I HOLD it truth, with him who rings
His money on a testing stone
To judge its goodness by its tone,
That gold will buy all other things.

It hides the ravages of years;

It gilds the matrimonial match:
It makes deformity "a catch;
And dries the sorrowing widow's tears.

Let love grasp cash, lest both be drowned;
Let Mammon keep his gilded gloss;

Ah, easier far to bear the loss
Of love than of a thousand pound!
Let not the victor say with scorn,

While of his winnings he may boast, "Behold the man who played and lost, And now is weak and overworn."

*

II.

O, Fortune, fickle as the breeze!

O, Temptress, at the shrine of gain!
O, sweet and bitter!-all in vain

I come to thee for monied ease!
"The chances surely run," she says;
But prick the series with a pin;
Mark well; and then go in and win!
Or lose! for there are but two ways.
And still the phantom, Fortune, stands
And sings with siren silvery tone;
Music that I may reach alone
With empty purse and empty hands!
And shall I still this fickle fair
With constant energies pursue?
Or do as other people do--
Escape the tangles of her hair?

SHE looked quite cross-her face had not
The smile that once lured one and all,
While waiting at the seaside spot

For him she loved,-divinely tall;
Her sloe-black eyes showed restless change,
Small sparks of anger you might catch,
And yet those eyes you could not match,
Were you throughout the world to range,
"Alas! I'm getting weary, weary—
Waiting here for Fred;

He said he'd take me sailing-query?
He's not come yet" she said.
"He asked me when we met last night,
If I would like a sail or row;

I answered 'Yes,' with great delight;
He said at one o'clock we'd go.
'Tis now five minutes past the hour,
And where is he, I'd like to know?
Oh! if I did not love him so

I'd punish him-and show my pow'r.
But oh, alas! it is so dreary

When I am not with Fred;

I feel like Moore's lamenting P'eri:
Why won't he come? she said,

The tear-drops then welled from her eyes,
And down her damask cheek they crept ;
Her bosom heaved with sundry sighs,
She cried, "I'll no excuse accept.

I will not speak to him," said she;
"How dare he kep me waiting here?"
When suddenly, approaching near,
Her tardy swain she chanced to see;
And then, forgetting she'd been weary.
She cried, "Oh, here comes Fred!"
And somehow then she seemed less dreary,
'How nice he looks!" she said.

66

From Tom Hood's Comic Innual, 1884.

H. C. NEWTON,

The Poet Laureate's cruise with Sir Donald Currie, in the autumn of 1883. was an event of some importance, as he was then afforded an opportunity of reading his poems to a select audience of Royal personages; it is generally supposed that during that trip the Prime Minister offered him the title his acceptance of which has since been the subject of so much comment, and censure. Punch described the voyage to the north in the following medley of parodies :

A LAUREATE'S LOG.

(Rough Weather Notes from the New Berth-day Book.)

MONDAY.

If you're waking, please don't call me, please don't call me, CURRIE dear,

For they tell me that to morrow t'wards the open we're to steer!

No doubt, for you and those aloft, the maddest merriest

way,

But I always feel best in a bay, CURRIE. I always feel best in a bay !

TUESDAY.

Take, take, take?

What will I take for tea?

The thinnest slice-no butter,And that's quite enough for me

WEDNESDAY.

It is the little roll within the berth
That by-and-by will put an end to mirth,
And, never ceasing, slowly prostrate all!

THURSDAY.

Let me alone! What pleasure can you have
In chaffing evil? Tell me, what's the fun
Of ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All you the rest, you know how to behave
In roughish weather! I, for one,

Ask for the shore-or death, dark death,-I am so done

FRIDAY.

Twelve knots an hour! But what am I?

A poet, with no land in sight,

Insisting that he feels "all right"

With half a smile-and half a sigh

SATURDAY.

Comfort? Comfort scorned of lubbers! Hear this truth the Poet roar,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering days on shore.

Drug his soda, lest he learn it when the Foreland gleams a spec

In the dead unhappy night, when he can't sit up on deck!

SUNDAY.

Ah! you've called me nice and early, nice and early, CURRIE dear!

What? Really in? Well, come, the news I'm precious glad to hear;

For though in such good company I willingly would stayI'm glad to be back in the bay, CURRIE, I'm glad to be back in the bay!

Punch, September 22, 1883.

It is now somewhat more than fifty years since Tennyson, then a young, and comparatively obscure writer, addressed some pre. sumptuous lines to an imaginary lady of nobe family, in which he sneered at her claims of long descent, ridiculed nobility generally, and concluded by advising her to go out amongst the poor, to teach the children, and to feed the beggars.

The tone of the poem was censorious and offensive; Lady Clara Vere de Vere then let it pass unnoticed by, but now this daughter of a hundred Earls has written a good-humoured rejoinder to the first Baron Tennyson, in which she playfully assumes her age to have remained what it was fifty years ago :—

Baron Alfred T. de T.,

Are we at last in sweet accord?

I learn-excuse my girlish glee-
That you've become a noble Lord;
So now that time to think you've had

Of what it is makes charming girls,
Perhaps you find they're not so bad-
Those daughters of a hundred earls.

Baron Alfred T. de T.,

When last your face I chanced to see,
You had the passion of your kind,

You said some horrid things to me;
And then--" we parted," you to sail
For Oshkosh, in the simple steerage,
But now-excuse my girlish glee-
You reappear, and in the peerage!
Baron Alfred T. de T.,

Were you indeed misunderstcod
That other day I heard you say,

"'Tis only noble to be good?”

I really thought you then affirmed-
'Tis so the words come back to me,
"Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood."
Baron Alfred T. de T.,

There stand twin-spectres in your hall,
And as they found you were a Lord

Two whole some hearts were changed to gall; The two, an humble couple they,

I think I see them, on my life,
The while they read of " Baron" T.,
The grand old Adam, and his wife!

Trust me, Baron T. de T.,

From yon blue heaven above us bent, This simple granger and his spouse Smile as you read your long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me,

Nor must you think my language cruel It seems-excuse my girlish gleeConsistency's a lovely jewel.

Baron Alfred de T..

I know you're proud your name to own Your pride is yet no mate for mine,

My blood is bluer than your own.
Don't bid me break your heart again
For pastime, ere to town I go;
I'll not do that, my noble Lord,
But give you something that I owe,

Baron Alfred T. de T.,

When you were in that angry fit You turned to me and thundered out, "Go, teach the orphan girl to knit." I am an orphan girl myself,

And that my knitting you may see, Here is a mitten that I've knitExcuse my gushing, girlish glee.

COUSIN AMY'S VIEW.

SCENE―The neighbourhood of Locksley Hall. Enter Lady AMY HARDCASH (ætat. forty), with a book of poems, and several children.

LADY AMY loquitur.

Children, leave me here a little don't disturb me, I request;

For Mamma is very tired, and fain would take a little rest. 'Tis the place, the same old place, though looking somewhat pinched and small.

Ah, 'tis many and many a day since last I looked on Locksley Hall!

Then 'twas in the spring of life and love-ah, Love, the great Has-been !

Love which, like the year's own Spring, is very nice-and very green!

In the Spring the new French fashions come the female heart to bless

In the Spring the very housemaid gets herself another dress;

In the Spring we're apt to feel like children just let loose from school;

In the Spring a young girl's fancy's very apt to play the fool.

On the moorland, by the waters he was really very nice; There was no one else at hand, and I-forgot Mamma's advice.

He indulged in rosy raptures, heaved the most suggestive sighs,

Said the very prettiest things about my lips and hazel eyes.

All his talk was most poetic, all his sentiments were grand,

Though his meaning, I confess, I did not always understand.

So that, when he popped the question, I did blush and hang my head.

And,-well, I dare say the rest was pretty much as he has said.

But I think that his abuse is really quite too awfully

warm,

And to make the matter public was, I must maintain, bad form.

"Puppet"'s not a pretty word, and how he runs Sir RUFUS down!

Yet a man who's not a poet need not be a tipsy clown. Poet! That's the point precisely. LOCKSLEY could not comprehend

That a bard may be a bore e'en to his mistress in the end. Geniuses are awful worries, full of fancies, fads, and fits, And a genius as a lover drives a girl out of her wits. Rhapsodies and raptures always form a too exciting diet; There are moments when a maiden, though in love, would fain be quiet.

Too high strung, and too ecstatic was poor LOCKSLEY'S normal mood,

For a woman does not always want to moan and gush and brood.

Solid fare and wholesome fun, if poets only would believe, Are essentials in the life of e'en the softest slips of Eve. Yes, he called me shallow-hearted, servile, false, and a!l the rest,

But if he had not so plagued me,-well, no doubt 'twas for the best.

True Sir RUFUS is not lively, but he lets me take my way, And I do not feel at present drawn to "sympathise with clay."

Drag me down, indeed! We move in quite the most exclusive set

In the County. What is there that I should specially regret ?

LOCKSLEY'S famous-yes, and married, notwithstanding his fierce curse,

To a dame with lots of gold and very little taste for verse.
Nice to be a Lion's Lady in Society, no doubt!
Not so nice to smooth his mane at home when Leo is put
out.

Talk of tantrums! Read these lines he published after— well, the jilt,

Pitching into poor Mamma, and charging me with nameless guilt!

Dear Mamma! I thought her hard-but I'm a mother now myself,

And I know what utter nonsense is the poet's scorn of pelf. "Old and formal"-that's the way he pictures me. Extremely kind!

Coz, if you could see me now, you might a little change your mind.

"False" and "cold" are bad enough, but "dowdy," that is downright rude;

Bards, for all their lofty talk, are not a gentlemanly brood. They've extremely touchy tempers, and are very apt to say Very nasty things indeed, if they are not allowed their way,

"I have hit an angry fancy." There I really think he's right.

But you see that sort of thing is not a woman's fancy, quite.

'Twas his "fancies" bothered me; and all the stuff that follows here

May be splendidly poetic; I should call it simply queer. "Airy navies, purple pilots, savage women," and the rest! Why did he not wed a Negress, if he thought he'd like it best?

Or if, as he says, he knew her words were nonsense, I would ask,

Wherefore utter, pen, and print them? 'Twas a most superfluous task!

"Woman is the lesser man!" I hold that false as it is hard.

The most womanish of creatures surely is an angry bard Yet, sometimes, when, as at present, Spring is brightening all the land,

Comes that longing for the fields, Sir RUFUS cannot understand;

Comes a ghostly sort of doubt if e'en Society can give All, quite all, for which a well-loved woman might desire to live ;

Comes a memory of his voice, a recollection of his glance, Thoughts of things which then had power to make my maiden pulses dance;

Comes, but I'm extremely stupid. Well, I know if our dear FAN

Took a fancy for a poet, I should soon dismiss the man. Here she comes! She'll wed, I hope, rich Viscount VIVIAN ere the fall.

She ne'er had had that chance, had I espoused the Lord of Locksley Hall!

Punch, June 1, 1878.

In a magazine entitled The Train, published in 1856, there was a poem called The Three Voices, written by Mr. Lewis Carroll. This was a parody of the obvious truisms, the muddled metaphor, and vague reasonings contained in Tennyson's Two Voices, and Mr. Carroll has wisely inserted it in his last collection of poems Rhyme and Reason? Macmillan and Co. It is somewhat altered from its original form, and is much heightened in its effect by the comical illustrations of Mr. Arthur B. Frost.

Unfortunately, this clever parody is too long to quote entire, whilst an extract gives but a faint idea of its terribly grotesque sorrows, and its whimsical burlesque of the Laureate's reasoning in The Two Voices :—

THEY walked beside the wave-worn beach,
Her tongue was very apt to teach,
And now and then he did beseech,

She would abate her dulcet tone,
Because the talk was all her own,
And he was dull as any drone.

She urged "No cheese is made of chalk;"
And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,
Tuned to the footfall of a walk.

Her voice was very full and rich,

And, when at length she asked him "Which ?"
It mounted to its highest pitch.

He a bewildered answer gave,
Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,
Lost in the echoes of the cave.

He answered her he knew not what :
Like shaft from bow at random shot,
He spoke, but she regarded not.
She waited not for his reply,
But with a downward leaden eye,
Went on as if he were not by:
Then having wholly overthrown

His views, and stripped them to the bone,
Proceeded to unfold her own.

"Shall Man be Man? And shall he miss
Of other thoughts no thought but this,
Harmonious dews of sober bliss?
"What boots it? Shall his fevered eye
Through towering nothingness descry
The grisly phantom hurry by?

"And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;
See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare
And redden in the dusky glare?

"Yet still before him, as he flies,

One pallid form shall ever rise,
And, bodying forth in glassy eyes
"The vision of a vanished good,
Low peering through the tangled wood,
Shall freeze the current of his blood."
Till, like a silent water-mill,
When summer suns have dried the rill,
She reached a full stop, and was still.
To muse a little space did seem,
Then, like the echo of a dream,
Harped back upon her threadbare theme.
Still an attentive ear he bent,

But could not fathom what she meant :
She was not deep, nor eloquent.

But, Tennyson has never failed so signally as when he has attempted to be metaphysical, and although his admirers have written many essays to explain the beauties of his philosophy, their explanations require some explaining, and general readers certainly fail to discern the charm in his would-be philosophical writings.

The Higher Pantheism may be taken as an instance. It commences thus :

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains

Are not these, O Soul, the vision of him who reigns?

Is not the vision He? tho, He be not that which he seems? Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why; For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel "I am I !"

There are several other couplets which do not help to unravel the poet's tangled web of thought, whereas if we turn to The Heptalogia (Chatto and Windus 1880), we find the whole mystery treated with much greater lucidity of expression in The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell. ONE, who is not, we see but one, whom we see not, is : Surely this is not that; but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under :

If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main; but faith on the whole is doubt: We cannot believe by proof; but could we believe without? Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover :

Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over. Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight: Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:

God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which
The Soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a
ditch.

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks :

Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew :
You are certainly I but certainly I am not you.

:

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock :

Cocks exist for the hen, but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not we see : Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddie, we take it, is dee. The Heptalogia was published anonymously, but has been ascribed to a no less distinguished poet than Mr. A. C. Swinburne. Its full title is

SPECIMENS OF MODERN POETS.

THE HEPTALOGIA; OR, THE SEVEN AGAINST SENSE. A CAP WITH SEVEN BELLS.

I. The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell.

II. John Jones.

III. The Poet and the Woodlouse.

IV. The Person of the House (Idyl CCCLXVI.)
V. Last Words of a Seventh-rate Poet.
VI. Sonnet for a Picture.

VII. Nephelidia.

The Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant, by Mr. W. S. Gilbert, which was produced at the Savoy Theatre, on January 5, 1884, though a humorous adaptation of Tennyson's Princess was not strictly a burlesque, and was styled by the author" A Respectiul Operatic Per-version" of the Laureate's poem. It was altered from an earlier piece by Mr. Gilbert on the same theme. Almost the only passage which could be cousidered an actual parody of Tennyson's diction was the speech of the Princess Ida to the Neophytes, which was modelled on the Lady Psyche's harangue in the original poem :"Women of Adamant, fair NeophytesWho thirst for such instruction as we give, Attend, while I unfold a parable.

The elephant is mightier than Man,

Yet Man subdues him. Why? The elephant

Is elephantine everywhere but here (tapping her forehead).

And Man, whose brain is to the elephant's,

As woman's brain to man's-(that's rule of three)
Conquers the foolish giant of the woods,
As woman, in her turn, shall conquer Man!
In mathematics, woman leads the way-
The narrow-minded pedant still believes
That two and two make four! Why we can prove,
We women-household drudges as we are-
That two and two make five-or three-or seven ;
Or five and twenty, if the case demands !
Diplomacy! The wiliest diplomate
Is absolutely helpless in our hands,

He wheedles monarchs-woman wheedles him!
Logic? Why, tyrant Man himself admits
It's waste of time to argue with a woman!
Then we excel in social qualities:
Though Man professes that he holds our sex
In utter scorn, I venture to believe
He'd rather spend the day with one of you
Than with five hundred of his fellow-men !
In all things we excel! Believing this,
A hundred maidens here have sworn to place
Their feet upon his neck. If we succeed,
We'll treat him better than he treated us:
But if we fail, why then let hope fail too!
Let no one care a penny how she looks-
Let red be worn with yellow-blue with green-
Crimson with scarlet-violet with blue!

Let all your things misfit, and you yourselves,
At inconvenient moments come undone !
Let hair pins lose their virtue; let the hook
Disdain the fascination of the eye-
The bashful button modestly evade

The soft embraces of the button-hole!
Let old associations all dissolve,

Let Swan secede from Edgar-Gask from Gask-
Sewell from Cross-Lewis from Allenby!
In other words, let Chaos come again!

Many miscellaneous parodies remain to be noticed, a few of the best will be given in full; for the remainder it will be sufficient to indicate the works in which they occur, as they are readily accessible.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

Some time ago Funny Folks remarked:"The Laureate ought to add a verse to his famous lay of the Six Hundred. It seems that whenever one of the immortal brigade dies, a couple of recruits, at least, appear and fill his place. There are already far more living claimants to the glory of participating in the famous charge than ever took part in it :

"When can their glory fade, If from the Light Brigade When ONE is sundered, Two will his place supply, Ready to multiply

Still the Six Hundred ?"

And in a somewhat similar manner parodies on this famous poem seem to start up on every hand. One, not yet mentioned, appeared in Figaro, November 29, 1876. Another anony. mous parody of the same original, called " The Charge of the Tight Brigade," though rather smart, is too slangy in its language to be inserted. The following has been sent by Mr. James