This tribute to his memory, paid by one who had known him for nearly forty years, sufficiently explains the reason why, in the parodies of his works which are now to be given, nothing of a personal nature will be inserted. Indeed it is doubtful whether one unkindly worded, or spiteful burlesque was ever penned about either Longfellow, or his works. The absence of this element will be all the more noticeable as following directly after the parodies of the Poet Laureate, whose actions and writings have invited so many attacks. Tennyson's early sneers at hereditary nobility, as contrasted with his adulation of royalty, and the exaggerated praise of princes in his official poems of later years. His involved, and often obscure, mode of writing, especially when attempting to deal with metaphysical topics; his narrow insular prejudices; his frequent writings in praise of war, and calling aloud for the blood of either the French, or the Russians, or the Spaniards. And, lastly, his acceptance of a coronet which sits grotesquely enough on the laurels he so long has worn as Poet Laureate. In all this there was ample room for adverse comment, which the life and works of Longfellow never afforded. The tenderness, the grace, the sweet pathos, and the exquisite simplicity of his poems, combined with the purity, charity, and kindness of his personal character, were such that detraction, envy, and malice were dumb, and criticism itself was almost silenced. Hence the parodies will be found to consist principally of imitations of his style, language, or ideas, or of reproductions of his poems in a grotesque form. In some cases a few verses of the original are given for the convenience of comparison with the parodies. A NOBLE AMBITION. Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life's one long unending bill-- Debts unpaid disturb your slumbers-- Tin _will_ fly, do what you will. Meat is high in real good earnest, Far above the hungry soul; Dust thou art, to dust returns, is Very typical of coal. In the weekly market battle, For the cheapest things and best, Be not like dumb-driven cattle, Stand out bravely, all the rest. Not enjoyment, hardly sorrow, Feel we, when small debts we pay; Still, we know that each to-morrow Finds them larger than to-day. Duns are hard, and time is fleeting, Bills are sadly in arrears, And our hearts, tho' brave, stop beating At the aspect of affairs. Bailiffs are not very pleasant, Lock your door and keep the key; Act, act in the living present-- Leave your country, cross the sea. Lives of great men, too, remind us, Big debts sometimes clogged _their_ feet; And, like them, we leave behind us Some few bills we cannot meet-- Bills that make you try to smother, As you cross the stormy main, Thoughts of love, and home, and mother, Listening for your step in vain.