Who soon detect, and mark where'er we fail,
And prove our marble with too nice a nail!
Democritus himself was not so bad;
He only thought—but you would make us—mad!
But truth to say, most rhymers rarely guard
Against that ridicule they deem so hard;
In person negligent, they wear, from sloth,
Beards of a week, and nails of annual growth;
Reside in garrets, fly from those they meet,
And walk in alleys rather than the street.470
With little rhyme, less reason, if you please,
The name of Poet may be got with ease,
So that not tuns of helleboric juice[1]
Shall ever turn your head to any use;
Write but like Wordsworth—live beside a lake,
And keep your bushy locks a year from Blake;[2]
Then print your book, once more return to town,
And boys shall hunt your Bardship up and down.[3]
- ↑ So that not Hellebore with all its juice.—[MS. L. (a).]
- ↑ As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and better paid [and may be like him a senator, one day or other: no disparagement to the High Court of Parliament.—MS. L. (b)], and may, like him, be one day a senator, having a better qualification than one half of the heads he crops, viz.—Independence. [According to the Scholiast, Cæsar made his barber Licinus a senator, "quod odisset Pompeium." Blake (see Letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820) was, presumably, Benjamin Blake, a perfumer, who lived at 46, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.]
- ↑ [There was some foundation for this. When Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy called on Daniel Stuart, editor
