Bulwer somewhere records a story of John Martin in his early days. He
was, on one occasion, reduced to his last shilling. He had kept it, out
of a heap, from a partiality to its appearance. It was very bright. He
was compelled, at last, to part with it. He went out to a baker's shop
to purchase a loaf with his favourite shilling. He had got the loaf into
his hands, when the baker discovered that the shilling was a bad one,
and poor Martin had to resign the loaf, and take back his dear, bright,
bad shilling once more. Length of time and cold criticism in like manner
have reduced John Philips to his solitary 'Splendid Shilling.' But,
though bright, it is far from bad. It is one of the cleverest of
parodies, and is perpetrated against one of those colossal works which
the smiles of a thousand caricatures were unable to injure. No great or
good poem was ever hurt by its parody:--the 'Paradise Lost' was not by
'The Splendid Shilling'--'The Last Man' of Campbell was not by 'The Last
Man' of Hood--nor the 'Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore' by their
witty, well-known caricature; and if 'The Vision of Judgment' by Southey
was laughed into oblivion by Byron's poem with the same title, it was
because Southey's original was neither good nor great.
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