composition it was speedily imitated: one of the first English parodies was contributed by Robert Brough, to Cruikshank's Comic Almanack for 1853, and was republished in the Piccadilly Annual in 1870. The Vulture, as it is styled, is scarcely worthy of its parentage, but the two first stanzas may be cited as typical of the whole piece, which is descriptive of the depredations committed by a certain class of "sponges" on those people who are willing to put up with their ways:—
Once upon a midnight chilling, as I held my feet unwilling
O'er a tub of scalding water, at a heat of ninety-four;
Nervously a toe in dipping, dripping, slipping, then out-skipping,
Suddenly there came a ripping, whipping, at my chambers door.
"Tis the second floor," I mutter'd, "flipping at my chambers door—
Wants a light—and nothing more!"
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the chill November,
And each cuticle and member was with influenza sore;
Falt'ringly I stirr'd the gruel, steaming, creaming o'er the fuel,
And anon removed the jewel that each frosted nostril bore,
Wiped away the trembling jewel that each redden'd nostril bore—
Nameless here for evermore!
