The two Parodies, from which the following extracts are taken, appeared in The Porcupine, a Liverpool comic paper.
They refer to the Cart Horse procession held in Liverpool on May-day, and describe, with tolerable accuracy, the scenes of rough revelry and noisy merriment which this carnival gives rise to. These compositions are merely quoted as curiosities, possessing, as they do, every attribute which should be studiously avoided in a parody. They are slangy and vulgar, more especially in the omitted verses, without being either humorous or grotesque; they debase the memory of a really beautiful poem by the mere trick of repetition of a catch-phrase and some slight imitation of its metre. The subject chosen is low and commonplace, which might, perhaps, have been excused, had the description of its unpleasant details been enlivened by one spark of wit, or genuine originality. To the lovers of an original poem such Parodies must be offensive; whilst to those who delight in a really clever burlesque, such things as these can afford no gratification, and only tend to bring true Parody into disrepute.
THE DRAY QUEEN.
A Car-men on the May-day Carnival, after the Poet Lorry-ate.
YOU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear!
To-morrow'll be the liveliest time of all the glad New Year;
Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day,
For I'm to be Queen o' the Dray, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the Dray.
There'll be many a black, black eye, they say, and many a lively shine