an hardly tell whether a
question will ever arise in which he and I should by any strange fortune
agree, but meanwhile my esteem for him grows as I know him, and, though
not the best judge on earth of a poem, he knows what it is he is saying
and why, and is honest and fearless, two good points which I have not
found so rife I can easily smother my love for them, whether on my side
or t'other.

For my other _anonymi_, you may be sure that I know what is meant by a
caricature, and what by a portrait. There _are_ those who think it is
capital fun to be spattering their ink on quiet, unquarrelsome folk, but
the minute the game changes sides and the others begin it, they see
something savage and horrible in it. As for me I respect neither women
nor men for their gender, nor own any sex in a pen. I choose just to
hint to some causeless unfriends that, as far as I know, there are
always two ends (and one of them heaviest, too) to a staff, and two
parties also to every good laugh.

A FABLE FOR CRITICS

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic, 10
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought--but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,--
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?--who can flatter or kiss trees? 20
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,--
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting