SATURDAY REVIEW.
"—— Mr. Pennell's parodies and imitations are certainly above the average; they are at times, it is true, somewhat unequal, but there is a good deal of vigorous and healthy versification scattered throughout the volume."... "He has, moreover, studied with considerable advantage what is vulgarly termed the art of 'selling,' more properly described as a species of bathos. Barham, of the Ingoldsby Legends, as well as Hood and Bon
Gualtier, excelled greatly in this. Such pieces usually give scope for some pretty writing at their commencement, which the reader may accept seriously or ironically as he should feel disposed. The absurdity or satire is condensed generally into the last one or two lines. Mr. Pennell's stanzas headed Ah / Who, are among his most neat and amusing efforts of this character."... "No doubt the works of Hood have exercised a con—siderable influence on Mr. Pennell's versification; and in this school he may be fairly considered to have enrolled himself.
"The Derby Day is one of the most spirited sketches in this volume. The first three lines of our extract are excellent in their way, and have a fine healthy élan about them. The absence of the word 'trump' would render them eligible for quotation in much higher poetical company. The next verse, of a decidedly lower order, may still be given as a very fair reproduction of Hood's peculiar style and humour. Our author is telling how thé Derby favourite breaks his neck in the race:—
'He fell like a trump in the foremost
place—
He died with the rushing wind on his
face—
At the wildest bound of his glorious
pace—
In the mad exulting revel
He left his shoes to his son and heir,
His hocks to a champagne-dealer at Ware,
A lock of his hair
To the Lady-Mare,
And his hoofs and his tail to the——!
"There are also to be found some prettyish bits of descriptive verse, of which the following may be quoted, from the so-called song of In-the-Water with Longfellow's metre preserved:—
'Down into the water stept she,
Down into the tranquil nver,
Like a red deer in the sunset—
Like a ripe leaf in the autumn!
Ever from her lips of coral,
From her lips like roses snow-flll'd,
Came a soft and dreamy murmur,
Softer than the murm'ring river!
Sighs that melted as the snows melt,
Silently and sweetly melted.'
"We should advise Mr. Pennell, on the first available occasion, to disem—barrass himself here of the stock-in-trade 'lips of coral.' This passage would be materially improved by the omission. Again, in the Night Mail North, our author seems at home in his subject, and writes with considerable effect
"Tis a splendid race I a race against
Time,—
'The quivering carriages rock and reel,
Hurrah! for the rush of the grinding
steel!
And a thousand to one we win it.
Look at those flitting ghosts—
The thundering crank, and the mighty
The white-arm'd finger-posts— wheel!—'
If we're moving the eighth of an inch, Isay,
We're going a mile a minute!...'
"The last line but one is powerful enough, and the best in the extract. There is plenty of poetry in railways and steam engines; and now that other mines of inspiration are growing somewhat exhausted, we cannot see why a new shaft should not be run in this direction. Many of our readers may find, besides these extracts, much that is clever and amusing in 'Puck on Pegasus.'"
"To be funny without being vulgar, to tell a story with gestures and yet not become a buffoon, to parody a poet and yet retain the flavour of his real poetry, to turn all the finest feelings of the heart into fun, and yet not to be coarse or unfeeling, is not granted by Apollo to every writer of humorous poems."... "Mr. Pennell is an excellent parodyist, an ingenious punster, a reviver and modifier of existing systems of fun, a vigorous worker of veins of humour not yet carried for enough."... "Of all the poems, we like best the Night Mail North, which has a singular weird power about it that takes a hold on the imagination.... Lord Jolly Green's Courtship is a well-written parody on a well-known poem of Mrs. Browning. Next best is, perhaps, the Sayers and Heenan Fight, a very vigorous imitation of Lord Macaulay's Coman Ballads. There is a great rush and gallop about the Derby Day; the lines at the end are- not unworthy of Hood's playful thoughtfulness."