Chapter 7

Acrostics,198Ad Chloen, M.A.,105Addresses, the Rejected,15Ad Mortem,56Ad Professorem Linguæ Germanicæ,101“Alice in Wonderland,” verses from,42,43Alliterative verses from “Society,”210American Traveller, the,132Am Rhein,99Analytical, Ode to Davies’,159Angel in the House, the,239Animal Alphabet, an,206Anticipatory Dirge, an,146Arab and his Donkey, the,167Arundines Cami, the,129,130Ba, ba, Black Sheep,129Ballad of the Period, a,217Ballads, the Bon Gualtier,31Bandit’s Fate, the,30Barham, Mr., parody by,28;macaronic by,70Battle of Frogs and Mice, the,10Bayard Taylor, lines by,36Billet-Doux, a,166Biter Bit, the,40Blank Verse in Rhyme,248Boke of Colin Clout,62Bonaparte, anagram on,196,197Bon Gaultier Ballads, the,31Bore’s Head, Bringing in the,61Boxiana,177Boyle Godfrey, Epitaph on,150Breach of Promise, lines on a,156Bret Harte, verses by,38,154,162Brook, the, parody on,39Brooks, Shirley, lines by,30Brownrigg, Mrs., lines on,26Buckland, Professor, Dirge on,146Bunker Hill, alliterative lines on,204Burial of Sir John Moore, parodies on,27,28Burnand, F. C., parody by,46Burns, mosaic poem on,225Burton, Mrs., parody by,49Buttes, Thomas, acrostic by,199Byrom, Mr., hymn by,57;lines by,234Byron, parody on style of,21Calverly, Mr.,39,41Camden on Anagrams,188Canning and Frere,26Captain Smith and Pocahontas,113Carlyle, Thomas, anagram on,196Carmen ad Terry,96Carol, Christmas,61Carpette, Knyghte, ye,42Carroll, Lewis, parodies by,42,43,50;lines by,218Ce Meme Vieux Coon,94Centennial Exhibition, the, lines on,51Chain Verses,53Chanson without music,89Chinese English,122Clara Morchella Deliciosa, To,152Clock, the Musical,54Clubbis Noster,81Coincidences and Contrarieties,138Colin Clout, Boke of,62College macaronics,110,112Collins, Mortimer, lines by,33,34,105Comic Latin Grammar, lines from,73Concatenation Verse,53Contenti Abeamus,86Correspondents, To,238Cotton Mather,192Crabbe, parody on,16Crawford, Mrs.,209Cremation,47,48Cumulative Parodying,247Davies’ Analytical, Ode to,159Dean Swift,111Death of the Sea-Serpent,77De Leguleo,88“Detection,” Harsnett’s,62Dirge on Professor Buckland,146Disraeli, Benjamin,243Diversions of the Echo Club,36Doctor, Southey’s,190Druggist, Lament of an unfortunate,157Drury Lane, a tale of,22Drury Rev. H.,229Earth,251Echo Club, Diversions of the,36Echo and the Lover,230Echo on Woman, a Gentle,229Elessdè,250Elizabeth, Queen, acrostic on,200English Language, the,139Epitaph, macaronic,110Epitaph on Dr. Maginn,175Epode of Horace, the Second,67Eve’s Legend,220Evil, anagram on,197Evolution,168Fable for Critics, the,242Fair “Come-Outer,” the,106Fate of Nassan, the,223Felis-itous, Very,93Fireside Amusements, poem from,227Fonseca’s Guide to English,115Footman Joe,181Four Brothers, the,107Friend at Parting, to a,100Geddes, Dr.,59Gentle Echo on Woman,229“Gentle Shepherd,” the sign of the,109Geological Address, a,154Geological Madrigal, a,162Gilbert, W. S., lines by,218Goldsmith, parody on lines by,30Guide to English, a New,115Harte, Bret, verses by,38,154,162Hegemon of Thasos,10Henry Martin the Regicide,26Hey diddle diddle, new version of,127Holland, Lord,220Holmes, Dr., macaronic by,89Homœopathic Soup,165Hone’s Every-Day Book,60Hood, Thomas, parody by,27,29;verses by,248Horace, Second Epode of,67Household Words, lines from,216How the Daughters come down at Dunoon,45Hunting of the Snark,218Husband’s Complaint, the,164Hussey, Mrs. Margaret,174Hymn, by Mr. Byrom,57Ich bin Dein,85“If,” by Mortimer Collins,33Ignoramus, Scene from play of,63Inscription on Mrs. Brownrigg’s cell,26Jack and Jill,108;new version of,126Jack Horner, new version of,126Jeffrey, Lord,16Johnson, Dr.,112,171Kehama, parody on Southey’s,20Knox Ward,156Lady, To a,182Lament of an Unfortunate Druggist,157Lang, Dr.,131Lasphrise, M.,53Laureate’s Journey, the,31Lay of Macaroni, the,207Leguleo, De,88Leigh, Henry S.,31,46Leland, Mr. Charles G.,115,216.Lines by a Fond Lover,219Little Bo-peep,108;new rendering of,129Little Miss Muffit, new version of,127Little Red Riding Hood,83Love Story, an original,143Lowell, J. Russell,242Lydia Green,97Macaulay, travesty on,31;a letter of,239Maginn, Dr.,67;epitaph on,175Mahony, Rev. Francis,129Malum Opus,95Man and the Ascidian,161Mark Twain,112“Mary’s Little Lamb,” new versions of,127,128Microscopic Serenade,148Milman, lines from,235Milton, Parody on,11Moments, the Watch’s,235Monk, Duke of Albemarle,192Monosyllabic Song,249Moore, parodies on,21,22,45,46Morituri te Salutant,169Mosaic poems,224Musical Ass, the,176Musical Clock, the,54Mycological Serenade, a,152My Love,241Nahum Fay on the loss of his wife,179Native names,132New Versions of Nursery Rhymes,125-128Nursery Rhymes, new versions of,125-127Ode to Davies’ Analytical,159Ode to a Skylark, Shelley’s,212O’Keefe, Song by,66Only Seven,32Original Love Story,143Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, the,132Owed to my Creditors,142Palmer, Professor E. H., verses by,121,214Palmerston, Lord, anagram on,196Parterre, the,121Patmore, Mr. Coventry,239Pennell, H. C., parody by,44,45Philips, John,11Pidgin English,122Planché, Mr., songs by,50;acrostic by,201Pliocene Skull, to the,154Pocahontas and Captain Smith,113Poe, Edgar A., parodies on,36,38;acrostic by,202Polished Poem, a,245Polka, the,81Pome of a Possum,102Pony Lost,241Pope, alliterative lines by,211Prevalent Poetry,144Prince Charles after Culloden,205Printer, the,241Procuratores, lines on the,35Promissory Note, the,36Radenovitch, the,180Recipe for Salad, a,34Recognition, the,40Red Riding Hood, Little,83Rejected Addresses, the,15Rex Midas,70Rhyme for Musicians, a,135Rhymes, nursery, new versions of,125-128Robert Burns, mosaic poem on,225Roman Nose, the,170Rudiger, Andreas,191Ruggles’ Ignoramus,63Ruling Power, the,178St. George et his Dragon,79Salad, recipe for,34Scott, Sir Walter, parody on,22Sea-Serpent, the,76Serenade, microscopic,148Serenade, mycological,152Sermon, a Temperance,145“Serve-um-Right,”99Sheridan, Dr.,111;lines by,172,173Shipwreck, the,214Shootover Papers, the,35Skelton, poet-laureate,62,174Slidell and Mason,92Smith, Dr. Charles, epitaph by,149Smith, James and Horace,15Smith, Sydney,111Soliloquy in Hamlet, parodies on,46,47Solo, the,241Song from Garrick Collection,249Southey’s Kehama, parody on,20Spelling Reform,141Splendid Shilling, the,11Sun-dial, lines on a,237Surnames,136Swift, Dean,111Tale of Drury Lane, a,22Taylor, Bayard, lines by,36Teetotum, the,108Temperance Sermon, a,145Tennyson, parodies on,39,40That Thirty-four!52Theatre, the,16Thirty-Five,171Thompson, George, anagram on,195To a Friend at Parting,100To a Lady with a Watch,236Toast—a Sott,195Topside-Galow,123Treatise on Wine, a,73Truth, chain verse on,57“Truth,” parody from,51Twinkle, twinkle, little star, new versions of,125,131Unfortunate Druggist, lament of an,157Valentine, a,92Very Felis-itous,93Victor Hugo, lines by,112Viner, Sir Robert,193Visitors’ Books, lines from,109Watch-case verses,232“We met,” &c.,29Whalley, Peter, anagram on,194Wig and the Hat, the,95,183Wilson, John,193Wine, a Treatise on,73Wordsworth, parody on,32Yacht Alphabet, a,213“You are old, Father William,”43Yriarte, Tomaso de,177

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. Edinburgh and London.

EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF“LITERARY FRIVOLITIES, FANCIES, FOLLIES, AND FROLICS.”

(Uniform with the present volume, post 8vo, cloth limp, 2s. 6d.)

“This is a new volume of the popular Mayfair Library, and it well deserves its place. In such a book selection and arrangement are everything.... Mr. Dobson really knows what to choose and what to reject; he has also a feeling for good arrangement, and has made a most attractive volume.... For an odd half-hour or for a long journey we could hardly imagine anything better, and we trust the book may find the encouragement it so well deserves.”—British Quarterly Review.

“‘Literary Frivolities’ is an absolutely delightful companion for an unoccupied half-hour. It is a book which may with equal pleasure be read all through or dipped into at any point, and the collection of literary triflings it supplies is admirably ample.”—Gentleman’s Magazine.

“This is a pleasant and amusing little volume. It contains a great deal of curious information, and shows a very creditable amount of research.... We may end as we began, by commending ‘Literary Frivolities’ as a capital book of its sort.”—Athenæum.

“This latest volume of the bright little ‘Mayfair Library’ is an entertaining contribution to the literature of ‘inert hours,’ and will sufficiently initiate its readers into all the mysteries of bouts-rimés, palindromes, lipograms, centones and figurate poems.”—Notes and Queries.

“A more delightful little work it has seldom been our lot to take in hand. Mr. Dobson has made a study of all the eccentricities and frivolities which have from time to time been perpetrated by writers in prose and verse.... Mr. Dobson had gone into his work in a catholic spirit, and has done it with great neatness and ability. It would be difficult to commend the book too highly. It is a volume alike for holiday purposes, and for other purposes more serious in connection with literature.”—Scotsman.

“Mr. Dobson has done his work well.... The book is very interesting and entertaining, and has a still higher claim to our regard as a curious chapter in the history of literature.”—Examiner.

“Not a few of the pages will raise a hearty laugh, and this fact alone disposes us to regard the book with marked favour. A good index has not been forgotten, and the volume in all ways reflects high credit on its author.”—Brief.

“This is a queer collection of interesting nothings, a record of some of the literary playthings wherewith men have sought at one time and another to beguile the road towards the darkness. Here are quips and cranks, strange forms of prose and verse; monstrosities of rhythms. It is all very interesting, and shows a heavy amount of research on the part of the compiler.”—Vanity Fair.

“Great fun is shown in almost every page of ‘Literary Frivolities.’... The ‘Mayfair Library’ will do well if it gives us many books like Mr. Dobson’s.”—Graphic.

“It is quite certain that there have been thousands of not only intelligent, but grave and learned persons who have taken pride as well as pleasure in the accomplishment of such exploits, and that there are tens of thousands who will be greatly entertained, if not roused to emulation, by the pretty little volume consecrated to the commemoration and to illustrative samples of those exploits.... It is provided with an index, a very useful addition, and it is undoubtedly a bright, amusing, and not altogether uninstructive publication.”—Illustrated London News.

“Mr. Dobson deserves credit for the pains he has taken.”—Spectator.

“A miscellaneous and highly amusing collection of literary curiosities.”—Bookseller.

“An amusing volume.... An account of a great many of those curious puzzles and tasks in which the literary mind delights.”—Teacher.

“A collection, a most exhaustive one, of the vagaries indulged in from remote ages down to the present day by literary triflers.”—Whitehall Review.

“A very entertaining little book.... Exceedingly interesting, and may be heartily recommended.”—Nottingham Guardian.

“A capital little book.... A cheap and neat volume which no editor or printer should be without.”—Printing Times and Lithograther.

“One of the most quaintly amusing books we have seen for a long time.”—Edinburgh Evening Express.

“For a man or woman endowed with literary tastes, and who, for want of regular work to do, sometimes longs for new methods of ‘killing time,’ this collection of frivolities and oddities might prove a fruitful source of amusement. Its author is a scholarly and well-read man; and in preparing this book he must have put himself to an infinitude of pains.”—Edinburgh Daily Review.

“The little volume is pleasantly and learnedly written.”—One and All.

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W.

Footnotes:

[1]Two well-known alehouses in Oxford, about 1700.

[2]From the “Carols of Cockayne.”

[3]“‘What do you mean by the reference to Greeley?’

“‘I thought everybody had heard that Greeley’s only autograph of Poe was a signature to a promissory note for fifty dollars. He offers to sell it for half the money.’”—Diversions of the Echo Club.

[4]Macmillan & Co., London.

[5]See “Alice in Wonderland.”

[6]Reference may also be made here to a recent work, “The Heptalogia; or the Seven against Sense,” a book wholly devoted to parody, the merits of which could not be shown by extracts, but requires to be read at length to be properly estimated.

[7]“Ladles”—i.e., very spooney.

[8]Maginn died at Walton-on-Thames, 21st August 1842. He was one of the gayest, brightest, and wittiest of those reckless litterateurs who half a century ago worshipped with equal devotion at the shrines of Apollo and Bacchus.

[9]Chatto and Windus, London.

[10]Macmillan & Co., London.

[11]London: Chatto & Windus.


Back to IndexNext