A CHAPTER OF PARODIES.
Parodies have been much in vogue in almost every age; among the Greeks, Latins, Germans, French, and English, it has been among the commonest of literary pleasantries to turn verses into ridicule by applying them to a purpose never dreamed of by their authors, or to burlesque serious pieces by affecting to observe the same rhymes, words, and cadences. The wicked arts of Charles the Second's time thus made fun of the hymns of the Roundheads, and pious people have since turned the tables by adapting to good uses the profane airs and sensual songs of the opera house. Of the class of puns, parodies have in the scale of art a much higher rank, and occasionally they furnish specimens of genuine poetry. Among the best we have ever seen are a considerable number attributed to Miss Phebe Carey, of Ohio; they are rich in quaint and natural humor, and as a London critic describes them, "wonderfully American." In its way, we have seen nothing better than this reflex of Bayard Taylor's poem of "Manuela."