’Twixt vice and virtue’s height some “happy medium.”
——:o:——
In 1872, the late Mr. Mortimer Collins published “The British Birds, a communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes.” Extracts from this very clever satire are still often quoted. The following passages contain parodies of A. C. Swinburne, Robert Browning, and Alfred Tennyson, whose identities are thinly veiled under the names of Brow, Beard, and Hair.
Scene. In the Clouds.
Peisthetairus, discovered.
(Enter three Poets, all handsome. One hath redundant hair, a second redundant beard, a third redundant brow. They present a letter of introduction from an eminent London publisher, stating that they are candidates for the important post of Poet Laureate to the New Municipality which the Birds are about to create.)
Peisthetairus. Gentlemen:
Happy to see you in the Realms of Air
As yet the worthy Mayor and Aldermen
And Councillors of the Town have not decided