PREFATORY NOTE
The object of this compilation is to provide a corpus of representative parodies and imitations of a century, beginning withRejected Addresses(1812), which practically marked the birth of modern parody, and are here printed in their entirety. Prose parodies, excepting those inRejected Addresses, have been excluded; the derivation of the word 'parody' may be referred to in justification. Emerson wrote in his 'Fable'
'——all sorts of things and weatherMust be taken in togetherTo make up a yearAnd a sphere;
'——all sorts of things and weatherMust be taken in togetherTo make up a yearAnd a sphere;
'——all sorts of things and weatherMust be taken in togetherTo make up a yearAnd a sphere;
'——all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year
And a sphere;
so in this volume will be found all forms of imitations from, in Mr. Owen Seaman's words, 'the lowest, a mere verbal echo, to the highest, where it becomes a department of pure criticism.'
It is quite unnecessary to add to the published mass of writing, wise and foolish, on the art and ethics of parody. Some of the pieces in this book are included chiefly because they have an historical place in the development of parody to its present high standard of execution and good taste.
Isaac D'Israeli asserted that 'unless the prototype is familiar to us a parody is nothing.' As a matter of fact some of the best work is that of which the originals have been forgotten long since; although, of course, when the poets and the poems imitated are familiar the art of the imitator can be better appreciated.
The word 'century' has been interpreted with some licence. The work of living parodists does not fallwithin the scope of this collection, and it is a real self-denying ordinance which forbids the inclusion of triumphs by Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr. Owen Seaman, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Mr. Barry Pain, the Rev. Anthony Deane, and others who, in their undergraduate days, enlivened the periodicals of Oxford and Cambridge, or to-day show their dexterity in the pages ofPunch. By way of recompense, the volume contains parodies by some, still living in 1812, whose work was published beforeRejected Addresses. The parodies which follow therefore range from George Ellis, who was born in 1753, to Andrew Lang, who died in 1912. Very sparing use has been made of anonymous work, and in this connexion it may be well to explain that 'Adolphus Smalls of Boniface' is ruled out, because, although published anonymously, it is known to be the joint composition in their Balliol days of Dr. W. W. Merry, the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Alfred Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of Colchester.
With regard toRejected Addresses, the publication of which may be said to have revived and established the art of parody, the genesis of the work is sufficiently explained in the authors' prefaces and notes. There were parodists before the Brothers Smith, yet their topical little volume has a lasting value, not only because of its inherent excellence, but also because it struck the note which the best later exponents of the art have followed. Published in the autumn of 1812, the book reached its fifteenth edition within two years, and its success led to the publication of a volume of certain of theAddressesthat had really been sent to Drury Lane for competition. The one hundred and fifteen such Addresses which were actually submitted are, with one or two exceptions, preserved in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum.
The compilers' best thanks are due to those whohave kindly allowed the use of copyright parodies or imitations—namely, to the following: Sir Herbert Stephen (and Messrs. Bowes and Bowes) for parodies by his brother J. K. Stephen; Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton and Messrs. Chatto and Windus for Swinburne's parodies; Mr. W. M. Rossetti and Messrs. Ellis for those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Messrs. G. Bell and Sons for the copyright pieces by C. S. Calverley inFly-Leaves; Messrs. Blackwood and Sons for Sir Theodore Martin's 'Lay of the Lovelorn' and H. D. Traill's parodies; Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and Co. for R. F. Murray's 'Tennysonian Fragment' fromPunch; Messrs. Burns and Oates for Francis Thompson's imitation of Omar Khayyam; Messrs. Chatto and Windus, and, for the American rights, the Houghton, Mifflin Company, for the parodies by Bret Harte and Bayard Taylor; the Editor of theJournal of Educationfor 'A Girtonian Funeral' by an unknown author, presumably deceased; Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. for the parodies by Andrew Lang; Messrs. J. MacLehose and Sons for the additional pieces by R. F. Murray; Messrs. Metcalfe and Co. for A. G. Hilton's parodies; Messrs. Pickering and Chatto for Miss Fanshawe's pieces; and Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for the variations by H. C. Bunner on the familiar theme of 'Home, Sweet Home.' The sources of the copyright work are given in the notes at the end of the volume. The footnotes are those of the writers of the parodies.
WALTER JERROLD.
R. M. LEONARD.