Parody is the name generally given to a humorous or burlesque imitation of a serious poem or song, of which it so far preserves the style and words of the original as that the latter may be easily recognised; it also may be said to consist in the application of high-sounding poetry to familiar objects, should be confined within narrow limits, and only adapted to light and momentary occasions. Though by no means the highest kind of literary composition, and generally used to ridicule the poets, still many might think their reputation increased rather than diminished by the involuntary applause of imitators and parodists, and have no objection that their works afford the public double amusement—first in the original, and afterwards in the travesty, though the parodist may not always be intellectually up to the level of his prototype. Parodies are best, however, when short and striking—when they produce mirth by the happy imitation of some popular passage, or when they mix instruction with amusement, by showing up some latent absurdity or developing the disguises of bad taste.

The invention of this humoristic style of composition has been attributed to the Greeks, from whose language the name itself is derived (para, beside; ode, a song); the first to use it being supposed to be Hegemon of Thasos, who flourished during the Peloponnesian War; by others the credit of the invention is given to Hipponax, who in his picture of a glutton, parodies Homer’s description of the feats of Achilles in fighting with his hero in eating. This work begins as follows:

“Sing, O celestial goddess, Eurymedon, foremost of gluttons, Whose stomach devours like Charybdis, eater unmatched among mortals.”

The Battle of the Frogs and Mice (The “Batrachomyomachia”), also a happy specimen of the parody is said to be a travesty of Homer’s “Iliad,” and numerous examples will be found in the comedies of Aristophanes. Among the Romans this form of literary composition made its appearance at the period of the Decline, and all the power of Nero could not prevent Persius from parodying his verses. The French among modern nations have been much given to it, whilst in the English language there are many examples, one of the earliest being the parodying of Milton by John Philips, one of the most artificial poets of his age (1676-1708). He was an avowed imitator of Milton, and certainly evinced considerable talent in his peculiar line. Philips wrote in blank verse a poem on the victory of Blenheim, and another on Cider, the latter in imitation of the Georgics. His best work, however, is that from which there follows a quotation, a parody on “Paradise Lost,” considered by Steele to be the best burlesque poem extant.

The Splendid Shilling.

“‘Sing, heavenly muse! Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme,’ A shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire. Happy the man, who, void of care and strife, In silken or in leathern purse retains A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale; But with his friends, when nightly mists arise, To Juniper’s Magpie, or Town-hall[1] repairs: Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye Transfixed his soul, and kindled amorous flames, Chloe or Phillis, he each circling glass Wishes her health, and joy, and equal love. Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale, Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint. But I, whom griping penury surrounds, And hunger, sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff, Wretched repast! my meagre corpse sustain: Then solitary walk, or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming puff Regale chilled fingers; or from tube as black As winter chimney, or well-polished jet, Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent: Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size, Smokes Cambro-Briton (versed in pedigree, Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings Full famous in romantic tale) when he O’er many a craggy hill and barren cliff, Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese, High over-shadowing rides, with a design To vend his wares, or at th’ Avonian mart, Or Maridunum, or the ancient town Yclep’d Brechinia, or where Vaga’s stream Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil! Whence flows nectareous wines, that well may vie With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern. Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow With looks demur, and silent pace, a dun, Horrible monster! hated by gods and men, To my aËrial citadel ascends: With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate; With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound. What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed, Confounded, to the dark recess I fly Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect Through sudden fear: a chilly sweat bedews My shuddering limbs, and (wonderful to tell!) My tongue forgets her faculty of speech; So horrible he seems! His faded brow Intrenched with many a frown, and conic beard, And spreading band, admired by modern saints, Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves, With characters and figures dire inscribed, Grievous to mortal eyes (ye gods, avert Such plagues from righteous men!) Behind him stalks Another monster, not unlike himself, Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called A catchpoll, whose polluted hands the gods With force incredible, and magic charms, First have endued: if he his ample palm Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont), To some enchanted castle is conveyed, Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains In durance strict detain him, till, in form Of money, Pallas sets him free. Beware, ye debtors! when ye walk, beware, Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken This caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave, Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch With his unhallowed touch. So (poets sing) Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn An everlasting foe, with watchful eye Lies nightly brooding o’er a chinky gap, Portending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands Within her woven cell; the humming prey, Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils Inextricable; nor will aught avail Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue: The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone, And butterfly, proud of expanded wings Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares, Useless resistance make: with eager strides She towering flies to her expected spoils: Then, with envenomed jaws, the vital blood Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.”...

Perhaps the best English examples of the true parody—the above being more of an imitation—are to be found in the “Rejected Addresses” of the brothers James and Horace Smith. This work owed its origin to the reopening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1812, after its destruction by fire. The managers, in the true spirit of tradesmen, issued an advertisement calling for Addresses, one of which should be spoken on the opening night. Forty-three were sent in for competition. Overwhelmed by the amount of talent thus placed at their disposal, the managers summarily rejected the whole, and placed themselves under the care of Lord Byron, whose composition, after all, was thought by some to be, if not unworthy, at least ill-suited for the occasion. Mr. Ward, the secretary of the Theatre, having casually started the idea of publishing a series of “Rejected Addresses,” composed by the most popular authors of the day, the brothers Smith eagerly adopted the suggestion, and in six weeks the volume was published, and received by the public with enthusiastic delight. They were principally humorous imitations of eminent authors, and Lord Jeffrey said of them in the Edinburgh Review: “I take them indeed to be the very best imitations (and often of difficult originals) that ever were made; and, considering their great extent and variety, to indicate a talent to which I do not know where to look for a parallel. Some few of them descend to the level of parodies; but by far the greater part are of a much higher description.” The one which follows is in imitation of Crabbe, and was written by James Smith, and Jeffrey thought it “the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite and masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most original author.” Crabbe himself said regarding it, that it “was admirably done.”

The Theatre.

“’Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six, Our long wax candles, with short cotton wicks, Touched by the lamplighter’s Promethean art, Start into light, and make the lighter start; To see red Phoebus 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, miscalled 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, Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din. Now all seems hushed; but no, one fiddle will Give, half ashamed, a tiny flourish still. Foiled 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 powdered 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. Critics we boast who ne’er their malice balk, 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-haired 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 spurned 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 Mullens whispered, ‘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, Starred, 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 unfeigned, Regained the felt, and felt what he regained; While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat!”

From the same work is taken this parody on a beautiful passage in Southey’s “Kehama:”

“Midnight, yet not a nose From Tower Hill to Piccadilly snored! Midnight, yet not a nose From Indra drew the essence of repose. See with what crimson fury, By Indra fann’d, the god of fire ascends the walls of Drury! The tops of houses, blue with lead, Bend beneath the landlord’s tread; Master and ’prentice, serving-man and lord, Nailor and tailor, Grazier and brazier, Through streets and alleys poured, All, all abroad to gaze, And wonder at the blaze. Thick calf, fat foot, and slim knee, Mounted on roof and chimney; The mighty roast, the mighty stew To see, As if the dismal view Were but to them a mighty jubilee.”

The brothers Smith reproduced Byron in the familiar “Childe Harold” stanza, both in style and thought:

“For what is Hamlet, but a hare in March? And what is Brutus but a croaking owl? And what is Rolla? Cupid steeped in starch, Orlando’s helmet in Augustin’s cowl. Shakespeare, how true thine adage, ‘fair is foul!’ To him whose soul is with fruition fraught, The song of Braham is an Irish howl, Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, And nought is everything, and everything is nought.”

Moore, also, was imitated in the same way, as in these verses:

“The apples that grew on the fruit-tree of knowledge By women were plucked, and she still wears the prize, To tempt us in theatre, senate, or college— I mean the love-apples that bloom in the eyes. There, too, is the lash which, all statutes controlling, Still governs the slaves that are made by the fair; For man is the pupil who, while her eye’s rolling, Is lifted to rapture or sunk in despair.”

From the parody on Sir Walter Scott, it is difficult to select, being all good; calling from Scott himself the remark, “I must have done this myself, though I forget on what occasion.”

A Tale of Drury Lane.

BY W. S.

“As Chaos which, by heavenly doom, Had slept in everlasting gloom, Started with terror and surprise, When light first flashed upon her eyes: So London’s sons in nightcap woke, In bedgown woke her dames, For shouts were heard mid fire and smoke, And twice ten hundred voices spoke, ‘The playhouse is in flames.’ And lo! where Catherine Street extends, A fiery tail its lustre lends To every window pane: Blushes each spout in Martlet Court, And Barbican, moth-eaten fort, And Covent Garden kennels sport A bright ensanguined drain; Meux’s new brewhouse shows the light, Rowland Hill’s chapel, and the height Where patent shot they sell: The Tennis Court, so fair and tall, Partakes the ray, with Surgeons’ Hall, The ticket porters’ house of call, Old Bedlam, close by London Wall, Wright’s shrimp and oyster shop withal, And Richardson’s hotel. Nor these alone, but far and wide, Across the Thames’s gleaming tide, To distant fields the blaze was borne; And daisy white and hoary thorn, In borrowed lustre seemed to sham The rose or red Sweet Wil-li-am. To those who on the hills around Beheld the flames from Drury’s mound, As from a lofty altar rise; It seemed that nations did conspire, To offer to the god of fire Some vast stupendous sacrifice! The summoned firemen woke at call, And hied them to their stations all. Starting from short and broken snooze, Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes; But first his worsted hosen plied, Plush breeches next in crimson dyed, His nether bulk embraced; Then jacket thick of red or blue, Whose massy shoulders gave to view The badge of each respective crew, In tin or copper traced. The engines thundered through the street, Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete, And torches glared and clattering feet Along the pavement paced. ······ E’en Higginbottom now was posed, For sadder scene was ne’er disclosed; Without, within, in hideous show, Devouring flames resistless glow, And blazing rafters downward go, And never halloo ‘Heads below!’ Nor notice give at all: The firemen, terrified, are slow To bid the pumping torrent flow, For fear the roof should fall. Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof! Whitford, keep near the walls! Huggins, regard your own behoof, For, lo! the blazing rocking roof Down, down in thunder falls! An awful pause succeeds the stroke, And o’er the ruins volumed smoke, Rolling around its pitchy shroud, Concealed them from the astonished crowd. At length the mist awhile was cleared, When lo! amid the wreck upreared Gradual a moving head appeared, And Eagle firemen knew ’Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered, The foreman of their crew. Loud shouted all in signs of woe, ‘A Muggins to the rescue, ho!’ And poured the hissing tide: Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain, And strove and struggled all in vain, For, rallying but to fall again, He tottered, sunk, and died! Did none attempt, before he fell, To succour one they loved so well? Yes, Higginbottom did aspire (His fireman’s soul was all on fire) His brother chief to save; But ah! his reckless generous ire Served but to share his grave! ’Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke, Where Muggins broke before. But sulphury stench and boiling drench Destroying sight, o’erwhelmed him quite; He sunk to rise no more. Still o’er his head, while Fate he braved, His whizzing water-pipe he waved; ‘Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps; You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps; Why are you in such doleful dumps? A fireman, and afraid of bumps! What are they feared on? fools,—’od rot ’em!’ Were the last words of Higginbottom!”...

Canning and Frere, the two chief writers in the “Anti-Jacobin,” had great merit as writers of parody. There is hardly a better one to be found than the following on Southey’s verses regarding Henry Martin the Regicide, the fun of which is readily apparent even to those who do not know the original:

Inscription

(For the door of the cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg,
the Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her execution).

“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:“I suppose they’ll be wanting us to change our language as well as our habits. Our years will have to be dated A.C., in the year of cremation; and ‘from creation to cremation’ will serve instead of ‘from the cradle to the grave.’ We may expect also some lovely elegies in the future—something in the following style perhaps, for, of course, when gravediggers are succeeded by pyre-lighters, the grave laments of yore will be replaced by lighter melodies”:

“Above your mantel, in the new screen’s shade, Where smokes the coal in one dull, smouldering heap, Each in his patent urn for ever laid, The baked residue of our fathers sleep. The wheezy call of muffins in the morn, The milkman tottering from his rushy sled, The help’s shrill clarion, or the fishman’s horn, No more shall rouse them from their lofty bed. For them no more the blazing fire-grate burns, Or busy housewife fries her savoury soles, Though children run to clasp their sires’ red urns, And roll them in a family game of bowls. Perhaps in this deserted pot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, Hands that the rod paternal may have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living liar.”

The well-known lady traveller, Mrs. Burton, in one of her volumes gives the following amusing verses:

“What is the black man saying, Brother, the whole day long? Methinks I hear him praying Ever the self-same song— Sa’b meri bakshish do! Brother, they are not praying, They are not doing so; The only thing they’re saying Is sa’b meri bakshish do. (Gi’e me a ’alfpenny do.)”

To give specimens of all the kinds of parody were impossible, and we can only refer to the prose parodies of Thackeray’s “Novels by Eminent Hands,” and Bret Harte’s “Condensed Novels.”[6] Renderings of popular ballads in this way are common enough in our comic periodicals, as Punch, Fun, &c. Indeed, one appeared in Punch a number of years ago, called “Ozokerit,” a travesty of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” which has been considered one of the finest ever written. They are to be found, too, in many of those Burlesques and Extravaganzas which are put upon the stage now, and these the late Mr. PlanchÈ had a delightful faculty of writing, the happiness and ring of which have rarely been equalled. Take, for instance, one verse of a parody in “Jason” on a well-known air in the “Waterman:”

“Now farewell my trim-built Argo, Greece and Fleece and all, farewell, Never more as supercargo Shall poor Jason cut a swell.”

And here is the opening verse of another song by the same author:

“When other lips and other eyes Their tales of love shall tell, Which means the usual sort of lies You’ve heard from many a swell; When, bored with what you feel is bosh, You’d give the world to see A friend whose love you know will wash, Oh, then, remember me!”

Another very popular song has been parodied in this way by Mr. Carroll:

“Beautiful soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a big tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop! Soup of the evening, beautiful soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!”

American papers put in circulation many little verses, such as this—

“The melancholy days have come, The saddest of the year; Too warm, alas! for whiskey punch, Too cold for lager beer.”

And this, in reference to the Centennial Exhibition:

“Breathes there a Yank, so mean, so small, Who never says, ‘Wall, now, by Gaul, I reckon since old Adam’s fall There’s never growed on this ’ere ball A nation so all-fired tall As we centennial Yankees.”

A number of periodicals nowadays make parody and other out-of-the-way styles of literary composition a feature in their issues by way of competition for prizes, and one of these is given here. The author signs himself “Hermon,” and the poem was selected by the editor of “Truth” (November 25, 1880) for a prize in a competition of parodies upon “Excelsior.” It is called “That Thirty-four!” having reference, it is perhaps hardly necessary to state, to the American puzzle of that name which has proved so perplexing an affair to some people.

That Thirty-four.

“Chill August’s storms were piping loud, When through a gaping London crowd, There passed a youth, who still was heard To mutter the perplexing word, ‘That Thirty-four!’ His eyes were wild; his brow above Was crumpled like an old kid-glove; And like some hoarse crow’s grating note That word still quivered in his throat, ‘That Thirty-four!’ ‘Oh, give it up!’ his comrades said; ‘It only muddles your poor head; It is not worth your finding out.’ He answered with a wailing shout, ‘That Thirty-four!’ ‘Art not content,’ the maiden said, ‘To solve the “Fifteen”-one instead?’ He paused—his tearful eyes he dried— Gulped down a sob, then sadly sighed, ‘That Thirty-four!’ At midnight, on their high resort, The cats were startled at their sport To hear, beneath one roof, a tone Gasp out, betwixt a snore and groan, ‘That Thirty-four!’”

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