THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3611, 29 May 1923, Page 61

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

[Ai.i. Rights Reserved.]

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY.

By

A. H. Grinling.

X —OX PARODIES AND PARODISTS. I Lave little partiality for parodies; oiiee delight has been experienced in the beauty and intensity of some favourite }>assage or poem, it seems little short of sacrilege to come across a parody of the piece, no matter how clever be the imitation. And 1 echo, with all my heart, the wise words of Mr John Drinkwater, when he says: “Common parody, skilled though it be, is a defilement of poetry, anfi contemptible. It springs rather from resentment than from affection and understanding, being the attack of mere cleverness upon beauty. The jealous touch is unmistakable, and though it may sometimes force a laugh, it is always for any generous reader a laugh without comfort. It remains vulgar, lacking the last saving grace of tenderness.” Mr Drinkwater qualifies this utterance with a “but” —and in this I am also in thorough concord —“But the parodist of line temper never outrages cur love of poetry, indeed, he exercises it, not passionately, but in a very friendly intimacy.” And the description “a parodist of line temper” is an exact description of Charles Stuart Calverley. I know no more delightful occupation in a moment of leisure than to idly turn the pages of a scarcely studied volume in search of buried treasure. Every library contains scores of such books, originally introduced among many others, and placed on a shelf for subsequent examination, are buried beneath the continual accumulation, to be exhumed accidentally after many days. So it has been with a book called “Essays, MockEssays and Character Sketches,” brought home in a bundle from an auction sale, ten, or perhaps twenty years ago, and never read, indeed, hardly looked at. Under some inspiration difficult to account for, I picked up the book a week or so hack and discovered among the character sketches one on C. S. Calverley, unsigned. but marked as reprinted from the Journal of Education of April, 1884. I made a mental ticket of the sketch, and presently fitted it in as starting point of this brief dissertation on parodies and parodists. By general acclaim Calverley is the prince of parodists, and “The Cock and the Bull,” in imitation of Browning's “The Ring and the Book,” is cons:dered to be the most telling parody in the English language. It has been pointed out that Calverley’s temperament and training led him to regard simplicity, directness, tenseness and lucidity as qualities inseparable from literary work, and this made his imitation of “The Bing and the Book” all the more effective. It is worth while, with a volume of Browning in one hand, to recall the beginning of “The Cock and the Bull”: You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day— I like to dock the smaller parts-o’-speeeh, As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur (You catch the paronomasia, play ‘po’ words?) Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the con cern, And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for same By way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange—- “ Chop” was my snickering dandiprafs own term— One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm. O—n—e one and f—o—u —r four Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir? — What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock. One dry land what a roaring day iwas Go shop or sight-see—bar a spit o’ rain!) In February, eighteen sixty nine, Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei Hm—hm —how runs the jargon? being on throne. Such, sirs, are ail the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum—what you will— Of the impending eighty thousand lines. “Xot much in ’em either,” quoth, perhaps, simple Hodge. But there’s a superstructure. Wait a bit. At Harrow, where he was educated, Calverley was known as C'. S. Blayds. His nickname was “Bull,” and while he never distinguished himself at cricket, football or rackets, he was a remarkable jumper for his height. “One of his leaps in particular is among the traditions of the school” —I am quoting from the sketch in the Journal of Education—“ The court yard of the Old School is bounded bv a wall some four feet high, with a drop of fifteen feet the other side into the ‘milling ground’, a turf plot where fights from time immemorial have taken place. Borne cne had dared Blayds to this leap, and he took it with Lis hands in his pockets.” While not a “swat”, he won his way to the top of the school and carried off a lion’s share of the prizes. He was especially distinguished for his Latin composition. In 1850 he went to Ba'iol College, where he won the Chancellor’s prize, but was “sent down” for breaking bounds, but reappeared at Christ’s College, Cambridge, as Charles Stuart Calverley: his father, the Rev. Henry Blayds, having in the meantime assumed the name of Calverley. which the family had borne since the Norman conquest. At Christ’s, Calverley was cock of the roost and a true Bohemian : he liked to take his ease at the inn, and he had a horror of general society. Of the many stories told of his exploits, the following are thoroughly characteristic : Round the quad of Christ's there are remarkably tall iron railings, particularly templing for a high jumper like Calverley One day the Master, Dr Carltnell, serif for him and asked, “How is it, Mr Calverley, that I never look out of my study window but I see you jumping over the railings

on to the grass plot?” “Well, Master,” replied Calverley, "it’s a remarkable thing, but I’ve noticed that I never jump over the railings but I see you looking out of your study windows.” There was a young exquisite at. Christ s of the name of Stott (aesthetes had not yet been invented). Calverley made a bet that he would make Stott carry a cabbage, between two and four, down King s Parade. Inviting the unsuspecting Stott to take a stroll, he led him through the market place, stopped at a stall and bought toe cabbage, the bigge.st he could find, and tucking it- under his arm, proceeded to the Parade. Stott was 100 polite to protest, and accompanied hint with passive reluctance. Once there Caiverley pulled out a pipe and tried to light a match; then after repeated failures ne begged Stott to hold the cabbage for one instant until his pipe was alight. The cabbage once transferred, the rest of the task was easy, and the end of the Parade was readied before his pipe get lit and the cabbage restored to its owner. CcntcmpOTa.ry with Chlverley, their names frequently coupled together, as in tho lines • This work recalls the cleverness Of C. S. C. and J. K. S. is James Kenneth Stephen, for ever immortal by reason of the characteristic stanzas evoked by a poem of Browning’s : Will there never come a season Which shall rid us from the curse Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmeiodious verse; When the world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass; When mankind shall be delivered From the clash of magazines And the inkstand shall be shivered Into countless smithereens: ■When there stands a muzzled stripling Mute beside a muzzled bore When the Rudyard’s cease from Kipling And the Haggards Ride no more. Ajb their best Stephen’s parodies are among the best of their kind, and in the front rank must be placed “Of R. B. to A. S.” In his little book on “Parody”— included in “The Art and Craft of Letters” series—Mr Christopher Stone says: “It is curious to find that nearly? every writer on parody and quite a large number of parodists, specifically declare that the parodist must love or admire or revere or respect his original.” In sup port of which statement Mr Stone quotes Mr Arthur Symon’s definition of Admiration and Laughter “the very essence of the act or ait of parody” ; and Sir Owen Seaman, who is reported as having said : “Reverence might seem a strange quality? to require of a parodist: yet it was instinct of the best of them.” This theory is triumphantly clinched by “The Parodist’s Apology,” when Stephen says : If I’ve dared to laugh at you, Robert Brown ing, ’Tia with eyes that with you have often wept: You have oftener left me smiling or frowning, Than any beside, one bard except. But once you spoke to me, storm-tongued poet, A trivial word in an idle hour: - But thrice I looked on your face, and the glow it Bore from the flame of the inward power. But you’d many a friend you never knew of, Your words lie hid! in a hundred hearts And thousands of hands that you’ve grasped but few of Would be raised to shield you from slander’s darts, For you lived in the sight of the land that owned you, You faced tire trial and stood the test: They have piled you a cairn that would fain have stonc-d you : You have spoken, your message, and earned your rest. It goes without saying that Browning, Swinburne, Kipling and Masefield present large targets for the aim of the parodist. Swinburne's assent to the art of parody is set down in his own “] leptalogia” described as “The Seven Against Sense” or “A Cap With Seven Bells,” in which he has parodied Tennyson, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Coventry Patmore, Robert Lord Lytton and Rossetti. At the suggestion of Watts Dunton, Swinburne added to the collection “Nephelidea”, a parody of his own most alliterative and redundant poetry ; and at the end of the volume of “Posthumous Poems” will be found a couple of stanzas in the measure of “Dolores”, parodying a chorus in “By the North Sea”, and which was originally intended for “Fleptalogia.” It is interesting to place side by side, stanzas taken respectively from Swinburne’s own parody of himself, from A. C. Hilton’s well-known “Octopus by Algernon Charles Sin-burn”, and from Sir Owen Seaman’s “A Song of Renunciation” : From “The Ghost of It,” by Swinburne. 11l my poems, with ravishing rapture, Storm strikes me, and strokes me, and stings; But I’m scarcely the bird you might capture Out of doors in the thick of such things. I prefer to be well out of harm’s way, When tempest makes tremble tile tree, And the wind with omnipotent arm-sway Makes soap of the sea Fame flutters in front of pretension Whose flag-staff is flagrantly fine, And it cannot be needful to mention That such beyond question is mine. It is plain as a newspaper leader That a rhymster who scribbles like me May feel perfectly sure that his reader Is sick of the sea. From “Octopus,” by A. C. Hilton. Wast thou horn to the sound of sea trumpets ? Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess Of the sponges—thy muffins and crumpets, Of the seaweed —thy mustard and cress? Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral, Remote, from reproof and restraint? Alt thou innocent, are thou immoral. Sinburnian or saint?

U breast, that ’twere rapture to writhe on! O arms ’twere delicious to feel Clinging close with the crush of the python When she rnaketh her murderous meal! In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden, Let- our. .empty existence escape: Give ns death that is glorious and golden Crushed all out of shape From “A Song of Renunciation,” by Sir Owen Seaman. In the days of my season of salad When the down was as dew on my cheek, And for French I was bred on the ballad, For Greek on the writers of Greek, — Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy, Of “pleasure that winces and stings”; Of white women and wine that is bloody, And similar things. Of Delight that is dear as Desi —er, And 1 Desire that is dear as Delight; Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-ex, Of tho bruises of kisses that bite; Of embraces that clasp and that sever Of blushes that flutter and flee Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever Dolores may be. I am so strong an admirer of Swinburne that it is with a meed of reluctance that I have let loose the parodists upon him. I feel little compunction, therefore, in giving Kipling similar treatment, and with all the greater relish since Kipling is no particular favourite of mine. Tn the region of prose parodies few writers have done better work than Bret Harte, who, in his “Condensed Novels”, has given some most amusing imitations of Fenimoro Cooper, M.iss Braddon, Mrs Henry Ward, Dumas, Charlotte Bronte, Captain Marrvat, Wilkie Collins, Charles Ileade, Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, Anthony Hope, Conan Doyle, Hall Caine, Marie Corelli and Rudyard Kipling. Under the heading “Stories Three” Bret Harte gives a trio of Kipling imitations—viz., “For Simla Reasons”, “A Private’s Honour” and “Jungle Folk” The following extract is from the last named : It was high noon of a warm summer’s day when Moo Kow came down to the watering place. Miaow, otherwise known as “Puskat”— the warmth loving one—was douching- on a limb that overhung the pool, sunning herself. Brer Rabbit — hut that is Another Story? by? Another Person. Tlnee or four Gee Gees, already at the pool, moved away on the approach of Moo Kow?. “Willy do ye stand aside?” said the Moo Kow. “Why do you say ‘ye’?” said the Gee Gees together. “Because it’s more impressive than you’. Don’t you know that all animals talk that way in English?” said the Moo Kow. “And they also say ‘thou’—anu don’t you forget it,!” interrupted Miaow from the tree “I learnt that from a Man Cub.” The animals were silent. Thev did not like Miaow’s slang, and were jealous of her occasionally sitting on a Man Cub’s lap. Once Bon-kee, a poor relation of the Gee Gees, had tried it on, disastrously? —but that is Another and a more Aged Story. “We are ridden by The English —please to observe the capital letters,” said Pi 801, the Leader of the Gee Gees, proudly. “They are a mighty race wlio ride anything arid everybody. D’ye mind that—l mean, Look ye well to it.” “What should they know of England who only England know?” said Miaow. “Is that a conundrum?” asked the Moo Kow. “No; its poetry,” said the Miaow. Although Bret Harte was born in America, in 1839, he died in England in 1902.’ Kipling was born in 1865, twenty-six years later, and his “Jungle Books” were published in 1894 and 1895. It has been said of Kipling, “The tragedy of his career is that- he has never grown old, and he cannot go on indefinitely producing works of youth.” One of the cleverest of modern parodists is Mr Charles Powell, whose book “Poets in the Nursery” is a feast of delights ; many? of tile parodies contained therein having originally appeared in the Manchester Guardian. To imagine Mr G. K. Chesterton tell tho story of “Little Jack Horner.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox relate “Little Tom Tucker”, Alfred Noyes “Ride a Cocklrorse” or Sir Henry Newbolt master the intricacies of “Hey, Diddle, Diddle” opens up all manner of possibilities of which ~j.r Powell skilfully avails himself. To my mind, the gem "of this collection is “Little Bo Beep,” done into good Kiplingese after this fashion : There’s a whimper in the field where a shepherdess has squealed For her sheep that arc off on the run: “Hi! Rover there, come ever, for the fleck lias quit the clover And we've lo3t them every one.” You can hear the bleat of the youngest ewe As she seeks her roving dam; You can see the tail —how frail! how frail! That hangs from the smallest ram. Ha’ done with the tears that are rain dear lass; Cast out the fear that is blind: For they’ll each ceme back with a whole tail, its own tail, its sole tail They’ll all come home with a Plain Tale that a tail it is worn behind Mr Powell assigns the story of “Jack and Jill” to Dr John Masefield, which

recalls the fact that in the Cornhill Magazine for January, 1914, Mr C. A. Vince told the same story in no less than a dozen different styles. The finest effort in this direction, however, is certainly Mr Anthony C. Deane’s version “after Rudyard Kipling.” Probably the cleverest parodies of Masefield’s verse are to be found in Mr J. C. Squire’s “Tricks of the Trade,” for it must be remembered that before Jack Squire attained to the eminence of editor of the London Mercury he was best known as a parodist. “Tricks of the Trade” is divided into two parts, the first of which, “How They do It.’’ has, as No. 4 “Mr John Masefie’l : The Poet in the Back Sheets,” prefaced by an “Author’s Note.” “The following poem has been considerably compressed owing to the exigencies of space, which must sometimes be respected. But enough at least has been

printed to indicate that it is a ]-xiuction of the school of Real Human J Emotion that is leading a return to i ife and Religion and Natural Action a d away from tho.- refined aestheticisms of so many of our modern poets.’’ The secorf•! half of tho book illustrates, “How The*: Would Have Done It,” as, for insta ice, “If Wordsworth had written ‘The Everlasting Mercy,” or “If a very new poet had wiitten ‘The Lotus Eaters.’ ” Mr b-quire is at his best, however, when he attempts to illustrate what would have happened “If Mr Masefield had written ‘Casibianca.’ ’’ The parody is pure Masefield, as one stanza will serve to show : Dogs barked, owls hooted,- cockerels crew, As in my works they often do When, flagging with my main design, I pad with a descriptive line. Young Gassy cried again: ‘Oh damn! What an unhappy pat I am! Will nobody go out and search For dad, who’s left me in the lurch? For dad, who’s left me on the poop, For diad, who’s left me in the soup, For dad, who’s left me on the deck. Perhaps it’s what I should expeck Considerin’ ’ow he treated me Before I came away to sea In the art of parody the modem poet is no whit behind his famous forbears, rake, for instance, the “Rejected --vudresses” of J. and 11. Smith, and after perusing the parodies of Byron, Southey, Coleridge, Tom Moore, Crabbe, and the rest —and it is stated on good authority that the authors of these “Addresses’’ were surprised and gratified by the good will shown to them by the poets whom they had “most audaciously burlesqued”— they seem to lack the vim and bite of parodists like Max Beerholm and Barry Pain. In his “Christmas Garland” Max Beerholm successfully carries out the idea of making sixteen contemporary authors write about Christmas. The basic idea was scarcely new. H. C. Banner, the American writer, whose short stories have never had the vogue they deserve — Bunner is miles ahead of the much boomed O. Henry—years before wrote “Home Sweet Home With Variations,” by Swinburne, Bret Harte, Austin Dobson, Goldsu.itu, Pope and Walt Whitman. Mr Barry Pain has done first class work in his parodies of prose writers—“ Robinson Crusoe’s Return” is a fine jeu d'esprit—but perhaps Barry Pain’s best effort is “The Poets at Tea,” with imitations of Macaulay, Tennyson, Swinburne, Cowper, Browning, Wordsworth, Poe, Rossetti, Burns and Walt Whitman. I think the Poe item—number seven on the list—simply superb:— Here’s a mellow cup of tea—golden tear What a world of rapturous thought its fragrance brings to me! Oh, from out the silver cells How it wells! How? it smells! Keeping tune, tune, tune, tune To the tintinnabulation of the spoon And the kettle on the fire Boils its spout off with desire, With a desecrate desire And a crystalline endeavour Now to sit or never, On the top of the pale faced moon, But he always came home to tea, tea. tea, tea, tea, tea to tho n —th. Any one desirous of pursuing further this almost inexhaustible subject- will find abundance of literature ready to hand. Mr Stone mentions as containing all, or almost all of first class importance “A Parody Anthology,’’ by Caroline Wells; “A Book cf Parodies”, by Arthur Symons; “Parodies and Imitations,” by Stanley Adam and Bernard White; and “A Century of Parody and Imitation,” by Walter Jen rid and R. M. Leonard. To these should be added the “Moxford Book of \erse’ and Gorgeous Poetry.” In the “Moxford” book Mr Stoddart-Vv alker perpetuates a parody for which admirers of Mr W. B. Yeats and “Innisfree’’ will never forgive him; at least it makes a finish to this dissertation as showing a sort of parody that ought not to have been written. “It is,” says Mr Stone with truth, “so coarse that it borders on the irreverent'' • I will arise and go now and go to Innes free, And a small table order, with beer in bottles laid; Nine “beanos” will I have there, a hat for the busy bee, And drink alone in the b—y glade.