TENNYSON, BULWER, AND PUNCH.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 568, 13 April 1876, Page 3

TENNYSON, BULWER, AND PUNCH.

(London Society.) Mr Tennyson contributed one, and only one, poem to the columns of Punch. It is a not cable work, and will no doubt make a curious chapter in the next great book on "The Amenities of English Literature." Behind the anonymous shield of " The New Timon," tho late Lord Lytton delivered himself of the following scathing attack on Tennyson : " Not mine, not mine (0 music forbid ?) the

boon Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish

tnne, The jingling medley of purloined conceits, Out-babying Wordsworth, and out-glittering

Keats. Where all the airs of patch-work pastoral

chime To drown the ears in Tennysonian rhyme.

Let school-miss Alfred vent her chaste delight On darling little rooms, so warm and light; Chant ' I am weary ' in infectious strain, And ' catch the blue fly singing on the pane; Though praised by critics and adored by

blues, Though Peel with pudding plum the puling

muse ; Though Theban taste the Saxon purse con-

trols, And pensions Tennyson while starves a

Knowles."

Mr Punch had a word or two to say on behalf of Tennyson, and said what he had to s-:ay epigrammaticaliy and well : " THE NE'W TIMON " AND ALFRED TENNYSON'S PENSION. " You've seen a lordly mastiff's port, Bearing in calm, contemptuous sort Ths snarls of some o'er petted pup, Who grudges him his ' bit and sup.' So stands the bard of Locksley Hall, While puny darts around him fall, Tipp d with what Timon takes for venom; He's the mastiff, Tim the Blenheim." Mr Tennyson, with his two hundred pounds a year just granted to him was furious. Encouraged by the sympathy of Punch, the poetic sage produced a reply, which was signed " Alcibiades," printed under the title of " The New Timou and the Poet." The following lines from the string of personal verses are sufficient to do justice to the muse's sting : " At.d what with his' spites, aad what with his fears, You cannot let a body be, It's always ringing iu your ears— They call this man as great as me ! What profits now to understand The merits of a spotless shirt— A dapper boot—a little hand — If half the little soul is dirt 1 You talk of tinsel I why, we see Old marks of rouge upon your cheeks, You prate of nature ! Yon are he That split his life upon the cliques.

A Timon you ! Nay, nay, for shame ; It looks too arrogant a jest— The fierce old man to take his name,

You band-box off, and let him rest."

And thus the battle ended. It was too furious to last. Even Punch did not think it worth while to give the pair of distinguished brawlers a parting shot, though these were days when he was hitting out right and left.