Welcome him, blunder of escort and suite, Mounted inspector, and mob in the street! Call up the first cab his Highness to meet! Throw his hat-box and Bradshaw and rug on the seat! Welcome him! feast him with fourpenny treat, One glass of old ale and a sandwich to eat! Scatter, O Royalty, gold for his keep! Dream, all ye tradesmen of harvests to reap! The Palace is empty, our pockets are deep! Fling wide, O menial, the grand back door! Take him, O attic, and rock him to sleep! Strew a _viceregal_ shakedown on the floor! Welcome him, welcome him, all that is cheap! Sing, Prima Donna, and fashion stare! Scrape up your regiments, weak and few, Hurry, ye Commons, and all be there, To swell the pomp of the grand review! Chuckle, Britannia! a Sultan? pooh! A nobody! don't we know who's who, Ismail Pasha! Seeking quarters for change of air, Come to us, love us (but pay your fare)-- Guests such as you we are happy to see; Come to us, love us, and have we not shown, In breakfast, and luncheon, and dinner, and tea, Kindness to strangers as great as your own? For Jacksons, O'Tooles, and McStunners we, Viceroy, Khidevé, or whatever you be, Yet thorough John Bulls in our welcome of thee, Ismail Pasha! Shortly after the death of the late John Brown, when it was announced that the Queen had had a statue of him erected in the grounds at Balmoral, it was also rumoured that Tennyson was writing a poem in his honour. A jocular author suggested that it might run as follows:-- Trash about bells and the merry March hare Wrote I once at the royal summons. More of us Danes than Antic Rum-uns! No; let me see! I'll our welcome of thee, Alexandra! Have I gone mad, or taken a drappie? Norman and Saxon and Dane a wee, Just a wee drappie intil our ee, My Indo-Teuton-Celtic chappie! Norman and Saxon a wee are we, But more of us rum-uns or Danes you see Some of us Saxons, and all with a B In our bonnets, or something that's stronger than tea; And it's all as easy as A, B, C, To the poet who sang like a swan up a tree, Alexandra! "The promise of May" was a little bit late, And a fox jumped over a parson's gate, And he had my cochins, too, if you please, With a cat to the cream, which was not the cheese; And a guinea a line is about the rate You must pay for what flows from the poet's pate When the blue fire wakes up the whole of the town; And I'm sure I don't know what to say about Brown. But whatever I say and whatever I sing Will be worth to an obolus what it will bring! _The Referee_, September, 1883.