Oh! Bull, strong labourer, much enduring beast, That with broad back, and sinewy shoulder strung, Draggest the heavy wain of taxes, flung In growing heap, from thy poor brethren fleeced. Hadst thou a literary sense of shame, How woulds’t thou crush, and toss, and rend, and gore, The printing press, and hands that work therefore, For the sad trash that issues from the same. If they would print no other works than mine, The task were nobler; but, alas, in vain, Of audience few and unfit I complain, Bull won’t believe in Southey’s verse and mine. Arouse thee, John, involve in general doom All who bid Wordsworth rise for Byron to make room. _Cruikskank’s Comic Almanack._ 1846. ――――:o:―――― BILLY ROUTING. _A Lyrical Ballad._ Fit subject for heroic story, I sing a youth of noble fame; Town and country, ten miles round, Awaken at the glowing sound, Of gallant Billy Routing’s name! This poem, written in imitation of Wordsworth, consists of thirteen verses. It will be found in Vol. I. _Miscellanies_ by W. Maginn, London. Sampson, Low and Co. 1885. In the same Volume will be found a rather dull imitation of Wordsworth’s _Excursion_, entitled _The Kail Pot_, which originally appeared in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for May, 1821, as did also the following much more clever parody:―― BILLY BLINN. I knew a man that died for love, His name, I ween, was Billy Blinn; His back was hump’d, his hair was grey, And, on a sultry summer day, We found him floating in the linn. Once as we stood before his door Smoking, and wondering who should pass, Then trundling past him in a cart Came Susan Foy, she won his heart, She was a gallant lass. And Billy Blinn conceal’d the flame That burn’d, and scorch’d his very blood; But often was he heard to sigh, And with his sleeve he wiped his eye, In a dejected mood. A party of recruiters came To wile our cottars, man and boy; Their coats were red, their cuffs were blue, And boldly, without more ado, Off with the troop went Susan Foy! When poor old Billy heard the news, He tore his hairs so thin and grey; He beat the hump upon his back, And ever did he cry, “Alack, Ohon, oh me!――alas a-day!” His nights were spent in sleeplessness, His days in sorrow and despair, It could not last――this inward strife; The lover he grew tired of life, And saunter’d here and there. At length, ’twas on a moonlight eve, The skies were blue, the winds were still; He wander’d from his wretched hut, And, though he left the door unshut, He sought the lonely hill. He look’d upon the lovely moon, He look’d upon the twinkling stars; “How peaceful all is there,” he said, “No noisy tumult there is bred, And no intestine wars.”