"To bygone times my lingering thoughts are cast; Good taste and reason with those times are past! Look round and turn each trifling printed page; Survey the precious works that please the age; This truth at least let satire's self allow, No dearth of pens can be complained of now. The loaded press beneath its labour groans, And printers' devils shake their weary bones, While ARNOLD'S epics cram the creaking shelves, And KIPLING'S ballads shine in hot-pressed twelves 'New' schools of twaddle in their turn arise, Where jingling rhymsters grapple for the prize, And for a time these psuedo-bards prevail; Each public 'library' assists their sale, And, hurling lawful genius from its throne, Takes up some puny idol of its own, And judges Poesy as just a cross 'Twixt ASHBY STERRY, LANG, and EDMUND GOSSE. "Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, For notice eager, pass in long review; Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace: Rhyme and romance maintain an equal race. The Grand Old Paradox of Hawarden Seizes in haste his too prolific pen, And, heedless how the reading world is bored, Thrusts to the front a MRS. HUMPHRY WARD, With 'Robert Elsmere' frightened out of faith, And 'David Grieve' a-prosing us to death; Next trumpets CAINE'S 'integrity of aim,' And gives to 'Mademoiselle Ixe' a name. O Gladstone, Gladstone! 'Boom' it not so strong Boomers may 'boom' too often and too long! If thou wilt write on impulse, prithee spare! More vapid authors were too much to bear; But if, in spite of all thy friends can say, Thou still wilt boomwards boom thy frantic way, And in long articles to stupid papers Thou still wilt cut thy literary capers, Unhappy Art thy fresh intent may rue; God save us, Gladstone, from thy next 'review'! "Lo, the mild teacher of the Buddhist school, The follower of the tamest blank-verse rule, The simple ARNOLD, with his 'Asia's Light,' Who wins attention by translation-right; And both by precept and example shows That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose, Convinced himself, by demonstration plain, There never will be such a book again, And never such a 'marvellous proper' man To charm the hearts of ladies in Japan! "Who out at Putney on the common strays, Unsocial in his converse and his ways? 'Tis SWINBURNE, the Catullus of his day, As sweet but as immoral in his lay. Grieved to condemn, the Muse must still be just, Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns; From grosser incense with disgust she turns. Mend, SWINBURNE, mend thy morals and thy taste; Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but chaste; Thy borrowed fancies to Villon restore, And use old Scripture similes no more!