There I'll rear my young mulattoes, as no Bond Street brats are reared : They shall dive for alligators, catch the wild goats by the beard Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy-faced baboon, Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the mountains of the moon. Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn I knew When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two ! When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide With the many larks of London flaring up on every side ; When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come ; Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted thumb ; Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off, oh hea. vens ! Brandy at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking hot at Evans'! I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard's blood will daily quaff, Ride a tiger hunting, mounted on a thorough-bred giraffe. Fiercely shall I shout the war-whoop, as some sullen stream he crosses, Startling from their noonday slumbers, iron-bound rhino ceroses. Fool! again the dream, the fancy! But I know my words are mad, For I hold the grey barbarian lower than the Christian cad. Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears, Saw Jack Sheppard, noble strippling, act his wondrous feats again, Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an infant's daisy chain. I the swell— the city dandy! I to seek such horrid places, faces ! I to wed with Coromantees! I who managed very near To secure the heart and fortune of the widow Shillibeer! Might was right, and all the terrors, which had held the world in awe, Were despised, and prigging prospered, Laurie, spite of law. In such scenes as these I triumphed, ere my passions edge was rusted, And my cousin's cold refusal left me very much disgusted ! Stuff and nonsense! let me never fling a single chance away, Maids ere now, I know, have loved me, and another maiden may. Hark! my merry comrade's call me, bawling for another jorum ; They would mock me in derision, should I thus appear be fore 'em. That's the sort of thing to do it. Now I'll go and taste the balmy,Rest thee with thy yellow nabob, spider-hearted cousin Amy ! Womankind no more shall vex me, such at least as go arrayed In the most expensive satins and the newest silk brocade. BON GAULTIER BALLADS. VAUXHALL. Cabman, stop thy jaded knacker; cabman, draw thy slack ened rein; Take this sixpence, do not grumble, swear not at Sir Richard Mayne ! 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old the cadger's bawl-Sparkling rockets, squibs and crackers, whizzing over gay Vauxhall. Love took up the glass before me, filled it foaming to the brim, Love changed every comic ballad to a sweet euphonious hymn ! Many a morning in the railway did we run to Richmond, Kew, And her hunger cleared my pockets oft of shillings not a few ! Many an evening down at Greenwich did we eat the pleasant " bait," Till I found my earnings going at a rather rapid rate. Oh! Miss Belmont, fickle-hearted! Oh, Miss Belmont known too late, Oh, that horrid, horrid Richmond, oh, the cursed, cursed " bait.” Gay Vauxhall ! that in the summer all the youth of town attracts, Glittering with its lamps and fireworks, and its flashing cataracts. Many a night in yonder gilded temple, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Von Joel, mimicking the feathered nest ; Many a night I saw Hernandez in a tinsel garb arrayed, With his odorif'rous ringlets tangled in a silver braid ; Falser far than Lola Montes, falser e'en than Alice Gray, Scorner of a faithful press-man, sharer of a tumbler's pay !Is it well to wish thee happy ? having once loved me to wed With a fool who gains his living by his heels, and not his head ! Here about the paths I wandered, chaffing, laughing all the time, Laughing at the piebald clown, or listening to the minstrel's rhyme ; When beneath the business-counter linendraper's men re posed, When in calm and peaceful slumber, sharp maternal eyes are closed ; As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And pursuing his profession, he will strive to drag thee down. He will hold thee in the winter, when his fooleries begin, Something better than his wig, a little dearer than his gin. When I dipt into the pewter pot that held the foaming stout, When I quaffed the burning punch, or wildly sipped the “cold without." What is this ? his legs are bending ! think'st thou he is weary, faint ? Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, how he tastes of paint ! Am I mad, that I should cherish memories of the bygone time ? Think of loving one whose husband fools it in a pantomime! In the spring a finer cambric's wrapped around the lordling's breast; In the spring the gent at Redmayne's gets himself a Moses' “ vest ;” In the spring we make investment in a white or lilac glove ; In the spring my youthful fancy prompted me to fall in love. Then she danced through all the ballet, as a fairy blithe and young, Stood a tiptoe on a flow'ret, or from clouds of pasteboard swungAnd I said, “Miss Julia Belmont, speak, and speak the truth to me, Wilt thou from this fairy region with a heart congenial flee?” On her lovely cheek and forehead came a blushing through her paint, And she sank upon my bosom in the semblance of a faint ; Then she turned, her voice was broken (so, if I must tell the truth, Was her English-all I pardoned in the generous warmth of youth), Saying, “Pray excuse my feelings, nothing wrong, indeed, is meant," Saying, “Will you be my loveyer ?” weeping, "you are quite the gent. Never, though my mortal summers should be lengthened to the sum Granted to the aged Parr, or more illustrious WiddicombComfort !-talk to me of comfort! What is comfort here below? Lies it in iced drinks in summer, aquascutum coats in snow ? Think not thou wilt know its meaning, wail of all his vows the proof, Till the manager is sulky, and the rain pours through the roof. See, his life he acts in dreams, while thou art staring in his face, Listen to his hollow laughter, mark his effort at grimace ! Thou shalt hear “Hot Codlins ” muttered in his vision haunted sleep, Thou shalt hear his feigned ecstatics, thou shalt hear his curses deep. Let them fall on gay Vauxhall, that scene to me of deepest But—the waiters are departing, and perhaps I'd better go! woe, By EDMUND H. YATES, From Afirth and Metre, 1855. Extract from Sir Rupert the Red, in imitation of Tennyson's Locksley Hall. 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 servant's wages to pay ! But the breakages here go on, And I have to settle the bill; And it's oh ! for the shards of my vanished cups, And my saucers dwindling still ! 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 sleepSaying, “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 qualmEre 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 dis graced ! Curses on thy maker's projects, curses on his ‘magic Break ! break ! break ! A week from this you shall see, (since you came, Will never come back to me! Paste.'" From Mirth and Metre. Our MISCELLANY ( Which ought to have come out, but didn't), 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. He led a polka-round his skull And so he drove a thriving trade, In 1856 a little sixpenny pamphlet was published by J. Booth, of Regent Street, entitled Anti-Maud, by a Poet of the People. Tennyson had been accused of fanning the warlike spirit then rampant in the land, and his Maud contained -in exquisite poetry—many of the stock arguments in favour of war and glory. The “ Poet of the People,” in his Anti: Maud, adopted the other, and less popular view. Read in the light of subsequent events this scarce little pamphlet seems more correct in its deductions, than the Laureate's war cry in Maud. The author asserts that Anti-Maud is not inerely 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: The In Memoriam verses are scarcely so good, I will, therefore, only quote the first and the last : RICHMOND, 1856. Under the shadow of peace something was done that was good, We tore out a 'sloody page from the book of our ancient laws; We struck off a bitter tax from the poor man's scanty food, And justice bent down from her seat to give ear to the poor man's cause. 21 Under the shadow of peace thickly began to arise church, Little it may be, but better than roasting our enemies' eyes With Captain Disney's patent, or sacking the town of Kertch. 22 Who clamours for war? Is it one who is ready to fight? a shout? Far from it ; 'tis one of a musing mind, who merely intends to write ; He sits at home by his own snug hearth, and hears the storm howl without. 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 war is far from being the popular game it once was; and 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 exqui. site 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, and the coronet which is to reward his poetical loyalty confers on him, and the latest of his descendants, a perpetual title to rule over the people of Great Britain, All honour to the Poet, as Poet, as a titled Legislator the choice rather reminds one of the saying of Beaumarchais' hero ;—" It fallait un calculateur, ce fut un danseur qui l'obtint,” a saying which I may perhaps be allowed to parody thus :—"Il fallait un Legislateur, ce fut un chanteur qui l'obtint." 38 Methinks we have done enough for that turbaned goat, the Turk, Who spits when a Christian meets him, and would spit, if he dared, in his face ; Methinks we have done enough, for 'tis but a thankless work To rivet with care on a beautiful land, the clutch of a bar. barous race. 41 THE LAST PEER. Whether they wag a saucy tongue, or stealthily work with the pen, There is blood on the heads of those who are fanning the flames of war; Blood on their heads, and blood at their doors; the blood of our own brave men, The blood of the wretched serfs who fight for their Faith and their Czar. “Is not a poet better than a lord ?" Robert Buchanan. I have quoted so much of this parody because it was one of the first to draw attention to the Laureate's love for the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious 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, at one time, and for some years, it Alfred the Loved, the Laureate of the Court, And as they voyaged homeward to the shores |