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The First Parody in “Rejected Addresses.”
The very first author selected for imitation by the Smiths was one whose writings have long since been forgotten, and whose name alone is preserved from oblivion by Byron’s lines:—
“Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl
His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall.”
Mr. W. T. Fitzgerald actually sent in a serious address to the Drury Lane Committee on August 31, 1812. It was published, among the other Genuine Rejected Addresses, in that year. It contained the following lines:—
“The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near,
Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear.”
On which Smith remarks, “What a pity, that like Sterne’s Recording Angel, it did not succeed in blotting the fire out for ever! That failing, why not adopt Gulliver’s remedy?” Fitzgerald’s writings do not appear to have attained the dignity of a collected edition, but in the Library of the British Museum a number of his poems and prologues are preserved, from which the following is selected as a fair example of his style. It will also illustrate the humour of the parody.
BRITONS TO ARMS.