Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Born, August 4, 1792. Drowned, July 8, 1822.
Shelley’s poetry has not been extensively parodied, nor have his prose writings been burlesqued, unless, indeed, the forged letters published in 1852 by Mr. Edward Moxon, London, may be considered in the light of a burlesque. This little volume was entitled “Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with an Introductory Essay by Robert Browning.” The essay, dated “Paris, December 4th, 1851,” occupies 44 pages, and the letters, which were 25 in number, occupy pp. 47 to 165 inclusive.
This was one of the most ingenious literary forgeries of modern times, so clever, not only in its imitation of handwriting, but in style and circumstances, as to have deceived the very elect.
The genuineness of the letters was first called in question by Mr. F. T. Palgrave, who saw the book at Lord (then Mr.) Tennyson’s house, and accidentally opened it at a passage which he recognised as taken from an article contributed by his father to the “Quarterly Review.” Other tests were then applied, the post marks were carefully examined, and little by little the network of fraud was unravelled.
In February, March, and April, 1852, a great controversy, concerning these letters, was carried on in literary circles, but it was practically decided by a series of articles published in the Athenæum, that they were forgeries.
The book was rigidly suppressed, and as only a few copies had got abroad, it now very rarely occurs for sale.
——:o:——
In 1886, the Shelley Society produced Shelley’s gloomy tragedy “The Cenci,” at the Grand Theatre, Islington, when they also issued printed copies of the tragedy containing the revolting “Relation of the Death of the Family of the Cenci,” which Shelley had suppressed. For this offence against decency, and good taste, the Shelley Society was severely reproved by the press, and Truth, May 13, 1886, contained a satirical poem, entitled
The Salacious Shelley Society
O, shame upon you Shelleyites! Aye, shame on everyone
Who helped to do the sorry deed which was last Friday done!
And fired by heedless self-conceit, and covetous of fame,
Has made known acts of fiendish lust too terrible to name.
Yes, think of it! You bid them come, those English maids, that day,
To hear the nameless horrors of a grossly brutal play!
And, not content with doing this, a wicked act made worse,
By giving them to read in prose the filth concealed in verse!
As this poem is not a parody, it is unnecessary to give further extracts from it.
——:o:——
TO A SKYLARK.
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still, and higher,
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singest.
In the golden lightening
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.
* * * * *
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
P. B. Shelley.
To a Bicycle.
(“Mr. Bushby said he could not convict a person of ‘furiously driving’ a bicycle under any clause of the Police Act, except in cases when the machine had been driven on the footway.”)
Hail to thee, blithe roadster!—
Spurr’d thou never wert,
But sans stripe, or goad-stir,
Puttest on thy spurt,
In profuse rains, or unpremeditated dirt.
Nigher still and nigher
Down the hill thou springest;
Like a flash of fire,
O’er the ground thou wingest,
And “ting”-ing still dost speed, and speeding ever “ting”-est.
In the golden lightening
Of the sunken sun,
And when day is brightening
Thou dost rush and run,
Like a silk-bodied “jock” whose race is just begun.
The hale “peeler” even
Pelts from out thy flight,
Like a star of heaven
On a murky night,
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy bell’s delight.
Swift as bow-sped arrow
Spins thy silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp, narrow,
’Twixt thy spokes hangs clear—
So that we, doubly, see and hear that thou art there.
All the earth and air
With a voice is loud
As, bebruised and bare,
Circled by a crowd,
A girl rains out her screams, and thou liest in the road.
We ache before and after
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our deepest sighs are those that tell of some bruis’d spot.
Yet if we could scorn
Pain and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy Bushby to us could be too dear.
Better than all measures
In the “Commons” found,
Better than all treasures
Here, or underground,
Thy wheel to pilot ’twere, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half their sadness
Who thy sore pains know—
Such outrageous badness
From my lips should flow
Moonshine’d not print me then, as it is printing now.
Moonshine. August 8, 1885.
——:o:——
THE CLOUD.
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast,
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes, and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves, remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven’s blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
* * * * *
P. B. Shelley.
A long parody, entitled The Cloudy, appeared in the Christmas number of The World, 1885, but it would be utterly unintelligible without long extracts from the prose, and very prosy context.
The Cloud.
(Another Version of Shelley’s partial view of the Subject.)
I bring cats and dogs, and November fogs,
For the folks of Cockney land;
And I brew the flood of slush and mud
In Fleet Street and the Strand.
From my watery bed spring colds in the head,
And highly inflamed sore-throats;
And I’m the Mama[125] of the bad Catarrh,
And the mother of waterproof coats;
I gave birth to goloshes and macintoshes,
The clog, the corksole, and the patten,
And I act as wet Nus’ to each omnibus,
For ’tis on my moisture they fatten.
I come down pretty thick at every picnic,
And throw my cold water upon it,
And delight at each fête that is called a Champêtre,
To spoil every new silk bonnet;
I’m more kind to each jarvey than was Wittle Harvey
When he was Commiss’ner of Stamps,
I’m the foe of Vauxhall’s Grand Fancy Dress Balls,
Where I love to extinguish the lamps;
And whenever a fellow leaves at home his umbrella,
Oh Lord! how I chuckle and grin!
For then you may warrant I’ll come down in a torrent,
And soak the poor wretch to the skin.
From George Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack for 1847.
A correspondent, writing from Norwich, sent a copy of this parody, in which the second verse was altered, and improved, as follows:—
I’m as kind to each beau in his brand new chapeau,
Who sports not his silk or his gamp,
My delight is to fall at a fancy dress ball,
And I love to extinguish a lamp.
And whenever a fellow leaves at home his umbrella
Oh, my! how I chuckle and grin,
For then you may warrant I’ll come down a torrent
And soak the poor wretch to the skin.
The other Cloud.
I bring the rain again and again,
From the seas and rivers,
And I pour it down on the deluged town
Till it reeks and shivers.
From my skirts are shaken the floods that waken
Poor Cits with the morning light;
I shower my best till they go to rest,
And I keep up the game all night.
By the bucket and pail, like a watery flail,
I lash the wet world under
With occasional spurts of hail (which hurts)
And frequent claps of thunder.
My pall of grey from day to day
Hangs over the dripping lands,
And from hour to hour of the night I pour
Unceasing as Time’s own sands.
The dreamer waking hears windows shaking.
Whipped by my lashing flood,
It splashes and sputters from spouts and gutters,
And churns the poor earth into mud.
When the morning breaks the world awakes
To another day of drench.
* * * * *
The dainty maiden, with tennis-bat laden,
In vain prepares for sport;
For with heavy wet I have soaked the net,
And utterly swamped the Court.
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof
O’er the sodden cricket-ground,
Keeping all things damp as a dripping lamp
All the summer season round,
Until most mankind goes half out of its mind,
And the damp earth seems half drowned.
I am the daughter of smoke and water,
The child of a cheerless sky;
All, save ducks and pumps, must be down in the dumps,
In a world that is never dry!
For after the rain, when my victims fain,
Would believe in sign “set fair:”
And ginghams are furled, and waterproofs hurled
Into corners, anywhere.
I silently laugh at my own cruel chaff;
And deriding man’s hopes so vain,
From a sky all gloom, to an earth like a tomb,
I come down a drencher again!
Punch. November 27, 1880, but equally appropriate in 1888.
——:o:——
Seaward.
The bathers are splashing,
The spaniels are dashing,
The darlings are dancing,
Their bright eyes are glancing—
Away!
The railways are rolling,
The steamers are coaling,
The inn bells are ringing,
The Niggers are singing—
Get away!
The sea and the ocean
Are both in commotion:
Black, White, Green, and Brown
Have all vanished from Town—
Get away!
Take a dip, take a sail,
Never mind turning pale—
A bold fellow, I trow,
Who dare blot paper now
We are free—
Let him feather his oar,
Let him flirt on the shore,
Observe mollusks and shells,
But not the blue belles
In the sea;
And from cliff, cove, and rock,
At the sound of the clock,
Hurry home fleet and fast,
To that wholesome repast—
Shrimps and tea.
And crabs too, and prawns too,
And croquet on lawns too,
And drives on the sands,
And those terrible Bands,
Lovest thou?
Thy fortnight at Dover
Too soon will be over,
At Bognor thy pleasure
Shall be beyond measure,
I vow,
By that great saline lotion,
The blue briny ocean,
Which at rest, or uplifted,
Is sketched by the gifted
E’en now,
At the “Crown” or the “Royal,”
Where sojourn the loyal,
Crowds of tourists are meeting,
Hosts of tourists are eating
At seven;
While all down the tables,
In white ties and sables,
Pass the grave solemn waiters
To hand the potaters
In Devon;
And with napkin in hand,
In the coffee-room stand,
To extinguish the gas,
When to bed you shall pass
At eleven!
Punch. August 28, 1869.
Thrown Out.
By a badly mounted 15 stoner.
Horse’s bits clashing,
Huntsmen’s whips lashing;
Soft sunbeam glancing,
The sight’s most entrancing
To-day!
In numbers increasing,
With murmur unceasing,
There’s no need of saying
The hounds are all baying
Away.
Smart scarlet and tops,
Young and old fops
Twisting and turning,
Through the blue mist still yearning
To stay.
Off we start down the vale,
Jumping over a rail,
For a broken-down paling,
Is fair easy sailing
You know.
But though not a coward,
I always feel soured,
When I hear the scent’s strong,
And old Reynard not gone
Long ago,
It means quickish pace,
A rush and a race;
And, when heavily pressed
You see, at my best
I don’t show.
They are now on his track,
And hang it, the pack
Stream up the hill side,
And we’ve got to ride
From below.
Each taking his line,
Up bank and incline,
In the distance a lout
Begins loudly to shout
Tally-ho!
As o’er ploughed fields we gallop,
And our jaded steed wallop,
The field is fast thinning,
And my steed’s beginning
To blow.
With the hounds out of sight,
The prospect ain’t bright,
And, just like my fate,
Locked or barred is each gate,
What a shame.
Nothing more to be done,
But to give up the run;
Then struck with a thought,
Vote hunting a sport
Rather tame.
(A Friend’s Advice Afterwards.)
“On the whole, better say
You’d have had a good day,
That is—if your nag
Didn’t linger or lag,
Or go lame!”
From Cribblings from the Poets, by Hugh Cayley. Cambridge. Jones & Piggott. 1883.
——:o:——
The Tale of the Sensitive “Freak.”
(A Parody of Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant.”)
A sensitive “freak” in a museum stood,
Where the hours were short and the salary good;
He was tattooed red, white, and blue,
He was the “Bearded Lady,” too,
Likewise the skeleton tall and thin,
And he boasted a most elastic skin:
He’d grown his feet to abnormal size,
And whitened his hair Albino wise,
So he said in language plain and bold
That when he was abandoned the day’d be cold!
Yet he was unhappy exhibiting there,
For down in his breast lurked a poignant care.
He suffered deeply and oft because
He wanted to be far more than he was;
His sensitive nature could not brook
That the public at anyone else should look.
He wanted to be the “Leopard Boy,”
And the “Phantom Lady” cold and coy,
The wonderful “Glass-devouring Star”
And the fair “Circassian,” from Mullingar!
He hated the sinuous “Human Snakes,”
Whose pictures sold like the hottest cakes,
Though it was said that he practised lots
Tying himself into awful knots.
He punched the “What Is it?” in the head,
And cut the “Capillary Sisters” dead;
Placed the “Midget” under the ban
And wouldn’t shake feet with the “Armless Man”;
Kicked the “Cannibal” out of his road,
And said to the “Glass-Blower,” “You be blowed!”
Greater each day his importance grew,
’Till his head at length began swelling too.
When others were noticed he screamed and cried,
’Till his head exploded, and so he died;
And they said, as they washed off the gay tattoo,
And hung up his beard where the wind blew through,
That it was amazing he should be dead.
Simply because he had lost his head;
But that ’twas a warning, his awful fate,
To people who think themselves so great.
From The Umpire.
ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY IN BELZONI’S EXHIBITION.
The success of the ancient Egyptians in preserving their dead by the operation of embalming was surprisingly great. For a proof of this we have only to turn to the fact of our viewing at this day the bodies of persons who lived three thousand years since. This ingenious people applied the powers of art to the purposes of their religion, and did all they could to keep the human frame entire after death, fondly thinking that if it proved a fit dwelling, its former inhabitant, the soul, would return at some distant period, and animate it afresh, even upon earth.
And thou hast walked about, (how strange a story!)
In Thebes’s street three thousand years ago;
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.
Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy,—
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou’rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.
Tell us, for doubtless thou canst recollect,
To whom should we assign the Sphinx’s fame;
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect,
Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey’s Pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden,
By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade:
Then say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon’s statue which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest, and hast been dealing
In human blood, and horrors past revealing.
Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer’s hat,
Or dofted thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon’s own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple’s dedication.
I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled or knuckled,
For thou wert dead and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled!
Antiquity appears to have begun,
Long after thy primeval race was run.
Thou could’st develop, if that withered tongue
Might tell us, what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old, that History’s pages
Contained no record of its early ages?
Still silent, incommunicative elf!
Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;
But prithee tell us something of thyself,—
Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house!
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,
What thou hast seen, what strange adventures numbered?
Since first thy form was in this box extended,
We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended,
New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
Didst thou not hear the pother o’er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o’er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O’erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?
If the tomb’s secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?
Statue of flesh—Immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quitt’st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment-morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning!
Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guests be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue; that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th’ immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!
Horace Smith.
(One of the Authors of “Rejected Addresses.”)
The Answer of the Egyptian Mummy.
Child of the latter days! thy words have broken
A spell that long has bound these lungs of clay,
For since this smoke-dried tongue of mine hath spoken,
Three thousand tedious years have rolled away
Unswathed at length, I ’stand at ease’ before ye,—
List, then, oh! list, while I unfold my story.
Thebes was my birthplace—an unrivalled city,
With many gates; but here I might declare
Some strange plain truths, except that it were pity
To blow a poet’s fabric into air;
Oh, I could read you quite a Theban lecture,
And give a deadly finish to conjecture!
But then you would not have me throw discredit
On grave historians—or on him who sung
The Iliad—true it is I never read it,
But heard it read when I was very young;
An old blind minstrel, for a trifling profit,
Recited parts—I think the author of it.
All that I know about the town of Homer,
Is, that they scarce would own him in his day;
Were glad, too, when he proudly turned a roamer,
Because by this they saved their parish pay;
His townsmen would have been ashamed to flout him,
Had they foreseen the fuss since made about him.
One blunder I can fairly set at rest,
He says that men were once more big and bony
Than now, which is a bouncer at the best,—
I’ll just refer you to our friend Belzoni,
Near seven feet high! in sooth a lofty figure!
Now look at me, and tell me, am I bigger?
Not half the size: but then I’m sadly dwindled;
Three thousand years, with that embalming glue,
Have made a serious difference, and have swindled
My face of all its beauty—there were few
Egyptian youths more gay,—behold the sequel;
Nay, smile not—you and I may soon be equal!
For this lean hand did one day hurl the lance
With mortal aim—this light fantastic toe
Threaded the mystic mazes of the dance:
This heart hath throbbed at tales of love and woe,
These shreds of raven hair once set the fashion,
This withered form inspired the tender passion.
In vain! the skilful hand, and feelings warm,
The foot that figured in the bright quadrille,
The palm of genius and the manly form,
All bowed at once to Death’s mysterious will,
Who sealed me up where Mummies sound are sleeping,
In cere-cloth, and in tolerable keeping.
Where cows and monkeys squat in rich brocade,
And well-dressed crocodiles in painted cases,
Rats, bats, and owls, and cats in masquerade,
With scarlet flounces and with varnished faces;
Men, birds, brutes, reptiles, fish, all crammed together,
With ladies that might pass for well-tanned leather.
Where Rameses and Sabacon lie down,
And splendid Psammis in his hide of crust;
Princes and heroes, men of high renown,
Who in their day kicked up a mighty dust,—
Their swarthy Mummies kicked up dust in numbers,
When huge Belzoni came to scare their slumbers!
Who’d think these rusty hams of mine were seated
At Dido’s table, when the wond’rous tale
Of “Juno’s hatred” was so well repeated?
And ever and anon the queen turned pale;
Meanwhile the brilliant gas-lights, hung above her,
Threw a wild glare upon her shipwrecked lover,
Ay, gas-lights! mock me not; we men of yore
Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention;
Who hath not heard of Egypt’s peerless lore?
Her patient toil? Acuteness of invention?
Survey the proofs—our Pyramids are thriving,—
Old Memnon still looks young, and I’m surviving.
A land in arts and sciences prolific,
On blocks gigantic building up her fame!
Crowded with signs, and letters hieroglyphic,
Temples and obelisks her skill proclaim!
Yet though her art and toil unearthly seem,
Those blocks were brought on RAIL-ROADS and by STEAM!
How, when, and why, our people came to rear
The Pyramid of Cheops, mighty pile!
This, and the other secrets thou shalt hear;
I will unfold if thou wilt stay awhile,
The hist’ry of the Sphinx, and who began it,
Onr mystic marks, and monsters made of granite.
Well, then, in grievous times, when King Cephrenes—
But, ha! what’s that?—the shades of bards and kings
Press on my lips their fingers! What they mean is,
I am not to reveal these hidden things.
Mortal, farewell! Till Science ’self unbind them,
Men must e’en take these secrets as they find them.
Mummius.
From The Saturday Magazine. Vol. IV.
Lines to the Western Mummy.
O stranger, whose repose profound
These latter ages dare to break,
And call thee from beneath the ground
Ere Nature did thy slumber shake,—
What wonders of the secret earth
Thy lips too silent, might reveal!
Of tribes round whose mysterious birth
A thousand envious ages wheel.
Thy race, by savage war o’errun,
Sunk down, their very name forgot;
But ere those fearful times begun,
Perhaps, in this sequestered spot
By Friendship’s hand thine eyelid closed,
By Friendship’s hand the turf was laid;
And Friendships here, perhaps, reposed.
With moonlight vigils in the shade.
The stars have run their nightly round,
The sun looked out and passed his way,
And many a season o’er the ground
Has trod where thou so softly lay.
And wilt thou not one moment raise
Thy weary head, awhile to see
The later sports of earthly days,
How like what once enchanted thee?
Thy name, thy date, thy life declare—
Perhaps a queen, whose feathery band
A thousand maids have sighed to wear,
The brightest in thy beauteous land—
Perhaps a Helen, from whose eye
Love kindled up the flame of war—
Ah, me! do thus thy graces lie
A faded phantom, and no more?
Oh, not like thee would I remain,
But o’er the earth my ashes strew,
And in some rising bud regain
The freshness that my childhood knew.
But has thy soul, O maid, so long
Around this mournful relic dwelt?
Or burst away with pinion strong,
And at the foot of Mercy knelt?
Or has it in some distant clime,
With curious eye, unsated, strayed,
And down the winding stream of time,
On every changeful current played?
Or, lock’d in everlasting sleep.
Must we thy heart extinct deplore,
Thy fancy lost in darkness weep,
And sigh for her who feels no more?
Or, exiled to some humbler sphere,
In yonder wood-dove dost thou dwell,
And murmuring in the stranger’s ear,
Thy tender melancholy tell?
Whoe’er thou be, thy sad remains
Shall from the Muse a tear demand,
Who, wandering on these distant plains.
Looks fondly to a distant land.
Gallaudet.
Sir Moses Montefiore.
And thou hast walked about, how strange a story,
In Europe’s streets, a century nigh ago:
Long time ere Nap the First had gained his glory,
And longer still before his overthrow
On that dread field, where hard he tried to burk us,
Some who were there still linger (in the workus).
I need not ask thee if that hand of thine
Has scattered to the poor thy gold in plenty,
For charity was ever in thy line.
Before thy modest years had numbered twenty,
The same kind spirit which has marked thee ever.
Had shown itself in many a bright endeavour.
Did’st thou not hear the pother in the town
On Monday last, when Ramsgate to the fore,
Placed on thy brow its tributary crown,
And hailed thy patriarchal years, five score?
Here’s to thy long, long life, thou Hebrew hoary,
God’s blessing on thy head, Montefiore!
Botcher.
November, 1884.
On page 103 of “The Wit and Humour of Shirley Brooks” (Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 1883), there is a parody founded on Horace Smith’s “George Barnewell.” It was written in 1858 to ridicule “Soapy Sam,” Bishop Wilberforce, it is quite out of date now, and of no interest, except to some possible historian of theological controversies.
