The style of the old ballad has been often so successfully imitated as to deceive even the most accomplished literary critics. Amongst these may be noted the “New-Old Ballads,” written by Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot) which were republished by that clever but unscrupulous satirist in a collection, entitled Tears and Smiles, published in 1801, with the following “Advertisement to the Reader. These ballads were composed several years ago, in imitation of authors of the reigns of Harry the Eighth, Elizabeth, and James, and sent to some of my literary friends as innocent deceptions.—P. P.”
There were also “The Cornish Ballads,” written by Mrs. Gervis, and “The Bristow Tragedy, or Death of Sir Charles Bawdin,” by Thomas Chatterton, and others too numerous to mention, especially as they cannot exactly be styled Parodies in the strict sense of the term.
The finest burlesque ballad in the language is undoubtedly that entitled “The Queen in France,” contained in The Book of Ballads edited by Bon Gaultier, and published by W. Blackwood and Sons. This clever book of parodies and burlesques was the joint production of Sir Theodore Martin, and the late Professor W. E. Aytoun. The burlesque ballad in question was probably composed by Aytoun, it describes the Queen’s visit to Louis Phillippe in France in 1843, and closely imitates the metre and diction of “Sir Patrick Spens” an old Scotch ballad. The old ballad may be found in Percy’s Reliques, in Sir Walter Scott’s Border Minstrelsy, and in Early Ballads, edited by Robert Bell. “The Queen in France” is very long, and disjointed extracts would give but a faint idea of its quaint humour, and simple pathos, besides which The Bon Gaultier Ballads is a readily accessible book.
In the same volume there is another, but inferior, burlesque ballad, entitled Little John and the Red Friar, which deals with the vexed question of ecclesiastical titles. Little John representing Lord John Russell, and the Red Friar, Cardinal Wiseman, who, in 1850, was appointed by the Pope, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, a nomination which gave rise to much agitation and angry controversy.
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The “Lay” of the Good Lord Rosebery.
A Modern Ballad.
It was the good Lord Rosebery
And he sat at the Durdans fair,
By the hour of noon in his heel-less shoon,