153

202

A Flea, or not a Flea? by James Robinson...
To Fight, or not to Fight? 1823

To Go, or not to Go? Ophelia's Version. 153
To Have it out, or not? A Dental Soliloquy 153
To Hiss, or not to Hiss? The Puppet Show 154
To Hunt, or not to Hunt? The Mirror, 1823
To Pay, or not to Pay? The Debtor's Solilo-
quy, by F. J. Overton, 1881 ...

To Pay, or not to Pay? (on the Suez Canal).
by Leonard Harding ...

154

154

150

157

157

157

161

Punch and Lord John Russell, 1848...
Henry Irving as Othello

158

Trousers, or no Trousers? (The Bloomer
Question) The Month, 1851

...

Tubby, or not Tubby? by F. C Burnand
To Urn, or not to Urn? by William Sawyer 161

185

186

...

186
187
187

Othello Travestie, an Operatic Burlesque Burletta,

by Maurice G. Dowling, produced at Liver-
pool in 1834, and at the Strand Theatre

... 188

LET DOGS DELIGHT TO BARK AND BITE
Let Canine Animals, 1847

Let Austria delight to bark and bite, 1854
Let peaceful Bright in speech delight, 1854
Let Lords delight to bark and bite, 1869
Let Rads delight to bark and bite
Let Bigots write with sneers of spite
Let Fools and Bullies brawl and fight...
Let Cads delight with fists to fight
Let Frenchmen fight with kick and bite
Whigs in their cosy berths agree, 1849
Birds in their little nests agree...
Oh, Marcus! You should never let ...
On a Fracas at Newmarket, 1883
To a Policeman

279

279

279

279

279

280

141

206

206, 208

207

207

207

207

...

207

208

208

208

DICKENS IN CAMP.

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken

From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell?-

Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills

With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly

And laurel wreaths intwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,

This spray of Western pine!

July, 1870,

BRET HARTE,

PARODIES IN PRINT.

AMONG the books the gloom was darkly drifting,
The writer's spirits low;

The duller serials, and the weeklies, lifting
But melodies of woe.

The older authors, with rude humour, painted
The glowing fun of health

Now lost in dreary prose, jokes died or fainted
In sterner race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from the past's great treasure
Of hundred volumes drew,

A scheme to tap the hoard untold of pleasure
And bid it flow anew;

And so the parodies unearthed grew vaster,
Than ever one could tell,

All mimicking some mighty poet Master,
In many a sprightly "Sell."

Perhaps 'tis too fond fancy,--that the reader
Should leave the weeklies all,

Let Punch go prosing, scorn the D. T. leader,
And let Police News pall;

While 'mid these gambols of poetic shadows,
Listening to bygone play,

As each mad parody evokes the glad "Ohs!"
(As Browning p'raps would say).

See Tennyson, in mighty verse-o'ertaken,
Mimicked in tripping line--

When jokes from Longfellow, so grave, are shaken
Like gush in penny-a-line.

To find in rush of their poetic fire,

A comic theme told well,

While stately verse, and song, and culture higher,

Are used some joke to tell.

Lost be that scamp, who would no funny story

Tell in the rhyme that thrills

Like farthing rushlight posing as the glory

Of sun o'er ancient hills.

If, in the crowd of puppets, some poor dolly
Should ape a bard sublime,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly-
To jest is not a crime.

November, 1884.

J. W. G. W.

THAT HEBREW BEN D▬▬
House of Lords, January, 1878.

WHICH I wish to remark-
And my language is plain--
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,

The Hebrew Ben D-- is peculiar,

Which the same I would like to explain.

I have mentioned his name,

And I shall not deny,

In regard to the same

He is wary and sly;

And his smile it is mocking and ice-like And there isn't no green in his eye.

Now, some rumours had spread,

Which Ben D-- could not burke,
And every one said

He'd been at his old work.

(It was strange, you must know, how he doated Upon the "Unspeakable Turk.")

It was Gran-Vil who rose,

And quite soft was his style;

But you must not suppose

That he hasn't no guile;

Yet D-played it that day upon Gran Vil

In a way that made most of them smile.

Which some questions he'd brought,
And Ben rose-as 'twas planned--
To reply. What was sought