55 181 .. 54 ... ... 163 60 a you excel 56 15 56 148 163 Alfred Tennyson (Continued). 9 50 186 16 7 "I built myself a high-art pleasure house. 18 “I built myself a lordly picture-place,” 1877 ... 146 7. 27 49 148 149 149 149 166 9 IO 19 36 144 149 150 151 152 152 152 152 153 154 154 155 155 156 162 186 186 8 61 8 scene" 54 55 IO A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN- "Dreaming, methought I heard the Laureate's Song The Dream of Unfair Women The Laureate in Parliament The New Umbrella, 1882 “Not Old, Stood Pam Upon the Heights,” 1861 Parody from “The World," 1879 Lord Beaconsfield as Tithonus, 1879 " Cousins, leave me here a little, in Lawn Tennis Codgers' Hall, 1876 The Modern Lady Godiva Madame Warton as “Godiva," 1848 ... Unfortunate Miss Bailey... A Burlington IIouse Ballad, 1884 The Excursion Train Parody from “Kottabos,” 1875... “ Flow down, cold Rivulet, to the Sea”. “ Bite on, thou Pertinacious Flea" “Flow down, false Rivulet, to the Sea The Undergrad. To my Scout To Professor 0. C. Marsh, U.S. Enoch Arden, continued, 1866 ... Enoch's “ Hard 'Un” The Tinker 47 I2 161 162 20 58 59 168 ... 32 46 . 179 52 29 :::: 48 48 58 48 Alfred Tennyson (Continuel). Keeping Term aster Commemoration Lyrics, 1884) The Mill, 1884 The Princess Ida ... “ Home they brought her Lap-dog Dead” “ Home the Worrier' comes ! We read" Peers, Idle Peers, 1868... (To the Right Hon. Spencer Walpole). To an Importunate Host Charge of the Light (Irish) Brigade in Dublin, 1865 Boys ” at the Vaudeville Theatre for Breach of P'romise of Marriage) Tobacco Lecture Palace Banquet, 1875 “ Half a League !” (Tea Advertisement) Britannia's Welcome to the Illustrious Stranger, Ismail Pasha, 1869 ... 1875 THE GRANDMOTHER- Hard Times Snatches of Song In the Schools at Oxford The Victim 47 51 178 174 25 61 61 174 174 186 174 175 175 Nay, I cannot come into the garden just now 7 25 25 175 176 179 180 13 27 32 33 34 34 44 44 45 45 181 181 182 182 182 183 183 183 183 183 183 105 ... ... 109 Miscellaneous Parodies on Tennyson. 49 57 57 61 62 Mrs. Henry Fawcett on the Education of Women 150 Female Students. ) Reverend Charles Wolfe. 105 105 “Not a trap was heard, or a Charley's note 108 “Not a moan was heard---not a funeral note 108 109 ment, 1880 140 141 141 141 141 187 187 187 187 188 188 188 188 188 189 189 189 190 190 IIO III 52 188 The PROMISE OF MAY- Reprint of the Play-bill, dated November, 1882 157 159 158 Fellow of the Royal Geographical and Royal Historical Societies; “A Memoir of George Cruikshank,” etc. INTRODUCTION. I HAVE, for many years past, been collecting Parodies of the works of the most celebrated British and American Authors. This I have done, not because I entirely approve of the custom of turning high-class literature into ridicule, but because many of the parodies are in themselves works of considerable literary merit. Moreover, as “ imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” so does a parody show that its original has acquired a certain celebrity, for no author would waste his time, or his talent, in composing a burlesque of an unknown or obscure poem. A work devoted to the history of English Parody is not so frivolous as it may appear at first sight. Thackeray wrote many Parodies, so did Sheridan, Fielding, and Dryden, whilst numerous articles on parodies are to be found scattered up and down in odd corners of old magazines and reviews, and a few small books have been written on the topic; but, until now, no attempt has been made to give, in a connected form, a history of parody with examples and explanatory notes. This, then, is what I propose to do in the following articles, and those who desire to possess I a complete set of parodies on any favourite author, would do well to preserve these papers for future reference. Parody is a form of composition of a somewhat ungracious description, as it owes its very existence to the work it caricatures; but it has some beneficial results in drawing our attention to the defects of some authors, whose stilted language, and grandiloquent phrases, have veiled their poverty of ideas, their sham sentiment, and their mawkish affectations. The first attribute of a parody is that it should present a sharp contrast to its original either in the subject, or treatment of the subject; that if the original should be founded on some lofty theme, the parody may reduce it to a prosaic matter of fact narrative. If, on the other hand, the topic selected be one of every day life, it may be made exceedingly amusing if described in highflown mock heroic diction. If the original errs in sentimental affectation, so much the better for the parodist. Thus many of Tom Moore's best known songs are mere windy platitudes in very musical verse, which afford excellent and legitimate materials for ridicule. The nearer the original diction is preserved, and the fewer the alterations needed to produce a totally opposite meaning, or ridiculous contrast, the more complete is the antithesis, the more striking is the parody; take for instance Pope's well-known lines : " Here shall the Spring its earliest sweets bestow, which, by the alteration of two words only, were thus applied by Miss Katherine Fanshawe to the Regent's Park when it was first opened to the public : "Here shall the Spring its earliest coughs bestow, In this happy parody we have that "union of remote ideas," which is said, and said truly, to constitute the essence of wit. Even the most serious and religious works have been parodied, and by authors of the highest position. Thus, Luther mimicked the language of the Bible, and both Cavaliers and Puritans railed at each other in Scriptural phraseology. The Church services and Litanies of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, have served in turn as originals for many bitter satires and lampoons, directed at one time against the Church and the priests, at another time in equally bitter invective against their opponents. To undertake the composition of parodies, as the word is generally comprehended-that is, to make a close imitation of some particular poem, though it should be characteristic of the author -would be at times rather a flat business. Even the Brothers Smith in “ Rejected Addresses,” and Professor Aytoun in the “Bon Gaultier Ballads,” admirable as they were, adhered almost too closely to their selected models; and Phæbe Carey, who has written some of the best American parodies, did the same thing. It is an evidence of a poet's distinct individuality, when he can be amusingly imitated. We can only make those the object of our imitations whose manner, or dialect, stamps itself so deeply into our minds that a new cast can be taken. But how could one imitate or burlesque Robert Pollok's “Course of Time," or Young's “Night Thoughts, or Blair's “ Grave," or any other of those masses of words, which are too ponderous for poetry, and much too respectable for absurdity! Either extreme will do for a parody, excellence or imbecility ; but the original must at least have a distinct and pronounced character. Certain well-known poems are so frequently selected as models for parodies that it will only be possible to select a few from the best of them; to re-publish every parody that has appeared on Tennyson's “ Charge of the Light Brigade,” E. A. Poe's “The Raven," "Hamlet's Soliloquy, or Longtellow's “ Excelsior," would be a tedious, and almost endless task. Prose parodies, though less numerous than those in verse, are often far more amusing, and it will be found that Dr. Johnson's ponderous sentences, Carlyle's rugged eloquence, and Dickens's playful humour and tender pathos, lend themselves admirably to parody. The first portion of this work will be devoted to the parodies themselves, accompanied by short notes sufficient to explain such allusions as may, in time, appear obscure; the second will contain a full bibliographical account of all the principal collection of Parodies, and Works on the subject, such as the “Probationary Odes,” “Hone's Three Trials,” “ Rejected Addresses," and the late M. Octave Delepierre's Essai sur la Parodie. The latter work, which was published by Trübner . & Co., in 1870, gave an account of old Greek and Roman, and of modern French and English Parodies. I had the pleasure of supplying M. Delepierre with the materials for his chapter on English Parodies, but, owing to the limited space at liis command, he was only able to quote a verse or two of the best parody of each description. My aim will be to give each parody intact, except in the few cases where I have been unable to obtain the author's permission to do so. WALTER HAMILTON. |
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