I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.
[P. 256.] Sonnet CCCI. Martin Farquhar Tupper published a volume of Three Hundred Sonnets in 1860. Punch professed to have made an arrangement with him to continue the series, and boldly put the initials M. F. T. to this parody in the number for May 26, 1860.
[P. 257.] You see yon prater called a Beales. Edmond Beales (1803-1881) was President of the Reform League at the time of the Hyde Park riots. He thus figures in Punch in lines written apropos of tears shed by Walpole, Home Secretary, when he learnt of the riots:
Tears at the thought of that Hyde Park affair
Rise in the eye and trickle down the nose,
In looking on the haughty Edmond Beales,
And thinking of the shrubs that are no more.
[P. 258.] The Lay of the Lovelorn. This is one of the 'Bon Gaultier' Ballads, and is included by permission of Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons. Aytoun had no part in this parody. It was solely Sir Theodore Martin's, and in its author's opinion is the best he contributed to the collection. In the Book of Ballads Sir Theodore was at pains to explain that—
it was precisely the poets whom we most admired that we imitated the most frequently. This was certainly not from any want of reverence, but rather out of the fullness of our admiration, just as the excess of a lover's fondness often runs over into raillery of the very qualities that are dearest to his heart. 'Let no one,' says Heine, 'ridicule mankind unless he loves them.' With no less truth may it be said, Let no one parody a poet unless he loves him. He must first be penetrated by his spirit, and have steeped his ear in the music of his verse, before he can reflect these under a humorous aspect with success.