rt--then burn it in Disgust!

LXIII

Oh, threats of Failure, hopes of Royalties!
One thing at least I've sold--these Parodies;
One thing is certain, Satire always sells;
The Roast is read, no matter where it is.

LXIV

Strange, is it not? that of the Authors who
Publish in England, such a mighty Few
Make a Success, though here they score a Hit?
The British Public knows a Thing or Two!

LXV

By Revelations of the Past we've learn'd
The Yankee Author usually is burn'd;
All of our Story Writers say the Same;
The London Critic all their Books have spurn'd.

LXVI

I sent my Agent where the Buyers dwell,
Some clever Stories of my own to sell:
And by and by the Agent said to me,
"One thing I sold--that's doing Mighty Well!"

LXVII

So Heaven seems tame indeed when I behold
Editions of Five Hundred Thousand sold;
When Clippings show how Critics scorch me, then
Hell's Roasting seems comparatively Cold!

LXVIII

We are no other than a passing Show
Of clumsy Mountebanks that come and go
To please the General Public; now, who gave
To IT the right to judge, I'd like to know?

LXIX

Impotent Writers bound to feed ITS taste
For Literature and Poetry debased;
Hither and thither pandering we strive,
And one by one our Talents are disgraced.

LXX

The Scribe no question makes of Verse or Prose,
But what the Editor demands he shows;
And he who buys three thousand words of Drule,
_He_ knows what People want--you Bet He knows!

LXXI

The facile Scribbler writes; and, having writ,
No Rules of Rhetoric bother him a Bit,
Or lure him back to cancel half a Line,
Nor Grammar's protests change a Word of it.

LXXII

And though you wring your Hands and wonder Why
Such slipshod Work the Magazines will buy,
Don't grumble at the Editor, for he
Must serve the Public, e'en as You and I.

LXXIII

With Puck's first joke, they did the last Life feed,
And there of Judge's Stories sowed the Seed:
And the first jokelet that Joe Miller wrote
The Sunday Comic-Section readers read.

LXXIV

YESTERDAY _This_ Day's popular Song supplants;
TO-MORROW'S will be even worse, perchance:
Drink! For the latest Coon-Song's floating by:
Drink! Now the music is an Indian Dance!

LXXV

I tell you this--When, started from the Goal,
The first Plantation Ditty 'gan to roll
Through Minstrel Troupes and Negro Baritones
In its predestined race from Pole to Pole,

LXXVI

The