So, Master, may you sing against each other, you two good old
anglers, like Peter and Corydon, that sang in your golden age.



LETTER--To M. Chapelain



Monsieur,--You were a popular poet, and an honourable, over-
educated, upright gentleman. Of the latter character you can never
be deprived, and I doubt not it stands you in better stead where you
are, than the laurels which flourished so gaily, and faded so soon.


Laurel is green for a season, and Love is fair for a day,
But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.


I know not if Mr. Swinburne is correct in his botany, but YOUR
laurel certainly outlived not May, nor can we hope that you dwell
where Orpheus and where Homer are. Some other crown, some other
Paradise, we cannot doubt it, awaited un si bon homme. But the
moral excellence that even Boileau admitted, la foi, l'honneur, la
probite, do not in Parnassus avail the popular poet, and some
luckless Glatigny or Theophile, Regnier or Gilbert, attains a kind
of immortality denied to the man of many contemporary editions, and
of a great commercial success.

If ever, for the confusion of Horace, any Poet was Made, you, Sir,