IV.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, To leave the place, and murmurs of distress, And some, who should have gone two hours ago, Had only stayed because the dreadful mess Must be reported in the daily press; And these regretfully, with choking sighs, Sat the performance through, for who could guess If ever more, before the critics’ eyes, The curtain on such cruel sacrilege would rise?

_The Figaro_, February 26, 1876.

These lines refer to the first appearance of Mr. Henry Irving in the Character of “Othello.” The success he met with then, induced him to revive it some time afterward, and proves how reliable these verses were as a criticism. But at that time _The Figaro_ persistently and indiscriminately ran down all Mr. Irving’s impersonations.

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LONDON’S INFERNO.

There is a sound of revelry by night, For England’s capital has gathered then Her lowest and her foulest and too bright The gas shines o’er frail women and fast men! A thousand tongues wag noisily, and when The music-halls the shameless concourse swells, And drunken wretches reel from many a den, The scene grows yet more like an earthly hell!―― But hush! Big Ben booms midnight, like some solemn knell!

Do they not hear it sounding on the wind, These reckless haunters of the crowded street? Nay, on they course, their laughter unconfined, Prepared in all their brazen shame to greet The ribald roysterers they haply meet! But hark! that bell of doom breaks in once more, And some lone hearts its echoes now repeat; But louder, shriller, ghastlier than before, Rises that hideous midnight Market’s odious roar!

Ah! now there’s eager hurrying to and fro, And frightful oaths and tears of deep distress And cheeks are drabbled which an hour ago Were brave with artificial loveliness. And there are sudden quarrels as the press Of desperate women swirls and surges by, With laughter forced and words of bitterness, Which overwhelms the outcasts deep-drawn sigh, As the pale moon breaks through the sombre-clouded sky.

And this in London! in the very street Which speaks the grandeur of the wealthy west! ’Tis here debauchery and riot meet; ’Tis here each night, when purity’s at rest, There rages rampantly that moral pest That saps our city’s health and blasts her name, And steals the reputation she posses’t, Leaving her rifled of her once fair fame, A bye-word for the nations, and all Europe’s shame.

_Truth, Christmas Number_, 1884.

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A parody entitled _Childe Snobson’s Pilgrimage_, in several parts, appeared in volume III. of _Punch_ 1842; and again, in 1883, another long parody of _Childe Harold_ ran through several numbers of the same periodical. This was called _Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage_, and, when complete, was issued in book form by Bradbury Agnew & Co., with the Author’s name, E. J. Milliken, on the title page, and some illustrations by E. J. Wheeler.

This work is at once a parody of Childe Harold, and a satire on the typical young “Masher” of the period, who, having exhausted all modern forms of dissipation, finally “comes an awful cropper” in the slang of his tribe.

“Childe Chappie” bids farewell to the haunts of his boyhood in the following verses, sung to the accompaniment of a banjo.