"It is now a period of one-and-twenty years since I first wrote some of the most perfect compositions that ever dropped from poetical pen. My heart hath been right and powerful all its years. I never thought an evil or a weak thought in my life. It has been my aim and my achievement to deduce moral thunder from buttercups, daisies, Icelandines, and (as a poet scarcely inferior to myself, hath it) such small deer." Accustomed to mountain solitudes, I can look with a calm and dispassionate eye upon that fiend-like, vulture-souled, adder-fanged critic, whom I have not patience to name, and of whose Review I loathe the title, and detest the contents. Philosophy has taught me to forgive the misguided miscreant, and to speak of him only in terms of patience and pity. My ballads are the noblest pieces of verse in the whole range of English poetry: and I take this opportunity of telling the world I am a great man. Milton was also a great man. Ossian was a blind old fool. Copies of my previous works may be had in any numbers, by application at my publisher. Of Peter Bell I have only thus much to say it completes the simple system of natural narrative which I began so early as 1798. It is written in that pure unlaboured style which can only be met with among labourers; and I can safely say that its occasional meaning occasionally falls far below the meanest capacity. I commit my ballad confidently to posterity. I love to read my own poetry: it does my heart good." W. W. The parody consists of 42 stanzas, and relates how Peter Bell, visiting the churchyard, comes across a gravestone on which is engraved W. W. I. IT is the thirty-first of march, A gusty evening-half past seven ; Though the stars are thick in Heaven. Beneath the ever blessed moon An old man o'er an old grave stares, 'Tis Peter Bell-'tis Peter Bell, VII. I've seen him in the month of August, At the wheat-field, hour by hour, He quits that moon-light yard of skulls, He mutters ever-" W. W. Never more will trouble you, trouble you." There has been some speculation as to the author of this parody,and as far back as 1866 the following letter appeared in Notes and Queries: "It was Reynolds, too, who, in 1819, anticipated the genuine Peter Bell of Wordsworth by a spurious Peter Bell, in which were exhibited and exaggerated the characteristics of Wordsworth's earlier simplicitas. I knew Reynolds, and often talked to him about Peter Bell. Wordsworth's poem had been advertised, but its publication was from time to time put off. Some literary men were guessing at the cause of this delay, and one said, Wordsworth is keeping it back to elaborate. 'Elaborate!' said Reynolds, 'I'll see if I can't get one out before him.' He set to work that afternoon, and sent his poem to the printer the next evening. I think it was out about a fortnight before Wordsworth's. Up to the publication of Peter Bell, they were literary friends, and occasionally exchanged letters. The joke annoyed Wordsworth, who gave up the acquaintance." Shelley also wrote a parody of Peter Bell. A parody entitled "The Dead Asses, a Lyrical Ballad " was also published in 1819, but no copy of it can be found in the British Museum Library. 1819. "Benjamin the Waggoner, a Ryghte merrie and conceitede tale in verse." A Fragment. London, Baldwin. Anonymous. The introduction is signed Peter Plague-em. This clever burlesque of "Peter Bell," is an octavo of 96 pages, and consists of an Introduction, the poem, and some very prolix notes, all in ludicrous imitation of Wordsworth. THERE'S Something in a glass of ale, There's something in good sugar candy; There's something in a glass of brandy. There's something in Gambado's horse, I wish I had a pair of wings, No more should critics vex my ears. And now I have a velocipede, And now I have the little peg, And now I've fix'd upon it wings, And bidding adieu to earthly things, I lift, and lay across my leg. Now I rise, and away we go, My little hobby-horse and me; And now I'm near the planet Venus, Nothing seems to be between us, Not a bit of earth I see. I love the words which run so easy- And ass-times just forty-two. The parody is amusing, but exceedingly frivolous, as no attempt is made to do more than ridicule the simplicity of Wordsworth's diction. LORD BYRON ON "PETER BEll." Messrs. J. W. Jarvis & Son, booksellers, of King William Street, Strand, have a scarce little work from which they kindly allow the following extracts to be made : The book is entitled "The Private Libraries of Philadelphia," and describes the curious Bibliographical collection made by Mr. George W. Childs, of that city. This catalogue is by Mr. F. W. Robinson, and printed by Collins, of Philadelphia, in 1883. Mention in it is made of a six volume edition of Lord Byron's works presented to Mr. Childs by John Murray, the publisher. In the first volume of this set is inserted a copy of Wordsworth's poem Peter Bell, a poem for which Lord Byron, who generally disliked Wordsworth's poetry, had a special aversion, and in this copy he had scribbled on the margin a parody of the commencement of the poem. This parody has not hitherto been published in England. Wordsworth's Peter Bell commences thus: Rydal Mount, April 7, 1819. PROLOGUE. THERE'S something in a flying horse, Whose shape is like the crescent moon. And now I have a little boat, In shape a very crescent moon :- Lord Byron's disgust is expressed in these lines : THERE'S something in a stupid ass ; And now I've seen so great a fool I saw the "light in ninety-eight," And deems himself of Shakspeare's Peers. William Wordsworth-if I might advise : -:0: A MOOD OF MY OWN MIND. MUCH grieved am I in spirit by the news of this day's post, Which tells me of the devil to pay with the paper money host: 'l'is feared that out of all their mass of promises to pay, The devil alone will get his due : he'll take them at his day. This the first verse of one of the Paper Money Lyrics (in imitation of William Wordsworth) written by T. L. Peacock. The poem will be found in the third Volume of The Works of Thomas Love Peacock. London. R. Bentley & Son, 1875. A great many parodies of Wordsworth are to be found in books published forty or fifty years ago, but they are, for the most part, dull and uninteresting, a few of the best only need be enumerated. In " Warreniana." By W. F. Old Cumberland Pedlar. The Stranger, The Flying Tailor, and James Rigg. In "The Poetic Mirror." By James Hogg. Longman & Co. London. 1816. Specimen the Fourth, in "Rejected Odes" (London, 1813), is a parody of "Alice Fell." The Story of Doctor Pill and Gaffer Quake, after the inost approved modern style, and containing Words-worth imita tion, appeared in Vol. 10 of The Satirist (London.) This is a long and spiteful parody of Goody Blake and Harry Gill, which was first published in Lyrical Ballads (Bristol) in 1798. "Tim the Tacket, a lyrical ballad, supposed to be written by W. W." is to be found in Poetical Works by William Motherwell, Paisley. Alexander Gardner. 1881. It is a fairly good imitation of style, and might pass for one of Wordsworth's minor ballads. :0: WORDSWORTH AS POET LAUREATE. On the death of Robert Southey, in 1843, the appointment of Poet Laureate was offered to Wordsworth. At first he declined on the plea that he was too far advanced in life to undertake the duties of the office; thereupon Sir Robert Peel wrote :-"Do not be deterred by the fear of any obligations which the appointment may be supposed to imply. I will undertake that you shall have nothing required from you." Thus pressed, Wordsworth accepted the title and the pension, he being already in the receipt of a handsome annuity from the Government. The warrant was dated April 6, 1843, and he retained the office till his death in 1850. He wrote a sonnet on the occasion of his appointment, which for vanity and egotism is probably unparallelled in literature, but beyond this he paid little further attention, either to the office, or its ancient duties.* MR. WORDSWORTH'S SUPPOSED ODE ON THE INSTALLATION OF H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT AT CAMBRIDGE, JUNE, 1847. (Exclusive.) I. SONS of the Cam, awake! Come, stir, ye sleeping elves; Arise, or else your Prince will take A rise out of yourselves. Fast man, come breakfast faster, For a detailed account of this appointment and its pay, privileges, and duties, see The Poets Laureate of England, by Walter Hamilton. (London, Reeves and Turner.) Where art thou, learned Whewell? Come, meek of speech, and bland of style, Lack you a theme for laughter? better Or of your epitaph-" Here Whewell lies, IV. Throw up your caps in fury, O! Dear is your chosen head. Your chieftain claims the Prince of Wales. He's fit to rule, with gifts like these, ་ Born October 21, 1772. Died July 25, 1834. The poetical fame of Coleridge rests principally upon The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Christabel, both of which are so well known that it is quite unnecessary to reprint them, especially as Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co. have recently published a very cheap and handy edition of the miscellaneous poems of Coleridge, containing the above, as well as some other poems which, being less known, have not given rise to so many parodies. :0: THE ANCIENT MARINER. This weird poem was founded on a strange dream which a friend of Coleridge had, who fancied he saw a skeleton ship, with figures in it. Wordsworth wrote a few lines of it, and the idea of shooting an albatross appears to have been his. As Coleridge himself informs us, it was planned and partly composed during a walk with Wordsworth and his sister, in the autumn of 1797. It was first published in 1798, in a volume entitled Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems," Bristol, 1798. It is the opening poem of the volume, and is quaintly styled "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere," in seven parts. Most of the other poems in the volume were written by Wordsworth. The first version contained a stanza (the eleventh in Part III.) which has been omitted from all subsequent reprints : "His bones were black with many a crack, Jet black and bare, save where with rust, Of mouldy damps and charnel crust They were patch'd with purple and green." The First Part, which is that most frequently parodied, is given below: PART I It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. "By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, He holds him with his skinny hand, "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon !" Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, "The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light-house top. The sun came up upon the left, Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noonThe Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, "And now the storm-blast came, and he With sloping masts and dipping prow, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And now there came both mist and snow, And through the drifts the snowy clifts Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken- The ice was here, the ice was there, It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, At length did cross an albatross, It ate the food it ne'er had eat, |