If a funny "Cantab" write a dozen funny rhymes,
Need a dozen "Cantabs" write about it to the _Times_?
Need they write, at any rate, a generation after,
Stating cause and date of joke and reasons for their laughter?




THE POPULAR CONCEPTION OF A POET


June 24, 1893. March 4, 1804. In what respect Remarkable.

What seems to me chiefly remarkable in the popular conception of a
Poet is its unlikeness to the truth. Misconception in this case has
been flattered, I fear, by the poets themselves:--

"The poet in a golden Clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill;
He saw thro' his own soul.
The marvel of the Everlasting Will,
An open scroll,
Before him lay...."

I should be sorry to vex any poet's mind with my shallow wit; but this
passage always reminds me of the delusions of the respectable
Glendower:--