Victorian parody: Bulwer

I want to post more regularly about Victorian topics, and thought that the best way to kick it off was with this satirical take from Fraser’s Magazine in 1832 on Edward Bulwer’s Eugene Aram (the end is worth it–how often does a critic get to wish for an author to be hanged?):

 E.A. and E.B.

A Christmas Carol, to the Tune of “God save you, merry Gentlemen!”

“Impius ante Aram, atque auri caecus amore.”

E. Aram was a pedagogue

     So sullen and so sad;

 E. Bulwer was a gentleman

     Wot plied as Colburn‘s Cad:

And the deeds of both, I grieve to say,

     Were werry, werry bad.

E. Aram he whipped little boys

     With malice and with ire;

E. Bulwer wrote Whig articles,

     As Beelzebub did inspire:

And both of them they did these things

    All for the sake of hire.

E. Aram killed a man one day,

     Out of a devilish whim;

E. Bulwer did almost the same–

     A deed well nigh as grim:

For Aram he murder’d Daniel Clarke,

      And Bulwer he murder’d him.

E. Aram’s crime it was impell’d

     That cash he might purloin;

E. Bulwer did his wickedness

     For love of Colburn’s coin:

Alas! that money should debauch

     Two geniuses so fine!

E. Aram he was sent to jail,

     And hanged upon a tree;

E. Bulwer is in parliament,

     A shabby-genteel M.P.;

But if he writes such murdering books,

     What must his ending be?

Why, that in Fraser’s Magazine

     His gibbet we shall see.

I saw this last week on the VICTORIA listserv; the text is available on Google Books.

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