In Banter (a comic paper edited by Mr. G. A. Sala) for November 11, 1867, there was a parody of Tupper, entitled Proverbial Philosophy of Sausages, but it was not very amusing; and in the same paper, for November 18, there was a burlesque description of a dinner given to Mr. Tupper, and of an after-dinner speech he delivered in which he explained the dodges and devices he had practised in order to puff his works, and increase the sale of Proverbial Philosophy.
The Fall of Tupper.
We are too often painfully reminded that the best of us are but very frail. A very painful case of moral declension has occurred lately. Martin Farquhar Tupper, the great moral philosopher at whose feet all England has sat so long and learnt so much, that great and good man who had discovered a new species of poetry which was neither rhyme nor reason, but all beautiful pure sentiment, has come down to writing rhyme! Happily he has not yet reached the next stage—he has not fallen so low yet as to incur the suspicion of writing reason. But this abandonment of his principles has been, we fear, the result of bad company, for—our heart breaks almost while we pen the words,—but it is too plain, we cannot shut our eyes to the cruel truth—Martin Farquhar Tupper has fallen into the power of Algernon Charles Swinburne!! He, the purest of philosophers, the chosen minstrel of the Evangelical Church, has been studying the words of the erotic Pagan bard, the laureate of Venus and Faustina!
We are enabled, by a wonderful effort of clairvoyance, to publish a poem which the modest songster of The Rock has held back, the charming domestic interest and true Protestant flavour of which must commend it to all admirers of Martin Farquhar Tupper:—
Going to The Wash.
(Lines written on Monday morning.)
BY M. F. T.
I really must look to my washing this week,
I must watch how my shirts are got up;