'But now, on the poet's dis-privacied moods With _do this_ and _do that_ the pert critic intrudes; While he thinks he's been barely fulfilling his duty 1770 To interpret 'twixt men and their own sense of beauty. And has striven, while others sought honor or pelf, To make his kind happy as he was himself, He finds he's been guilty of horrid offences In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, and tenses; He's been _ob_ and _sub_jective, what Kettle calls Pot, Precisely, at all events, what he ought not, _You have done this,_ says one judge; _done that,_ says another; _You should have done this,_ grumbles one; _that,_ says t'other; Never mind what he touches, one shrieks out _Taboo!_ 1780 And while he is wondering what he shall do, Since each suggests opposite topics for song, They all shout together _you're right!_ and _you're wrong!_ 'Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can't write can surely review, Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies; Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of his teens, Will do for the Jeffrey of six magazines; Having read Johnson's lives of the poets half through, 1790 There's nothing on earth he's not competent to; He reviews with as much nonchalance as he whistles,-- He goes through a book and just picks out the thistles; It matters not whether he blame or commend, If he's bad as a foe, he's far worse as a friend: Let an author but write what's above his poor scope, He goes to work gravely and twists up a rope, And, inviting the world to see punishment done, Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind and the sun; 'Tis delightful to see, when a man comes along 1800 Who has anything in him peculiar and strong, Every cockboat that swims clear its fierce (pop) gundeck at him, And make as he passes its ludicrous Peck at him--' Here Miranda came up and began, 'As to that--' Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, and hat, And, seeing the place getting rapidly cleared, I too snatched my notes and forthwith disappeared. THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT PART I SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, From business snug withdrawn, Was much contented with a lot That would contain a Tudor cot 'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, And twelve feet more of lawn. He had laid business on the shelf To give his taste expansion, And, since no man, retired with pelf, The building mania can shun, 10 Knott, being middle-aged himself, Resolved to build (unhappy elf!) A mediæval mansion.