Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. V

by Unknown

Edward Bulwer Lytton.

Born, May 25, 1805. Died, January 18, 1873.

Lord Lytton’s poetry does not appear to have offered much temptation to the parodists, probably because none of it became truly popular. Many years ago the late Professor Aytoun wrote some satirical verses on Lytton, entitled A Midnight Meditation, but this, and Tennyson’s attack upon him in Punch, are the only important burlesques on his poetry.

Several of his plays have, however, been the subject of burlesques, and many prose parodies of his novels have been written.

A Midnight Meditation.

Fill me once more the foaming pewter up!

Another board of oysters, ladye mine!

To-night Lucullus with himself shall sup.

These mute inglorious Miltons are divine!

And as I here in slippered ease recline,

Quaffing of Perkins’ Entire my fill,

I sigh not for the nymph of Aganippe’s rill.

But these remarks are neither here nor there.

Where was I? Oh, I see—old Southey’s dead!

They’ll want some bard to fill the vacant chair,

And drain the annual butt—and oh, what head

More fit with laurel to be garlanded

Than this, which, curled in many a fragrant coil,

Breathes of Castalia’s streams, and best Macassar oil?

They throng around me now, those things of air

That from my fancy took their being’s stamp:

There Pelham sits and twirls his glossy hair,

There Clifford leads his pals upon the tramp;

There pale Zanoni, bending o’er his lamp,

Roams through the starry wilderness of thought,

Where all is everything, and everything is nought.

Yes, I am he who sang how Aram won

The gentle ear of pensive Madeline!

How love and murder hand in hand may run,

Cemented by philosophy serene,

And kisses bless the spot where gore has been!

Who breathed the melting sentiment of crime,

And for the assassin waked a sympathy sublime!

Yes, I am he, who on the novel shed

Obscure philosophy’s enchanting light!

Until the public, ’wildered as they read,

Believed they saw that which was not in sight—

Of course, ’twas not for me to set them right;

For in my nether heart convinced I am,

Philosophy’s as good as any other bam.

Moore, Campbell, Wordsworth, their best days are grassed,

Battered and broken are their early lyres,

Rogers, a pleasant memory of the past,

Warmed his young hands at Smithfield’s martyr fires,

And, worth a plum, nor bays nor butt desires.

But these are things would suit me to the letter,

For though the stout is good, old sherry’s greatly better.

A fico for your small poetic ravers,

Your Hunts, your Tennysons, your Milnes, and these!

Shall they compete with him who wrote “Maltravers”?

Prologue to “Alice, or the Mysteries”?

No! even now my glance prophetic sees

My own high brow girt with the bays about,

What ho! within there, ho! another pint of Stout!

(Several verses omitted.)

William E. Aytoun.

But this prophecy was not to be fulfilled, for on the death of Wordsworth, in 1850, Tennyson obtained the office and pension of Poet Laureate. Some years before that event Tennyson had also received a grant from the Government, which aroused the jealousy of his brother poets.

——:o:——

In 1846 Mr. Henry Colburn, of London, published an anonymous satirical poem, entitled The New Timon, which soon became known as the work of Lytton. It contained the following passage:—

“I seek no purfled prettiness of phrase,

A soul in earnest scorns the tricks for praise.

If to my verse denied the Poet’s fame,

This merit, rare to verse that wins, I claim;

No tawdry grace shall womanize my pen!

Ev’n in a love-song, man should write for men!

Not mine, not mine, (O Muse forbid!) the boon

Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird’s modish tune,

The Jingling medley of purloin’d conceits

Out babying Wordsworth, and outglittering Keates (sic)

Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime

To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme!

Am I enthrall’d but by the sterile rule,

The formal pupil of a frigid school,

If to old laws my Spartan tastes adhere,

If the old vigorous music charms my ear,

Where sense with sound, and ease with weight combine,

In the pure silver of Pope’s ringing line;

Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong

In the frank flow of Dryden’s lusty song?

Let School-Miss Alfred vent her chaste delight

On “darling little rooms so warm and bright!”[124]

Chaunt, “I’m a-weary,” in infectious strain,

And catch her “Blue fly singing i’ the pane,”

Tho’ praised by Critics, tho’ adored by Blues,

Tho’ Peel with pudding plump the Puling Muse,

Tho’ Theban taste the Saxon’s purse controuls,

And pensions Tennyson, while starves a Knowles.

The New Timon, and the Poets.

We know him, out of Shakespeare’s art,

And those fine curses which he spoke;

The old Timon, with his noble heart,

That, strongly loathing, greatly broke.

So died the Old: here comes the New,

Regard him: a familiar face:

I thought we knew him. What! it’s you,

The padded man—that wears the stays—

Who kill’d the girls and thrill’d the boys

With dandy pathos when you wrote,

A Lion, you, that made a noise,

And shook a mane en papillotes.

And once you tried the Muses, too;

You fail’d Sir: therefore now you turn,

You fall on those who are to you,

As Captain is to Subaltern.

But men of long-enduring hopes,

And careless what this hour may bring,

Can pardon little would-be Popes

And Brummels, when they try to sting.

An Artist, Sir, should rest in Art,

And waive a little of his claim,

To have the deep Poetic heart

Is more than all poetic fame.

But you, Sir, you are hard to please;

You never look but half content:

Nor like a gentleman at ease,

With moral breadth of temperament.

And what with spites and what with fears,

You cannot let a body be:

It’s always ringing in your ears,

“They call this man as good as me.”

What profits now to understand

The merits of a spotless shirt—

A dapper boot—a little hand—

If half the little soul is dirt?

You talk of tinsel! why we see

The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks,

You prate of Nature! you are he

That spilt his life about the cliques.

A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame:

It looks too arrogant a jest—

The fierce old man—to take his name

You bandbox. Off, and let him rest.

Alcibiades.

Punch. February 28, 1846.

There is little reason to doubt that Tennyson wrote these lines, although they are not included in his works. Lady Lytton’s description of her future husband, as he first appeared to her, justifies this charge of foppery brought against him.

“He had” she wrote, “just returned from Paris, and was resplendent with French polish, so far as boots went. His cobweb cambric shirt-front was a triumph of lace and embroidery, a combination never seen in this country till six or seven years later, except on babies’ frocks. Studs, too, except in racing stables, were then non est, but a perfect galaxy glittered along the milky way down the centre of this fairy-like lingerie. Poor D’Orsay’s linen gauntlets had not yet burst upon the London world, but like the little source of a mighty river, Mr. Lytton Bulwer had three inches of cambric encircling his coat cuffs, and fastened with jewelled sleeve-links. And though it then wanted full five years till every man in society was caned, he also dangled from his ungloved and glittering right hand, a somewhat gorgeously jewelled-headed ebony cane, and the dangling was of the scientific kind that had evidently been ‘learnt, marked, and inwardly digested.’ Miss Landon and I both laughed as I exclaimed:

‘Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.’”

——:o:——

Lord Lytton’s most successful drama “The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride,” was produced at Covent Garden Theatre, London, on February 15, 1838, when Mr. Macready played Claude Melnotte, and Pauline was impersonated by Miss Helen Faucit, now Lady Theodore Martin. The plot of the play is absurd and preposterous in the highest degree, yet Lytton acknowledged that, such as it was, it had been suggested to him by a pretty little tale called “The Bellows Mender.” Possibly the success of Lytton’s play put others on the scent of his original, for on February 7, 1842, a domestic drama in three acts, entitled “Perourou, the Bellows Mender, and the Beauty of Lyons,” by W. T. Moncrieff, was produced at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Stilted in language, full of clap-trap sentiment, and utterly destitute of poetry, it is still easy to see that it had a common origin with The Lady of Lyons, from which it differed in many respects, and was inferior in all.

A favourite piece of clap-trap in Lytton’s drama is

MELNOTTES VISIONARY HOME.

Nay, dearest, nay, if thou would’st have me paint,

The home to which, could love fulfil its prayers

This hand would lead thee, listen—a deep vale,

Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world,

Near a clear lake margined by fruits of gold

And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies

As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,

As I would have thy fate!

A palace lifting to eternal summer

Its marble walls from out a glossy bower

Of coolest foliage musical with birds,

Whose song should syllable thy name! At noon

We’d sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder

Why earth could be unhappy, while the heavens

Still left us youth and love! We’d have no friends

That were not lovers, no ambition, save

To excell them all in love; we’d read no books

That were not tales of love—that we might smile

To think how poorly eloquence of words

Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!

And when night came, amidst the breathless heavens

We’d guess what star should be our home when love

Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light

Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,

And every air was heavy with the sighs

Of orange groves and music from sweet lutes,

And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth

I’ the midst of roses!—dost thou like the picture?

This has been frequently parodied. In “Cinderella,” by Albert Smith, the book of which is now exceedingly scarce, the following was spoken by Alfred Wigan, in the part of Prince Rodolph:

Say dearest, say, if thou wouldst have me paint

The lodging whither, but not till we are wed,

The bus shall take thee, listen,

A cottage making to external splendour

But small pretence, passed every half an hour

By omnibuses musical with cads

Who’d set us down at our own door. At noon

We’d dig our early brocoli, and wonder

How the slave trade could flourish, while the heavens

Send down such loads of blacks. We’d have no friends

That were not jolly, no ambition save

How to make both ends meet. We’d keep no book,

’Cause we’d pay ready cash that we might smile

To think how thoroughly long Christmas bills

Would take the poetry out of love like ours.

And when night came, beneath our pea-green arbour,

We’d guess whence came the earwigs that like friends

Drop into tea, while blazed the camphine light,

Or Vesta, or some other patent lamp,

And all the streets were echoing with the cries

Of orange girls, and music from cracked flutes

And murmurs of low organs that grind forth

One endless polka. Dost thou like the picture?

To which Cinderella (Mrs. Keeley), replied:

Oh don’t I just, Lord, I could walk and walk,

For ever so long, to hear you talk and talk.

---

“The very latest edition of the Lady of Lyons,” a Burlesque Extravaganza, in one act, by H. J. Byron, was produced at the Strand Theatre, London, on July 11th, 1859, in which Miss M. Oliver, Miss Charlotte Saunders, and Messrs. H. J. Turner, James Rogers and J. Clarke took the leading parts. Miss C. Saunders, as Claude Melnotte, spoke the following parody:—

Pauline.—Describe to me again, your highness, do

That Crystal Palace you would take me to.

Claude.—If thou would’st have me paint—

Pauline.—I would—be quick!

Claude.—(aside) Then I must lay it on extremely thick,

(aloud) The home to which could love fulfil its prayers,

This hand would lead thee—(aside) up no end of stairs

A flight of beauty such as ne’er did man see—

(aside) But in this instance quite a flight of fancy;

A palace in the winter and the summer,

Open to every decently dressed comer,

Who with the humble shilling can come down;

(On Saturdays the charge is half a crown)

With marble halls—each end a glassy tower;

(The trains start every quarter of an hour);

At noon when cooler much the air becomes,

We’d sit amongst the megatheriums

And others with hard names—I scarce can tell ’em

One from the other—nobody can spell ’em;

We’d have no friend with us the live long day

Third parties, dear, are always in the way,

And when night came, down at the railway station

Mid’st hundreds in a state of agitation

We’d guess which carriage should convey us home

As to the platform’s side the train would come—

Say dost thou like the picture?

Pauline.—As the bee

Upon the flower hangs—I hang on thee

Such honey have thy charmed accents got.

Claude.—(aside bitterly) Alas! no honey for it is mel-not.

---

The Model Palace.

“When Lord Lytton wrote The Lady of Lyons he was in profound ignorance of one of the blessings in store for the human race. Nothing had then been heard of health-towns or model houses, and when Claude Melnotte sought to dazzle the mind of Pauline with a picture of the retreat love would conjure up for her, he could think of nothing better than a ramshackle old palace by the Lake of Como.

Now, had Lord Lytton enjoyed the advantage of Dr. Richardson’s acquaintance, how much more sensibly he would have set to work. The most popular passage in the play would then, without a doubt, have run somewhat in this style:—

Melnotte.—Nay, dearest, nay. If thou wouldst have me paint

The home to which—if paint were not unwholesome—

This hand would lead thee—listen. A clear space,

Guarded by sheltering hills from the east winds,

Laid out in geometrical designs,

Around a garden for the general use.

Planned to secure—on soundest principles—

Accord among the various families;

As cloudless—save for “tiffs” and passing shadows—

As I would have thy fate.

Pauline.—My own Hygeia!

Melnotte.—A mansion lifting from the triple arches

Its perforated walls, its staircase tower

Distinct, a ventilating shaft, a lift

For dust and other objects, and a roof

Of coolest foliage, musical with birds,

Whose songs should syllable MY name. At noon

We’d sit beneath the arching glass and wonder

What a photographer would pay per annum

For such a studio. We’d read no books

That did not treat of drainage—sing no songs

But sanitary lays, that we might smile

To think how poorly others felt the need

Of hygienic altitudes like ours;

And when night came, in tesselated rooms

We’d guess what style would be our home when means

Became unbounded, while the newest light

Stole through the patent economic lamps,

And every air-hole in the hollow bricks

Whistled and moaned in ghostly dissonance,

With coughing and the sneezes that gush forth

I’ the best o’ noses.—Dost thou like the picture?

Funny Folks. February 3, 1877.

Another burlesque was produced at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in October 1878, entitled The Lady of Lyons Married and Settled, by Herman C. Merivale, with Miss Nelly Farren, and Messrs. Edward Terry, Royce, Maclean and Squire, in the principal characters. In this, Claude Melnotte, instead of describing an imaginary palace, sings a patter song to his wife, Pauline, in praise of the Darwinian theory of the evolution of species. As might be expected, the humour of this is somewhat ponderous.

——:o:——

THE SEA CAPTAIN;

OR, The Birthright.

A Drama in five Acts, by Sir E. L. Bulwer, was first performed at the Haymarket Theatre, London, October 31, 1839, with the following cast:—

Lord Ashdale	Mr. J. Webster
Sir Maurice Beevor	Mr. Strickland.
Norman	Mr. Macready.
Falkner	Mr. Howe.
Onslow	Mr. Phelps.
Gaussen	Mr. O. Smith.
Luke	Mr. Gallott.
Lady Arundel	Mrs. Warner.
Violet	Miss Helen Faucit.
Mistress Prudence	Mrs. Clifford.

Notwithstanding all the efforts of these famous actors and actresses the play had little success. When Sir E. L. Bulwer published it, he attempted to excuse its comparative failure by asserting that the critics had condemned the play from a dislike of his political opinions, with other equally weak statements, which Thackeray exposed and ridiculed in a humorous critique in Fraser’s Magazine. A few extracts only can be given of this epistle from

CH-S Y-LL WPL-SH, ESQ., TO SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, BART.

Mayfair, Nov. 30, 1839. Midnite.

Honrabble Barnet!—Retired from the littery world a year or moar, I didn’t think anything would injuice me to come forrards again; for I was content with my share of reputation, and propoas’d to add nothink to those immortial wux which have rendered this Magaseen so sallybrated.

Shall I tell you the reazn of my re-appearants?—a desire for the benefick of my fellow-creatures? Fiddlestick! A mighty truth with which my busm laboured, and which I must bring forth or die? Nonsince—stuff: money’s the secret, my dear Barnet—-money—L’argong, gelt, spicunia. Here’s quarter day coming, and I’m blest if I can pay my landlud, unless I can ad hartificially to my inkum.

This is, however, betwigst you and me. There’s no need to blacard the streets with it, or to tell the British public that Fitzroy Y-ll-wpl-sh is short of money, or that the sallybrated hauthor of the Y—— Papers is in peskewniary difficklties, or is fiteagued by his shuperhuman littery labors or by his famly suckmstansies, or by any other pusnal matter: my maxim, dear B., is on these pints to be as quiet as posbile. What the juice does the public care for you or me? Why must we always, in prefizzes and what not, be a-talking about ourselves and our igstrodnary merrats, woas, and injaries? It is on this subjick that I porpies, my dear Barnet, to speak to you in a frendly way; and praps you’ll find my advise tolrabbly holesum.

We brew, and we love our own tap—amen; but the pint betwigst us is this stewpid, absudd way of crying out, because the public don’t like it too. Why shood they, my dear Barnet? You may vow that they are fools; or that the critix are your enemies; or that the wuld should judge your poams by your critticle rules, and not their own: yon may beat your breast, and vow you are a marter, and you won’t mend the matter. Take heart, man! you’re not so misrabble after all; your spirits need not be so very cast down; you are not so very badly paid. I’d lay a wager that you make, with one thing or another—plays, novvles, pamphlicks, and little odd jobs here and there—your three thowsnd a year. There’s many a man, dear Bullwig, that works for less, and lives content. Why should’nt you? Three thowsnd a year is no such bad thing—let alone the barnetcy: it must be a great comfort to have that bloody hand in your skitching.

Us littery men I take to be like a pack of schoolboys—childish, greedy, envius, holding by our friends and always ready to fight. What must be a man’s conduck among such? He must either take no notis, and pass on myjastick, or else turn round and pummle soundly—one, two, right and left, ding dong over the face and eyes; above all, never acknowledge that he is hurt. Years ago, for instans (we’ve no ill-blood, but only mention this by way of igsample), you began a sparring with this Magaseen. Law bless you, such a ridicklus gaym I never see: a man so belaybord, beflustered, bewolloped, was never known; it was the laff of the whole town. Your intelackshal natur, respected Barnet, is not fizzickly adapted, so to speak, for encounters of this sort. You must not indulge in combats with us course bullies of the press: you have not the staminy for a reglar set-to. What, then, is your plan? In the midst of the mob to pass as quiet as you can: you won’t be undistubbed. Who is? Some stray kix and buffits will fall to you—mortial man is subjick to such; but if you begin to wins and cry out, and set up for a marter, wo betide you!

These remarks, pusnal as I confess them to be, are yet, I assure you, written in perfick good-natur, and have been inspired by your play of the Sea Capting, and prefiz to it; which latter is on matters intirely pusnal, and will, therefore, I trust, igscuse this kind of ad hominam (as they say) diskcushion. I propose, honrabble Barnit, to cumsider calmly this play and prephiz, and to speak of both with that honisty which, in the pantry or studdy, I’ve been always phamous for. Let us, in the first place, listen to the opening of the “Preface to the Fourth Edition.”

Now, my dear sir, look what a pretty number of please you put forrards here, why your play should’nt be good.

First. Good plays are almost always written by actors.

Secknd. You are a novice to the style of composition.

Third. You may be mistaken in your effects, being a novelist by trade, and not a play-writer.

Fourthly. Your in such bad helth and sperrits.

Fifthly. Your so afraid of the critix that they damp your arder.

For shame, for shame, man! What confeshns is these—what painful pewling and piping! Your not a babby. I take you to be some seven or eight and thutty years old—“in the morning of youth,” as the flosofer says. Don’t let any such nonsince take your reazn prisoner. What you, an old hand amongst us—an old soldier of our sovring quean the press—you, who have had the best pay, have held the topmost rank (ay, and deserved them too!—I gif you leaf to quot me in sasiaty, and say, “I am a man of genius: Y-ll-wpl-sh says so”)—you to lose heart and to cry pickavy, and begin to howl, because little boys fling stones at you! Fie, man! take courage; and, bearing the terrows of your blood-red hand, as the poet says, punish us, if we’ve ofended you; punish us like a man, or bear your own punishment like a man. Don’t try to come off with such misrabble lodgic as that above.

What do you? You give four satisfackary reazns that the play is bad (the secknd is naught—for your no such chicking at play-writing, this being the forth). You show that the play must be bad, and then begin to deal with the critix for finding folt!

Was there ever wuss generalship? The play is bad—your right—a wuss I never see or read. But why kneed you say so? If it was so very bad, why publish it? Because you wish to serve the drama! O fie! don’t lay that flattering function to your sole, as Milton observes. Do you believe that this Sea Capting can serve the drama? Did you never intend that it should serve anything, or anybody else? Of cors you did! You wrote it for money—money from the maniger, money from bookseller—for the same reason that I write this. Sir, Shakespeare wrote for the very same reasons, and I never heard that he bragged about serving the drama. Away with this canting about great motifs! let us not be too prowd, my dear Barnet, and fansy ourselves marters of the truth, marters or apostels. We are but tradesmen, working for bread, and not for righteousness’ sake. Let’s try and work honestly; but don’t let us be prayting pompisly about our “sacred calling.” The taylor who makes your coats (and very well they are made too, with the best of velvit collars)—I say Stulze, or Nugee, might cry out that their motifs were but to assert the eturnle truth of tayloring, with just as much reasn; and who would belive them?

Your apinion about the actors I shan’t here meddle with. They all acted exlently as far as my humbile judgment goes, and your write in giving them all possible prays. But let’s consider the last sentence of the prefiz, my dear Barnet, and see what a pretty set of apiniuns you lay down.

1. The critix are your inymies in this age.

2. In the nex, however, you hope to find newmrous frends.

3. And it’s a satisfackshn to think that, in spite of politticle diffrances, you have found frendly aujences here.

My dear Barnet, do you suppose that politticle diffrances prejudice pepple against you? What are your politix! Wig, I presume—so are mine, ontry noo. And what if they are Wig, or Raddiccle, or Cumsuvvative? Does any mortial man in England care a phig for your politix? Do you think yourself such a mity man in parlymint that critix are to be angry with you, and aujences to be cumsidered magnanamous because they treat you fairly? There, now, was Sherridn, he who roat the Rifles and School for Scandle ([ saw the Rifles after your play, and O, Barnet, if you knew what a relief it was!)—there, I say, was Sherridn—he was a politticle character, if you please—he could make a spitch or two—do you spose that Pitt, Purseyvall, Castlerag, old George the Third himself, wooden go and see the Rivles—ay, and clap hands too, and laff and ror, for all Sherry’s Wiggery? Do you spose the critix wouldn’t applaud to? For shame, Barnet! what ninnis, what hartless raskles, you must beleave them to be—in the fust plase, to fancy that you are a politticle genus; in the secknd, to let your politix interfear with their notiums about littery merrits.

And then for the nex age. Respected sir, this is another diddlusion; a grose misteak on your part, or my name is not Y—sh. These plays immortial? Ah, parry-sample, as the French say, this is too strong—the small beer of the Sea Capting, or of any suxessor of the Sea Capting, to keep sweet for sentries and sentries! Barnet, Barnet! do you know the natur of bear? Six weeks is not past, and here your last casque is sour—the public won’t even now drink it; and I lay a wager that, betwigst this day (the thuttieth November) and the end of the year, the barl will be off the stox altogether, never, never to return.

I’ve notted down a few frazes here and there, which you which you will do well to igsamin:

Norman.

The eternal Flora

Woos to her odorous haunts the western wind:

While circling round and upwards from the boughs,

Golden with fruits that lure the joyous birds,

Melody, like a happy soul released,

Hangs in the air, and from invisible plumes

Shakes sweetness down!”

Norman.

“Hark! she has blessed her son! I bid ye witness,

Ye listening heavens—thou circumambient air:

The ocean sighs it back—and with the murmur

Rustle the happy leaves. All nature breathes

Aloud—aloft—to the Great Parent’s ear,

The blessing of the mother on her child.”

The fust spissymen has been going the round of all the papers, as real, reglar poatry. Those wicked critix! they must have been laffing in their sleafs when they quoted it. Malody, suckling round and uppards from the bows, like a happy soul released, hangs in the air, and from invizable plumes shakes sweetness down. Mighty fine, truly! but let mortial man tell the meanink of the passidge. Is it musickle sweetniss that Malody shakes down from its plumes—its wings, that is, or tail—or some pekewliar scent that proceeds from happy souls released, and which they shake down from the trees when they are suckling round and uppards? Is this poatry, Barnet? Is it poatry, or sheer windy humbugg, that sounds a little melojous, and won’t bear the commanest test of common sence?

In passidge number 2, the same bisniss is going on, though in a comprehensable way: the air, the leaves, the otion, are fild with emocean at Capting Norman’s happiness. Pore Nature is dragged in to partisapate in his joys, just as she has been before. Once in a poem, this universle simfithy is very well; but once is enuff, my dear Barnet, and that once should be in some great suckumstans, surely—such as the meeting of Adam and Eve, in “Paradice Lost,” or Jewpeter and Jewno, in Hoamer, where there seems, as it were, a reasn for it. But sea-captings should not be eternly spowting and invoking gods, hevns, starrs, angels, and other silestial influences. We can all do it, Barnet; nothing in life is easier. I can compare my livry buttons to the stars, or the clouds of my backopipe to the dark vollums that ishew from Mount Hetna; or I can say that angels are looking down from them, and the tobacco silf, like a happy sole released, is circling round and upwards, and shaking sweetness down. All this is as esy as drink; but it’s not poatry, Barnet, nor natural. People, when their mothers reckonize them, don’t howl about the suckumambint air, and paws to think of the happy leaves a-rustling—at least, one mistrusts them if they do. Take another instans out of your own play. (Capting Norman, with his eternll slack-jaw!) meets the gal of his art:

“Look up, look up, my Violet-weeping? fie!

And trembling too—yet leaning on my breast.

In truth, thou art too soft for such rude shelter.

Look up! I come to woo thee to the seas,

My sailor’s bride! Hast thou no voice but blushes?

Nay—from those roses, let me, like the bee,

Drag forth the secret sweetness!”

Violet.

“Oh what thoughts.

Were kept for speech when we once more should meet,

Now blotted from the page; and all I feel

Is thou art with me!”

Very right, Miss Violet—the scentiment is natral, affeckshnit, pleasing (it might have been in more grammaticle languidge, and no harm done); but never mind, the feeling is pritty, and I can fancy, my dear Barnet, a pritty, smiling, weeping lass, looking up in a man’s face and saying it. But the capting!—oh, this capting!-this windy, spouting captain, with his prittinesses, and conseated apollogies for the hardness of his busm, and his old, stale, vapid simalies, and his wishes to be a bee! Pish! Men don’t make love in this finniking way. It’s the part of a sentymentle, poeticle taylor, not a galliant gentleman, in command of one of her Madjisty’s vessels of war.

Take my advise, honrabble sir—listen to a humble footmin; it’s generally best in poatry to understand puffickly what you mean yourself, and to igspress your meaning clearly afterwoods—in the simpler words the better, praps. You may, for instans, call a coronet a coronal, if you like, as you might call a hat a “swart sombrero,” “a glossy four-and-nine,” “a silken helm, to storm impermeable, and lightsome as the breezy gossamer;” but, in the long run, it’s as well to call it a hat. It is a hat, and that name is quite as poetticle as another. I think it’s Playto, or els Harrystottle, who observes that what we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Confess, now, dear Barnet, don’t you long to call it a Polyanthus?

I never see a play more carelessly written. In such a hurry you seem to have bean, that you have actually in some sentences forgot to put in the sence. What is this, for instance?

“Girl beware,

“The Love that trifles round the charms it gilds Oft ruins while it shines.”

Igsplain this, men and angels! I’ve tried every way; backards, forards, and in all sorts of trancepositions, as thus:

‘The love that ruins round the charms it shines,

Gilds while it trifles oft;’

Or,

‘The charm that gilds around the love it ruins,

Oft trifles while it shines;’

Or,

‘The ruins that love gilds and shines around,

Oft trifles where it charms,’

Or,

‘Love, while it charms, shines round, and ruins oft,

The trifles that it gilds;’

Or,

‘The love that trifles, gilds, and ruins oft,

While round the charms it shines.’

All which are as sensable as the fust passidge.”

Probably no serious literary production had ever before received such a severe castigation as was contained in this burlesque of criticism, mais c’est la ridicule qui tue. Bulwer was a vain, sensitive man, keenly alive to hostile criticism, and morbidly afraid of being laughed at.

He tried, by every means in his power, to suppress the printed copies of The Sea Captain, it is now very scarce, and a single copy has been sold for as much as ten pounds.

Many years later Lord Lytton remodelled the play, and under the new title of The Rightful Heir it was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London, on October 3, 1868, but it was only moderately successful, and has never been since revived. The part of the hero, renamed Vyvian, was performed by Mr. Bandmann, an actor chiefly remarkable for his strong German accent, and for his great profusion of woolly-looking hair. The play was generally pronounced dreary and tedious, and the acting commonplace, with the one exception of the very fine impersonation of Sir Grey de Malpas by Mr. Hermann Vezin. A burlesque was inevitable, and seizing upon Mr. Bandmann’s personal peculiarity, it was christened The Frightful Hair; or, Who Shot the Dog? This was written by Mr. F. C. Burnand, and produced at the Haymarket Theatre, under the management of Mr. J. B. Buckstone, on December 26th, 1868, with the following strong cast:—

Vyvian (with a tremendous wig),	Mr. Kendal.
Lord Beaufort	Miss. F. Gwynn.
Sir Grey de Malpas	Mr. Compton.
Wreckclyffe (a melodramatic scoundrel),	Mr. Coe.
Falkner	Mr. Weathersby.
Lady Montreville	Miss Ione Burke.
Eveline	Miss F. Wright.

Those who saw this humorous production will not have forgotten the dry, quiet drollery of the late Mr. Compton, or the admirable manner in which Mr. Kendal mimicked Bandmann.

Another burlesque was written by Mr. H. T. Arden, entitled “The Right-Fall Heir; or, the Sea-rover and the Fall over,” but the printed copy does not mention when, or at what theatre, this burlesque was produced.

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“The Very Last Days of Pompeii!” Being a complete Bulwer-sement of the classic drama, by R. Reece, was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, on February 13th, 1872, with Miss Nelly Power, David James, and Thomas Thorne in the leading parts. This, of course, was founded on Lytton’s novel “The Last Days of Pompeii,” but contains no passages which can be quoted as parodies of the original.

Lytton.

The “Last Days of Pompeii.”

If ought so damping and so dull were

As these “last days” of Dandy Bulwer,

And had been cast upon the pluvious

Rockets that issued from Vesuvious

They would no more have reached Pompeii

Than Rome or Tusculum or Veii.

W. S. Landor.