480 Canons of Criticism. [Nov. 



first place, the public do not expect such decoration in prose works, and it 

 is not right to lead them astray ; and then most prose works are sufficiently 

 long to make them vendible with the butter-sellers and trunk-makers 

 which, after all, is something. 



These are only a few of the many points of criticism on which the 

 moderns differ very widely from the ancients ; but I am admonished, by 

 the extent of the manuscript, to pause at least for the present. Of the 

 remaining canons, some are communicable only to the initiated; for the 

 art of writing, like the Eleusinian religion, has its exoteric and its interior 

 doctrines. In this respect, it is but on a level with the most sublime and 

 sacred arts. Law, physic, divinity, and politics are precisely on the same 

 footing ; and so, too, are music, and painting, and coach-building, and 

 tailoring (male and female), porter-brewing, and the manufacture of 

 polonies and sausages. To betray these secrets 'would not only be treason 

 to the craft, but would deprive the whole tribe of gentle readers of seven- 

 eighths of their pleasure. What would they say to a Marplot who should 

 come on the stage and tell the audience, " these jewels are paste" "this 

 robe calico, and not silk". and " this terrible irruption nothing in the 

 world but a pennyworth of gunpowder and nitrate of strontian ?" I would 

 never sit in the same boat (as Horace says) with such a man : so do not 

 look for it at my hands. T. 



WHAT IS FAME ? 



AND thou wouldst write ? for what ! a name ? 



To have a life-surviving fame, 



Blazoned 'midst the glorious ones 



Who shine the never-setting suns, 



Where unborn men shall constant gaze, 



And dedicate with voice of praise ; 



Giving their future destinies 



To spirits of the poet's skies ; 



To tempt the deed of youthful bard, 



His hope to raise, and then discard ! 



To have the verses thou hast sung 



Translated in a foreign tongue ; 



To have a statue, raised to grace 



Thy all-revered resting-place ? 



'Tis true, this is a noble theme, 



Or else say which ? a madman's dream. 



Thou'rt dead, and left behind some books, 

 Which, neatly bound, fill up the nooks 

 Of some dull-headed plodder's room, 

 Well pondered o'er by housewife's broom ; 

 Or yet, less lucky, doomed to sleep 

 On bookworm's stall, with label " cheap ;" 

 And all the wit thy brain has wrought 

 May, with good fortune, fetch a groat. 

 Yet still thy fame neglect rebuts, 

 If, 'midst the care of cracking nuts, 

 Some fop avers he's read thy lines, 

 Picks off the shell then talks of wines; 



