The crouding Waves guſh with impetuous Rage,
Reſiſtleſs overwhelming; Horrors ſeize
The Mariners, Death in their eyes appears,
They ſtare, they lave, they pump, they ſwear, they pray.
Vain Efforts, ſtill the battering Waves ruſh in
Implacable, till delug’d by the foam,
The Ship ſinks found’ring in the vast Abyſs.
Sir Richard Steele, in “The Tatler,” pronounced “The Splendid Shilling” to be the finest Burlesque Poem in the English language, and Dr. Johnson praised it as an admirable imitation of the stately movement of Milton’s blank verse, whilst Oliver Goldsmith, in his Criticisms, says “This is reckoned the best parody of Milton in our language; it has been an hundred times imitated without success.”
It is a pity that Dr. Goldsmith did not more particularly describe these imitations, as after much searching only about half a dozen have come to light, all of them somewhat old fashioned in subject and manner of treatment.
One of the best, written by Mr. Bramston (author of The Man of Taste, The Art of Politics etc.) was entitled The Crooked Sixpence, and may be found occasionally in old books of Comic Recitations, and Elegant Extracts. Unfortunately no “Elegant Extracts” can be taken from it suitable for the chaste pages of Parodies, for the poem relates to such a topic as might have afforded excellent material to Rabelais, or Chaucer, but which cannot be alluded to in our more refined times.