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lost creatures (our high Grimwold, as should seem, gone from us, too probably for ever), wandering, wandering in thick inextricable jungles of Wends, Kurfursts, Margraves, and the like dolefullest 'ghosts of defunct bodies;" still passionately seeking for a Grimwold, and alas! finding none; no thrice accursed Wend or Kurfurst of them all able to afford us the least hint of our Grimwold. Ye heavens! it is quite too bad; our hero, Grimwold, in whom we really had an interest, and disbursed two pounds to get news of him a little, rapt away from us so ; and served up to us here, instead of him, mere disinterred carrion of Wends, Kurfusts, Margraves,--doleful creatures, of interest new to no soul, extinct, unavailable; available to this, O Sauerteig, for making a thing called book, at somewhat a severe figure; otherwise for ever unavailable, uninteresting; sole poor interest we could have with them, to get them swiftly shovelled under ground again if we could, not without deep execration. Disinterred carrion, O Sauerteig, of mere Kurfursts and the like; plain carrion, actively insulting the nostril, to which no cookery could reconcile us. Palpable carrion, O Sauerteig! at the somewhat severe rate of one pound per volume down for it! phenomenon which, even in a swindler century, may be calculated to excite remark. Of a Sauerteig, who advertising his hero Grimwold to us, finds it needful, after one glimpse is given of him, to retire upon " Adam and fig-leaves," and thence with extremest tedium, through endless imbroglios of universal human history and stupidity, to work downwards towards his Grimwold; thus much may be said, at least, that he has hit upon a novelty in historical method. Be the praise of originality in the matter, likewise of some audacity, nowise denied to Sauerteig ! "Igdrasil, the life-tree!" shriekest thou, O Sauerteig? as partly we seem to hear thee shriek: "Igdrasil! and how it all grows, and through all times and branchings of it, is

ever mysteriously one! how the present in every fibre of it does, in most real, irrefragable way, rest upon and relate itself to all fibres of the past; some understanding of the past, out of which it flowers and rises, necessary in order to any wise understanding of the present, &c., &c." Reflections, O Sauerteig, scientifically satisfactory to us from of old, yet somewhat, it should seem, of the barren species; in their own essentially rather poor basis satisfactory; distinctly not satisfactory to us; rather bosh to us, balderdash as regards this present matter; the just rage of us, desperately seeking our Grimwold (having paid our two poor pounds for him), seeking, seeking through wastes of mere Wends, Kurfursts—tearing our way through the thorny jungles-lacerating our poor souls and limbs there, not to be appeased, O Sauerteig ! by your twaddling these poor cants and Igdrasils at us. On the whole, to dismiss this sad Kurfurst business, one feels much inclined, on the head of it, supposing such feat achievable, to kick Sauerteig as to some extent a sham and imposture, and desire him to refund some proportion of the money too plainly filched from us. A little further on we come on this sentence: "A Grimwold nowise indifferent to his victuals; with a good hero-twist of his own, a sound 'healthy animalism' (Sinnlichkeit) the basis of him, as of most other men I have known worth much in this God's world; to whom sacred bubbly-jock is most sacred, the hero rage at loss of him proportionate."*

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* And to the phrase "healthy animalism" (Sinnlichkeit) this note, very full of fine satire, is appended :—" Goethe, poet so called of the Germans; supremely great figure to me in the literary dilettante days and infanthood; now in mature years getting to look somewhat of a small figure; his Faust and the like once thought to be great and the greatest, now seem to be fiddle merely; our high hero Goethe himself mere pitifulest supreme fiddler."

Of all the novelists of our day no one presents more temptations to the parodist than Mr. William Black, with his fine but high pitched scene-painting. Mr. Edmund Yates, in one Christmas number of "The World," made some not unlaughable points against him in "Leone Dare," by the McBillyblack, over which some fun may yet be had by those who have not seen it, and can alight on the number.

If we had wandered into the field of American Vers de Société, Dr. O. W. Holmes' happy efforts in that department would have had to be signalised, especially such poems as "The Last Leaf," and also some felicitous exercises of Mr. Stedman and Mr. Saxe. If we had aimed at exhaustive treatment of Parodies, several of Professor Aytoun's "Bon Gaultiet" ballads would have demanded notice, especially the parody of Mr. Tennyson's "Merman" and "Mermaid ;" and likewise several of Mr. Bret Harte's broad and vigorous efforts; whilst, in Prose Parodies, we should also have had to refer to his "Condensed Novels" as fitting pendants to the several well-known novel parodies of Thackeray.

To give specimens of all the varieties of parody that are in their way worthy of citation, were impossible. Particularly do we recall a very clever parody of Mr. Browning's blank verse, with his

affectedly prosaic spelling of Greek proper names, in the Examiner, and another as good in several respects in The World. There are nowadays a whole class of clever satirical journals which make this a kind of feature, passing even into the refinements of Rondels and Rondeaus, &c., so that the supply is far from likely to fail. But it needs to be said that parody, though artificial in its nature, must not be too conspicuously forced, else the standard of requirement will be lowered. We see some tendency in this direction already: parodies are printed every week whose only claim to notice is their coarseness, and whose vulgar personality is their only point. Luckily they serve their purpose and pass; but, evanescent as this

form of verse is, it has its own influence on the general taste, and it were to be wished that the editors of satirical journals were sometimes a little more alive to this point of view.

WIT AND HUMOUR AND POETRY.

IT is, of course, hardly possible that one can find all his favourites included in such a selection as that of Mr. Arthur H. Elliott, in "The Witty and Humorous side of the English Poets;" and if he is introduced to new friends, that ought to suffice him for the absence of some old ones. Mr. Elliott has evidently gone over the field carefully and with attention, and has gathered and grouped his specimens fairly well. But he has reflected too much, and yet to little purpose. Indeed, we suppose people always reflect to little purpose when they reflect too much. It is like doing a good and It was quite right

proper thing in the wrong way. that Mr. Elliott should make some general remarks on "Wit and Humour" by way of preface to his volume; but then he should have satisfied himself about some great and essential distinctions. It

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