Chapter 19

"While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreign Power, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws were violated, hundreds of thousands of quiet, honest, and industrious families laboured and traded, ate their meals, and lay down to rest in comfort and security. Whether Whig or Tories, Protestants or Jesuits were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market; the grocer weighed out his currants; the draper measured out his broadcloth; the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; the harvest-home was celebrated as joyously as ever in the hamlets; the cream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed in the presses of Herefordshire: the piles of crockery glowed in the furnaces of the Trent; and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timber railways of the Tyne."

This reads like a parody, but it is a literal transcript of the original; and Hayward justly observes that there is no reason why this rigmarole should ever stop, as long as there is a trade, calling, or occupation to be particularized. The pith of the proposition (which needed no proof) is contained in the first sentence. Why not continue thus?--

"The apothecary vended his drugs as usual; the poulterer crammed his turkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels; the wine merchant adulterated his port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, as many pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas pies on Christmas Day; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth of the chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars the feline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cat's-meat man; the courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cab rattled through the Strand; and, from the suburban regions of Fulham and Putney, the cart of the market gardener wended its slow and midnight way along Piccadilly to deposit its load of cabbages and turnips in Covent Garden."

Twice has Mr. Gladstone publicly called attention to the merits of this "effective morsel of parody," as he styles it; and he judiciously adds that what follows (by the late Dean Hook) is "a like attempt, but less happy." Most people remember the attack on the constitution of the Court of Chancery in the preface to _Bleak House_. Dean Hook, in a laudable attempt to soothe the ruffled feelings of his old friend Vice-Chancellor Page Wood, of whom Dickens in that preface had made fun, thus endeavours to translate the accusation into Macaulayese:--

"REIGN OF VICTORIA--1856.

"THE COURTS OF JUSTICE.

"The Court of Chancery was corrupt. The guardian of lunatics was the cause of insanity to the suitors in his court. An attempt at reform was made when Wood was Solicitor-General. It consisted chiefly in increasing the number of judges in the Equity Court. Government was pleased by an increase of patronage; the lawyers approved of the new professional prizes. The Government papers applauded. Wood became Vice-Chancellor. At the close of 1855 the Equity Courts were without business. People had become weary of seeking justice where justice was not to be found. The state of the Bench was unsatisfactory. Cranworth was feeble; Knight Bruce, though powerful, sacrificed justice to a joke; Turner was heavy; Romilly was scientific; Kindersley was slow; Stuart was pompous; Wood was at Bealings."

If I were to indulge in quotations from well-known parodies of prose, this chapter would soon overflow all proper limits. I forbear, therefore, to do more than remind my readers of Thackeray's _Novels by Eminent Hands_ and Bret Harte's _Sensation Novels_, only remarking, with reference to the latter book, that "Miss Mix" is in places really indistinguishable from _Jane Eyre_. The sermon by Mr. Jowett in Mr. Mallock's _New Republic_ is so perfect an imitation, both in substance and in style, that it suggested to some readers the idea that it had been reproduced from notes of an actual discourse. On spoken as distinguished from written eloquence there are some capital skits in the _Anti-Jacobin_, where (under the name of Macfungus) excellent fun is made of the too mellifluous eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh.

The differentiating absurdities of after-dinner oratory are photographed in Thackeray's _Dinner in the City_, where the speech of the American Minister seems to have formed a model for a long series of similar performances. Dickens's experience as a reporter in the gallery of the House of Commons had given him a perfect command of that peculiar style of speaking which is called Parliamentary, and he used it with great effect in his accounts of the inaugural meeting of the "United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company" in _Nicholas Nickleby_ (where he introduces a capital sketch of Tom Duncombe, Radical Member for Finsbury); and in the interview between Mr. Gregsbury, M.P., and his constituents in a later chapter of the same immortal book.

The parliamentary eloquence of a later day was admirably reproduced in Mr. Edward Jenkins's prophetic squib (published in 1872) _Barney Geoghegan, M.P., and Home Rule at St. Stephen's_. As this clever little book has, I fear, lapsed into complete oblivion, I venture to cite a passage. It will vividly recall to the memory of middle-aged politicians the style and tone of the verbal duels which, towards the end of Mr. Gladstone's first Administration, took place so frequently between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Geoghegan has been returned, a very early Home Ruler, for the Borough of Rashkillen, and for some violent breaches of order is committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. On this the leader of the House rises and addresses the Speaker:--

"Sir,--The House cannot but sympathize with you in the eloquent and indignant denunciation you have uttered against the painful invasion of the decorum of the House which we have just witnessed. There can be no doubt in any mind, even in the minds of those with whom the hon. member now at the bar usually acts, that of all methods of argument which could be employed in this House, he has selected the least politic. Sir, may I be permitted, with great deference, to say a word upon a remark that fell from the Chair, and which might be misunderstood? Solitary and anomalous instances of this kind could never be legitimately used as arguments against general systems of representation or the course of a recent policy. I do not, at this moment, venture to pronounce an opinion upon the degree of criminality that attaches to the hon. member now unhappily in the custody of the Officer of the House. It is possible--I do not say it is probable, I do not now say whether I shall be prepared to commit myself to that hypothesis or not--but it is not impossible that the hon. member or some of his friends may be able to urge some extenuating circumstances--(Oh! oh!)--I mean circumstances that, when duly weighed, may have a tendency in a greater or less degree to modify the judgment of the House upon the extraordinary event that has occurred. Sir, it becomes a great people and a great assembly like this to be patient, dignified, and generous. The honourable member, whom we regret to see in his present position, no doubt represents a phase of Irish opinion unfamiliar to this House. (Cheers and laughter.) ... The House is naturally in a rather excited state after an event so unusual, and I venture to urge that it should not hastily proceed to action. We must be careful of the feelings of the Irish people. (Oh! oh!) If we are to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, we must make allowance for personal, local, and transitory ebullitions of Irish feeling, having no general or universal consequence or bearing.... The course, therefore, which I propose to take is this--to move that the hon. member shall remain in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, that a Committee be appointed to take evidence, and that their report be discussed this day month."

To this replies the Leader of the Opposition:--

"The right hon. gentleman is to be congratulated on the results of his Irish policy. (Cheers and laughter.) ... Sir, this, I presume, is one of the right hon. gentleman's contented and pacified people! I deeply sympathize with the right hon. gentleman. His policy produces strange and portentous results. A policy of concession, of confiscation, of truckling to ecclesiastical arrogance, to popular passions and ignorant prejudices, of lenity to Fenian revolutionists, has at length brought us to this, that the outrages of Galway and Tipperary, no longer restricted to those charming counties, no longer restrained to even Her Majesty's judges, are to reach the interior of this House and the august person of its Speaker. (Cheers.) Sir, I wash my hands of all responsibility for this absurd and anomalous state of things. Whenever it has fallen to the Tory party to conduct the affairs of Ireland, they have consistently pursued a policy of mingled firmness and conciliation with the most distinguished success. All the great measures of reform in Ireland may be said to have had their root in the action of the Tory party, though, as usual, the praise has been appropriated by the right hon. gentleman and his allies. We have preferred, instead of truckling to prejudice or passion, to appeal, and we still appeal, to the sublime instincts of an ancient people!"

I hope that an unknown author, whose skill in reproducing an archaic style I heartily admire, will forgive me for quoting the following narrative of certain doings decreed by the General Post Office on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Penny Post. Like all that is truly good in literature, it will be seen that this narrative was not for its own time alone, but for the future, and has its relevancy to events of the present day:[30]

"1. Now it came to pass in the month June of the Post-office Jubilee, that Raikes, the Postmaster-General, said to himself, Lo! an opening whereby I may find grace in the sight of the Queen!

"2. And Raikes appointed an Executive Committee; and Baines, the Inspector-General of Mails, made he Chairman.

"3. He called also Cardin, the Receiver and Accountant-General; Preece, Lord of Lightning; Thompson, the Secretarial Officer; and Tombs; the Controller.

"4. Then did these four send to the Heads of Departments, the Postmasters and Sub-Postmasters, the Letter-Receivers, the Clerks-in-Charge, the Postal Officers, the Telegraphists, She Sorters, the Postmen; yea from the lowest even unto the highest sent they out.

"5. And the word of Baines and of them that were with him went forth that the Jubilee should be kept by a conversazione at the South Kensington Museum on Wednesday the second day of the month July in the year 1890.

"6. And Victoria the Queen became a patron of the Jubilee Celebration; and her heart was stirred within her; for she said, For three whole years have I not had a Jubilee.

"7. And the word of Baines and of them that were with him went forth again to the Heads of Departments; the Postmasters and Sub-Postmasters, the Letter-Receivers, the Clerks-in-Charge, the Postal Officers and Telegraphists, the Sorters and the Postmen.

"8. Saying unto them, Lo! the Queen is become Patron of the Rowland Hill Memorial and Benevolent Fund, and of the conversazione in the museum; and we the Executive Committee bid you, from the lowest even to the highest, to join with us at the tenth hour of the conversazione in a great shouting to praise the name of the Queen our patron.

"9. Each man in his Post Office at the tenth hour shall shout upon her name; and a record thereof shall be sent to us that we may cause its memory to endure for ever.

"10. Then a great fear came upon the Postmasters, the Sub-Postmasters, and the Letter-Receivers, which were bidden to make the record.

"11. For they said, If those over whom we are set in authority shout not at the tenth hour, and we send an evil report, we shall surely perish.

"12. And they besought their men to shout, aloud at the tenth hour, lest a worse thing should befall.

"13. And they that were of the tribes of Nob and of Snob rejoiced with an exceeding great joy, and did shout with their whole might; so that their voices became as the voices of them that sell tidings in the street at nightfall.

"14. But the Telegraphists and the Sorters and the Postmen, and them that were of the tribes of Rag and of Tag, hardened their hearts, and were silent at the tenth hour; for they said among themselves, 'Shall the poor man shout in his poverty, and the hungry celebrate his lack of bread?'

"15. Now Preece, Lord of Lightning, had wrought with a cord of metal that they who were at the conversazione might hear the shouting from the Post Offices.

"16. And the tenth hour came; and lo! there was no great shout; and the tribes of Nob and Snob were as the voice of men calling in the wilderness.

"17. Then was the wrath of Baines kindled against the tribes of Rag and Tag for that they had not shouted according to his word; and he commanded that their chief men and counsellors should be cast out of the Queen's Post Office.

"18. And Raikes, the Postmaster-General; told the Queen all the travail of Baines, the Inspector-General, and of them that were with him, and how they had wrought all for the greater glory of the Queen's name.

"19. And the Queen hearkened to the word of Raikes, and lifted up Baines to be a Centurion of the Bath; also she placed honours upon Cardin, the Receiver-General and Accountant-General; upon Preece, Lord of Lightning; upon Thompson, the Secretarial Officer; and upon Tombs, the Controller, so that they dazzled the eyes of the tribe of Snob, and were favourably entreated of the sons of Nob.

"20. And they lived long in the land; and all men said pleasant things unto them.

"21. But they of Tag and of Rag that had been cast out were utterly forgotten; so that they were fain to cry aloud, saying, 'How long, O ye honest and upright in heart, shall Snobs and Nobs be rulers over us, seeing that they are but men like unto us, though they imagine us in their hearts to be otherwise?'

"22. And the answer is not yet."

FOOTNOTES:

[30] June 1897.

XXVII.

PARODIES IN VERSE.

Here I embark on the shoreless sea of metrical parody, and I begin my cruise by reaffirming that in this department _Rejected Addresses_, though distinctly good for their time, have been left far behind by modern achievements. The sense of style seems to have grown acuter, and the art of reproducing it has been brought to absolute perfection. The theory of development is instructively illustrated in the history of metrical parody.

Of the same date as _Rejected Addresses_, and of about equal merit, is the _Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, which our grandfathers, if they combined literary taste with Conservative opinions, were never tired of repeating. The extraordinary brilliancy of the group of men who contributed to it guaranteed the general character of the book. Its merely satiric verse is a little beside my present mark; but as a parody the ballad of _Duke Smithson of Northumberland_, founded on _Chevy Chase_, ranks high, and the inscription for the cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, who murdered her apprentices, was imprisoned, is even better. Southey, in his Radical youth, had written some lines on the cell in Chepstow Castle where Henry Marten the Regicide was confined:--

"For thirty years secluded from mankind Here Marten lingered ... Dost thou ask his crime? He had rebell'd against the King, and sate In judgment on him."

Here is Canning's parody:--

"For one long term, or e'er her trial came, Here Brownrigg lingered ... Dost thou ask her crime? She whipped two female 'prentices to death, And hid them in a coal-hole."

The time of _Rejected Addresses_ and the _Anti-Jacobin_ was also the heyday of parliamentary quotation, and old parliamentary hands used to cite a happy instance of instantaneous parody by Daniel O'Connell, who, having noticed that the speaker to whom he was replying had his speech written out in his hat, immediately likened him to Goldsmith's village schoolmaster, saying,--

"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small _hat_ could carry all he knew."

Another instance of the same kind was O'Connell's extemporized description of three ultra-Protestant members, Colonel Verner, Colonel Vandeleur, and Colonel Sibthorp, the third of whom was conspicuous in a closely shaven age for his profusion of facial hair.

"Three Colonels, in three different counties born, Armagh and Clare and Lincoln did adorn. The first in direst bigotry surpassed: The next in impudence: in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go-- To beard the third, she shaved the former two."

A similarly happy turn to an old quotation was given by Baron Parke, afterwards Lord Wensleydale. His old friend and comrade at the Bar, Sir David Dundas, had just been appointed Solicitor-General, and, in reply to Baron Parke's invitation to dinner, he wrote that he could not accept it, as he had been already invited by seven peers for the same evening. He promptly received the following couplets:--

"Seven thriving cities fight for Homer dead Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

"Seven noble Lords ask Davie to break bread Who wouldn't care a d--were Davie dead."

The _Ingoldsby Legends_--long since, I believe, deposed from their position in public favour--were published in 1840. Their principal merits are a vein of humour, rollicking and often coarse, but genuine and infectious; great command over unusual metres; and an unequalled ingenuity in making double and treble rhymes: for example--

"The poor little Page, too, himself got no quarter, but Was served the same way, And was found the next day, With his heels in the air, and his head in the water-butt."

There is a general flavour of parody about most of the ballads. It does not as a rule amount to more than a rather clumsy mockery of mediaevalism, but the verses prefixed to the _Lay of St. Gengulphus_ are really rather like a fragment of a black-letter ballad. The book contains only one absolute parody, borrowed from Samuel Lover's _Lyrics of Ireland_, and then the result is truly offensive, for the poem chosen for the experiment is one of the most beautiful in the language--the _Burial of Sir John Moore_, which is transmuted into a stupid story of vulgar debauch. Of much the same date as the _Ingoldsby Legends_ was the _Old Curiosity Shop_, and no one who has a really scholarly acquaintance with Dickens will forget the delightful scraps of Tom Moore's amatory ditties with which, slightly adapted to current circumstances, Dick Swiveller used to console himself when Destiny seemed too strong for him. And it will be remembered that Mr. Slum composed some very telling parodies of the same popular author as advertisements for Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks; but I forbear to quote here what is so easily accessible.

By way of tracing the development of the Art of Parody, I am taking my samples in chronological order. In 1845 the Newdigate Prize for an English poem at Oxford was won by J.W. Burgon, afterwards Dean of Chichester. The subject was Petra. The successful poem was, on the whole, not much better and not much worse than the general run of such compositions; but it contained one couplet which Dean Stanley regarded as an absolute gem--a volume of description condensed into two lines:--

"Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime-- A rose-red city, half as old as time."

The couplet was universally praised and quoted, and, as a natural consequence, parodied. There resided then (and long after) at Trinity College, Oxford, an extraordinarily old don called Short.[31] When I was an undergraduate he was still tottering about, and we looked at him with interest because he had been Newman's tutor. To his case the parodist of the period, in a moment of inspiration, adapted Burgon's beautiful couplet, saying or singing:--

"Match me such marvel, save in college port, That rose-red liquor, half as old as Short."

The Rev. E.T. Turner, till recently Registrar of the University, has been known to say: "I was present when that egg was laid." It is satisfactory to know that the undergraduate who laid it--William Basil Tickell Jones--attained deserved eminence in after-life, and died Bishop of St. David's.

When Burgon was writing his prize-poem about Petra, Lord John Manners (afterwards seventh Duke of Rutland), in his capacity as Poet Laureate of Young England, was writing chivalrous ditties about castles and banners, and merry peasants, and Holy Church. This kind of mediaeval romanticism, though glorified by Lord Beaconsfield in _Coningsby_, seemed purely laughable to Thackeray, and he made rather bitter fun of it in _Lines upon my Sister's Portrait, by the Lord Southdown._

"Dash down, dash down yon mandolin, beloved sister mine! Those blushing lips may never sing the glories of our line: Our ancient castles echo to the clumsy feet of churls. The spinning-jenny houses in the mansion of our Earls. Sing not, sing not, my Angelina! in days so base and vile, 'Twere sinful to be happy, 'twere sacrilege to smile. I'll hie me to my lonely hall, and by its cheerless hob I'll muse on other days, and wish--and wish I were--A SNOB."

But, though the spirit of this mournful song is the spirit of _England's Trust_, the verbal imitation is not close enough to deserve the title of Parody.

The _Ballads of Bon Gaultier_, published anonymously in 1855, had a success which would only have been possible at a time when really artistic parodies were unknown. Bon Gaultier's verses are not as a rule much more than rough-and-ready imitations; and, like so much of the humour of their day, and of Scotch humour in particular, they generally depend for their point upon drinking and drunkenness. Some of the different forms of the Puff Poetical are amusing, especially the advertisement of Doudney Brothers' Waistcoats, and the Puff Direct in which Parr's Life-pills are glorified after the manner of a German ballad. _The Laureate_ is a fair hit at some of Tennyson's earlier mannerisms:--

"Who would not be The Laureate bold, With his butt of sherry To keep him merry, And nothing to do but pocket his gold?"

But _The Lay of the Lovelorn_ is a clumsy and rather vulgar skit on _Locksley Hall_--a poem on which two such writers as Sir Theodore Martin and Professor Aytoun would have done well not to lay their sacrilegious hands.

We have now passed through the middle stage of the development which I am trying to trace; we are leaving clumsiness and vulgarity behind us, and are approaching the age of perfection. Sir George Trevelyan's parodies are transitional. He was born in 1838, three times won the prize poem at Harrow, and brought out his Cambridge squibs in and soon after the year 1858. _Horace at the University of Athens_, originally written for acting at the famous "A.D.C.," still holds its own as one of the wittiest of extravaganzas. It contains a really pretty imitation of the 10th Eclogue, and it is studded with adaptations, of which the only possible fault is that, for the general reader, they are too topical. Here is a sample:--

"_Donec gratus eram tibi_."

_Hor_. While still you loved your Horace best Of all my peers who round you pressed (Though not in expurgated versions), More proud I lived than King of Persians.

_Lyd_. And while as yet no other dame Had kindled in your breast a flame, (Though Niebuhr her existence doubt), I cut historic Ilia out.