[1287] A Fable

(In imitation of Dryden)

A dingy donkey, formal and unchanged,
Browsed in the lane and o'er the common ranged.
Proud of his ancient asinine possessions,
Free from the panniers of the grave professions,
He lived at ease; and chancing once to find
A lion's skin, the fancy took his mind
To personate the monarch of the wood;
And for a time the stratagem held good.
He moved with so majestical a pace
That bears and wolves and all the savage race
Gazed in admiring awe, ranging aloof,
Not over-anxious for a clearer proof --
Longer he might have triumph'd -- but alas!
In an unguarded hour it came to pass
He bray'd aloud; and show'd himself an ass!

The moral of this tale I could not guess
Till Mr Landor sent his works to press.

	-- J. H. Frere

The Horace quote from Monday's poem [1] was still fresh in my mind when
I came across this gem of a putdown in the Faber Book of Comic Verse.
Nothing much more to say, really.

thomas.

[1] The poem was "Etiquette", by W. S. Gilbert, and the quote was
"parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus": "the mountains are in
labour; a ridiculous mouse will be born".

[Notes]

Today's fable dates back to Aesop:
http://www.literature.org/authors/aesop/fables/chapter-245.html

J. H. Frere was a diplomat who lived from 1769 to 1848. More:
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poet128.html

Mr Landor, of course, is Walter Savage Landor. Britannica says "Landor
spent a lifetime quarreling with his father, neighbours, wife, and any
authorities at hand who offended him. Paradoxically, though, he won the
friendship of literary men from Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
and Charles Lamb among the Romantics to Charles Dickens and Robert
Browning". One can assume that Mr Frere fell in the former category.

The irrepressible Dorothy Parker had this to say about Mr L:
  Upon the work of Walter Landor
  I am unfit to write with candor.
  If you can read it, well and good;
  But as for me, I never could.
	  -- Dorothy Parker

And yes, he features on the Minstrels: Poem #10.

[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1287.html
To subscribe, send a blank mail to <minstrels-subscribe@>.

From: "Mallika Chellappa" <mchellappa@>


This brings to mind another small put down

"On Waterloo's large ensanguined plain
Lay tens of thousands of the slain
But none by sword or sabre shot
Fell half so flat as Walter Scot"

Can't remember who wrote it, though.

Another famous non-eulogy is
"The Lost Leader" by Browning
at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/130.html

Mallika
--




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