The following felicitous parody on Wolfe’s “Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore” is taken from Thomas Hood:

“Not a laugh was heard, nor a joyous note,
As our friend to the bridal we hurried;
Not a wit discharged his farewell joke,
As the bachelor went to be married.
We married him quickly to save his fright,
Our heads from the sad sight turning;
And we sighed as we stood by the lamp’s dim light,
To think him not more discerning.
To think that a bachelor free and bright,
And shy of the sex as we found him,
Should there at the altar, at dead of night,
Be caught in the snares that bound him.
Few and short were the words we said,
Though of cake and wine partaking;
We escorted him home from the scene of dread,
While his knees were awfully shaking.

Slowly and sadly we marched adown
From the top to the lowermost story;
And we have never heard from nor seen the poor man
Whom we left alone in his glory.”

Mr. Barham has also left us a parody on the same lines:

“Not a sou had he got,—not a guinea, or note,
And he looked most confoundedly flurried,
As he bolted away without paying his shot,
And the landlady after him hurried.
We saw him again at dead of night,
When home from the club returning;
We twigged the Doctor beneath the light
Of the gas lamp brilliantly burning.
All bare, and exposed to the midnight dews,
Reclined in the gutter we found him,
And he looked like a gentleman taking a snooze,
With his Marshall cloak around him.
‘The Doctor is as drunk as the d—l,’ we said,
And we managed a shutter to borrow,
We raised him, and sighed at the thought that his head
Would confoundedly ache on the morrow.
We bore him home and we put him to bed,
And we told his wife and daughter
To give him next morning a couple of red
Herrings with soda-water.
Loudly they talked of his money that’s gone,
And his lady began to upbraid him;
But little he reck’d, so they let him snore on
’Neath the counterpane, just as we laid him.
We tuck’d him in, and had hardly done,
When beneath the window calling
We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun
Of a watchman ‘one o’clock’ bawling.
Slowly and sadly we all walk’d down
From his room on the uppermost story,
A rushlight we placed on the cold hearth-stone,
And we left him alone in his glory.”

In the examples which follow, the selection has been made on the principle of giving only those of which the prototypes are well known and will be easily recognised, and here is another of Hood’s, written on a popular ballad:

“We met—’twas in a mob—and I thought he had done me—
I felt—I could not feel—for no watch was upon me;
He ran—the night was cold—and his pace was unaltered,
I too longed much to pelt—but my small-boned legs faltered.
I wore my brand new boots—and unrivalled their brightness,
They fit me to a hair—how I hated their tightness!
I called, but no one came, and my stride had a tether,
Oh, thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!
And once again we met—and an old pal was near him,
He swore, a something low—but ’twas no use to fear him,
I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only,
And stept, as he deserved—to cells wretched and lonely:
And there he will be tried—but I shall ne’er receive her,
The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver;
The world may think me gay—heart and feet ache together,
Oh, thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!”

Here is another upon an old favourite song:

The Bandit’s Fate.

“He wore a brace of pistols the night when first we met,
His deep-lined brow was frowning beneath his wig of jet,
His footsteps had the moodiness, his voice the hollow tone,
Of a bandit chief, who feels remorse, and tears his hair alone—
I saw him but at half-price, but methinks I see him now,
In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow.
A private bandit’s belt and boots, when next we met, he wore;
His salary, he told me, was lower than before;
And standing at the O. P. wing he strove, and not in vain,
To borrow half a sovereign, which he never paid again.
I saw it but a moment—and I wish I saw it now—
As he buttoned up his pocket, with a condescending bow.
And once again we met; but no bandit chief was there;
His rouge was off, and gone that head of once luxuriant hair:
He lodges in a two-pair back, and at the public near,
He cannot liquidate his ‘chalk,’ or wipe away his beer.
I saw him sad and seedy, yet methinks I see him now,
In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon his brow.”

Goldsmith’s “When lovely woman stoops to folly,” has been thus parodied by Shirley Brooks: