JOHN BARLEY-CORN, MY FOE.

JOHN Barley-Corn, my foe, John,
The song I have to sing

Is not in praise of you, John,
E'en though you are a king.

Your subjects they are legion, John,
I find where'er I go ;

They wear your yoke upon their necks,
John Barley-Corn, my foe.

John Barley-Corn, my foe, John,
By your despotic sway
The people of our country, John.
Are suffering to-day.

You lay the lash upon their backs;
Yet willingly they go
And pay allegiance at the polls,
John Barley Corn, my foe.

John Barley-Corn, my foe, John,
You've broken many a heart,
And caused the bitter tear, John,
From many an eye to start.
The widow and the fatherless

From pleasant homes to go,
And lead a life of sin and shame,
John Barley-Corn, my foe.

John Barley-Corn, my foe, John,
May heaven speed the hour,

When Temperance shall wear the crown

And rum shall lose its power;

When from the East unto the West

The people all shall know

Their greatest curse has been removed,
John Barley-Corn, my foe!

CHARLES F. ADAMS.

TO THE DARING DUCKLING.

(By a Moderate Liberal)

JOE CHAMBERLAIN, my Joe, Sir,
You seemed but lately bent
On preaching Liberal Unity,

To our extreme content.

But now you say you will not play,
Unless your pace we go.

How about Liberal Unity, now,

Joe Chamberlain, my Joe?

Joe Chamberlain, my Joe, Sir,

We're facing roughish weather;

Our only chance of victory, Joe,
Seems pulling all together.

Though slow the pace, why should you stop?

Up hill we all would go,

And we'll meet together at the top,

Joe Chamberlain, my Joe!

Punch, October 3, 1885.

But more and more the rest of us
Support the "Grand Young Man."
We do not grumble at your pace,
We would not have you slow,
So put your best leg foremost still,
Joe Chamberlain, our Joe!

Joe Chamberlain, our Joe, lad,
Though Stanhopes rise and row you,
You will not let their silly talk
"Three-acres-and-a-cow" you.
You wait not for the "jumping cat,"
Your mind you seem to know,
Which counts for something nowadays,
Joe Chamberlain, our Joe.

Joe Chamberlain, our Joe, lad,

Your colours are attractive,

And now you've nailed them to the mast,
The Whigs will grow more active.

Keep up the stride-press home those "points"
That rankle in the foe,

And leave the polls to do the rest,

Joe Chamberlain, our Joe.

Funny Folks, October 17, 1885.

Many short Parodies of Burns's poems are scattered about in various old periodicals, but comparatively few are worthy of preservation, whilst some of the best, which have appeared in Scotch newspapers, are so broad in their dialect that few English readers would understand them. Trading on this ignorance of the northern dialect, some authors have composed poems, in imitation of Burns, which, whilst retaining some of the sound, contain none of the sense of the original.

A good example of this style of Parody is to be found in Cruikshank's Comic Almanac for 1846, it is entitled :—

AN UNPUBLISHed Poem.

By Robert Burns.

"Lilt your Johnnie."

WI' patchit brose and ilka pen,

Nae bairns to clad the gleesome ken;

But chapmen billies, a' gude men,

And Doon sae bonnie!

Ne'er let the scornfu' mutchit ben;

But lilt your Johnnie!

For whistle binkie's unco' biel,
Wad haggis mak of ony chiel,
To jaup in luggies like the deil,
O'er loop or cronnie :
You wadna croop to sic a weel;
But lilt your Johnnie!

Sae let the pawkie carlin scraw,
And hoolie, wi' outlandish craw,
Kail weedies frae the ingle draw
As blyth as honie ;

Amang the thummart dawlit wa'

To lilt your Johnnie.

A still funnier parody was published in Punch, also said to be an unpublished poem by Burns.

Some Parodies of National Songs have appeared in Judy, amongst them was the following:

SCOTCH NATIONAL SONG.
AIR-" 7he Breeks o' Balquidder."
GREET na mair, ma sonsie lassie,
Greet na mair, ma pawkie chiel,
Mither's yout the wee bit hallan,
An' ye ken I loe ye weel!
Gin your tocher's guid, ma hinnie,
What for gar the tear-draps fa',
Bring it ben, and pin the door, lass,
An' your jo will tak' it a'!
There's a hantle Kebbuck waitin',
Bonnie farls, and haggis richt,
Pit yere haffits gaily frae ye,
Brawly a' will gang the nicht!
Dinna croon, the braxy's ready,
Tane a tither's i' the brae,
Daddy's fou ahint the bothy,

What suld gar ye fashin' sae?
Loup an' leuch, an' skirl, ma lassie,
Blithely toone the collops ben,
Heed na lang thripplin-kame, luve,
Fear na mair the tappit-hen;
Till the kirk we'll gang the morrow,
Whiles the pipes sae gaily blaw,
Syne we'll crack o' auld Balquidder,
Soughing 'neath the simmer snaw!

Judy. Sept. 10, 1884.

-:0:-

A HISTORY OF THE BURNS' FESTIVAL; or, Centenary Celebration of the Birth of Robert Burns, held at the Crystal Palace, on January 25, 1859, On November 9, 1858, the Directors of the Crystal Palace Company published an advertisement, stating their intention of celebrating the Centenary of the birth of Robert Burns, by a grand festival at the Crystal Palace. At the same time, they offered a prize of Fifty Guineas, under certain conditions, for the best poem celebrating the occasion, to be recited during the Festival, while they solicited the loan of relics and memorials of the Poet, which were to be exhibited on the occasion. An ample response was made. On the 2nd of January, 621 poems were collected, of which 9 came from America. Shortly before this, the Directors had solicited Monckton Milnes, Esq.. M.P., Tom Taylor, Esq., and Theodore Martin, Esq., to act as judges to award the prize; and these gentlemen having kindly consented, commenced their examination. In order to carry out the competition with the utmost fairness, it was decided that the names of the authors should not be communicated, but that two mottoes should be inscribed, for identification, on each poem, and that the name of the author should be forwarded in a sealed envelope, which should bear corresponding mottoes to the poem which it accompanied. The Judges reported in favor of a poem bearing the mottoes

"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," and "A man's a' man for a' that." On the day of the Festival there was a large attendance at the Crystal Palace, many interesting relics and several portraits of Burns were exhibited, and there was a concert of Scotch music, including many of Burns's own songs.

The late Mr. S. Phelps opened the sealed envelope, and announced that the Prize poem was composed by a lady, named "Isa Craig." He then recited the ode which, it must be confessed, was a somewhat disappointing work, with little that was either distinctively Scotch, or reminiscent of Burns in its composition. The poem was printed in full in the Crystal Palace programme for the day, also in the Times, of January 26, 1859.

That the Prize poem was unworthy of the occasion was pretty generally admitted, the Times sneered at the whole concern, principally because it was used by the C. P. Company as an attraction to the Palace, though why that should be a rebuke to managers of public entertainments is not very clear. And, of course, as in the case of all advertised poetical competitions, a collection of burlesque poems was published about the same time as the Festival, by Routledge, Warne and Routledge. This little volume has since been assigned to the pen of Samuel Lover, and it contains a few pieces of really smart, clever burlesque, but the general effect is not very inspiriting. It is entitled: RIVAL RHYMES,

A Remonstrance to the Directors of the Crystal Palace.
By a Proverbial Philosopher.

A Spirit Lay from Hades. By Thomas Campbell.
A Voice from the Far West. By H. W. Longfellow.

A Few Words on Poets, &c. By the Ghost of Thomas Hood.
Ode by an Ardent Admirer of Milton.

Letter of Fergus McFash, enclosing an unpublished Poem, supposed to be by Robert Burns.

The Penny-a-Liner's Hope. By Barry Cornwall,
The Poet's Birth; a Mystery. By the Poet Laureate.
Groves of Sydenham. By an Enraged Bard.

Battle of the Lake Glenlivit. By Lord Macaulay. Author of The Lays of Ancient Rum."

"

Lay of the Rapt Spirit. By the Ghost of Alexander Pope.

Letter to the Directors of the Crystal Palace. By W. M. Thackeray (prose).

APPENDIX.

Lord Brougham on Burns and the Language of Scotland. (At the Burns' Centenary Festival, held in the Music Hall in Edinburgh, when Lord Ardmillan presided, a letter from Lord Brougham was read by the Chairman. It was dated from Cannes, January 17, 1859.) Several of the poems in this little volume have already been quoted in "Parodies." It is only necessary here to give the lines, supposed to be from an early and unfinished work by Robert Burns. These lines are introduced with a statement that they were found in an old escritoire, and are worthy of being preserved with the other relics of Robert Burns.

GANG wi' me to Lixmaleerie, *

Couthie dearie,

Paukie dearie,

*Lixmaleerie a corruption of L'Eglise de Marie.

Where Clinkumbell is clatterin' cleerie,

And lasses buskit gaily, O!
Waukrife a' the nicht I lay.
Whigmaleerie's toom to spae,
Laith and lang, till blink o' day
Wad gie to me my Mallie, O!

Gang wi' me to Lixmaleerie,
Couthie dearie,

Paukie dearie,

Where Clinkumbell is clatterin' cleerie,
We're aiblin's baith expeckit, O!
The hushion'd cowt afore the yett,
Wi' chaup o' cloot, and crankous fret,
Seems bletherin "Lassie, bide ye yet?

Mess-John maun't be negleckit, O!"

Scotchmen are ever ready to do honour to the memory of Burns, and enthusiastically celebrate his birthday every year.

Last year the Aberdeen Burns Club had a dinner at the Imperial Hotel, after which, one of the members, Sir William Cadenhead read some poems on Burns, purporting to have been composed for the occasion by Lord Tennyson, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Oscar Wilde.

Unfortunately these Parodies are too long to reproduce here, but they may be found in The Aberdeen Daily Free Press, of January 26, 1885.

*

HE immense popularity of the writings of Sir Walter Scott is attested by the number of Parodies and imitations both in verse and in prose, they have given rise to.

Thackeray's well known burlesque continuation of Ivanhoe entitled "Rebecca and Rowena" will be fully described, with several others of a similar nature, when dealing with prose parodies.

Several complete parodies of Scott's poems exist, such as Jokeby, The Lay of the Scotch Fiddle, and Marmion Travestied, these are long, and rather tedious, the topics touched upon being now somewhat out of date. But there are many excellent parodies of his shorter poems, and of detached passages from The Lay of the Last Minstrel, etc.

Undoubtedly the finest imitation of Sir Walter Scott's style is that contained in Rejected Addresses, the celebrated little volume by the Brothers James and Horace Smith. Horace Smith was the author

of this imitation of Scott, a poem which was especially singled out for praise by the reviewers.

The Quarterly Review said "from the parody of Walter Scott we know not what to select-it is all good. The effect of the fire on the town, and the description of a fireman in his official apparel, may be quoted as amusing specimens of the misapplication of the style and metre of Mr. Scott's admirable romances;" whilst The Edinburgh Review spoke of the poem as being admirably executed: "The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's love of localities." The authors of Rejected Addresses, in their very interesting preface to the eighteenth edition, state that not one of those whom they had parodied or burlesqued ever betrayed the least soreness or refused to join in the laugh that they had occasioned :

"From Sir Walter Scott, whose transcendent talents were only to be equalled by his virtues and his amiability, we received favours and notice, which it will be difficult to forget, because we had not the smallest claim upon his

"Thus he went on, stringing one extravagance upon another, in the style his books of chivalry had taught him, and imitating, as near as he could, their very phrase."-DON QUIXOTE.

(To be spoken by Mr. Kemble, in a suit of the Black Prince's armour, borrowed from the Tower.)

SURVEY this shield, all bossy bright

These cuisses twain behold!

Look on my form in armour dight

Of steel inlaid with gold:

My knees are stiff in iron buckles,

Stiff spikes of steel protect my knuckles.
These once belong'd to sable prince,
Who never did in battle wince;
With valour tart as pungent quince,
He slew the vaunting Gaul.
Rest there awhile, my bearded lance,
While from green curtain I advance
To yon foot-lights, no trivial dance, *
And tell the town what sad mischance
Did Drury Lane befall.

THE NIGHT.

On fair Augusta's + towers and trees
Flitted the silent midnight breeze,
Curling the foliage as it past,

Which from the moon-tipp'd plumage cast
A spangled light, like dancing spray,
Then re-assumed its still array;
When, as night's lamp unclouded hung,
And down its full effulgence flung,
It shed such soft and balmy power
That cot and castle, hall and bower,
And spire and dome, and turret height,
Appeared to slumber in the light.
From Henry's chapel, Rufus' hall,
To Savoy, Temple, and St. Paul;

From Knightsbridge, Pancras, Camden Town,
To Redriffe, Shadwell, Horsleydown,

No voice was heard, no eye unclosed,
But all in deepest sleep reposed.

They might have thought, who gazed around
Amid a silence so profound,

It made the senses thrill, That twas no place inhabited, But some vast city of the deadAll was so hush'd and still.

THE BURNING.

As Chaos, which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,

Started with terror and surprise

When light first flash'd upon her eyes-
So London's sons in nightcap woke,

In bed-gown woke her dames;

For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke, And twice ten hundred voices spoke"The playhouse is in flames!'

And, lo! where Catherine Street extends,

Alluding to the then great distance between the picture frame, in which the green curtain was set, and the band.

The old name for London.

A fiery tail its lustre lends
To every window-pane;

Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport,

A bright ensanguined drain;
Meux's new Brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's Chapel, and the height
Where Patent Shot they sell ;

The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The Ticket-Porters' House of Call,
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall,+
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,
And Richardson's Hotel,

Nor these alone, but far and wide,
Across red Thames's gleaming tide,
To distant fields, the blaze was borne,
And daisy white and hoary thorn
In borrow'd lustre seem'd to sham
The rose or red sweet Wil-li-am.
To those who on the hills around
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound.
As from a lofty altar rise,

It seem'd that nations did conspire
To offer to the god of fire

Some vast stupendous sacrifice!
The summon'd firemen woke at call,
And hied them to their stations all:
Starting from short and broken snooze,
Each sought his pond'rous hobnail'd shoes,
But first his worsted hosen plied,
Plush breeches next, in crimson dyed,
His nether bulk embraced;

Then jacket thick, of red or blue,
Whose massy shoulder gave to view
The badge of each respective crew,
In tin or copper traced.

The engines thunder'd through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, and clattering feet
Along the pavement paced.

And one, the leader of the band,
From Charing Cross along the Strand,
Like stag by beagles hunted hard,
Ran till he stopped at Vin'gar Yard.
The burning badge his shoulder bore,
The belt and oil-skin hat he wore,
The cane he had, his men to bang,
Show'd foreman of the British gang-
His name was Higginbottom. Now
'Tis meet that I should tell you how
The others came in view;
The Hand-in Hand the race begun,
Then came the Phoenix and the Sun,
Th' Exchange, where old insurers run,

The Eagle, where the new ;

With these caine Rumford, Bumford, Cole,
Robins from Hockley in the Hole,
Lawson and Dawson, cheek by jowl,

Crump from St. Giles's Pound:
Whitford and Mitford join'd the train,
Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane,

Old Bedlam, at that time, stood "close by London Wall." It was built after the model of the Tuileries, which is said to have given the French king great offence. In front of it Moorfields extended, with broad gravel walks crossing each other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, has told him that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now as a punning brother bard sings, "Moorfields are fields no more."

And Clutterbuck who got a sprain

Before the plug was found.
Hobson and Jobson did not sleep,
But ah! no trophy could they reap,
For both were in the Donjon Keep

Of Bridewell's glo my mound!
E'en Higginbottom now was posed,
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed;
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo "Heads below!"
Nor notice give at all.

The firemen terrified are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,

For fear the roof should fall.

Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof!
Witford, keep near the walls!

Huggins, regard your own behoof,
For, lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down, in thunder falls!
An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,

Conceal'd them from th' astonish'd crowd.
At length the mist awhile was clear'd,
When, lo! amid the wreck uprear'd,
Gradual a moving head appear'd,

And Eagle firemen knew 'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered, The foreman of their crew,

Loud shouted all in signs of woe,

A Muggins! to the rescue, ho!"
And pour'd the hissing tide:
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain,
And strove and struggled all in vain,
For, rallying but to fall again,

He totter'd, sunk, and died!
Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succour one they loved so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire
(His fireman's soul was all on fire),
His brother chief to save;
But ah! his reckless generous ire

Served but to share his grave!
'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams,
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke,

Where Muggins broke before.

But sulphry stench and boiling drench
Destroying sight o'erwhelm'd him quite.
He sunk to rise no more.

Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved;
"Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps,
"You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps,
"Why are you in such doleful dumps?
"A fireman; and afraid of bumps!—

"What are they fear'd on? fools! 'od rot 'em!" Were the last words of Higginbottom.*

With bread of ginger brown thy thumb,
For this is Drury's gay day.

Roll, roll thy hoop, and twirl thy tops,
And buy, to glad thy smiling chops,
Crisp parliament* with lollypops,

And fingers of the Lady.

Didst mark, how toil'd the busy train,
From morn to eve, till Drury Lane
Leap'd like a roebuck from the plain?
Ropes rose and sunk, and rose again,
And nimble workmen trol;
To realise bold Wyatt's plan
Rush'd many a howling Irishman;
Loud clatter'd many a porter-can,
And many a ragamuffin clan

With trowel and with hod.
Drury revives! her rounded pate
Is blue, is heavenly blue with slate;
She "wings the midway air" elate,

As magpie, crow, or chough;

White paint her modish visage smears,
Yellow and pointed are her ears,
No pendant portico appears

Dangling beneath, for Whitbread's shears +
Have cut the bauble off.

Yes, she exalts her stately head;
And, but that solid bulk outspread,
Opposed you on your onward tread,
And posts and pillars warranted
That all was true that Wyatt said,

You might have deem'd her walls so thick
Were not composed of stone or brick,

But all a phantom, all a trick,

Of brain disturb'd and fancy sick,

So high she soars, so vast, so quick!