Or, failing in plans of this milder description, He would ask for their aid to get up a subscription, Considering that authorship wasn't a rich craft, To print the "American drama of Witchcraft.” "Stay, I'll read you a scene," but he hardly began, Ere Apollo shrieked "Help!" and the authors all ran: And once, when these purgatives acted with less spirit, And the desperate case asked a remedy desperate, As calmly as if 'twere a nine-barrelled pistol, come, Of "A wandering Star's first impressions of Rome.” Stop! stop!" with their hands o'er their ears screamed the Muses, "He may go off and murder himself, if he chooses, 'Twas a means self-defence only sanctioned his trying, 'Tis mere massacre now that the enemy's flying; If he's forced to 't again, and we happen to be there, žive us each a large handkerchief soaked in strong ether." I called this a "Fable for Critics;" you think it's More like a display of my rhythmical trinkets; awry, And the reader unwilling in loco desipere, Is free to jump over as much of my frippery May have an Odyssean sway of the gales, For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn, me, You may e'en twist me up, and just light your cigar with me : If too angry for that, you can tear me in pieces, Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis Quatorze, Describes, (the first verse somehow ends with victoire,) As dispersant partout et ses membres et sa gloire; A repute among noodles for classical learning, Better still, I could make out a good solid list But that would be naughty: at least, I could twist But, as Cicero says he won't say this or that, So, when you were thinking yourselves to be pitied, Just conceive how much harder your teeth you'd have gritted, An 'twere not for the dulness I've kindly omitted. I'd apologize here for my many digressions, Were it not that I'm certain to trip into fresh ones, ('Tis so hard to escape if you get in their mesh once ;) Just reflect, if you please, how 'tis said by Horatius, That Mæonides nods now and then, and, my gracious! It certainly does look a little bit ominous When he gets under way with ton d'apameibome nos. (Here a something occurs which I'll just clap a rhyme to, And say it myself, ere a Zoilus have time to,— Once for all, to return, and to stay, will I, nill I When Phoebus expressed his desire for a lily, With an ocean of zeal mixed his drop of capacity, He was gone a long time, and Apollo mean while, Went over some sonnets of his with a file, For of all compositions, he thought that the son net Best repaid all the toil you expended upon it; course, And for one final blow collect all of its force; Not a verse should be salient, but each one should tend With a wave-like up-gathering to burst at the end; So, condensing the strength here, there smoothing a wry kink, He was killing the time, when up walked Mr. asses!" From out of his pocket a paper he'd take, With the proud look of martyrdom tied to its stake, And, reading a squib at himself, he'd say, “Here I see 'Gainst American letters a bloody conspiracy, Of some twopenny editor over the seas, And licking his critical shoes, for you know 'tis The whole aim of our lives to get one English notice ; My American puffs I would willingly burn all, (They're all from one source, monthly, weekly, diurnal,) To get but a kick from a transmarine journal!" So, culling the gibes of each critical scorner As if they were plums, and himself were Jack Horner, He came cautiously on, peeping round every corner, And into each hole where a weasel might pass in, Not so bad as those daubs of the Sun, to be sure, Yet done with a dagger-o'-type, whose vile portraits Disperse all one's good, and condense all one's poor traits. Apollo looked up, hearing footsteps approaching, And slipped out of sight the new rhymes he was broaching, "Good day, Mr. I'm happy to meet, With a scholar so ripe, and a critic so neat, Who through Grub-street the soul of a gentleman carries, What news from that suburb of London and Paris Which latterly makes such shrill claims to monopolize The credit of being the New World's metropolis ? " Why, nothing of consequence, save this attack On my friend there, behind, by some pitiful hack, Who thinks every national author a poor one, That isn't a copy of something that's foreign, And assaults the American Dick-" |