The following extract from Sir Rupert the Red, in imitation of Tennyson's Locksley Hall, is taken. from the same little book :

VERY early in the morning would he, tumbling out of bed, Mow his chin with wretched razor, mow and hack it till it bled;

Then he'd curse the harmless cutler, heap upon him curses deep,

Curse him in his hour of waking, doubly curse him in his sleep

Saying, "Mechi! O my Mechi! O my Mechi, mine no

more,

Whither's fled that brilliant sharpness which thy razors had of yore,

Ere thou quittedst Leadenhall Street, quittedst it with many a qualm

Ere thou soughtest rustic Tiptree, Tiptree and its model farm?

Many a morning, by the mirror, did I pass thee o'er my beard,

And my chin grew smooth beneath thee, of its hairy harvest cleared;

Many an evening have I drawn thee 'cross the throats of wretched Jews,

When they, trembling, showed their purses, stuffed for safety in their shoes.

But, like mine, thy day is over-thou art blunt and I'm disgraced !

Curses on thy maker's projects, curses on his 'magic paste.' "'

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The following imitation of "Break, Break Break," is from Snatches of Song, by F. B. Doveton 1880, which volume also contains (page 127) a long imitation of The Grandmother, entitled Hard Times.

BREAK, break, break,

In thy pantry, costly maid! And I bitterly rue the hour

When I took you from Mrs. Slade.

'Tis well for the lady fair

Whose glass is unshattered yet!

'Tis well for the thrifty dame

Who has "an unbroken set!"'

And the clatter and crash goes on,
And Mary picks up the slain;

But oh! for that teacup of rarest Sèvres,
And that vase of porcelain !

Break, break, break,

In thy pantry, Mary G!

But that costly vase and that teacup rare Will never come back to me !

Here is another in a similar vein, from Punch's Almanack for 1884:

BREAK, break, break,

O slavey, my crock-e-ry!

And I would that my tongue dared utter The wrath that's astir in me,

O well for the labourer's wife,

Who can wash her own tea-things each day! O well for the labourer's self

Who has no servants' wages to pay !

But the breakages here go on,

And I have to settle the bill;

And its oh! for the shards of my vanished cups, And my saucers dwindling still,

Break! break! break!

A week from this you shall see,

But the dishes and plates you have smashed [since you came,

Will never come back to me !

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OUR MISCELLANY (which ought to have come out, but did'nt), edited by Edmund H. Yates and R. B. Brough, published by G. Routledge & Co., in 1857, contains a number of parodies, amongst others of Lord Macaulay, E. A. Poe, Longfellow, and Dickens.

Of Tennyson there are two imitations of Maud; one, nine verses in length, of In Memoriam, and one entitled A Character, which is a rather close parody of a poem having the same title, published in Tennyson's 1830 volume.

It will be remembered that at the time Our Miscellany appeared, M. Jullien's Promenade Concerts were in the full tide of their prosperity, and that the little fopperies and vanities of the clever Chef d'orchestre, and his importation of French military bands were then the talk of the town.

I HOLD it truth, when I recall
Last London's season's joyous spell,
'Tis better to have danced not well,
Than never to have danced at all.

I am a bachelor, I know;

But tell me not, I can forget,
When in a polka with Lizette,
I chanced to tread upon her toe.

One little smothered scream-we stopped-
My thousand soft apologies

Were met by one beam from her eyes,
That all my gloom with radiance topped.
We danced again, that I might learn
A truer step, nor failure make;
Until I wished, for dancing's sake,
The day into the night would turn,

Heart-life how few can understand,

Great rivers from small fountains flow;
At last, that tread upon her toe
Turned to a pressure on my hand.

The season's past; alone at Basle
I sit; but still, as truth I tell,

Tis better to have danced not well,
Than never to have danced at all.

The two imitations of Maud are scarcely sufficiently interesting to quote at length.

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The Shilling Book of Beauty, by Cuthbert Bede, (J. Blackwood, 1853), has also a parody of Maud, in ten verses, it is entitled :--

MAUD IN THE GARDEN.

By Alfred Tennison, Esq.

SHE is coming, my own, my sweet ; She is coming, my life, my fate;

I hear the beat of her fairy feet, As she trips to the garden gate;

In 1856 a little sixpenny pamphlet was published by J. Booth, of Regent Street, entitled "AntiMaud, by a Poet of the People." Tennyson had been accused of fanning the warlike spi.it then rampant in the land, and his Maud contained many of the stock arguments in favour of war and glory. The "Poet of the People," in Anti-Maud, adopted the other, and less popular view. The author asserts that Anti-Maud is not merely a jeu d'esprit, but something of a more earnest character, and he disclaims any intention of depreciating the Laureate's poetry. I can quote a few only of the best of the fifty odd stanzas:

I have quoted so much of this parody because it was one of the first to draw attention to the Laureate's love of war, a bellicose spirit which breathes quite as fiercely in his later writings, as in his early songs; in all cases, indeed, where he has attempted any Patriotic poem, the main idea seems to be a bloodthirsty hatred of some other nation. For many years it was France, next it was Russia, and latterly some of his writings have been well calculated to revive our long forgotten animosity to Spain. In so doing Tennyson has narrowed the circle of his admirers, for the poet, who would be loved of all, should avoid controversial topics. The Laureate's patriotic muse has certainly sung a few noble songs, but many which have been deservedly ridiculed; in his official capacity he has written some of the most exquisite lines in which adulation of Royalty has ever been expressed; for whilst we know that his laurelled predecessors credited the Stuarts and the Georges with precisely the same virtues which he has ascribed to members of the present Royal Family, their official poems were laughed at at the time, and are now forgotten; whilst his have been greatly admired, especially in high quarters. Hence the coronet, which, whilst it rewards his poetical loyalty, confers on him and his descendants a perpetual right to legislate for the people of Great Britain.

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THE LAST PEER.

Sipping their Seltzer and Hock, and smoking a mild cigar?

37

Who are the friends of the poor? The writers without a

name,

Who scribble at so much a column, whatever the Editors please,

Working the many-mouthed bellows, which blew up the war to a flame,

"Is not a poet better than a lord ?" Robert Buchanan.

And pleading for rapine and blood, whilst they lounge in their clubs at their ease!

38

ALFRED the Loved, the Laureate of the Court,
The poet of the people, he who sang
Of that great Order of the Table Round,-
Had been a sailing; first into the North,
Then Southward, then towards the middle sea;
And with him went the Premier, journeying
Some said for health, and some, to hatch new schemes
With Kings and statesmen. Howsoe'r they came
To Denmark's Court, where princes gathered round
To hear our Alfred read his songs aloud.

And as they voyaged homeward to the shores
Of England, where the Isle our poet loved
Lay sparkling like a gem upon the sea,
They leaned athwart the bulwarks and spake low.
"We are but Commoners, both you and I,"
Said Gladstone; "no adornment to our names,
No sounding titles; simply Mister This
And Mister That. But yet, the other day,
You read your verse to Emperors and Kings;
Princesses smiled upon you. You were great
As they, except in title. It were well
The distance lessened somewhat; Poet, you,

The prince of all the poets of our time,
Be something more, be noble, be a lord."

Then Alfred sate him down, his good grey hairs
Blown o'er his shoulders by the summer wind,
His eyes all dreamy; and he hummed a song,
Like, and yet unlike, that which Enid sang.*

"Turn, Gladstone, turn thy followers into lords, Turn those whose wealth has gathered into hoards; Turn those, and whom thou wilt, but turn not me,

Leave, Gladstone, leave the name I always bore, One that, mayhap, may live for evermore;

'Tis mine alone, and mine shall always be.

Turn into lords the owners of broad lands, Turn him who in the path of progress stands, And he who doeth service to the State.

Leave the name that all the people know.
A prouder title than thou canst bestow,

Made by myself, and not by station, great."

Yet, notwithstanding what he murmured then,
The thought dwelt in his heart; and many a day
Thereafter, as he sat at Haslemere,
Revolving and resolving, till his mind
Could scarce distinguish his resolves from doubts,
He muttered, "Ah! and I might be a lord!"
And so the thought grew on him, and brake down,
And overcame him; and the grand old name
Which the world knows, and reverences, and loves,
Seemed plain and bare and niggard, far too poor
For him who sang of Arthur and his knights,
And Camelot, and that strange, haunted mere.

And one who knew the name, and honour'd it,
Went to him, pleaded, then spake hotly, thus :-
"Doubtest thou here so long? Art thou the one
Whose tongue grew bitter only at the sound
Of titles, and whose satire never leaped
Forth from its hiding-place but when some claim
Of place and privilege provoked thy wrath?
Wherever travels our bold English speech-
Across the broad Atlantic, 'mid the sands
Of scorching Africa, or in the bush
Of the young, strong, far-off Antipodes-
Thy name is greater, more familiar, more
In all men's mouths than that of any lord.

*The song in Enid, here alluded to, runs thus:Turn, fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate.

Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

O fair, full name, o'er which I used to dream, Not thinking; O imperial-spreading fame, And glory never such as poet bore,

Until they came, a Kingdom's pride, with thee;
I cannot know thee if thou art a lord;

Be Alfred Tennyson until the last;
Not Bonchurch, nor another. Is there none
Can yet persuade thee, ere it be too late?

But he, the poet, listened, and was dumb,
And yet resolved. Ah, he would be a lord,
And sink the name round which his glory grew.
And so there came a herald with a scroll,
One who makes ancestors and coats of arms,
And gives alike to poet or to peer
A pedigree as long as Piccadilly;
And he brought with him much emblazonry,
A quarter shield, with, on the dexter side,
The grand old gardener, Adam, and his wife,
A-smiling at the claims of long descent,

From The Echo, Dec. 7, 1883.

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BARON ALFRED VERE De Vere.

BARON Alfred Vere de Vere,

Of me you win no new renown; You thought to daze the country folk And Cockneys when you came to town. See Wordsworth, Shelley, Cowper, Burns, Withdraw in scorn, and sit retired! The last of some six hundred Earls Is not a place to be desired.

Baron Alfred Vere de Vere,

We thought you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for ours, Too proud to think a title fame. We hail the genius-not the lord: We love the poet's truer charms. A simple singer with his dreams Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Baron Alfred Vere de Vere,

I see you march, I hear you say, "Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!" Is all the burden of your lay. We held you first without a peer, And princely by your noble wordsThe Senior Wrangler of our bards Is now the Wooden Spoon of lords.

Baron Alfred Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my head; For just five decades now have flown Since we all mourned young Arthur dead. Oh, your wet eyes, your low replies! Our tears have mingled with your tears: To think that all such agony

Should end in making you a peer!