⅛ of the mixture. Shortly after use ⅛ as a gargle, the same to be washed down with the remainder forthwithly.

The Hornet, 1871.

——:o:——

UN-OFFICIAL PROGRAMME

OF THE

LORD MAYOR’S SHOW for 1884.

By Deputy Chaff-Wax.

(This is much too long to be given in full)

The Services of the City Trumpeters will be dispensed with, the Lord Mayor having signified his intention of blowing his own, for which service he is eminently qualified.

Alderman Savory

Will enliven the March by singing scraps of Dr. Watts’ hymns.

Alderman H. T. Waterlow

(the Alphabet Alderman) is to be escorted by the twenty-six electors who made him an Alderman and Magistrate for life!!!

Sir John Bennett and Alderman Hadley

will march arm-in-arm in sack-cloth and ashes doing penance for their presumption.

The Banners of the City Knights will be emblazoned with the new device:—

“REAL TURTLE AND MOCK TITLES”

The Banner of Alderman Teetotum Whitehead bearing the Inscription

“VIDEO MELIORA PROBOQUE DETERIORA SEQUOR.”

263

Captain Shaw of the Fire Brigade

will attend with his own hose, and if necessary, to restrain the enthusiastic reception of the Lord Mayor, will play upon the people.

BUMBLEDOM

Is to be represented by all the Companies and Parish Beadles and Jacks in office in London, with cocked hats, gold lace, mace, cinnamon, &c.

Banner of Lord Mayor Fowler,
with the device
The motto for Liberals permit me to mention,
“Bradlaugh and Blasphemy” is my invention.

Major Sewell and Sir T. Nelson
Will exhibit the Secret Service Cash Book.
The Splendid Banner of the League, with the device—
“WHY SHOULD LONDON WAIT,”
Borne by Messrs. Firth, Beal, Lloyd, and Phillips.

A Cartoon of Lazarus and Dives representing
On one side—Civic Satraps dining—
On the other, “Out-cast London”—pining.

ONE POLICEMAN ARM-IN-ARM.
The City Marshall on Horseback Singing,
“Let me Like a Soldier Fall.”

A DISSOLVING VIEW
of the odious Coal and Wine Dues,
(The Metropolitan Board doing a Break-down.)

Deputy Bedford,
the City Wag, will join the procession at Temple Bar,
where he will await it on his £12,000 Griffin.

THE WONDERFUL BILL OF THE CIVIC BANQUET WHICH COST £27,000!!!
Will be carried by the Common Councilmen who ate it, to amuse the people who paid for it.

The Sheriffs
will be preceded by the band of the Rueful Brigade, playing
selections from Madame Hang-o’.

The Trophies of our Colonies will be followed by the
TROPHIES of our LONDON SLUMS, followed by NEMESIS!!

The Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Vernon Harcourt, M.P.,
Will ask the populace at every stoppage
“If they will submit to the dictation of the Leeds Caucus and suffer the Constitution to be tinkered at, while the heart of the Empire is suffering from congestion.”

The Banner of the Union
Will be followed by the 90,000 London Paupers.

THE LATE LORD MAYOR
Will be serenaded by the Vauxhall Water Co.’s Share-holders—“Good Night—Good Knight,” &c.

Lord Mayor Fowler

Will be preceded by a Herald who will announce the fact that his Lordship represents some 200 nobodies and will shine for 12 months in the reflected light of FOUR MILLIONS, but in consideration of his gentleness, dignity, and urbanity, and in the hope that he will be

THE LAST OF THE SHAMS
He must be tolerated accordingly.

This tomfoolery now will be brought to a close in a very appropriate way, sir,
By Alderman Finis and Corpulent Innes, and Alderman Polly Decay Sir.

N.B.—The Chairman of the S. E. Rly. will be an hour behind time.—As usual.

——:o:——

THE LORD MAYORS SHOW, 1884.

Mounted Police clearing five-barred gates. City Police clearing their throats.

The Mayors of Brighton, Ramsgate, and Margate in Bathing
Machines drawn by their own Horses.
A lot of people whom nobody knows in hired flys.

THE COMPANY OF POLITICIANS.
The Premier, Axing his way.
Sir William Harcourt, with Municipal Bill, arm-in-arm.
One hundred Members of the House of Peers, in morning dress.
The old Chain Pier from Brighton in full armour.
The Faithful Wimbledon, Wandsworth and Putney Commons.

THE COMPANY OF PAINTERS.
Twenty Royal Academicians, in beautiful modern costumes, in a chariot Drawn by Themselves!!

THE COMPANY OF WRITERS.
Lord Tennyson, in his Inverness cape and coronet. Professor Ruskin, anyhow.
A round dozen of the Incorporated Society of Authors, assorted.

THE COMPANY OF PLAYERS.
Mr. Toole drawing a House.
Walking Gentlemen coming slowly as “Strollers”
The Jersey Lily and Lyceum Mary, as Sandwich Girls, carrying Somebody’s Soft Soap.

THE COMPANY OF WARRIORS.
Our Only General, in his only uniform.
Our Only Admiral, a little out of date.
Ironclads on horseback. Each mounted on an old screw.

THE COMPANY OF ROYALTIES.
Royalties on Songs, Royalties on Books, Royalties on everything.
Mr. George Grossmith as “The Susceptible Chancellor,”
followed by all The Judges of Wine, of
Pictures, of Plays, and The Judge of the Race
in his own private box.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAYOR,
as “A Positive,” bearing banner with motto
“Photo de Mieux,”
In his State Robes,
Supported by the Stereoscopic Company.

The Procession will be closed by
A Negative of the Late Lord Mayor
Accompanied by a Band playing “Love for a Year!”

Punch.

——:o:——

HOW THEY’LL OPEN THE INVENTORIES.

Massed Steel Band,
Composed of Eminent Surgeons, playing on their Surgical Instruments.
Tune—“The Savile Row Lancers.”
Specimens of Agricultural Implements, marshalled by a Steam Drill Master.
Steam Ploughs and their Chères, arm in arm.
Thrashing Machines following in the beaten track.
A detachment of Devonshire Hinds (hinder part before).
Delegates from the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, bearing their own Triumphal “Arch.” Band, playing “The Cameras are coming.”
Photographic Apparatus, focussing and swearing.
264 Miss Mary Anderson, drawn in a brightly-coloured “carte”
Two Negatives making a Positive.
Two Positivists taking a Negative.
A Photographic Sportsman taking a Fence.
Band, playing “The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls,” and the Tune the old cow died of.
Cue-rious Instruments, headed by two “Jiggers.”
“P-an’-O” Boats, with sales set on the Three Years’ Hire System.
The first pair of “Lyres” ever discovered.
A Predatory Brass Band, playing “Band-ditties.”
Sample of the “Horns” originally exalted in the East.
“Cavendish,” playing “The Last Trump.”
Deputation from the “Portland,” playing little Clubs.
Mr. Charles Warner, singing his “Last Chaunts.”
Gold Band, playing “All round my hat.”
Novel Inventions three abreast.
Miss Braddon and “Ouida” inventing plots.
Padding.
Dramatists inventing Situations.
More Padding.
Hydraulic Presses collecting Water Rates.
Captive Balloonatics (with their Keepers).
Armour-plated “Monitors.” Lent by the King’s College School authorities.
Fountains, playing Handel’s “Water Music.”
A Thames Angler, playing a Fish.
Band of Swindlers, playing False Cards.
Diplomatic Inventions à la Russe.
The latest thing in Despatches Invented by General Komaroff.
Band of Diplomatists, playing the Fool.

Funny Folks, May, 1885.

——:o:——

THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW, 1885.

The following programme originally appeared in The Sporting Times, November 7, 1885. It has been found necessary to abbreviate it, partly because it was too long, and partly because it was too broad.

Next Monday this time-honoured procession will once more perambulate the streets, squares, ponds, reservoirs, and bars of the metropolis. Every one being sick of the Guildhall, it will this year start from Bow Street, passing by the stage-door of the Gaiety Theatre, proceeding through the Gaiety grill room, into Prosser’s Avenue. The procession will then proceed vià Drury Lane Theatre to the Royal, returning by Rules’ in Maiden Lane, down to Romano’s. Thence, if not interfered with by the police, and still sufficiently sober to proceed, it will march to the Criterion, en route for Hatchett’s. After that its course is a trifle uncertain. The order of the procession will be as follows:—

POLICE UNARMED WITH REVOLVERS.
Burglars Beating Police.
Police Armed with Revolvers.
Ambulance Waggons
Containing
Respectable Citizens shot down as Burglars.

BANNER OF THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF LUMBERERS.
Banner of the Banner of the
Punching Machine. Lord Chief Justice.
The Lumberer’s Band.

Triumphal Car depicting Early English Industries. On this vehicle, kindly lent by the Worshipful Company of Card Makers, will be depicted, as the procession rolls by, the whole Art and Science of faking the broads, cutting longs and shorts, of dealing the long hand, and abundances at Solo.

Welshers who have passed into Tattersall’s.
Welshers who have been chucked while endeavouring to pass into Tattersall’s.

BANNER OF THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF BAT MAKERS.
Banner of J. L. Shine. Banner of John Coleman.

BANNER OF LADY ARCHIE CAMPBELL.
The Bat Band.
Air: “Batti! Batti!”

BANNER OF THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF CHILDREN PROTECTORS.
Banner of Darby. Banner of Stead.
Banner of Booth. Banner of Blobbs.

BANNER OF THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF TAPEMAKERS.
Banner of the Albert Club.
The Governor of Holloway.
The Governor of Pentonville.
Late Friends of the Governor’s
on
Tickets of Leave.
Present Friends of the Governor’s on Treadmills.
Aldermen who have passed the chair.
Aldermen who have passed the bottle.
Aldermen who have passed nothing.
Banner of Beecham. Banner of Cockle.
Banner bearing motto, “N. S.”
Banner bearing motto, “Refer to Drawer.”
Banner bearing motto, “No Account.”
Banner of Sewage Banner of Billingsgate
Commissioners. Fish Ring.
Banner of Mudsalad Market.
Band of Her Majesty’s Scavengers.

THE LADY MAYORESS SHIFTER
In a Brompton ’Bus,
Attended by Her Landlady.
Banner of the Gaiety Theatre Canteen.

THE LORD MAYOR.
People with People with
Aquiline Noses. Snub Noses.

TRIUMPHAL CAR, representing the Search For Chips
or
“Where is the Oofbird?”

——:o:——

THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW, 1886.

(the Year of the Socialist Scare.)

It is stated that the Lord Mayor’s Show this year will be of an entirely novel character, and will be made up somewhat like this:—

THE CITY MARSHAL,
On horseback, glued to the saddle for the sake of safety.

Detachment of the Light Cavalry of the Very Ancient and Still More Honourable Artillery Company,
Dismounted for fear of accidents.

265

The Chief Commissioner of the City Police,
Escorted by a detachment of the Social Democratic Federation.

BANNER OF THE UNEMPLOYED.
Band of the United Order of German Musicians.
Banner of the Worshipful Company of City Gorgers.

BANNER OF CHARLES HARRIS, Esq.
Charles Harris, Esq.,
Seated on a triumphal car.

Banner of the Worshipful Company of Scene Shifters.

Band of the Royal Horse Marines. (Green).
Aldermen who have Passed the Bottle.
Aldermen who have not Passed the Bottle,
But have preferred to keep it near them.

Banner of the Worshipful company of Loan Mongers.

BANNER OF COMMISSIONER KERR.

Band of the Royal Dismounted Infantry.
The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor’s Carriage,
Containing the Sword and Mace Bearers, the Lord Mayor being absent on other business.

Escort of the Royal Horse Marines. (Green).
RAG.
TAG.
BOBTAIL.

It has been considered advisable to omit the scriptural quotations from the following reprint:—

COPY OF A BILL WRITTEN BY THE LATE
REV. ROWLAND HILL,
which was stuck up at
RICHMOND,
On Saturday, 4th of June, 1774, close to the Play Bill for that day.
The design was to divert the minds of the gay and dissipated, from the vain amusements of the
THEATRE
And to fix their attention on the awful circumstances which shall usher in, and succeed,
“The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.”

BY COMMAND OF THE KING OF KINGS,
and at the desire of all who love his appearing.
At the
THEATRE OF THE UNIVERSE
on the Eve of time, will be performed
THE GREAT ASSIZE
or
DAY OF JUDGMENT,

THE SCENERY

Which is now actually preparing, will not only surpass everything that has yet been seen, but will infinitely exceed the utmost stretch of human conception. There will be a just REPRESENTATION of ALL THE INHABITANTS of the WORLD, in their various and proper colours; and their costumes and manners will be so exact, and so minutely delineated, that the most secret thought will be discovered.

This THEATRE will be laid out after a new plan, and will consist of

PIT & GALLERY

only; and contrary to all others, the GALLERY is fitted up for the reception of Persons of High (or Heavenly) Birth, and the PIT for those of Low (or Earthly) Rank. N.B.—The GALLERY is very spacious, and the PIT without bottom.

To prevent inconvenience, there are separate doors for admitting the company; and they are so different that none can mistake that are not wilfully blind. The Door which opens into the GALLERY is very narrow, and the steps up to it somewhat difficult: for which reason there are seldom many people about it. But the Door that gives entrance into the PIT is very commodious: which causes such numbers to flock to it that it is generally crowded. N.B.—The straight Door leads towards the right hand, and the broad one to the left. It will be in vain for one in a tinselled coat and borrowed language to personate one of HIGH BIRTH in order to get admittance into the upper places, for there is One of wonderful and deep penetration who will search and examine every individual and all who cannot pronounce SHIBBOLETH in the language of Canaan, or has not received a white stone and a new name, or cannot prove a clear title to a certain portion of the LAND of PROMISE, must be turned in at the left door.

Act First.
of this grand and solemn piece will be opened by
AN ARCHANGEL WITH THE TRUMP OF GOD!!!

act Second.
PROCESSION OF SAINTS
In white, with Golden Harps, accompanied with Shouts of
Joy and Songs of Praise.

Act Third.

An ASSEMBLAGE of all THE UNREGENERATE, the music will chiefly consist of Cries, accompanied with WEEPING, WAILING, MOURNING, LAMENTATION, and WOE.

To conclude with an oration by
THE SON OF GOD.

After which the Curtain will drop.

Tickets for the PIT, at the easy purchase of following the pomps and vanities of the Fashionable World, and the desires and amusements of the Flesh, to be had at every Flesh-pleasing Assembly.

Tickets for the GALLERY, at no less rate than being converted, forsaking all, denying self, taking up the Cross, and following Christ in the Regeneration. To be had no where but in the word of God, and where that word appoints.

N.B.—No money will be taken at the door, nor will any Tickets give admittance into the Gallery but those sealed by the Lamb.

266

COMPANY PROSPECTUSES.

Of late years the British public has been surfeited with the Prospectuses of new Limited Liability Companies; needy Lords and retired officers have been in great request for the Boards of Directors, they being precisely the two classes of men least likely to have any knowledge of business, or experience in commercial affairs.

Some of these Prospectuses have been so ridiculous in themselves that they read like burlesques, but numbers of amusing parodies of Company Prospectuses have also been published.

One of the best and earliest of these appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine, October 1845 during the great Railway Mania. It was written by Professor Aytoun, and was styled “How we got up the Glenmutchin Railway, and how we got out of it.”

This detailed the inception of a bogus Scotch Railway, and the prospectus of the Direct Glenmutchin Railway, with a list of the Directors, is one of the finest pieces of humorous writing in the language.

Another amusing parody was brought out some years ago, namely “The Gott-up Hotel Company, Limited,” with Sir Titus A. Drum, Baronet, as Chairman of the Directors.

When the Crown Prince of Portugal visited London in 1883, he went to Claridge’s Hotel, as he had not been invited to any of the Royal Palaces, this caused Mr. Punch to issue the following:—

PROMISING PROSPECTUS.

The Royal and Imperial Homeless and Wandering Visitors Hotel Company (Limited).

The Directors of this unique and magnificently conceived enterprise, undertaken with a view to supplying that now long experienced National want, a suitable palatial residence for Princes and Potentates found wandering in search of a fitting domicile about the back streets of the Metropolis, have much pleasure in informing their intended august Patrons, that their perfectly-appointed establishment will shortly open under the direction of a well-known and experienced retired Central-European Monarch, whose distinguished services they have had the honour to secure.

The following (extracted from the Company’s Abridged Prospectus) comprise a few of the leading features of the new establishment:—

The building will stand on a convenient and imposing site judiciously selected in the immediate vicinity of the Metropolitan District Railway Station, St. James’s Park, and within easy access of the Aquarium, Westminster Bridge, the House of Detention, and the Foreign Office.

There will be no lettered name or title on the façade of the new Hotel, which will, with the object of giving rise to a pleasing illusion, be specially designed by the architect to resemble as far as possible that of a not far distant and generally unoccupied Royal Palace.

A trained and certificated Diplomatist, who can speak several European languages fluently, will be permanently attached to the staff of the establishment, and will give his services gratis.

A couple of effective Sentry Boxes will also be placed at the principal entrance, and occupied permanently by two of the Company’s Private Soldiers, who, dressed in the correct uniform of Her Majesty’s Foot Guards, will be efficiently drilled for their duty.

Gold Sticks in Waiting will attend in the Hall for the purpose of receiving Royal and Imperial Visitors. They will also, if desired to do so, precede them to their respective apartments, walking backwards up-stairs for a small extra charge.

The general scheme of the establishment will include several public Throne and Reading Rooms, A Privy Council Chamber, Gala Banquet Hall, and a series of excellent Billiard and Abdication Tables by the best makers.

In order to meet the requirements of august personages who desire to be surrounded at a reasonable cost with such State accessories as are proper to their dignity and position, the subjoined Tariff of Prices has been carefully arranged by the Management, in the hope that it will be found not incompatible with a charge on the most moderate civil list:—

Tariff.
Private Royal or Imperial Sitting-Room (per day)	5s. to 7s 6d.
(Ditto, ditto, with throne, 2s. 6d. extra.)
Ditto Bed-Room (exclusive of light)	3s. to 6s.
State Imperial ditto, with half-tester velvet canopy	8s.
Double-bedded ditto (suitable for two Emperors)	14s.
Breakfast, consisting of Tea or Coffee, with cold Meat, broiled Ham, or Eggs	2s. 6d.
Ditto, ditto, with full Military Band outside	3s.
Chop or Steak, with potatoes	1s. 6d.
Ditto, ditto, with Salvos of Artillery at intervals	1s. 9d.
State Dinner of Soup, or Fish, Entrées, Joint, with Cheese and Celery	3s. 6d.
Ditto, ditto, including Toast-Master and Musical Grace	5s.
Ditto, ditto, in Uniform, at High Table (if singly)	1s. extra.
Gas Illumination on Exterior of Sitting-Room, according to device (per evening)	From 2s. to 10s. 6d.
Cup of Tea	4d.
Ditto, on Throne	6d.
Two Lancers to attend Cab or Carriage to Theatre or Reception (for first hour)	1s.
For each succeeding hour	6d.

Daily crowd (with cheers), on entering or leaving hotel, by contract.

Strictest attention paid to the slightest International prejudices.

An ultimatum always ready on the premises.

Punch, December 22, 1883.

——:o:——

A few extracts from the

Prospectus of the Horse Shoe Hotel,

Tottenham Court Road, London.

This hotel was built and arranged for the special comfort and convenience of the travelling public.

On arrival, each guest will be asked how he likes the situation, and if he says the hotel ought to have been placed nearer the park or railway station, the location of the house will be immediately changed. Front rooms, on first floor, for each guest.

Bath, gas, hot and cold water, laundry, telegraph, fire 267 escape, restaurant, bar-room, billiard tables, daily papers, sewing machine, grand piano, a clergyman, and all other modern conveniences in every room.

Meals every minute if desired. Waiters of any desired nationality.

Every waiter furnished with a libretto, button-hole bouquets, full dress suits, theatre tickets, the latest tips, and his hair parted down the middle. Every guest will have the best seat in the dining hall, and the best waiter in the house.

Any guest not getting his breakfast red hot, or experiencing a delay of fifteen seconds after giving his order for dinner, will please mention the fact at the Manager’s Office, and the cooks and waiters will at once be blown by Her Majesty’s Horse Guards from the mouth of the cannon.

Children will be welcomed with delight, and are requested to bring hoop-sticks and jack-knives, to bang and hack the carved rosewood furniture, specially provided for the purpose; they will be allowed to thump the piano at all hours, fall down stairs, scream and yell to their heart’s content, carry away dessert enough for a small family in their pockets at dinner, and make themselves otherwise as agreeable and entertaining as the fondest mother can desire. Washing underlinen allowed in all the drawing-rooms.

A discreet waiter, who belongs to the Masons, Odd Fellows, and Women’s Suffrage, and who was never known to tell the truth, has been employed to carry milk punches and hot toddies to the ladies’ rooms in the evening.

The office clerk has been carefully selected to please everybody, and can play unlimited loo, match worsteds at the shop round the corner, toss for drinks at any hour, day or night, play billiards, a good waltzer, amuse the children, is a good judge of horses, as a railroad reference is far superior to the A B C, Bradshaw’s, or anybody else’s guide, will flirt with any young lady, and not mind being cut dead when “Pa comes down,” don’t mind being damned any more than the Regent’s Canal, can put forty people into the best room in the house when the hotel is full, and answer questions in Greek, Hebrew, Choctaw, Irish, or any other polite language, at the same moment, without turning a hair.

Dogs allowed in any room in the house, including the w(h)ine room. Gentlemen can drink, smoke, swear, chew, gamble, tell shady stories, stare at the new arrivals, or indulge in any other innocent amusements in any part of the hotel.

The landlord will always be happy to hear that some other hotel is “the best in the country,” and that his is the very worst.

——:o:——

Dear Jack.

Enclosed Draft Prospectus was got up by one of our “sinners,”[56] and as just now the public will buy any mortal thing, I seriously believe there is coin in the idea. Send the manuscript to the printer, just as it stands, and tell him to set it up and send a few pulls, marked “Private—First Proof,” which I will pass round and get licked into shape.

Yours, old fellow,

Peter Preemium.

P.S.—Keep it quiet.

The Quill Toothpick Attachment Company, Limited.

Messrs Layit Onthick & Co., offer for subscription the undermentioned Capital:

(The subscription list will open on Saturday next at Four o’clock in the afternoon, and will close at five minutes past Nine on Monday morning.)

Ordinary Shares, £10 each	£5,000,000
Preference 6 per cent. Shares, £10 each	£4,500,000
Total Share Capital	£9,500,000
Debenture Stock bearing interest at 5 per cent. (redeemable at the Company’s option up to the expiration of twenty years from the first of April next (1887) at 110 per cent.)	£3,000,000
£12,500,000

“One-half of the ordinary Shares is reserved for the Vendor, who will hold as long as it suits his convenience, and the remainder, together with the Preference Shares and Debenture Stock, are now offered severally for public subscription at par.

The Quill Toothpick Attachment Company, Limited,

has been formed to supply the whole world with Quill Toothpicks, the interiors of which will be charged with hydraulically compressed drinks, such as the stout of Guinness, the ale of Bass, the champagne of , the whiskey of , the port of , and the sherry of .

Might charge these as advertisements, say £25 each, and cheap enough at the money.

By means of a new forcing machine, which the vendor is now trying to invent, he thinks that a quart of Guinness or a bottle of Champagne can be readily compressed into the interior of a Toothpick, and when in the mouth the contents will be gently and gradually released by the touch of a spring. The Tea of , and the Coffee of will be stored in a similar manner. The Company will grant Royalties to Temperance Societies.

Try Cooper Cooper & Co., and that tinned French Coffee chap—I forget his name—for advertisement. If you can, get some soft soap into the prospectus, Pears’ should be safe for at least £100.

The advantages of the Quill Toothpick Attachment must be apparent to the meanest capacity. For instance, a man is invited out to dine, and finds himself in danger of being poisoned. He pulls out a Toothpick charged with the desired drink, and the morning headache is avoided. Ten thousand Toothpicks charge with - - - - -

Charge £50 for this advertisement.

wonderful brand of champagne will be distributed gratis to the female leaders of society, and it is anticipated that the use of toothpicks will soon become common to both sexes at every meal. As a further development it is anticipated that hosts will soon cease altogether to provide bottled drinks for their guests, and in place thereof will lay in quantities of Toothpicks charged by the Company. The contents of the Toothpicks will in all cases be absolutely guaranteed to be what they are, and this the Directors distinctly guarantee it is impossible to dispute.

The prospects of the Company are exceedingly brilliant. 268 Professor Figuritout has been specially feed for the compilation of the following startling statistics:

“The population of the world,” says the learned Professor, “is in round figures ,000,000,000,” and the Professor stakes his reputation that 00·000 per cent. uses a Toothpick.

Fill in at discretion.

The Company hope to make very large profits out of the Toothpicks themselves, and will at once proceed to open negotiations for the purchase of farms and ranches in the great Sahara of Africa and the vast plains of America for the cultivation of the Anser Vulgaris, or common goose.

The Anser Vulgaris flourishes everywhere, and by gentle persuasion readily and painlessly parts with its feathers, in fact it generally takes some time to discover that anything is wrong. The gander parts less readily, and as a rule the feathers are small and so few in number as to be hardly worth plucking.

There is another well-known and exceedingly strong feathered breed of goose (Anser Stockexchangeiensis) frequenting the numerous runs adjacent Capel Court. This breed parts with no persuasion, in fact at times it courts being plucked, but it has a nasty habit of shortly wanting back again all its own feathers and as many of other people’s as it can possibly grab hold of. Sometimes, but not often, it loses nearly every feather it has got, and then it gently hisses, and horribly blasphemes.”

These Extracts are taken from a Prospectus issued by John Heywood, Manchester, in 1887.

——:o:——

Numerous burlesque acts of Parliament have been published, the late Albert Smith wrote several which were printed in imitation of parliamentary papers. One was entitled “An Act to amend the laws relating to the giving of Dinner and Evening Parties. Act 1. Cap 1. 1848.”

(Ireland.)

A BILL

intituled,

An Act for the better defence and support of Life of Landlord and Tenant, and to facilitate the Maintenance and Comfort of Persons subject to certain starvation in Ireland.

Preamble.

Whereas there has been always found to be a certain connexion between Misery and Outrage in Ireland; AND WHEREAS, there is no reason to believe that the Irish people have a greater fancy for shooting each other than other people; AND WHEREAS, hitherto every kind of Coercion has been tried without effect, and the only means of preventing outrage that has not been tried is to give the people work and food.

I. Be it enacted that from and after the passing of this Act, it shall and may be compulsory upon every English Cabinet Minister, before he legislates for Ireland, to pay a visit to the same, and learn something of the real state of the people and the country thereof.

II. And be it enacted, that it shall and may be lawful to teach Irish Landlords that Property has its duties as well as its Rights, and that the latter may best be secured by a due and proper discharge of the former.

III. And be it enacted, that from and after the passing of this Act, Milk of Human Kindness be allowed to be imported into Ireland, and used freely in all parts of the same, instead of the Odium Theologicum or Odium Politicum now in use, in lieu thereof.

* * * * *

VIII. And be it enacted, that a compensation not exceeding £ per annum, be paid to Mr. O’Connell and all hired agitators, for the loss they shall sustain by the passing of this Bill.

IX. And be it enacted, that in the construction of this Act, masculine words shall mean feminine, and singular plural; and that all other rules of grammar shall be violated, as in other Acts is usually provided.

From The Almanack of the Month. July, 1846.

In 1862, Carter of Regent Street, London, published “Official Regulations on Female Dress during the International Exhibition of 1862.” This amusing skit was also got up in correct official style.

——:o:——

OFFICE RULES.

1. Gentlemen upon entering will Leave the door wide open, or apologise.

2. Those having No Business should remain as Long as Possible, take a chair, and Lean against the Wall; it will preserve the wall, and may prevent its fall upon us.

3. Gentlemen are requested to Smoke especially during Office Hours; Tobacco and Cigars will be supplied.

4. Talk Loud or Whistle, especially when we are engaged; if this has not the desired effect, Sing.

5. If we are in Business Conversation with anyone you are requested not to wait until we are done, but Join in, as we are particularly fond of speaking to half-a-dozen or more at a time.

6. Profane Language is expected at all times, especially if Ladies are present.

7. Put your feet on the tables, or lean against the Desk; it will be of great assistance to those who are writing.

8. Persons having no Business with this Office will call often or excuse themselves.

9. Should you need the loan of any Money do not fail to Ask for it, as we do not require it for Business Purposes, but merely for the sake of lending.

Our hours for listening to Solicitors for Benevolent Purposes are from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Book Agents from 1 to 3 p.m., Beggars, Pedlers, and Insurance Agents all day. We attend to our Business at Night.

The Lord helpeth those that help themselves, but the Lord help any man caught helping himself here.

269

THE MENAGERIE.

(A Burlesque Lecture.)

“Hi! hi! hi! walk up, walk up, walk up! The only show in the fair, the largest and the best! The penny seats are all a penny, the ha’penny seats are four for tuppence! Ladies and gentlemen, we ’ave the most astounding collection of ’uman and animal fernomenons ever exhibited to the public of this or any other town! The pictures on the outside of the carawan ain’t nothink to the marvels to be seen alive within! Give the drum a one-er!

“Before a-inviting of you to enter, and taste the joys of Elysium to be ’ad at the small charge of one penny, I will exhibit to your astonished and admiring gaze a few pictorual illusterations of the wonders to be shortly disclosed to you. Give the drum a one-er!

“The first speciment I shall introduct to your notice is the Spotted Babe of Peru. The infant is so called from being born in the Ratcliffe ’Ighway! It was born at a very early age bein’ quite a child at the time. It had two parients, one male and one female. I should be deludin’ of you, ladies and gents, if I concealed from you the fack that its male parient was its father. The infant is covered all over with spots or specks. There ain’t nothink ketchin’ in the spots or specks. They wos caused by its grandfather ’avin swaller’d a box o’ dominoes in a fit of duleruam tremins. When tormented by the pangs of ’unger, the infant do not gnash ’is toothless gums and ’owl for grub like the ornary babe of commerce, but ’e climbs to the rooft of the carawan, where ’e barks like a dorg! ’Ence the term, ‘Peruvian Bark’! Give the drum a one-er!

“The next speciment I shall introduct to your notice is the O-rang-O-tang! The o-rang-o-tang ain’t a Irish beast, as ’is name might imply. ’E is a celebrated bird of the hinside of Central Africa. ’E do not live on cotton-wool and carster-hile, as is poplerly supposed! Oh, no, that there is a aspershin on the manner of the inseck! ’E climbs aloft to the giddy summat of the Halpine palm-tree, where ’e ’angs upsy-down by the roof of ’is mouth; ketches the prairie-hyster with ’is hyebrows; cracks it with ’is fore’ead; devours the lushus froot; and distriboots the shells among ’is noomerous orfspring! Give the drum a one-er!

The next objek of interest is the Bovis Kimmunis, or Commin Cow. The cow is the most dimmestercated of all wile animals. ’E is a oblong beast, in the form of a pork-mantew or fiddle-case on tressels! ’E ’ave a leg on each corner of ’im. ’Is ’ead is at one end of ’is body, and ’is tail is at the other end. The tail-end is oppersite the ’ead-end, onless the animil turns round, then the tail-end is on the ’ead-end! And this confuses the milkmaids! The cow is a useful beast. In our declinin’ days, when we expected every moment to be our nex, we ’ave been soothed and solaced by an excellent and newtrishis jelly prepared from ’is horns, ’is oofts, and ’is tail; or to quote the words of the advertisement, ‘it imparts a pearly lustre to the breath, a kinky curliness to the complexion, a floral flaviour to the eye; is a excellent substertute for a stummick-pump, carefully perpared from the reseat of a nobleum in the country, to imertate which is forgery.’

“I cannot quit the Bovis Kimmunis, or Commin Cow, without recalling to your recommemberlection the words of the well-known poet Cowper, which he says:

“‘Twinkle, twinkle, pretty cow,

I thought I ’eard you say mee-yow!

Up above the booth so fly,

Crackin’ winkles on the sly!’

“Give the drum a one-er!

“The last speciment I shall ’ave the pleasure of introducting to your notice is the Cocclicus Indicus, or Prickly Pollywog of the Ipecacuanha Mountains, wot lives entirely on bottled bootjacks, currant jelly, turnip-tops, sarsaparilla, tenpenny nails, toasting-forks, corn-plaister, pot-lids, cabbage water, lemon-squeezers, black-beetle poison, cinder-sifters, soapsuds, silver sand, and postage stamps; until, one day, in a fit of tempory aboration of hinterlek, it swaller’d a sausage machine, two reams of emery paper, a box of matches, and fourteen seidlitz powders, and expired of spontaneous combustion and acute inflermation of the waistcoat pocket linings of the coats of ’is stummick. ’E then expired, and is to be seen alive within. Give the drum a one-er!”

Charles Collette.

On Farming.

(Lecture Written by Mark Twain when a Boy.)

Farming is healthy work; but no man can run a farm and wear his best clothes at the same time. Either the farming must cease while the new clothes continues, or the new clothes must cease while farming continues. This shows that farming is not so clean work as being a Congressman or schoolmaster, for these men can wear good clothes if they can find money to pay for them. Farmers get up early in the morning. They say the early bird catches the worm. If I was a bird, I had rather get up late and eat cherries in place of worms. Farmers don’t paint their waggons when they can help it, for they show mud too quick. The colour of their boots is red, and don’t look like other people’s boots, because they are twice as big. Farmers’ wives have a hard time cooking for hired men, and the hired men find fault with the farmers’ wives’ cooking. Why don’t farmers’ wives let the hired men do the cooking while they do the finding fault? Farmers don’t get as rich as bank presidents, but they get more exercise. Some ask—“Why don’t farmers run for Congress?” They run so much keeping boys out of their peach orchards and melon patches they don’t have any time to run after anything else. If Congress should run after farmers, one might be caught now and then. Lawyers can beat farmers at running for most anything. I know a farmer who tried to run a line fence according to his notion. The other man objected and hurt the farmer. The farmer hired a lawyer to run his line fence, and now the lawyer runs the farmer’s farm, and the farmer has stopped running anything.

——:o:——

Regulations in the United States Navy.

A Buffalo paper prints the following extracts from a manuscript treatise on naval discipline, prepared by the Secretary of the American Navy:—“The custom of sailing before the wind should be avoided, whenever it is possible, as experience has demonstrated that it is much better to wait for the breeze and carry it along, if not too heavy. Commanders of sailing ships-of-war, I have observed, are addicted to the practice of ‘staggering under all they can carry.’ This matter will receive early attention, as the necessity for reform in this direction would seem imperative. When dirty weather is threatened, or when there is reason to suspect breakers ahead, the captain should heave to, or three, but never more than four. In taking on board ammunition, and powder, and shot, and shells and caps, &c., the fore, main, and mizen trucks should be utilised, in connection with the animals belonging to the horse marines. It is deemed best to abolish dog-watches. The practice is believed to encourage idleness among the sailors, and necessitates the keeping on board a number of useless beasts whose presence must 270 be anything but desirable. In the interests of economy, the allowance for captains’ gigs should be withdrawn. It is plain that they are of no real utility on ship-board, and that they are at all times in the way. When on shore the captains can avail themselves of the street railway, or of the facilities afforded by the livery stables. All anchors should be accurately weighed before being taken on board, and the weight plainly marked on each, thereby saving time and trouble when a ship is about to take her departure. All ‘splicing’ should be done by the chaplain, as he is the person upon whom the performance of the ceremony most properly devolves. When sailing in tropical seas, the breeches of the guns should be removed and carefully stowed away, to be replaced when again entering colder latitudes and longitudes. The practice of carrying logs, merely for the purpose of ‘heaving’ them is of questionable propriety, and will form a subject for future enquiry.”

Admiralty Reforms.

The following appointments have recently been created at the Admiralty, to which salaries of £1000 a-year each are attached;

The Chief Obstructor.
The Complicator-General of Naval Accounts.
The Scrutineer of Dockyard Expenditure.
The Investigator of Expenses of Ships Building.
The Calculator of Profits by Ships broken up, or lost.
The Professional Criticizer of the Obstructor’s Vessels.
The Examiner and Inspector of Contractors and Inventors.
The Constructor-in-Chief of Revolving Turrets.
The Insinuator and Receiver of Contracts.
The Riveter and Contractor-General of Iron Plate.
The Admirer and Appraiser of Dockyard Work.
The Inventor and Circulator of Expensive Theories.
The Detector-General of Fraudulent Contracts.
The Director of Ingenious and Inexpensive Works.
The Imposter-General of Stores and Store accounts.
The Subverter of Official Forms and Precedents.

——:o:——

The Last Arrival.

There came to port last Sunday night

The queerest little craft,

Without an inch of rigging on;

I looked, and looked, and laughed.

It seemed so curious that she

Should cross the unknown water,

And moor herself within my room—

My daughter, O! my daughter!

Yet, by these presents, witness all,

She’s welcome fifty times,

And comes consigned to Hope and Love,

And common metre rhymes.

She has no manifest but this;

No flag floats o’er the water;

She’s rather new for British Lloyds—

My daughter, O! my daughter!

Ring out, wild bells—and tame ones too;

Ring out the lover’s moon;

Ring in the little worsted socks;

Ring in the bib and spoon.

Ring out the muse; ring in the nurse;

Ring in the milk and water:

Away with paper, pens, and ink—

My daughter, O! my daughter!

George W. Cable.

Cumulative Parodies.

There was a young damsel; oh, bless her,

It cost very little to dress her;

She was sweet as a rose

In her every day clothes,

But had no young man to caress her.

* * * * *

There was a young turkey; oh, bless her,

It cost very little to dress her;

Some dry bread and thyme,

About Thanksgiving time,

And they ate the last bit from the dresser.

* * * * *

A newspaper poet; oh, dang him!

And pelt him, and club him, and bang him!

He kept writing away,

Till the people one day

Rose up and proceeded to hang him.

The Detroit Free Press.

SLANG, CANT, AND FLASH.

As Slang is a species of parody of our mother tongue, and as many songs are written in it, it must be alluded to in this Collection, however briefly.

A few examples will be quoted, followed by a bibliography, including mention also of Dictionaries devoted to Satirical and Political slang.

Thieves slang, or “cant,” is of multifold origin, but is mainly derived from Romany or gipsy talk, with an admixture of Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and French words.

Rhyming and back-slang are two other forms of purely native manufacture, both arbitrary, and artificial in their construction.

By the former any word that rhymes with the one that is intended is substituted for it, and gradually becomes accepted. This method is somewhat complicated, and is, of course, almost unintelligible to the uninitiated, which is precisely why it is adopted by thieves and their associates.

Back-slang is largely patronised by costermongers. It consists in spelling backwards the principal words in a sentence, with more or less accuracy. Thus, “Hi, yob! kool that enif elrig with the nael ekom. Ssap her a top o’ reeb and a tib of occabot,” simply means “Hi boy! look at that fine girl with the lean moke. Pass her a pot of beer and a bit of tobacco.”

Although slang is principally indulged in by the lower orders and criminal classes, it must not be forgotten that many slang words have been adopted and incorporated into 271 our general language, to say nothing of Americanisms, which are also constantly being absorbed. Every profession, too, has its slang, or technical language, which is mainly unintelligible to the outside world. Thus Soldiers, Sailors, Engineers, Doctors, and Lawyers, have their own phraseology, but what is most objectionable is the Clerical slang. This imparts a fine full flavoured tone of hypocrisy to any ordinary conversation by dragging in “D.V.” references to the Deity, and the quotation of scraps of Holy writ in the most unnecessary profusion, and in the most unseemly contrast with trivial statements of every day life.

The House Breaker’s Song.

I ne’er was a nose [57] for the reg’lars [58] came

Whenever a pannie [59] was done:—

Oh! who would chirp [60] to dishonour his name,

And betray his pals [61] in a nibsome [62] game

To the traps?[63]—Not I for one!

Let nobs in the fur trade [64] hold their jaw,

And let the jug [65] be free;—

Let Davy’s dust [66] and a well-faked claw [67]

For Fancy coves be the only law,

And a double tongued squib [68] to keep in awe

The chaps that flout at me!

From morn to night we’ll booze a ken [69],

And we’ll pass the bingo [70] round;

At dusk we’ll make our lucky [71], and then,

With our nags so flash, and our merry men,

We’ll scour the lonely ground.

And if the swells resist our “Stand!”

We’ll squib [72] without a joke;

For I’m snigger’d if we will be trepanned

By the blarneying jaw of a knowing hand,

And thus be lagged [73] to a foreign land,

Or die by an artichoke [74].

But should the traps be on the sly,

For a change we’ll have a crack [75];

The richest cribs [76] shall our wants supply—

Or we’ll knap [77] a fogle [78] with fingers fly [79],

When the swell one turns his back.

The flimsies we can smash [80] as well,

Or a ticker [81] deftly prig;—

But if ever a pal in limbo fell,

He’d sooner be scragg’d [82] at once than tell;

Though the hum-box patterer [83] talked of hell,

And the beak [84] wore his nattiest wig [85]!

From “Pickwick Abroad; or, The Tour in France.” by G. W. M. Reynolds. (Chapter 26.)

Nix my Dolly, Pals, Fake Away!

In a box of the stone Jug I was born,

Of a hempen widow the kid forlorn,—

Fake away!

My noble father, as I’ve heard say,

Was a famous merchant of capers gay;

Nix my dolly, pals,—fake away!

Nix my dolly, &c.

The knucks in quod did my shoolmen play,

And put me up to the time of day;—

Fake away!

No dummy-hunter had forks so fly,

No knuckler so deftly could take a cly;

Nix my dolly, &c.

But my nuttiest lady, one fine day,

To the beaks did her gentleman betray,—

Fake away!

Thus was I bowl’d out at last,

And into the Jug for a lag was cast;

Nix my dolly, &c.

But I slipp’d my darbies one morn in May,

And gave to the dubsman a holiday,—

Fake away!

And here I am, pals, merry and free,

A regular rollicking Romany;

Nix my dolly, &c.

W. Harrison Ainsworth.

“Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug.”

(Being an Epistle from Toby Cracksman, in Newgate, to Bill Sykes.)

Dear Bill, this stone-jug,[86] at which flats dare to rail,

(From which till the next Central sittings I hail)

Is still the same snug, free-and-easy old hole,

Where Macheath met his blowens,[87] and Wylde floor’d his bowl.

In a ward with one’s pals,[88] not locked up in a cell,

To an old hand like me it’s a fam-ly [89]-hotel.

In the day-rooms the cuffins[90] we queer at our ease,

And at Darkman’s[91] we run the rig just as we please;

There’s your peck[92] and your lush, hot and reg’lar, each day.

All the same if you work, all the same if you play.

But the lark’s when a goney[93] up with us they shut,

As ain’t up to our lurks,[94] our flash-patter,[95] and smut;

But soon in his eye nothing green would remain,

He knows what’s o’clock when he comes out again.

And the next time he’s quodded[96] so downy and snug,

He may thank us for making him fly to the jug.[97]

But here comes a cuffin—which cuts short my tale,

It’s agin rules is screevin’[98] to pals out o’ gaol.

(The following postscript seems to have been added when the Warder had passed.)

For them coves in Guildhall and that blessed Lord Mayor,

Prigs on their four bones should chop whiners,[99] I swear:

That long over Newgit their Worships may rule,

As the High-toby, mob, crack and screeve[100] model school;

For if Guv’ment was here, not the Alderman’s Bench,

Newgit soon ’ud be bad as “the Pent” or “the Tench.”[101]

Note.—We subjoin a Glossary of Mr. Cracksman’s lingo:—
[Transcriber's Note: See footnotes [86]-[101].]

Punch. January 31, 1857.

272

The Chick-a-Leary Cove.

I’m a “Chickaleary bloke”[102] with my one, two, three,

Whitechapel was the village, I was born in,

For to get me on the hop, or on my “tibby”[103] drop,

You must wake up very early in the morning.

I have a “rorty”[104] gal, also a knowing pal,

And merrily together we jog on,

I doesn’t care a “flatch”[105] as long as I’ve a “tach,”[106]

Some “pan-num”[107] for my chest, and a “tog”[108] on.

I’m a Chickaleary bloke with my one, two, three,

Whitechapel is the village I was born in,

For to get me on the hop, or on my “tibby” drop,

You must wake up very early in the morning.

Now “kool”[109] my downy “kicksies”[110] the style for me,

Built upon a plan werry naughty,

The stock around my “squeeze”[111] a “guiver”[112] colour see,

And the “vestat”[113] with the “bins”[114] so “rorty.”

My tailor serves you well, from a “perger”[115] to a swell,

At Groves’ you’re safe to make a sure pitch,[116]

For ready “yenom”[117] down, there aint a shop in town

Can “lick” Groves’ in the “Cut” as well as Shoreditch.

I’m a Chickaleary bloke, &c.

Off to Paris I shall go, to show a thing or two,

To the “dipping blokes”[118] what hangs about the caffes,

How to do a “cross-fan”[119] for a “super”[120] or a slang,[121]

And to “bustle”[122] them “grand’armes”[123] I’d give the office.

Now my pals I’m going to slope, see you soon again, I hope,

My young woman is avaiting, so be quick,

Now join in a “chyike”[124] the “jolly”[125] we all like;

I’m off with a party to the “Vic.”

I’m a Chickaleary bloke, &c.

The Thieves’ Chaunt.

There is a nook in the boozing ken,[126]

Where many a mud I fog,[127]

And the smoke curls gently, while cousin Ben

Keeps filling the pots again and again,

If the coves have stump’d their hog.[128]

The liquors around are diamond bright,

And the diddle[129] is best of all;

But I never in liquors took delight,

For liquors I think is all a bite,[130]

So for heavy wet I call.

The heavy wet in a pewter quart,

As brown as a badger’s hue,

More than Bristol milk [131] or gin,

Brandy or rum, I tipple in,

With my darling blowen[132] Sue.

Oh! grunting peck[133] in its eating

Is a richly soft and a savoury thing;

A Norfolk capon[134] is jolly grub

When you wash it down with strength of bub[135]

But dearer to me Sue’s kisses far,

Than grunting peck or other grub are,

And I never funks the lambskin men,[136]

When I sits with her in the boozing ken.

Her duds[137] are bob[138]—she’s a kinchin crack[139]

And I hopes as how she’ll never back;[140]

For she never lushes dog’s soup or lap,[141]

But she loves my cousin the bluffer’s[142] tap.

She’s wide awake, and her prating cheat[143]

For humming a cove was never beat;

But because she lately nimm’d[144] some tin,

They have sent her to lodge at the King’s Head Inn.[145]

From The Individual. November 15, 1836. Cambridge. W. H. Smith.

Generalizations have been made from which it appears that certain localities have peculiar productive qualities in the manufacture of criminals, thus London for sharpers, Brummagem for thieves, Paris for fly men (window thieves) Sheffield for pilchers of snyde (coiners and utterers.)

As to the ultimate destinations of these gentlemen one of themselves has put the various establishments in verse, thus recounting their merits:—

“Dartmoor is a tidy place,

Chatham is the terror of our race,

Portland is not quite so bad,

Broadmoor is for those stark mad,

Pentonville is the hill of London,

Borstal if you’re there you’re undone,

Portsmouth is a noted shop,

Brixton is a regular cop.”

Another equally good authority thus describes them:—

“Millbank for thick shins and graft at the pump,

Broadmoor for all laggs as go off their chump,

Brixton for good toke and cocoa with fat,

Dartmoor for bad grub but plenty of chat,

Portsmouth a blooming bad place for hard work.

Chatham on Sunday gives four ounces of pork,

Portland is the worst of the lot for to joke in,

For fetching a lagging there is no place like Woking.”

“Joe quickly his sand had sold, sir,

And Bess got a basket of rags;

Then up to St. Giles’s they rolled sir;

To every bunter Bess brags,

Then unto the gin shop they pike it,[146]

And Bess was admitted we hear;

For none of the crew dare but like it,

As Joey, her kiddy was there.”

* * * * *

The Sandman’s Wedding, a Cantata.

273

The Beggar’s Curse.

(By Thomas Decker, 1609.)

The Ruffin cly [147] the Nab of the Harmanbeck,[148]

If we maund Pannam,[149] Lap, or Ruff-Peck,

Of Poplars of Yarum,[150] he cuts bing to the Ruffmans,

Or else he with cruelty swears by the Lightmans,[151]

He’ll seize us, and put our stamps fast in the Harmans,[152]

The Ruffin cly the Ghost of the Harmanbeck

If we heave a Booth [153] we straight cly the Jerk [154]

If we niggle or mill but a poor Boozing-Ken,[155]

Or nip a poor Bung [156] with one single Win,

Or dup but the Gigger [157] of a Country-cove’s Ken,

Straight we’re to the Cuffin Queer [158] forced to bing;

And ’cause we are poor made to scour the Cramp-ring,[159]

From thence at the Chats we trine in the Lightmans,[160]

Plague take the Harmanbeck: Ruffin the Harmans.

Clear out—Look Sharp!

Song commonly sung by tramps and thieves at a general Rendezvous before they divide into parties, to stroll about the country.

Bing [161] out, bien [162] Morts,[163] and toure [164] and toure,

Bing out, bien Morts, and toure;

For all your Duds [165] are bing’d awast [166]

The bien Cove [167] hath the loure [168].

I met a Dell,[169] I viewed her well,

She was benship [170] to my watch;

So she and I did stall [171] and cloy,[172]

Whatever we could catch.

This Doxie Dell can cut bien whids,[173]

And drill well for a win;[174]

And prig and cloy so benshiply,

All the Deusea-Vile [175] within.

The Booth being raised,[176] we stept aside,

Thro’ mire, and frost and snow;

When they did seek then did we creep,

And plant in Ruffman’s Row.[177]

To strowling ken [178] the mort bings then,

To fetch loure for her cheats;

Duds and ruffpeck,[179] maugre Harmanbeck,[180]

We won by Maunder’s feats.

You maunders all, stow what you stall,[181]

To Rum Coves what so quire;[182]

And Bucksom Dell, that snilches well,[183]

And takes loure for her hire.

A Jybe well jerked, tick Rome-confeck,[184]

For back by Glimmer to maund,[185]

To mill each ken,[186] let Cove bing then,[187]

Thro’ Ruffmans, Jague or Laund [188].

Till Cramprings quire, tip Cove his Hire,[189]

And Quire-ken [190] do them catch;

Old Ruffler Mill [191] the Quire-cuffin,[192]

So quire to bien Cove’s watch.

Booze, Mort, and Ken, been Darkman’s then.[193]

The poor Cove’s bing’d awast;

On Chats to trine,[194] by Rum-Coves Dine,[195]

For his long Lib at last.[196]

Bing out bien morts, and toure and toure,

Bing out of the Romevile fine;[197]

Now toure the cove that cly’d your duds,

Upon the chats to trine.

As this song is so old some of the expressions are obsolete, and their explanations are somewhat conjectural. The first verse translated reads as follows:—

Go out, good girls, and look and see,

Go out, good girls, and see;

For all your clothes are carried away,

And the good man has the money.

This was first printed in “The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant. Being a Compleat History of the most Eminent Cheats of both sexes. London, Printed for Henry Marsh, at the Princes Arms in Chancery Lane, 1665.”

This curious work was reprinted by Chatto and Windus in 1874.

Frisky Moll’s Song.

From Priggs that snabble the Prancers strong,[198]

To you of the Peter Lay,[199]

I pray now listen awhile to my song,

How my Bowman [200] he kick’d away.

He broke through all the Rubbs [201] in the whit,

And chiv’d his Darbies [202] in twain;

But filing of a Rumbo-Ken,

My Bowman is snabbled again.

I, Frisky Moll, with my Rum Cull,[203]

Would suck in a Boozing Ken;

But e’er for the Scran [204] he had tipt the Cole,

The Harman he came in.

A Famble, a Tattle, and two Pops,[205]

Had my Bowman when he was ta’en;

But had we not booz’d in the Diddle shops,[206]

He’d still been in Drury Lane.

From “Harlequin Sheppard.” Acted at Drury Lane Theatre, 1724.

274

The Canter’s Serenade.

(Sung early in the morning, at the Barn doors where their Doxies have reposed during the night.)

Ye Morts and ye Dells [207]

Come out of your Cells,

And charm all the Palliards [208] about ye;

Here birds of all feathers,

Through deep roads and all weathers,

Are gathered together to toute [209] ye.

With faces of Wallnut,

And Bladder and Smallgut,

We’re come scraping and singing to rouse ye;

Rise, shake off your straw,

And prepare you each maw

To kiss, eat, and drink till you’re bouzy.

Ode to the King of the Mendicants.

Cast your nabs [210] and cares away,

This is Maunders holiday:[211]

In the world look out and see,

Where so blest a King as he!

At the crowning of our King,

Thus we ever dance and sing;

Where’s the nation lives so free,

And so merrily as we?

Be it peace, or be it war,

Here at liberty we are:

Hang all Harmenbecks [212] we cry,

We the Cuffin Queres [213] defy.

We enjoy our ease and rest,

To the fields we are not pressed

And when taxes are increased

We are not a penny ’sessed.

Nor will any go to law,

With a Maunder for a straw,

All which happiness, he brags,

Is only owing to his rags.

From The History of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, King of the Mendicants. London, 1749.

Oath of the Canting Crew.

I, Crank-Cuffin, swear to be

True to this fraternity;

That I will in all obey

Rule and order of the lay.

Never blow the gab, or squeak;

Never snitch to bum or beak;

But religiously maintain

Authority of those who reign

Over Stop Hole Abbey Green,

Be their tawny king, or queen.

In their cause alone will fight;

Think what they think, wrong or right;

Serve them truly, and no other,

And be faithful to my brother;

Suffer none, from far or near,

With their rights to interfere;

No strange Abram, ruffler crack,

Hooker of another pack,

Rogue or rascal, frater, maunderer,[214]

Irish toyle, or other wanderer;

No dimber damber,[215] angler, dancer,

Prig of cackler,[216] prig of prancer;[217]

No swigman, swaddler, clapper-dudgeon;

Cadge-gloak,[218] curtal, or curmudgeon;

No whip-jack, palliard, patrico;

No jarkman, be he high or low;

No dummerar, or romany;

No member of “the Family;”

No ballad-basket, bouncing buffer,

Nor any other, will I suffer;

But stall-off [219] now and for ever,

All outliers whatsoever;

And as I keep to the fore-gone,

So may help me Salamon!

From The Life of Bampfylde-Moore Carew.

The Life and Death of the Darkman’s Budge,[220].

The Budge it is a delicate trade,

And a delicate trade of fame,

For when that we have bit the blow,

We carry away the game.

But if the cully naps us,

And the lurries from us takes;

O, then he rubbs us to the whit,[221]

Tho’ we’re hardly worth two makes.[222]

And when that we come to the whit,

Our darbies to behold;

We’re forced to do penance there,

And booze the water cold.

But when we come out again,

And the merry cull we meet,

We’ll surely file him of his cole,[223]

As he pikes along the street.

And when that we have filed him,

Tho’t be but half a job;

Then ev’ry man to the boozing ken,

To fence his merry hog;[224]

But if the cully naps us,

For want of care or wit,

Tho’ he cannot take away our cole,

He rubbs us to the whit.

And when we come unto the whit,

For garnish [225] they do cry;

We promise our lusty comrogues

They shall have it by and bye;

Then ev’ry man, with his Mort [226] in his hand,

Is forc’d to kiss and part;

And after, is divorced away,

To the nubbing-cheat [227] in a cart.

And we come to the Nubbing-cheat,

For running on the budge;

There stands Jack Ketch, that sneaking wretch,

Who owes us all a grudge:

For when that he hath nubbed us,

And our friends tip him no cole,

He takes his chive,[228] and cuts us down,

And tips us into the hole.

275

But if we have a friend stand by,

Six and eightpence for to pay,

Then they may have our bodies back,

And carry us quite away:

For at St. Giles’s or St. Martin’s,

A burying place is still;

And there’s an end of a Darkman’s Budge,

And the whoreson hath his will.

The Game of High Toby.

Now Oliver [229] puts his black nightcap on,

And every star its glim [230] is hiding,

And forth to the heath is the scampsman [231] gone,

His matchless cherry-black [232] prancer riding;

Merrily over the common he flies,

Fast and free as the rush of rocket,

His crape-covered vizard drawn over his eyes,

His tol [233] by his side, and his pops [234] in his pocket.

Chorus.

Then who can name

So merry a game,

As the game of all games—high toby?[235]

The traveller hears him, away! away!

Over the wide wide heath he scurries;

He heeds not the thunderbolt summons to stay,

But ever the faster and faster he hurries.

But what daisy-cutter can match that black tit?

He is caught—he must “stand and deliver;”

Then out with the dummy,[236] and off with the bit,[237]

Oh! the game of high toby for ever!

Chorus.

Then who can name

So merry a game,

As the game of all games—high toby?

Believe me, there is not a game, my brave boys,

To compare with the game of high toby;

No rapture can equal the tobyman’s joys,

To blue devils, blue plumbs [238] give the go by;

And what if, at length, boys, he come to the crap![239]

Even rack punch has some bitter in it,

For the mare-with-three-legs,[240] boys, I care not a rap,

’Twill be over in less than a minute!

Grand Chorus.

Then hip, hurrah!

Fling care away!

Hurrah for the game of high toby.

From Rookwood, by W. Harrison Ainsworth. London.

The Double Cross.

Though all of us have heard of crost fights,

And certain gains, by certain lost fights;

I rather fancies that it’s news,

How in a mill, both men should lose;

For vere the odds are thus made even,

It plays the dickens with the steven;[241]

Besides, against all rule they’re sinning,

Vere neither has no chance of vinning.

Ri, tol, lol, &c.

Two milling coves, each vide avake,

Vere backed to fight for heavy stake;

But in the mean time, so it vos,

Both kids agreed to play a cross;

Bold came each buffer[242] to the scratch,

To make it look a tightish match;

They peeled[243] in style, and bets were making,

’Tvos six to four, but few were taking.

Ri, tol, lol, &c.

Quite cautiously the mill began,

For neither knew the other’s plan;

Each cull[244] completely in the dark,

Of vot might be his neighbour’s mark;

Resolved his fibbing[245] not to mind,

Nor yet to pay him back in kind;

So on each other kept they tout,[246]

And sparred a bit, and dodged about.

Ri, tol, lol, &c.

Vith mawleys[247] raised, Tom bent his back,

As if to plant a heavy thwack;

Vile Jem, with neat left-handed stopper,

Straight threatened Tommy with a topper;

’Tis all my eye! no claret flows,

No facers sound—no smashing blows,

Five minutes pass, yet not a hit,

How can it end, pals?—vait a bit.

Ri, tol, lol, &c.

Each cove vos teazed with double duty,

To please his backers, yet play booty,[248]

Ven, luckily for Jem, a teller

Vos planted right upon his smeller;

Down dropped he, stunned; ven time was called,

Seconds in vain the seconds bawled;

The mill is o’er, the crosser crost,

The loser’s won, the vinner’s lost!

Ri, tol, lol, &c.

From Rookwood, by W. Harrison Ainsworth, London.

A Flash Anecdote.

I buzzed a bloak and a shakester of a reader and a skin. My jomer stalled. A cross cove, who had his regulars, called out “cop bung,” so as a pig was marking, I speeled to the crib, where I found Jim had been pulling down sawney for grub. He cracked a case last night and fenced the swag. He told me as Bill had flimped a yack and pinched a swell of a fawney, he sent the yack to church and got three finnups and a cooter for the fawney.

Translation.

I picked the pockets of a gentleman and lady of a pocket book and a purse. My fancy girl screened me from observation. A fellow thief, who shared my plunder, called out to me to hand over the stolen property, so as someone was observing my actions, I ran off to the house, where Jim had 276 some bacon he had stolen from a shop door. He broke into a house last night, and had sold the stolen property. He told me that Bill had hustled a man and stolen his watch, and had also robbed a gentleman of a ring. He had sent the watch to have its works removed, and had got three five pound notes and a sovereign for the ring.

From Poverty, Mendicity and Crime, 1839.

The Leary Man.

Of ups and downs I’ve felt the shocks

Since days of bats and shuttlecocks,

And alicumpaine and Albert-rocks,

When I the world began;

And for these games I often sigh

Both marmoney and spanish-fly,

And flying kites too, in the sky,

For which I’ve often ran.

But by what I’ve seen, and where I’ve been,

I’ve always found it so.

That if you wish to learn to live,

Too much you cannot know.

For you must now be wide-awake,

If a living you would make,

So I’ll advise what course to take

To be a Leary Man.

Go first to costermongery

To every fakement get a-fly

And pick up all their slangery,

But let this be your plan;

Put up with no Kieboshery

But look well after poshery,

And cut teetotal sloshery.

And get drunk when you can.

And when you go to spree about,

Let it always be your pride

To have a white tile on your nob,

And bulldog by your side.

Your fogle you must flashly tie

Each word must patter flashery,

And hit cove’s head to smashery,

To be a Leary Man.

To Covent Garden or Billingsgate

You of a morn must not be late,

But your donkey drive at a slashing rate,

And first be if you can.

From short pipe you must your bacca blow,

And if your donkey will not go,

To lick him you must not be slow,

But well his hide must tan.

The fakement conn’d by knowing rooks

Must be well known to you,

And if you come to fibbery,

You must mug one or two.

Then go to St. Giles’s rookery,

And live up some strange nookery,

Of no use domestic cookery,

To be a Leary Man.

Then go to pigeon fancery

And know each breed by quiz of eye,

Bald-heads from skin ’ems by their fly,

Go wrong you never can.

All fighting coves too you must know,

Ben Caunt as well as Bendigo,

And to each mill be sure to go,

And be one of the van.

Things that are found before they’re lost,

Be always first to find.

Restore dogs for a pound or two

You’ll do a thing that’s kind.

And you must sport a blue billy,

Or a yellow wipe tied loosily

Round your scrag for bloaks to see

That you’re a Leary Man.

At knock’emsdown and tiddlywink,

To be a sharp you must not shrink,

But be a brick and sport your chink

To win must be your plan.

And set-toos and cock-fighting

Are things you must take delight in,

And always try to be right in,

And every kidment scan.

And bullying and chaffing too,

To you should be well known,

Your nob be used to bruisery,

And hard as any stone.

Put the kiebosh on the dibbery,

Know a Joey from a tibbery,

And now and then have a black eye,

To be a Leary Man.

To fairs and races go must you,

And get in rows and fights a few,

And stopping out all night its’ true,

Must often be your plan.

And as through the world you budgery,

Get well awake to fudgery,

And rub off every grudgery,

And do the best you can.

But mummery and slummery

You must keep in your mind,

For every day, mind what I say,

Fresh fakements you will find.

But stick to this while you can crawl,

To stand ’till you’re obliged to fall,

And when you’re wide awake to all

You’ll be a Leary Man.

From The Vulgar Tongue, by Ducange Anglicus. London, Bernard Quaritch, 1857.

The Song of the Young Prig.

My Mother she dwelt in Dyot’s Isle,[249]

One of the Canting Crew,[250] sirs;

And if you’d know my father’s style,

He was the Lord Knows-who, sirs!

I first held horses in the street,

But being found defaulter,

Turned rumbler’s flunky [251] for my meat,

So was brought up to the halter.

Frisk the cly [252], and fork the rag [253],

Draw the fogles plummy [254],

Speak to the tattler [255], bag the swag [256],

And finely hunt the dummy [257].

My name they say is Young Birdlime,

My fingers are fish-hooks sirs;

277

And I my reading learnt-betime,

From studying pocket-books [258], sirs.

I have a sweet eye for a plant [259],

And graceful as I amble,

Finedraw a coat-tail sure I can’t,

So kiddy is my famble [260].

Chorus. Frisk the cly, etc.,

A night bird,[261] oft I’m in the cage [262],

But my rum chants ne’er fail, sirs,

The dubsman’s [263] senses to engage,

While I tip him leg-bail [264], sirs.

There’s not, for picking, to be had,

A lad so light and larky [265],

The cleanest angler on the pad [266],

In daylight or the darkey [267].

Chorus. Frisk the cly, etc.,

And though I don’t work capital [268],

And do not weigh my weight [269], sirs,

Who knows but that in time I shall,

For there’s no queering fate, sirs.

If I’m not lagged to Virgin-nee [270],

I may a Tyburn show be [271],

Perhaps a tip-top cracksman [272] be

Or go on the high toby [273].

Chorus. Frisk the cly, etc.,

From The Life and Times of James Catnach, by Charles Hindley. London, Reeves and Turner. 1878.

The Death of Socrates.

By the Rev. Robt. Burrowes, Dean of St. Finbar’s Cathedral, Cork.

The night before Larry was stretch’d,

The boys they all paid him a visit;

A bit in their sacks, too, they fetch’d—

They sweated their duds [274] till they riz it;

For Larry was always the lad,

When a friend was condemn’d to the squeezer [275],

But he’d pawn all the togs that he had,

Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer [276],

And moisten his gob ’fore he died.

“’Pon my conscience, dear Larry,” says I,

“I’m sorry to see you in trouble,

And your life’s cheerful noggin run dry,

And yourself going off like its bubble!”

“Hould your tongue in that matter,” says he;

“For the neckcloth I don’t care a button,

And by this time to-morrow you’ll see

Your Larry will be dead as mutton:

All for what? ’kase his courage was good!”

The boys they came crowding in fast;

They drew their stools close round about him,

Six glims [277] round his coffin they placed—

He couldn’t be well waked without ’em.

I ax’d if he was fit to die,

Without having duly repented?

Says Larry, “That’s all in my eye,

And all by the clargy invented,

To make a fat bit for themselves.”

Then the cards being call’d for, they play’d,

Till Larry found one of them cheated;

Quick he made a hard rap at his head—

The lad being easily heated,

“So ye chates me bekase I’m in grief!

O! is that, by the Holy, the rason?

Soon I’ll give you to know, you d—d thief!

That you’re cracking your jokes out of sason,

And scuttle your nob [278] with my fist.”

Then in came the priest with his book,

He spoke him so smooth and so civil;

Larry tipp’d him a Kilmainham look,

And pitch’d his big wig to the divil.

Then raising a little his head,

To get a sweet drop of the bottle,

And pitiful sighing he said,

“O! the hemp will be soon round my throttle [279],

And choke my poor windpipe to death!”

So mournful these last words he spoke,

We all vented our tears in a shower;

For my part, I thought my heart broke

To see him cut down like a flower!

On his travels we watch’d him next day,

O, the hangman I thought I could kill him!

Not one word did our poor Larry say,

Nor changed till he came to “King William:”

Och, my dear! then his colour turn’d white.

When he came to the nubbing cheat,

He was tuck’d up so neat and so pretty;

The rumbler jugg’d off from his feet,

And he died with his face to the city.

He kick’d too, but that was all pride,

For soon you might see ’twas all over;

And as soon as the noose was untied,

Then at darkey we waked him in clover,

And sent him to take a ground-sweat.

A French translation of this poem was written by the Rev. Francis Mahony, see “The Works of Father Prout.” London, George Routledge & Sons, 1881.

’Arry at a Political Pic-nic.

Dear Charlie,

’Ow are yer, my ribstone? Seems scrumptious to write the old name.

I ’ave quite lost the run of you lately. Bin playing some dark little game?

278

I’m keeping mine hup as per usual, fust in the pick of the fun,

For wherever there’s larks on the tappy[280] there’s ’Arry as sure as a gun.

The latest new lay’s Demonstrations. You’ve heard on ’em, Charlie, no doubt,

For they’re at ’em all over the shop. I’ave ’ad a rare bustle about.

All my Saturday arfs are devoted to Politics. Fancy, old chump,

Me doing the sawdusty reglar,[281] and follering swells on the stump!

But, bless yer, my bloater, it isn’t all chin-music [282] votes, and “’Ear! ’ear!”

Or they wouldn’t catch me on the ready, or nail me for ninepence. No fear!

Percessions I’ve got a bit tired of, hoof-padding,[283] and scrouging’s dry rot,

But Political Picnics mean sugar to them as is fly to wot’s wot.

Went to one on ’em yesterday, Charlie; a reglar old up and down lark.

The Pallis free gratis, mixed up with a old country fair in a park,

And Rosherville Gardens chucked in, with a dash of the Bean Feast will do,

To give you some little idear of our day with Sir Jinks Bottleblue.

Make much of us, Charlie? Lor bless you, we might ha’ bin blooming Chinese

A-doing the rounds at the ’Ealthries. ’Twas regular go as you please.

Lawn-tennis, quoits, cricket, and dancing for them as must be on the shove,

But I preferred pecking [284] and prowling, and spotting the mugs making love.

Don’t ketch me a-slinging my legs about arter a beast of a ball

At ninety degrees in the shade or so, Charlie, old chap, not at all.

Athletics ’aint ’ardly my form, and a cutaway coat and tight bags

Are the species of togs for yours truly, and lick your loose “flannels” to rags.

So I let them as liked do a swelter; I sorntered about on the snap.

Rum game this yer Politics, Charlie, seems arf talkee-talkee and trap.

Jest fancy old Bluebottle letting “the multitood” pic-nic and lark,

And make Battersea Park of his pleasure-grounds, Bathelmy Fair of his park!

“To show his true love for the People!” sez one vote-of-thanking tall-talker,

And wosn’t it rude of a bloke as wos munching a bun to cry “Walker!”?

I’m Tory right down to my boots, at a price, and I bellered “’Ear, ’ear!”

But they don’t cop yours truly with chaff none the more, my dear Charlie, no fear!

Old Bottleblue tipped me his flipper, and ’oped I’d “refreshed,” and all that.

“Wy rather,” sez I, “wot do you think?” at which he stared nto his ’at,

And went a bit red in the gills. Must ha’ thought me a muggins, old man,

To ask sech a question of ’Arry—as though grubbing short was his plan.

I went the rounds proper, I tell yer; ’twas like the free run of a Bar,

And Politics wants lots o’ wetting. Don’t ketch me perched up on a car,

Or ’olding a flag-pole no more. No, percessions, dear boy, ain’t my fad,

But Political Pic-nics with fireworks, and plenty of swiz ain’t ’arf bad.

The palaver was sawdust and treacle. Old Bottleblue buzzed for a bit,

And a sniffy young Wiscount in barnacles landed wot ’e thought a ’it;

Said old Gladstone wos like Simpson’s weapon, a bit of a hass and all jor,

When a noisy young Rad in a wideawake wanted to give him wot for!

“Yah! boo! Turn ’im hout!” sings yours truly, a-thinkin’ the fun was at ’and,

But, bless yer! ’twas only a sputter. I can’t say the meeting looked grand.

Five thousand they reckoned us, Charlie, but if so I guess the odd three

Were a-spooning about in the halleys, or lappin’ up buns and Bohea.

The band and the ’opping wos prime though, and ’Arry in course wos all there.

I ’ad several turns with a snappy young party with stror coloured ’air.

Her name she hinformed me wos Polly, and wen, in my ’appiest style,

I sez, “Polly is nicer than Politics!” didn’t she colour and smile?

We got back jest in time for the Fireworks, a proper flare-up, and no kid,

Which finished that day’s Demonstration, an’ must ’ave cost many a quid.[285]

Wot fireworks and park-feeds do Demonstrate, Charlie, I’m blest if I see,

And I’m blowed if I care a brass button, so long as I get a cheap spree.

The patter’s all bow-wow, of course, but it goes with the buns and the beer.

If it pleases the Big-wigs to spout, wy it don’t cost hus nothink to cheer.

Though they ain’t got the ’ang of it, Charlie, the toffs ain’t,—no go and no spice!

Wy, I’d back Barney Crump at our Sing-song to lick ’em two times out o’ twice!

Still I’m all for the Lords and their lot, Charlie. Rads are my ’orror, you know.

Change R into C and you’ve got ’em, and ’Arry ’ates anythink low.

So if Demonstrations means skylarks, and lotion as much as you’ll carry,

These “busts of spontanyous opinion” may reckon all round upon ’Arry.

Punch. October 11, 1884.

279

Life in Gaol.

Till seven we walk around the yard,

There is a man all you to guard,

If you put your hand out so,

Untoe the guv’nor you must go;

Eight o’clock is our breakfast hour,

Those wittles they do soon devour;

Oh! dear me, how they eat and stuff,

Lave off with less than half enough.

Nine o’clock you mount the mill,

That you mayn’t cramp from settin’ still,

If that be ever so against your will,

You must mount on the traädin’ mill.

There is a turnkey that you’ll find,

He is a raskill most unkind.

To rob poor prisoners he is that man,

To chaäte poor prisoners where he can,

At eleven o’clock we march upstairs

To hear the parson read the prayers.

Then we are locked into a pen—

It’s almost like a lion’s den.

There’s iron bars big round as your thigh

To make you of a prison shy.

At twelve o’clock the turnkey come;

The locks and bolts sound like a drum,

If you be ever so full of game,

The traädin’ mill it will you tame.

At one you mount the mill again,

That is labour all in vain.

If that be ever so wrong or right,

You must traäde till six at night.

Thursdays we have a jubal fraä

Wi’ bread and cheese for all the day.

I’ll tell you raälly, without consate,

For a hungry pig ’tis a charmin’ bait.

At six you’re locked into your cell,

There until the mornin’ dwell;

There is a bed o’ straw all to lay on,

There’s Hobson’s choice, there’s that or none.

From The Chequers, by James Runciman.

The Twenty Craftsmen.

Described by the notorious thief-taker Jonathan Wild.

Good people, give ear, whilst a story I tell,

Of twenty black tradesmen who were brought up in hell,

On purpose poor people to rob of their due;

There’s none shall be nooz’d, if you find but one true.

The first was a Coiner, that stampt in a mould;

The second a Voucher to put off his gold.

Tour you well; hark you well [286], see where they’re rubb’d,

Up to the nubbing cheat [287], where they are nubb’d.

The third was a Padder [288], that fell to decay,

Who used for to plunder upon the Highway;

The fourth was a Mill-Ken [289], to crack up a door,

He’d venture to rob both the rich and the poor,

The fifth was a Glazier [290], who when he creeps in,

To pinch all the lurry [291] he thinks it no sin,

Tour you well, etc.

The sixth is a File-cly [292], that not one cully [293] spares,

The seventh a Budge [294] to track softly up stairs;

The eighth is a Bulk [295], that can bulk any hick [296],

If the master be nabbed, then the Bulk he is sick,

The ninth is an Angler [297], to lift up a grate,

If he sees but the lurry his hooks he will bait.

Tour you well, etc.

The tenth is a Shoplift, that carries a Bob,

When he ranges the city, the shops for to rob.

The eleventh a Bubber [298], much used of late;

Who goes to the ale house, and steals all their plate.

The twelfth is a Beautrap [299], if a Cull [300] he does meet,

He nips all his Cole [301], and turns him into the street.

Tour you well, etc.,

The thirteenth a Famble, false rings for to sell,

When a Mob [302] he has bit his Cole he will tell;

The fourteenth a Gamester, if he sees the Cull sweet [303],

He presently drops down a Cog [304] in the street;

The fifteenth, a Prancer, whose courage is small,

If they catch him Horse-coursing he’s noozed once for all.

Tour you well, etc.

The sixteenth, a Sheep-napper, whose trade is so deep,

If he’s caught in the corn he’s marked for a sheep [305];

The seventeenth a Dunaker [306], that stoutly makes vows,

To go in the country and steal all the cows;

The eighteenth a Kid-napper [307], who spirits young men,

Tho’ he tips them the pike, they oft nap him again.

Tour you well, etc.

The nineteenth’s a Priggar of Cacklers [308], who harms,

The poor Country Higlers, and plunders the Farms;

He steals all their poultry and thinks it no sin,

When into the Henroost, in the night, he gets in,

The twentieth’s a Thief-catcher, so we him call,

Who if he be nabb’d will be made pay for all.

Tour you well, etc.

There’s many more Craftsmen [309] whom here I could name,

Who use such like Trades, abandon’d of shame;

To the number of more than threescore on the whole,

Who endanger their body, and hazard their soul;

And yet, tho’ good workmen, are seldom made free,

Till they ride in a cart, and be noozed on a tree.

Tour you well, hark you well, see where they’re rubb’d,

Up to the nubbing-cheat, where they are nubb’d.

This is taken from A Pedlar’s Pack of Ballads and Songs collected by W. H. Logan, (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1869) which work contains some dozen cant songs, of which the best have been quoted. The others are so “Flash” in language that they could only be clearly interpreted by a regular Patter Cove.

280

Retoure my dear Dell.

Each Darkmans [310] I pass in an old shady grove,

And live not the Lightmans [311], I toute [312] not my love,

I surtoute every walk, which we used to pass,

And couch me down weeping and kiss the cold grass:

I cry out on my Mort [313] to pity my pain,

And all our vagaries remember again.

Didst thou know, my dear Doxy, but half of the smart

Which has seized on my panter since thou didst depart;

Didst thou hear but my sighs, my complaining and groans,

Thou’dst surely retoure [314] and pity my moans;

Thou’dst give me new pleasure for all my past pain,

And I should rejoice in thy glaziers [315] again.

But, alas! ’tis my fear that the false Patri-coe[316]

Is reaping those transports are only my due:

Retoure my dear Doxy, oh, once more retoure,

And I’ll do all to please thee that lies in my pow’r;

Then be kind, my dear Dell, and pity my pain,

And let me once more toute thy glaziers again.

On Redshanks and Tibs [317] thou shalt every day dine,

And if it should e’er be my hard fate to trine [318]

I never will whiddle, I never will squeek [319],

Nor to save my Colquarron [320] endanger thy neck.

Then once more, my Doxy, be kind and retoure,

And thou shalt want nothing that lies in my pow’r.

The vein of sentiment that pervades this lament is almost too fine to be genuine in such a production.

The Pickpockets’ Chaunt.

Translated from an “Argot” Song of Maitre Vidocq,
by Dr. William Maginn.

As from ken to ken I was going,

Doing a bit on the prigging lay [321],

Who should I meet but a jolly blowen [322],

Tol lol, lol lol, tol dirol lay;

Who should I meet but a jolly blowen,

Who was fly to the time of day.

Who should I meet but a jolly blowen,

Who was fly to the time of day.

I pattered in flash [323], like a covey knowing,

Tol lol, &c.

“Ay, bub or grubby [324], I say?”

I pattered in flash like a covey knowing,

“Ay, bub or grubby, I say?”

“Lots of gatter”[325] says she, is flowing,

Tol lol, &c.

Lend me a lift in the family way [326].

Lots of gatter, says she, is flowing,

Lend me a lift in the family way.

You may have a crib [327] to stow in,

Tol lol, &c.

Welcome, my pal, as the flowers in May.

You may have a crib to stow in,

Welcome, my pal, as the flowers in May.

To her ken at once I go in,

Tol lol, &c.

Where in a corner out of the way,

To her ken at once I go in,

Where in a corner out of the way,

With his smeller [328] a trumpet blowing,

Tol lol, &c.

A regular swell cove lushy lay,

With his smeller a trumpet blowing,

A regular swell cove lushy lay,

To his dies [329] my hooks [330] I throw in,

Tol lol, &c.

And collar his dragons [331] clear away.

To his dies my hooks I throw in,

And collar his dragons clear away.

Then his ticker I set a going,

Tol lol, &c.

And his onions,[332] chain and key,

Then his ticker I set a going,

With his onions, chain and key;

Next slipt off his bottom clo’ing,

Tol lol, &c.

And his ginger head topper gay.

Next slipt off his bottom clo’ing,

And his ginger head topper gay.

Then his other toggery stowing,

Tol lol, &c.

All with the swag I sneak away,

Then his other-toggery stowing,

All with the swag I sneak away.

Tramp it, tramp it, my jolly blowen,

Tol lol, &c.

Or be grabbed by the beaks we may,

Tramp it, tramp it, my jolly blowen,

Or be grabbed by the beaks we may.

And we shall caper a-heel and toeing,

Tol lol, &c.

A Newgate hornpipe some fine day.

And we shall caper a-heel and toeing,

A Newgate hornpipe some fine day,

With the mots their ogles throwing,

Tol lol, &c.

And Old Cotton [333] humming his pray [334],

With the mots their ogles throwing,

And Old Cotton humming his pray,

And the fogle hunters [335] doing,

Tol lol, &c.

Their morning fake in the prigging lay [336].

Many of the other words are also flash, but are so generally understood that it is quite unnecessary to translate them.

Oh, Kittens! in our hours of ease

Uncertain toys, and full of fleas;

When pain and anguish hang o’er men,

We turn you into sausage then.

281 A Cant Handbill.

The following handbill is worthy of a place in this collection; the Slang Dictionary will explain its meaning. Its words are, however, fully understood by many “downy” customers;

Once Try You’ll Come Again
TO
Harris, The Slap-Up-Tog
and out and out
Kicksies Builder.
Well known throughout all England.

Mr. H. nabs the chance of putting his customers awake that he has just made his escape from India, not forgetting to clap his mawleys upon some of the right sort of stuff, when on his return home he was stunned to find one of the top Manufacturers of Manchester had cut his lucky, and stepped off to the Swan Stream, leaving behind him a valuable stock of Moleskins, Cords, Velveteens, Box Cloths, Plushes, Doe Skins, Pilots, &c., and having some ready in his kick—grabbed the chance—stepped home with the swag—and is now safely landed at his crib. He can turn out Toggery very slap at the following low prices for

Ready Gilt—Tick being No Go.

Upper Benjamins, built on a downy plan, a monarch to half a finnuff. Fishing or Shooting Togs, or Slap up Velveteen Togs, lined with the same, cut slap, 1 pound, 1 quarter and a peg. A Fancy Sleeve Blue Plush or Pilot ditto, made very saucy, a couter. Pair of Kerseymere or Doeskin Kicksies, built very slap with the artful dodge, a canary. Pair of Bath or Worsted Cords, cut to drop down on the trotters, a quid. Pair of out and out cords, built very serious, 9 bob and a kick. Pair of stout Broad Cords, built in the Melton Mowbray style, half a sov. Pair of Moleskins, built hanky spanky, with double fakement down the sides and artful buttons at the bottom, half a monarch.

Mud Pipes, Knee Caps & Trotter Cases built very low.
A decent allowance made to Seedy Swells, Tea Kettle
Purgers, Head Robbers, and Flunkeys out of Collar.

N.B.—Gentlemen finding their own Broady can be accommodated.

——:o:——

The distinctions between Slang and Cant are well defined by Hotten. “Cant,” he says, “is old, whilst Slang is always modern and changing. To illustrate the difference: a thief in Cant language would term a horse a Prancer or Prad; while in Slang a man of fashion would speak of it as a Bit of Blood, a Spanker, or a neat tit.”

Cant was formed for the purpose of secrecy in roguery, Slang is commonly indulged in from a desire to appear familiar with the life, gaiety, town humour, and street jokes of the day. Cant and Slang are often used as synonyms, which is erroneous, they are distinct terms, and should be kept so.

Then there is what is commonly known as “Daily Telegraphese,” or the “high falutin” style. This arose from the invincible objection an inferior class of journalists had to writing of a spade as a spade, it must be called an “agricultural implement.” Examples of this may be found any day in the leaders of the Daily Telegraph, (London) a journal which whilst owned by Jews is especially conspicuous for its cant about Christianity and the Established Church. The parade of irrelevant learning, the mythological allusions dug up from the almost inaccessible depths of Lemprière, and the Latin verses cheaply filched from Dictionaries of Quotations, can only impose on imperfectly educated readers, to persons of any literary culture they are simply nauseating.

On page 251 Jerry Juniper’s Chaunt (“Nix my dolly pals”) was given, it is the somewhat abbreviated version which is commonly sung, the full text, with a glossary, will be found in Ainsworth’s entertaining novel Rookwood.

This work contains other cant songs, and in his Preface Mr. Ainsworth makes the following remarks upon them:—

“As I have casually alluded to the flash song of Jerry Juniper, I may be allowed to make a few observations upon this branch of versification. It is somewhat curious with a dialect so racy, idiomatic, and plastic as our own cant, that its metrical capabilities should have been so little essayed. The French have numerous chansons d’argot, ranging from the time of Charles Bourdigné and Villon down to that of Vidocq and Victor Hugo, the last of whom has enlivened the horrors of his “Dernier Jour d’un Condamné” by a festive song of this class. The Spaniards possess a large collection of Romances de Germania, by various authors, amongst whom Quevedo holds a distinguished place. We on the contrary, have scarcely any slang songs of merit. This barreness is not attributable to the poverty of the soil, but to the want of due cultivation. Materials are at hand in abundance, but there have been few operators. Dekker, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, have all dealt largely in this jargon, but not lyrically; and one of the earliest and best specimens of a canting-song occurs in Brome’s ‘Jovial Crew;’ and in the ‘Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew’ there is a solitary ode addressed by the mendicant fraternity to their newly-elected monarch; but it has little humour, and can scarcely be called a genuine canting-song. This ode brings us down to our own time; to the effusions of the illustrious Pierce Egan; to Tom Moore’s Flights of ‘Fancy;’ to John Jackson’s famous chant, ‘On the High Toby Spice flash the Muzzle,’ cited by Lord Byron in a note to ‘Don Juan;’ and to the glorious Irish ballad, worth them all put together, entitled ‘The Night before Larry was stretched.’ This is attributed to the late Dean Burrowes, of Cork. It is worthy of note, that almost all modern aspirants to the graces of the Musa Pedestris are Irishmen. Of all rhymesters of the ‘Road,’ however, Dean Burrowes is, as yet, most fully entitled to the laurel. Larry is quite ‘the potato!’

“I venture to affirm that I have done something more than has been accomplished by my predecessors, or contemporaries, with the significant language under consideration. I have written a purely flash song; of which the great and peculiar merit consists in its being utterly incomprehensible to the uninformed understanding, while its meaning must be perfectly clear and perspicuous to the practised patterer of Romany, or Pedler’s French. I have, moreover, been the first to introduce and naturalize amongst us a measure which, though common enough in the Argotic minstrelsy of France, has been hitherto utterly unknown to our pedestrian poetry. Some years after the song alluded to, better known under the title of ‘Nix my dolly, pals,—fake away!’ sprang into extraordinary popularity, being set to music by Rodwell, and chanted by glorious Paul Bedford and clever little Mrs. Keeley.”

Of course Mr. Ainsworth is in error in his claim to have written the first purely flash song, if indeed that is what he claims in his somewhat ambiguous sentence on the subject.

Detached Slang phrases may be found in the writings of most of our principal novelists—in Swift, Addison, Henry Fielding, Lord Lytton, Harrison Ainsworth, and Charles Dickens they abound. Professor Wilson and Dr. Maginn were also authorities on Slang.

Our older dramatists introduced Slang largely into 282 their plays, notably Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Richard Brome, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Decker, the Duke of Buckingham, and more recently R. B. Sheridan and Moncrieff.

Our dear little friend Notes and Queries (London) contains many hundreds of references, explanations, and etymologies of Cant, Slang, and Flash, to which access can be readily obtained by reference to the indices of that ably conducted journal.

As a general remark on the songs which have been quoted, it should be borne in mind that prior to 1829 the punishment of death was inflicted for many offences which are now considered trivial, hence the frequent references they contain to hanging, and the gallows.

The Printer’s Epitaph.

No more shall copy bad perplex my brain;
No more shall type’s small face my eyeballs strain;
No more the proof’s foul page[337] create me troubles,
By errors, transpositions, outs, and doubles;[338]
No more to overrun shall I begin;
No more be driving out or taking in;
The stubborn pressman’s frown I now may scoff;
Raised, and corrected, finally worked off!

From Songs of the Press, and other Poems relative to the Art of Printing. Collected by C. H. Timperley. London: Fisher, Son & Co., 1845.

This work contains a large number of Poems and Parodies in Printer’s Slang, and has a good glossary of the technical terms and Slang used in printing offices.

——:o:——

Dictionaries and other Books
of Reference, on Cant and Slang.

Chronologically Arranged.

“A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called Vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquier, for the utilitie and proffyt of hys naturall Countrey, newly augumented and imprynted Anno Domini, 1567. Viewed, examined and allowed according unto the Queene Majesteyes injunctions. Imprinted at London, in Fletestret, at the signe of the Faulcon, by Wylliam Gryffith, and are to be solde at his shoppe in Saynt Dunstones Churche Yard in the West.”—This is generally acknowledged to have been the first work of its kind, namely, an attempt to form a Cant Dictionary. It was first printed in black letter, there have been several later editions, and Hotten in his Slang Dictionary reprints from it what he terms the “Rogues’ Dictionary.” This vocabulary contains about 150 entries.

A reprint of Harman’s Caveat, with illustrations and interesting notes, was published by Reeves and Turner in 1871, in Mr. Charles Hindley’s Old Book Collector’s Miscellany.

The Fraternatye of Vacabondes, etc. Imprinted at London by John Awdeley, 1575.—Supposed to have been either written by Harman, or taken from his works.

The Bellman of London, by Thomas Decker.—Contains an account of the Canting Language. Black letter. London, 1608.

Lanthorne and Candle-light, or the Bellman’s Second Night’s Walke.—By Thomas Decker. London. 1608-9 This is a continuation of Decker’s former work, and contains the Canter’s Dictionary. There were numerous editions of Decker’s works on this subject.

“Villanies discovered by Lanthorne and Candle-light, and the helpe of a new crier called O Per se O. Being an addition to the Bel-man’s second night-walke; and laying open to the world of those abuses, which the Bel-man (because he went i’th darke) could not see. With Canting Songs, and other new conceits never before Printed.” By Thomas Decker. Newly corrected and enlarged. Small quarto. London, Aug Mathewes, 1620. Very rare, and curious as containing a complete description of the thieving and swindling population of London at that time, with a Cant Vocabulary and Slang songs. There were several Editions of this work.

The English Rogue, described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a witty Extravagant. By Richard Head, 1671-80. This contains a list of Cant words, partly taken from Decker’s works.

Canting Academy; or, Villanies Discovered, wherein are shown the Mysterious and Villanous Practices of that Wicked Crew—Hectors, Trapanners, Gilts, etc., Also a Compleat Canting Dictionary. Compiled by Richard Head. 1674.

Ladies’ Dictionary, by Dunton, London, 1694.

Dictionary of the Canting Crew (Ancient and Modern), of Gypsies, Beggars, Thieves, &c. About 1700.

New Dictionary of the Terms (Ancient and Modern), of the Canting Crew in its several Tribes. By B. E. Gent. About 1710.—This work was the foundation of Bacchus and Venus, 1737, and of The Scoundrel’s Dictionary, 1754.

Regulator; or, a Discovery of the Thieves, Thief-takers, and Jocks, in and about London. With an account of all the Flash Words now in vogue amongst the thieves. By Charles Hitching, formerly City Marshall. London, 1718.

Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the most notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shop-lifters, and Cheats in and about London and Westminster. By Captain A. Smith. London, 1719.—This contains “The Thieves New Canting Dictionary of the Words, Proverbs, &c., used by Thieves.”

The Thieves’ Grammar. By Captain Alexander Smith. About 1720.

The Thieves’ Dictionary, by the same author. 1724.

Canting Dictionary; comprehending all the Terms used by Gipsies, Beggars, Shoplifters, Highwaymen, Footpads, etc., with a collection of Songs in the Canting Dialect. A rechauffé of earlier works, 1725.

The Golden Cabinet of Secrets, with a Canting Dictionary, by Dr. Surman. In seven parts. London, about 1730.

The Triumph of Wit, or Ingenuity displayed, with the mystery and art of Canting, and Poems in the Canting Language, J. Clarke, 1735.

Etymological English Dictionary. By Nathaniel Bailey, 2 Vols., 1737. A collection of ancient and modern Cant words appears as an appendix to this edition.

Bacchus and Venus; or a select Collection of Songs in the Canting Dialect, etc., with a Dictionary explaining the Canting Terms. 1731. Founded on B. E. Gent’s New Dictionary.

The Life of an English Rogue. By Jeremy Sharp, 1740.—This contains a vocabulary of Gypsies’ Cant.

283 The History and Curious Adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, King of the Mendicants. The first edition was published by R. Goodby, London, 1749.—This is a very common book, it should contain “A vocabulary of words used by the Scottish Gipsies,” “A few sentences in the Gipsy Language,” and “A Dictionary of the Cant Language generally used by mendicants.” These are incomplete and unsatisfactory.

History of the Lives and Actions of Jonathan Wild, Blueskin, and John Sheppard; together with a Canting Dictionary, by Jonathan Wild, 1750.

The Sportsman’s Dictionary. No date. Contains low sporting and pugilistic terms.

Scoundrel’s Dictionary, or an Explanation of the Cant words used by Thieves, House Breakers, Street Robbers, and Pickpockets about Town, 1754. A reprint of Bacchus and Venus, 1737.

The Triumph of Wit, or the Canting Dictionary. Dublin, about 1760.

The Discoveries of John Poulter. About 1770.—With an explanation of the “Language of Thieves, commonly called Cant.”

Dictionary of the English Language, by Dr. John Ash, 1775.—Containing low, vulgar, slang, and cant terms.

New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language. By John Ash, L.L.D., 1775.—Contains Cant words and phrases.

A View of Society in High and Low Life. By George Parker, 1781.

The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. By Francis Grose.—The first edition was published in 1785. This is the foundation of most of the Slang Dictionaries which have since been compiled. Although it is one of the most indecent books ever printed in the English language it must be admitted that it was, at the time it appeared, the most complete and important Dictionary of street language, based on personal enquiry, and acquaintance with the habits of those who used “Cant.”

The Whole Art of Thieving and Defrauding Discovered; to which is added an Explanation of most of the Cant terms in the Thieving Language. 1786.

Life’s Painter of Variegated Characters, with a Dictionary of Cant Language and Flash Songs. By George Parker, 1789.

New Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages, both ancient and modern, used by Gipsies, Beggars, Swindlers, Footpads, Highwaymen, etc. By H. T. Potter, of Clay, Worcestershire. 1790.

Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages, both ancient and modern. By Bailey. 1790.

New Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages used by every class of Offenders, from a Lully Prigger to a High Tober Gloak. 179—

A Political Dictionary: Explaining the True Meaning of Words. By the late Charles Pigott, Esq. London: D. I. Eaton, 1795.—A satirical work directed against the Monarchy, the Aristocracy, and the Government of the day, in the form of a dictionary.

Blackguardiana; or, Dictionary of Rogues, Bawds, etc. By James Caulfield. 1795.

A coarse work, mainly founded on Grose’s “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.”

Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages. London. 1797.

Anecdotes of the English Language, chiefly regarding the Local dialect of London and Environs. By Samuel Pegge. 1803.

Dictionary of the Slang and Cant Languages, Ancient and Modern. By George Andrews. A sixpenny pamphlet. London, 1809.

A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence. 1811.

Lexicon Balatronicum. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, compiled originally by Captain Grose, and now considerably altered and enlarged by a member of the Whip Club, assisted by Hell-Fire Dick, etc. London: C. Chappel, Pall Mall, 1811. With a folding plate by G. Cruikshank, entitled “Bang up Dinner; or, Love and Lingo.” This is a very comprehensive slang dictionary, containing extracts from flash songs and dialogues. It is exceedingly coarse and indelicate, and is consequently very scarce.

Bang-up Dictionary; or, the Lounger and Sportsman’s Vade Mecum. A Glossary of the Language of the Whips. 1812.

London Guide and Stranger’s Safeguard, against Cheats, Swindlers, and Pickpockets, By William Perry. 1818. Contains a Dictionary of Slang Words.

Life of the Count de Vaux, written by Himself, to which is added a Canting Dictionary. 1819.

These memoirs were suppressed.

Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress: With a Preface, Notes, and Appendix. By One of the Fancy. London, Longmans & Co., 1819. There were several Editions. This has been ascribed to Thomas Moore, it contains a parody of one of his poems, most of the other pieces contained in this little volume are descriptive of prize fights, and abound in slang; the burlesque preface and footnotes, are interesting, learned, and explanatory.

There is also a translation from the Fifth Book of Virgil’s Æneid in Slang, entitled “Account of the Milling-match between Entellus and Dares.”

“With daddles high uprais’d, and nob held back,

In awful prescience of th’ impending thwack,

Both Kiddies stood—and with prelusive spar,

And light manœuvering, kindled up the war.!”

* * * * *

Boxiana; or, Sketches of Modern Pugilism, by Pierce Egan. London, 1820.

This is more particularly devoted to the Prize-ring, and its technicalities.

The Fancy: A selection from the Poetical Remains of the late Peter Corcoran, of Gray’s Inn, Student at Lawe London, Taylor & Hessey. 1820. This is written in imitation of Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, and is generally ascribed to James Smith, one of the authors of The Rejected Addresses. It abounds in cant, slang, and terms of the prize ring, and has a short glossary of terms.

The True History of Tom and Jerry; or, The Day and Night scenes of Life in London, with a Glossary of Slang. By Pierce Egan. About 1820.

Flash Dictionary of the Cant Words, Queer Sayings, and Crack Terms now in use in Flash Cribb Society. By Mr. Duncombe. 1820.

Jack Randall’s Diary of Proceedings at the Souse of Call for Genius. This is supposed to have been written by Thomas Moore, it contains numerous Slang parodies, relating to pugilism and fast life in London. 1820. Jack Randall was an ex-pugilist, who kept a 284 public-house called the Hole-in-the-Wall, Chancery Lane, frequented by the “fancy.” He died in 1828.

Alas! poor Jack lies on his back,

As flat as any flounder:

Although he died of a bad inside,

No heart was ever sounder.

The Hole-in-the-Wall was once his stall,

His crib the Fancy name it:

A Hole-in-the-Ground he now has found,

And no one else will claim it.

* * * * *

Essayes and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners. (Mynshull) Edinburgh, 1821. Contains an account of the Cant used in the prison.

Life of David Haggart, written by himself while under sentence of Death. With a glossary of the Slang and Cant Words of the Day. 1821.

Life in St. George’s Fields; or, the Rambles and Adventures of Disconsolate William, Esq., and his Surrey Friend, Flash Dick, with Songs and a Flash Dictionary. 1821.

A Political Dictionary; or, Pocket Companion:—Chiefly designed for the use of Members of Parliament, Whigs, Tories, Loyalists, Magistrates, Clergymen, Half-pay Officers, Worshipful Aldermen and Reviewers; being an Illustration and Commentary on all Words, Phrases, and Proper Names in the Vocabulary of Corruption. With biographical illustrations from the lives of the most celebrated Corruptionists in Church and State. By the Editor of the “Black Book.” London: T. Dolby. 1821.

This work, which has a strong Radical bias, is satirically dedicated to the odious Lord Castlereagh, and is very outspoken in its denunciations of Bribery, Corruption, Pensioners, and Placemen, as witness the definition it gives of “Laureate (Poet),” “A fellow who barters his principles for a hundred pounds a year and a butt of sack.” This gibe was directed at the renegade republican Robert Southey, then Poet Laureate.

The Man of the World’s Dictionary. Anonymous. London: J. Appleyard. 1822.

Translated from the Dictionnaire des Gens du Monde, a satirical work in the form of a dictionary.

Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose, revised and corrected, with the addition of numerous Slang Phrases, collected from tried authorities, by Pierce Egan. London. 1823.—This is the best edition of Grose’s work.

Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, the Bon Ton, and the Varieties of Life, by John Bee, (i.e., John Badcock). 1823.

Gradus ad Cantabrigiam; or New University Guide to the Academical Customs, and Colloquial or Cant terms peculiar to The University of Cambridge. By a Brace of Cantabs. London. J. Hearne. 1824.—This is written in the form of a Dictionary, and contains some excellent parodies.

The Modern Flash Dictionary, containing all the Cant Words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases now in vogue. By E. Kent. 1825.

Modern Flash Dictionary, 48mo. 1825.—The smallest Slang Dictionary ever printed.

Sportsman’s Slang; A new Dictionary of Terms used in the affairs of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, and the Cockpit. By John Bee (J. Badcock). 1825.

My Thought Book, by J. Thomas, 1825.—Contains a chapter on Slang.

Living Picture of London for 1828, and Strangers’ Guide through the streets of the Metropolis; showing the Frauds, the Arts, Snares and Wiles of all descriptions of Rogues, &c., 1828.—Giving an insight into the language of the streets.

Mornings at Bow Street. By T. Wright, London, 1838. Contains Etymologies of a few Slang Words.

Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime; or the Facts, Examinations, &c. upon which the Report was founded, Presented to the House of Lords by W. A. Miles, Esq., to which is added a Dictionary of the Flash or Cant Language, known to every Thief and Beggar. Edited by H. Brandon, Esq., London; Shaw & Sons, 1839.—The Flash Dictionary only extends to six pages, followed by two examples of “flash” conversation, the first of which has already been quoted.

Sinks of London laid open, a Pocket Companion for the uninitiated, to which is added a Modern Flash Dictionary, with a List of the 60 orders of Prime Coves, the whole forming a True Picture of London Life, Cadging made Easy, the He-She Man, Smoking Kens, Lessons to Lovers, &c. With illustrations, by George Cruikshank, London, 1848.

London Labour and London Poor, 4 vols. By Henry Mayhew. London, 1851.

In the Great World of London, written by the same gentleman, there is also some information about Cant and Slang Words.

Magistrates’ Assistant and Constables’ Guide. By Snowden, 1852.—Contains a “Glossary of the Flash Language.”

Archaic Dictionary, by J. O. Halliwell, 2 vols. 1855.

The Vulgar Tongue: comprising two glossaries of Slang, Cant and Flash words and phrases, principally used in London at the present day. By Ducange Anglicus. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1857. Only 250 copies were printed of this edition. The first Glossary was original, the second was merely a reprint from the report entitled Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, which see. It also contains The Leary Man, a Flash Song, and a Tailor’s Handbill in Slang, both of which have already been quoted.

Essay on Church Parties. By Dean Conybeare, containing examples of clerical, or pulpit Slang. 1858.

The Slang Dictionary; or, the Vulgar words, Street Phrases and “Fast” expressions of High and Low Society. This was first published in London by John Camden Hotten in 1859 as The Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar words, a second edition appeared in 1860; the above named which appeared in 1864, contained much more matter than its predecessors. There have been several editions published more recently. Speaking in a general sense this appears to be by far the most interesting, as it is also the most useful work on Slang for modern readers. Naturally it contains a few coarse and vulgar expressions, but none of an obscene or indelicate description. It has a bibliography of Slang and Cant, which is, however, incomplete.

The History of a Manchester Cadger; narrated in his own language. Price, one penny.—This was an impudent theft from Hotten’s Slang Dictionary.

Miss Polly-Glott’s Dictionary of the Future.—This was a satirical Dictionary which appeared in several parts of The Girl of the Period Miscellany. London. 1869.

A Pedlar’s Pack of Ballads and Songs. By W. H. Logan. Edinburgh; William Paterson. 1869.—This contains about a dozen slang songs, the best of which have been already quoted.

285 The Shotover Papers, or Echoes from Oxford. Oxford. J. Vincent. 1874-75.—This contains numerous specimens of the slang in use in the Oxford Colleges.

The Life and Times of James Catnach, (late of Seven Dials) Ballad Monger. By Charles Hindley. London. Reeves and Turner. 1878.—Contains old Cant Ballads, and notes on Thieves and their haunts.

Macmillan’s Magazine, October, 1879. Autobiography of a Thief, by Rev. J. W. Horsley.—See also Jottings from Jail. 1887.

Flights of Fancy by E. L. Blanchard. London: E. W. Allen, 1882. This has a more explanatory sub-title; “The Comic Encyclopædia, a Dictionary of Definitions for the use of Punsters,” this in reality is a humorous and satirical dictionary. This work originally appeared in parts in the early numbers of Fun. London.

Jottings from Jail; Notes and Papers on Prison matters. By the Rev. J. W. Horsley M.A., London. T. Fisher Unwin, 1887.

This contains “An Autobiography of a Thief, in Cant or Thieves’ language,” which had previously appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine for October, 1879. This was also reprinted, with a French translation, in Mr. A. Barrère’s splendid work Argot and Slang.

The A. B. C. of a New Dictionary of Flash, Cant, Slang and Vulgar Words, Proverbs and Provincialisms, their Explication and Illustration. On the basis of Bailey and Grose. London, no date, but probably printed about 1866. This exceedingly scarce and rather coarse little book (110 pages) has no author’s or publisher’s name. It only deals with the first three letters of the alphabet, and was evidently intended as the first instalment of a very complete dictionary, an intention which was not carried into effect. Only a few copies were printed.

New Canting Dictionary. N.D.

A new Dictionary of the Jaunting Crew. N.D.

The Gipsy Vocabulary, Edited by W. Pinkerton.

Every Day Life in our Public Schools. By C. E. Pascoe. London.

The Seven Curses of London. By James Greenwood.

A Supplementary English Glossary. By T. L. O. Davies. London, 1881.

“The True History of Tom and Jerry; or The Day and Night Scenes of Life in London from the Start to the Finish! With a key to the Persons and Places, together with a Vocabulary and Glossary of the Flash and Slang terms occurring in the course of the work.” By Charles Hindley. London, Reeves & Turner, 1889.

This is a reprint of Pierce Egan’s Tom and Jerry and The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, with an interesting and profusely illustrated introduction, by Mr. Hindley. The Glossary has been revised and brought down to date, and altogether the book is as curious and as amusing a record of “Life in London” seventy years ago as can be desired. Only two hundred and fifty copies have been printed.

A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidgin English, Tinkers’ Jargon, and other irregular Phraseology, compiled and edited by Albert Barrère and Charles G. Leland. Printed, for subscribers only, at the Ballantyne Press. 1889. Only the first volume (A to K) of this work has as yet been issued.

AMERICAN AND COLONIAL SLANG.

Essays on Americanisms, Perversions of Language in the United States, Cant Phrases, &c.—By Dr. Witherspoon, Philadelphia, 1801.

Probably the earliest work on Americanisms.

Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases which have been supposed to be peculiar to the United States of America. By F. Pickering, Boston, 1816.

Letter to the Hon. John Pickering, on the subject of his Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases supposed to be peculiar to the United States. By Noah Webster, Boston, 1817.

Collection of College Words and Customs. By B. H. Hall. Cambridge (U.S.) 1856.

Dictionary of Americanisms; a Glossary of Words and Phrases colloquially used in the United States. By John Russell Bartlett. New York, 1859.

Glossary of supposed Americanisms; Vulgar and Slang words used in the United States, by Alfred L. Elwyn. 1859.

Gazetteer of Georgia, U.S. By Sherwood. This contains a glossary of the Slang and Vulgar words peculiar to the Southern States of the U.S.A.

A Handbook of Sayings and Phrases. By J. A. Mair. London, George Routledge and Sons. About 1880. This useful little work contains not only many English Slang Words, but also a collection of American Words and Phrases.

Americanisms, Old and New, being a collection of words, phrases, and colloquialisms peculiar to the United States British America, the West Indies, etc. By John S. Farmer. Privately printed 1889. This contains a good many words pertaining to transatlantic cant, or thieves’ slang. An amusing article on this book appeared in The Daily News, January 31, 1889.

School Life at Winchester College, giving an account of the Language of Ziph. By Professor Mansfield.

——:o:——

CONTINENTAL BOOKS OF REFERENCE ON “ARGOT” OR SLANG.

La Comédie des Proverbes. Par Adrien de Montluc. 1633.

Dictionnaire des Halles. Bruxelles, 1696. A scarce and very curious slang dictionary.

Dictionnaire Comique, Satyrique, Critique, Burlesque, Libre et Proverbial. Avec une explication très-fidèle de toutes les manières de parler Burlesques, Comiques, Libres, Satyriques, Critiques et Proverbiales, qui peuvent se rencontrer dans les meilleurs Auteurs, tant anciens que modernes. Par Philibert Joseph Le Roux. Lyons, 1735. Other editions 1752 and 1786.

(The editor’s copy of this curious work was published by Michel Charles le Cene, at Amsterdam, 1718, and was purchased in July 1889, at Sotheby’s sale of the Library of the Right Hon. and Reverend the Earl of Buckinghamshire.)

Le Poissardiana. 1756.

Amusements à la Grecque, ou les Soirées de la Halle. Par un Ami de feu Vadé. Paris, 1764.

Amusements rapsodi-poétiques. 1773.

Nouveau Dictionnaire Proverbial, Satirique et Burlesque. Plus complet que ceux qui ont paru jusqu’à ce jour, à l’usage de tout le monde. Par A. Caillot. Paris. Dauvin, 1826.

Illustrated by many interesting quotations from the old French classical writers.

286 Dictionnaire d’Argot, ou la Langue des Voleurs devoilée, contenant les moyens de se mettre en garde contre les Ruses des Filous. Paris. 1830 (?)

Histoire de Collet et de plusieurs autres Voleurs anciens et modernes, suivie d’un Dictionnaire Argot-Francais. Paris, 1849.

Macaroneana, ou Mélange de Littérature Macaronique des différents Peuples de l’Europe. Par Octave Delepierre. 1852.

Etudes de Philologie comparée sur l’Argot. Par Francisque Michel. Paris. 1856.

Dictionnaire d’Argot, ou Etudes de Philologie comparée sur l’Argot. Par Francisque Michel. Paris. 1856.

Le Dictionnaire des Précieuses. Par A. B. de Somaize. Nouvelle edition par Ch. L. Livet. 1856.

Récréations Philologiques. Par F. Génin. Paris. 1858.

Liber Vagatorum. Der Betler Orden. The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars, with a vocabulary of their Language. Now first translated into English, with Notes, by John Camden Hotten. 4to. London. 1859.—For an account of this work see Hotten’s Slang Dictionary.

Glossaire Erotique de la Langue Française. Par Louis de Landes. Bruxelles, 1861.

Curiosités de l’Etymologie française. Par Charles Nisard. Paris, 1863.

Vocabulaire des Houilleurs Liégois. Par S. Bormans. 1864.

Dictionnaire de la Langue Verte, par Alfred Delvau. Paris. Second edition, 1867.

Almanach de la Langue Verte pour l’année 1868, à l’usage des Bons Zigues.

Almanach Chantant. 1869.

Dictionnaire Historique, Etymologique, et Anecdotique de l’Argot Parisien. Par L. Larchey. Paris, 1872. (There have been several editions of this work).

De quelques Parisianismes populaires et autres Locutions. Par Charles Nisard. Paris, 1876.

Dictionnaire Historique l’Argot. Par Lorédan Larchey. Paris, 1880.

Dictionnaire d’Argot Moderne. Par Lucien Rigaud. Paris, 1881.

Dictionnaire de l’Argot des Typographes. Par Eugène Boutmy. Paris, 1883.

Dictionnaire de l’Argot Moderne. Par L. Rigaud. Paris, 1883.

Dictionnaire de la Langue Verte, par Delvau et Fustier.

The last and best edition, with a supplement, was published in Paris in 1883.

L’Argot des Nomades en Basse-Brétagne. Par N. Quellien. Paris, 1885.

L’Argot des Nomades de la Basse-Brétagne. Par N. Quellien. Paris, 1886.

La Langue Verte du Troupier. Par Léon Merlin. Paris, 1886.

Le Jargon, ou Langage de l’Argot reformé. Epinal. N.D.

Paris Voleur. Par Pierre Delcourt. Paris, 1887.

Dictionnaire Erotique Moderne. Par un Professeur de la langue Verte. (Alfred Delvau.)

Les Formules du Docteur Grégoire, Dictionnaire du Figaro. Par A. Decourcelle. Paris: J. Hetzel. No date.

An amusing satirical work, in which many humourous definitions are arranged in the form of a dictionary.

Histoire de la Prostitution, par Léo Taxil. Paris. N.D.

Argot and Slang; a new French and English Dictionary of the Cant Words, Quaint Expressions, Slang Terms and Flash Phrases used in old and new Paris. By A. Barrère. London. Privately printed at the Chiswick Press, by C. Whittingham and Co. 1887.

This splendid work contains historical notices of the various canting languages, a number of songs both in French and English slang, and a French translation of the Rev. J. W. Horsley’s Autobiography of a Thief in Thieves’ Language.

M. Barrère gives a long list of the works he has consulted, and in the body of his book brief extracts are given to show the application and contexts of the examples.

Books on foreign slang are very numerous. Besides those already mentioned the following are well known:—“Le Jargon, ou Langage de l’Argot reformé,” &c. (à Troyés), par Yves Girardin, 1660; another by Antoine Dubois, 1680; “Le Jargon ou Langage de l’Argot reformé, pour l’instruction des bons Grivois,” &c., à Lavergne, chex Mezière, Babillandier du Grand Coëre, 1848; “Le Jargon de l’Argot,” par Techener (several editions).

Alfred Delvau published his “Dictionnaire de la Langue Verte, Argots Parisiens comparés,” in 1866, and a second edition in 1867. A third “augmentée d’un supplément par G. Fustier” appeared in 1883. The same author published the “Dictionnaire Erotique Moderne” in 1864. Other editions followed in 1874 and 1875.

Lorédan Larchey wrote “Les Excentricités de la Langue Française” in 1860; the fourth edition appeared in 1862. In 1872 the title was changed to “Dictionnaire Historique Etymologique et Anecdotique de l’Argot Parisien. Sixième Edition des Excentricités du Langage mise à la hauteur des Revolutions du Jour.” In 1880 the eighth edition was called “Dictionnaire Historique d’Argot”; and a supplement appeared in 1883.

It has not been attempted here to give more than a brief bibliography of the principal French works treating of Argot in an explanatory, or historical manner.

Those who wish to pursue the subject further, and to study examples, must consult the old poems of Maitre Francois Villon and Molière, and the writings of Rabelais, Beaumarchais, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Champfleury, Honoré de Balzac, Pierre de Brantôme, Alphonse Daudet, Emile Gaboriau, Charles Nodier, Jean Richepin, and the classical Memoires de Monsieur Vidocq.

287

CROSS READINGS.

A Letter of Recommendation from Cardinal Richelieu.
Mr. Campoa, Savoyard and Friar,	of the holy order of St. Bennet,
is to be the bearer to you of	some news from me, by means of
this letter; he is one of the most	discreet, wise, and least
vicious persons that I ever yet knew,	amongst all I have conversed with
and hath earnestly desired me	to write to you in his favour, and
to give him a letter for you of	credence in his behalf and my
recommendation, which to his	merit (I assure you) rather than his
importunity, I have granted; for	he deserves greatly your esteem, and
I should be sorry you should be	backward to oblige him by being
mistaken in not knowing him,	I should be concern’d if you were
as very many others have been	already upon that account,
who are of my best friends.	Hence, and for no other motive,
I am desirous to advertise you	that you are obliged for my sake
to take especial notice of him,	to pay him all possible respect,
and to say nothing before him	that may offend or displease him
in any sort; for I may truly	say, he is a worthy man, and
assure you, there can’t be a more	convincing argument of an
unworthy person in the world,	than to be able to injure him.
I am sure, that as soon as you	cease being a stranger to his virtue, &
have any acquaintance with him,	you will love him as well as I, and
I shall receive thanks for the advice.	The assurance I have of your
Civility hindereth me to write	farther of him to you, or to say
any more on the subject.

An invention of the like kind is the Jesuits Double-faced Creed, which was published in the history of Popery, 1679, and which, according to the different readings, may suit either Papist or Protestant.

The Jesuits Double-Faced Creed.
I hold for faith	What England’s church allows,
What Rome’s church saith	My conscience disavows.
Where the king is head	The flock can take no shame,
The flock’s misled	Who hold the pope supreme.
Where the altar’s drest	The worship’s scarce divine,
The people’s blest	Whose table’s bread and wine.
He’s but an ass	Who their communion flies,
Who shuns the mass	Is catholic and wise.

In Latin.
Pro fide teneo sana	Quae docet Anglicana
Affirmat quae Romana	Videnter mihi vana,
Supremus quando rex est	Tum plebs est fortunata,
Erraticus tum Grex est	Cum caput fiat papa,
Altare cum ornatur	Communio fit inanis,
Populus tum beatur	Cum mensa vino panis,
Asini nomen meruit	Hunc morem qui non capit,
Missam qui deseruit	Catholicus est et sapit.

The following lines were found in the pocket of the Marquis of Tullabardine on his death in July, 1746. Read across, the cause of the Stuart family is advocated, whilst that of the Hanoverians is pleaded if the short lines are read straight down.

I love wᵗʰ all my Heart	The Stuart’s party Here
The Hanoverian part	Most hateful doth appear
And for the Settlement	I ever have denied
My Conscience gives Consent	To be on Jemmy’s side
Most righteous is the Cause	To be for such a King
To fight for George’s Laws	Will Britain ruin bring
This is my Mind and Heart	In this Opinion I
Tho’ none shoᵈ take my part	Resolve to live and die.

Two Views of Married Life.

The first view is attained by reading the verses as they are printed, the second view appears by reading the lines alternately, the first and third, then the second and fourth.

That man must lead a happy life

Who is directed by a wife;

Who’s freed from matrimonial claims,

Is sure to suffer for his pains.

Adam could find no solid peace

Till he beheld a woman’s face;

When Eve was given for a mate,

Adam was in a happy state.

In all the female race appear

Truth, darling of a heart sincere;

Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride,

In woman never did reside.

What tongue is able to unfold

The worth in woman we behold?

The failings that in woman dwell

Are almost imperceptible.

Confusion take the men, I say,

Who no regard to women pay;

Who make the women their delight

Keep always reason in their sight.

A mangled and spoilt version of this very old poem was recently given in The Sporting Times, (September 4, 1889), as original matter.

——:o:——

Autumn.

The melancholy days have come,

The saddest of the year;

Too warm, alas! for whiskey punch,

Too cold for lager beer.

288

Religious and Political Parodies.

Those parodies which deal with Religious and Political questions are alike in that they are both of great antiquity, and that, no matter how harmless they may be, they are sure to displease a certain proportion of their readers. Thus the parodies that were published by William Hone were both religious and political, and they gave great offence to the supporters of the government of his day, yet any history of English parody that should omit the parodies which gave rise to his three trials would be ridiculously incomplete. It is difficult to adequately treat of the topic without appearing to ridicule that which to many appears too solemn for burlesque.

But in the following pages a broad distinction has been drawn, those Parodies only have been admitted which, whilst imitating the form or language of portions of the liturgy, have no tendency to ridicule religion in itself, nor to burlesque any of its dogmas. It should be remembered that much of the phraseology we associate with the Liturgy is simply old fashioned English, such as was in common use at the time the Scriptures were translated into English, and when the services of the Church of England were first compiled. There can therefore be nothing impious in applying similar language to other subjects, and many eminent churchmen have used the liturgical forms of expression in answering and ridiculing the arguments of their opponents.

There would be little difficulty in showing that in the matter of Parodies no one creed has been less considerate of their neighbours religious opinions than the Protestants, and that, from the days of Luther, the Reformers have left no weapon unemployed which could, in their opinion, do injury to the older form of Catholicism.

When that pattern of filial devotion, Mary the Second, came over with her husband to dispossess her father of his kingdom, we read that he who, with all his faults, had been a kind father, exclaimed “Heaven help me, since even my own children desert me!” It was in the name of holy Religion that James the Second was banished from this country, and his enemies, to show how truly christianlike they were, addressed the following poem to his daughter. In this, not content with burlesquing one of the most beautiful portions of the Catholic Church service, they compare this Mary, descended from the Stuarts, with the Virgin Mary.

THE
Protestants Ave Mary,
on the
Arrival of Her most Gracious Majesty,
MARY,
Queen of England.

Hail all that’s Great or Good! and let the Hail

O’erspread Three Kingdoms, and like Truth prevail:

Hail Mary! ’twas of old the Voice of Heaven;

Nor are we mortals of our share bereaven.

Hail Mary full of Grace! speaks yet more clear,

Since ev’ry Virtue is Constellate here.

And all the Graces so entirely meet,

That nothing less could such a Princess greet.

Nor rest we here: The Lord is with thee too:

Or thy Great Lord could ne’er such Wonders do.

Wonders! may well th’ alarum’d World surprise;

It was of God, and Marvellous in our Eyes!

Wonders! as put its Motion to a stand,

And not His Finger speaks, but Mighty Hand.

Advance yet higher, and pursue the Hind;

Blessed art thou amongst all Womankind:

Since thou com’st cloath’d with Innocence and Peace,

And brings’t the Charms, to make our Tempests cease:

Since by thy virtues we shall now Retrieve

Our gasping Laws, and gain them a Reprieve.

Thy William’s maintain’d Ray will restore,

England the lustre it enjoy’d before;

Our shatter’d Liberties and Laws maintain,

And calmly anchor Church and State again.

But oh! We grieve, that yet, we can’t apply,

The last Division of that Rosary.

We Wish, we Hope, we Pray, and will Pray on,

Till we have gain’d Heaven’s Favour in a Son:

That then we may the whole Salute repeat,

And make our Joys, as well as that Compleat.

Ye Miter’d Heads assist, call to Assize

Your strongest zeals, and with them storm the Skies;

We know, that fervent Prayer did never fail,

And let Rome know such Hereticks can prevail,

And with a Holy Violence pluck down,

A real Issue to support the Crown,

Whilst their addresses to Loretto made,

Did only gain a Son in Masquerade.

Thus we, to our Great Mary, pay our Hails,

With Hearts as full, and swelling as her Sails;

Thanks Winds, and Seas, and Ships, that wafted o’er,

Our Blessed Lady to the British Shore.

But above all, thanks be to Heaven alone,

That led Her from a State, unto a Throne;

Where She will hold (guided by th’ Hand of God.)

The Dovelike Sceptre not an Iron Rod:

So our late model, she may them Reform;

And with true English interest perform,

What James first promis’d; and advance our Glory,

Beyond the Limits of Ancestral Story;

For what can’t England do, would she awake,

Give Laws to Europe, and make Empires shake.

Keep Mistress of the Undisputed Maine,

And hold the Balance Just, ’twixt France and Spain;

And once more make her useless Cannons Roar,

Through both the Indies, and bring back their ore.

Search out new World, and Conquer old Ones too,

Bomb Mexico, and subjugate Peru:

Beard the proud Sophy, and the Grand Mogul,

These are the Rays would make thy Glory full.

Such mighty Acts, would make a Perfect Reign,

And our Great William Conquerour again.

* * * * *

Then visit Monsieur with United Powers,

See Paris too, and humble her high Towers;

Storm the Bastile, possess the Louvre too;

What can’t Great William and Bright Mary do!

Thus may’st thou Conquer, and Amen all say,

Thus may’st thou reign, while we our Homage pay,

And make thy entry, our Great Lady-Day.

This poem is dated “London, 1689. Printed for R. Baldin near the Black-Bull in the Old Baily.”

289 An even earlier Parody, having a religious motive, may be found in “The Temple. Sacred Poems by Mr. George Herbert.” First printed at Cambridge in 1633, it is entitled

A Parodie.

Souls joy, when thou art gone,

And I alone,

Which cannot be,

Because thou dost abide with me,

And I depend on thee;

Yet when thou dost suppresse

The cheerfulnesse

Of thy abode,

And in my powers not stirre abroad,

But leave me to my load:

O what a damp and shade

Doth me invade!

No stormie night

Can so afflict or so affright,

As thy eclipsed light.

* * * * *

The Parody of Scripture may be raised above mere travesty by a vein of earnestness in the motive. Luther intended no violence to the first Psalm when he thus parodied it:—

“Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the way of the Sacramentarians, nor sat in the seat of the Zuringlians, nor followed in the Council of the Zurichers.”

The same may be said of Dr. Norman Macleod’s parody of the first chapter of Genesis:—

“Perhaps the men of science would do well, in accordance with the latest scientific results, and especially the ‘meteoric theory’ to re-write the first chapter of Genesis in this way:—

1. The earth was without form and void.
2. A meteor fell upon the earth.
3. The result was fish, flesh, and fowl.
4. From these proceeded the British Association.
5. And the British Association pronounced it tolerably good.”

——:o:——

William Hone’s Three Trials.

In the year 1817 William Hone, a printer and publisher in the Old Bailey, London, was prosecuted by the Government for having printed and published three parodies, the first was John Wilkes’s Catechism of a Ministerial Member, the second was The Political Litany, and the third was The Sinecurist’s Creed.

The first trial was held in the Guildhall, on December 17, 1817, before Mr. Justice Abbott and a Special Jury; the second, also in the Guildhall, on December 19, 1817, before Lord Ellenborough and a Special Jury, and the third in the same place and before the same judge, on December 20, 1817.

In each case all the influence of Court and Government was brought to bear against Mr. Hone, the Attorney-General prosecuted, and the judges were distinctly adverse to the defendant. Notwithstanding all this, and that Mr. Hone, who defended himself without legal assistance, was in feeble health, in each case the Juries returned a verdict of Not Guilty, and their decisions were received with delight and applause by the London populace.

Mr. Hone, in his defence, contended that the parodies were harmless in themselves, were not intended to ridicule religion or the scriptures, and were written for purely political motives. He further contended, and indeed, proved by extracts, that parodies of a far more objectionable character than his were daily published without let or hindrance, provided that they were in favour of the Government, or written to abuse its opponents.

Directly after the trials Hone published a full account of them, with his defences, and a quantity of entertaining reading on the subject of religious and political parodies. This book had an enormous sale, it has also been recently reprinted by the Freethought Publishing Company, so that copies of it can readily be obtained.

It will therefore suffice to give only the parodies themselves here, without the evidence and speeches of the trials.

John Wilkes’s Catechism.

The late John Wilkes’s Catechism of a Ministerial Member; taken from an Original Manuscript in Mr. Wilkes’s Handwriting, never before printed,[339] and adapted to the Present Occasion. With permission.

London: Printed for one of the Candidates for the Office of Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, and Sold by William Hone, 55, Fleet Street, and 67, Old Bailey. Three Doors from Ludgate Hill. 1817. Price Two-pence.

A Catechism, that is to say, An Instruction, to be learned of every person before he be brought to be confirmed a Placeman or Pensioner by the Minister.

Question. What is your name?

Answer. Lick Spittle.

Q. Who gave you this name?

A. My Sureties to the Ministry, in my Political Change, wherein I was made a Member of the Majority, the Child of Corruption, and a Locust to devour the good Things of this Kingdom.

Q. What did your Sureties then for you?

A. They did promise and vow three things in my Name. First, that I should renounce the Reformists and all their Works, the pomps and vanity of Popular Favour, and all the sinful lusts of Independence. Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles of the Court Faith. And thirdly, that I should keep the Minister’s sole Will and Commandments, and walk in the same, all the days of my life.

Q. Dost thou not think that thou art bound to believe and to do as they have promised for thee?

A. Yes, verily, and for my own sake, so I will; and I heartily thank our heaven-born Ministry, that they have called me to this state of elevation, through my own flattery, cringing, and bribery; and I shall pray to their successors to give me their assistance, that I may continue the same unto my life’s end.

Q. Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief.

A. I believe in George, the Regent Almighty, Maker of New Streets, and Knights of the Bath,

And in the present Ministry, his only choice, who were conceived of Toryism, brought forth of William Pitt, suffered loss of Place under Charles James Fox, were execrated, dead, and buried. In a few months they rose again from their minority; they re-ascended to the Treasury 290 benches, and sit at the right hand of a little man with a large wig; from whence they laugh at the Petitions of the People who may pray for Reform, and that the sweat of their brow may procure them Bread.

I believe that King James the Second was a legitimate Sovereign, and that King William the Third was not; that the Pretender was of the right line; and that George the Third’s grandfather was not; that the dynasty of Bourbon is immortal! and that the glass in the eye of Lord James Murray was not Betty Martin. I believe in the immaculate purity of the Committee of Finance, in the independence of the Committee of Secresy, and that the Pitt System is everlasting, Amen.

Q. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?

A. First, I learn to forswear all conscience, which was never meant to trouble me, nor the rest of the tribe of Courtiers. Secondly, to swear black is white, or white black, according to the good pleasure of the Ministers. Thirdly, to put on the helmet of Impudence, the only armour against the shafts of Patriotism.

Q. You said that your Sureties did promise for you, that you should keep the Minister’s Commandments: tell me how many there be?

A. Ten.

Q. Which be they?

A. The same to which the Minister for the time being always obliges all his creatures to swear, I, the Minister, am the Lord thy liege, who brought thee out of Want and Beggary, into the House of Commons.

I. Thou shalt have no other Patron but me.

II. Thou shalt not support any measure but mine, nor shalt thou frame clauses of any bill in its progress to the House above, or in the Committee beneath, or when the mace is under the table, except it be mine. Thou shalt not bow to Lord Cochrane, nor shake hands with him, nor any other of my real opponents; for I thy Lord am a jealous Minister, and forbid familiarity of the Majority, with the Friends of the People, unto the third and fourth cousins of them that divide against me; and give places, and thousands and tens of thousands, to them that divide with me, and keep my Commandments.

III. Thou shalt not take the Pension of thy Lord the Minister in vain; for I the Minister will force him to accept the Chilterns that taketh my Pension in vain.

IV. Remember that thou attend the Minister’s Levee day; on other days thou shalt speak for him in the House, and fetch and carry, and do all that he commandeth thee to do; but the Levee day is for the glorification of the Minister thy Lord: In it thou shalt do no work in the House, but shalt wait upon him, thou, and thy daughter, and thy wife, and the Members that are within his influence; for on other days the Minister is inaccessible, but delighteth in the Levee day; wherefore the Minister appointed the Levee day, and chatteth thereon familiarly, and is amused with it.

V. Honour the Regent and the helmets of the Life Guards, that thy stay may be long in the Place, which the Lord thy Minister giveth thee.

VI. Thou shalt not call starving to death murder.

VII. Thou shalt not call Royal gallivanting adultery.

VIII. Thou shalt not say, that to rob the Public is to steal.

IX. Thou shalt bear false witness against the people.

X. Thou shalt not covet the People’s applause, thou shalt not covet the People’s praise, nor their good name, nor their esteem, nor their reverence, nor any reward that is theirs.

Q. What dost thou chiefly learn by these Commandments?

A. I learn two things—my duty towards the Minister, and my duty towards myself.

Q. What is thy duty towards the Minister?

A. My duty towards the Minister is, to trust him as much as I can; to fear him; to honour him with all my words, with all my bows, with all my scrapes, and all my cringes; to flatter him; to give him thanks; to give up my whole soul to him; to idolize his name, and obey his word; and serve him blindly all the days of his political life.

Q. What is thy duty towards thyself?

A. My duty towards myself is to love nobody but myself, and to do unto most men what I would not that they should do unto me; to sacrifice unto my own interest even my father and mother; to pay little reverence to the King, but to compensate that omission by my servility to all that are put in authority under him; to lick the dust under the feet of my superiors, and to shake a rod of iron over the backs of my inferiors; to spare the People by neither word nor deed; to observe neither truth nor justice in my dealings with them; to bear them malice and hatred in my heart; and where their wives and properties are concerned, to keep my body neither in temperance, soberness, nor chastity, but to give my hands to picking and stealing, and my tongue to evil speaking and lying, and slander of their efforts to defend their liberties and recover their rights; never failing to envy their privileges, and to learn to get the Pensions of myself and my colleagues out of the People’s labour, and to do my duty in that department of public plunder unto which it shall please the Minister to call me.

Q. My good Courtier, know this, that thou art not able of thyself to preserve the Minister’s favour, nor to walk in his Commandments, nor to serve him, without his special protection; which thou must at all times learn to obtain by diligent application. Let me hear, therefore, if thou canst rehearse the Minister’s Memorial.

Answer.

Our Lord who art in the Treasury, whatsoever be thy name, thy power be prolonged, thy will be done throughout the empire, as it is in each session. Give us our usual sops, and forgive us our occasional absences on divisions; as we promise not to forgive them that divide against thee. Turn us not out of our places; but keep us in the House of Commons, the land of Pensions and Plenty; and deliver us from the People. Amen.

Q. What desirest thou of the Minister in this Memorial?

A. I desire the Minister, our Patron, who is the disposer of the Nation’s overstrained Taxation, to give his protection unto me and to all Pensioners and Placemen, that we may vote for him, serve him, and obey him, as far as we find it convenient; and I beseech the Minister that he will give us all things that be needful, both for our reputation and appearance in the House and out of it; that he will be favourable to us, and forgive us our negligence; that it will please him to save and defend us, in all dangers of life and limb, from the People, our natural enemies; and that he will help us in fleecing and grinding them; and this I trust he will do out of care for himself, and our support of him through our corruption and influence; and therefore I say Amen. So be it.

291 Q. How many Tests hath the Minister ordained?

A. Two only, as generally necessary to elevation; (that is to say) Passive Obedience and Bribery.

Q. What meanest thou by this word Test?

A. I mean an outward visible sign of an inward intellectual meanness, ordained by the Minister himself as a pledge to assure him thereof.

Q. How many parts are there in this Test?

A. Two; the outward visible sign, and the intellectual meanness.

Q. What is the outward visible sign or form of Passive Obedience?

A. Dangling at the Minister’s heels, whereby the person is degraded beneath the baseness of a slave, in the character of a Pensioner, Placeman, Expectant Parasite, Toadeater, or Lord of the Bedchamber.

Q. What is the inward intellectual meanness?

A. A death unto Freedom, a subjection unto perpetual Thraldom; for being by nature born free, and the children of Independence, we are hereby made children of Slavery.

Q. What is required of persons submitting to the Test of Passive Obedience?

A. Apostacy, whereby they forsake Liberty; and faith, whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of the Minister, made to them upon submitting to that Test.

Q. Why was the Test of Bribery ordained?

A. For the continual support of the Minister’s influence, and the feeding of us, his needy creatures and sycophants.

Q. What is the outward part or sign in the Test of Bribery?

A. Bank notes, which the Minister hath commanded to be offered by his dependants.

Q. Why then are beggars submitted to this Test, when by reason of their poverty they are not able to go through the necessary forms?

A. Because they promise them by their Sureties; which promise, when they come to lucrative offices, they themselves are bound to perform.

Q. What is the inward part, or thing signified?

A. The industry and wealth of the People, which are verily and indeed taken and had by Pensioners and Sinecurists, in their Corruption.

Q. What are the benefits whereof you are partakers thereby?

A. The weakening and impoverishing the People, through the loss of their Liberty and Property, while our wealth becomes enormous, and our pride intolerable.

Q. What is required of them who submit to the Test of Bribery and Corruption?

A. To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of any signs of former honour and patriotism, stedfastly purposing henceforward to be faithful towards the Minister; to draw on and off like his glove, to crouch to him like a spaniel; to purvey for him like a jackall; to be as supple to him as Alderman Sir William Turtle; to have the most lively faith in the Funds, especially in the Sinking Fund; to believe the words of Lord Castlereagh alone; to have remembrance of nothing but what is in the Courier; to hate Matthew Wood, the present Lord Mayor, and his second Mayoralty; with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength; to admire Sir John Silvester, the Recorder, and Mr. John Langley; and to be in charity with those only who have something to give.

[Here endeth the Catechism.]

The Political Litany.

¶ Here followeth the Litany, or General Supplication, to be said or sung at all times when thereunto especially moved.

O Prince, ruler of the people, have mercy upon us thy miserable subjects.

O Prince, ruler, &c.

O House of Lords, hereditary legislators, have mercy upon us, pension-paying subjects.

O House of Lords, &c.

O House of Commons, proceeding from corrupt borough-mongers, have mercy upon us, your should-be constituents.

O House of Commons, &c.

O gracious, noble, right honourable, and learned rulers of our land, three estates in one state, have mercy upon us, a poverty-stricken people.

O gracious, noble, &c.

Remember not, most gracious, most noble, right honourable, and honourable gentlemen, our past riches, nor the riches of our forefathers; neither continue to tax us according to our long-lost ability—spare us, good rulers; spare the people who have supported ye with their labour, and spilt their most precious blood in your quarrels; O consume us not utterly,

Spare us, good Prince.

From an unnational debt; from unmerited pensions and sinecure places; from an extravagant civil list; and from utter starvation,

Good Prince, deliver us.

From the blind imbecility of ministers; from the pride and vain-glory of warlike establishments in time of peace,

Good Prince, deliver us.

From all the deadly sins attendant on a corrupt method of election; from all the deceits of the pensioned hirelings of the press,

Good Prince, deliver us.

From taxes levied by distress; from jails crowded with debtors; from poor-houses overflowing with paupers,

Good Prince, deliver us.

From a Parliament chosen only by one-tenth of the taxpayers; from taxes raised to pay wholesale human butchers their subsidies; from the false doctrines, heresy, and schism, which have obscured our once-glorious constitution; from conspiracies against the liberty of the people; and from obstacles thrown in the way of the exertion of our natural and constitutional rights,

Good Prince, deliver us.

By your feelings as men; by your interests as members of civil society; by your duty as Christians,

O Rulers, deliver us.

By the deprivation of millions—by the sighs of the widow—by the tears of the orphan—by the groans of the aged in distress—by the wants of all classes in the community, except your own and your dependents,

O Rulers, deliver us.

In this time of tribulation—in this time of want of labour to thousands, and of unrequited labour to tens of thousands—in this time of sudden death from want of food,

O Rulers, deliver us.

We people do beseech ye to hear us, O Rulers; and that it may please ye to rule and govern us constitutionally in the right way;