It is not modesty that bids thee hide-- She never wastes her blushes out of sight: It is not to invite The world's decision, for thy fame is tried,-- And thy fair deeds are scatter'd far and wide, Even royal heads are with thy readers reckon'd,-- From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars In crimson collars, And learned serjeants in the forty-second! Whither by land or sea art thou not beckon'd? Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth, Defying distance and its dim control; Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckon'd worth A brace of Miltons for capacious soul-- Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north, And set above ten Shakespeares near the pole! XIV. Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp, With such a giant genius at command, For ever at thy stamp, To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land, When haply thou might'st ask the pearly hand Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter, Tho' princes sought her, And lead her in procession hymeneal, Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal! Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean wharf, Envelop'd in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs? Why, but because thou art some puny dwarf, Some hopeless imp, like Riquet with the Tuft, Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebuff'd, Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs? XV. What in this masquing age Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy? What but the critic's page? One hath a cast, he hides from the world's eye, Another hath a wen--he won't show where; A third has sandy hair, A hunch upon his back, or legs awry, Things for a vile reviewer to espy! Another hath a mangel-wurzel nose-- Finally, this is dimpled, Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled; Things for a monthly critic to expose-- Nay, what is thy own case--that being small, Thou choosest to be nobody at all! XVI. Well, thou art prudent, with such puny bones-- E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf, That shadowy revelation of thyself-- To build thee a small hut of haunted stones-- For certainly the first pernicious man That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee In some vile literary caravan-- Shown for a shilling Would be thy killing. Think of Crachami's miserable span! No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in Than there it fell in-- But when she felt herself a show, she tried To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf! and died! XVII.