“Next the son, the Stunning-Cantab: 
    He suggested curves of beauty,
    Curves pervading all his figure,
    Which the eye might follow onward
    Till they centered in the breastpin,
    Centered in the golden breastpin. 
    He had learnt it all from Ruskin,
    Author of the Stones of Venice.”

But, in spite of such culture, the portrait was a failure, and the elder sister fared no better.  Then the younger brother followed, and his portrait was so awful that—­

    “In comparison the others
    Seemed to one’s bewildered fancy
    To have partially succeeded.”

Undaunted by these repeated failures, Hiawatha, by a great final effort, “tumbled all the tribe together” in the manner of a family group, and—­

    “Did at last obtain a picture
    Where the faces all succeeded—­
    Each came out a perfect likeness
    Then they joined and all abused it,
    Unrestrainedly abused it,
    As the worst and ugliest picture
    They could possibly have dreamed of;
    ’Giving one such strange expressions—­
    Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. 
    Really any one would take us
    (Any one that didn’t know us)
    For the most unpleasant people.’ 
    Hiawatha seemed to think so,
    Seemed to think it not unlikely.”

How true to life is this final touch of indignation at the unflattering truth!  But time and space forbid me further to pursue the photographic song of Hiawatha.

Phantasmagoria filled an aching void during the ten years which elapsed between the appearance of Verses and Translations and that of Fly Leaves.  The latter book is small, only 124 pages in all, including the Pickwick Examination Paper, but what marvels of mirth and poetry and satire it contains!  How secure its place in the affections of all who love the gentle art of parody!  My rule is not to quote extensively from books which are widely known; but I must give myself the pleasure of repeating just six lines which even appreciative critics generally overlook.  They relate to the conversation of the travelling tinker.

    “Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook. 
    Then I:  ’The sun hath slipt behind the hill,
    And my Aunt Vivian dines at half-past six,’
    So in all love we parted; I to the Hall,
    He to the village.  It was noised next noon
    That chickens had been missed at Syllabub Farm.”

Will any one stake his literary reputation on the assertion that these lines are not really Tennyson’s?

FOOTNOTES: 

[31] Rev. Thomas Short, 1789-1879.

XXVIII.

PARODIES IN VERSE—­continued.