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THE MERMAID.

(By a disgusted Tar with a vague recollection of TENNYSON.)

I.

Who would be

A Mermaid dank, Bobbing about

In a sort of tank, For the crowd to see

At a shilling a head, In doubt if it be

Alive or dead?

II.

I would not be a Mermaid dank,
Flopping about in a Westminster tank,
Like a shabby sham at a country fair,
And by far the ugliest monster there;
Exposed to the Cockneys' vulgar chaff,
And the learned gush of the Daily T.,
To be called a porpoise or ocean-calf,

Or a seven-foot slug from the deep blue sea.
Me a Manatee? Dickens a bit!

The Mermaid of fiction was something fine,
A fish-tailed Siren given to sit

On a handy rock, 'midst the breezy brine,
Each golden curl with a comb of pearl
Arranging in many a taking twirl,
Like a free-and-easy nautical girl.
Taking a bath in a primitive style

Without any bother of dress or machine,

And likely the wandering tar to beguile,

If that Mariner chanced to be anyways green.
But your Modern Mermaid! good gracious me!
Who'd be inwiggled away from his tracks
Or driven to bung up his ears with wax
By the wiles and smiles of a Manatee?

A sort of shapeless squab sea-lubber,

A blundering bulk of leather and blubber,
Like an over-grown bottle of India-rubber;
The clumsiest, wobblingest, queerest of creatures,
With nothing but small gimlet-holes for features.
This a Mermaid? Oh don't tell me!
It's simply some sly scientifical spree,
And I mean to say it's a thundering shame

To bestow the Siren's respectable name,

Which savours of all that is rare and romantic,

On such a preposterous monster as this is,
Whose hideous phiz and ridiculous antic,

Would simply have frightened the mates of Ulysses.
Fancy the horror of blubberous kisses
From a mouth that's like a tarpaulin flap!
That Merman must be a most amorous chap
Who would sue her and woo her under the sea,
AS TENNYSON sings-a nice treat it would be
Were a Mermaid merely a Manatee !

From Punch, July 20th, 1878, in reference to the so-called Mermaid then being exhibited at the Westminster Aquarium.

Tennyson's The Peet-was in fourteen verses of four lines each, it commenced thus:

"The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;

Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of sccrn,

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He thrummed his lay; with mincing feet he threaded
The walks of coteric fame :

On the dull arrows of his thought were threaded
Concetti tame.

And pop-gun pellets from his lisping tongue,
Erratic in their flight,

From studio to drawing-room he flung,
Filling with light

And mazèd phantasies each morbid mind,
Which, albeit lacking wit,
Like dandelion seeds blown by the wind,
In weak souls lit,

Took shallow root, and springing up anew
Where'er they dropt, behold,

Like to the parent plant in semblance, grew
A weed as bold,

And fitly furnished all abroad to fling
Fresh mockeries of truth,
And throng with poisonous blooms the verdant Spring
Of weak-kneed youth.

Till many minds were lit with borrowed beams
Of an unwholesome fire;
And many fed their sick souls with hot dreams
Of vague desire.

Thus trash was multiplied on trash; the world
Like a Gehenna glowed,
And through the clouds of Stygian dark upcurled,
Foul radiance flowed;

And Licence lifted in that false sunrise Her bold and brazen brow; While Purity before her burning eyes

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NAY, I cannot come into the garden just now,
Tho' it vexes me much to refuse:

But I must have the next set of waltzes, I vow,
With Lieutenant de Boots of the Blues.

I am sure you'll be heartily pleas'd when you hear
That our ball has been quite a success.
As for me--I've been looking a monster, my dear,
In that old fashion'd guy of a dress.

You had better at once hurry home, dear, to bed;
It is getting so dreadfully late.

You may catch the bronchitis or cold in the head
If you linger so long at our gate.
Don't be obstinate Alfy; come, take my advice,
For I know you're in want of repose.
Take a basin of gruel (you'll find it so nice),
And remember to tallow your nose.

No, I tell you I can't and I shan't get away,
For De Boots has implor'd me to sing.

As to you-if you like it, of course you can stay ;
You were always an obstinate thing.

If you feel it a pleasure to talk to the flow'rs
About "babble and revel and wine,"

When you might have been snoring for two or three hours.
Why, it's not the least business of mine.

In 1879 the Editor of The World offered a prize for the best parody on Tennyson's LotusEaters, the chosen subject being" Her Majesty's Ministers at Greenwich."

The prize was awarded to C. J. Billson, for the following parody, which appeared in The World, for September 3rd, 1879

THE WHITEBAIT-EATERS.

'COURAGE!' they said, and pointed through the gloom; 'There is a haven in yon fishful clime.' At dinner-time they came into a room,

In which it seemed all day dinner-time.
All in the midst the banquet rose sublime,

Whose menu excellent no tongue might blame;
And round about the board, without their Prime,
Without their prime delight and chiefest fame,
The mild-eyed muddle-headed whitebait-eaters came.
They sat them down upon the yellow chairs,
And feasted gaily as in days of yore;

And sweet it was to jest of late affairs,

Of Ward and Power and Cat; but evermore Most weary seemed the Session almost o'er, Weary Hibernian nights of barren seed.

Then some one said, 'We shall come here no more!' And all at once they cried, 'No more, indeed! The ballot shall release; we will no longer lead !'

CHORIC SONG.

Why are we weighed upon with weariness,
With foreign crises and with home distress,
When all we do is mocked at by the Press?
All men like peace: why should we toil alone?
We always toil, and nevermore have rest;

But yield perpetual jest,

Still from one blunder to another thrown :

Nor ever pack our tricks,

And cease from politics;

Nor vote our last against the wild O'Connor ;

Nor hearken what the moving spirit said,

'Let there be Peace with Honour!'

Why should we always toil, when England's trust is dead?

Let us alone. What pleasure could we have

To war with Afghans? But the Chief said 'Fight!
The times are perilous and the Jingoes rave,

Whate'er I do is right.'

Yea, interests are hard to reconcile ;

'Tis hard to please yet help the little isle ; We have done neither quite.

Though we change the music ever, yet the people scorn our song;

O rest ye, brother Ministers, we shall not labour long.

AUGUSTO MENSE POETA. (C. J. Billson.)

In the year 1868, when the mania for trapeze performances was at its height, and men and women were nightly risking their lives to please the thoughtless audiences at the music halls,

(drawn by Matt Morgan) in condemnation of this senseless and dangerous form of entertainment; it also published the following parody of

A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.

I read, before I fell into a doze,

Some book about old fashions-curious tales Of bye-gone fancies-kirtles and trunk hoseOf hoops, and fardingales—

Of medieval milliners, whose taste

Preluded our vile fashions of to day-
Of how they moulded the ancestral waist
With steel-bound taffeta-

Of powdered heroes of the later days—
Of Hamlets strutting in their full court suits,
Slouch-hatted villains of transpontine plays,
All belt and bucket boots-

So shape chased shape (as swiftly as, when knocks
Of angry tradesmen bluster at the door,
Turgid with envelopes my letter box
Boils over on the floor).

Till fancy, running riot in my brain,

Elbowed the PAST from out the PRESENT's way;
And opened in my dream, distinct and plain,
A vision of to-day.

Methought that I was on what's called "a spree,"
Yet sadly pensive in the motley throng,
Where thrills through clouds of smoke the melody
Of idiotic song;

Where youth with tipsy rapture drowns in beer

All common sense, votes decency a bore,
But, to the shapely limbs and sensuous leer,
Yells out a loud "Encore-"

Then flashed before me in the gaslights' glare
A form to make the boldest hold his breath,
She, who by reckless leapings in mid air,
Plays pitch and toss with Death.

Shame on the gaping crowds who only know
Sensation in the chance of broken necks!
Shame on the manliness that cries "Bravo
To such a scorn of sex!

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I saw that now, since License holds such sway,
The comic muse her false position fee's,
And that her sister may not gain the day,
Has taken to her heels.

And then methought I stood in fairy bowers,
Where Dulness hides behind the mask of Fun,
Where tin foil and Dutch metal do for flowers,
And lime-light is the sun;

Where Art groans under an unseemly ban, And airy nothings pass for full attire, The Stage appeals but to the baser man, And th' only blush, Red Fire!

*

Then starting I awoke from my nightmare.

A nightmare? No! the truth came clear to me. I'd dream'd the truth-bare facts (O much too bare!)

An Extract from the original Margaret.

O, SWEET pale Margaret,
O, rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower

Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-power?

What can it matter, Margaret,
What songs below the waning stars
The lion-heart, Plantagenet,

Sang, looking thro' his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell
The last wild thought of Chatelet,
Just ere the fallen axe did part

The burning brain from the true heart, Even in her sight he loved so well?

MARY ANN.

(After Mr. Tennyson's "Margaret.")

O, slipshod Mary Ann,
O, draggled Mary Ann,

What gives your arms such fearful power
To raise the dust in blinding shower?
Who

gave you strength, your mortal dower,
To beat the mats as with a flail,
To lift with ease that heavy pail?

What can it matter, Mary Ann,
What songs the long-legged son of Mars—
The butcher or the cat's meat man-
Sings to you thro' the area bars?

O, red-armed Mary, you may tell
The milkman, when he fills our can,
You wonder how he has the heart
To let the pump play such a part
In milk for her he loves so well!

You stand not in such attitudes,
You are not quite so plain,
Nor so sulky in your moods,

As your twin-sister, Mary Jane,
Your face is cleaner, and your nose
Not touched with such a grimy hue,
With cold aerially blue,

Or crimson as the damask rose!

ALBANY CLARKE'

From The Weekly Dispatch, 25th June, 1882.

It is in the strongly marked individuality of some of Tennyson's early poems that we find, at once, the secret of much of his popularity, and the excuse for the vast number of parodies of his works scattered about in nearly all our humorous literature; and three of the early

poems have been especially chosen by parodists as models for imitation; these are the " May Queen," "Locksley Hall," and the "Charge of the Light Brigade."

In the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," by Theodore Martin and Professor Aytoun, will be found several parodies of Tennyson, also of Tom Moore, Bulwer Lytton, Mrs. Browning, and Leigh Hunt, of whom parodies are rare.

"The Biter Bit" is a kind of burlesque continuation of the "May Queen," the tender pathos of the original being turned into cynical indifference, whilst preserving a great similarity of style and versification. I quote a few verses of the original "Queen o' the May":

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,

To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New Year,

Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest merriest day;

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."

As I came up the valley whom think ye I should see,
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yester-
day,-

But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be :
They say his heart is breaking, mother-what is that to me?
There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen
of the May.

So you must wake and call me early, call me early mother, dear,

To morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New Year:

To morrow 'll be of all the year the maddest merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

Here are some verses of Bon Gaultier's imitation ::

THE BITER BIT.

The sun is in the sky, mother, the flowers are springing fair,

And the melody of woodland birds is stirring in the air; The river smiling to the sky, glides onward to the sea, And happiness is everywhere, oh mother, but with me!

They are going to the church, mother-I hear the marriage bell:

It booms along the upland, oh! it haunts me like a knell ;

He leads her on his arm, mother, he cheers her faltering step,

And closely by his side she clings, she does, the demirep!

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Good taste had slept so sound, mother, I thought t'would never wake,

But the Press, at last, has given it a most decided shake;

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"Chief Justice May has scandalously prejudged the Land League case, and in common decency he should not be allowed to try it. A fair trial is impossible after the partisanship which in the vilest possible taste this person has displayed. It is not the practice even now in Ireland to hang people first and try them afterwards, and

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