ABSTRACT
‘The Childe’s Pilgrimage’ is a sprightly parody, in adroit Spenserians, of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–18). Deacon’s Childe is one Higgins of Limehouse, a merchant in a less than fashionable part of east London, who manifests some of the characteristics of the Byronic hero, tormented as he is by world-weariness, despair and a particularly unpleasant toothache. The British Critic found that the parody captured Byron’s tone well, commenting caustically that many stanzas were ‘deeply imbued with the genuine spirit of the Dog and Tub Philosophy of the snarling and Sardonic peer, from whom they profess to emanate’. 1 In his portrayal of Childe Higgins (‘A lone unloving misanthrope was he’) and the gloomy tone of the authorial persona, Deacon ably captures what Scott calls the ‘misanthropical ennui’ of Childe Harold: 2 But such is man, (each pure affection shammed,) Mean, heartless, lawless, dull, detestable, and damned. . . . Ah me! how grovelling is the mind of man! How fixed on perishable hopes, and mean! Wealth, honor, pride, engross his paltry span Of life, – then leave him scathed in heart as mien. –
