Chapter XVIII: Preface: To the First Edition

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On the 14th of August, 1812, the following advertisement appeared in most of the daily papers:--

'_Rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre._

'The Committee are desirous of promoting a free and fair
competition for an Address to be spoken upon the opening of
the Theatre, which will take place on the 10th of October
next. They have, therefore, thought fit to announce to
the public, that they will be glad to receive any such
compositions, addressed to their Secretary, at the Treasury
Office, in Drury Lane, on or before the 10th of September,
sealed up; with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on
the cover, corresponding with the inscription on a separate
sealed paper, containing the name of the author, which will
not be opened unless containing the name of the successful
candidate.'

Upon the propriety of this plan, men's minds were, as they
usually are upon matters of moment, much divided. Some thought
it a fair promise of the future intention of the Committee to
abolish that phalanx of authors who usurp the stage, to the
exclusion of a large assortment of dramatic talent blushing
unseen in the background; while others contended, that the
scheme would prevent men of real eminence from descending into
an amphitheatre in which all Grub Street (that is to say, all
London and Westminster) would be arrayed against them. The
event has proved both parties to be in a degree right, and in
a degree wrong. One hundred and twelve 'Addresses' have been
sent in, each sealed and signed, and mottoed, 'as per order,'
some written by men of great, some by men of little, and some
by men of no, talent.

Many of the public prints have censured the taste of the
Committee, in thus contracting for 'Addresses,' as they would
for nails--by the gross; but it is surprising that none should
have censured their _temerity_. One hundred and eleven of the
'Addresses' must, of course, be unsuccessful: to each of the
authors, thus infallibly classed with the _genus irritabile_,
it would be very hard to deny six staunch friends, who
consider his the best of all possible 'Addresses,' and
whose tongues will be as ready to laud him, as to hiss his
adversary. These, with the potent aid of the Bard himself,
make seven foes per Address; and thus will be created seven
hundred and seventy-seven implacable auditors, prepared to
condemn the strains of Apollo himself--a band of adversaries
which no prudent manager would think of exasperating.

But, leaving the Committee to encounter the responsibility
they have incurred, the public have at least to thank them
for ascertaining and establishing one point, which might
otherwise have admitted of controversy. When it is considered
that many amateur writers have been discouraged from becoming
competitors, and that few, if any, of the professional authors
can afford to write for nothing, and, of course, have not
been candidates for the honorary prize at Drury Lane, we may
confidently pronounce that, as far as regards NUMBER,
the present is undoubtedly the Augustan age of English
poetry. Whether or not this distinction will be extended to
the QUALITY of its productions, must be decided at
the tribunal of posterity; though the natural anxiety of our
authors on this score ought to be considerably diminished when
they reflect how few will, in all probability, be had up for
judgement.

It is not necessary for the Editor to mention the manner
in which he became possessed of this 'fair sample of the
present state of poetry in Great Britain.' It was his first
intention to publish the whole; but a little reflection
convinced him that, by so doing, he might depress the good,
without elevating the bad. He has therefore culled what had
the appearance of flowers, from what possessed the reality
of weeds, and is extremely sorry that, in so doing, he has
diminished his collection to twenty-one. Those which he has
rejected may possibly make their appearance in a separate
volume, or they may be admitted as volunteers in the files
of some of the Newspapers; or, at all events, they are sure
of being received among the awkward squad of the Magazines.
In general, they bear a close resemblance to each other;
thirty of them contain extravagant compliments to the immortal
Wellington and the indefatigable Whitbread; and, as the
last-mentioned gentleman is said to dislike praise in the
exact proportion in which he deserves it, these laudatory
writers may have been only building a wall against which they
might run their own heads.

The Editor here begs leave to advance a few words in behalf
of that useful and much abused bird the Phœnix; and in
so doing he is biased by no partiality, as he assures the
reader he not only never saw one, but (_mirabile dictu!_)
never caged one in a simile in the whole course of his life.
Not less than sixty-nine of the competitors have invoked the
aid of this native of Arabia; but as, from their manner of
using him after they had caught him, he does not by any means
appear to have been a native of _Arabia Felix_, the Editor has
left the proprietors to treat with Mr. Polito, and refused
to receive this _rara avis_, or black swan, into the present
collection. One exception occurs, in which the admirable
treatment of this feathered incombustible, entitles the author
to great praise; that address has been preserved, and was
thought worthy of taking the lead.

Perhaps the reason why several of the subjoined productions
of the MUSÆ LONDINENSES have failed of selection,
may be discovered in their being penned in a metre unusual
upon occasions of this sort, and in their not being written
with that attention to stage effect, the want of which, like
want of manners in the concerns of life, is more prejudicial
than a deficiency of talent. There is an art of writing for
the Theatre, technically called _touch and go_, which is
indispensable when we consider the small quantum of patience
which so motley an assemblage as a London audience can be
expected to afford. All the contributors have been very exact
in sending their initials and mottoes. Those belonging to the
present collection have been carefully preserved, and each
has been affixed to its respective poem. The letters that
accompanied the Addresses having been honourably destroyed
unopened, it is impossible to state the real authors with
any certainty; but the ingenious reader, after comparing the
initials with the motto, and both with the poem will form his
own conclusions.

We do not anticipate any disapprobation from thus giving
publicity to a small portion of the _Rejected Addresses_; for
unless we are widely mistaken in assigning the respective
authors, the fame of each Individual is established on much
too firm a basis to be shaken by so trifling and evanescent a
publication as the present:

----neque ego illi detrahere ausim
Hærentem capiti multa cum laude coronam.

Of the numerous pieces already sent to the Committee for
performance, we have only availed ourselves of three vocal
Travesties, which we have selected, not for their merit,
but simply for their brevity. Above one hundred spectacles,
melodramas, operas, and pantomimes have been transmitted,
besides the two first acts of one legitimate comedy. Some
of these evince considerable smartness of manual dialogue,
and several brilliant repartees of chairs, tables, and other
inanimate wits; but the authors seem to have forgotten that in
the new Drury Lane the audience can hear as well as see. Of
late our theatres have been so constructed, that John Bull has
been compelled to have very long ears, or none at all; to keep
them dangling about his skull like discarded servants, while
his eyes were gazing at piebalds and elephants, or else to
stretch them out to an asinine length to catch the congenial
sound of braying trumpets. An auricular revolution is, we
trust, about to take place; and as many people have been much
puzzled to define the meaning of the new era, of which we
have heard so much, we venture to pronounce, that as far as
regards Drury Lane Theatre, the new era means the reign of
ears. If the past affords any pledge for the future, we may
confidently expect from the Committee of that House everything
that can be accomplished by the union of taste and assiduity.

The text of the _Rejected Addresses_ here given is that of the eighteenth edition with Horace Smith's annotations. The footnotes from the _Edinburgh Review_ were taken from an article by Lord Jeffrey in the number for November, 1812. It may be mentioned that the actual addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee are preserved with their covering letters in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, and that on the immediate success of the Smiths' parodies an enterprising publisher issued a volume of _Genuine Rejected Addresses_ from the forty-three competitors who responded to his appeal for such.

The following is from the Preface to the eighteenth edition:

Our first difficulty, that of selection, was by no means a
light one. Some of our most eminent poets, such, for instance,
as Rogers and Campbell, presented so much beauty, harmony, and
proportion in their writings, both as to style and sentiment,
that if we had attempted to caricature them, nobody would
have recognized the likeness; and if we had endeavoured to
give a servile copy of their manner, it would only have
amounted, at best, to a tame and unamusing portrait, which
it was not our object to present. Although fully aware that
their names would, in the theatrical phrase, have conferred
great strength upon our bill, we were reluctantly compelled
to forgo them, and to confine ourselves to writers whose
style and habit of thought, being more marked and peculiar,
was more capable of exaggeration and distortion. To avoid
politics and personality, to imitate the turn of mind, as
well as the phraseology of our originals, and, at all events,
to raise a harmless laugh, were our main objects: in the
attainment of which united aims, we were sometimes hurried
into extravagance, by attaching much more importance to the
last than to the two first. In no instance were we thus
betrayed into a greater injustice than in the case of Mr.
Wordsworth--the touching sentiment, profound wisdom, and
copious harmony of whose loftier writings we left unnoticed,
in the desire of burlesquing them; while we pounced upon
his popular ballads, and exerted ourselves to push their
simplicity into puerility and silliness. With pride and
pleasure do we now claim to be ranked among the most ardent
admirers of this true poet; and if he himself could see the
state of his works, which are ever at our right hand, he
would, perhaps, receive the manifest evidences they exhibit of
constant reference, and delighted re-perusal, as some sort of
_amende honorable_ for the unfairness of which we were guilty,
when we were less conversant with the higher inspirations of
his muse. To Mr. Coleridge, and others of our originals, we
must also do a tardy act of justice, by declaring that our
burlesque of their peculiarities, has never blinded us to
those beauties and talents which are beyond the reach of all
ridicule.

One of us had written a genuine Address for the occasion,
which was sent to the Committee, and shared the fate it
merited, in being rejected. To swell the bulk, or rather to
diminish the tenuity of our little work, we added it to the
Imitations; and prefixing the initials of S. T. P. for the
purpose of puzzling the critics, were not a little amused, in
the sequel, by the many guesses and conjectures into which
we had ensnared some of our readers. We could even enjoy the
mysticism, qualified as it was by the poor compliment, that
our carefully written Address exhibited no 'very prominent
trait of absurdity,' when we saw it thus noticed in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for November, 1812. 'An Address by S. T.
P. we can make nothing of; and professing our ignorance of
the author designated by these letters, we can only add, that
the Address, though a little affected, and not very full of
meaning, has no very prominent trait of absurdity, that we
can detect; and might have been adopted and spoken, so far
as we can perceive, without any hazard of ridicule. In our
simplicity we consider it as a very decent, mellifluous,
occasional prologue; and do not understand how it has found
its way into its present company.'

Urged forward by hurry, and trusting to chance, two very bad
coadjutors in any enterprise, we at length congratulated
ourselves on having completed our task in time to have
it printed and published by the opening of the theatre.
But, alas! our difficulties, so far from being surmounted,
seemed only to be beginning. Strangers to the arcana of
the bookseller's trade, and unacquainted with their almost
invincible objection to single volumes of low price,
especially when tendered by writers who have acquired no
previous name, we little anticipated that they would refuse
to publish our _Rejected Addresses_, even although we asked
nothing for the copyright. Such however, proved to be the
case. Our manuscript was perused and returned to us by several
of the most eminent publishers. Well do we remember betaking
ourselves to one of the craft in Bond Street, whom we found in
a back parlour, with his gouty leg propped upon a cushion, in
spite of which warning he diluted his luncheon with frequent
glasses of Madeira. 'What have you already written?' was
his first question, an interrogatory to which we had been
subjected in almost every instance. 'Nothing by which we can
be known.' 'Then I am afraid to undertake the publication.'
We presumed timidly to suggest that every writer must have
a beginning, and that to refuse to publish for him until he
had acquired a name, was to imitate the sapient mother who
cautioned her son against going into the water until he could
swim. 'An old joke--a regular Joe!' exclaimed our companion,
tossing off another bumper. 'Still older than Joe Miller,'
was our reply; 'for, if we mistake not, it is the very first
anecdote in the facetiæ of Hierocles.' 'Ha, sirs!' resumed
the bibliopolist, 'you are learned, are you? So, soh!--Well,
leave your manuscript with me; I will look it over to-night,
and give you an answer to-morrow.' Punctual as the clock we
presented ourselves at his door on the following morning, when
our papers were returned to us with the observation--'These
trifles are really not deficient in smartness; they are well,
vastly well for beginners; but they will never do--never. They
would not pay for advertising, and without it I should not
sell fifty copies.'

This was discouraging enough. If the most experienced
publishers feared to be out of pocket by the work, it was
manifest, _a fortiori_, that its writers ran a risk of being
still more heavy losers, should they undertake the publication
on their own account. We had no objection to raise a laugh
at the expense of others; but to do it at our own cost,
uncertain as we were to what extent we might be involved, had
never entered into our contemplation. In this dilemma, our
_Addresses_, now in every sense rejected, might probably have
never seen the light, had not some good angel whispered us to
betake ourselves to Mr. John Miller, a dramatic publisher,
then residing in Bow Street, Covent Garden. No sooner had this
gentleman looked over our manuscript, than he immediately
offered to take upon himself all the risk of publication,
and to give us half the profits, _should there be any_; a
liberal proposition, with which we gladly closed. So rapid and
decided was its success, at which none were more unfeignedly
astonished than its authors, that Mr. Miller advised us to
collect some _Imitations of Horace_, which had appeared
anonymously in the _Monthly Mirror_, offering to publish
them upon the same terms. We did so accordingly; and as new
editions of the _Rejected Addresses_ were called for in quick
succession, we were shortly enabled to sell our half copyright
in the two works to Mr. Miller, for one thousand pounds!! We
have entered into this unimportant detail, not to gratify any
vanity of our own, but to encourage such literary beginners as
may be placed in similar circumstances; as well as to impress
upon publishers the propriety of giving more consideration to
the possible merit of the works submitted to them, than to the
mere magic of a name.

To the credit of the _genus irritabile_ be it recorded, that
not one of those whom we had parodied or burlesqued ever
betrayed the least soreness on the occasion, or refused to
join in the laugh that we had occasioned. With most of them
we subsequently formed acquaintanceship; while some honoured
us with an intimacy which still continues, where it has not
been severed by the rude hand of Death. Alas! it is painful
to reflect, that of the twelve writers whom we presumed to
imitate, five are now no more; the list of the deceased
being unhappily swelled by the most illustrious of all, the
_clarum et venerabile nomen_ of Sir Walter Scott! From that
distinguished writer, whose transcendent talents were only to
be equalled by his virtues and his amiability, we received
favours and notice, both public and private, which it will
be difficult to forget, because we had not the smallest
claim upon his kindness. 'I certainly must have written this
myself!' said that fine-tempered man to one of the authors,
pointing to the description of the Fire, 'although I forget
upon what occasion.' Lydia White, a literary lady, who was
prone to feed the lions of the day, invited one of us to
dinner; but, recollecting afterwards that William Spencer
formed one of the party, wrote to the latter to put him off;
telling him that a man was to be at her table whom he 'would
not like to meet.' 'Pray who is this whom I should not like
to meet?' inquired the poet. 'Oh!' answered the lady, 'one
of those men who have made that shameful attack upon you!'
'The very man upon earth I should like to know!' rejoined the
lively and careless bard. The two individuals accordingly met,
and have continued fast friends, ever since. Lord Byron, too,
wrote thus to Mr. Murray from Italy--'Tell him we forgive him,
were he twenty times our satirist.'

It may not be amiss to notice, in this place, one criticism of
a Leicestershire clergyman, which may be pronounced unique: 'I
do not see why they should have been rejected,' observed the
matter-of-fact annotator; 'I think some of them very good!'

P. 1. _Loyal Effusion._ By Horace Smith. Fitzgerald (1759?-1829) was a ready versifier who was self-appointed laureate of public events for a number of years. He was especially notable for his persistent recital of patriotic lines at the annual dinners of the Royal Literary Fund. The piece of his which Smith possibly had more particularly in mind was the 'Address to every Loyal Briton on the Threatened Invasion of his Country.'

P. 2. _By Wyatt's trowel._ James Wyatt (1746-1813) was the architect of the rebuilt Drury Lane Theatre.

_Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl._ Byron (_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, line 1) wrote 'shall,' not 'let.'

P. 4. _The Baby's Debut._ By James Smith.

P. 6. _the Young Betty mania._ William Henry West Betty (1791-1874) first appeared on the stage in his twelfth year, and retired with a fortune in his seventeenth. Though he occasionally reappeared on the boards in manhood, he never repeated his early success.

P. 7. _An Address without a Phœnix._ This was the genuine address which Horace Smith had sent in for competition (see p. 397).

P. 9. _Cui Bono._ The opening stanza by James, the rest by Horace Smith.

P. 13. _The Tradesman duns._ Originally, 'The plaintiff calls.'

P. 15. _To the Secretary_ and _a Hampshire Farmer_. By James Smith. William Cobbett (1762-1835) became Member of Parliament for Oldham in 1832.

P. 16. _Mr. Whitbread._ Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815), brewer and politician, Member of Parliament for Bedford, was Chairman of the Committee for the rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre.

P. 19. _The Living Lustres._ By Horace Smith.

The following three stanzas were originally included:--between the third and fourth:

Each pillar that opens our stage to the circle is
Verdant antique, like Ninon de l'Enclos;
I'd ramble from them to the pillars of Hercules,
Give me but Rosa wherever I go.

Between the fourth and fifth:

Attun'd to the scene when the pale yellow moon is on
Tower and tree they'd look sober and sage.
And when they all winked their dear peepers in unison,
Night, pitchy night would envelop the stage.

Ah! could I some girl from yon box for her youth pick,
I'd love her as long as she blossomed in youth;
Oh! white is the ivory case of her toothpick,
But when beauty smiles how much whiter the tooth!

P. 21. _The Rebuilding._ By James Smith.

P. 29. _Laura Matilda._ Horace Smith, the author of _Drury's Dirge_, wrote that 'the authors, as in gallantly bound, wish this lady to continue anonymous,' and as a consequence there have been several attempts to pierce the veil of anonymity. One annotator boldly 'assumes the lady to have been' Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-1836), who was ten years of age when the _Rejected Addresses_ were published. The motto from _The Baviad_ which stands at the head of the parody is sufficient indication that the original was to be found among the 'Della Cruscans,' whose 'namby-pamby' verses, after appearing in the _World_, were published in two volumes as _The British Album_ in 1790 (see the note on p. 405). The chief lady among those sentimentals was 'Anna Matilda,' otherwise Hannah Cowley (1743-1809), a dramatist of considerable, and a poet of but little, ability. As Mrs. Cowley had died three years before the Addresses were sent in, it is probable either that the parodists did not know of her death or that they merely meant to make fun of the school of which she was a leader. The passage from Gifford's _Baviad_ given by way of motto is taken from that part of the satire in which the writers of _The British Album_ are more particularly castigated.

P. 32. _A Tale of Drury Lane._ By Horace Smith.

P. 38. _Johnson's Ghost._ By Horace Smith.

P. 42. _The Beautiful Incendiary._ By Horace Smith. Spencer's best-remembered work is the tragic ballad of _Beth Gelert_.

P. 46. _Fire and Ale._ By Horace Smith.

P. 49. _Playhouse Musings._ By James Smith.

P. 52. _Drury Lane Hustings._ By James Smith. The 'Pic-Nic Poet,' in parodying the popular songs of the day, seems a very good imitation of the improvisings for which Theodore Hook came to be famous. The description suggests, however, that no particular writer was aimed at in the parody. Both James and Horace Smith had ten years before been contributors to a short-lived magazine entitled the _Pic-Nic_.

P. 54. _Architectural Atoms._ By Horace Smith. Thomas Busby (1755-1838), organist, musical composer, and man of letters. By way of supplement to the authors' note it may be said that the Address printed in the newspapers at the time as that sent in by Dr. Busby, and parodied by Lord Byron (see p. 174), was not the Address actually sent in, for that (preserved in the British Museum) begins:

Ye social Energies! that link mankind
In golden bonds--as potent as refined!

Byron used quotation effectively in _Don Juan_, Canto I, ccxxii.:

'Go, little book, from this my solitude!
I cast thee on the waters--go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
The world will find thee after many days.'
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood,
I can't help putting in my claim to praise--
The four first rhymes are Southey's, every line:
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine!
BYRON: _Don Juan_, Canto I., ccxxii.

P. 62. _Theatrical Alarm Bell._ By James Smith. _committee of O.P.'s, etc._ Referring to the tumultuous scenes at Covent Garden Theatre in 1809, when for sixty-seven successive nights there was uproar due to the attempt of the management to raise the prices of admission. Both James and Horace Smith appear to have written verse contributions to the newspaper warfare which accompanied, and served to stimulate, the disturbance in the theatre in favour of Old Prices.

P. 64. _The Theatre._ By James Smith. Spencer, referred to in the footnote, is the writer of society verse parodied in _The Beautiful Incendiary_ (p. 42).

P. 69. _To the Managing Committee, etc._ By James Smith.

_The Hamlet Travestie._ By John Poole. Was published in 1810, and acted at Drury Lane in 1813.

_The Stranger_, translated by Benjamin Thompson from _Menschenhass und Reue_, by August von Kotzebue (1761-1819)--one line is remembered: 'There is another and a better world'--and _George Barnwell_, by George Lillo (1693-1739), based on the ballad in Percy's _Reliques_, were sensational plays that enjoyed considerable popularity in the early part of the nineteenth century.

P. 72. _Mrs. Haller._ One of the principal characters in _The Stranger_.

P. 76. _Punch's Apotheosis._ By Horace Smith. Theodore Hook wrote a number of light plays and farces before he was out of his teens, and was long notable for the way in which he could improvise such false gallop of verses as is parodied in _Punch's Apotheosis_.

P. 82. _Can Bartolozzi's... Could Grignion's._ The work of the engravers, Francesco Bartolozzi (1725-1815) and Charles Grignion (1717-1810), was much in use for sumptuously illustrated books.

_The epic rage of Blackmore._ Sir Richard Blackmore (d. 1729), a physician-poet, who wrote _Prince Arthur, an Heroick Poem_; _Eliza, an Epic Poem_; _Alfred, an Epic Poem_; and various other works which the world has willingly let die.

P. 83. _With Griffiths, Langhorne, Kenrick, etc._ Ralph Griffiths (1720-1803) was founder, proprietor, publisher, and sometime editor of _The Monthly Review_, the contributors to which included John Langhorne (1735-1779), the translator of Plutarch, and William Kenrick (1725?-1779).

P. 86. The first lines are an imitation of Pope's _Dunciad_:

The mighty Mother, and her son, who brings
The Smithfield Muses to the ears of Kings, etc.

_Lo! the poor toper_ is imitated from Pope's _Essay on Man_:

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind, etc.

P. 87. _Catherine Fanshawe._ The parody on Gray was sent by Miss Fanshawe to her friend, Miss Berry (one of Walpole's Misses Berry), with a letter purporting to be a letter of thanks to her for permission to read the verses, which, it was pretended, had been sent by Miss Berry, their author, to Miss Fanshawe for approval. The reference to Sydney Smith is to his lectures on 'Moral Philosophy' delivered at the Royal Institution, 1804-1806. Payne was a fashionable milliner of the period.

P. 92. _A Fable._ Dryden's _The Hind and the Panther_:

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged.

_The Course of Time._ Robert Pollok's poem, despite this parody, was so popular that from its first publication in 1827 to 1868 it attained a sale of 78,000 copies.

P. 93. _Canning and Frere._ _The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, 1852 and 1854, has been followed in attributing the authorship of the various parodies to Canning and others. The authority consists of Canning's own copy of the _Anti-Jacobin_, that of Lord Burghersh, that of Wright the publisher, and information given by Upcott.

_Inscription._ Southey's poem was an 'inscription for the apartment in Chepstow Castle where Henry Marten, the regicide, was imprisoned for thirty years.'

For thirty years secluded from mankind,
Here Marten linger'd.

It was written in 1795, but Southey excluded it from later editions of his works issued when he was no longer in sympathy with the French Revolution. Mrs. Brownrigg, the wife of a house-painter, was hanged at Tyburn for murder.

P. 94. _The Soldier's Wife._ Southey's _The Soldier's Wife_:

Weary way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart,
Travelling painfully over the rugged road;
Wild-visaged wanderer! Ah, for thy heavy chance.

Coleridge wrote the third stanza, indicated by asterisks in the second imitation. Southey finally suppressed this poem also.

_Dilworth and Dyche._ A reference to Thomas Dilworth's _Guide to the English Tongue_ (1761) and Thomas Dyche's _Guide to the English Tongue_ (1709).

P. 95. _Sapphics._ Southey's _The Widow_:

Cold was the night wind, drifting fast the snow fell;
Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked,
When a poor wanderer struggled on her journey,
Weary and way-sore.

George Tierney was the 'Friend of Humanity.' The original shared the fate of the other two poems in being finally suppressed.

P. 97. _The Loves of the Triangles._ Darwin's _Loves of the Plants_. Frere wrote the first lines to 'And liveried lizards wait upon her call' (p. 99); Ellis from that point to 'Twine round his struggling heart, and bind with endless chain' (p. 101); Canning, Ellis, and Frere were the joint-authors of the portion from 'Thus, happy France' to 'And folds the parent-monarch to her breast' (p. 102), Canning alone being responsible for the following twelve lines; and the trio finished the parody together. As a rule only portions of this masterpiece _sui generis_ have hitherto been reprinted.

P. 104. _Lodi's blood-stained Bridge._ Napoleon beat the Austrians at Lodi on May 10, 1796.

P. 105. _Muir, Ashley, etc._ Thomas Muir (1765-1798) was a Parliamentary reformer; Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author of the _Rights of Man_; Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751-1834), a prominent United Irishman; Ashley and Barlow evade identification.

P. 107. _Song by Rogero._ _The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement_, was a travesty of German drama, in particular of Schiller's _Robbers_, Kotzebue's _The Stranger_, and Goethe's _Stella_, and it was performed at the Haymarket Theatre in 1811. It is the work of Canning, Ellis, and Frere, but only the first two wrote this 'song' (according to some authorities Pitt is credited with the last verse), having in mind Pitt's friend, Sir Robert Adair, who was educated at Göttingen. The editors of the _Anti-Jacobin_ say: 'The song of Rogero with which the first act concludes is admitted on almost all hands to be in the very first taste, and if no German original is to be found for it, so much the worse for the credit of German literature.' This parody has itself often been parodied--by, among others, R. H. Barham, whose topic was the newly established London University.

P. 109. _James Hogg._ The Ettrick Shepherd's _Poetic Mirror, or the Living Bards of Great Britain_, was published anonymously in 1816, and it is generally admitted that his parodies of style are among the finest in the language. They are, however, overlong, and we have been obliged to be content with the 'song' alone from the parody of Scott, which, complete, would occupy more than seventy pages.

P. 115. _The light-heel'd author of the Isle of Palms._ John Wilson ('Christopher North') who published _The Isle of Palms and other Poems_ in 1812.

P. 124. _Joan I chose._ Southey's _Joan of Arc_ was published in 1796.

_The next, a son, I bred a Mussulman. Thalaba the Destroyer_, 1801.

_A tiny thing... from the north... with vengeful spite_ was probably meant for the _Edinburgh Review_.

P. 125. _My third, a Christian and a warrior true. Madoc_, 1805.

_And next, his brother, a supreme Hindu. The Curse of Kehama_, 1810.

P. 128. _The Curse._ The closing lines are a faithful imitation of 'the Curse' in _The Curse of Kehama_, which ends:

Thou shalt live in thy pain
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And Sleep shall obey me,
And visit thee never
And the Curse shall be on thee
For ever and ever.

P. 128. _And C--t--e shun thee._ Possibly Cottle, the publisher and friend of Southey.

P. 129. _The Gude Greye Katt._ A parody of Hogg's own narrative, _The Witch of Fyfe_.

P. 142. _Sonnets Attempted, etc._ These appeared originally in the second number of the _Monthly Magazine_ in November, 1797, with the signature of 'Nehemiah Higginbottom.' Coleridge described them as written--

'in ridicule of my own Poems, and Charles Lloyd's and Lamb's,
etc., etc., exposing that affectation of unaffectedness, of
jumping and misplaced accent in commonplace epithets, flat
lines forced into poetry by italics (signifying how well and
mouthishly the author would read them), puny pathos, etc.,
etc. The instances were almost all taken from myself and Lloyd
and Lamb.'

The first sonnet, Coleridge said,

had for its object to excite a good-natured laugh at the
spirit of doleful egotism and at the recurrence of favourite
phrases, with the double object of being at once trite and
licentious. The second was on low creeping language and
thoughts under the pretence of _simplicity_. [Lamb had written
some months earlier, 'Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge.'] The
third, the phrases of which were borrowed entirely from my own
poems, on the indiscriminate use of elaborate and swelling
language and imagery.... So general at that time and so
decided was the opinion concerning the characteristic vices
of my style that a celebrated physician (now, alas! no more)
speaking of me in other respects with his usual kindness to
a gentleman who was about to meet me at a dinner-party could
not, however, resist giving him a hint not to mention _The
House that Jack Built_ in my presence, for that I was as sore
as a boil about that sonnet, he not knowing that I was myself
the author of it. (_See_ the Oxford Coleridge.)

P. 144. _Amatory Poems._ It is curious that Southey, who had taken offence at Coleridge's sonnet _To Simplicity_, signed 'Nehemiah Higginbottom,' believing it directed against himself, should himself have turned parodist and adopted the similar name of 'Abel Shufflebottom' a couple of years later. Coleridge wrote, so he declared, that he might do the young poets good; Southey, it may be believed, merely to make fun of that band of vain and foolish versifiers who came to be known as 'the Della Cruscans.' Haunters of the book-stalls may yet occasionally light upon two small volumes entitled _The British Album, containing the Poems of Della Crusca, Anna Matilda, Arley, Benedict, the Bard, etc., etc. Which were originally published under the Title of the Poetry of the World, revised and corrected by the Respective Authors_. The second edition was dated 1790, and the work was still current when the brothers Smith gave their Laura Matilda parody in the _Rejected Addresses_ (see p. 29). A few stanzas of one of 'Della Crusca's' poems addressed to 'Anna Matilda' will suffice to indicate the stuff which Southey was satirising:

While the _dear Songstress_ had melodious stole
O'er ev'ry sense, and charm'd each nerve to rest,
_Thy Bard_ in silent ecstasy of soul,
Had strain'd the _dearer Woman_ to his breast.

Or had she said, that _War's the worthiest grave_,
He would have felt his proud heart burn the while,
Have dar'd, perhaps, to rush among the brave,
Have gain'd, perhaps, the glory--of a smile.

And 'tis most true, while Time's relentless hand,
With sickly grasp drags _others_ to the tomb,
The Soldier scorns to wait the dull command,
But springs impatient to a nobler doom.

Tho' on the plain _he_ lies, outstretch'd, and pale,
Without one friend his steadfast eyes to close,
Yet on his honour'd corse shall many a gale,
Waft the moist fragrance of the weeping rose.

O'er that dread spot, the melancholy Moon
Shall pause a while, a sadder beam to shed,
And starry Night, amidst her awful noon,
Sprinkle light dews upon his hallow'd head.

There too the solitary Bird shall swell
With long-drawn melody her plaintive throat,
While distant echo from responsive cell,
Shall oft with fading force return the note.

Such recompense be Valour's due alone!
To me, no proffer'd meed must e'er belong.
To me, who trod the vale of life unknown,
Whose proudest boast was but an idle song.

'Della Crusca,' the chief of the band, was Robert Merry (1755-1798). The 'Della Cruscans' may be said to have been killed by ridicule by Gifford's _Baviad_ and _Maeviad_.

P. 151. _Epicedium._ This appeared originally under the title 'Gone or Going' in Hone's _Table Book_ (1827), and was reprinted by Lamb in his _Album Verses_. It is an echo rather than a close parody of Michael Drayton's _Ballad of Agincourt_, of which the fifth stanza runs:

And for myself (quoth he)
This my full rest shall be,
England ne'er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me.
Victor I will remain,
Or on this earth lie slain,
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.

P. 153. _Hypochondriacus._ This formed part of some imitations (mostly prose) which Lamb described as _Curious Fragments extracted from a Commonplace Book which belonged to Robert Burton, the famous Author of the Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1801). Though it is parody of matter more than of manner, it has echoes of Burton's _Abstract of Melancholy_, which prefaces the _Anatomy_.

P. 154. _Nonsense Verses._ Here Lamb parodies the sentiment which had inspired his own poem, _Angel Help_, written on a picture showing a girl who had been spinning so long for the support of a bed-ridden mother that she had fallen asleep, while angels were shown finishing her work and watering a lily.

P. 155. _The Numbering of the Clergy._ Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's--

Come, Chloe, and give me sweet kisses,
For sweeter sure never girl gave;
But why, in the midst of my blisses,
Do you ask me how many I'd have?

P. 156. _Peacock._ All these parodies but the last (the Byron) are from Peacock's _Paper Money Lyrics_ published in 1837, but written ten or twelve years earlier 'during the prevalence of an influenza to which the beautiful fabric of paper-credit is periodically subject.'

P. 160. _Prœmium of an Epic._ Southey's _Thalaba the Destroyer_: 'How beautiful is night!'

P. 165. _Song by Mr. Cypress._ The quintessence of Byron as distilled by Peacock into what Swinburne calls 'the two consummate stanzas which utter or exhale the lyric agony of Mr. Cypress.' The lines occur in _Nightmare Abbey_.

P. 166. _The Patriot's Progress._ Shakespeare, _As You Like It_, Act II., Scene 7.

P. 167. _Our Parodies are Ended. The Tempest_, Act. IV., Sc. 1.

P. 167. _Fashion._ Milton's _L'Allegro_.

P. 171. _Verses._ The 'Editor' was Leigh Hunt, editor of the _Examiner_, imprisoned for two years (1814-15) in Surrey Gaol for libelling the Prince Regent. The authorship of this parody is often wrongfully attributed.

_Never hear Mr. Br----m make a speech._ Henry, afterwards Lord, Brougham.

_Law._ Edward Law Baron Ellenborough, Lord Chief Justice.

P. 172. _But Cobbett has got his discharge._ William Cobbett had been imprisoned for two years (1810-12) for his strictures on the Government of the day.

_To Mr. Murray_. John Murray was 'Bookseller to the Admiralty and the Board of Longitude.' He had possessed, and parted with, a share in _Blackwood's Magazine_.

_Strahan, Tonson, Lintot_, the publishers and booksellers of the eighteenth century.

P. 174. _Busby._ Dr. Busby had been one of the unsuccessful writers of an Address for the opening of Drury Lane (see p. 54 and note). The lines and words in inverted commas were from the Address which Busby printed as having been sent in, not from the one that he did send in, which is preserved in the British Museum.

_As if Sir Fretful._ Sir Fretful Plagiary, of course, from Sheridan's _The Critic_.

P. 176. _Margate._ Two stanzas, complete in themselves, from Mr. Peters's story, 'The Bagman's Dog,' in the _Ingoldsby Legends_. Byron's _Childe Harold_, Canto IV.

P. 177. _Not a sous had he got._ Barham notes that during the controversy in 1824 as to the authorship of 'The Burial of Sir John Moore,' a--

claimant started up in the person of a _soi-disant_ 'Dr.
Marshall,' who turned out to be a Durham blacksmith and
his pretensions a hoax. It was then that a certain 'Doctor
Peppercorn' put forth _his_ pretensions, to what he averred
was the 'true and original' version--the somewhat vulgar
parody reprinted from _The Ingoldsby Legends_.

Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores.--Virgil.

I wrote these lines--... owned them--he told stories!
THOMAS INGOLDSBY.

P. 178. _The Demolished Farce._ Bayly's own popular song:

Oh no, we never mention her,
Her name is never heard.

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A Century of Parody and ImitationChapter XVIII: Preface: To the First Edition

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