POETICAL INGENUITIES
AND ECCENTRICITIES.

POETICAL INGENUITIES

AND

ECCENTRICITIES

SELECTED AND EDITED BY
WILLIAM T. DOBSON
AUTHOR OF “LITERARY FRIVOLITIES,” ETC.

London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1882
[All rights reserved]

[Pg v]

PREFACE.

The favourable reception of “Literary Frivolities” by the Press has led to the preparation of this work as a Sequel, in which the only sin so far charged against the “Frivolities”—that of omission—will be found fully atoned for.

Those curious in regard to the historical and literary accounts of several of the various phases of composition exemplified in this work, will find these fully enough noticed in “Literary Frivolities,” in which none of the examples were strictly original, and had been gathered from many outlying corners of the world of literature. In the present work, however, will be found a number of pieces which have not hitherto been “glorified in type,” and these have been furnished by various literary gentlemen, among whom may be named Professor[Pg vi] E. H. Palmer and J. Appleton Morgan, LL.D., of New York. Assistance in “things both new and old” has also been given by Charles G. Leland, Esq. (Hans Breitmann), W. Bence Jones, Esq., J. F. Huntingdon, Esq. (Cambridge, U.S.); whilst particular thanks are due to Mr. Lewis Carroll for a kindly and courteous permission to quote from his works.

With regard to a few of the extracts, the difficulty of finding their authors has been a bar to requesting permission to use them; but in every case endeavour has been made to acknowledge the source whence they are derived.

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS.

[Pg viii]

[Pg 9]

POETICAL INGENUITIES
AND
ECCENTRICITIES.

THE PARODY.

arody is the name generally given to a humorous or burlesque imitation of a serious poem or song, of which it so far preserves the style and words of the original as that the latter may be easily recognised; it also may be said to consist in the application of high-sounding poetry to familiar objects, should be confined within narrow limits, and only adapted to light and momentary occasions. Though by no means the highest kind of literary composition, and generally used to ridicule the poets, still many might think their reputation increased rather than diminished by the involuntary applause of imitators and parodists, and have no objection that their[Pg 10] works afford the public double amusement—first in the original, and afterwards in the travesty, though the parodist may not always be intellectually up to the level of his prototype. Parodies are best, however, when short and striking—when they produce mirth by the happy imitation of some popular passage, or when they mix instruction with amusement, by showing up some latent absurdity or developing the disguises of bad taste.

The invention of this humoristic style of composition has been attributed to the Greeks, from whose language the name itself is derived (para, beside; ode, a song); the first to use it being supposed to be Hegemon of Thasos, who flourished during the Peloponnesian War; by others the credit of the invention is given to Hipponax, who in his picture of a glutton, parodies Homer’s description of the feats of Achilles in fighting with his hero in eating. This work begins as follows:

The Battle of the Frogs and Mice (The “Batrachomyomachia”), also a happy specimen of the parody is said to be a travesty of Homer’s[Pg 11] “Iliad,” and numerous examples will be found in the comedies of Aristophanes. Among the Romans this form of literary composition made its appearance at the period of the Decline, and all the power of Nero could not prevent Persius from parodying his verses. The French among modern nations have been much given to it, whilst in the English language there are many examples, one of the earliest being the parodying of Milton by John Philips, one of the most artificial poets of his age (1676-1708). He was an avowed imitator of Milton, and certainly evinced considerable talent in his peculiar line. Philips wrote in blank verse a poem on the victory of Blenheim, and another on Cider, the latter in imitation of the Georgics. His best work, however, is that from which there follows a quotation, a parody on “Paradise Lost,” considered by Steele to be the best burlesque poem extant.

The Splendid Shilling.

Perhaps the best English examples of the true parody—the above being more of an imitation—are to be found in the “Rejected Addresses” of the brothers James and Horace Smith. This work owed its origin to the reopening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1812, after its destruction by fire. The managers, in the true spirit of tradesmen, issued an advertisement calling for Addresses, one of which should be spoken on the opening night. Forty-three were sent in for competition. Overwhelmed by the amount of talent thus placed at their disposal, the managers summarily rejected the whole, and placed themselves under the care of Lord Byron, whose composition, after all, was thought by some to be, if not unworthy, at least ill-suited for the occasion. Mr. Ward, the secretary of the Theatre, having casually started the idea of publishing a series of “Rejected Addresses,” composed by the most popular authors of the day, the brothers Smith eagerly adopted the suggestion, and in six weeks the volume was published, and received by the public with enthusiastic delight. They were principally humorous imitations of[Pg 16] eminent authors, and Lord Jeffrey said of them in the Edinburgh Review: “I take them indeed to be the very best imitations (and often of difficult originals) that ever were made; and, considering their great extent and variety, to indicate a talent to which I do not know where to look for a parallel. Some few of them descend to the level of parodies; but by far the greater part are of a much higher description.” The one which follows is in imitation of Crabbe, and was written by James Smith, and Jeffrey thought it “the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite and masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most original author.” Crabbe himself said regarding it, that it “was admirably done.”

The Theatre.

From the same work is taken this parody on a beautiful passage in Southey’s “Kehama:”

The brothers Smith reproduced Byron in the familiar “Childe Harold” stanza, both in style and thought:

Moore, also, was imitated in the same way, as in these verses:

From the parody on Sir Walter Scott, it is difficult to select, being all good; calling from Scott himself the remark, “I must have done this myself, though I forget on what occasion.”

A Tale of Drury Lane.

BY W. S.

Canning and Frere, the two chief writers in the “Anti-Jacobin,” had great merit as writers of parody. There is hardly a better one to be found than the following on Southey’s verses regarding Henry Martin the Regicide, the fun of which is readily apparent even to those who do not know the original:

Inscription

(For the door of the cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg,
the Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her execution).

The following felicitous parody on Wolfe’s “Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore” is taken from Thomas Hood:

Mr. Barham has also left us a parody on the same lines:

In the examples which follow, the selection has been made on the principle of giving only those of which the prototypes are well known and will be easily recognised, and here is another of Hood’s, written on a popular ballad:

Here is another upon an old favourite song:

The Bandit’s Fate.

Goldsmith’s “When lovely woman stoops to folly,” has been thus parodied by Shirley Brooks:

Examples like these are numerous, and may be found in the “Bon Gaultier Ballads” of Theodore Martin and Professor Aytoun; “The Ingoldsby Legends” of Barham; and the works of Lewis Carroll.

One of the “Bon Gaultier” travesties was on Macaulay, and was called “The Laureate’s Journey;” of which these two verses are part:

It is necessary, however, to confine our quotations within reasonable limits, and a few from the modern writers must suffice. The next is by Henry S. Leigh, one of the best living writers of burlesque verse.

[Pg 32]Only Seven.[2]

(A PASTORAL STORY, AFTER WORDSWORTH.)

Mr. Swinburne’s alliterative style lays him particularly open to the skilful parodist, and he has been well imitated by Mr. Mortimer Collins, who, perhaps, is as well known as novelist as poet. The following example is entitled

“If.”

The next instance, by the same author, is another good imitation of Mr. Swinburne’s style. It is a recipe for

Salad.

The “Shootover Papers,” by members of the Oxford University, contains this parody, written upon the “Procuratores,” a kind of university police:

[Pg 36]In the same book a certain school of poets has been hit at in the following lines:

The “Diversions of the Echo Club,” by Bayard Taylor, contains many parodies, principally upon American poets, and gives this admirable rendering of Edgar A. Poe’s style:

The Promissory Note.

Bret Harte also has given a good imitation of Poe’s style in “The Willows,” from which there follows an extract:

Mr. Calverley is perhaps one of the best of the later parodists, and he hits off Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Coventry Patmore, and others most inimitably. We give a couple of verses from one, a parody of his upon a well-known lyric of Tennyson’s, and few we think after perusing it would be able to read “The Brook” without its murmur being associated with the wandering tinker:

Mr. Tennyson’s “Home they brought her warrior[Pg 40] dead,” has likewise been differently travestied by various writers. One of these by Mr. Sawyer is given here:

The Recognition.

“The May-Queen” has also suffered in some verses called “The Biter Bit,” of which these are the last four lines:

[Pg 41]Mr. Calverley has imitated well also the old ballad style, as in this one, of which we give the opening verses:

The following imitation of the old ballad form is by Mr. Lewis Carroll, who has written many capital versions of different poems:

[Pg 42]Ye Carpette Knyghte.

In “Alice in Wonderland,”[4] by the same gentleman, there is this new version of an old nursery ditty:

Mr. Carroll’s adaptation of “You are old, Father William,” is one of the best of its class, and here are two verses:

Mr. H. Cholmondeley-Pennell in “Puck on Pegasus” gives some good examples, such as that on the “Hiawatha” of Longfellow, the “Song of In-the-Water,” and also that on Southey’s “How the Waters come down at Lodore,” the parody being called “How the Daughters come down at Dunoon,” of which these are the concluding lines:

“Twas ever thus,” the well-known lines of Moore, has also been travestied by Mr. H. C. Pennell:

[Pg 46]Moore’s lines have evidently been tempting to the parodists, for Mr. Calverley and Mr. H. S. Leigh have also written versions: Mr. Leigh’s begins thus—

Shakespeare’s soliloquy in Hamlet has been frequently selected as a subject for parody; the first we give being the work of Mr. F. C. Burnand in “Happy Thoughts”:

[Pg 47]Cremation.

The next, on the same subject, is from an American source, where it is introduced by the remark:

[Pg 48]“I suppose they’ll be wanting us to change our language as well as our habits. Our years will have to be dated A.C., in the year of cremation; and ‘from creation to cremation’ will serve instead of ‘from the cradle to the grave.’ We may expect also some lovely elegies in the future—something in the following style perhaps, for, of course, when gravediggers are succeeded by pyre-lighters, the grave laments of yore will be replaced by lighter melodies”:

[Pg 49]The well-known lady traveller, Mrs. Burton, in one of her volumes gives the following amusing verses:

To give specimens of all the kinds of parody were impossible, and we can only refer to the prose parodies of Thackeray’s “Novels by Eminent Hands,” and Bret Harte’s “Condensed Novels.”[6] Renderings of popular ballads in this way are common enough in our comic periodicals, as Punch, Fun, &c. Indeed, one appeared in Punch a number of years ago, called “Ozokerit,” a travesty of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” which has been considered one of the finest ever written. They are to be found, too, in many of those Burlesques and [Pg 50]Extravaganzas which are put upon the stage now, and these the late Mr. Planchè had a delightful faculty of writing, the happiness and ring of which have rarely been equalled. Take, for instance, one verse of a parody in “Jason” on a well-known air in the “Waterman:”

And here is the opening verse of another song by the same author:

Another very popular song has been parodied in this way by Mr. Carroll:

[Pg 51]American papers put in circulation many little verses, such as this—

And this, in reference to the Centennial Exhibition:

A number of periodicals nowadays make parody and other out-of-the-way styles of literary composition a feature in their issues by way of competition for prizes, and one of these is given here. The author signs himself “Hermon,” and the poem was selected by the editor of “Truth” (November 25, 1880) for a prize in a competition of parodies upon “Excelsior.” It is called “That Thirty-four!” having reference, it is perhaps hardly necessary to state, to the American puzzle of that name which has proved so perplexing an affair to some people.

[Pg 52]That Thirty-four.

[Pg 53]

CHAIN VERSE.

his ingenious style of versification, where the last word or phrase in each line is taken for the beginning of the next, is sometimes also called “Concatenation” verse. The invention of this mode of composition is claimed by M. Lasphrise, a French poet, who wrote the following:

The poem which follows is from a manuscript furnished by an American gentleman, who states that he has never seen it in print, and knows not[Pg 54] the author’s name. The “rhythm somewhat resembles the ticking of a clock,” from whence the poem derives its name of

The Musical Clock.

The following two pieces are similar in style to some of our seventeenth-century poets:

Ad Mortem.

 [Pg 57]

Truth.

The following hymn appears in the Irish Church Hymnal, and is by Mr. J. Byrom:

Dr., as he was commonly called, Byrom, seems to have been an amiable and excellent man, and his friends after his death in September 1763 collected and published all the verses of his they could lay hands on, in 2 vols. 12mo, at Manchester in 1773. A more complete edition was issued in 1814. Many of Byrom’s poems evince talent, but a great part are only calculated for private perusal: his “Diary” and “Remains” were published by the Chetham Society (1854-57). Byrom was the inventor of a successful system of shorthand. He was a decided Jacobite, and his mode of defending his sentiments on this point are still remembered and quoted:

[Pg 59]

MACARONIC VERSE.

acaronic verse is properly a system of Latin inflections joined to words of a modern vernacular, such as English, French, German, &c.; some writers, however, choose to disregard the strictness of this definition, and consider everything macaronic which is written with the aid of more than one language or dialect. Dr. Geddes (born 1737; died 1802), considered one of the greatest of English macaronic writers, says: “It is the characteristic of a Macaronic poem to be written in Latin hexameters; but so as to admit occasionally vernacular words, either in their native form, or with a Latin inflection—other licenses, too, are allowed in the measure of the lines, contrary to the strict rules of prosody.” Broad enough reservations these, of which Dr. Geddes in his own works was not slow in availing himself, and as will be seen in the specimens given, his example has been well followed, for the strict rule that an English[Pg 60] macaronic should consist of the vernacular made classical with Latin terminations has been as much honoured in the breach as in the observance. Another characteristic in macaronics is that these poems recognise no law in orthography, etymology, syntax, or prosody. The examples which here follow are confined exclusively to those which have their basis, so to speak, in the English language, and, with the exception of a few of the earlier ones, the majority of the selections in this volume have their origin in our own times.

“The earliest collection of English Christmas carols supposed to have been published,” says Hone’s “Every Day Book,” “is only known from the last leaf of a volume printed by Wynkyn Worde in 1521. There are two carols upon it: ‘A Carol of Huntynge’ is reprinted in the last edition of Juliana Berners’ ‘Boke of St. Alban’s;’ the other, ‘A carol of bringing in the Bore’s Head,’ is in Dibdin’s edition of ‘Ames,’ with a copy of the carol as it is now sung in Queen’s College, Oxford, every Christmas Day.” Dr. Bliss of Oxford printed a few copies of this for private circulation, together with Anthony Wood’s version of it. The version subjoined is from a collection imprinted at London, “in the Poultry, by Richard Kele, dwelling[Pg 61] at the long shop vnder Saynt Myldrede’s Chyrche,” about 1546:

A Carol Bringing in the Bore’s Head.

Another version of the last verse is:

[Pg 62]Skelton, who was the poet-laureate about the end of the fifteenth century, has in his “Boke of Colin Clout,” and also in that of “Philip Sparrow,” much macaronic verse, as in “Colin Clout,” when he is speaking of the priests of those days, he says:

In Harsnett’s “Detection” are some curious lines, being a curse for “the miller’s eeles that were stolne”:

In “Literary Frivolities” there was a notice of and quotation from Ruggles’ jeu d’esprit of “Ignoramus,” and here follows a short scene from this play, containing a humorous burlesque of the old Norman Law-Latin, in which the elder brethren of the legal profession used to plead, and in which the old Reporters come down to the Bar of to-day—if, indeed, that venerable absurdity can be caricatured. It would be rather difficult to burlesque a system that provided for a writ de pipâ vini carriandâ—that is, “for negligently carrying a pipe of wine!”

The following song by O’Keefe, is a mixture of English, Latin, and nonsense:

Of the many specimens written by the witty and versatile Dr. Maginn we select this one

The Second Epode of Horace.

There is a little bit by Barham (“Ingoldsby Legends”) which is worthy of insertion:

The following bright carmen Macaronicum appeared in an American periodical in 1873:

Rex Midas.

The following well-known lines are from the “Comic Latin Grammar,” a remarkably clever and curious work, full of quaint illustrations:

A Treatise on Wine.

The two which follow are identical in theme, and show that the wags and wits of about thirty years ago were busy poking their fun at what was then their latest sensation, much as they do now. They both treat of the Sea-serpent; the first being from an American source:

[Pg 76]The Sea-Serpent.

[Pg 77]The Death of the Sea-Serpent.

BY PUBLIUS JONATHAN VIRGILIUS JEFFERSON SMITH.

St. George et His Dragon.

 [Pg 81]

The Polka.

Clubbis Noster.

Little Red Riding Hood.

“Ich bin Dein.”

Contenti Abeamus.

 [Pg 88]

De Leguleio.

Chanson without Music.

BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF DEAD AND LIVING LANGUAGES.

During the late American Civil War, Slidell and Mason, two of the Confederate Commissioners, were[Pg 92] taken by an admiral of the U.S. navy from a British ship, and this came near causing an issue between the two countries. Seward was the American premier at the time. This is that affair done up in a macaronic:

Slidell and Mason.

A Valentine.

Very Felis-itous.

Ce Meme Vieux Coon.

Malum Opus.

Carmen ad Terry.

(WRITTEN WHILE GENERAL TERRY, U.S.A., WITH HIS BLACK SOLDIERS, WAS IN COMMAND
AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, AFTER ITS EVACUATION BY THE CONFEDERATE TROOPS.)

Lydia Green.

Am Rhein.

“Serve-um-Right.”

To a Friend at Parting.

Ad Professorem Linguæ Germanicæ.

Pome of a Possum.

The following “Society Verses” of Mortimer[Pg 105] Collins are given here by way of introducing an imitation of them in macaronic verse:

Ad Chloen, M.A.

(FRESH FROM HER CAMBRIDGE EXAMINATION.)

 [Pg 106]

To the Fair “Come-Outer.”

Here are a few juvenile specimens, the first being a little-known old nursery ballad:

The Four Brothers.

Little Bo-peep.

Jack and Jill.

The Teetotum.

Schoolboys and college youths not unfrequently adorn their books with some such macaronic as this:

[Pg 109]Inscriptions and epitaphs are often the vehicles of quaint and curious diction, and of these we give some instances:

The Sign of the “Gentle Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”

(On the road from Cape Town to Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope.)

In the Visitors’ Book at Niagara Falls.

In the Visitors’ Book of Mount Kearsarge House.

(Summit of Mount Kearsarge, North Conway, N.H.)

The following epitaph is to be found in Northallerton Churchyard:

There are no macaronic authors nowadays, though poems of this class are still to be had in colleges and universities; but everything pertaining to college life is ephemeral, coming in with Freshman and going out with Senior. College students are the prolific fathers of a kind of punning Latin composition, such as:

In a similar dialect to this, Dean Swift and Dr. Sheridan used to correspond. In this way:

The Dean once wrote to the Doctor:

To which the Doctor responded:

At this the Dean settles the whole affair by—

Sydney Smith proposed as a motto for a well-known fish-sauce purveyor the following line from Virgil (Æn. iv. I):

[Pg 112]When two students named Payne and Culpepper were expelled from college, a classmate wrote:

And Dr. Johnson wrote the following epitaph on his cat:

Victor Hugo was once asked if he could write English poetry. “Certainement,” was the reply, and he sat down and wrote this verse:

In the “Innocents Abroad” of Mark Twain he gives a letter written by his friend Mr. Blucher to a Parisian hotel-keeper, which was as follows:

“I remonstrated,” says Mr. Twain, “against the sending of this note, because it was so mixed up that the landlord would never be able to make head or tail of it; but Blucher said he guessed the old man could read the French of it, and average the rest.”

Productions like the preceding, and like that with which we conclude are continually finding their way into print, and are always readable, curious, and fresh for an idle hour.

[Pg 115]

LINGUISTIC VERSE.

ne of the most curious efforts in the way of teaching a language was that attempted by a work published originally in Paris, in 1862, entitled “O Novo Guia em Portuguez e Inglez. Par Jose de Fonseca e Pedro Carolina,” or the New Guide to Conversation in Portuguese and English. Mr. G. C. Leland writes us that Fonseca “manufactured” this work by procuring a book of French dialogues, which he put word by word into English—(by the aid of a dictionary)—“of which he knew not a word, and what is strangest, did not learn a word, even while writing his Guide. That he really humbugged his bookseller appears from this that he induced the poor victim to publish a large English dictionary!” This book has been reprinted, as a literary curiosity, and may be had at Quaritch’s, 15 Piccadilly, London, under the title of “A New Guide to the English,” by Pedro Carolina; Fonseca having taken[Pg 116] his name out, and dating the book from “Pekin,”—this being a mere joke. However, the original was a serious work, and by way of introduction to a poem in the Fonseca English, kindly given us by Professor E. H. Palmer, we give a few particulars of and extracts from the work itself, and here is the Preface:

The “greatest vocabulary proper names” is in three columns—the first giving the Portuguese, the second the English words, and the third the English pronunciation:

The vocabulary fills about fifty pages, and is followed by a series of “familiar phrases,” of which a few are here given:

Then come the dialogues, and one we give is supposed to take place at a morning call, which commences first with the visitor and the servant:

This is followed by a description of the dissipation which led to these late hours—“singing, dancing, laughing, and playing”—

But these conversations or dialogues, however amusing, are as nothing when compared with the anecdotes which are given by Fonseca, of which we transcribe a few:

The concluding portion of this Guide is devoted to “Idiotisms and Proverbs,” of some of which it is rather difficult to recognise the original, as “To take time by the forelock,” is rendered “It want to take the occasion for the hairs!” Here are a few others:

Enough perhaps has been given about this amusing Guide, and we here introduce Professor E. H. Palmer’s verses:

The Parterre.

A POETRY AS THE FONSECA.

Pidgin English is the name given to the dialect extensively used in the seaport towns of China as a means of communication between the natives and English and Americans, and is a very rude jargon in which English words are very strangely distorted. It is very limited, the Chinese learning Pidgin with only the acquirement of a few hundred words, the pronunciation and grammar of which have been modified to suit those of their own language. The word Pidgin itself is derived through a series of changes in the word Business. Early traders made constant use of this word, and the Chinaman contracted it first to Busin, and then through the change to Pishin it at length assumed the form of Pidgin, still retaining its original meaning. This at once shows the difficulty which a Chinaman has in mastering the pronunciation of English words, and as business or commerce is the great bond of union between the Chinese and the foreign residents, it is not to be wondered at that this word should give name to the jargon formed in its service. The Chinese have great difficulty in using the letter r, pronouncing it almost always like l, as loom for room, cly for cry; and for the[Pg 123] sake of euphony often add ee or lo to the end of words. Galaw or galow is a word of no meaning, being used as a kind of interjection; chop, chop, means quick, quick; maskee, don’t mind; chop b’long, of a kind; topside galow, excelsior, or “hurrah for topside”; chin chin, good-bye; welly culio, very curious; Joss-pidgin-man, priest. With these few hints the reader may understand better the following version of “Excelsior,” which originally appeared in Harpers’ Magazine in 1869,—the moral, however, belongs solely to the Chinese translator:

Topside-Galow.

In connection with these linguistic curiosities we take the following from an old number of Harpers’ Magazine: “A practical parent objects to the silliness of our nursery rhymes, for the reason that the doggerel is rendered pernicious by the absence of a practical moral purpose, and as introducing infants to the realities of life through an utterly erroneous medium. They are taught to believe in a world peopled by Little Bo-peeps and Goosey, Goosey Ganders, instead of a world of New York Central, Erie, North-Western Preferred, &c. &c. It is proposed, therefore, to accommodate the teaching of the nursery to the requirements of the age, to invest children’s rhymes with a moral purpose. Instead, for example, of the blind wonderment as to the nature of astronomical bodies inculcated in that feeble poem commencing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star,’ let the child be indoctrinated into the recent investigations of science, thus:

“Then, again, there is the gastronomic career of Little Jack Homer, which inculcates gluttony. It is practicable that this fictitious hero should familiarise the child with the principles of the Delectus:

“The episode of Jack and Jill is valueless as an educational medium. But it might be made to illustrate the arguments of a certain school of political economists:

“Even the pleasures of life have their duties, and the child needs to be instructed in the polite relaxation of society. The unmeaning jingle of[Pg 127] ‘Hey diddle diddle,’ might be invested with some utility of a social kind:

“And the importance of securing a good parti, of rejecting ineligible candidates, and of modifying flirtations by a strict regard to the future, might be impressed upon the female mind at an early age in the following moral:

The preceding is all very well, but there are others which have been travestied and changed also—“Mary’s little Lamb,” for instance, will never be allowed to rest in its true Saxon garb, but is being constantly dressed in every tongue and dialect. But recently one has arisen bold enough to doubt the story altogether, and throw discredit on the song. Mr. Baring Gould, and iconoclasts like him, strive to show that William Tell and other[Pg 128] ancient heroes never did live, but we never expected to doubt the existence of “Mary’s little Lamb,” yet a correspondent to a magazine sent not long ago what he says is the “true story of Mary and her lamb,” hoping it will take the place of the garbled version hitherto received as authentic:

We have still another way of it, in what may be termed an exaggerated synonymic adherence to the central idea of the ballad:

Linguistic renderings of many of these ancient songs may be found in the works of the Rev. Francis Mahoney (Father Prout), Dr. Maginn, &c., as well as in the “Arundines Cami” of the Rev. H. Drury. Of these here follow a few:

Little Bo-peep.

Ba, Ba, Black Sheep.

Here is a song of Mahoney’s, which is given complete:

Which, put into English, is:

The last of these we give is from the “Arundines Cami”:

[Pg 131]Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

This familiar nursery rhyme has also been “revised” by a committee of eminent preceptors and scholars, with this result:

Dr. Lang, in his book on “Queensland,” &c., is wroth against the colonists for the system of nomenclature they have pursued, in so far as introducing such names as Deptford, Codrington, Greenwich, and so on. Conceding that there may be some confusion by the duplication in this way of names from the old country, they are surely better than the jaw-breaking native names which are strung together in the following lines:

The following jeu d’esprit, in which many of the absurd and unpronounceable names of American towns and villages are happily hit off, is from the Orpheus C. Kerr (office-seeker) Papers, by R. H. Newell, a work containing many of those humorous, semi-political effusions, which were so common in the United States during the Civil War:

The American Traveller.

A Rhyme for Musicians.

 [Pg 136]

Surnames.

BY JAMES SMITH, ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF “REJECTED ADDRESSES.”

The next verses are somewhat similar, and are taken from an old number of the European Magazine:[Pg 138]

Coincidences and Contrarieties.

The English Language.

Spelling Reform.

Owed To My Creditors.

An Original Love Story.

Prevalent Poetry.

A Temperance Sermon.

[Pg 146]

TECHNICAL VERSE.

Anticipatory Dirge on Professor Buckland, the Geologist.

BY BISHOP SHUTTLEWORTH.

When Professor Buckland’s grave was being dug in Islip churchyard, in August 1856, the men came unexpectedly upon the solid limestone rock, which[Pg 148] they were obliged to blast with gunpowder. The coincidence of this fact with some of the verses in the above anticipatory dirge is somewhat remarkable.

The following is by Jacob F. Henrici, and appeared originally in Scribner’ s Magazine for November 1879:

A Microscopic Serenade.

The epitaph following was written by the learned and witty Dr. Charles Smith, author of the histories of Cork and Waterford. It was read at a meeting of the Dublin Medico-Philosophical Society on July 1, 1756, and is a very curious specimen of the “terminology of chemistry:”

[Pg 150]“Boyle Godfrey, Chymist and Doctor of Medicine.

EPITAPHIUM CHEMICUM.

To Clara Morchella Deliciosa.

(A MYCOLOGICAL SERENADE.)

To the Pliocene Skull.

(A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS.)

The following verses are from “Notes and Queries,” and evidently refer to a case of “breach of promise”:

Knox Ward, King-at-Arms, disarmed at Law.

Lament of an Unfortunate Druggist,

A Member of the Pharmaceutical Society, whose matrimonial
speculations have been disappointed.

Ode to “Davies’ Analytical”

Man and the Ascidian.

A MORALITY IN THE QUEEN ANNE MANNER.

A Geological Madrigal.

 [Pg 164]

The Husband’s Complaint.

“Will she thy linen wash and hosen darn?”—Gay.

Homœopathic Soup.

 [Pg 166]

A Billet-Doux.

BY A COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER, CHIDDINGLY, SUSSEX.

Cumulative verse—in which one newspaper gives a few lines, and other papers follow it up—like that which follows, is very common in American newspapers, which, however profound or dense, invariably have a corner for this kind of thing. It has been said that the reason why no purely comic[Pg 167] paper, like Punch or Fun, succeeds in the United States, is because all their papers have a “funny” department.

The Arab and his Donkey.

An Arab came to the river side, With a donkey bearing an obelisk; But he would not try to ford the tide, For he had too good an *. —Boston Globe. So he camped all night by the river side, And remained till the tide had ceased to swell, For he knew should the donkey from life subside, He never would find its ||. —Salem Sunbeam. When the morning dawned, and the tide was out, The pair crossed over ’neath Allah’s protection; And the Arab was happy, we have no doubt, For he had the best donkey in all that §. —Somerville Journal. You are wrong, they were drowned in crossing over, Though the donkey was bravest of all his race; He luxuriates now in horse-heaven clover, And his master has gone to the Prophet’s em —Elevated Railway Journal. These assinine poets deserved to be “blowed,” Their rhymes being faulty and frothy and beery; [Pg 168]What really befell the ass and its load Will ever remain a desolate ?. —Paper and Print. Our Yankee friends, with all their —— For once, we guess, their mark have missed; And with poetry Paper and Print is rash In damming its flow with its editor’s In parable and moral leave a between, [Space] For reflection, or your wits fall out of joint; The “Arab,” ye see, is a printing machine, And the donkey is he who can’t see the —British and Colonial Printer.

An Ohio poet thus sings of the beginning of man:

Evolution.

[Pg 169]

SINGLE-RHYMED VERSE.

he following lines are from a book written by M. Halpine, under the sobriquet of “Private Miles O’Reilly,” during the Civil War in the United States. They have some merit apart from their peculiar versification, and the idea of comparing the “march past” of veteran troops in war time with the parade of the old gladiators is a happy one.

Morituri te Salutant.

“About the year 1775 there was a performer named Cervetti in the orchestra of Drury Lane Theatre, to whom, the gods had given the appropriate name of Nosey, from his enormous staysail, that helped to carry him before the wind. ‘Nosey!’ shouted from the galleries, was the signal, or word of command, for the fiddlers to strike up. This man was originally an Italian merchant of good repute; but failing in business, he came over to England, and adopted music for a profession. He had a notable knack of loud yawning, with which he sometimes unluckily filled up Garrick’s expressive pauses, to the infinite annoyance of Garrick and the laughter of the audience. In the summer of 1777 he played at Vauxhall, at the age of ninety-eight.” Upon such another nose was the following lines written:

The Roman Nose.

Mrs. Thrale, on her thirty-fifth birthday, remarked to Dr. Johnson, that no one would send her verses now that she had attained that age, upon which the Doctor, without the least hesitation, recited the following lines:

Thirty-Five.

Moore, in his “Life of Sheridan,” says that he (Sheridan) “had a sort of hereditary fancy for difficult trifling in poetry; particularly to that sort which consists in rhyming to the same word through a long string of couplets, till every rhyme that the language supplies for it is exhausted,” a task which must have required great patience and perseverance. Moore quotes some dozen lines entitled “To Anne,” wherein a lady is made to bewail the loss of her trunk, and she thus rhymes her lamentations:

From another of these trifles of Sheridan, Moore gives the following extracts:

John Skelton, a poet of the fifteenth century, in great repute as a wit and satirist, was inordinately fond of writing in lines of three or four syllables,[Pg 174] and also of iteration of rhyme. This perhaps was the cause of his writing much that was mere doggerel, as this style scarcely admits of the conveyance of serious sentiment. Occasionally, however, his miniature lines are interesting, as in this address to Mrs. Margaret Hussey:

The following national pasquinade we find in Egerton Brydges’ “Censura Literaria Restituta,” written in commemoration of the failure of Spain by her Invincible Armada to invade Britain. The iteration of metre is all that approaches in it to the style of Skelton, of whose verse it is an imitation:

Epitaph on Dr. William Maginn.

The Musical Ass.

[Pg 177]The above is a translation from the “Fabulas Litterarias” of Tomaso de Yriarte (1750-1790). Yriarte conceived the idea of making moral truths the themes for fables in the style of Æsop, and these he composed in every variety of verse which seemed at all suitable. Even when the leading idea presents no remarkable incident, Yriarte’s fables please by their simplicity.

Boxiana.

The Ruling Power.

Nahum Fay on the Loss of his Wife.

The Radenovitch.

A SONG OF A NEW DANCE.

Footman Joe.

To a Lady

WHO ASKED FOR A POEM OF NINETY LINES.

We give the following curious old ballad a place here, not only on account of the iteration of rhyme, but also as the original of the macaronic verses on p. 95:

The Wig and the Hat.

[Pg 188]

ANAGRAMS.

nagrams are curious and frequently clever examples of formal literary trifling. Camden, in his “Remains,” gave to the world a treatise showing that in his day anagrams were endowed with an undue and superstitious importance, being regarded as nothing less than the occult and mysterious finger of Fate, revealed in the names of men.

“The only quintessence,” says this old writer, “that hitherto the alchemy of wit could draw out of names, is anagrammatisme or metagrammatisme, which is the dissolution of a name, truly written, into the letters as its elements, and a new connection of it by artificial transposition, without addition, subtraction, or change of any letter, into different words, making some perfect sense applicable to the person named.” Precise anagrammatists adhere strictly to these rules, with the exception of omitting or retaining the letter h according to their convenience, alleging that h[Pg 189] cannot claim the rights of a letter; others, again, think it no injury sometimes to use e for æ, v for w, s for z, c for k, and contrariwise, and several of the instances which follow will be found variously imperfect. Camden calls the charming difficulty of making an anagram, “the whetstone of patience to them that shall practise it; for some have been seen to bite their pen, scratch their head, bend their brows, bite their lips, beat the board, tear their paper, when the names were fair for somewhat, and caught nothing therein,—yet, notwithstanding the sour sort of critics, good anagrams yield a delightful comfort and pleasant motion to honest minds.”

Camden places the origin of the anagram as far back as the time of Moses, and conjectures that it may have had some share in the mystical traditions, afterwards called the “Cabala,” communicated by the Jewish lawgiver. One part of the art of the cabalists lay in what they called themuru—that is, changing—or finding the hidden and mystical meaning in names, which they did by transposing and fantastically combining the letters in those names. Thus of the letters of Noah’s name in Hebrew they made Grace, and of the Messiah’s He shall rejoice. Whether the above origin be theoretical or not, the anagram can be[Pg 190] traced to the age of Lycophron, a Greek writer, who flourished about 300 B.C.

Among the moderns, the French have most cultivated the anagram. Camden says: “They exceedingly admire the anagram, for the deep and far-fetched antiquity and mystical meaning therein. In the reign of Francis the First (when learning began to revive), they began to distil their wits therein.” There is a curious anecdote of an anagrammatist who presented a king of France with the two following upon his name of Bourbon:

That is, “Bourbon good to the world;” or “Bourbon destitute of good;” while on another celebrated Frenchman we have—

Southey, in his “Doctor,” says that “anagrams are not likely ever again to hold so high a place among the prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the seventeenth century. But no person,” he continues, “will ever hit upon an apt one without feeling that degree of pleasure with which any odd[Pg 191] coincidence is remarked.” In that century, indeed, the artifice appears to have become the fashionable literary passion of the day—the amusement of the learned and the wise, who sought

While Andreas Rudiger was yet a student at college, and intending to become a physician, he one day pulled the Latinised form of his name to pieces, Andreas Rudigeras, and borrowing an i, transposed it into Arare Rus Dei Dignus (“Worthy to cultivate the land of God”). He fancied from this that he had a divine call to become an ecclesiastic, and thereupon gave up the study of medicine for theology. Soon after, Rudiger became tutor in the family of the philosopher Thomasius, who one day told him “that he would greatly benefit the journey of his life by turning it towards physic.” Rudiger confessed that his tastes lay rather in that direction than to theology, but having looked upon the anagram of his name as an indication of a divine call, he had not dared to turn away from theology. “How simple you have been,” replied Thomasius; “it is just that very anagram which calls you towards medicine—‘Rus Dei,’ the land[Pg 192] of God (God’s acre), what is that but the cemetery—and who labours so bravely for the cemetery as a physician does?” Rudiger could not resist this, returned to medicine, and became famous as a physician.

An anagram on Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle on the restoration of Charles II., forms also a chronogram, including the date of the event it records—

In this anagram the c takes the place of the k.

The old Puritan biographer, Cotton Mather, claims for John Wilson—the subject of one of his lives—the kingship of anagrammatising. “Of all the anagrammatisers,” he says in the third book of his “Magnalia Christi Americana,” “that have been trying their fancies for the 2000 years that have run out since the days of Lycophron, or the more than 5000 since the days of our first father, I believe there never was a man that made so many, or so nimbly, as our Mr. Wilson; who, together with his quick turns upon the names of his friends, would ordinarily fetch, and rather than lose, would even force, devout instructions out of[Pg 193] his anagrams. As one, upon hearing my father (Increase Mather) preach, Mr. Wilson immediately gave him that anagram upon his name ‘Crescentius Matherus,’ Eu! Christus Merces Tua (Lo! Christ is thy reward). There would scarcely occur the name of any remarkable person without an anagram raised thereupon.”

This said John Wilson “forced instruction” out of his own name—first rendering it into Latin, Johannes Wilsonus, he found this anagram in it, “In uno Jesu nos salvi” (We are saved in one Jesus). This mode of Latinising names was common enough among those who liked this literary folly; thus we have Sir Robert Viner, or Robertus Vinerus, rendered “Vir Bonus et Rarus” (a good and rare man). The disciples of Descartes made a perfect anagram upon the Latinised name of their master, “Renatus Cartesius,” one which not only takes up every letter, but which also expresses their opinion of that master’s speciality—“Tu scis res naturæ” (Thou knowest the things of nature).

Pierre de St. Louis became a Carmelite monk on discovering that his name yielded a direction to that effect:

[Pg 194]And, in the seventeenth century, André Pujom, finding that his name spelled Pendu à Riom, fulfilled his destiny by cutting somebody’s throat in Auvergne, and was actually hung at Riom, the seat of justice in that province.

Occasionally when the anagram of a name did not make sense, there was added a rhyme to bring out a meaning. Thus, in a sermon preached by Dr. Edward Reynolds upon Peter Whalley, and entitled “Death’s Advantage,” every letter of the name is to be found in the first line of this verse:

In this sermon Peter Whalley is also anagrammatised into A Whyte Perle—this would not be a bad one, if orthography were of as little consequence as many of the old triflers in this way used to account it.

We read that when Alexander the Great was baffled before the walls of Tyre, and was about to raise the siege, he had a dream wherein he saw a satyr leaping about and trying to seize him. He consulted his sages, who read in the word Satyrus (the Greek for satyr), “Sa Tyrus”—“Tyre is[Pg 195] thine!” Encouraged by this interpretation, Alexander made another assault and carried the city.

In a “New Help to Discourse” (London, 1684), there is one with a very quaint exposition:

Toast—A Sott.

It will be seen, however, that anagrams have chiefly been made upon proper names, and a reversing of their letters may sometimes pay the owner a compliment; as of the poet Waller:

George Thompson, the well-known anti-slavery advocate, was at one time solicited to go into parliament for the more efficient serving of the cause he had so much at heart. The question whether he would comply with this request or not was submitted to his friends, and one of them gave the following for answer:

This clever instance was given in “Notes and Queries” a short time ago:

The following are additional instances.

When, at the General Peace of 1814, Prussia absorbed a portion of Saxony, the king issued a new coinage of rix dollars, with their German name, Ein Reichstahler, impressed on them. The Saxons, by dividing the word, Ein Reich stahl er, made a sentence of which the meaning is, “He stole a kingdom!”

A good one is—

If we take from the words, La Revolution Française, the word veto, known as the first prerogative of Louis XIV., the remaining letters will form “Un Corse la finira”—A Corsican shall end it, and this may be regarded as an extraordinary coincidence, if nothing more. Many anagrams were made upon the name of Napoleon by superstitious persons, as—

A very apt anagram is the one founded upon—Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, I find murdered by rogues.

Evil.

The following are very apposite—

[Pg 198]

THE ACROSTIC.

crostic is the Greek name given to a poem the first letters of the lines in which taken together form a complete word or sentence, but most frequently a name. The invention of this kind of composition cannot be traced to any particular individual, but it is believed to have originated on the decline of pure classic literature. The early French poets, from the time of Francis I. to that of Louis XIV., practised it, but it was carried to its greatest perfection by the Elizabethan poets. Sir John Davies has no fewer than twenty-six poems entitled “Hymns to Astræa,” every one of which is an acrostic on the words, “Elizabetha Regina.” Traces of something akin are to be found in the poetry of the Jews,—for example, the 119th Psalm,—and also in the Greek “Anthology.” Here it may be noted that in Greek the word Adam is compounded of the initial letters of the four cardinal points:

and that the Hebrew word, ADM forms the acrostic of A[dam], D[avid], M[essiah].

It is hardly necessary to give many specimens of this kind of literary composition in these days, since there are so many periodicals continually giving acrostics and relative verses, and a very few instances may suffice. The following old verses were originally written in a copy of Parkhurst’s poems presented by the author to Thomas Buttes, who himself wrote this acrostic on his own name:

A Song of Rejoysing for the Prosperous Reigne of our most Gratious Soveraigne Lady, Queene Elizabeth.

The next is from Planché’s “Songs and Poems:”

To Beatrice.

Mdlle. Rachel was the recipient of the most delicate compliment the acrostic has ever been employed to convey. A diadem was presented to her, so arranged that the initial of the name of each[Pg 202] stone was also the initial of one of her principal rôles, and in their order formed her name—

The following is an ingenious combination of acrostic and telestic combined:

Edgar A. Poe was the author of a complicated poem of this class, in which the first letter in the lady’s name is the first in the first line; the second, second in the second line; the third, third in the third line, and so on—

A Valentine.

(Frances Sargent Osgood.)

[Pg 204]

ALLITERATIVE AND ALPHABETIC VERSE.

here are some clever lines which illustrate this style on the Bunker Hill Monument celebration:

Prince Charles after Culloden.

An Animal Alphabet.

Of affected alliteration as used by modern poets, there is a very good imitation of Swinburne’s style in Bayard Taylor’s “Diversions of the Echo Club,”[9] where Galahad chants “in rare and rhythmic redundancy, the viciousness of virtue:”

The Lay of Macaroni.

The above reminds of the anecdote told of Mrs. Crawford, who is said to have written one line of her “Kathleen Mavourneen,” on purpose to confound the Cockney warblers, who would sing it—

and again, in Moore’s “Ballad Stanzas”:

Or—

In the number of “Society” for April 23, 1881, there appeared several excellent specimens of alliterative verse, in compliance with a competition instituted by that paper for certain prizes—the selected verses all begin with the letter b:

Mr. Swinburne, of whose style there has been given an imitation, is not the only poet who is prone to alliteration—in fact, all poets are given more or less to it, though not to the same extent. When used excessively it is as disagreeable as any other excess, yet its occasional use unquestionably adds to grace and style.

Pope says on this point in the following lines, which are also alliterative—