from the times of patronage. James Thomson [Footnote: See the _Castle
of Indolence,_ Canto II, stanzas XXI-III. See also _To Mr. Thomson,
Doubtful to What Patron to Address the Poem,_ by H. Hill.] and Thomas
Hood [Footnote: See _To the Late Lord Mayor._] both concerned
themselves with the problem. Kirke White appears to have felt that
patronage of poets was still a live issue. [Footnote: See the _Ode
Addressed to the Earle of Carlisle._] Crabbe, in a narrative poem,
offered a pathetic picture of a young poet dying of heartbreak because
of the malicious cruelty of the aristocracy toward him, a farmer's son.
[Footnote: _The Patron._] Later on Mrs. Browning took up the cudgels for
the poet, in _Lady Geraldine's Courtship,_ and upheld the nobility of
the untitled poet almost too strenuously, for his morbid pride makes him
appear by all odds the worst snob in the poem. The less dignified
contingent of the public annoys the poet by burlesquing the grandiose
manners and poses to which his large nature easily lends itself. People
are likely to question the poet's powers of soul because he forgets to
cut his hair, or to fasten his blouse at the throat. And of course there
have been rhymsters who have gone over to the side of the enemy, and who
have made profit from exhibiting their freakishness, after the manner of
circus monstrosities. Thomas Moore sometimes takes malicious pleasure in
thus showing up the oddities of his race. [See _Common Sense and
Genius,_ and _Rhymes by the Road._] Later libelers have been, usually,
writers of no reputation. The literary squib that made most stir in the
course of the century was not a poem, but the novel, _The Green
Carnation,_ which poked fun at the mannerisms of the 1890 poets.
[Footnote: Gilbert and Sullivan's _Patience_ made an even greater
sensation.] Oddly, American poets betray more indignation than English
ones over such lampoons. Longfellow makes Michael Angelo exclaim,

I say an artist