Burlesques and Parodies. By G. H. Powell. (W. Hoffer and
Son, Cambridge. Is. net.)—These Pus d'esprit were indeed worth reprinting. First we have the " Pelopidal Papers," a supposed discovery of documents actually written by the family of Pelops, one of them being a correspondence between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and another the journal of Electra. Along with other things we learn that Homer was the son of a father of the same name, whose occupation was a commercial traveller—hence tho legend of the seven cities which claimed to be his birthplace— and that he travelled for a firm which manufactured arms. So we account for the continual recurrence of such epithets as " well- greaved." They were simply advertisements. What poet would he always complimenting an army on its leggings ? Further on we find' a French correspondent translating Lewis Carroll's "He Thought He saw a banker's clerk." The last line—by the way, he attributes the poem to Tennyson—he paraphrases thus : " 0 mon Dieu!' cria l'hOte infortun6 d'une voix 6touffee de sanglots, 'si cet animal-lit se propose de soupor chez nous, combion restore-WI du ropes pour noire malheureuse famille ? ' " "If this should stay to dine," he said, "there won't be much for us."
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