“Men were never perfect; yet the three brethren Veres were ever esteemed, respected, revered, even when the rest, whether the select few, whether the mere herd, were left neglected.“The eldest’s vessels seek the deep, stem the element, get pence; the keen Peter when free, wedded Hester Green,—the slender, stern, severe, erect Hester Green. The next, clever Ned, less dependent, wedded sweet Ellen Heber. Stephen, ere he met the gentle Eve, never felt tenderness: he kept kennels, bred steeds, rested where the deer fed, went where green trees, where fresh breezes greeted sleep. There he met the meek, the gentle Eve; she tended her sheep, she ever neglected self; she never heeded pelf, yet she heeded the shepherds even less. Nevertheless, her cheek reddened when she met Stephen; yet decent reserve, meek respect, tempered her speech, even when she showed tenderness. Stephen felt the sweet effect: he felt he erred when he fled the sex, yet felt he defenceless when Eve seemed tender. She, he reflects, never deserved neglect; she never vented spleen; he esteems her gentleness, her endless deserts; he reverences her steps; he greets her:“Tell me whence these meek, these gentle sheep,—whence the yet meeker, the gentler shepherdess?â€â€œâ€˜Well bred, we were eke better fed, ere we went where reckless men seek fleeces. There we were fleeced. Need then rendered me shepherdess, need renders me sempstress. See me tend the sheep, see me sew the wretched shreds. Eve’s need preserves the steers, preserves the sheep; Eve’s needle mends her dresses, hems her sheets; Eve feeds the geese; Eve preserves the cheese.’“Her speech melted Stephen, yet he nevertheless esteems, reveres her. He bent the knee where her feetpressed the green; he blessed, he begged, he pressed her.“‘Sweet, sweet Eve, let me wed thee; be led where Hester Green, where Ellen Heber, where the brethren Vere dwell. Free cheer greets thee there; Ellen’s glees sweeten the refreshments; there severer Hester’s decent reserve checks heedless jests. Be led there, sweet Eve.’“‘Never! we well remember the Seer. We went where he dwells—we entered the cell—we begged the decree,—“‘Where, whenever, when, ’twere wellEve be wedded? Eld Seer, tell!“‘He rendered the decree; see here the sentence decreed!’ Then she presented Stephen the Seer’s decree. The verses were these:“‘Ere the green be red,Sweet Eve, be never wed;Ere be green the red cheek,Never wed thee, Eve meek.’“The terms perplexed Stephen, yet he jeered them. He resented the senseless credence, ‘Seers never err.’ Then he repented, knelt, wheedled, wept. Eve sees Stephen kneel, she relents, yet frets when she remembers the Seer’s decree. Her dress redeems her. These were the events:“Her well-kempt tresses fell: sedges, reeds beckoned them. The reeds fell, the edges met her cheeks; her cheeks bled. She presses the green sedge where her cheek bleeds. Red then bedewed the green reed, the green reed then speckled her red cheek. The red cheekseems green, the green reed seems red. These were the terms the Eld Seer decreed Stephen Vere.HERE ENDETH THE LEGEND.â€
“Men were never perfect; yet the three brethren Veres were ever esteemed, respected, revered, even when the rest, whether the select few, whether the mere herd, were left neglected.
“The eldest’s vessels seek the deep, stem the element, get pence; the keen Peter when free, wedded Hester Green,—the slender, stern, severe, erect Hester Green. The next, clever Ned, less dependent, wedded sweet Ellen Heber. Stephen, ere he met the gentle Eve, never felt tenderness: he kept kennels, bred steeds, rested where the deer fed, went where green trees, where fresh breezes greeted sleep. There he met the meek, the gentle Eve; she tended her sheep, she ever neglected self; she never heeded pelf, yet she heeded the shepherds even less. Nevertheless, her cheek reddened when she met Stephen; yet decent reserve, meek respect, tempered her speech, even when she showed tenderness. Stephen felt the sweet effect: he felt he erred when he fled the sex, yet felt he defenceless when Eve seemed tender. She, he reflects, never deserved neglect; she never vented spleen; he esteems her gentleness, her endless deserts; he reverences her steps; he greets her:
“Tell me whence these meek, these gentle sheep,—whence the yet meeker, the gentler shepherdess?â€
“‘Well bred, we were eke better fed, ere we went where reckless men seek fleeces. There we were fleeced. Need then rendered me shepherdess, need renders me sempstress. See me tend the sheep, see me sew the wretched shreds. Eve’s need preserves the steers, preserves the sheep; Eve’s needle mends her dresses, hems her sheets; Eve feeds the geese; Eve preserves the cheese.’
“Her speech melted Stephen, yet he nevertheless esteems, reveres her. He bent the knee where her feetpressed the green; he blessed, he begged, he pressed her.
“‘Sweet, sweet Eve, let me wed thee; be led where Hester Green, where Ellen Heber, where the brethren Vere dwell. Free cheer greets thee there; Ellen’s glees sweeten the refreshments; there severer Hester’s decent reserve checks heedless jests. Be led there, sweet Eve.’
“‘Never! we well remember the Seer. We went where he dwells—we entered the cell—we begged the decree,—
“‘He rendered the decree; see here the sentence decreed!’ Then she presented Stephen the Seer’s decree. The verses were these:
“The terms perplexed Stephen, yet he jeered them. He resented the senseless credence, ‘Seers never err.’ Then he repented, knelt, wheedled, wept. Eve sees Stephen kneel, she relents, yet frets when she remembers the Seer’s decree. Her dress redeems her. These were the events:
“Her well-kempt tresses fell: sedges, reeds beckoned them. The reeds fell, the edges met her cheeks; her cheeks bled. She presses the green sedge where her cheek bleeds. Red then bedewed the green reed, the green reed then speckled her red cheek. The red cheekseems green, the green reed seems red. These were the terms the Eld Seer decreed Stephen Vere.
HERE ENDETH THE LEGEND.â€
The following curious lines run in quite an opposite way to the preceding, for each verse has been written so as to include every letter in the alphabet but the vowele:
The Fate of Nassan.
Here follows a fugitive verse, written witheasewithoute’s:
Of this formerly favourite amusement of the learned we give several examples, only noting here that the word “Cento†primarily signified a cloak made of patches.
1. Powell; 2. Hood; 3. Wordsworth; 4. Eastman; 5. Coleridge; 6. Longfellow; 7. Stoddard; 8. Tennyson; 9. Tennyson; 10. Alice Cary; 11. Coleridge; 12. Alice Cary; 13. Campbell; 14. Bayard Taylor; 15. Osgood; 16. T. S. Perry; 17. Hood; 18. Hoyt; 19. Edwards; 20. Cornwall; 21. Patmore; 22. Bayard Taylor; 23. Tennyson; 24. Read; 25. Browning; 26. Smith; 27. Coleridge; 28. Wordsworth; 29. Coleridge; 30. Hervey; 31. Wordsworth; 32. Osgood.
The next appeared a short time ago in one of the Edinburgh newspapers, signed R. Fleming, and is a mosaic compilation from poems written to the memory of Robert Burns:
1. Bennoch; 2. Campbell; 3. Imlach; 4. Gray; 5. Glen; 6. Paul; 7. M’Laggan; 8. Tannahill; 9. Glen; 10. Allan; 11. Gilfillan; 12. Park; 13. Wallace; 14. Roscoe; 15. Vedder; 16. Wordsworth; 17. Reid; 18. Glass; 19. Paul; 20. Halleck; 21. Macindoe; 22. Ainslie; 23. Halleck; 24. Kelly; 25. Gray; 26. Mercer; 27. Vedder; 28. Imlach; 29. Montgomery; 30. Gray; 31. Rushton; 32. Gilfillan.
The three following verses are very good:
1. Moore; 2. Morris; 3. Norton; 4. Milton; 5. Percival; 6. M’Naughton; 7. Rogers; 8. Patmore; 9. Scott; 10. Pope; 11. Procter; 12. Byron.
The following is copied from “Fireside Amusements,†published by the Messrs. Chambers, every line being taken from a different poet:
A Gentle Echo on Woman.
(IN THE DORIC MANNER.)
Echo and the Lover.
The latest good verses of this class are attributed to an echo that haunts the Sultan’s palace at Constantinople. Abdul Hamid is supposed to question it as to the intentions of the European powers and his own resources:
When thick watches with removable cases were in fashion, and before the introduction of the present compact form, the outer case of the old-fashioned “turnip†was frequently the repository of verses and sundry devices, generally placed there by the watchmaker. Others, again, consisted of the maker’s name and address, with some appropriate maxim, and were printed on satin or worked with the needle, and occasionally so devised as to appear in a circle without a break, as in the following:
A watch-paper described by a writer in “Notes and Queries†gave the address of Bowen, 2 Tichborne Street, Piccadilly, on a pedestal surmounted by an urn. On the other side of the label was a winged figure, holding in one hand a watch at arm’s length, and in the other a book. At her feet lay a sickle and a serpent with his tail in his mouth—the emblems of Time and Eternity. Round the circumference of the label were these lines—
The bottom of the case was lined with rose-coloured satin, on which was a device in lace-paper—the central portion representing two hearts transfixed by arrows, and surmounted by a dove holding a wreath in its bill. A circular band enclosed the device, and bore the motto—
The lines next given are by Mr. J. Byrom, common called Dr. Byrom, whom we have previously referred to:
The last lines of this watch-paper have been occasionally varied to—
A watchmaker named Adams, who practised his craft many years ago in Church Street, Hackney, was fond of putting scraps of poetry in the outer case of watches sent him for repair. One of his effusions follow:
Another old engraved specimen contained this verse:
The following lines by Pope, occurring in his Epistle to the Earl of Oxford, have been used in this way:
Milman’s poems have furnished a verse for this purpose:
Various other examples of watch-case verses follow:
The Watch’s Moments.
To a Lady with the Present of a Watch.
The following lines have a sand-glass engraved between the first four and the last four lines:
On a sun-dial the following verse has been found engraved:
This was found under an hour-glass in a grotto near water:
Several pages of this kind appeared at the end of an early volume of “Cornhill Magazine,†of which this is the beginning:
To Correspondents.“’Tis in the middle of the night; and as with weary hand we write, ‘Here endeth C. M. volume seven,’ we turn our grateful eyes to heaven. The fainting soul, oppressèd long, expands and blossoms into song; but why ’twere difficult to state, for here commenceth volume eight.“And ah! what mischiefs him environ who claps the editorial tiar on! ’Tis but a paper thing, no doubt; but those who don it soon find out the weight of lead—ah me, how weary!—one little foolscap sheet may carry. Pleasing, we hear, to gods and man was Mr. William Gladstone when he calmed the paper duty fuss; but oh, ’twas very hard on Us. Before he took the impost off, one gentleman was found enough (hewasHerculean, but still!—) to bear the letters from Cornhill: two men are needed now, and these are clearly going at the knees. Yet happy hearts had we to-day if one in fifteen hundred, say, of all the packets, white and blue, which we diurnally go through, yielded an ounce of sterling brains, or ought but headache for our pains. Ah, could the Correspondent see the Editor in his misery, no more injurious ink he’d shed, but tears of sympathy instead.What is this tale of straws and bricks? A hen with fifty thousand chicks clapt in Sahara’s sandy plain to peck the wilderness for grain—in that unhappy fowl is seen the despot of a magazine. Only one difference we find; but that is most important, mind. Instinct compelsherpatient beak; ours—in all modesty we speak—is kept byConscience(sternly chaste) pegging the literary waste. Our barns are stored, our garners—well, the stock in them’s considerable; yet when we’re to the desert brought, again comes back the welcome thought that somewhere in its depths may hide one little seed, which, multiplied in our half-acre on Cornhill, might all the land with gladness fill. Experience then no more we heed; but, though we seldom find the seed, we read, and read, and read, and read.†&c. &c.
To Correspondents.
“’Tis in the middle of the night; and as with weary hand we write, ‘Here endeth C. M. volume seven,’ we turn our grateful eyes to heaven. The fainting soul, oppressèd long, expands and blossoms into song; but why ’twere difficult to state, for here commenceth volume eight.
“And ah! what mischiefs him environ who claps the editorial tiar on! ’Tis but a paper thing, no doubt; but those who don it soon find out the weight of lead—ah me, how weary!—one little foolscap sheet may carry. Pleasing, we hear, to gods and man was Mr. William Gladstone when he calmed the paper duty fuss; but oh, ’twas very hard on Us. Before he took the impost off, one gentleman was found enough (hewasHerculean, but still!—) to bear the letters from Cornhill: two men are needed now, and these are clearly going at the knees. Yet happy hearts had we to-day if one in fifteen hundred, say, of all the packets, white and blue, which we diurnally go through, yielded an ounce of sterling brains, or ought but headache for our pains. Ah, could the Correspondent see the Editor in his misery, no more injurious ink he’d shed, but tears of sympathy instead.What is this tale of straws and bricks? A hen with fifty thousand chicks clapt in Sahara’s sandy plain to peck the wilderness for grain—in that unhappy fowl is seen the despot of a magazine. Only one difference we find; but that is most important, mind. Instinct compelsherpatient beak; ours—in all modesty we speak—is kept byConscience(sternly chaste) pegging the literary waste. Our barns are stored, our garners—well, the stock in them’s considerable; yet when we’re to the desert brought, again comes back the welcome thought that somewhere in its depths may hide one little seed, which, multiplied in our half-acre on Cornhill, might all the land with gladness fill. Experience then no more we heed; but, though we seldom find the seed, we read, and read, and read, and read.†&c. &c.
This is also an instance of this hidden verse in the beginning of one of Macaulay’s letters to his sister Hannah:
“My Darling,—Why am I such a fool as to write to a gipsy at Liverpool, who fancies that none is so good as she if she sends one letter for my three? A lazy chit, whose fingers tire in penning a page in reply to a quire! There, miss, you read all the first sentence of my epistle, and never knew that you were reading verse.â€
“My Darling,—Why am I such a fool as to write to a gipsy at Liverpool, who fancies that none is so good as she if she sends one letter for my three? A lazy chit, whose fingers tire in penning a page in reply to a quire! There, miss, you read all the first sentence of my epistle, and never knew that you were reading verse.â€
When Mr. Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House†was first published, the “Athenæum†furnished the following unique criticism:
“The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in the House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another ‘In Memoriam.’ How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we quiz The poet’s record of his she, Some little pictures you shall see, Not in our language but in his:‘While thus I grieved and kissed her glove,My man brought in her note to sayPapa had bid her send his love,And hoped I dine with them next day;They had learned and practised Purcell’s glee,To sing it by to-morrow night:The postscript was—her sisters and sheInclosed some violets blue and white.······‘Restless and sick of long exile,From those sweet friends I rode, to seeThe church repairs, and after a whileWaylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.They introduced the Cousin FredI’d heard of, Honor’s favourite; grave,Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,And with an air of the salt wave.’Fear not this saline Cousin Fred; He gives no tragic mischief birth; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless they may be tears of mirth. From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest will come another day, If publicsympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the ‘Angel in the House.’â€
“The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in the House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another ‘In Memoriam.’ How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we quiz The poet’s record of his she, Some little pictures you shall see, Not in our language but in his:
Fear not this saline Cousin Fred; He gives no tragic mischief birth; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless they may be tears of mirth. From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest will come another day, If publicsympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the ‘Angel in the House.’â€
The Printer.“The printer-man had just set up a ‘stickful’ of brevier, filled with italic, fractions, signs, and other things most queer; the type he lifted from the stick, nor dreamt of coming woes, when lo! a wretched wasp thought fit to sting him on the nose: the printer-man the type let fall, as quick as quick could be, and gently murmured a naughty word beginning with a D.â€
The Printer.
“The printer-man had just set up a ‘stickful’ of brevier, filled with italic, fractions, signs, and other things most queer; the type he lifted from the stick, nor dreamt of coming woes, when lo! a wretched wasp thought fit to sting him on the nose: the printer-man the type let fall, as quick as quick could be, and gently murmured a naughty word beginning with a D.â€
My Love.“I seen her out a-walking in her habit de la rue, and it ain’t no use a-talking, but she’s pumpkins and a few. She glides along in glory like a duck upon a lake, and I’d be all love and duty, if I only were her drake!â€
My Love.
“I seen her out a-walking in her habit de la rue, and it ain’t no use a-talking, but she’s pumpkins and a few. She glides along in glory like a duck upon a lake, and I’d be all love and duty, if I only were her drake!â€
The Solo.“He drew his breath with a gasping sob, with a quivering voice he sang, but his voice leaked out and could not drown the accompanist’s clamorous bang. He lost his pitch on the middle A, he faltered on the lower D, and foundered at length like a battered wreck adrift on the wild high C.â€
The Solo.
“He drew his breath with a gasping sob, with a quivering voice he sang, but his voice leaked out and could not drown the accompanist’s clamorous bang. He lost his pitch on the middle A, he faltered on the lower D, and foundered at length like a battered wreck adrift on the wild high C.â€
Pony Lost.On Feb. 21st, 1822, this devil bade me adieu.“Lost, stolen, or astray, not the least doubt but run away, a mare pony that is all bay,—if I judge pretty nigh, it is about eleven hands high; full tail and mane, a pretty head and frame; cut on both shoulders by the collar, not being soft nor hollow; it is about five years old, which may be easily told; for spirit and for speed, the devil cannot her exceed.â€
Pony Lost.
On Feb. 21st, 1822, this devil bade me adieu.
“Lost, stolen, or astray, not the least doubt but run away, a mare pony that is all bay,—if I judge pretty nigh, it is about eleven hands high; full tail and mane, a pretty head and frame; cut on both shoulders by the collar, not being soft nor hollow; it is about five years old, which may be easily told; for spirit and for speed, the devil cannot her exceed.â€
An excellent specimen of this kind of literary work is to be found in J. Russell Lowell’s “Fable for Critics,†of which the title-page and preface are written in this fashion, and there is here given an extract from the latter:
“Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as that goes) in a style that is neither good verse nor bad prose, and being a person whom nobody knows, some people will say I am rather more free with my readers than it is becoming to be, that I seem to expect them to wait on my leisure in following wherever I wander at pleasure,—that, in short, I take more than a young author’s lawful ease, and laugh in a queer way so like Mephistopheles, that the public will doubt, as they grope through my rhythm, if in truth I am making funatthem orwiththem.“So the excellent Public is hereby assured that the sale of my book is already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land, but will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there are something like ten thousand bards in the nation, of that special variety whom the Review and Magazine critics callloftyandtrue, and about thirty thousand (thistribe is increasing) of the kinds who are termedfull of promiseandpleasing. The public will see by a glance at this schedule, that they cannot expect me to be over-sedulous about courtingthem, since it seems I have got enough fuel made sure of for boiling my pot.“As for such of our poets as find not their names mentioned once in my pages, with praises or blames, let them send in their cards, without further delay, to my friend G. P. Putnam, Esquire, in Broadway, where a list will be kept with the strictest regard to the day and the hour of receiving the card. Then, taking them up as I chance to have time (that is, if their names can be twisted in rhyme), I will honestly give each his proper position, at the rate of one author to each new edition. Thus, a premium is offered sufficiently high (as the Magazines say when they tell their best lie) to induce bards to club their resources and buy the balance of every edition, until they have all of them fairly been run through the mill.†&c. &c.
“Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as that goes) in a style that is neither good verse nor bad prose, and being a person whom nobody knows, some people will say I am rather more free with my readers than it is becoming to be, that I seem to expect them to wait on my leisure in following wherever I wander at pleasure,—that, in short, I take more than a young author’s lawful ease, and laugh in a queer way so like Mephistopheles, that the public will doubt, as they grope through my rhythm, if in truth I am making funatthem orwiththem.
“So the excellent Public is hereby assured that the sale of my book is already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land, but will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there are something like ten thousand bards in the nation, of that special variety whom the Review and Magazine critics callloftyandtrue, and about thirty thousand (thistribe is increasing) of the kinds who are termedfull of promiseandpleasing. The public will see by a glance at this schedule, that they cannot expect me to be over-sedulous about courtingthem, since it seems I have got enough fuel made sure of for boiling my pot.
“As for such of our poets as find not their names mentioned once in my pages, with praises or blames, let them send in their cards, without further delay, to my friend G. P. Putnam, Esquire, in Broadway, where a list will be kept with the strictest regard to the day and the hour of receiving the card. Then, taking them up as I chance to have time (that is, if their names can be twisted in rhyme), I will honestly give each his proper position, at the rate of one author to each new edition. Thus, a premium is offered sufficiently high (as the Magazines say when they tell their best lie) to induce bards to club their resources and buy the balance of every edition, until they have all of them fairly been run through the mill.†&c. &c.
That which is considered, however, one of the best of Prose Poems is the following, which appeared originally inFraser’s Magazine, and will also be found in Maclise and Maginn’s “Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters,â€[11]being part of the introductory portion of a notice of the late Earl of Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli, and known at the time as an aspirant to literary and political fame:
“O Reader dear! do pray look here, and you will spy the curly hair, and forehead fair, and nose so high, and gleaming eye, of Benjamin D’Is-ra-e-li, the wondrous boy who wroteAlroyin rhyme and prose, only to show how long ago victorious Judah’s lion-banner rose. In an earlier day he wroteVivian Grey—a smartenough story, we must say, until he took his hero abroad, and trundled him over the German road; and taught him there not to drink beer, and swallow schnapps, and pull mädschen’s caps, and smoke the cigar and the meersham true, in alehouse and lusthaus all Fatherland through, until all was blue, but talk secondhand that which, at the first, was never many degrees from the worst,—namely, German cant and High Dutch sentimentality, maudlin metaphysics, and rubbishing reality. But those who would find how Vivian wined with the Marchioness of Puddledock, and other great grandees of the kind, and how he talked æsthetic, and waxed eloquent and pathetic, and kissed his Italian puppies of the greyhound breed, they have only to read—if the work be still alive—Vivian Grey, in volumes five.“As for his tentative upon theRepresentative, which he and John Murray got up in a very great hurry, we shall say nothing at all, either great or small; and all the wars that thence ensued, and the Moravian’s deadly feud; nor much of that fine book, which is called ‘the Young Duke,’ with his slippers of velvet blue, with clasps of snowy-white hue, made out of the pearl’s mother, or some equally fine thing or other; and ‘Fleming’ (Contarini), which will cost ye but a guinea; and ‘Gallomania’ (get through it, can you?) in which he made war on (assisted by a whiskered baron—his name was Von Haber, whose Germanical jabber, Master Ben, with ready pen, put into English smart and jinglish), King Philippe and his court; and many other great works of the same sort—why, we leave them to the reader to peruse; that is to say, if he should choose.“He lately stood for Wycombe, but there ColonelGrey did lick him, he being parcel Tory and parcel Radical—which is what in general mad we call; and the latest affair of his we chanced to see, is ‘What is he?’ a question which, by this time, we have somewhat answered in this our pedestrian rhyme. As for the rest,—but writing rhyme is, after all, a pest; and thereforeâ€â€”—
“O Reader dear! do pray look here, and you will spy the curly hair, and forehead fair, and nose so high, and gleaming eye, of Benjamin D’Is-ra-e-li, the wondrous boy who wroteAlroyin rhyme and prose, only to show how long ago victorious Judah’s lion-banner rose. In an earlier day he wroteVivian Grey—a smartenough story, we must say, until he took his hero abroad, and trundled him over the German road; and taught him there not to drink beer, and swallow schnapps, and pull mädschen’s caps, and smoke the cigar and the meersham true, in alehouse and lusthaus all Fatherland through, until all was blue, but talk secondhand that which, at the first, was never many degrees from the worst,—namely, German cant and High Dutch sentimentality, maudlin metaphysics, and rubbishing reality. But those who would find how Vivian wined with the Marchioness of Puddledock, and other great grandees of the kind, and how he talked æsthetic, and waxed eloquent and pathetic, and kissed his Italian puppies of the greyhound breed, they have only to read—if the work be still alive—Vivian Grey, in volumes five.
“As for his tentative upon theRepresentative, which he and John Murray got up in a very great hurry, we shall say nothing at all, either great or small; and all the wars that thence ensued, and the Moravian’s deadly feud; nor much of that fine book, which is called ‘the Young Duke,’ with his slippers of velvet blue, with clasps of snowy-white hue, made out of the pearl’s mother, or some equally fine thing or other; and ‘Fleming’ (Contarini), which will cost ye but a guinea; and ‘Gallomania’ (get through it, can you?) in which he made war on (assisted by a whiskered baron—his name was Von Haber, whose Germanical jabber, Master Ben, with ready pen, put into English smart and jinglish), King Philippe and his court; and many other great works of the same sort—why, we leave them to the reader to peruse; that is to say, if he should choose.
“He lately stood for Wycombe, but there ColonelGrey did lick him, he being parcel Tory and parcel Radical—which is what in general mad we call; and the latest affair of his we chanced to see, is ‘What is he?’ a question which, by this time, we have somewhat answered in this our pedestrian rhyme. As for the rest,—but writing rhyme is, after all, a pest; and thereforeâ€â€”—
Some years agoPunchgave “revised versions†of a few of the old popular songs, and, referring to the one we have chosen as a specimen, says that “its simplicity, its truthfulness, and, above all, its high moral, have recommended it to him for selection. It is well known to the million—of whose singing, indeed, it forms a part. Perhaps it will be recognised; perhaps not.â€
A Polished Poem.
Cumulative Parodying.
Blank Verse in Rhyme.
(A NOCTURNAL SKETCH.)
The following excellent specimen of mono-syllabic verse comes from an old play in the Garrick Collection:
Song.
Elessdé.
Earth.
INDEX.