"A MAID, blue-stockinged, broke the silence drear,
And flashing forth a winning smile, said she:
'Tis long since I have seen a man, come here,
Play croquet now with me!'"
"She spooned, and cheated, and had ancles thick.
I let her win, the game was such a bore,
Her bright ball quivered at the coloured stick,
Touched—and—we played no more."
The trick of Tennyson's blank verse, as displayed in some of his early and lighter poems, was admirably imitated by Bayard Taylor in the "Diversions of the Echo Club," (now published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus). The parody is entitled "Eustace Green; or, the Medicine Bottle."
In the second volume of "Echoes from the Clubs" several instances are given of plagiarisms committed by Tennyson; whilst in "The Figaro" of October 27, 1875, whole passages from his tragedy of Queen Mary are shown to have been borrowed.