pleasure." It
was a generous appreciation, for the original _Poor Matthias_--an elegy
on a canary--is an exquisite poem, and the _World's_ parody of it is a
rather dull imitation. On the whole, I agree with Mr. Arnold that parody
is a vile art; but the dictum is a little too sweeping. A parody of
anything really good, whether in prose or verse, is as odious as a
burlesque of _Hamlet_; but, on the other hand, parody is the appropriate
punishment for certain kinds of literary affectation. There are, and
always have been, some styles of poetry and of prose which no one
endowed with an ear for rhythm and a sense of humour could forbear to
parody. Such, to a generation brought up on Milton and Pope, were the
styles of the various poetasters satirized in _Rejected Addresses_; but
excellent as are the metrical parodies in that famous book, the prose is
even better. Modern parodists, of whom I will speak more particularly in
a future chapter, have, I think, surpassed such poems as _The Baby's
Debut_ and _A Tale of Drury Lane_, but in the far more difficult art of
imitating a prose style none that I know of has even approached the
author of the _Hampshire Farmer's Address_ and _Johnson's Ghost_. Does
any one read William Cobbett nowadays? If so, let him compare what
follows with the recorded specimens of Cobbett's public speaking:--

"Most thinking People,--When persons address an audience from the stage,
it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and gentlemen,
your servant.' If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and
_brute beast_ enough to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a
breath. In the first place, you are not ladies and gentlemen, but, I
hope, something better--that is to say, honest men and women; and, in
the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much
gentlemen, I am not, _nor ever will be_, your humble servant."

With Dr. Johnson's style--supposing we had ever forgotten its masculine
force and its balanced antitheses--we have been made again familiar by
the erudite labours of Dr. Birkbeck Hill and Mr. Augustine Birrell. But
even those learned critics might, I think, have mistaken a copy for an
original if in some collection of old speeches they had lighted on the
ensuing address:--

"That which was organized by the moral ability of one has been executed
by the physical efforts of many, and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now complete.
Of that part behind the curtain, w