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Updated: July 11, 2025
Among the dwarfish rhymers of the day there lingered some of the august shapes of a former age. Milton still walked his solitary course, and Waller wrote his occasional odes and verses, but of names not already given there are no more than two or three that require commemoration.
Extemporary rhymers are common among them, like the improvisatori of Italy, and are called Palladores, who are held in great estimation, and devote themselves entirely to that occupation. In the Spanish provinces of Chili, no other language than Spanish is spoken, except upon the frontiers, where the peasants speak both Araucanian and Spanish.
You know as well as I do how the plague of rhymers, and of bad rhymes, is upon the land, and it was only three weeks ago that, at a 'Literary Institute' at Brighton, I heard of the Reverend somebody Stoddart gravely proposing 'Poetry for the Million' to his audience; he assuring them that 'poets made a mystery of their art, but that in fact nothing except an English grammar, and a rhyming dictionary, and some instruction about counting on the fingers, was necessary in order to make a poet of any man!
Nay, more than the kings of earth, are we not the kings of Fairyland itself? Do we not realize the golden dreams of the old rhymers, luxurious dogs that they were? Who would not cry out, 'Blest silent groves! Oh, may ye be Forever Mirth's best nursery! May pure Contents Forever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains."
Admitting in advance that there is in the house-building business very little that teaches a man to be a literary critic, I must nevertheless say that many poets of ancient and modern times might have found the building of a house a far more inspiring theme than some upon which they have written, and even a more respectable one than certain others which some distinguished rhymers have unfortunately selected.
With infinitely less Attic salt, but with as much heartiness as Aristophanes could have done, the popular rhymers gave the minister ample opportunity to understand the position which he occupied in the Netherlands. One day a petitioner placed a paper in his hand and vanished. It contained some scurrilous verses upon himself, together with a caricature of his person.
"I warned you of it," said Paul Sillery to him, as he led him into a corner of the cafe. "Our good friends are not pleased, and that is very natural. The greater part of these rhymers are 'cheap jewellers, and they are jealous of a master workman. Above all things, pretend not to notice it; they will never forgive you for guessing their bad sentiments. And then you must be indulgent to them.
Of course, it is a wholly different affair when the anonymous correspondent sends several brace of grouse, or a salmon of noble proportions, or rare old books bound by Derome, or a service of Worcester china with the square mark, or other tribute of that kind. Probably some dozen of rhymers sent Lord Tennyson amateur congratulatory odes when he was raised to the peerage.
There's nothing so rare as genius in this world, and even if his flame does burn from a vile-smelling wick it's a flame, remember! and one that will yet light the ages. If I know anything of the literature of our time Poe will live when these rhymers like Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, whom everybody is talking about, will be forgotten.
Betterton. Long have we turn'd the point of our just Rage On the half Wits, and Criticks of the Age. Oft has the soft, insipid Sonneteer In Nice and Flutter, seen his Fop-face here. Well was the ignorant lampooning Pack Of shatterhead Rhymers whip'd on Craffey's back; But such a trouble Weed is Poetaster, The lower 'tis cut down, it grows the faster.
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