From Westminster and Whitechapel, from Shoreditch and Vauxhall, The idle vagrants had turned out with laughter and catcall; From east to west the show moved on, and still the hooting spread, It thundered through Trafalgar-square where Nelson rears his head; From Whitehall’s topmost story the Treasury clerk might hear Street after street re-echoing the oft-repeated jeer; The coster left his barrow-load, careless of urchin raids; The dapper waiters hurried forth from restaurants and shades. All down the street of Parliament th’ assembled loafers bawl, And rouse the warders of Millbank, the Judges in their Hall; Right merrily with eager pen the specials took it down, And forty counties learned next day the humours of the town. QUANTOX (_S. H. Woodhouse._) _The World_ Parody Competition. November 26, 1879. ―――― ON MR. GLADSTONE’S MIDLOTHIAN SPEECHES. Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble Gladstone’s praise. I tell of the thrice famous speech he made in his old days, When that great lord of flouts and jeers against him led in vain The peers and those few working men that honied lies could gain. With his white hair unbonneted the stout old chieftain comes; No picnic in a park gives he――he bribes no local drums; For shrewd men in the Corn Exchange have filled each vacant space. “Now, hark!” he says, “I grant the peers till autumn’s session grace.” And haughtily, in trumpet tones, he then the story tells, And though he tries to calm the storm, behold you, how it swells! Look how the hero of the fight lifts up his honoured head, And with his magic, winged words strikes Tory falsehoods dead! So spoke he when he put to shame, on that same Scottish field, The Government that tried by fraud the Turkish crimes to shield. So glared he when the Tory host he sternly brought to bay, And crushed and shamed beneath his glance the wretched Jingoes lay. GEORGE MALLINSON. _The Weekly Despatch._ September 14, 1884. ――――:o:―――― Foremost amongst Lord Macaulay’s “Lays of Ancient Rome,” is _Horatius_, the popularity of which is duly attested by the number of parodies and imitations it has given rise to. Some of the most striking verses of the original are given below, for the convenience of comparison with the parodies. HORATIUS. I. Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, And named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north, To summon his array. II.