THE VARIATION HUMBUG.
The London Charivari thinks that there is more humbug talked, printed, and practiced in reference to music than to anything else in the world, except politics. And of all the musical humbugs extant it occurs to Mr. Punch that the variation humbug is the greatest. This party has not even the sense to invent a tune for himself, but takes someone else’s, and starting therefrom, as an acrobat leaps from a spring-board, jumps himself into a musical reputation on the strength of the other party’s ideas. Mr. Punch wonders what would be thought of a poet who should try to make himself renown by this kind of thing—taking a well-known poem of a predecessor and doing variations on it after this fashion:—