JACK SPRATT.
(After Tennyson).
WITHIN the limits of well-ordered law
They lived, this thrifty squire and eke his spouse;
No discord marred the genial dinner hour,
Where union rooted in dis-union stood,
And tastes divergent served the end in view;
What he would not, she would, what she not, he;
So in all courtesie the meal progressed
And soon the viands wholly passed from sight.
J. M. LOWRY, 1884.
The plot of the Idyll, "Gareth and Lynnette," was given, in burlesque style, by Mr. Martin Wood in "The Bath and Cheltenham Gazette" shortly after the appearance of the original.
"The Quest of the Holy Poker," a parody in blank verse appeared in Punch, March 5, 1870.
Three long Idyllic parodies, entitled "Willie and Minnie" appeared in Kottabos, a Trinity College magazine, published in Dublin by Mr. W. McGee, in 1876.
The St. Paul's Magazine of January, 1872, contained a most amusing political Idyll, entitled "The Latest Tournament"—an Idyll of the Queen (respectfully inscribed to Alfred Tennyson, Esq., Poet Laureate). This parody, which consists of nearly 400 lines, describes, in a mock-heroic style, all the principal political celebrities of the day, its satire being aimed at the supposed Republican tendencies of the Liberal party.
"The Prince's Noses," a modern Idyll, by W. J. Linton, a parody of Tennyson's blank verse, appeared in Scribner's Monthly Magazine, April, 1880.
Punch, May 27, 1882, contained a poem entitled "On the Hill; or, Tennysonian Fragments, picked up near the Grand Stand." This was an imitation of style only.
"Tory Revels" (slightly altered from Tennyson) in Punch, August 26, 1882, commenced thus:—
"SIR GYPES TOLLODDLE, all an Autumn day,
Gave his broad, breezy lands, till set of sun,
Up to the Tories."
and described a Conservative political picnic. It concluded:—
"Then there were fireworks; and overhead
SIR GYPES TOLLODDLE'S aisles of lofty limes
Made noise with beer and bunkum, and with squibs."
The Wheel World, October, 1882, contained a long parody, entitled "London to Leicester; a Bicycling Idyl, by Talfred Ennyson (Poet Laureate to the Mental Wanderers, B.C.)" This is written in very blank verse, and is chiefly interesting to 'Cyclists.
Pastime, June 29, 1883, contained "TENNIS, a Fragment of the Lost Tennisiad," and July 27, 1883, "The Lay of the Seventh Tournament," both being parodies of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."
The small detached poems which Lord Tennyson has written for the magazines of late years, have been the cause of numerous and very unflattering parodies.
The following "Prefatory Poem," by Alfred Tennyson, appeared in the first number of the "Nineteenth Century," published in March, 1877, by Messrs. Henry S. King and Co., London:—
THOSE that of late had fleeted far and fast
To touch all shores, now leaving to the skill
Of others their old craft, seaworthy still,
Have charter'd this; where mindful of the past,
Our true co-mates regather round the mast;
Of diverse tongue, but with a common will,
Here, in this roaring moon of daffodil
And crocus, to put forth and brave the blast;
For some descending from the sacred peak
Of hoar, high-templed faith, have leagued again
Their lot with ours, to rove the world about;
And some are wilder comrades, sworn to seek
If any golden harbour be for men
In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt.
Upon which Mr. John Whyte (of the Public Library, Inverness) wrote the following:—
"I felt sure on reading the above lines that I had seen among my papers something nearly as prosy. The following is, I consider, not only quite as stiff as the foregoing, but it seems to me to prove beyond question that the one was suggested by the other. Whether the Poet Laureate or the author of 'The Last Hat' is the plagiarist, I leave others to decide.