To be useful and kind with my Thomas I stayed,—
For his trousers I washed, and his grog, too, I made.
[P. 250.] W. E. Aytoun. The contributions of Aytoun to the Book of Ballads, edited by 'Bon Gaultier,' that are here given are those which, on the authority of Sir Theodore Martin, were solely his own composition. Several of the Ballads had appeared in periodicals before they were collected and published in book form in 1845.
[P. 252.] A Midnight Meditation. Six poets are parodied in the 'Bon Gaultier' Ballads under the general heading, 'The Laureates' Tourney'—Wordsworth, the Hon. T— B— M'A—, the Hon. G— S— S—, T— M—RE, Esq., A— T—, and Sir E— B— L—, the last of which, by Aytoun only, is here given. The parodists, remembering Rejected Addresses, profess that the poems were sent to the Home Secretary when the Laureateship became vacant on the death of Southey.
[P. 252.] These mute inglorious Miltons. Hood had already used this pun connecting the poet and the oysters in his ballad of the blind Tim Turpin:
A surgeon oped his Milton eyes.
Like oysters, with a knife.
[P. 254.] The Husband's Petition. In this Aytoun was using to a ludicrous end the measure he had employed in The Execution of Montrose:
Come hither, Evan Cameron!
Come, stand beside my knee—