at poetry and failed ignominiously. Incapacity to do any good work of one's own frequently creates a thirsty desire to criticize the work of other people; thus, in the intervals of his impotent rage at the success of the deserving, the Superannauted, resolved to push himself into notice somehow, takes to "discovering" Little Poets. It is his poor last bid for fame; a final forlorn effort to get his half-ounce of talent to the front by tacking it on to some new name which he thinks (and he is quite alone in the idea) may by the merest chance in the world, like a second-rate horse, win a doubtful race. To admire any Great Poet who may happen to exist among us, is no part of the Superannuated's programme. He ignores Great Poets generally, fearing lest the mere mention of their names should eclipse his dwarfish nurslings.
Now the public, mistakenly called fools, are perfectly aware of the Superannuated. They see his signature affixed to many of the Little Poets Booms, and ask each other with smiling tolerance, "What has he done?" Nothing. "Oh! Then how does he know?" Ah, that is his secret! He thinks he knows; and he wants you, excellent Fool-Public, to believe he thinks he knows! And, under the pleasing delusion that you always have your Fool's Cap on, and never take it off under any circumstances, he "discovers" Mr. Podgers for you. Who is Mr. Podgers? A poet. If we are to credit the Superannuated, he is "a new star on the literary horizon, of the first magnitude." The "first magnitude"!—the public shakes its caps and bells in amused scepticism. Another Shelley? Another Byron? These were of the "first magni-
