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CRITICAL NOTICES

OF

WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST PUBLISHED DURING THE QUARTER.

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Poems and Parodies on Current Topics of the Day, 1858-59, by Illtudus Thomas Prichard. Republished from the Delhi Gazette. cutta. Thacker, Spink and Co. 1860.

THE impossibility of uniting poetry with political opinions has been proved in all the attempts that have been made, from Tennyson's Maud down to Mr. Prichard's "Poems and Parodies." The volume in question consists of nineteen pieces, contained in the brief space of thirty-uine small pages, on current topics during 1858-59. The author reprints these poems from the Delhi Gazette of which he is Editor, and dedicates them to the memory of the defunct Bengal Army in which he was once an officer. Like all great writers he launches forth his book into the world without any prefatory remarks, so confident in its inherent excellence that though the poems have already passed through the columns of his journal, and refer to passing topics which even now are almost forgotten, he considers them none the worse of being twice-told. Whatever may be Mr. Prichard's other literary talents, he certainly possesses the faculty of writing parodies very faithful to the original as far as rhythm goes. maintaining that spirit of mock solemnity which amuses by its hidden flicker of wit rather than by any broad and literal meaning. The more serious the original the more cutting or witty should be the travesty. This is the secret of the irresistible nature of some of those puns that are founded on passages of Scripture. Our minds are pre-occupied with something serious, and when the analogy between this and something commonplace is put in a ludicrous light, the marked contrast has an immediate effect on our imagination. The subject from which the SEPTEMBER, 1860.

He is not so successful in

a

parody is taken is not necessarily brought into ridicule; the true object of its sattire is the one immediately referred to. A parody should not be a mere imitation of words, but the whole original should be mirrored in it inverted. There should be a direct connection between the two sets of ideas. Every one will recollect the story of Thomson's tragedy when acted in a London Theatre. Like his other poems, though in a greater degree, it was occasionally pedantic and sentimental, and when the hero uttered the words

O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!

A wag in the gallery, imitating the tone of voice, cried

O Jimmie Tamson, Jimmie Tamson O!

The ludicrous effect of this consists in the connection of ideas as well as in the mere resemblance of sounds. This point our author very frequently forgets. In imitation of Gray he writes an elegy on the Defunct Honourable Court of Directors :-

"The General Orders sing of parting fray,
The wearied columns to their quarters glide,
John Lawrence homeward wends his willing way,
And India leaves to Canning and to Clyde."

This is good so far, but the next verse is weak :

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"Now fade the glimmering embers of revolt
And India feels a feverish repose,

Save where the rebels from our soldiers' bolt,

And Tanteea lurks disguised in Bunneeah's clothes."

Then follow verses still more doggerel:

Save that from every corner of the land

The carping press does to the world complain
Of him who gagged it with unsparing hand,
And sorely longs to gag it all again.

In that great house where Leadenhall Magnate
Was wont to meet his Peers in council deep,
Each in his little room, disconsolate,

The Ex-Directors o'er their fortunes weep.

The last verse is triumphant:

Upon the India House the State relies,

And mid the ruins seeks its aid t'attain,

E'en the old Court to life begins to rise,

And in the Indian Council lives again.

The eulogy of the Levies, whether looked upon as an imitation or not, is happily executed.

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As an example of Mr. Prichard's rhythmic power we select the following verse from the Ode composed on the occasion of the entry of the Wafadars into Phillore :-

AIR-'Tis the March of the Cameron Men.

THERE'S many a man of the Poorbea Clan
That are marching to-day to Phillore,

Who has sworn to be true, and to mutiny too,
For a pandy he cannot do more.

CHORUS.-By the Brigadier, Brigade Major

and Officers of the Waffadars.

I hear the Bum Bum sounding, sounding
From the throats of the black sons of-Mars,

While time-keeping footsteps are raising the dust-
'Tis the march of the staunch Waffadars.

The Taj and its Minaret, written on the occasion of Lord Clyde's visit to the Taj, in March 1859, is rather amusing when we recover from the effects of the clumsy first verse :—

THE sky was clear, the stars shone bright,
The moon had begun to set,

This conversation I heard one night

Twixt the Taj and a Minaret.

The Minaret's voice was small and choice,

And rather weak than strong,

But as for the Taj's it shook the very arches

And sounded like a Chinese gong.

At the last verse the author cannot forget what is his great mission in this world. He represents the Taj saying, we presume in that voice which sounded like a Chinese gong, but which in this instance bears a strong resemblance to a trumpet :

But there's one consolation and hope for the nation,

From a source which I venture to get,

And I mean to say that the only mainstay,

Of the country's the Delhi Gazette.

When Lord and Lady Canning visited the Taj in December 1859, and a grand supper was given by the residents of Agra to 200 guests, the Taj and Minaret felt constrained to resume their musings upon the state of affairs :

Such gross profanation!

TAJ.

MINARET.

Do you know my mind sorely inclines
To let fly my cupola smash in the soup a la
Mode, and the viands and wines.

Oh such desecration!

All the week I've been worried-so startled and flurried
With firing, that I'm all of a quaking:

So badly they serve us-I am growing quite nervous,

In fact I de-cl—are I am sh-shaking."

CHORUS. Shaking-aking.

Mr. Prichard tries epigrams too, but if the following on Yeh, whose remains were sent to China preserved in brine, be his best, we have had enough of them.

When Celestial Yeh to death fell a prey,
For life like our fortune is fickle,
Illustrious Canning, celebrity planning,
Put his glorious guest into pickle.

This is no

The author's chef d'avre he has reserved to the last. parody; it is not intended like the others to be set to music; it is an epic poem on the Lahore catastrophe, when the Government of India was shaken to its centre. We select three out of its six verses ;

The elephants snorted and trumpeted loud,

They wriggled and stamped, and they charged through the crowd;
Whirr whirr went the rockets,-they turned them about,

Regardless of handspike, bamboo, or mahout,

And pell mell they fled in a regular rout

There was crashing, and dashing, a melée of trunks,

Some shrieking, some swearing, and all in the funks

Cries a rider in accents, all broken from jolting,

"Make way! 'tis Lord Canning!-my elephant's bolting."
Oh, the Lahore fireworks,

Oh, the Lahore fireworks!

Quoth Beadon, "You beast! can't you cease your gyrations?
An elephant dancing's against Regulations'

But Bowring's to fire had such an aversion,

Neither Arabic, Turkish, Punjabee nor Persian,

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