Matthew Arnold,
(Born at Laleham, near Staines, December 24, 1822.)
In 1879 the Editor of The World commenced a series of Prize Parody Competitions, the sixth of which had for its subject “Mr. Charles Warner in Drink,” and the poem chosen as the model was Matthew Arnold’s Sonnet on George Cruikshank’s picture, “The Bottle.”
The first and second prizes were awarded to V.A.C.A. and Fess-Gules, and two other parodies were also printed.
Matthew Arnold’s original sonnet is here given, followed by the parodies, which appeared in The World, August 20, 1879.
To George Cruikshank.
On seeing, in the Country, his Picture of “The Bottle.”
Artist, whose hand, with horror winged hath torn
From the rank life of towns this leaf! and flung
The prodigy of full-blown crime among
Valleys and men to middle fortune born,
Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn—
Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude,
Like comets on the heavenly solitude?
Shall breathless glades, cheered by shy Dian’s horn,
Cold-bubbling springs, or caves! Not so! The soul
Breasts her own griefs; and, urged too fiercely, says:
‘Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man
May be by man effaced; man can control
To pain, to death, the bent of his own days.
Know thou the worst! So much, not more, he can.’
Matthew Arnold.
First Prize.
Actor, whose horror-moving power hath been
The wonder of the town this many a night—
A realistic prodigy, delight
Of those who from the upper galleries lean,
Eager to watch that dread delirium scene,—
Say, what exciting thing’s similitude
Upon our startled stage will next intrude,
And make us breathless? Dion’s fair Colleen,
Half-drowning in the cave? Not so; the gods
Now loudly clamour for some fiercer play
More horrors! True, the drama’s noble plan
May be by such defaced; but what’s the odds?
Let pain and death be mimicked, if they pay:
Degrade us more not even Zola can!
V.A.C.A.
(V. Amcotts.)
Second Prize.
Actor, whose art, with horror clothed, hath torn
From rank Parisian life this leaf, and flung
This portraiture of loathsome curse among
Women and men in calmer Britain born,
Not guiltless of excess, yet not quite lorn
Of decent instincts,—what shall calm us, say,
When ghastly sights like these brood o’er our way?
Shall Corneville’s hackneyed chimes, or jokes well worn
From Pinafore? Not so! Each reasoning soul
Speaks for itself, and, fiercely shuddering, says,
‘Why nauseate us thus? The drama’s plan
May be to paint vice black; but, O, control
Of pain and death these sickening displays!
Can they do good? We know that harm they can.’
Fess-Gules.
(Goymour Cuthbert., a.r.i.b.a.)
Artist in acting, who hast seized a part
From the black dens of Paris for your own,
Wherein the perfect work of drink is shown
To eager lookers shivering at heart—
Some drunken, none too brutalised to start,—
Can subtlest skill excuse the hideous tale,
And fine perception calm the inner wail,
In breathless watching of victorious art
And well-trained imitation? Nay, the soul
Is wroth at last, and, strained too greatly, cries,
‘Record it not! Man that was made so fair
Can sink below all apedom, till control
Of self is lost, and soul and body dies;
But mimicry of this we will not bear.’
Nocturne.
Actor, whose art, like a fell grapnel, drags
Down on the bottom of the stream of crime,
Sinks and returns, producing every time
Some shape deform of misery and rags,
Steeped in pollution, overgrown with flags,
Weeds of debauchery,—let a drunkard’s cries
Grate on our ears no longer! Must our eyes
Gaze on his death pang? Hast no other gags
To move thy hearers’ laughter but his speech?
Stirs else no toothpick in their languid lips?
Else will no crutch be lifted to applaud?
Have they such souls no milder sight can teach,
Save glorious manhood’s absolute eclipse?
How foul is vice, how much to be abhorred!
Caraway.
Tracy Turnerelli’s Golden Wreath.
On [page 188], Parodies, a history was given of the wreath which was offered to Lord Beaconsfield by Mr. Tracy Turnerelli, and some parodies of Shakespeare, and of Ben Jonson, descriptive of the circumstances which induced Lord Beaconsfield to refuse the offer.
The Editor of The World selected the topic for a parody competition, entitled “Mr. Tracy Turnerelli in the Provinces,” the model proposed for imitation being Mr. Matthew Arnold’s beautiful poem, “The Forsaken Merman,” and the compositions were limited to forty lines.
A short extract is given below from the original poem:—
The Forsaken Merman.
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the day,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!
Call her once before you go—
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
‘Margaret! Margaret!’
Children’s voices should be dear,
(Call once more) to a mother’s ear;
Children’s voices, wild with pain—
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret!
Margaret! Margaret!
Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall’d town,
And the little grey church on the windy shore;
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!
* * * * *
But children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr’d with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch’d sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side—
And then come back down.
Singing: “There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea.”
Matthew Arnold.
The first and second prizes were awarded to the two following parodies, which appeared in The World, September 24, 1879:—
First Prize.
Rejected Addresses, by Tracy Turnerelli.
Come, dear Dizzy, nor say me nay—
Come, ere I go distraught;
Take the garland of golden bay,
Take what the people’s pennies bought,
Take what the goldsmith richly wrought.
Must I carry the gift away
Into the shires to make it pay?
Dizzy dear, ah, why not say,
This way, this way?
I call again with a conscience clear
(’Tis no sin)—
Call aloud till the deaf might hear—
Benjamin! Benjamin!
Flattering voices should be dear
(One call more) to statesman’s ear;
Flattering voices fired by zeal
For the statesman’s weal.
Benjamin! Benjamin!
Can it be true he means that nay?
(One call more ere I go away.)
Once he was poor as poor as could be,
And he wore no Garter below his knee;
He worked his way to the top of the tree,
For the Earl is clever and scholarly.
He swayed, like others, from side to side,
And was apt at taking the turn of tide.
Then came Berlin and the Jingoes’ King
Wed ‘Peace with Honour,’ like gold the ring;
And now the Prime Minister says me nay
To my honeyed words and my wreath of bay.
Dizzy dear, why say me nay?
(One call more.)
He will not come, though I call all day—
Shut is the door.
I go, I leave him, I call no more;
I call no more, yet my heart is sore;
The loved one rejects me—
How cruel is he!
He leaves us for ever—
The wreath and T. T.
Observer.
(Mrs. Winsloe.)
Second Prize.
Turnerelli loq.
Come, my people, let us go hence,
Bearing the wreath of gold;
Back to the towns that gave sums immense,
Back with a tale that must be told;
Back with a wreath that mayn’t be sold,
E’en to defray the vast expense
Of raising fifty thousand pence.
Come, my people, let us go hence.
Away, away!
Call him once more by his name
Pleadingly,
By the name best known to fame—
Disraeli, Disraeli.
That name surely should be dear
To the commoner grown a peer—
Dizzy (call him once again)!
Try to rouse some olden strain;
Only once, and then away,
We will not stay.
Disraeli, do you quite forget
The people’s crown for the coronet?
Away, away!
Golden leaves, that golden turn
When autumn’s glories begin to burn,
Will turn dull brown and fade away.
But the wreath that in my hands I hold
Was copper first, and turned to gold,
And shall be gold for aye.
People dear, is it but three years
Since he went to join the Peers?
Once he sat where I would be,
Where still meets the august confraternity
Of the Commons in conclave free;
But his dreams were ever of gilded halls,
And he sighed for a crown with eight golden balls,
Though his race mostly hang o’er their doors but three.
Vritra.
(Miss M. C. Kilburn.)
——:o:——
The Wreath.
(The figure of the wreath lies before us, as we write, in all its fair outlines. The rose, the shamrock, and the thistle are blended in it in sign of the nationalities of the donors. The circle of the wreath is of laurel leaves.)
The Times, June 28, 1879.
O Tracy, twine no wreath for me,
Or twine it of some other tree!
Dust from a dusty Olive’s sprays
Has dimmed the lustre of those days.
I would my laurels were forgot—
O Turnerelli, twine them not!
The thistle, shamrock—leave me those;
There’s sense in them—and, yes, the rose;
’Twill symbolise—its thorns at least—
Our future pathway in the East;
The shamrock, too, recals to thought
The “false Gibraltar” we have bought;
And I would spare the thistle’s loss
To those who cheered at Charing Cross,—
These I can stand, but laurel, no;
The laurel’s hardly apropos;
So Tracy, if that wreath’s for me,
Pray twine it of some other tree!
The World, July 2, 1879.
Further Parodies
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