"THE PUFFIAD."

BY THE AUTHOR OF "HOW TO LIVE ON £700 A YEAR.”

"How vain that second life in others' breath,
The estate which wits inherit after death."

РОРЕ.

POPE, I invoke thee, tune my lazy lyre
Once more, before I let it out on hire.
Byron, assist, who Scotch reviewers hushed,
And Giffard too, that Della Crusca crushed.

Once on a time (forgive the archaic ring),
Once on a time, when Ignorance was king,
And great Hereafter was the vulgar Hope,
('Twas even shared by Alexander Pope),
Men made the loftiest art their common aim,
And looked beyond the sepulchre for fame.
"What gain," they cried, "to waste life's little span
In sordid contest with one rival man?

Leave future ages to condemn or raise
The truly great to pinnacles of praise.
No ballad-mongers, poem factories,
No showy lengthening of phylacteries,
Poor silly fools! each tried to do his best,

And died " unwept, unhonoured, and-" unguessed.
Think you, if I could boast a Milton's power,

I'd not amass a fortune in an hour?
Think you I'd sing of "Paradise Regained,"
Whilst anything on earth unsung remained?
Not I! I'd sing of Derbies lost and won,
Of what the Board of Works has left undone :
To Joseph's orchid I'd indite a sonnet,

Or rhapsodize the charms of Langtry's bonnet;

Switchbackian joys would set my soul on fire,
And any one (cash down) should tune my lyre.
Time was, no doubt, when he who hoped for fame
Perforce to children's children left his name,
As first the seed must perish ere it rise
To blossom fully 'neath the summer skies;
But that was only when the Age of Steam

Was deemed more whimsic than the wildest dream,
Whilst now, with steam and electricity,
Heigh presto! see arise Publicity:

As jugglers make the mango grow immense
Sudden and quick before their audience,
Where once the weary toilers tilled the earth,
And hardly coaxed the barley to its birth.
"Let's eat and drink, to-morrow we may die,"
Wise motto of the fond voluptuary!
And we, who regularly woo the Muse,
Shall we rest satisfied if she refuse
Our just reward, with ill-ironic laughter,
And bid us wed her in the sweet Hereafter?
No! poets, painters, every cit, arise,

And fling your plaudits to the sounding skies.
Whilst living, Fame is yours. (I wish I had
Yclept my epic The Pecuniad.)

Sculptor in bold advertisement there's hope
For Parian marble as for "Pear "ian Soap.
Fame is a horse, advertisement the stirrup,

See" Beecham's Pills" and " Winslow's Soothing Syrup."
Where would thy "Fruit Salt," Eno, be sans puff?

Where thy "Pyretic " rivalry, Lamplough?

*

Cures might as well be nothing if not known,†
Virtue be vice, without its trumpet blown,
Quackery, with all its remedies, be dead,
And great Empiricism lie a-bed.

Thy name is legion, great Advertisement,
By which pervasive, I assert, is meant,

* I should perhaps mention that I have taken out a poetic licence for softening

this, and for other vagaries.

"And is thy knowledge nothing if not known?"—Baviad, v. 80.

Not only on the Sandwich of the street,
Whose bread is papered wood and man the meat,
Not only on the garden-seated 'bus,

*

Whose drivers "teach the young idea to 'cuss,'
Not only on the wires that scrape the skies,
Or captive spheres that tempt our aching eyes—
No! various are thy means, though one thine end;
Let all whose ears are asinine attend.

With "Bubbles" lo! Sir J. E. Millais, Bart.,
Not self has glorified, but soap and art;
And sure upholstery is none the worse
Joined to Morrisian socialistic verse.
Painters and actors have, as each one knows,
Burst autobiographic into prose.

Judge † and Prime Minister in leisure time
Translatory have budded into rhyme.

In ancient days you passed the histrion's door,
Got what you paid for and got nothing more,
Whilst now on hundredth nights you may be certain
You'll get an extra speech before the curtain.
Fame makes the buck, and want of it the rowdy,
As Worth the lady, want of Worth the dowdy. ‡
Advertisement like mercy backward breaks,
"It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
You scratch my back, I yours; perhaps you know
Λογρολλινγ is the Greek for quid pro quo.

*

Surely the wisdom of the age is seen
In carting off to distant Bethnal Green
The musty portraits of the dead and gone
Once highly prized and shown in Kensington,
Thus making room for what is contemplated,
But has not yet officially been stated.

* I have ventured, in accordance with modern usage, to make this word a dissyllable, although I am aware that Mr. Cowper and others use it trisyllabically. † It would be more correct to say that the one has budded out of Greek into rhyme, and the other into Greek out of rhyme.

‡ "Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow."- Essay on Man.

The scheme's sublime, but yet I am not certain,
If it's supported by Sir Frederick Burton,
By the promoters of the new Carr-Halléry,
Or their late master of the Bond Street Gallery.
No doubt at least 'twill prove a mine of argent
To Millais, Richmond, Woolner, Long, and Sargent.

Immortal Tussaud! thou whose glorious name
Adds lustre to the House of Living Fame,
Time strikes thee with his all-effacing axe,
But strikes in vain, for thou art graved in wax.
Tussaud, assist, whilst I unfold the scheme
Which showed itself prophetic in a dream.

THE TEMPLE OF LIVING FAME.*

In that soft season, when the sun is dead,
And foggy blankets hide Thames' oozy bed,
When early shops their tempting wares arrange,
And patent tills have hardly any change,
When Bobby leaves his long nocturnal beat,
And timely birds the early earthworms eat,
What time the lie-a-beds at watches peep
And turn again to woo the morning sleep,
A train of phantoms in my brain arose,
And, thickly crowding, thronged my sweet repose.
I stood, methought, with Nelson in the air
High o'er the lions in Trafalgar Square.
"Perchance," he said, "you fail to recognise
That glorious pile, which pierces to the skies."
"You're right," I cried; "tell me, whatever is it?
Can I, by paying, pay the place a visit?"
"Be patient," said he, "I will be your guide
Externally; I may not go inside."

He sobbed aloud. I asked him why he wept.

Across his eyes his armless sleeve he swept,

The sooty tear from off his face he dashed:

Down, down, well nigh two hundred feet, it splashed.

* The hint of the following piece was taken from Pope's "Temple of Fame."

Behold," he cried, "the House of Living Fame ;
Each stone is graven with a recent name.

Bath-oolite is used as being soft,

For names are altered many a time and oft.

See! see!" he almost shrieked, "that sculptor's ghost
Is scraping at the block that once could boast
The name of Hamilton," and, as he spoke,
I saw the letters formed " Lord Basingstoke."
"Some stones," I said, "unduly seem to jut
And hide the names on neighbouring solids cut,
Whilst beating storms and hostile hours subdue*
Projecting letters which are not so new."

Yes, Death is busy ; thus it is that they,

By constant change, get almost scraped away."
"But sure," I cried, "the House of Fame will fall
Thus honeycombed." He answered, "Not at all.
When through its sounding gates at length you pass,
You'll find its walls are lined throughout with brass."
With this, he led me round through various ways;
Upon its glorious fronts he bid me gaze.

The length of Bond Street marked its westward face,
From Street of Oxford to the Street of Lace; t
Eastward it rose where Burton holds his sway;
Northward irregular it stretched away;
Southward it stopped at Thames' paternal tide,
Where Charing throws her bridge from side to side.

Big Ben tolls twelve. Back roll the brazen gates.
Two janitors are seen; the one is Yates,
The other Labouchere, both clad in white;
On each one's forehead shines th' electric light,
In each one's hands are books of Living Fate,
Published hebdomadal, and up to date.
Henry with Edmund seemingly would vie
In pressing them upon the passers-by.

* "The greater part by hostile time subdued."-POPE.

"Where Sackville Street now stands was Piccadilla Hall, where piccadilloes or turnovers were sold, which gave name to Piccadilly."-PENNANT.