Part 2

"For one long term, or e'er her trial came, Here Brownrigg lingered. Often have these cells Echoed her blasphemies, as with shrill voice She screamed for fresh Geneva. Not to her Did the blithe fields of Tothill, or thy street, St. Giles, its fair varieties expand, Till at the last, in slow-drawn cart, she went To execution. Dost thou ask her crime? She whipped two female prentices to death, And hid them in the coal-hole. For her mind Shaped strictest plans of discipline. Sage schemes! Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog The little Spartans; such as erst chastised Our Milton, when at college. For this act Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws! But time shall come When France shall reign, and laws be all repealed."

The following felicitous parody on Wolfe's "Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore" is taken from Thomas Hood:

"Not a laugh was heard, nor a joyous note, As our friend to the bridal we hurried; Not a wit discharged his farewell joke, As the bachelor went to be married.

We married him quickly to save his fright, Our heads from the sad sight turning; And we sighed as we stood by the lamp's dim light, To think him not more discerning.

To think that a bachelor free and bright, And shy of the sex as we found him, Should there at the altar, at dead of night, Be caught in the snares that bound him.

Few and short were the words we said, Though of cake and wine partaking; We escorted him home from the scene of dread, While his knees were awfully shaking.

Slowly and sadly we marched adown From the top to the lowermost story; And we have never heard from nor seen the poor man Whom we left alone in his glory."

Mr. Barham has also left us a parody on the same lines:

"Not a sou had he got,--not a guinea, or note, And he looked most confoundedly flurried, As he bolted away without paying his shot, And the landlady after him hurried.

We saw him again at dead of night, When home from the club returning; We twigged the Doctor beneath the light Of the gas lamp brilliantly burning.

All bare, and exposed to the midnight dews, Reclined in the gutter we found him, And he looked like a gentleman taking a snooze, With his Marshall cloak around him.

'The Doctor is as drunk as the d--l,' we said, And we managed a shutter to borrow, We raised him, and sighed at the thought that his head Would confoundedly ache on the morrow.

We bore him home and we put him to bed, And we told his wife and daughter To give him next morning a couple of red Herrings with soda-water.

Loudly they talked of his money that's gone, And his lady began to upbraid him; But little he reck'd, so they let him snore on 'Neath the counterpane, just as we laid him.

We tuck'd him in, and had hardly done, When beneath the window calling We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun Of a watchman 'one o'clock' bawling.

Slowly and sadly we all walk'd down From his room on the uppermost story, A rushlight we placed on the cold hearth-stone, And we left him alone in his glory."

In the examples which follow, the selection has been made on the principle of giving only those of which the prototypes are well known and will be easily recognised, and here is another of Hood's, written on a popular ballad:

"We met--'twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me-- I felt--I could not feel--for no watch was upon me; He ran--the night was cold--and his pace was unaltered, I too longed much to pelt--but my small-boned legs faltered. I wore my brand new boots--and unrivalled their brightness, They fit me to a hair--how I hated their tightness! I called, but no one came, and my stride had a tether, Oh, _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather! And once again we met--and an old pal was near him, He swore, a something low--but 'twas no use to fear him, I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only, And stept, as he deserved--to cells wretched and lonely: And there he will be tried--but I shall ne'er receive her, The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver; The world may think me gay--heart and feet ache together, Oh, _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!"

Here is another upon an old favourite song:

THE BANDIT'S FATE.

"He wore a brace of pistols the night when first we met, His deep-lined brow was frowning beneath his wig of jet, His footsteps had the moodiness, his voice the hollow tone, Of a bandit chief, who feels remorse, and tears his hair alone-- I saw him but at half-price, but methinks I see him now, In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow.

A private bandit's belt and boots, when next we met, he wore; His salary, he told me, was lower than before; And standing at the O. P. wing he strove, and not in vain, To borrow half a sovereign, which he never paid again. I saw it but a moment--and I wish I saw it now-- As he buttoned up his pocket, with a condescending bow.

And once again we met; but no bandit chief was there; His rouge was off, and gone that head of once luxuriant hair: He lodges in a two-pair back, and at the public near, He cannot liquidate his 'chalk,' or wipe away his beer. I saw him sad and seedy, yet methinks I see him now, In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow."

Goldsmith's "When lovely woman stoops to folly," has been thus parodied by Shirley Brooks:

"When lovely woman, lump of folly, Would show the world her vainest trait,-- Would treat herself as child her dolly, And warn each man of sense away,-- The surest method she'll discover To prompt a wink in every eye, Degrade a spouse, disgust a lover, And spoil a scalp-skin, is--to dye!"

Examples like these are numerous, and may be found in the "Bon Gaultier Ballads" of Theodore Martin and Professor Aytoun; "The Ingoldsby Legends" of Barham; and the works of Lewis Carroll.

One of the "Bon Gaultier" travesties was on Macaulay, and was called "The Laureate's Journey;" of which these two verses are part:

"'He's dead, he's dead, the Laureate's dead!' Thus, thus the cry began, And straightway every garret roof gave up its minstrel man; From Grub Street, and from Houndsditch, and from Farringdon Within, The poets all towards Whitehall poured in with eldritch din.

Loud yelled they for Sir James the Graham: but sore afraid was he; A hardy knight were he that might face such a minstrelsie. 'Now by St. Giles of Netherby, my patron saint, I swear, I'd rather by a thousand crowns Lord Palmerston were here!'"

It is necessary, however, to confine our quotations within reasonable limits, and a few from the modern writers must suffice. The next is by Henry S. Leigh, one of the best living writers of burlesque verse.

ONLY SEVEN.[2]

(A PASTORAL STORY, AFTER WORDSWORTH.)

"I marvelled why a simple child, That lightly draws its breath, Should utter groans so very wild, And look as pale as death.

Adopting a parental tone, I asked her why she cried; The damsel answered with a groan, 'I've got a pain inside.

I thought it would have sent me mad, Last night about eleven.' Said I, 'What is it makes you bad? How many apples have you had?' She answered, 'Only seven!'

'And are you sure you took no more, My little maid,' quoth I. 'Oh, please, sir, mother gave me four, But they were in a pie.'

'If that's the case,' I stammered out, 'Of course you've had eleven.' The maiden answered with a pout, 'I ain't had more nor seven!'

I wondered hugely what she meant, And said, 'I'm bad at riddles, But I know where little girls are sent For telling tarradiddles.

Now if you don't reform,' said I, 'You'll never go to heaven!' But all in vain; each time I try, The little idiot makes reply, 'I ain't had more nor seven!'

POSTSCRIPT.

To borrow Wordsworth's name was wrong, Or slightly misapplied; And so I'd better call my song, 'Lines from Ache-inside.'"

Mr. Swinburne's alliterative style lays him particularly open to the skilful parodist, and he has been well imitated by Mr. Mortimer Collins, who, perhaps, is as well known as novelist as poet. The following example is entitled

"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 goes 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."

The next instance, by the same author, is another good imitation of Mr. Swinburne's style. It is a recipe for

SALAD.

"Oh, 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."

The "Shootover Papers," by members of the Oxford University, contains this parody, written upon the "Procuratores," a kind of university police:

"Oh, vestment of velvet and virtue, Oh, venomous victors of vice, Who hurt men who never hurt you, Oh, calm, cold, crueller than ice. Why wilfully wage you this war, is All pity purged out of your breast? Oh, purse-prigging procuratores, Oh, pitiless pest!

We had smote and made redder than roses, With juice not of fruit nor of bud, The truculent townspeople's noses, And bathed brutal butchers in blood; And we all aglow in our glories, Heard you not in the deafening din; And ye came, oh ye procuratores, And ran us all in!"

In the same book a certain school of poets has been hit at in the following lines:

"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, While the love-lorn censers sweep; While the jasper winds dissever, Amber-like, the crystal deep;

Shall the soul's delicious slumber, Sea-green vengeance of a kiss, Reach despairing crags to number Blue infinities of bliss."

The "Diversions of the Echo Club," by Bayard Taylor, contains many parodies, principally upon American poets, and gives this admirable rendering of Edgar A. Poe's style:

THE PROMISSORY NOTE.

"In the lonesome latter years, (Fatal years!) To the dropping of my tears Danced the mad and mystic spheres In a rounded, reeling rune, 'Neath the moon, To the dripping and the dropping of my tears.

Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom, (Ulalume!) In a dim Titanic tomb, For my gaunt and gloomy soul Ponders o'er the penal scroll, O'er the parchment (not a rhyme), Out of place,--out of time,-- I am shredded, shorn, unshifty, (Oh, the fifty!) And the days have passed, the three, Over me! And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote At the bottom of the note (Wrote and freely Gave to Greeley), In the middle of the night, In the mellow, moonless night, When the stars were out of sight, When my pulses like a knell, (Israfel!) Danced with dim and dying fays O'er the ruins of my days, O'er the dimeless, timeless days, When the fifty, drawn at thirty, Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it, (Let him hold it!) Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen; Now the days of grace are o'er, (Ah, Lenore!) I am but as other men: What is time, time, time, To my rare and runic rhyme, To my random, reeling rhyme, By the sands along the shore, Where the tempest whispers, 'Pay him!' and I answer, 'Nevermore!'"[3]

Bret Harte also has given a good imitation of Poe's style in "The Willows," from which there follows an extract:

"But Mary, uplifting her finger, Said, 'Sadly this bar I mistrust,-- I fear that this bar does not trust. Oh, hasten--oh, let us not linger-- Oh, fly--let us fly--ere we must!' In terror she cried, letting sink her Parasol till it trailed in the dust,-- In agony sobbed, letting sink her Parasol till it trailed in the dust,-- Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

Then I pacified Mary and kissed her, And tempted her into the room, And conquered her scruples and gloom; And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the warning of doom,-- By some words that were warning of doom. And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister, At the opposite end of the room?' She sobbed as she answered, 'All liquors Must be paid for ere leaving the room.'"

Mr. Calverley is perhaps one of the best of the later parodists, and he hits off Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Coventry Patmore, and others most inimitably. We give a couple of verses from one, a parody of his upon a well-known lyric of Tennyson's, and few we think after perusing it would be able to read "The Brook" without its murmur being associated with the wandering tinker:

"I loiter down by thorp and town; For any job I'm willing; Take here and there a dusty brown And here and there a shilling.

* * * * *

Thus on he prattled, like a babbling brook, Then I; 'The sun has slept behind the hill, And my Aunt Vivian dines at half-past six.' So in all love we parted: I to the Hall, They to the village. It was noised next noon That chickens had been missed at Syllabub Farm."

Mr. Tennyson's "Home they brought her warrior dead," has likewise been differently travestied by various writers. One of these by Mr. Sawyer is given here:

THE RECOGNITION.

"Home they brought her sailor son, Grown a man across the sea, Tall and broad and black of beard, And hoarse of voice as man may be.

Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, Both he offered ere he spoke; But she said, 'What man is this Comes to play a sorry joke?'

Then they praised him--call'd him 'smart,' 'Tightest lad that ever stept;' But her son she did not know, And she neither smiled nor wept.

Rose, a nurse of ninety years, Set a pigeon-pie in sight; She saw him eat--''Tis he! 'tis he!'-- She knew him--by his appetite!"

"The May-Queen" has also suffered in some verses called "The Biter Bit," of which these are the last four lines:

"You may lay me in my bed, mother--my head is throbbing sore; And, mother, prithee let the sheets be duly aired before; And if you'd do a kindness to your poor desponding child, Draw me a pot of beer, mother--and, mother, draw it mild!"

Mr. Calverley has imitated well also the old ballad style, as in this one, of which we give the opening verses:

"It was a railway passenger, And he leapt out jauntilie. 'Now up and bear, thou proud portèr, My two chattels to me.

* * * * *

'And fetch me eke a cabman bold, That I may be his fare, his fare: And he shall have a good shilling, If by two of the clock he do me bring To the terminus, Euston Square.'

'Now,--so to thee the Saints alway, Good gentlemen, give luck,-- As never a cab may I find this day, For the cabmen wights have struck:

And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn, Or else at the Dog and Duck, Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin, The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin Right pleasantlie they do suck.'"...

The following imitation of the old ballad form is by Mr. Lewis Carroll, who has written many capital versions of different poems:

YE CARPETTE KNYGHTE.

"I have a horse--a ryghte good horse-- Ne doe I envie those Who scoure ye plaine in headie course, Tyll soddaine on theyre nose They lyghte wyth unexpected force-- It ys--a horse of clothes.

I have a saddel--'Say'st thou soe? Wyth styrruppes, knyghte, to boote?' I sayde not that--I answere 'Noe'-- Yt lacketh such, I woot-- Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe! Parte of ye fleecie brute.

I have a bytte--a right good bytte-- As schall be seen in time. Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte-- Yts use ys more sublyme. Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt? Yt ys--thys bytte of rhyme."

In "Alice in Wonderland,"[4] by the same gentleman, there is this new version of an old nursery ditty:

"'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail, 'There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

'You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us with the lobsters out to sea!' But the snail replied, 'Too far, too far!' and gave a look askance, Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance, Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied; 'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The farther off from England the nearer is to France-- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?'"

Mr. Carroll's adaptation of "You are old, Father William," is one of the best of its class, and here are two verses:

"'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?' 'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; But now I am perfectly sure I have none-- Why, I do it again and again!'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak-- Pray, how do you manage to do it?' 'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life.'"[5]

Mr. H. Cholmondeley-Pennell in "Puck on Pegasus" gives some good examples, such as that on the "Hiawatha" of Longfellow, the "Song of In-the-Water," and also that on Southey's "How the Waters come down at Lodore," the parody being called "How the Daughters come down at Dunoon," of which these are the concluding lines:

"Feathers a-flying all--bonnets untying all-- Crinolines rapping and flapping and slapping all, Balmorals dancing and glancing entrancing all,-- Feats of activity-- Nymphs on declivity-- Sweethearts in ecstasies-- Mothers in vextasies-- Lady-loves whisking and frisking and clinging on, True lovers puffing and blowing and springing on, Flushing and blushing and wriggling and giggling on, Teasing and pleasing and wheezing and squeezing on, Everlastingly falling and bawling and sprawling on, Flurrying and worrying and hurrying and skurrying on, Tottering and staggering and lumbering and slithering on, Any fine afternoon About July or June-- That's just how the Daughters Come down at Dunoon!"

"Twas ever thus," the well-known lines of Moore, has also been travestied by Mr. H. C. Pennell:

"Wus! ever wus! By freak of Puck's My most exciting hopes are dashed; I never wore my spotless ducks But madly--wildly--they were splashed! I never roved by Cynthia's beam, To gaze upon the starry sky; But some old stiff-backed beetle came, And charged into my pensive eye:

And oh! I never did the swell In Regent Street, amongst the beaus, But smuts the most prodigious fell, And always settled on my nose!"

Moore's lines have evidently been tempting to the parodists, for Mr. Calverley and Mr. H. S. Leigh have also written versions: Mr. Leigh's begins thus--

"I never reared a young gazelle (Because, you see, I never tried), But had it known and loved me well, No doubt the creature would have died. My sick and aged Uncle John Has known me long and loves me well, But still persists in living on-- I would he were a young gazelle."

Shakespeare's soliloquy in Hamlet has been frequently selected as a subject for parody; the first we give being the work of Mr. F. C. Burnand in "Happy Thoughts":

"To sniggle or to dibble, that's the question! Whether to bait a hook with worm or bumble, Or to take up arms of any sea, some trouble To fish, and then home send 'em. To fly--to whip-- To moor and tie my boat up by the end To any wooden post, or natural rock We may be near to, on a Preservation Devoutly to be fished. To fly--to whip-- To whip! perchance two bream;--and there's the chub!"

CREMATION.

"To Urn, or not to Urn? That is the question: Whether 'tis better in our frames to suffer The shows and follies of outrageous custom, Or to take fire against a sea of zealots, And, by consuming, end them? To Urn--to keep-- No more: and while we keep, to say we end Contagion, and the thousand graveyard ills That flesh is heir to--'tis a consume-ation Devoutly to be wished! To burn--to keep-- To keep! Perchance to lose--ay, there's the rub! For in the course of things what duns may come, Or who may shuffle off our Dresden urn, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes inter-i-ment of so long use; For who would have the pall and plumes of hire, The tradesman's prize--a proud man's obsequies, The chaffering for graves, the legal fee, The cemetery beadle, and the rest, When he himself might his few ashes make With a mere furnace? Who would tombstones bear, And lie beneath a lying epitaph, But that the dread of simmering after death-- That uncongenial furnace from whose burn No incremate returns--weakens the will, And makes us rather bear the graves we have Than fly to ovens that we know not of?"

The next, on the same subject, is from an American source, where it is introduced by the remark: