O Longman, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Co. And other dons of Paternoster Row! O enemies of authors here below, From those who're great to those who are but so— so; Against you, Slop indignant does complain, Clanks in your face his literary chain; Stop, tyrants! who, for your peculiar gain, By day and night the contents of his brain drain. He sows the seed, you gather in the crops; You sack the till, and he supplies your shops; You quaff champagne, while meanest malt and hops Do scarcely once a fortnight enter Slop's chops. So wickedly does fortune treat our crew; So partially she deals betwixt us two; Nothing can miserable authors do But squeeze and squeeze, while pitilessly you screw, Until you squeeze the hapless carcass dry. For such great wrongs is there no remedy? O, callous House of Commons! tell us why You pass poor authors' wrongs so careless-ly by? Be these the terms for literary men: _First pay us authors_, let booksellers then Feed after us who wield the godlike pen. O what shall I. O. U, learn'd ION, when, Thy happy bill, by law shall here prevail, Leaving to me (and to my sons in tail), Of all my works the profit of the sale: As for the publishers—why, rat it, _they'll_ fail. [Illustration] JUNE—MARROWBONES AND CLEAVERS. Was there ever such confounded ill-luck? My whole life has been a tissue of ill luck: although I have laboured, perhaps, harder than any man to make a fortune, something always tumbled it down. In love and in war I was not like others. In my marriages, I had an eye to the main chance; and you see how some unlucky blow would come and throw them over. In the army I was just as prudent, and just as unfortunate. What with judicious betting, and horse-swapping, good luck at billiards, and economy, I do believe I put by my pay every year,—and that is what few can say who have but an allowance of a hundred a-year.