And whereso'er we meet again, On this or that side the Equator, If I've not turned teetotaller then, And have wherewith to pay the waiter, To thee I'll drain the modest cup, WANDERERS As o'er the hill we roam'd at will, We mark'd a chaise, by two bright bays Two bays arch neck'd, with tails erect The chaise went by, nor aught cared I; I turn'd me to the tinker, who I ask'd him where he lived-a stare As on he trudged: I rightly judged I ask'd him if he'd take a whiff (A pipe was all he needed,) "I loiter down by thorp and town; For any job I'm willing; Take here and there a dusty brown, "I deal in every ware in turn, That sparkle like those eyes of her'n; "I steal from th' parson's strawberry-plots, I teach the sweet young housemaids what's "The things I've done 'neath moon and stars Have got me into messes: I've seen the sky through prison bars, I've torn up prison dresses: "I've sat, I've sigh'd, I've gloom'd, I've glanced With envy at the swallows That through the window slid, and danced (Quite happy) round the gallows; "But out again I come, and show My face nor care a stiver, For trades are brisk and trades are slow, Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook. They to the village. It was noised next noon (4) J. K. STEPHEN [JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN, the second son of Sir James FitzJames Stephen, the Judge, was born in 1859 and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he was elected a Fellow. His only published works were two small volumes of verse, Lapsus Calami and Quo Musa Tendis? (1891). He died in 1892, the ultimate cause of death being an accidental blow on the head some five years before.] The resemblances between Calverley and "J. K. S." (James Kenneth Stephen) are so marked as to warrant a slight deviation from chronological order. Stephen was also a brilliant public school boy who had a distinguished academic career at Cambridge. He was, moreover, an avowed disciple and devoted admirer of Calverley, as may be gathered from the delightful stanzas To C. S. C. But though related by education and environment, the two men differed widely in temperament. Calverley was more freakish and irresponsible: he had greater charm, elasticity, and geniality. He was never angry, and Stephen often was, though to excellent purpose, in his diatribes against those who desecrated the river, vulgar Cockney or oversea tourists, and pretentious politicians. Stephen was less of the amused onlooker, more of the castigator. But he, too, trod the beaten way: he was neither a mystic nor a metaphysician, but a man of robust intelligence who hated cant, pretence, and sentimentality, but was capable of generous emotion and even tenderness. He called himself “a man of prose," but there are lines in the stanzas To A. H. C., when he compares the futility of abstract speculation with the things that really count, which only a poet could have written; while as a parodist he fell little short of his master. A PARODIST'S APOLOGY If I've dared to laugh at you, Robert Browning, But once you spoke to me, storm-tongued poet, But thrice I looked on your face and the glow it But you'd many a friend you never knew of, And thousands of hands that you've grasped but few of For you lived in the sight of the land that owned you, They have piled you a cairn that would fain have stoned you: You have spoken your message and earned your rest. PARKER'S PIECE, MAY 19, 1891 To see good Tennis! what diviner joy Than balls that hurtle through the conscious air. Than the tense strings which smite the flying sphere. Or splits the echoing grille without remorse: When Heathcote's service makes the dedans ring Let cricketers await the tardy sun, Break one another's shins and call it fun; Let Scotia's golfers through the affrighted land Where female arts the ruder sex surpass; (5) A. C. HILTON [ARTHUR CLEMENT HILTON was born at Banbury in 1851, and educated at Marlborough College and St. John's College, Cambridge. The Light Green, a burlesque magazine for which he was chiefly responsible, appeared at Cambridge in 1872. Ordained in 1874, he became curate at Sandwich, where he died in 1877.] The three Cambridge poets all died young, Calverley at fiftythree, J. K. Stephen at thirty-three, and Arthur Clement Hilton at twenty-six. Hilton never reached the Sixth at Marlborough, and only took a pass degree at Cambridge, but his school and University record is not a fair index of his accomplishments. He had a genuine love of literature and archæology, wrote clever verses as a boy, and excelled as an actor. Still, his early efforts gave little inkling of the real genius for parody revealed in the Light Green, a burlesque magazine-the title of which was suggested by a short-lived Oxford periodical called the Dark Bluetwo numbers of which appeared in the May Term of 1872. Hilton wrote the great bulk of the contents, and all the best things are from his pen. Some of the wittiest verses-notably the delicious burlesque version of Tennyson's May Queen-are too rich in undergraduate references to appeal to the general public, but an exception must be made in favour of The Heathen Pass-ee, in which Hilton achieved the difficult task of rewriting a famous humorous poem, and equalling the humour of the original. As for the Octopus, it is generally admitted to be the best of all the innumerable parodies of Swinburne in the Dolores vein and stanza. It is a perfect caricature alike of the metrical excesses and the |