"Ah, ah, 'tis not so bad you see,
We've won a virtual victory.

"Tis true that Bright is just ahead,
By hundreds nine to ten,
But I can show he should have won
By just us much again :
We've lower'd their proud majority,
And that's a virtual victory."

"Ahem!" said Rowlands, looking glum,
"That doesn't count, I fear,

A win's a win, and we must sing
Political small beer.

Your best arithmetic won't score

Twice two as anything but four."

"Cheer up, cheer up, my trusty friend."
Stone cheerily chirped out,

"I'm rather good at ciphering,
And know what I'm about:

I say we ought to sing with glee
For such a virtual victory:

"Send off the news to Blenheim House
That Marlborough may know,
Despatch a score of 'tannergrams'
To humble Highbury Joe;

'Twill make him shake with fear to see
We've won a virtual victory.

"Come, run with me to High Street quick,
And show to the Gazette

How to display this joyful news

In type triumphant set;

How fine upon the bill 'twill be

To read "Great Virtual Victory!"

"But tell me," Rowlands answered him,
"What 'vantage we shall gain,

When Bright will sit, and Bright will vote,
While Churchill's with the slain ?"

"Oh that," quoth Stone, "Don't trouble me,
'Tis such a virtual victory!"

Birmingham Daily Mail, November, 1885.

THE OLD GLADSTONITE AND HIS SON.

A. D. CIRCA 1900.

" TELL me, dear father, if the time
When this poor paltry Island's might,
Was held enough to conquer Crime,
And even Anarchy to fight;
Explain to me how Gladstone's acts-
So noble in themselves-yet made
Our ruin and our fall two facts,
And put our glory in the shade"
His explanation only ran,
"He was a very grand old man."

"But father, dear, when all the dead
And tortured loyalists who fell
For deeming that what Gladstone said,
Was true; and only when the yell

Of Dynamiting Fenian crew

Came on their ears, saw their reward,

For so believing, surely you

Don't think 'twas right to steal their sword ?"

He murmured, as his tears began,

"He was a very Grand Old Man."

"And England's honour, credit, name, Her colonies, her army, fleet,

All gone-her prestige turned to shame,
Her altered battle cry Retreat :'
Was not all this a biggish price

To pay for keeping even him
To talk, and make distinctions nice.
And be so eloquent and dim?"

He glared as only fathers can, "He was a very Grand Old Man," "Father, I know we should be still While foes are taking all we prize; 'Tis Gladstone-good to think no ill Of murderers in moral guise ; But, somehow, if our forbears had Just shut him up, I'd almost bet That Englishmen might now be glad, And England might be England yet."

Poor Father's tears in buckets ran, "He was a very Grand Old Man."

In order to explain the parodies of Southey's political poems, it is necessary to refer to the peculiar opinions he held, and the widely varying theories he advanced, at two different periods of his life.

In Southey's youth his friends had wished him to enter the English Church, but he, in addition to holding strong republican views, had also imbibed Socinian principles. Feeling, therefore, that he could neither conscientiously receive holy orders, nor remain happily under a purely monarchical government; he decided upon resigning both his college and his country. He enlisted his two bosom friends, Lovell and Coleridge, in his projects, and, proceeding to Bristol, there held a consultation as to the best mode of securing the liberties of the human race in future, from the designs and ambition of political rulers. The system agreed upon was that of a Pantisocracy, or society wherein all things should be in common; and the spot fixed on as the citadel of future Freedom was on the banks of the river Susquehana, in North America.

But the poverty of the three friends prevented them from putting the scheme into execution, and procuring, as they had fondly hoped, universal liberty and equality for the entire human race.

Notwithstanding this disappointment Southey's enthusiasm in the cause of republicanism was kindled even higher than before; and, in his "Wat Tyler," published in 1795, he advocated the principle of universal liberty and equality, with a fervour not exceeded by any writer of that agitated period. This vehemence, he lived to regret, -whether the calmer judgment of maturer years condemned the errors of those that were past,-or whether self-interest was the influencing motive for a sudden and total change of political sentiment, it is not now possible to ascertain. So complete was his change of sentiment that he employed the most active measures for the suppression of the work itself: he destroyed all the unsold copies, bought up many of those that had been distributed, and exhibited the plainest demonstration of an abandonment of his early projects and principles. Carlisle, and others, who did not hesitate to expose themselves to legal penalties, provided they could hold up a political deserter to public scorn, had the boldness to republish "Wat Tyler" without Mr. Southey's permission. An injunction was instantly applied for by the indignant author, but Lord Eldon refused to grant this protection, on the plea that 6. a person cannot recover damages upon a work which "in its nature was calculated to do injury to the public." This decision encouraged the vendors of the poem, and not less than 60,000 copies are supposed to have been sold during the excitement it created. And such passages as the following were extracted from it, and widely quoted by the opposition journals:

My brethren, these are truths, and weighty ones.
Ye are all equal: Nature made ye so,
Equality is your birth-right;-when I gaze
On the proud palace, and behold one man
In the blood-purpled robes of royalty,
Feasting at ease, and lording over millions;
Then turn me to the hut of poverty,

And see the wretched labourer, worn with toil,
Divide his scanty morsel with his infants;

I sicken, and, indignant at the sight,
Blush for the patience of humanity."

Nor had Southey the consolation of public sympathy, which indeed is seldom shown to such political apostates.

Henceforward Southey cast off his revolutionary opinions, and all his future writings were marked by an intolerant attachment to church and state, and servile adulation of the Royal Family. He soon reaped the reward of his apostacy, he was appointed secretary to Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, with a salary of £350 a year, and very light duties. In 1857, the government conferred a pension of £200 a year upon him, and in 1813, on the death of Henry James Pye, he was appointed Poet Laureate. In this capacity he did not compose the usual Birthday odes, and New Year's Day odes, as had been done by his predecessors, but he produced various courtly poems on certain important events. These appeared at irregular intervals, and there are only three which need be specially alluded to, namely, Carmina Aulica, written in 1814, on the arrival of the allied sovereigns in England; Carmen Triumphale for the commencement of the year 1814; and Carmen Nuptiale, the Lay of the Laureate on the marriage of the Princess Charlotte. But last, and worst of all, was The Vision of Judgment, written on the death of George III, in 1820. These poems were all deeply tinged with Southey's political prejudices, and contained the most bitter sentiments towards all who differed from his views; they provoked much animosity and ridicule at the time, and would soon have passed into utter oblivion, but for the satires and parodies they gave rise to.

Of these Lord Byron's Vision of Judgment was, of course, the most powerful, in it the Laureate received a mercilessly witty castigation, which even his admirers admitted to be not altogether unmerited, as he had gone out of his way to attack those who had done him no wrong.

The mere fact of Southey's complete change of opinions on political and social affairs would not, in itself, have been sufficient to account for the violence of the attacks to which he was subjected. It was not only that he turned from being an ardent Republican and a Communist, to a staunch Royalist and supporter of the Aristocratic form of government, but the change came at a time when party feeling ran very high, when the great body of the people were suffering sore distress, and when his own prospects, pecuniary and social, were greatly benefitted by deserting what was then known as the popular cause.

Further, he at once proceeded with all the ardour of a pervert to violently attack all who held similar views to those he had but so lately upheld, and advised that the most severely repressive measures should be taken against them, which caused Byron to address him thus, in the opening lines of Don Juan:

BOB SOUTHEY! you're a poet-Poet-Laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last,-yours has lately been a common case ;
And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at ?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like "four and twenty blackbirds in a pye;

You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in your wish
To supersede all warblers here below,

And be the only blackbird in the dish;
And then you overstrain yourself, or so,

And tumble downward like the flying fish
Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,
And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry Bob!

I would not imitate the petty thought

Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,
For all the glory your conversion brought,
Since gold alone should not have been its price.
You have your salary was't for that you wrought?
And Wordsworth has his place in the excise.
You're shabby fellows-true-but poets still,
And duly seated on the immortal hill.

Notwithstanding all the attacks aimed at him, Southey continued to write in the interest of his patrons, and retained the office of Poet Laureate until his death in 1843, when it was conferred upon William Wordsworth, who already held a lucrative government appointment. For more complete details of the duties and emoluments connected with the post of Poet Laureate, readers may refer to my little history of the Poets Laureate of England.

The most witty and amusing attacks of Southey's early republican poems proceeded from the pen of George Canning who started the Anti-Jacobin Review, a series of weekly papers, the avowed object of which was to expose the doctrines of the French Revolution, and to ridicule the advocates of that event, and the friends of peace and parliamentary reform. The editor was William Gifford, author of the Baviad and Maviad, and John Hookham Frere, Lord Clare, and Lord Mornington, were amongst the contributors. Their purpose was to disparage and blacken their adversaries, and they spared no means in the attempt. Their most distinguished countrymen, whose only fault was their being opposed to the government, were treated with no more respect than their foreign adversaries, and were held up to public execration as traitors, blasphemers, and debauchees. So alarmed, however, became some of the more moderate supporters of the ministry at the violence of the language employed, that Mr. Pitt was induced to interfere, and after an existence of eight months, the Anti-Jacobin (in its original form) ceased to exist.

The Poetry which appeared in the Anti-Jacobin has been frequently reprinted, but the prose contents are now generally forgotten. The best of the poetry was contributed by George Canning, with some assistance from John Hookham Frere, and whilst ridiculing the utopian views of Southey, and his friends, with much point and spirit, it differed from the prose articles of the Anti-Facobin in that it contained fewer insulting personal allusions, and was generally written in a style of good humoured banter. It was in November, 1797, that the first parody on Southey appeared, founded upon the following

INSCRIPTION.

For the Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Henry Marten, the Regicide, was imprisoned Thirty Years.

FOR thirty years secluded from mankind
Here Marten linger'd. Often have these walls
Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread
He paced around his prison; not to him
Did Nature's fair varieties exist,

He never saw the sun's delightful beams,
Save when through yon high bars he pour'd a sad
And broken splendour. Dost thou ask his crime?

He had REBELL'D AGAINST THE KING, AND SAT
IN JUDGMENT ON HIM; for his ardent mind
Shaped goodliest plans of happiness on earth,
And peace and liberty. Wild dreams! but such
As Plato loved; such as with holy zeal

Our Milton worshipp'd. Blessed hopes! Awhile
From man withheld, even to the latter days
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfill'd!
ROBERT SOUTHEY.

INSCRIPTION.

For the Door of the Cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, the 'Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her Execution.

FOR One long term, or ere her trial came,

Here BROWNRIGG linger'd. Often have these cells
Echoed her blasphemies, as with shrill voice
She scream'd for fresh Geneva. Not to her
Did the blithe fields of Tothill, or thy street.
St. Giles, its fair varieties expard;
Till at the last in slow-drawn cart she went
To execution. Dost thou ask her crime?
SHE WHIPPED TWO FEMALE 'PRENTICES TO DEATH,
AND HID THEM IN THE COAL-HOLE.
Shaped strictest plans of discipline.
Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine
Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog
The little Spartans; such as erst chastised
Our Milton when at college. For this act

For her mind, Sage schemes !

Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws! but time shall come
When France shall reign, and laws be all repeal'd!

In the next number of the Anti-Facobin there was an article on JACOBIN POETRY, in which it was stated that "one of the most universally recognised principles in the Jacobin creed was that the truly benevolent mind should consider only the severity of the punishment inflicted by human laws without any reference to the malignity of the crime. It remained only to fit it with a poetical dress, which had been attempted in the inscription for Chepstow Castle, and which (we flatter ourselves), was accomplished in that for Mrs. Brownrigg's cell.”

"Another principle, no less devoutly entertained, and no less sedulously administered, is the natural and eternal warfare of the Poor and the Rich."

"This principle is treated at large by many authors, we trace it particularly in a poem by the same author from whom we borrowed our former illustration of the Jacobin doctrine of crimes and punishments In this poem, the pathos of the matter is not a little relieved by the absurdity of the metre. The learned reader will perceive that the metre is sapphic, and affords a fine opportunity for his SCANNING and PROVING, if he has not forgotten them"

THE WIDOW.

:

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY, AND THE KNIFE-Grinder.* Friend of Humanity.

"NEEDY knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order-
Bleak blows the blast ;-your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches !

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, 'Knives and
'Scissars to grind O!'

"Tell me, knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?

"Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?

Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?

The "Friend of Humanity" was intended for a satire on Mr. Tierney, M.P., for Southwark, who in early times was amongst the most zealous of the Reformers. He was an active member of the Society of Friends of the Perple, and drew up the justly celebrated Petition in which that useful body laid before the House of Commons all the more striking particulars of its defective title to be a body truly representing the people, which that house then, as now, but with far less reason, assumed.

Once your clothes were new-and how came they shabby?
Did the Home Minister throw dirt upon you?
Or did His Honour the Master of the Rolls? or
Chancellor ELDON?

Did Mr. PEEL, for killing of his game? or
Did His Honour, for denying of the veto?
Or JOHN LORD ELDON, because you don't like a
Chancery lawsuit ?

(Ought not O'CONNELL and SHIEL to be M. P.'s?)
Tell, without reserve, each of your privations;
Ready is my tongue the nation to rouse to
Render you justice.

SAPPHICS OF THE CABSTAND.

Friend of Self-Government.

SEEDY cab-driver, whither art thou going? Sad is thy fate-reduced to law and order, Local Self-Government yielding to the grip of Centralisation.

Victim of FITZROY! little think the M.P.'s,
Lording it o'er cabs, 'bus, lodging-house and grave.

yard,

Of the good times when every Anglo-Saxon's
House was his castle.

Say, hapless sufferer, was it MR. CHADWICK-
Underground foe to the British Constitution-
Or my LORD SHAFTESBURY, put up MR. FITZROY
Thus to assail you?

Was it the growth of Continental notions,
Or was it the Metropolitan police force
Prompted this blow at Laissez-faire, that free and
Easiest of Doctrines?

Have you not read MR TOULMIN SMITH'S great work

on