For men may write, and men may talk,
But I reek on for ever.

I reek with all my might and main,
Of plague and death the brewer;
With here and there a nasty drain,
And here and there a sewer.
By fetid bank, impure and rank,
I swirl a loathsome river;

For men may write, and men may talk,
But I'll reek on for ever.

I grew, I glode, I slipped, I slode,

My pride I left behind me;

I left it in my pure abode

Now take me as you find me.

For black as ink, from many a sink,
I roll a poisonous river;

And men may write, and men may talk,
But I'll reek on for ever.

And thus my vengeance, still I seek
Foul drain, and not a river;

My breath is strong, though I am weak,
Death floats on me for ever.

You still may fight, or may unite

To use your joint endeavour ;

But I'll be "boss" in spite of Cross,
And poison you for ever.

The City Lantern, Manchester, 1874.

THE BAGGAGE MAN.

WITH many a curve the trunks I pitch.
With many a shout and sally;

At station, siding, crossing, switch,
On mountain-grade or valley.

I heave, I push, I sling, I toss,

With vigorous endeavour,

And men may smile and men grow cross,
But I sling my trunks forever!
Ever! Ever!

I bust the trunks for ever.

The paper trunk from country town
I balances and dandles;

I turn it once or twice around,
And pull out both the handles,
And grumble over travelling-bags
And monstrous sample-cases,
Eut I can smash the maker's brags
Like plaster-Paris vases,

They holler, holler, as I go!
But they can stop me never,

For they will learn just what I knowA trunk won't last forever;

Ever! never !

I tug, I jerk. I swear, I sweat,

I toss the light valises ;

And what's too big to throw, you bet,
I'll fire it round in pieces.

They murmur, murmur everywhere!
But I will heed them never,

For women weep and strong men swear,
I'll sling their trunks forever!
Ever Ever!

I'll bust the trunk forever!

From the United States Independent, September 1881.

After the defeat of Colonel Burnaby, and the Hon. A. C. Calthorpe, at the Birmingham election, the following parody appeared in The Gridiron, a local satirical paper.

The Colonel's testimony in favour of Cockle's pills was the cause of many jokes at his expense in the election squibs. Messrs. Stone and Lowe were then very prominent members of the Conservative party in Birmingham.

"Home they brought the news with dread!
He nor swore nor uttered cry;

His committee watching said,

He must weep, or he will die.

"Then they praised him, Stone and Lowe,
And called him worthy to be loved,
Jingo's friend and Gladstone's foe,

Yet he neither swore nor moved.
"Rose up Calthorpe from his place,
Lightly to the warrior crept,
Made a speech all full of grace,
But he neither swore nor wept.
'Rose a man of ninety years,
Placed a pill-box on his knee,

Like summer tempest came his tears, "Cockle mine, thou'st done for me!"

And to tell you the good plain truth, I never can quite understand

What it is Lord Beaconsfield means, or what he's got in his hand

He conjures eggs out of his hat, he keeps fireworks under his bed,

I really am not always certain he's not going to stand on his head.

And the Liberals make it their text as they go to the hustings, no doubt!

Even those who do nothing in office understand what to promise when out;

There would'nt be waste any more-not enough to make meat for a mouse

If Gladstore was at the Exchequer, and Hartington leading the House,

Pattering upon the platform-they'll all be pattering soon, When Beaconsfield makes up his mind to dissolve them some fine afternoon,

I seem to be sick of it all-I know every word they'll say, And perhaps it will come even sooner, for some are beginning to-day.

So this is a time of peace-of peace with honour, you know; And empty have grown my pockets-they never used to be

THE SPITEFUL LETTER.

Of course, it is here, all snarl and sneer,
A letter from my Tutor.

He said it was wrong, not to read in the "Long,"
For he was far acuter.

O little don, in the days bygone,

Did you never prefer the pages

Of those gay books-a woman's looks-
To the lore of Eastern sages?

Were there not times when College Rhymes
Relieved your mind dejected?

And were they not a sorry lot

Of things you had rejected?

The time is brief from the fresh green leaf
Of the callow moderator;

From the greener leaf to the yellow leaf,
The age of perambulator.

Silly, am I? Is that your cry?
And, I shall live to see it?
Exactly so; but yours said "No,"
And mine said "Yes, so be it."
And he would know who 'twas that so
Had filled my thoughts with folly,
And, oh the name was the very same,
The name of our love was Molly.

The Shotover Papers, Oxford, 1874.

In Fun, February 1, 1868, it was asked, "Who sent The Spiteful Letter to Alfred Tennyson ?" "If anybody did-and nobody doubts that it really was somebody-everybody ought to know about it. Fun has, therefore, addressed a circular to everybody who is anybody in the round of rhyme, putting the direct question-' Was it you, you, or you?' Down to the latest moment answers had been received from George Macdonald, the Poet Close, Algernon Swinburne, and Walt Whitman."

The two last-named parodies are the best, although it will be seen that they give no explanation of the origin of The Spiteful Letter:

From A . . . . . N S.... E.

Sick of the purfume of praise, and faint with the fervid

caresses,

Flushing his face with a flame that is fair, like the blood on a dove;

Weary of pangs that have pleased him, the poet refrains and confesses

Shrinks from the rapture of death, and the lips and the languors of love;

The rootless rose of delight, and the love that lasts only to blossom,

Blossom and die without fruit, as the kisses that feed and not fill;

Famishing pleasure, dry-lipped, with the sting and the stain on her bosom,

And all of a sin that is good, and all of a good that is ill!

(This explicit language will, we are sure, be satisfactory to all our readers. No explanation could make his reply clearer or more readily intelligible.-ED. FUN.)

FROM W**T W**TM**N.

(An American, one of the roughs, a kosmos.)

Nature, continuous ME!

Saltness, and vigorous, never-torpid yeast of ME!
Florid, unceasing, for ever expansive;

Not schooled, not dizened, not washed and powdered;
Strait-laced not at all; far otherwise than polite :

Not modest, nor immodest;

Divinely tanned and freckled; gloriously unkempt;

Ultimate yet unceasing; capricious though determined;

Speak as thou listest, and tell the askers that which they seek to know.

Thy speech to them will be not quite intelligible.

Never mind! utter thy wild common-places;

Yawp them loudly, shrilly;

Silence with shrill noise the lisps of the foo-foos.
Answer, in precise terms of barbaric vagueness,

The question that the FUN editor hath sparked through
Atlantic Cable

To W**T W**TM**N, the speaker of the pass-word primeval ; The signaller of the signal of democracy;

The seer and hearer of things in general;

The poet translucent; fleshy, disorderly, sensually inclined; Each tag and part of whom is a miracle

(Thirteen pages of MS. relating to MR. W**T W**TM**N are here omitted.)

Rhapsodically state the fact that is and is not;
That is not, being past; that is, being eternal ;

If indeed it ever was, which is exactly the point in question.

The fact, rhapsodically stated, occupies twenty-six more pages of MS., but is left in as much doubt at the end as it was in at the beginning.-Ed. FUN.

·:0:

SONG OF THE UNSUCCESSFUL STOCK EXCHANGE

SPECULATOR.

(Apropos of certain recent failures).

Break, break, break!

It's a serious thing to see,

And I wish I could manage to utter

The cheques that are forged by me!

Oh well for the bill-broking cad
That is able to toddle away!
Oh well for the discounting lad
That goes to no Botany Bay!
The detective police go on,

To find him whose name's on the bill-
And it's oh for a whiff of Havannah brand
And a glass of the wine that is still!
Break, break, break!

It's little of me you will see ;

For the tender touch of detective's hand
May some day be felt by me.

From Faust and 'Phisto, 1876.

0:

Tithonus was the subject of two long prize parodies, concerning Lord Beaconsfield, which appeared in The World, July 30, 1879.

The opening stanzas of the first parody are now of historical interest :

AH me! the times decay, and rent-rolls fall,
The farmers weep the burden of moist ground,
The men that back the field are out of luck,
For during such a summer where's the coin?
For me a wreath, prize of verbosity
Was made it withers still in Tracy's hands.
For what to me this quiet Western world,
While shadows flit before me, like a dream
Of princely visits to the far-off East,
And costly gifts, and Empire's badges worn?

Alas for these gray tresses, once so black,
When, glorious in my youth, I was thy choice,
Britannia, and I seemed no vulgar clod

To thee, who taught'st me my verbosity.

Then, though the dull roughs met where'er they would,
Beat the Park palings down, and marred the flowers,
They could not end my rule; but left me still
To sit 'neath shade of thy Imperial shield-
Imperial locks beside Imperial shield—
Though all things else were ashes. Thy rich gift,
The Garter made amends; but, Tracy, go;

I pray thee go; take back thy vulgar gift:
Why should the honest working man desire
To vary from the spendthrift race of men,
And part with hard-earned quarts of "fourpenny,"
Which good Sir Wilfrid calls the curse of all?

THE LAWYER'S SOLILOQUY.

"I hold it clear, as one who sings

The party song in divers tones,

That men may rise on stepping stones
Of brazen speech to higher things."

This is the first of sixteen verses contained in the St. James's Gazette, June 18, 1881.

A TENNYSONIAN LYRIC.

I hold this truth with one who sings
That when a donkey will not go,
The kick, the curse, the brutal blow
Should be exchanged for milder things.
But who that sees the donkey's ears

Droop downward, and his hind legs rise,
While from the creature's back he flies,
Can spare the lissom switch he bears?

Or who can smile when crowds condemn,
And ragamuffin imps deride,

Advising him to "get inside"

That product of Jerusalem ?

Had I the brute that would not stir,

Despite "Gee-woa!" or "Kim-up, Ned!"
I should, methinks, use arts instead

Of supplemented provender.

From Funny Folks.

Funny Folks January 23, 1875, contained a parody, in ten verses, on The Voyage; the first and last verses only are given, the rest are of little interest :

THE EXCURSION TRAIN.

"We left behind the painted buoy That tosses at the harbour mouth; And madly danced our hearts with joy As fast we floated to the South."

THE VOYAGE.

"We left behind the painted boy
Who tumbles at the gutter's mouth,
And madly leaped our hearts for joy
In taking tickets for the south;
To get away from smell and sound,
And crowded street and city roar,
Two used-up clerks on pleasure bound,
Ere yet our holidays were o'er.

And never tongue of ours was furled,
As on we went with spirits free;

The railway was our little world,

Though not a little whirled were we.

The winds and rain might blow and cease-
What cared we for wind or rain?

We'd paid our one pound ten apiece,
And this was our Excursion Train !

The following is a parody on The Lotus Eaters. It obtained the second prize offered by the

Editor of The World, in which paper it appeared in September, 1879:

THE MINISTERS AT GREENWICH.

'GREENWICH,' they said, and pointed into space;
'The steaming train will bear us thither soon.'
In time for dinner came they to that place,
In which it seemèd always dinner-time.
A place of diners: some with friend or fair,
Slow dropping down the stream, to feast did go ;
And those by quicker train did there repair
Who deemed all other locomotion slow,
Nor cared to watch the muddy river's flow.

The sky looked showery, as is oft the case
Now, when no two days ever seem the same;
But yet, despite of Nature's frowning face,
To dine the whitebait-eating members came.
Baskets they saw of that delightful fish

Whose flavour is seductive, and doth make
Those who have tasted say that never dish
Was so delicious, and when they partake
Of these, all other food they straight forsake.

Then some one said, 'Why further should we pace
And all at once they sang, This is the place
To spend a happy day. Rest we a little space.
Refreshing is this liquor dry,

Iced well as well can be ;
Drink is "the best of life." Then why
Abstain teetotally?

Let us drink on. The night is waning fast;
Few hours remain "till daylight does appear.'
Let us eat on; why should we seem to fast-
Choice fare before us, and but little fear
Of ills to-morrow, feasting on such cheer?

The Poet Laureate recently contributed a poem, entitled Early Spring, to an American paper. It consisted of eight verses, and the fee paid to the writer was said to be 1,000 dollars.

Judging from the following extracts it would seem that 125 dollars per verse was a very liberal remuneration :

Opens a door in Heaven;

From skies of glass A Jacob's ladder falls

On greening grass,

And o'er the mountain-walls Young angels pass.

The woods by living airs

How freshly fann'd,

Light airs from where the deep, All down the sand,

Is breathing in his sleep,

Hard by the land!

Had the Poet no friends about him who could point out that by the publication of such painfully weak effusions, the once great reputation of Tennyson is being undermined; and that the rising generation will be little encouraged, by such specimens of his genius, to read his early works.

As parodies of Tennyson's poems are constantly being produced, a supplementary collection of them will be published separately at some future date.

Mr. Charles Stewart Calverley.

THE death of "C. S. C." will be heard of with regret by all who enjoy the lighter forms of English poetry, such as are to be found in perfection in his two little volumes, entitled "Fly Leaves," and "Verses and Translations," both published by Messrs. G. Bell and Sons.

Mr. Calverley had an extraordinary ear for rhythm, and could imitate, at will, the measure and metre of any poet. Taking some comically trifling topic, he could so write it up as to

6.

reproduce not only the style, but even the very mode of thought of his original. Thus, in his poem, The Cock and the Bull," he has caught far more of Robert Browning than the mere verbal eccentricities; "Wanderers" contains the very best of all parodies of Tennyson's "Brook" (quoted on page 30); Matthew Arnold is well imitated in " Thoughts at a Railway Station;" whilst the "Ode to Tobacco" reads like a continuation of Longfellow's "Skeleton in Armour." For refined parody, as distinguished from mere verbal burlesque, Mr. Calverley was unapproached, and no collection of humorous English poetry would be complete, which did not include several of his best pieces. His humour was ever genial and pleasant, without a tinge of malice or ill will, and even those whom he so deftly parodied could have taken no offence at his clever banter. Mr: Calverley was also a considerable scholar, as his translations testify, and he left at Oxford, (where he studied before going to Cambridge), a considerable reputation as a wit, and cheery conversationalist.

H. W. Longfellow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born at Portland, Maine, on February 27, 1807, and died on the 24th March, 1882, having thus just completed his 75th year. After graduating at the age of eighteen at Bowdoin College, he entered the office of his father to study the law. Soon afterwards, however, he left America for Europe, where he travelled for three years and a half, in order to qualify himself for a professorship of modern language, which had been offered to him in the college where he had received his education. A few years later he was appointed to a similar position in Harvard College. In order to become acquainted with the literature and languages of Northern Europe he again left America and travelled in Scandinavia, Germany, and Switzerland, entering upon his new duties in 1836. Mr. Longfellow commenced his career as an author while yet he was an undergraduate, and continued to