A Century of Parody and Imitation

by Unknown

To laud a monkey, or to worship leeks?

Then be the stage, to recompense your freaks,

A motley chaos, jumbling age and ranks,

Where Punch, the lignum-vitæ Roscius, squeaks,

And Wisdom weeps, and Folly plays her pranks,

And moody Madness laughs and hugs the chain he clanks.

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'The author has succeeded better in copying the moody and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the nervous and impetuous diction in which his noble biographer has embodied them. The attempt, however, indicates very considerable power; and the flow of the verse and the construction of the poetical period are imitated with no ordinary skill.'—Edinburgh Review.

TO THE