THE SCAVENGER-IN-WAITING 23 



" Mark but the soaring kite, and she will reade 

 Brave rules for diet ; teach thee how to feede ; 

 She flies aloft ; she spreads her ayrie plumes 

 Above the earth, above the nauseous fumes 

 Of dang'rous earth ; she makes herself a stranger 

 T' inferior things, and checks at every danger." 



Now, I like these lines. Not that I altogether ap- 

 prove of the sentiments therein expressed. I would not 

 advise anyone, not even a German, to learn table 

 manners from the kite. What I do like about the 

 above is the splendid manner in which the poet strikes 

 out a new line. [N.B. — The poets and their friends 

 are strongly advised to omit the forty lines that 

 follow.] The vulgar herd of poets can best be compared 

 to a flock of sheep. One of them makes some wild 

 statement about a bird, and all the rest plagiarise it. 

 Not so Hurdis ; he is no slavish imitator. He obviously 

 knows nothing about the kite, but that is a trifle. If 

 poets wrote only of things with which they were au fait, 

 where would all our poetry be ? 



What Hurdis did know was that, as a general rule, 

 when you want to write about a bird of which you 

 know nothing, you are pretty safe in reading what the 

 poets say about it, and then saying the very opposite. 

 That in this particular case the rule does not hold good 

 is Hurdis's misfortune, not his fault. The kite happens 

 to be almost the only bird about which the poets write 

 correctly. This is a phenomenon I am totally unable 

 to explain. 



Cowper sang : 



" Kites that swim sublime 

 In still repeated circles, screaming loud.'' 



