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ALFRED TENNYSON (continued).

Since the year 1845 Alfred Tennyson has been in the receipt of a civil list pension of £200 a year, so that, in round figures, he has received about £8.000 of the public money, besides drawing the annual salary of £100 since his appointment as Poet Laureate, November, 1850. The sale of his works has also, of course, been greatly increased, owing to his official title, and the present fortunate holder of the laurels enjoys a fortune much in excess of that of any of his predecessors in office. From the days of Ben Jonson downwards Poets Laureate have been paid to sing the praises of the Royal Family; of these Laureates, Jonson, Dryden, Southey, and Wordsworth were true poets, but the others in the line of succession were mere rhymesters, whose very names are now all but forgotten. Eusden, Cibber, and Pye were unremitting in their production of New Year, and Birth-day Odes, Southey did little in this way, and Wordsworth would not stoop to compose any official poems whatever, although he wore the laurels for seven years.

It was reserved for Alfred Tennyson to revive the custom, and he has composed numerous adulatory poems on events in the domestic history of our Royal Family.

The smallest praise that can be bestowed on Tennyson's official poems is that they are immeasurably superior to any produced by former Laureates; and although the events recorded have but a passing interest, the poems will probably long retain their popularity. The death of the princess Charlotte in 1817 was, no doubt, considered at the time as a greater public loss than was the death of Prince Albert in 1861; yet who now reads Southey's poem in her praise? Whereas the beauty of Tennyson's Dedication of the Idyls of the King will cause it to be remembered long after people have forgotten the Prince to whom it was inscribed.

The Dedication commences thus :

"THESE to his Memory-since he held them dear,
Perhaps as finding there anconsciously
Some image of himself-I dedicate,
I dedicate,-I consecrate with tears-
These Idyls.

NOTE.-Poets Laureate, with the dates of their appointment :-Benjamin Jonson, 1615-16 : Sir William Davenant, 1638; John Dryden, 1670; Thomas haiwell, 1688; Nahum Tate, 1692; Nicholas Rowe. 1715; Lawrence Eusden, 1718; Colley Cibber, 1730; William Whitehead, 1757; Thomas Warton, 1785; Henry James Pye, 1799; Robort Southey, 1813; William Wordsworth, 1843; and

And, indeed, He seems to me.

Scarce other than my own ideal knight.”

Continuing in this strain for another fifty lines, the Poet credits the Prince with every conceivable virtue, after which, as a contrast, it is almost a relief to turn to some parody, less ideal, and less heroic,

THESE to his memory-since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unwittingly

Some picture of himself- I dedicate,

I dedicate. I consecrate with smiles-
These Idle Lays-

Indeed, He seemed to me
Scarce other than my own ideal lege,
Who did not muchly care to trouble take;
But his concern was, confortable ease

To dress in well-cut tweeds, in doe-kin suits,
In pants of patterns marvellous to see ;

To smoke good brands; to quaff rare vintages;
To feed himself with dainty meats withal;
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade;
To toy with what Neren calls her hair;
And, in a general way, to happy be,
If possible, and always debonair;

Who spoke few wise things; did some foolish ones;
Who was good-hearted, and by no means stiff;
Who Loved himself as well as any man;

He who throughout his realms to their last isle
Was known full well, whose portraiture was found
In ev'ry album.

We have lost him; he is gone;

We know him now; ay, ay, perhaps too well,
For now we see him as he used to be,
How shallow, larky, genial-hear ei, gay;
With how much of self-satisfaction blessed-
Not swaying to this faction nor to that,
Because. perhaps, he neither understood;
Not making his high place a Prussian perch
Of War's ambition, but the vantage ground
Of comfort; and through a long tract of years,
Wearing a bouquet in his button-hole;
Once playing a thousand nameless little games,
Till communistic cobblers gleeful danced,
And democratic deivers hissed, “Ha! ha !**
Who dared foreshadow, then, for his own son
A looser life, one less distraught than his ?
Or how could Dilkland, dreaming of his sons,
Have hoped less for them than some heritance
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be-
If fate so wills it, O most potent K—;
The patron once of Polo and of Poole,
Of actors and leviathan “comines;"
Once dear to Science as to Art; ruce dear
To Sanscrit erudition as to either :
Dear to thy country in a doable sense;
Dear to purveyors; ay, a llege, Indeed.
Beyond all titles, and a household name,
Hereafter, through all times, Guelph the Gay!
The Corong K-

The Coming K-- was published about ten years ago as one of Beeton's Christmas Annuals, and created a sensation at the time, as it dealt with some social scandals then fresh in the

short period, it was suddenly withdrawn in a mysterious manner from circulation, and is now rather scarce. Following the Dedication, just quoted, are parodies of the Idyls of the King, with the following titles:-The Coming of Guelpho; Heraint and Shenid; Vilien; Loosealot and Delaine; The Glass of Ale; Silleas and Gettarre; The Last Carnival; and Goanveer. In each of these parts there are parodies well worthy of preservation, but space will only permit of the insertion of the following extracts, one from Vilien, the other from Goanveer.

In Vilien, the then prevalent crazes for Cabinet Spiritualism, Table Rapping, and séances are amusingly satirised; Vilien seeks out Herlin the Wizard, and thus begs him to reveal the one great secret of his art :

"I ever feared you were not wholly mine,
And see-you ask me what it is I want?
Yet people call you wizard-why is this?
What is it makes you seem so proud and cold?
Yet if you'd really know what boon I ask,
Then tell me, dearest Herlin, ere I go,

The charm with which you make your table rap.

O yield my boon,

And grant my re-iterated wish,
Then will I love you, ay, and you shall kiss
My grateful lips-you shall upon my word."
And Herlin took his hand from hers and said,
O, Vilien, ask not this, but aught beside.
But as thou lov'st me, Vilien, do not ask
The way in which I make the table rap.
O ask it not !

And Vilien, like the tenderest hearted maid
That ever jilted swain or lover mocked,
Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears:
"Nay, Herlin, if you love me, say not so;
You do but tease to talk to me like this.
Methinks you hardly know the tender rhyme
Of Trust me for all in all, or not at all.'
I heard a comique' sing the verses once,

And they shall answer for me. List the song :

In love, 'tis as in trade; if trade were ours, Credit and cash could ne'er be equal powersGive trust to all or don't give trust at all.

It is the little rift within the lute

That cracks the sound and makes the music mute,
And leaves the banjo nothing worth at all.

It is the little moth within the suit,
It is the merry maggot in the fruit,
That worming surely, slowly ruins all.

It is the little leaven makes the lump,
It is the little piston works the pump;
And A-L-L spells ALL, and--all is all.'

O, Herlin, do you understand my rhyme?
And Herlin coughed, and owned that he did not.

And Villien, naught abashed, replied again :

66

'Lo, now, how silly you must be, you know, My simple stanzas not to understand;

'Tis thus our truest poets write their rhymes;
They try their sense and meaning to conceal;
But you should solve their riddles, though 'tis said
They don't the answers know themselves, sometimes.
However, be that as it may, I think
So Villien sang:

I'll give you one verse more.
"That sign, once mine, is thine, ay, closelier mine,
For what is thine is mine, and mine is thine,
And this, I much opine, is line on line;
To learn the obvious moral once for all."
But Herlin looked aghast, as well he might,
Nor knew the teaching of her little song."

The last legend, that of Goanveer, tells how"FLEET Goanveer had lost the race, and stood There in the stable near to Epsom Downs."

This mare the Coming K-— had backed heavily, but his trusted friend, Sir Loosealot, obtaining access to her stable the night before the race, had drugged her, so that on the day she hobbled sickly to the winning-post. By this evil trick Sir Loosealot wins much, whilst the Coming K is a heavy loser. Guelpho visits the mare in her stable, and thus addresses her, in a parody of the celebrated passage in Guinevere, where Arthur parts from his faithless Queen :

"And all went well till on the turf I went,
Believing thou wouldst fortune bring to me,
And place me higher yet in name and fame.
Then came the shameful act of Loosealot;
Then came thy breaking down in that great race ;
And now my name's worth nil at Tattersall's,
And all my knights can curl their lips at me ;
Can say I've come a cropper,' and the like,
And all through thee and he-and him, I mean-
But slips will happen at a time like this.
Canst wonder I am sad when thus I see

I am contemned amongst my chiefest knights?
When I am hinted at in public prints
As being a man who sold the people's race?
But think not, Goanveer, my matchless mare,
Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee.
Yet must I leave thee to thy shame, for how
Couldst thou be entered for a race again?
The public would not hear of it; nay, more,
Would hoot and hound thee from the racing-course,
Being one they had loved, yet one on whom they had lost."
He paused, and in the pause the mare rejoiced.
For he relaxed the caresses of his arms;

And, thinking he had done, the mare did neigh,
As with delight; but Guelpho spake again :-

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Yet, think not that I come to urge thy faults;

I did not come to curse thee, Goanveer:

The wrath which first I felt when thou brok'st down
Is past-it never will again return.

I came to take my last fond leave of thee,
For I shall ne'er run mare or horse again.
O silky mane, with which I used to play

And points the like of which no mare yet had Till thou was't bred! O fetlocks, neater far Than many a woman's ankles! Ö grand hocks That faltered feebly on that fatal day!"

Yet, Goanveer, I bid thee now good-bye,
And leave thee, feeling yet a love for thee,
As one who first my racing instinct stirred,
As one who taught me to abjure the turf.
Hereafter we may meet-I cannot tell;
Thy future may be happy-so I wish.
But this I pray, on no account henceforth
Make mixture of your water-drink it neat ;
I charge thee this. And now I must go hence;
Through the thick night I hear the whistle blow
That tells me that my 'special' waits to start.
Thou wilt stay here awhile, so be at rest;
But hither shall I never come again,
Or ever pat thy neck, or see thee more.
Good-bye!"

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Welcome him, blunder of escort and suite,
Mounted inspector, and mob in the street!
Call up the first cab his Highness to meet !
Throw his hat-box and Bradshaw and rug on the seat !
Welcome him! feast him with fourpenny treat,
One glass of old ale and a sandwich to eat!
Scatter, O Royalty, gold for his keep!
Dream, all ye tradesmen of harvests to reap!
The Palace is empty, our pockets are deep!
Fling wide, O menial, the grand back door!

Take him, O attic, and rock him to sleep!
Strew a viceregal shakedown on the floor!
Welcome him, welcome him, all that is cheap!
Sing, Prima Donna, and fashion stare!
Scrape up your regiments, weak and few,
Hurry, ye Commons, and all be there,
To swell the pomp of the grand review!
Chuckle, Britannia! a Sultan? pooh!
A nobody! don't we know who's who,

Ismail Pasha !

Seeking quarters for change of air,
Come to us, love us (but pay your fare)—
Guests such as you we are happy to see;
Come to us, love us, and have we not shown,
In breakfast, and luncheon, and dinner, and tea,
Kindness to strangers as great as your own?
For Jacksons, O'Tooles, and McStunners we,
Viceroy, Khidevé, or whatever you be,

Yet thorough John Bulls in our welcome of thee,
Ismail Pasha !

Shortly after the death of the late John Brown, when it was announced that the Queen had had a statue of him erected in the grounds at Balmoral, it was also rumoured that Tennyson was writing a poem in his honour. A jocular author suggested that it might run as follows:

Trash about bells and the merry March hare
Wrote I once at the royal summons.
More of us Danes than Antic Rum-uns!
No; let me see! In our welcome of thee,
Alexandra !

Have I gone mad, or taken a drappie?
Norman and Saxon and Dane a wee,
Just a wee drappie intil our ee,
My Indo-Teuton-Celtic chappie!
Norman and Saxon a wee are we,

But more of us rum-uns or Danes you see

Some of us Saxons, and all with a B

In our bonnets, or something that's stronger than tea;
And it's all as easy as A, B, C,

To the poet who sang like a swan up a tree,

Alexandra !

"The promise of May" was a little bit late,
And a fox jumped over a parson's gate,

And he had my cochins, too, if you please,
With a cat to the cream, which was not the cheese;
And a guinea a line is about the rate

You must pay for what flows from the poet's pate
When the blue fire wakes up the whole of the town;
And I'm sure I don't know what to say about Brown.
But whatever I say and whatever I sing

Will be worth to an obolus what it will bring!

The Referee, September, 1883.

It is generally admitted that Tennyson's more recent official poetry has added little to his fame, whilst it has often been mercilessly ridiculed, and, of late, his adulatory poems, and protestations of loyalty, have frequently beer. ascribed to interested motives. As soon as it was definitely announced that he was to be ennobled, a genealogy was compiled tracing his

descent from the kings who ruled in Britain long before the Conquest. This grand claim (which was quoted at page 28) has since been rather spoilt by the plain statement that Alfred Tennyson's grandfather was a country attorney, practising in a small, quiet way in Market Rasen, North Lincolnshire, who, having made money in his business, retired, and bought some land in the neighbourhood.

But for the title just conferred upon him, Tennyson's birth and lineage would have been matters of perfect indifference to his readers. As for raising Tennyson to the peerage, no writer seems seriously to have defended an act which most people look upon as a mistake. Not one parody in its favour has been written, but many against it.

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

For to-morrow will be the silliest day we've seen for many a year;

For I am a rhyming prig, Vicky, that shoddy and sham

reveres,

So I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

There's many a crazy lyre, they say, but none so effete as mine;

It cannot ring out an ode to Brown, that gallant gilly of thine,

For there's none so inane as poor old Alf in his sad, declining years;

And I'm to be one of the Peets, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

I sleep so sound all night, Vicky, that I shall never wake; So come in the early morn, Vicky, and give me a slap and a shake;

For I must gather my scissors and paste and scraps of the bygone years,

And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of

the l'eers.

As I came up the Row, Vicky, whom think you I should see?

Lord Queensberry against a lamp, and singing Tweedle-dedee :

He thought of that vile play, Vicky, I wrote in bygone

years;

But I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

He thought I was a fool, Vicky, for I looked dazed and white;

He took me for a fool, Vicky-by jingo, he was right. They call me Atheist-hater; but I care not for their jeers, For I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

They say men write, and all for love; but this can never be : They say that great men write and starve; but what is that to me?

For gold I sell my laughter, for gold I sell my tears,

And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of

I wrote my "In Memoriam" when I was young and green; I wrote my "Promise of the May" when I was pumped out clean; And I've been the Court's hired lackey for many cringing years;

And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

The spider in my mouldy brain has woven its web for hours

On the dull flats of Lincoln fens and withered hot-house flowers;

I feel the shortening of my wits and the lengthening of my ears,

So I'm to be one of the peets, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

The night winds come and go, Vicky, upon the meadow

grass;

There are guineas for the rhymster and thistles for the ass : I have been your rhyming flunkey for over thirty years; Now I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

There will be poets after me, not fresh and green and still, Who care less for a Prince's nod than for the People's will,

Not rhyming royal nuptials and singing royal biers;
But I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of

the Peers.

You must wake and call me early, call me early, Vicky dear;

To-morrow will be the silliest day we've seen for many a year;

For I'm a lackey and prig, Vicky, that sham and shoddy

reveres,

And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.

From The Secular Review, December 29, 1883.

Of Tennyson's Patriotic Poems The Charge of the Light Brigade has always been the most popular, and has, consequently, been the most frequently parodied. An excellent parody, taken from Puck on Pegasus, was given on page 31; the following are the most interesting examples which remain to be quoted:

THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS,

On Thursday, August 3, 1865, an excursion was made by the Members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers of England, to the Dublin Corporation Waterworks at the Stillorgan and Roundwood Reservoirs. The members proceeded from Bray through the Glen of the Downs, along a portion of the line of pipes, and at the Roundwood Reservoir they were hardsomely entertained by Sir John Gray, M.P., the Chairman of the Waterworks Committee, and

The following parody appeared in a Dublin newspaper a few days later. Dr. Waller, who is mentioned in it, was then the Chairman of the Connoree Copper and Sulphur Mines, in the Vale of Avoca, which were also visited by the party of Engineers:-

THE TWO HUNDRED.

(After Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade.")
"Half-past nine, August three--
Half-past nine-onward!
Off to the Vartry Works

Went some two hundred.
Off to the Vartry Works,
Where the good water lurks,
Down on the Wicklow line,
Thinking of how they'd dine;
Toasting,' with best of wine,
Off-with the weather fine-

Went the two hundred.

"Forward!' said Sir John Gray,
On to the station, Bray,
There, there was some delay.
Some of the party said

'Waller has blundered.'

But they were wrong, to doubt-
Forty-three cars set out,

On from the station there,
Into the mountain air-

Through Wicklow's mountain air

Drove the two hundred.

"Arrived at the Vartry stream,
Inspected each shaft and beam;
Saw how the men with spade
Embankments and puddle made:
Crowds there of every grade

Admired and wondered.
Gray, like an engineer-

Explained what was strange or queer: All the works, far and near,

He showed the two hundred.

"Then through the Vartry pipes As niggers bend to stripes,

Right through these monster pipes.

Like string through a bodkin,

Sir John led a lot of us,

Making small shot of us;

The first man he caught of us

Was our London Times-Godkin.

"Done with the Vartry Works,
Flashed all our knives and forks;
To work, like some hungry Turks,'
Went the two hundred.

Soup, fish, meat, fowl, and ham,
Ice, jellies, pies, and jam ;
At this wild mountain cram

All the guests wondered.

"Champagne to the right of them, Champagne to the left of them, Champagne around them,

Popping and spurting.

Toasts then came from the chair,
Toasting the ladies fair,
But not a female there,

"Good wine of every sort, Speeches with joke and sport; Then they went back again,

But not the two hundred. Some of them went astray O'er hills and far away, But, getting home next day, Made up the two hundred.

"W. S."

This poem is signed with the initials W. S., which probably stand for the name of the late Mr. William Smith, a gentleman well-known in Dublin literary circles, as the author of many clever parodies which appeared over the nom de plume of" Billy Scribble." Whether these humorous poems have ever been published in a collected form, I cannot say, and I should be glad to receive any information about them.

"THE HALF Hundred (OF COALS).

A good way after A. Tennyson's "Six Hundred."
Up the stairs, up the stairs,
Up the stairs, onward!
Joe took, all out of breath,
Coals, half a hundred !
Up he went, still as death,
Lest they had wonder'd
That I, with a cellar large,

Bought by the "Hundred!"
"Forward! the light evade ;
Let 'em not know," I said;
"Glide up as still as death,

With the Half-hundred !'
Let them be gently laid!
No sound as by earthquake made
When the ground's sunder'd!
You here, if one should spy,
Wondering the reason why?

I with the shame should die!
So crawl up still as death,

With the Half-hundred !'"

A cat on the right of him!
Cat on the left of him!
Cat at the front of him!

What if he blunder'd?
Slipt his foot! clean he fell!
Came then a horrid yell!
Joe look'd as pale as death,
As down they came pell mell,

All the "Half-hundred!"
Out popt the "party" there!
Wondering what meant that ere
Noise on the landing stair!
All stood and wonder'd!
Dust-clouds of coal and coke!
Made them all nearly choke !
Oh! such a dreadful smoke!

As from the second floor

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