The Sport of Our (^Ancestors 



This line has been pronounced by more than one good 

 judge to be the best in the whole field of parody. It is a 

 fine piece of satire with a double edge. It gently rallies that 

 type that consists of nothing but more or less glorified 

 Tony Lumpkins ; but more subtly still does it express 

 what the prig and the intellectual were really thinking about 

 the Fox-hunter, and would have said if they had dared. 

 Here is the original : — 



* Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! Woman's pleasure, 

 woman's pain, 

 Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower 

 brain.' 



With both pieces open before one, it is difficult not to 

 go on comparing the two. But they must be read through 

 from beginning to end to be appreciated. Perhaps those 

 who think it sacrilege to make fun of the really grand music 

 of the then Poet Laureate had better not make the experi- 

 ment. On the other hand, it is not impossible to keep the 

 mind in water-tight compartments, and at one moment 

 to revel in the poetry and rhythm of Lord Tennyson 

 and at another to be tickled by the audacity and clever- 

 ness of Mr. Bromley-Davenport. What is it that invites 

 parody ? Classic or claptrap ? Claptrap certainly deserves 

 it. But ' Locksley Hall ' is a classic, and * Lowesby Hall ' 

 is not its only imitation. * The Lay of the Lovelorn * in 

 the ' Bon Gaultier Ballads,' written by Sir Theodore Martin 

 and Professor William Aytoun, has some shrewd if rather 

 cheap couplets. But it has not the ease and the breadth 

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