Scene 2:

And thou, my Whiskerandos, shouldst be father And mother, brother, cousin, uncle, aunt, And friend to me!

P. 228. _Blue Bonnets over the Border._ Scott's 'ditty to the ancient air of "Blue Bonnets over the Border,"' _The Monastery_, chap. xxv:

March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale, Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order?

P. 231. _As Spencer had ere he composed his Tales._ This probably refers to the Hon. W. R. Spencer, author of _Beth Gelert_, as well as to the one-time fashionable tailless coat known as a 'spencer.'

P. 232. _This shall a Carder... Whiteboy... Rock's murderous commands._ The reference is to the secret associations which were responsible for much agrarian crime in Ireland during the early part of the nineteenth century.

P. 235. _If English corn should grow abroad._. Thus in fourth edition of _Whims and Oddities_ (1829), but 'go' in some reprints. The bull is probably intentional.

P. 237. _Huggins and Duggins._ Hood appears to have had Pope's first Pastoral, _Spring_, especially in mind. In it Strephon and Daphnis alternately sing the praises of Delia and Sylvia:

In Spring the fields, in Autumn hills I love, At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove, But Delia always; absent from her sight, Nor plains at morn, nor grove at noon delight.

P. 237. _All things by turns, and nothing long._ 'Was everything by starts, and nothing long.'--DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_.

P. 240. _We met._ T. H. Bayly's--

We met--'twas in a crowd, And I thought he would shun me, He came--I could not breathe, For his eyes were upon me.

P. 241. _Those Evening Bells._ Moore's song begins:

Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth, and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime.

P. 241. _The Water Peri's Song._ Moore's _Lalla Rookh_;

Farewell--farewell to thee, Araby's daughter! (Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea,) No pearl ever lay, under Oman's green water, More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee.

P. 242. _Cabbages._ The first verse of _Violets_, by L. E. L., runs:

Violets! deep blue violets! April's loveliest coronets: There are no flowers grow in the vale, Kissed by the sun, wooed by the gale, None with the dew of the twilight wet, So sweet as the deep blue violet.

P. 243. _Larry O'Toole._ Charles Lever: 'Did ye hear of the Widow Malone?'

P. 243. _The Willow Tree._ In this Thackeray was parodying his own earlier treatment of the same theme, as Charles Lamb had parodied himself in the _Nonsense Verses_ (see p. 154). Thackeray's serious version begins:

Know ye the willow-tree, Whose grey leaves quiver, Whispering gloomily To yon pale river?

P. 245. _Dear Jack._ In O'Keeffe's opera, _The Poor Soldier_, is the often-parodied song imitated from the Latin:

Dear Tom, this brown jug that foams with mild ale, Out of which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Vale, Was once Toby Filpot, etc.

The Rev. Francis Fawkes, famous in his day as a translator of the classics, is the reputed author of the song.

P. 248. _The Almack's Adieu_ and _The Knightly Guerdon_. These are varied parodies of a one-time popular song:

Your Molly has never been false, she declares, Since the last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs; When I vowed I would ever continue the same, And gave you the 'Bacco Box marked with my name. When I passed a whole fortnight between decks with you, Did I e'er give a kiss, Tom, to one of the crew? To be useful and kind with my Thomas I stayed,-- For his trousers I washed, and his grog, too, I made.

P. 250. W. E. _Aytoun._ The contributions of Aytoun to the _Book of Ballads_, edited by 'Bon Gaultier,' that are here given are those which, on the authority of Sir Theodore Martin, were solely his own composition. Several of the _Ballads_ had appeared in periodicals before they were collected and published in book form in 1845.

P. 252. _A Midnight Meditation._ Six poets are parodied in the 'Bon Gaultier' _Ballads_ under the general heading, 'The Laureates' Tourney'--Wordsworth, the Hon. T-- B-- M'A--, the Hon. G-- S-- S--, T-- M--RE, Esq., A-- T--, and Sir E-- B-- L--, the last of which, by Aytoun only, is here given. The parodists, remembering _Rejected Addresses_, profess that the poems were sent to the Home Secretary when the Laureateship became vacant on the death of Southey.

P. 252. _These mute inglorious Miltons._ Hood had already used this pun connecting the poet and the oysters in his ballad of the blind _Tim Turpin_:

A surgeon oped his Milton eyes. Like oysters, with a knife.

P. 254. _The Husband's Petition._ In this Aytoun was using to a ludicrous end the measure he had employed in _The Execution of Montrose_:

Come hither, Evan Cameron! Come, stand beside my knee-- I hear the river roaring down Towards the wintry sea.

P. 256. _Sonnet CCCI._ Martin Farquhar Tupper published a volume of _Three Hundred Sonnets_ in 1860. _Punch_ professed to have made an arrangement with him to continue the series, and boldly put the initials M. F. T. to this parody in the number for May 26, 1860.

P. 257. _You see yon prater called a Beales._ Edmond Beales (1803-1881) was President of the Reform League at the time of the Hyde Park riots. He thus figures in _Punch_ in lines written apropos of tears shed by Walpole, Home Secretary, when he learnt of the riots:

Tears at the thought of that Hyde Park affair Rise in the eye and trickle down the nose, In looking on the haughty Edmond Beales, And thinking of the shrubs that are no more.

P. 258. _The Lay of the Lovelorn._ This is one of the 'Bon Gaultier' _Ballads_, and is included by permission of Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons. Aytoun had no part in this parody. It was solely Sir Theodore Martin's, and in its author's opinion is the best he contributed to the collection. In the _Book of Ballads_ Sir Theodore was at pains to explain that--

it was precisely the poets whom we most admired that we imitated the most frequently. This was certainly not from any want of reverence, but rather out of the fullness of our admiration, just as the excess of a lover's fondness often runs over into raillery of the very qualities that are dearest to his heart. 'Let no one,' says Heine, 'ridicule mankind unless he loves them.' With no less truth may it be said, Let no one parody a poet unless he loves him. He must first be penetrated by his spirit, and have steeped his ear in the music of his verse, before he can reflect these under a humorous aspect with success.

Some excellent parodists have succeeded very well in dissembling their love.

P. 266. _The Laureates Bust at Trinity._ Parody of part of _Guinevere_ in the _Idylls of the King_:

So the stately Queen abode For many a week, unknown, among the nuns.... 'Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.'

The parody is from _Punch_, November 12, 1859.

P. 268. _Unfortunate Miss Bailey._ Tennyson's _The Lord of Burleigh_.

In her ear he whispers gaily, 'If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watched thee daily, And I think thou lov'st me well.'

P. 270. _Cary._ Phoebe Cary wrote many parodies. One entitled _The Wife_ is sometimes said to be a burlesque of Wordsworth:

Her washing ended with the day, Yet lived she at its close, And passed the long, long night away In darning ragged hose.

But when the sun in all his state Illumed the eastern skies, She passed about the kitchen grate And went to making pies.

As a matter of fact this only differs by the use of a few turns from

Her suffering ended with the day,

by James Aldrich (1810-1856).

P. 271. _That very time I saw_, etc. See _Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act II., Sc. 1.

P. 272. _On a Toasted Muffin_, Sir E. L. B. L. B. L. B. Little was Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton, afterwards Lord Lytton, who had written an anonymous satire, _The New Timon_.

P. 273. _In Immemoriam._ In connexion with these quatrains it may be noted that Whewell (1794-1866), in one of his treatises, published before _In Memoriam_, dropped into the following sentence: 'No power on earth, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line that shall be absolutely straight.'

P. 274. _Bayard Taylor. The Diversions of the Echo Club_ first appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_, 1872, and in book form in 1876. The poems here reprinted are given by permission of the Houghton, Mifflin Company.

Taylor, writing to T. B. Aldrich, March 29, 1873, says:

Story told me that Browning sent him the _Echo Club_ last summer, with a note saying it was the best thing of the kind he had ever seen, and that if he had found the imitations of himself in a volume of his poems he would have believed that he actually wrote them.

_Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor._

P. 281. _All or Nothing._ While parodying Emerson's poetry generally Bayard Taylor had probably chiefly in mind _The Sphinx_:

The Sphinx is drowsy, Her wings are furled: Her ear is heavy, She broods on the world.

Most of Bayard Taylor's parodies are obviously rather of the poets' general styles than of particular poems.

P. 286. _If life were never bitter._ Parody of Swinburne's _A Match_:

If love were what the rose is And I were like the leaf.

P. 286. _Salad._ From _The British Birds_ (1872):

Enter three Poets, all handsome. One hath redundant hair, a second redundant beard, a third redundant brow. They present a letter of introduction from an eminent London publisher, stating that they are candidates for the important post of Poet Laureate to the New Municipality which the Birds are about to create.

P. 289. _I'm a Shrimp._

I'm afloat! I'm afloat! On the fierce rolling tide-- The ocean's my home and my bark is my bride. Up, up, with my flag, let it wave o'er the sea,-- I'm afloat! I'm afloat! and the Rover is free.

P. 290. _Dante Rossetti._ These poems are taken, by permission, from _The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti_--the single-volume edition of 1911. 'MacCracken' is a close parody of one of Tennyson's early poems, 'The Kraken':

Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth.

Mr. Francis MacCracken, of Belfast, was the purchaser of early works by the pre-Raphaelite artists.

P. 290. _The Brothers._ Another poem by Tennyson, 'The Sisters,' tells of the tragic love of twin girls for one man, and this duality suggested the verses to Rossetti when he found that the 'Thomas Maitland' who had attacked his work in the _Contemporary Review_ ('The Fleshly School of Poetry') was really Robert Buchanan.

P. 292. _Ode to Tobacco._ This is in the Draytonian metre, 'Fair stood the wind for France,' but Calverley evidently had Longfellow in mind. Compare the second stanza of his Ode with the third stanza of Longfellow's _Skeleton in Armour_:

I was a Viking old! My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, No Saga taught thee!

P. 294. _The real beverage for feasting gods on._ The allusion in the seventh stanza is to Jupiter and the Indian Ale:

'Bring it!' quoth the Cloud-Compeller, And the wine-god brought the beer-- 'Port and Claret are like water To the noble stuff that's here.'

Calverley also parodied Byron in _Arcades Ambo_.

P. 297. _Wanderers._ Tennyson's 'The Brook,' with the song of the brook:

I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally,

but ending in a parody of Tennysonian blank verse. In his _Collections and Recollections_, Mr. G. W. E. Russell has quoted the last six lines, 'which even appreciative critics generally overlook.... Will any one stake his literary reputation on the assertion that these lines are not really Tennyson's?' (The poem is from _Fly-Leaves_, 1872, by permission of Messrs. George Bell and Sons.)

P. 298. _Proverbial Philosophy._ Here are some typical lines by Martin Tupper:

A man too careful of danger liveth in continual torment, But a cheerful expecter of the best hath a fountain of joy within him: Yea, though the breath of disappointment should chill the sanguine heart, Speedily gloweth it again, warmed by the live embers of hope; Though the black and heavy surge close above the head for a moment, Yet the happy buoyancy of Confidence riseth superior to Despair.

P. 300. _Read incessantly thy Burke_--_i.e._, Burke's _Peerage_. _The Prince of Modern Romance_--_i.e._, Lord Lytton.

P. 301. _The Cock and the Bull._ As Mr. Seaman truly remarks, this is a recognized masterpiece of the higher stage of parody, when an author's literary methods--in this case Browning's _The Ring and the Book_--are imitated. (From _Fly-Leaves_.)

P. 304. _Lovers, and a Reflection._ Calverley may have had in mind William Morris's 'Two Red Roses across the Moon,' which begins 'There was a lady lived in a hall,' but undoubtedly the source of his inspiration was Jean Ingelow's 'The Apple-Woman's Song,' from _Mopsa the Fairy_, the second line of which recurs: 'Feathers and moss, and a wisp of hay.' (From _Fly-Leaves_.)

P. 306. _Ballad._ Another burlesque of the same poet. Miss Ingelow attempted to retaliate in _Fated to be Free_, with feeble lines intended to pour scorn on 'Gifford Crayshaw'--_i.e._, Calverley. (From _Fly-Leaves_.)

P. 309. _You are old, Father William._ An example of a parody known to everybody, although the original is known to few. The poem imitated is Southey's 'The Old Man's Comforts, and how he gained them,' beginning:

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,

and ending:

In the days of my youth I remember'd my God! And He hath not forgotten my age.

P. 314. _The Three Voices._ Tennyson's _The Two Voices_:

A still small voice spake unto me.

P. 322. _Beautiful Soup._ The authorship of 'Beautiful Snow,' which was immensely popular in this country as well as in its native America, cannot be verified. It has been attributed to an unhappy woman, to Major W. A. Sigourney, who was said to have written the verses in 1852, and who died in 1871, and to a James W. Watson.

P. 323. _Ravings._ Parodying Poe's _Ulalume_:

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere-- The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir-- It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

P. 324. _The Wedding._ The name, 'Owing Merrythief' (_i.e._, Owen Meredith), invented by Hood the Younger, sufficiently explains the Tennysonian fragrance of these lines.

P. 327. _A Clerk ther was._ The seventy-fifth birthday of that distinguished scholar and oarsman, the late Dr. F. J. Furnivall, was celebrated by the publication by the Oxford University Press of a Festschrift, _An English Miscellany_. Professor Skeat's contribution was received too late for inclusion among the other tributes in this volume, and it was first published in _The Periodical_, the organ of the Oxford Press.

P. 330. _A Reminiscence of 'David Garrick,'_ etc. T. W. Robertson's _David Garrick_ was produced in 1864.

P. 330. _Lord Dundreary._ A farcical stage character in Tom Taylor's play, _Our American Cousin_, in which Edward A. Sothern created something of a furore in 1861-62.

P. 330. _Mr. Buckstone's playhouse_--_i.e._, The Haymarket Theatre.

P. 331. _But at last a lady entered._ Nelly Moore (d. 1869), an actress whose chief success was gained at the Haymarket with Sothern.

Pp. 336-41. From _Specimens of Modern Poets_ | _The Heptalogia_ | _or_ | _The Seven against Sense._| a _Cap with Seven Bells_: by permission of Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton and Messrs. Chatto and Windus. The poets parodied are Tennyson, Robert and Mrs. Browning, Coventry Patmore, 'Owen Meredith,' D. G. Rossetti, and Swinburne himself. The _Specimens_ were published anonymously in 1880. The 'Owen Meredith' is particularly severe, and strikes the same note as that of Hood the Younger (p. 324). Swinburne's parody of himself is one of the rare successes of its kind. 'The Kid' Idyll is the third part of a parody of _The Angel in the House_.

The _Poet and the Woodlouse_ is presumably suggested by _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_.

P. 342. _Bret Harte._ The Bret Harte poems are taken from his _Complete Works_ by permission of Messrs. Chatto and Windus and the Houghton, Mifflin Company.

P. 342. _A Geological Madrigal._ Shenstone's verses beginning

I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed,

are in _Hope_, the second part of his _Pastoral Ballad in Four Parts_. The inspiration of Bret Harte's verses is sometimes ridiculously attributed to Herrick.

P. 347. _Vers de Société._ This might have been classed as a parody of Praed, but was printed originally as by 'Fritteric Lacquer.' It is here reprinted, with the two following parodies, from Traill's _Recaptured Rhymes_, by permission of Messrs. Blackwood.

P. 348. _The Puss and the Boots._ This may be compared with Calverley's 'The Cock and the Bull' (see p. 301).

P. 350. _After Dilettante Concetti._ See Rossetti's _Sister Helen_, which commences:

'Why did you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began.' 'The time was long, yet the time ran, Little Brother!' (_O Mother, Mary Mother, Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!_)

The sonnet with which Traill closes is a parody of Sonnet XCVII. of _The House of Life_, beginning:

'Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell.'

Pp. 353-7. _Andrew Lang._ The parodies on the Rossetti and Morris styles are taken from Andrew Lang's essay on Thomas Haynes Bayly in _Essays in Little_. 'Bayly,' Mr. Lang wrote, in discussing 'Oh, no, we never mention her,' 'had now struck the note, the sweet sentimental note, of the early, innocent, Victorian age.... We should do the trick quite differently now, more like this.' Here follows 'Love spake to me,' of which its author says at the end:

I declare I nearly weep over these lines; for, though they are only Bayly's sentiment hastily recast in a modern manner, there is something so very affecting, mouldy, and unwholesome about them that they sound as if they had been 'written up to' a sketch by a disciple of Mr. Rossetti's.

So, of--

Gaily the Troubadour Touched his guitar,

Mr. Lang says, 'Any one of us could get in more local colour for the money, and give the crusader a cithern or citole instead of a guitar,' and in proof gives the 'romantic, esoteric, old French poem, "Sir Ralph."'

The two Swinburne parodies are from _Rhymes à la Mode_, 1895. An earlier _Ballade_, of which that on p. 35 'is an improved version, was printed in the _St. James's Gazette_ in 1881. The original of this is Swinburne's 'A Ballad of Burdens'; of 'The Palace of Bric-a-brac,' 'The Garden of Proserpine':

Here, where the world is quiet, Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams.

P. 355. _Brahma._ Emerson's 'If the red slayer think he slays.' This parody is said to have been an impromptu. It is taken from _New Collected Rhymes_. All the Lang parodies here are given by permission of Messrs. Longman.

Pp. 358-64. _A. C. Hilton._ The parodies by Hilton appeared in the two numbers of _The Light Green_. They are reprinted here by permission of Messrs. Metcalfe, Cambridge.

The original of 'Octopus' was clearly 'Dolores,' which appeared in _Poems and Ballads, First Series_, 1866. The fourth stanza of this, with which may be compared the fifth stanza of 'Octopus,' runs:

O lips full of lust and of laughter, Curled snakes that are fed from my breast, Bite hard lest remembrance come after And press with new lips where you pressed. For my heart, too, springs up at the pressure, Mine eyelids, too, moisten and burn; Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure, Ere pain come in turn.

P. 365. _Home, Sweet Home._ This Fantasia is taken from _Airs from Arcady_, 1885, by permission of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons.

P. 374. _Ode on a Retrospect._ This Ode was put into the mouth of an Eton master named Joynes. Being a Liberal with Nationalist sympathies, he visited a disturbed district in the North of Ireland (presumably in the summer of 1882), and contrived to get himself arrested, and imprisoned for a short time. He then wrote a book or pamphlet on the subject, with the result indicated in the verses, which seem to point to his having withdrawn his work rather than resign his appointment. Mr. Joynes still held his mastership when the _Retrospect_ was published in November, 1882, and the popularity of the piece at Eton was prodigious, especially the admirable line, 'They snatched a fearful Joynes.'

P. 378. _To A. T. M._ 'The K.' was the 'A. T. M.' to whom the piece is addressed--A. T. Myers (Arthur, a physician of some eminence), the youngest brother of the poet parodied. Sir Herbert Stephen (by whose permission his brother's parodies, from _Lapsus Calami_, are given) states that in the early days of the Society for Psychical Research, founded by F. W. H. Myers, and of the study of the newly-named 'telepathy,' such experiments were frequently tried by the members, and he thinks it highly probable that the incident of Arthur Myers taking peppermint in order to test the ability of an alleged telepathist 'in quite another room' to say what it was, took place in fact as described. 'The K.' was a nickname by which A. T. M. was very generally known among his friends and relations: the reason is obscure.

P. 379. _Wake! for the Ruddy Ball._ This imitation by Francis Thompson of the _Rubaiyat_ was first printed in Mr. E. V. Lucas's _One Day with Another_. It is here given by permission of Mr. Wilfrid Meynell and of Messrs. Burns and Oates.

P. 382. _Robert Fuller Murray._ 'The Poet's Hat' and 'Andrew M'Crie' are taken, by permission of Messrs. MacLehose and Sons, from _The Scarlet Gown_, 1891, the parodies in which, according to Andrew Lang, are not inferior to Calverley. 'Andrew M'Crie' is an improved edition of the verses originally contributed to the _University News-Sheet_ (St. Andrews) in 1886, entitled 'Albert McGee.'

P. 384. A 'semi' is an undergraduate of the second, a 'tertian' of the third, year.

P. 387. _Fish have their times to bite._ This parody of Mrs. Hemans, by an unknown author, is taken from _College Rhymes_, 1861. The original begins:

Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, And stars to set--but all, Thou hast _all_ seasons for thine own, O Death.

P. 390. _A Girtonian Funeral._ This parody of 'A Grammarian's Funeral' first appeared in the _Journal of Education_, May 1, 1886, from which it is here reprinted by the permission of the editor. The authorship is unknown.

INDEX OF AUTHORS PARODIED OR IMITATED

ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1907): Newell, 335

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE (1813-1865): Aytoun, 254

BAYLY, THOMAS HAYNES (1797-1839): Barham, 178 Hood, 240

BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT (1806-1861): Swinburne, 336 Taylor, Bayard, 275

BROWNING, ROBERT (1812-1889): Calverley, 301 Collins, 287 Hood, T., jun., 325 Stephen, 376 Taylor, Bayard, 276 Traill, 348 Unknown, 390

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878): Newell, 333

BURNS, ROBERT (1759-1796): Brooks, Shirley, 256

BURTON, ROBERT (1577-1640): Lamb, 156

BUSBY, THOMAS (1755-1838): Byron, 174 Smith, H., 54

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD (1788-1824): Barham, 173 Calverley, 293 Maginn, 214 Peacock, 164 Smith, J. and H., 9

CAMPBELL, THOMAS (1777-1844): Peacock, 162

'CARROLL, LEWIS.' _See_ DODGSON.

CHAUCER, GEOFFREY (1340?-1400): Skeat, 327

COBBETT, WILLIAM (1762-1835): Smith, J., 15

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834): Coleridge, 142 Hogg, 118, 120 Maginn, 208 Peacock, 157 Smith, J., 49

COWPER, WILLIAM (1731-1800): Byron, 173 Twiss, 171

CRABBE, GEORGE (1754-1832): Smith, J., 64

DARWIN, ERASMUS (1731-1802): Frere, Canning, and Ellis, 97

DELLA CRUSCANS, THE: Smith, H., 29 Southey, 144

DIBDIN, CHARLES (1746-1814): Hood, 239

DOBSON, HENRY AUSTIN (b. 1840): Bunner, 368

DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE ('LEWIS CARROLL') (1832-1898): Hilton, 358

DRAYTON, MICHAEL (1563-1631): Lamb, 151

DRYDEN, JOHN (1631-1700): Frere, 92

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO (1803-1882): Lang, 355 Newell, 333 Taylor, Bayard, 281

FAWKES, FRANCIS (1720-1777): Thackeray, 245

FITZGERALD, EDWARD (1809-1883): Thompson, Francis, 379

FITZGERALD, WILLIAM THOMAS (1759?-1829): Smith, H., 1

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER (1728-1774): Bunner, 369 Cary, 271

GRAY, THOMAS (1716-1771): Ellis, 81 Fanshawe, 87 Stephen, 374

HARTE, FRANCIS BRET (1839-1902): Bunner, 367 Hilton, 360

HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA (1793-1835): Unknown, 387

HOGG, JAMES (1770-1835): Hogg, 129

HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL (1809-1894): Newell, 334

HOOK, THEODORE EDWARD (1788-1841): Smith, H., 76

INGELOW, JEAN (1820-1897): Calverley, 304, 306 Taylor, Bayard, 277

JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1709-1784): Smith, H., 38

KEATS, JOHN (1795-1821): Taylor, Bayard, 274

KINGSLEY, CHARLES (1819-1875): Unknown, 388

KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDERICH FERDINAND (1761-1819) (Benjamin Thompson, translator): Smith, J., 72

LAMB, CHARLES (1775-1834): Coleridge, 142 Lamb, 154

LANDON, LELITIA ELIZABETH (1802-1838): Thackeray, 242

LEVER, CHARLES JAMES (1806-1872): Thackeray, 242

LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY (1775-1818): Smith, H., 46

LILLO, GEORGE (1693-1739): Smith, J., 73

LLOYD, CHARLES (1775-1839): Coleridge, 143

LOCKER-LAMPSON, FREDERICK (1821-1895): Traill, 347

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (1807-1882): Calverley, 292 Cary, 270 Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll'), 310 Newell, 334 Taylor, Bayard, 284

LYTTON, EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON-BULWER, LORD (1803-1873): Aytoun, 252 Bradley, 272

LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT BULWER, EARL OF LYTTON ('OWEN MEREDITH') (1831-1891): Hood, T., the Younger, 324

MEREDITH, OWEN. _See_ LYTTON.

MILTON, JOHN (1608-1674): Twiss, 167

MOORE, THOMAS (1779-1852): Hood, 241 Maginn, 213, 214 Peacock, 163 Smith, H., 19

MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834-1896): Lang, 356 Taylor, Bayard, 280

MYERS, FREDERIC WILLIAM HENRY (1843-1901): Stephen, 378

PATMORE, COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON (1823-1896): Swinburne, 338

POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809-1849): Harte, Bret, 344 Hood, T., the Younger, 323 Leigh, 330 Murray, 384

POLLOK, ROBERT (1798-1827): Frere, 92

POOLE, JOHN (1786?-1872): Smith, J., 70

POPE, ALEXANDER (1688-1744): Bunner, 369 Crabbe, 86 Hood, 237

ROGERS, SAMUEL (1763-1855): Unknown, 386

ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL (1828-1882): Lang, 353 Taylor, Bayard, 278 Traill, 351

SCOTT, SIR WALTER (1771-1832): Gilfillan, 228 Hogg, 109 Peacock, 156 Smith, H., 32

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564-1616): Cary, 271 Twiss, 166, 167

SHENSTONE, WILLIAM (1714-1763): Harte, Bret, 342

SOUTHEY, ROBERT (1774-1843): Canning and Frere, 93, 94, 95 Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll'), 309 Hogg, 123 Peacock, 160 Smith, J., 21

SPENCER, THE HON. WILLIAM ROBERT (1769-1834): Smith, H., 42

SPENSER, EDMUND (1552?-1599): Hood, 229 Keats, 216

STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY (1825-1903): Newell, 335

SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909): Bunner, 365 Collins (2), 286 Hilton, 363 Lang, 354, 355 Swinburne, 340

TAYLOR, JANE (1783-1824): Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll'), 308

TENNYSON, ALFRED, LORD (1809-1892): Bradley ('Cuthbert Bede'), 273 Calverley, 296 Collins, 287 Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll'), 314 Hood, T., the Younger, 324 Locker-Lampson, 268 Martin, 258 Murray, 382, 383 Rossetti (2), 290 Taylor, Tom, 266

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE (1811-1863): Thackeray, 243

THOMPSON, BENJAMIN (1776?-1816), translator of Kotzebue: Smith, J., 72

TUPPER, MARTIN FARQUHAR (1810-1889): Brooks, Shirley, 256 Calverley, 298

WATTS, ISAAC (1674-1748): Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll') (2), 308

WHITMAN, WALT (1819-1892): Bunner, 370 Stephen, 377

WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF (1807-1892): Harte, Bret, 343 Newell, 334 Taylor, Bayard, 282

WILLIAMS, SIR CHARLES HANBURY (1708-1759): Moore, 155

WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER (1806-1867): Newell, 333

WOLFE, CHARLES (1791-1823): Barham, 176

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM (1770-1850): Coleridge, H., 218 Fanshawe, 89 Hogg, 110 Keats, 217 Leigh, 329 Reynolds, 219 Shelley, 179 Smith, J., 4 Stephen, 376

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

PAGE

A Clerk ther was of Cauntebrigge also _Skeat_ 327 A diagnosis of our hist'ry proves _Newell_ 334 A dingy donkey, formal and unchanged _Frere_ 92 Alack! 'tis melancholy theme to think _Hood_ 229 And this reft house is that the which he built _Coleridge_ 143 Art thou beautiful, O my daughter, as the budding rose of April _Calverley_ 298 As manager of horses Mr. Merryman is _H. Smith_ 76 As o'er the hill we roam'd at will _Calverley_ 296 As sea-foam blown of the winds, as blossom of brine that is drifted _Bunner_ 365 A strange vibration from the cottage window _Bayard Taylor_ 284 A sweet, acidulous, down-reaching thrill _Bayard Taylor_ 274 At home alone, O Nomades _Bunner_ 368 Away, fond dupes! who, smit with sacred lore _H. Smith_ 54

Back in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch _Newell_ 334 Balmy Zephyrs, lightly flitting _H. Smith_ 29 Beautiful Soup, so rich and green _Dodgson_ 322 Behold the flag! Is it not a flag _Newell_ 335 Birthdays? Yes, in a general way _Stephen_ 376 Brown o' San Juan _Bret Harte_ 367 By myself walking _Lamb_ 153

Cabbages! bright green cabbages _Thackeray_ 242 Can there be a moon in heaven to-night _Hogg_ 120 Choose judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable _Calverley_ 299 Come, give us more Livings and Rectors _Moore_ 155 Come hither, my heart's darling _Aytoun_ 254 Come, little Drummer Boy, lay down your knapsack here _Canning and Frere_ 93 Comrades, you may pass the rosy. With permission of the chair _Martin_ 258

Dear Jack, this white mug that with Guinness I fill, _Thackeray_ 245

Fare-tinted cheeks, clear eyelids drawn _Bayard Taylor_ 278 Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter _Hood_ 241 Fhairshon swore a feud _Aytoun_ 250 Fill me once more the foaming pewter up _Aytoun_ 252 Fine merry franions _Lamb_ 151 Fish have their times to bite _Unknown_ 387 For one long term, or e'er her trial came _Canning and Frere_ 93 From his shoulder Hiawatha _Dodgson_ 310 From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn _Swinburne_ 340

George Barnwell stood at the shop-door _J. Smith_ 73 Getting his pictures, like his supper, cheap _Rossetti_ 290 Go, boy, and thy good mistress tell _J. Smith_ 70

Hail, glorious edifice, stupendous work _H. Smith_ 1 Hang thee, vile North-Easter _Unknown_ 388 He is to weet a melancholy carle _Keats_ 216 He lived amidst th' untrodden ways _H. Coleridge_ 218 He must be holpen; yet how help shall I _Bayard Taylor_ 280 Hence, loath'd vulgarity _Twiss_ 167 Here, where old Nankin glitters _Lang_ 355 Home! at the word, what blissful visions rise _Bunner_ 369 How doth the little crocodile _Dodgson_ 308 How troublesome is day _Peacock_ 160

I am a blessed Glendoveer _J. Smith_ 21 I am tenant of nine feet by four _Twiss_ 171 I am two brothers with one face _Rossetti_ 290 I, Angelo, obese, black-garmented _Bayard Taylor_ 276 I count it true which sages teach _T. Hood, jun._ 324 If ever chance or choice thy footsteps lead _Hogg_ 110 If life were never bitter _Collins_ 286 If the wild bowler thinks he bowls, _Lang_ 355 I have found out a gift for my fair _Bret Harte_ 342 I loiter down by thorp and town _Calverley_ 297 I marvelled why a simple child _Leigh_ 329 I'm a shrimp! I'm a shrimp, of diminutive size _Brough_ 289 In a bowl to sea went wise men three _Peacock_ 157 In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter _Calverley_ 304 In those old days which poets say were golden _Calverley_ 293 In vale of Thirlemere, once on a time _Hogg_ 123 It is an auncient Waggonere _Maginn_ 208 It is the thirty-first of March _Reynolds_ 219 It was many and many a year ago _Murray_ 384 I've stood in Margate, on a bridge of size _Barham_ 176 I was a timid little antelope _Thackeray_ 245 I would I were that portly gentleman _Southey_ 145

King Arthur, growing very tired indeed _Collins_ 287

Ladies and Gentlemen, As it is now the universally admitted _J. Smith_ 61 Lady Clara Vere de Vere _T. Hood, jun._ 324 Lazy-bones, Lazy-bones, wake up, and peep _Lamb_ 154 Let us begin and portion out these sweets _Unknown_ 390 Little Cupid one day on a sunbeam was floating _Peacock_ 163 Long by the willow-trees _Thackeray_ 243 Look in my face. My name is Used-to-was _Traill_ 352 Love spake to me and said _Lang_ 353 Lo! where the gaily vestur'd throng _Fanshawe_ 87

Maud Muller, all that summer day _Bret Harte_ 343 Mine is a house at Notting Hill _Unknown_ 386 More luck to honest poverty _Brooks_ 256 Most thinking People, When persons address an audience _J. Smith_ 15 Mr. Jack, your address, says the Prompter to me _J. Smith_ 52 My brother Jack was nine in May _J. Smith_ 4 My native land, thy Puritanic stock _Newell_ 334 My palate is parched with Pierian thirst _H. Smith_ 46 My pensive Public, wherefore look you sad _J. Smith_ 49 My spirit, in the doorway's pause _Swinburne_ 338

Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going _Canning and Frere_ 95 Not a _sous_ had he got,--not a guinea or note _Barham_ 176

Object belov'd! when day to eve gives place _Bradley_ 272 O cool in the summer is salad _Collins_ 286 Oh! be the day accurst that gave me birth _Southey_ 149 O heard ye never of Wat o' the Cleuch _Hogg_ 109 Oh no! we'll never mention him _Barham_ 178 O! I do love thee, meek _Simplicity_! _Coleridge_ 142 Once upon an evening weary, shortly after Lord Dundreary _Leigh_ 330 One hue of our flag is taken _Newell_ 333 Our parodies are ended. These our authors _Twiss_ 167 O why should our dull retrospective addresses _H. Smith_ 19

Pensive at eve on the _hard_ world I mus'd _Coleridge_ 142 Peter Bells, one, two and three _Shelley_ 179 Pure water it plays a good part in _Hood_ 239 Put case I circumvent and kill him: good _Traill_ 348

Rash Painter! canst thou give the ORB OF DAY _Southey_ 144 Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life _Calverley_ 300 Read, read, _Woodstock_ and _Waverley_ _Gilfillan_ 228 Robert Pollok, A.M.! this work of yours _Frere_ 92

Said a poet to a woodlouse--'Thou art certainly my brother' _Swinburne_ 336 St. Stephen's is a stage _Twiss_ 166 Sated with home, of wife, of children tired _J. and H. Smith_ 9 Scarlet spaces of sand and ocean _Bayard Taylor_ 277 See where the K., in sturdy self-reliance _Stephen_ 378 She held a _Cup and Ball_ of ivory white _Southey_ 144 Sir Ralph he is hardy and mickle of might _Lang_ 356 Sir, To the gewgaw fetters of _rhyme_ _J. Smith_ 15 Sobriety, cease to be sober _H. Smith_ 42 Soft little beasts, how pleasantly ye lie _Brooks_ 256 So in the village inn the poet dwelt _Murray_ 383 Some have denied a soul! THEY NEVER LOVED _Southey_ 145 --So the stately bust abode _Taylor_ 266 Source immaterial of material naught _Newell_ 333 Stay your rude steps, or e'er your feet invade _Frere, Canning, and Ellis_ 97 Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times _Byron_ 173 Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed _Hilton_ 363 Study first Propriety: for she is indeed the Polestar _Calverley_ 298 Survey this shield, all bossy bright _H. Smith_ 32

That very time I saw, (but thou could'st not,) _Cary_ 271 That which was organized by the moral ability _H. Smith_ 38 The auld wife sat at her ivied door _Calverley_ 306 The autumn upon us was rushing _T. Hood, jun._ 323 The burden of hard hitting: slog away _Lang_ 354 The chapel bell, with hollow mournful sound _Ellis_ 81 The clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder _Stephen_ 377 The comb between whose ivory teeth she strains _Southey_ 148 The day is done, and darkness _Cary_ 270 The Gothic looks solemn _Keats_ 217 The last lamp of the alley _Maginn_ 214 The little brown squirrel hops in the corn _Newell_ 335 The mighty spirit, and its power which stains _Crabbe_ 86 The Pacha sat in his divan _Maginn_ 214 The rain had fallen, the Poet arose _Murray_ 382 The rain was raining cheerfully _Hilton_ 358 There, pay it, James! 'tis cheaply earned _Traill_ 347 There is a fever of the spirit _Peacock_ 164 There is a river clear and fair _Fanshawe_ 89 There wase ane katt, and ane gude greye katt _Hogg_ 129 The Scotts, Kerrs, and Murrays, and Deloraines all _Peacock_ 156 The skies they were ashen and sober _Bret Harte_ 344 The sun sinks softly to his evening post _Newell_ 333 Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells _Hood_ 241 Thou who, when fears attack _Calverley_ 292 'Tis mine! what accents can my joy declare _Southey_ 146 'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six _J. Smith_ 66 'Tis the voice of the lobster _Dodgson_ 308 'Twas not the brown of chestnut boughs _Bayard Taylor_ 275 Twinkle, twinkle, little bat _Dodgson_ 308 Two swains or clowns--but call them swains _Hood_ 237 Two voices are there: one is of the deep _Stephen_ 376

Untrue to my Ulric I never could be _Thackeray_ 248

Waitress, with eyes so marvellous black _Collins_ 287 Wake! for the Ruddy Ball has taken flight _Thompson_ 379 Was it not lovely to behold _Hogg_ 118 Wearisome Sonnetteer, feeble and querulous _Canning and Frere_ 94 We met--'twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me _Hood_ 240 We seek to know, and knowing, seek _Bradley_ 273 What stately vision mocks my waking sense _H. Smith_ 7 Whene'er with haggard eyes I view _Canning and Ellis_ 107 When energizing objects men pursue _Byron_ 174 When he whispers, 'O Miss Bailey!' _Locker-Lampson_ 268 When he who adores thee has left but the dregs _Maginn_ 213 When lovely woman wants a favour _Cary_ 271 Where'er there's a thistle to feed a linnet _T. Hood, jun._ 325 Where the Moosatockmaguntic _Bayard Taylor_ 282 Which I wish to remark _Hilton_ 360 Who has e'er been at Drury must needs know the Stranger _J. Smith_ 72 Whoso answers my questions _Bayard Taylor_ 281 With hands tight clenched through matted hair _Dodgson_ 314 Why do you wear your hair like a man _Traill_ 350

Ye bigot spires, ye Tory towers _Stephen_ 374 Ye kite-flyers of Scotland _Peacock_ 162 Ye Sylphs, who _banquet_ on my Delia's blush _Southey_ 147 Yonder to the kiosk, beside the creek _Thackeray_ 246 'You are old, Father William,' the young man said _Dodgson_ 309 You over there, young man, with the guide-book _Bunner_ 370 Your Fanny was never false-hearted _Thackeray_ 247 You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought _Calverley_ 301 You've all heard of Larry O'Toole _Thackeray_ 242

Zuleikah! The young Agas in the bazaar _Thackeray_ 246

BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The preface is given at the beginning of the Notes on p. 393.

[2] WILLIAM THOMAS FITZGERALD. The annotator's first personal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham Street, where he personated Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly called him Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The Earl's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third and last time of encountering him was at an anniversary dinner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemasons' Tavern. Both parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, made up to him, when the following dialogue took place:

Fitzgerald (with good humour): 'Mr.----, I mean to recite after dinner.'

Mr.----: 'Do you?'

Fitzgerald: 'Yes; you'll have more of "God bless the Regent and the Duke of York!"'

The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic; but they may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle:

'Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.' BYRON.

[3] 'The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good, we suppose, as the original, is not very interesting. Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered in the following lines.'--_Edinburgh Review._

[4] In plain English, the Halfpenny-hatch, then a footway through fields; but now, as the same bards sing elsewhere--

'St. George's Fields are fields no more, The trowel supersedes the plough; Swamps, huge and inundate of yore, Are changed to civic villas now.'

Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the committee on the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other genuine _Rejected Addresses_, in one volume, in that year. The following is an extract:--

'The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near, Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.'

What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver's remedy?

[5] WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

[6] Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them, unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's album:

'Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die-- Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses! For what little fame Is annexed to my name Is derived from _Rejected Addresses_.'

The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced in _Love in a Village_.

[7] This alludes to the young Betty mania. The writer was in the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popularity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, to prove that young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. 'Silence!' was the cry; but he still proceeded. 'Turn him out!' was the next ejaculation. He still vociferated 'He does not understand Shakespeare;' and was consequently shouldered into the lobby. 'I'll prove it to you,' said the critic to the door-keeper. 'Prove what, sir?' 'That he does not understand Shakespeare.' This was Molière's housemaid with a vengeance!

Young Betty may now be seen walking about town--a portly personage, aged about forty--clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), 'O mihi præteritos!' &c.

[8] For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see the Preface.

[9] LORD BYRON.

[10] This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synonymous, the noble bard having afterwards returned to England, and again quitted it, under domestic circumstances painfully notorious. His good-humoured forgiveness of the Authors has been already alluded to in the Preface. Nothing of this illustrious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. 'We knew him well.' At Mr. Murray's dinner-table the annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm. Lord Byron talked of intending to travel in Persia. 'What must I do when I set off?' said he to Sir John. 'Cut off your buttons!' 'My buttons! what, these metal ones?' 'Yes; the Persians are in the main very honest fellows; but if you go thus bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your buttons.' At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord Byron expressed to the writer his determination not to go there again, adding, 'I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking-glass panels to his book-cases.' Lord Byron, when one of the Drury Lane Committee of Management, challenged the writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by the by, was hissed off the stage for an imputed intimacy, of which she was quite innocent.

The contest ran as follows:

'Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre, Pour forth your amorous ditty, But first profound, in duty bound, Applaud the new committee; Their scenic art from Thespis cart All jaded nags discarding, To London drove this queen of love, Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.

'Though tides of love around her rove, I fear she'll choose Pactolus-- In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge, So I must e'en swim solus. "Out, out, alas!" ill-fated gas, That shin'st round Covent Garden, Thy ray how flat, compared with that From eye of Mrs. Mardyn!'

And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered 'which is the justice, and which is the thief.'

Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the shirt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waistcoat, and very broad white trousers, to hide his lame foot--these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a button of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He undervalued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the heroic epistle,

'The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.'

One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that 'fat is an oily dropsy.' To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. 'Pass your hand down my side,' said his lordship to the writer; 'can you count my ribs?' 'Every one of them.' 'I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady ----; "Ah, Lord Byron," said she, "how fat you grow!" But you know Lady ---- is fond of saying spiteful things!' Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: 'Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say but "Alas, poor human nature!"'

His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:

'Chaos of thought and passion all confused, Still by himself abused or disabused; Created part to rise and part to fall, Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled-- The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.'

The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury Lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about a _pas seul_. 'Had you been here a minute sooner,' said Lord B., 'you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me;--me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.'

[11] 'Holland's edifice.' The late theatre was built by Holland the architect. The writer visited it on the night of its opening. The performances were _Macbeth_ and the _Virgin Unmasked_. Between the play and the farce, an excellent epilogue, written by George Colman, was excellently spoken by Miss Farren. It referred to the iron curtain which was, in the event of fire, to be let down between the stage and the audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experiment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would thus be kept from the spectators; adding, with great solemnity--

'No! we assure our generous benefactors 'Twill only burn the scenery and the actors!'

A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, the band playing--

'And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?'

Miss Farren reciting--

'Sit still, there's nothing in it, We'll undertake to drown you in a single minute.'

'O vain thought!' as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue--

'Blow, wind--come, wrack, in ages yet unborn, Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn'--

the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, in Morton's _Speed the Plough_, between Sir Abel Handy and his son Bob:

'_Bob._ Zounds, the castle's on fire!

_Sir A._ Yes.

_Bob._ Where's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire?

_Sir A._ It is not mixed.

_Bob._ Then where's your patent fire-escape?

_Sir A._ It is not fixed.

_Bob._ You are never at a loss?

_Sir A._ Never.

_Bob._ Then what do you mean to do?

_Sir A._ I don't know.'

[12] A rather obscure mode of expression for _Jews'_-harp; which some etymologists allege, by the way, to be a corruption of _Jaws'_-harp. No connexion, therefore, with King David.

[13] WILLIAM COBBETT--now M.P.

[14] Bagshaw. At that time the publisher of Cobbett's Register.

[15] The old Lyceum Theatre, pulled down by Mr. Arnold. That since destroyed by fire was erected on its site.

[16] An allusion to a murder then recently committed on Barnes Terrace.

[17] At that time keeper of Newgate. The present superintendent is styled governor!

[18] A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 1811; in the midst of the war,

with fear of change Perplexing nations.

[19] THOMAS MOORE.

[20] '_The Living Lustres_ appears to us a very fair imitation of the fantastic verses which that ingenious person, Mr. Moore, indites when he is merely gallant, and, resisting the lures of voluptuousness, is not enough in earnest to be tender.'--_Edinburgh Review._

[21] This alludes to two massive pillars of verd antique which then flanked the proscenium, but which have since been removed. Their colour reminds the bard of the Emerald Isle, and this causes him (_more suo_) to fly off at a tangent, and Hibernicise the rest of the poem.

[22] ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[23] For the Glendoveer, and the rest of the _dramatis personæ_ of this imitation, the reader is referred to the 'Curse of Kehama.'

[24] '_The Rebuilding_ is in the name of Mr. Southey, and is one of the best in the collection. It is in the style of the "Kehama" of that multifarious author; and is supposed to be spoken in the character of one of his Glendoveers. The imitation of the diction and measure, we think, is nearly almost perfect; and the descriptions as good as the original. It opens with an account of the burning of the old theatre, formed upon the pattern of the Funeral of Arvalan.'--_Edinburgh Review._

[25] This couplet was introduced by the Authors by way of bravado, in answer to one who alleged that the English language contained no rhyme to chimney.

[26] Apollo. A gigantic wooden figure of this deity was erected on the roof. The writer (_horrescit referens!_) is old enough to recollect the time when it was first placed there. Old Bishop, then one of the masters of Merchant Tailors' School, wrote an epigram upon the occasion, which, referring to the aforesaid figure, concluded thus:

'Above he fills up Shakespeare's place, And Shakespeare fills up his below'--

Very antithetical: but quære as to the meaning? The writer, like Pluto, 'long puzzled his brain' to find it out, till he was immersed 'in a lower deep' by hearing Madame de Staël say, at the table of the late Lord Dillon, 'Buonaparte is not a man, but a system.' Inquiry was made in the course of the evening of Sir James Mackintosh as to what the lady meant. He answered, 'Mass! I cannot tell.' Madame de Staël repeats this apophthegm in her work on Germany. It is probably understood _there_.

[27] O. P. This personage, who is alleged to have growled like a bull-dog, requires rather a lengthened note, for the edification of the rising generation. The 'horns, rattles, drums,' with which he is accompanied, are no inventions of the poet. The new Covent Garden Theatre opened on the 18th Sept., 1809, when a cry of 'Old Prices' (afterwards diminished to O. P.) burst out from every part of the house. This continued and increased in violence till the 23rd, when rattles, drums, whistles, and cat-calls, having completely drowned the voices of the actors, Mr. Kemble, the stage-manager, came forward and said, that a committee of gentlemen had undertaken to examine the finances of the concern, and that until they were prepared with their report the theatre would continue closed. 'Name them!' was shouted from all sides. The names were declared, viz. Sir Charles Price, the Solicitor-General, the Recorder of London, the Governor of the Bank, and Mr. Angersteen. 'All shareholders!' bawled a wag from the gallery. In a few days the theatre re-opened: the public paid no attention to the report of the referees, and the tumult was renewed for several weeks with even increased violence. The proprietors now sent in hired bruisers, to _mill_ the refractory into subjection. This irritated most of their former friends, and, amongst the rest, the annotator, who accordingly wrote the song of 'Heigh-ho, says Kemble,' which was caught up by the ballad-singers, and sung under Mr. Kemble's house-windows in Great Russell Street. A dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, to celebrate the victory obtained by W. Clifford in his action against Brandon the box-keeper, for assaulting him for wearing the letters O. P. in his hat. At this dinner Mr. Kemble attended, and matters were compromised by allowing the advanced price (seven shillings) to the boxes. The writer remembers a former riot of a similar sort at the same theatre (in the year 1792), when the price to the boxes was raised from five shillings to six. That tumult, however, only lasted three nights.

[28] 'From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch.' This image is not the creation of the poets: it sprang from reality. The Authors happened to be at the Royal Circus when 'God save the King' was called for, accompanied by a cry of 'Stand up!' and 'Hats off!' An inebriated naval lieutenant perceiving a gentleman in an adjoining box slow to obey the call, struck his hat off with his stick, exclaiming, 'Take off your hat, sir!' The other thus assaulted proved to be, unluckily for the lieutenant, Lord Camelford, the celebrated bruiser and duellist. A set-to in the lobby was the consequence, where his lordship quickly proved victorious. 'The devil is not so black as he is painted,' said one of the Authors to the other; 'let us call upon Lord Camelford, and tell him that we were witnesses of his being first assaulted.' The visit was paid on the ensuing morning at Lord Camelford's lodging, in Bond Street. Over the fire-place in the drawing-room were ornaments strongly expressive of the pugnacity of the peer. A long thick bludgeon lay horizontally supported by two brass hooks. Above this was placed parallel one of lesser dimensions, until a pyramid of weapons gradually arose, tapering to a horsewhip:

'Thus all below was strength, and all above was grace.'

Lord Camelford received his visitants with great civility, and thanked them warmly for the call; adding, that their evidence would be material, it being his intention to indict the lieutenant for an assault. 'All I can say in return is this,' exclaimed the peer with great cordiality, 'if ever I see you engaged in a row, upon my soul, I'll stand by you.' The Authors expressed themselves thankful for so potent an ally, and departed. In about a fortnight afterwards Lord Camelford was shot in a duel with Mr. Best.

[29] Veeshnoo. The late Mr. Whitbread.

[30] Levy. An insolvent Israelite who threw himself from the top of the Monument a short time before. An inhabitant of Monument Yard informed the writer, that he happened to be standing at his door talking to a neighbour; and looking up at the top of the pillar, exclaimed, 'Why, here's the flag coming down.' 'Flag!' answered the other, 'it's a man.' The words were hardly uttered when the suicide fell within ten feet of the speakers.

[31] The Authors, as in gallantry bound, wish this lady to continue anonymous.

[32] WALTER SCOTT.

[33] Sir Walter Scott informed the annotator, that at one time he intended to print his collected works, and had pitched upon this identical quotation as a motto;--a proof that sometimes great wits jump with little ones.

[34] Alluding to the then great distance between the picture-frame, in which the green curtain was set, and the band. For a justification of this see below--DR. JOHNSON.

[35] Old Bedlam at that time stood 'close by London Wall.' It was built after the model of the Tuileries, which is said to have given the French king great offence. In front of it Moorfields extended, with broad gravel walks crossing each other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, has told him, that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now, as a punning brother bard sings,

'Moorfields are fields no more.'

[36] Whitbread's shears. An economical experiment of that gentleman. The present portico, towards Brydges Street, was afterwards erected under the lesseeship of Elliston, whose portrait in the Exhibition was thus noticed in the _Examiner_: 'Portrait of the great lessee, in his favourite character of Mr. Elliston.'

[37] 'Samuel Johnson is not so good: the measure and solemnity of his sentences, in all the limited variety of their structure, are indeed imitated with singular skill; but the diction is caricatured in a vulgar and unpleasing degree. To make Johnson call a door "a ligneous barricado," and its knocker and bell its "frappant and tintinnabulant appendages," is neither just nor humorous; and we are surprised that a writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted; especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has shewn how well qualified he was both to catch and to render the true characteristics of his original. The beginning, for example, we think excellent.'--_Edinburgh Review._

[38] The celebrated Lord Chesterfield, whose Letters to his Son, according to Dr. Johnson, inculcate 'the manners of a dancing-master and the morals of----,' &c.

[39] Lord Mayor of the theatric sky. This alludes to Leigh Hunt, who, in _The Examiner_, at this time kept the actors in hot water. Dr. Johnson's argument is, like many of his other arguments, specious, but untenable; that which it defends has since been abandoned as impracticable. Mr. Whitbread contended that the actor was like a portrait in a picture, and accordingly placed the green curtain in a gilded frame remote from the foot-lights; alleging that no performer should mar the illusion by stepping out of the frame. Dowton was the first actor who, like Manfred's ancestor in the _Castle of Otranto_, took the liberty of abandoning the canon. 'Don't tell me of frames and pictures,' ejaculated the testy comedian; 'if I can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I'll walk out of it!' The proscenium has since been new-modelled, and the actors thereby brought nearer to the audience.

[40] WILLIAM SPENCER.

[41] Sobriety, &c. The good-humour of the poet upon occasion of this parody has been noticed in the Preface. 'It's all very well for once,' said he afterwards, in comic confidence, at his villa at Petersham, 'but don't do it again. I had been almost forgotten when you revived me; and now all the newspapers and reviews ring with, "this fashionable, trashy author."' The sand and 'filings of glass,' mentioned in the last stanza, are referable to the well-known verses of the poet apologising to a lady for having paid an unconscionably long morning visit; and where, alluding to Time, he says,

'All his sands are diamond sparks, That glitter as they pass.'

Few men in society have more 'gladdened life' than this poet. He now resides in Paris, and may thence make the grand tour without an interpreter--speaking, as he does, French, Italian, and German, as fluently as English.

[42] Congreve's plug. The late Sir William Congreve had made a model of Drury Lane Theatre, to which was affixed an engine that, in the event of fire, was made to play from the stage into every box in the house. The writer, accompanied by Theodore Hook, went to see the model at Sir William's house in Cecil Street. 'Now I'll duck Whitbread!' said Hook, seizing the water-pipe whilst he spoke, and sending a torrent of water into the brewer's box.

[43] See Byron, _afterwards_, in _Don Juan_:--

'For flesh is grass, which Time mows down to hay.'

But, as Johnson says of Dryden, 'His known wealth was so great, he might borrow without any impeachment of his credit.'

[44] MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, commonly called Monk Lewis, from his once popular romance of that name. He was a good-hearted man, and, like too many of that fraternity, a disagreeable one--verbose, disputatious, and paradoxical. His _Monk_ and _Castle Spectre_ elevated him into fame; and he continued to write ghost-stories till, following as he did in the wake of Mrs. Radcliffe, he quite overstocked the market. Lewis visited his estates in Jamaica, and came back perfectly negro-bitten. He promulgated a new code of laws in the island, for the government of his sable subjects: one may serve for a specimen: 'Any slave who commits murder shall have his head shaved, and be confined three days and nights in a dark room.' Upon occasion of printing these parodies, Monk Lewis said to Lady H., 'Many of them are very fair, but mine is not at all like; they have made me write burlesque, which I never do.' 'You don't know your own talent,' answered the lady.

Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses affixed to his _Monk_, as having

'A graceless form and dwarfish stature.'

He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his right eyelid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, drawling tone; young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. A foreigner who had but a slight knowledge of the English language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they were little better than fools--'just a born goose,' as Terry the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James's powders injudiciously administered by 'his own mere motion.' He wrote various plays, with various success: he had an admirable notion of dramatic construction, but the goodness of his scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his dialogue.

[45] SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

[46] 'He of Blackfriars' Road,' viz. the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating his congregation on the catastrophe.

[47] 'Oh, Mr. Whitbread!' Sir William Grant, then Master of the Rolls, repeated this passage aloud at a Lord Mayor's dinner, to the no small astonishment of the writer, who happened to sit within ear-shot.

[48] 'Padmanaba,' viz. in a pantomime called _Harlequin in Padmanaba_. This elephant, some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where, the reader will remember, it was found necessary to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above mentioned, Johnson, the machinist of the rival house, exclaimed, 'I should be very sorry if I could not make a better elephant than that!' Johnson was right: we go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, and not to look at the reality.

[49] DR. BUSBY. This gentleman gave living recitations of his translation of _Lucretius_, with tea and bread-and-butter. He sent in a real Address to the Drury Lane Committee, which was really rejected. The present imitation professes to be recited by the translator's son. The poet here, again, was a prophet. A few evenings after the opening of the theatre, Dr. Busby sat with his son in one of the stage-boxes. The latter, to the astonishment of the audience, at the end of the play, stepped from the box upon the stage, his father's real rejected address in his hand, and began to recite it as follows:-

'When energising objects men pursue, What are the miracles they cannot do?'

Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the juvenile _dilettante_ performer.

The doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of the newspapers of the day, in the column of births:--'Yesterday, at his house in Queen Anne Street, Dr. Busby of a still-born _Lucretius_.'

[50] 'Winsor's patent gas'--at that time in its infancy. The first place illumined by it was the Carlton House side of Pall Mall; the second, Bishopsgate Street. The writer attended a lecture given by the inventor: the charge of admittance was three shillings, but, as the inventor was about to apply to parliament, members of both houses were admitted gratis. The writer and a fellow-jester assumed the parts of senators at a short notice. 'Members of parliament!' was their important ejaculation at the door of entrance. 'What places, gentlemen?' 'Old Sarum and Bridgewater.' 'Walk in, gentlemen.' Luckily, the real Simon Pures did not attend. This Pall Mall illumination was further noticed in _Horace in London_:--

'And Winsor lights, with flame of gas, Home, to king's place, his mother.'

[51] 'Ticket-nights.' This phrase is probably unintelligible to the untheatrical portion of the community, which may now be said to be all the world except the actors. Ticket-nights are those whereon the inferior actors club for a benefit: each distributes as many tickets of admission as he is able among his friends. A motley assemblage is the consequence; and as each actor is encouraged by his own set, who are not in general play-going people, the applause comes (as Chesterfield says of Pope's attempts at wit) 'generally unseasonably and too often unsuccessfully.'

[52] _Morning Post._

[53] The REV. GEORGE CRABBE. The writer's first interview with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stockings, took place at William Spencer's villa at Petersham, close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up a _jet d'eau_ like a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of his satirist, exclaimed, with a good-humoured laugh: 'Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?' In the course of conversation, he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London; adding, 'In my own village they think nothing of me.' The subject happening to be the inroads of Time upon Beauty, the writer quoted the following lines:--

'Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six, When Time began to play his usual tricks: My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight, Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white; Gradual each day I liked my horses less, My dinner more--I learnt to play at chess.'

'That's very good!' cried the bard;--'whose is it?' 'Your own.' 'Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it.' Was this affectation, or was it not? In sooth, he seemed to push simplicity to puerility. This imitation contained in manuscript the following lines, after describing certain Sunday-newspaper critics who were supposed to be present at a new play, and who were rather heated in their politics:--

'Hard is his task who edits--thankless job! A Sunday journal for the factious mob: With bitter paragraph and caustic jest, He gives to turbulence the day of rest; Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil, Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will: Alike undone or if he praise or rail (For this affects his safety, that his sale), He sinks at last, in luckless limbo set, If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt.'

They were, however, never printed; being, on reflection, considered too serious for the occasion.

It is not a little extraordinary that Crabbe, who could write with such vigour, should descend to such lines as the following:--

'Something had happen'd wrong about a bill Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill; So, to amend it, I was told to go And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co.'

Surely 'Emanuel Jennings,' compared with the above, rises to sublimity.

[54] 'We come next to three ludicrous parodies--of the story of _The Stranger_, of _George Barnwell_, and of the dagger-scene in _Macbeth_, under the signature of Momus Medlar. They are as good, we think, as that sort of thing can be, and remind us of the happier efforts of Colman, whose less successful fooleries are professedly copied in the last piece in the volume.'--_Edinburgh Review._

[55] THEODORE HOOK, at that time a very young man, and the companion of the annotator in many wild frolics. The cleverness of his subsequent prose compositions has cast his early stage songs into oblivion. This parody was, in the second edition, transferred from Colman to Hook.

[56] Then Director of the Opera House.

[57] At that time the chief dancer at this establishment.

[58] Vauxhall Bridge then, like the Thames Tunnel at present, stood suspended in the middle of that river.

[59] The Critical Reviewers. The others are the _London_ and _Monthly_.

[60] _Vide_ Admiral Tyrrel's monument in Westminster Abbey.

[61] My worthy friend, the Bellman, had promised to supply an additional stanza, but the business of assisting the lamplighter, chimney-sweeper, etc., with complimentary verses for their worthy masters and mistresses, pressing on him at this season, he was obliged to decline it.

[62] Imitated from the introductory couplet to the 'Economy of Vegetation:'

'Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts unfold The legion friends of glory and of gold.'

This sentiment is here expanded into four lines.

[63] For the _os-culation_, or kissing of circles and other curves, see _Huygens_, who has veiled this delicate and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

[64] A curve supposed to resemble the sprig of ivy, from which it has its name, and therefore peculiarly adapted to poetry.

[65] Water has been supposed, by several of our philosophers, to be capable of the passion of love. Some later experiments appear to favour this idea. Water, when pressed by a moderate degree of heat, has been observed to _simper_, or _simmer_ (as it is more usually called). The same does not hold true of any other element.

[66] _Vide_ modern prints of nymphs and shepherds dancing to nothing at all.

[67] Imitated from the following genteel and sprightly lines in the first canto of the 'Loves of the Plants':

'So bright its folding canopy withdrawn, Glides the gilt landau o'er the velvet lawn, Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng, And soft airs fan them as they glide along.'

[68] The Nymph of the Wheel, supposed to be in love with SMOKE-JACK.

[69] 'A figure which has one angle, _or more_, of ninety degrees.'--_Johnson's Dictionary._ It here means a RIGHT-ANGLED TRIANGLE, which is therefore incapable of having more than one angle of ninety degrees, but which may, according to our author's _Prosopopœia_, be supposed to be in love with THREE or any greater number of NYMPHS.

[70] Supposed to be the same with SATAN.

[71] The Eastern name for GENII.--_Vide_ TALES OF DITTO.

[72] A submarine palace near Tunis, where ZATANAI usually held his Court.

[73] The Indian _Caucasus_.

[74] MR. HIGGINS does not mean to deny that SOLOMON was really King of JUDÆA. The epithet _fabled_ applies to that empire over the Genii, which the retrospective generosity of the Arabian fabulists has bestowed upon this monarch.

[75] It was under this shape that _Venus_ was worshipped in _Phœnicia_. MR. HIGGINS thinks it was the _Venus Urania_, or Celestial Venus; in allusion to which, he supposes that the _Phœnician_ grocers first introduced the practice of preserving sugar-loaves in blue or sky-coloured paper. He also believes that the _conical_ form of the original grenadiers' caps was typical of the loves of MARS and VENUS.

[76] The doctrine of mathematics. Pope calls her _mad Mathesis_.--_Vide Johnson's Dictionary._

[77] The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in the _Economy of Vegetation_:

'Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine, The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine; Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt, Your pure ka--o--lins and Pe--tunt--ses mixt.'