book i
. chap. vi. of the novel, Steele says, "My mother catched me in her arms." "Catched" is good enough eighteenth-century for Johnson and Walpole. But Thackeray made it "caught," and "caught" it remains to this day both in _Esmond_ and _The Humourists_.
A MILTONIC EXERCISE
(TERCENTENARY, 1608-1908)
"Stops of various Quills."--LYCIDAS.
What need of votive Verse To strew thy _Laureat Herse_ With that mix'd _Flora_ of th' _Aonian Hill_? Or _Mincian_ vocall Reed, That _Cam_ and _Isis_ breed, When thine own Words are burning in us still?
_Bard, Prophet, Archimage!_ In this Cash-cradled Age, We grate our scrannel Musick, and we dote: Where is the Strain unknown, Through Bronze or Silver blown, That thrill'd the Welkin with thy woven Note?
Yes,--"we are selfish Men": Yet would we once again Might see _Sabrina_ braid her amber Tire;
Or watch the _Comus_ Crew Sweep down the Glade; or view Strange-streamer'd Craft from _Javan_ or _Gadire_!
Or could we catch once more, High up, the Clang and Roar Of Angel Conflict,--Angel Overthrow; Or, with a World begun, Behold the young-ray'd Sun Flame in the Groves where the _Four Rivers_ go!
Ay me, I fondly dream! Only the Storm-bird's Scream Foretells of Tempest in the Days to come; Nowhere is heard up-climb The lofty lyric Rhyme, And the "God-gifted Organ-voice" is dumb.[73]
Note:
[73] Written, by request, for the celebration at Christ's College, Cambridge, July 10, 1908.
FRESH FACTS ABOUT FIELDING
The general reader, as a rule, is but moderately interested in minor rectifications. Secure in a conventional preference of the spirit to the letter, he professes to be indifferent whether the grandmother of an exalted personage was a "Hugginson" or a "Blenkinsop"; and he is equally careless as to the correct Christian names of his cousins and his aunts. In the main, the general reader is wise in his generation. But with the painful biographer, toiling in the immeasurable sand of thankless research, often foot-sore and dry of throat, these trivialities assume exaggerated proportions; and to those who remind him--as in a cynical age he is sure to be reminded--of the infinitesimal value of his hard-gotten grains of information, he can only reply mournfully, if unconvincingly, that fact is fact--even in matters of mustard-seed. With this prelude, I propose to set down one or two minute points concerning Henry Fielding, not yet comprised in any existing records of his career.[74]
Note:
[74] Since this was published in April 1907, they have been embodied in an Appendix to my "Men of Letters" _Fielding_; and used, to some extent, for a fresh edition of the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ ("World's Classics").
The first relates to the exact period of his residence at Leyden University. His earliest biographer, Arthur Murphy, writing in 1762, is more explicit than usual on this topic. "He [Fielding]," says Murphy, "went from Eton to Leyden, and there continued to show an eager thirst for knowledge, and to study the civilians with a remarkable application for about two years, when, remittances failing, he was obliged to return to London, not then quite twenty years old" [_i.e._ before 22nd April, 1727]. In 1883, like my predecessors, I adopted this statement, for the sufficient reason that I had nothing better to put in its place. And Murphy should have been well-informed. He had known Fielding personally; he was employed by Fielding's publisher; and he could, one would imagine, have readily obtained accurate data from Fielding's surviving sister, Sarah, who was only three years younger than her brother, of whose short life (he died at forty-eight) she could scarcely have forgotten the particulars. Murphy's story, moreover, exactly fitted in with the fact, only definitely made known in June 1883, that Fielding, as a youth of eighteen, had endeavoured, in November 1725, to abduct or carry off his first love, Miss Sarah Andrew of Lyme Regis. Although the lady was promptly married to a son of one of her fluttered guardians, nothing seemed more reasonable than to assume that the disappointed lover (one is sure he was never an heiress-hunter!) was despatched to the Dutch University to keep him out of mischief.[75] But in once more examining Mr. Keightley's posthumous papers, kindly placed at my disposal by his nephew, Mr. Alfred C. Lyster, I found a reference to an un-noted article in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for November, 1863 (from internal evidence I believe it to have been written by James Hannay), entitled "A Scotchman in Holland." Visiting Leyden, the writer was permitted to inspect the University Album; and he found, under 1728, the following:--"_Henricus Fielding, Anglus, Ann. 20. Stud. Lit._", coupled with the further detail that he "was living at the 'Hotel of Antwerp.'" Except in the item of "_Stud. Lit._", this did not seem to conflict materially with Murphy's account, as Fielding was nominally twenty from 1727 to 1728, and small discrepancies must be allowed for.
Note:
[75] "Men of Letters" _Fielding_, 1907, Appendix I.
Twenty years later, a fresh version of the record came to light. At their tercentenary festival in 1875, tne Leyden University printed a list of their students from their foundation to that year. From this Mr. Edward Peacock, F.S.A., compiled in 1883, for the Index Society, an _Index to English-Speaking Students who have graduated at Leyden University_; and at p. 35 appears _Fielding, Henricus, Anglus_, 16 Mart. 1728, 915 (the last being the column number of the list). This added a month-date, and made Fielding a graduate. Then, two years ago, came yet a third rendering. Mr. A.E.H. Swaen, writing in _The Modern Language Review_ for July 1906, printed the inscription in the Album as follows; "Febr. 16. 1728: Rectore Johanne Wesselio, Henricus Fielding, Anglus. 20, L." Mr. Swaen construed this to mean that, on the date named (which, it may be observed, is not Mr. Peacock's date), Fielding, "aged twenty, was _entered_ as _litterarum studiosus_ at Leyden." In this case it would follow that his residence in Holland should have come after February 16th, 1728; and Mr. Swaen went on to conjecture that, "as his [Fielding's] first play, _Love in Several Masques_, was staged at Drury Lane in February, 1728, and his next play, _The Temple Beau_, was produced in January, 1730, it is not improbable that his residence in Holland filled up the interval or part of it. Did the profits of the play [he proceeded] perhaps cover part of his travelling expenses?"
The new complications imported into the question by this fresh aspect of it, will be at once apparent. Up to 1875 there had been but one Fielding on the Leyden books; so that all these differing accounts were variations from a single source. In this difficulty, I was fortunate enough to enlist the sympathy of Mr. Frederic Harrison, who most kindly undertook to make inquiries on my behalf at Leyden University itself. In reply to certain definite queries drawn up by me, he obtained from the distinguished scholar and Professor of History, Dr. Pieter Blok, the following authoritative particulars. The exact words in the original _Album Academicum_ are:--"16 Martii 1728 Henricus Fielding, Anglus, annor. 20 Litt. Stud." He was then staying at the "Casteel van Antwerpen"--as related by "A Scotchman in Holland." His name only occurs again in the yearly _recensiones_ under February 22nd, 1729, as "Henricus Fieldingh," when he was domiciled with one Jan Oson. He must consequently have left Leyden before February 8th, 1730, February 8th being the birthday of the University, after which all students have to be annually registered. The entry in the Album (as Mr. Swaen affirmed) is an _admission_ entry; there are no leaving entries. As regards "studying the civilians," Fielding might, in those days, Dr. Blok explains, have had private lessons from the professors; but he could not have studied in the University without being on the books. To sum up: After producing _Love in Several Masques_ at Drury Lane, probably on February 12th, I728,[76] Fielding was admitted a "Litt. Stud." at Leyden University on March 16th; was still there in February 1729; and left before February 8th, 1730. Murphy is therefore at fault in almost every
## particular. Fielding did _not_ go from Eton to Leyden; he did _not_ make
any recognised study of the civilians, "with remarkable application" or otherwise; and he did _not_ return to London before he was twenty. But it is by no means improbable that the _causa causans_ or main reason for his coming home was the failure of remittances.
Note:
[76] _Genest_, iii. 209.
Another recently established fact is also more or less connected with "Mur.--" as Johnson called him. In his "Essay" of 1762, he gave a highly-coloured account of Fielding's first marriage, and of the promptitude with which, assisted by yellow liveries and a pack of hounds, he managed to make duck and drake of his wife's little fortune. This account has now been "simply riddled in its details" (as Mr. Saintsbury puts it) by successive biographers, the last destructive critic being the late Sir Leslie Stephen, who plausibly suggested that the "yellow liveries" (not the family liveries, be it noted!) were simply a confused recollection of the fantastic pranks of that other and earlier Beau Fielding (Steele's "Orlando the Fair"), who married the Duchess of Cleveland in 1705, and was also a Justice of the Peace for Westminster. One thing was wanting to the readjustment of the narrative, and that was the precise date of Fielding's marriage to the beautiful Miss Cradock of Salisbury, the original both of Sophia Western and Amelia Booth. By good fortune this has now been ascertained. Lawrence gave the date as 1735; and Keightley suggested the spring of that year. This, as Swift would say, was near the mark, although confirmation has been slow in coming. In June 1906, Mr. Thomas S. Bush, of Bath, announced in _The Bath Chronicle_ that the desired information was to be found (not in the Salisbury registers which had been fruitlessly consulted, but) at the tiny church of St. Mary, Charlcombe, a secluded parish about one and a half miles north of Bath. Here is the record:--"November y'e 28, 1734. Henry Fielding of y'e Parish of St. James in Bath, Esq., and Charlotte Cradock, of y'e same Parish, spinster, were married by virtue of a licence from y'e Court of Wells." All lovers of Fielding owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Bush, whose researches, in addition, disclosed the fact that Sarah Fielding, the novelist's third sister (as we shall see presently), was buried, not in Bath Abbey, where Dr. John Hoadly raised a memorial to her, but "in y'e entrance of the Chancel [of Charlcombe Church] close to y'e Rector's seat," April 14th, 1768.[77] Mr. Bush's revelation, it may be added, was made in connection with another record of the visits of the novelist to the old Queen of the West, a tablet erected in June 1906 to Fielding and his sister on the wall of Yew Cottage, now renovated as Widcombe Lodge, Widcombe, Bath, where they once resided.
Note:
[77] Sarah Fielding's epitaph in Bath Abbey is often said to have been written by Bishop Benjamin Hoadly. In this case, it must have been anticipatory (like Dr. Primrose's on his Deborah), for the Bishop died in 1761.
In the last case I have to mention, it is but fair to Murphy to admit that he seems to have been better informed than those who have succeeded him. Richardson writes of being "well acquainted" with four of Fielding's sisters, and both Lawrence and Keightley refer to a Catherine and an Ursula, of whom Keightley, after prolonged enquiries, could obtain no tidings. With the help of Colonel W.F. Prideaux, and the kind offices of Mr. Samuel Martin of the Hammersmith Free Library, this matter has now been set at rest. In 1887 Sir Leslie Stephen had suggested to me that Catherine and Ursula were most probably born at Sharpham Park, before the Fieldings moved to East Stour. This must have been the case, though Keightley had failed to establish it. At all events, Catherine and Ursula must have existed, for they both died in 1750, The Hammersmith Registers at Fulham record the following burials:--
1750 July 9th, Mrs. Catherine Feilding (_sic_) 1750 Nov. 12th, Mrs. Ursula Fielding 1750 [--1] Feb'y. 24th, Mrs. Beatrice Fielding 1753 May 10th, Louisa, d. of Henry Fielding, Esq.
The first three, with Sarah, make up the "Four Worthy Sisters" of the reprehensible author of that "truly coarse-titled _Tom Jones_" concerning which Richardson wrote shudderingly in August 1749 to his young friends, Astraea and Minerva Hill. The final entry relating to Fielding's little daughter, Louisa, born December 3rd, 1752, makes it probable that, in May, 1753, he was staying in the house at Hammersmith, then occupied by his sole surviving sister, Sarah. In the following year (October 8th) he himself died at Lisbon. There is no better short appreciation of his work than Lowell's lapidary lines for the Shire Hall at Taunton,--the epigraph to the bust by Miss Margaret Thomas:
He looked on naked nature unashamed, And saw the Sphinx, now bestial, now divine, In change and re-change; he nor praised nor blamed, But drew her as he saw with fearless line. Did he good service? God must judge, not we! Manly he was, and generous and sincere; English in all, of genius blithely free: Who loves a Man may see his image here.
THE HAPPY PRINTER
"_Hoc est vivere._"--MARTIAL.
The Printer's is a happy lot: Alone of all professions, No fateful smudges ever blot His earliest "impressions."
The outgrowth of his youthful ken No cold obstruction fetters; He quickly learns the "types" of men, And all the world of "letters."
With "forms" he scorns to compromise; For him no "rule" has terrors; The "slips" he makes he can "revise"-- They are but "printers' errors."
From doubtful questions of the "Press" He wisely holds aloof; In all polemics, more or less, His argument is "proof."
Save in their "case," with High and Low, Small need has he to grapple! Without dissent he still can go To his accustomed "Chapel,"[78]
From ills that others scape or shirk, He rarely fails to rally; For him, his most "composing" work Is labour of the "galley."
Though ways be foul, and days are dim, He makes no lamentation; The primal "fount" of woe to him Is--want of occupation:
And when, at last, Time finds him grey With over-close attention, He solves the problem of the day, And gets an Old Age pension.
Note:
[78] This, derived, it is said, from Caxton's connection with Westminster Abbey, is the name given to the meetings held by printers to consider trade affairs, appeals, etc, (Printers' Vocabulary).
CROSS READINGS--AND CALEB WHITEFOORD
Towards the close of the year 1766--not many months after the publication of the Vicat of Wakefield--there appeared in Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall's _Public Advertiser_, and other newspapers, a letter addressed "To the Printer," and signed "PAPYRIUS CURSOR." The name was a real Roman name; but in its burlesque applicability to the theme of the communication, it was as felicitous as Thackeray's "MANLIUS PENNIALINUS," or that "APOLLONIUS CURIUS" from whom Hood fabled to have borrowed the legend of "Lycus the Centaur." The writer of the letter lamented--as others have done before and since--the barren fertility of the news sheets of his day. There was, he contended, some diversion and diversity in card-playing. But as for the papers, the unconnected occurrences and miscellaneous advertisements, the abrupt transitions from article to article, without the slightest connection between one paragraph and another--so overburdened and confused the memory that when one was questioned, it was impossible to give even a tolerable account of what one had read. The mind became a jumble of "politics, religion, picking of pockets, puffs, casualties, deaths, marriages, bankruptcies, preferments, resignations, executions, lottery tickets, India bonds, Scotch pebbles, Canada bills, French chicken gloves, auctioneers, and quack doctors," of all of which, particularly as the pages contained three columns, the bewildered reader could retain little or nothing. (One may perhaps pause for a moment to wonder, seeing that Papyrius could contrive to extract so much mental perplexity from Cowper's "folio of four pages"--he speaks specifically of this form,--what he would have done with _Lloyd's_, or a modern American Sunday paper!) Coming later to the point of his epistle, he goes on to explain that he has hit upon a method (as to which, be it added, he was not, as he thought, the originator[79]) of making this heterogeneous mass afford, like cards, a "_variety_ of entertainment."
Note:
[79] As a matter of fact, he had been anticipated by a paper, No. 49 of "little Harrison's" spurious _Tatler_, vol. v., where the writer reads a newspaper "in a direct Line" ... "without Regard to the Distinction of Columns,"--which is precisely the proposal of Papyrius.
By reading the afore-mentioned three columns horizontally and _onwards_, instead of vertically and _downwards_ "in the old trite vulgar way," it was contended that much mirth might observingly be distilled from the most unhopeful material, as "_blind Chance_" frequently brought about the oddest conjunctions, and not seldom compelled _sub juga aenea_ persons and things the most dissimilar and discordant. He then went on to give a number of examples in point, of which we select a few. This was the artless humour of it:--
"Yesterday Dr. Jones preached at St. James's, and performed it with ease in less than 16 Minutes." "Their R.H. the Dukes of York and Gloucester were bound over to their good behaviour." "At noon her R.H. the Princess Dowager was married to Mr. Jenkins, an eminent Taylor." "Friday a poor blind man fell into a saw-pit, to which he was conducted by Sir Clement Cottrell."[80] "A certain Commoner will be created a Peer. N.B.--No greater reward will be offered." "John Wilkes, Esq., set out for France, being charged with returning from transportation." "Last night a most terrible fire broke out, and the evening concluded with the utmost Festivity." "Yesterday the new Lord Mayor was sworn in, and afterwards toss'd and gored several Persons." "On Tuesday an address was presented; it happily miss'd fire, and the villain made off, when the honour of knighthood was conferred on him to the great joy of that noble family." "Escaped from the New Gaol, Terence M'Dermot. If he will return, he will be kindly received." "Colds caught at this season are The Companion to the Playhouse." "Ready to sail to the West Indies, the Canterbury Flying Machine in one day." "To be sold to the best Bidder, My Seat in Parliament being vacated." "I have long laboured under a complaint For ready money only," "Notice is hereby given, and no Notice taken."
Note:
[80] Master of the Ceremonies.]
And so forth, fully justifying the writer's motto from Cicero, _De Finibus_: "_Fortuitu Concursu hoc fieri, mirum est._" It may seem that the mirthful element is not overpowering. But "gentle Dulness ever loves a joke"; and in 1766 this one, in modern parlance, "caught on." "Cross readings" had, moreover, one popular advantage: like the Limericks of Edward Lear, they were easily imitated. What is not so intelligible is, that they seem to have fascinated many people who were assuredly not dull. Even Johnson condescended to commend the aptness of the pseudonym, and to speak of the performance as "ingenious and diverting." Horace Walpole, writing to Montagu in December 1766, professes to have laughed over them till he cried. It was "the newest piece of humour," he declared, "except the _Bath Guide_ [Anstey's], that he had seen of many years"; and Goldsmith--Goldsmith, who has been charged with want of sympathy for rival humourists--is reported by Northcote to have even gone so far as to say, in a transport of enthusiasm, that "it would have given him more pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had ever published of his own,"--which, of course, must be classed with "Dr. Minor's" unconsidered speeches.
"_Bien heureux_"--to use Voltaire's phrase--is he who can laugh much at these things now. As Goldsmith himself would have agreed, the jests of one age are not the jests of another. But it is a little curious that, by one of those freaks of circumstance, or "fortuitous concourses," there is to-day generally included among the very works of Goldsmith above referred to something which, in the opinion of many, is conjectured to have been really the production of the ingenious compiler of the "Cross Readings." That compiler was one Caleb Whitefoord, a well-educated Scotch wine-merchant and picture-buyer, whose portrait figures in Wilkie's "Letter of Introduction." The friend of Benjamin Franklin, who had been his next-door neighbour at Craven Street, he became, in later years, something of a diplomatist, since in 1782-83 he was employed by the Shelburne administration in the Paris negotiation for the Treaty of Versailles. But at the date of the "Cross Readings" he was mainly what Burke, speaking contemptuously of his status as a plenipotentiary, styled a "_diseur de bons mots_"; and he was for this reason included among those "most distinguished Wits of the Metropolis," who, following Garrick's lead in 1774, diverted themselves at the St. James's Coffee-house by composing the epitaphs on Goldsmith which gave rise to the incomparable gallery entitled _Retaliation_. In the first four editions of that posthumous poem there is no mention of Whitefoord, who, either at, or soon after the first meeting above referred to, had written an epitaph on Goldsmith, two-thirds of which are declared to be "unfit for publication."[81] But when the fourth edition of _Retaliation_ had been printed, an epitaph on Whitefoord was forwarded to the publisher, George Kearsly, by "a friend of the late Doctor Goldsmith," with an intimation that it was a transcript of an original in "the Doctor's own handwriting." "It is a striking proof of Doctor Goldsmith's good-nature," said the sender, glancing, we may suppose, at Whitefoord's performance. "I saw this sheet of paper in the Doctor's room, five or six days before he died; and, as I had got all the other Epitaphs, I asked him if I might take it. "_In truth you may, my Boy_ (replied he), _for it will be of no use to me where I am going_."
Note:
[81] Hewins's _Whitefoord Papers_, 1898, p. xxvii. ff., where the first four lines of twelve are given. They run--
Noll Goldsmith lies here, as famous for writing As his namesake old Noll was for praying and fighting, In friends he was rich, tho' not loaded with Pelf; He spoke well of them, and thought well of himself.
The lines--there are twenty-eight of them--speak of Whitefoord as, among other things, a
Rare compound of oddity, frolic and fun! Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun;[82] Whose temper was generous, open, sincere; A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear; Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will, Whose daily _bons mots_ half a column would fill; A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free, A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he.
What pity, alas! that so lib'ral a mind Should so long be to news-paper-essays confin'd! Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar, Yet content "if the table he set on a roar"; Whose talents to fill any station were fit, Yet happy if _Woodfall_ confess'd him a wit.
Note:
[82] "Mr, W."--says a note to the fifth edition--"is so notorious a punster, that Doctor Goldsmith used to say, it was impossible to keep him company, without being infected with the _itch_ of _punning_." Yet Johnson endured him, and apparently liked him, though he had the additional disqualification of being a North Briton.
The "servile herd" of "tame imitators"--the "news-paper witlings" and "pert scribbling folks"--were further requested to visit his tomb--
To deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine, And copious libations bestow on his shrine; Then strew all around it (you can do no less) _Cross-readings, Ship-news_, and _Mistakes_ of the _Press_.
It is not recorded that Kearsly ever saw this in Goldsmith's "own handwriting"; the sender's name has never been made known; and--as above observed--it has been more than suspected that Whitefoord concocted it himself, or procured its concoction. As J.T. Smith points out in _Nollekens and his Times_, 1828, i, 337-8, Whitefoord was scarcely important enough to deserve a far longer epitaph than those bestowed on Burke and Reynolds; and Goldsmith, it may be added--as we know In the case of Beattie and Voltaire--was not in the habit of confusing small men with great. Moreover, the lines would (as intimated by the person who sent them to Kearsly) be an extraordinarily generous return for an epitaph "unfit for publication," by which, it is stated, Goldsmith had been greatly disturbed. Prior had his misgivings, particularly in respect to the words attributed to Goldsmith on his death-bed; and Forster allows that to him the story of the so-called "Postscript" has "a somewhat doubtful look." To which we unhesitatingly say--ditto.
Whitefoord, it seems, was in the habit of printing his "Cross Readings" on small single sheets, and circulating them among his friends. "Rainy-Day Smith" had a specimen of these. In one of Whitefoord's letters he professes to claim that his _jeux d'esprit_ contained more than met the eye. "I have always," he wrote, "endeavour'd to make such changes [of Ministry] a matter of _Laughter_ [rather] than of serious concern to the People, by turning them into horse Races, Ship News, &c, and these Pieces have generally succeeded beyond my most sanguine Expectations, altho' they were not season'd with private Scandal or personal Abuse, of which our good neighbours of South Britain are realy too fond." In Debrett's _New Foundling Hospital for Wit_, new edition, 1784, there are several of his productions, including a letter to Woodfall "On the Errors of the Press," of which the following may serve as a sample: "I have known you turn a matter of hearsay, into a matter of heresy; Damon into a daemon; a delicious girl, into a delirious girl; the comic muse, into a comic mouse; a Jewish Rabbi, into a Jewish Rabbit; and when a correspondent, lamenting the corruption of the times, exclaimed 'O Mores!' you made him cry, 'O Moses!'" And here is an extract from another paper which explains the aforegoing reference to "horse Races": "1763--Spring Meeting... Mr. Wilkes's horse, LIBERTY, rode by himself, took the lead at starting; but being pushed hard by Mr. Bishop's black gelding, PRIVILEGE, fell down at the Devil's Ditch, and was no where." The "Ship News" is on the same pattern. "_August_ 25 [1765] We hear that his Majesty's Ship _Newcastle_ will soon have a new figure-head, the old one being almost worn out."
THE LAST PROOF
AN EPILOGUE TO ANY BOOK
"_Hic Finis chartaeque viaeque._"
"FINIS at last--the end, the End, the END! No more of paragraphs to prune or mend; No more blue pencil, with its ruthless line, To blot the phrase 'particularly fine'; No more of 'slips,' and 'galleys,' and 'revises,' Of words 'transmogrified,' and 'wild surmises'; No more of _n_'s that masquerade as _u_'s, No nice perplexities of _p_'s and _q_'s; No more mishaps of _ante_ and of _post_, That most mislead when they should help the most; No more of 'friend' as 'fiend,' and 'warm' as 'worm'; No more negations where we would affirm; No more of those mysterious freaks of fate That make us bless when we should execrate; No more of those last blunders that remain Where we no more can set them right again;
No more apologies for doubtful data; No more fresh facts that figure as Errata; No more, in short, O TYPE, of wayward lore From thy most _un_-Pierian fount--NO MORE!"
So spoke PAPYRIUS. Yet his hand meanwhile Went vaguely seeking for the vacant file, Late stored with long array of notes, but now Bare-wired and barren as a leafless bough;-- And even as he spoke, his mind began Again to scheme, to purpose and to plan.
There is no end to Labour 'neath the sun; There is no end of labouring--but One; And though we "twitch (or not) our Mantle blue," "To-morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new."
End of Project Gutenberg's De Libris: Prose and Verse, by Austin Dobson