This, you would avow, was your offence, and perhaps you were not
altogether mistaken. Yet posterity declines to read a line of
yours, and, as we think of you, we are again set face to face with
that eternal problem, how far is popularity a test of poetry? Burns
was a poet: and popular. Byron was a popular poet, and the world
agrees in the verdict of their own generations. But Montgomery,
though he sold so well, was no poet, nor, Sir, I fear, was your
verse made of the stuff of immortality. Criticism cannot hurt what
is truly great; the Cardinal and the Academy left Chimene as fair as
ever, and as adorable. It is only pinchbeck that perishes under the
acids of satire: gold defies them. Yet I sometimes ask myself,
does the existence of popularity like yours justify the malignity of
satire, which blesses neither him who gives, nor him who takes? Are
poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet? I doubt it, Sir, holding
that, even unpricked, a poetic bubble must soon burst by its own
nature. Yet satire will assuredly be written so long as bad poets
are successful, and bad poets will assuredly reflect that their
assailants are merely envious, and (while their vogue lasts) that
the purchasing public is the only judge. After all, the bad poet
who is popular and "sells" is not a whit worse than the bad poets
who are unpopular, and who deride his songs.

Monsieur,

Votre tres-humble serviteur, &c.



LETTER--To Sir John Maundeville, Kt. (OF THE WAYS INTO YNDE.)