With this kind of stuff one might endlessly go on;
To come to the point, I may safely assert you 1670
Will find in each yard every cardinal virtue;[6]
Each has six truest patriots:  four discoverers of ether,
Who never had thought on ’t nor mentioned it either;
Ten poets, the greatest who ever wrote rhyme: 
Two hundred and forty first men of their time: 
One person whose portrait just gave the least hint
Its original had a most horrible squint: 
One critic, most (what do they call it?) reflective,
Who never had used the phrase ob-or subjective: 
Forty fathers of Freedom, of whom twenty bred 1680
Their sons for the rice-swamps, at so much a head,
And their daughters for—­faugh! thirty mothers of Gracchi: 
Non-resistants who gave many a spiritual blackeye: 
Eight true friends of their kind, one of whom was a jailer: 
Four captains almost as astounding as Taylor: 
Two dozen of Italy’s exiles who shoot us his
Kaisership daily, stern pen-and-ink Brutuses,
Who, in Yankee back-parlors, with crucified smile,[7]
Mount serenely their country’s funereal pile: 
Ninety-nine Irish heroes, ferocious rebellers 1690
’Gainst the Saxon in cis-marine garrets and cellars,
Who shake their dread fists o’er the sea and all that,—­
As long as a copper drops into the hat: 
Nine hundred Teutonic republicans stark
From Vaterland’s battle just won—­in the Park,
Who the happy profession of martyrdom take
Whenever it gives them a chance at a steak;
Sixty-two second Washingtons:  two or three Jacksons: 
And so many everythings else that it racks one’s
Poor memory too much to continue the list, 1700
Especially now they no longer exist;—­
I would merely observe that you’ve taken to giving
The puffs that belong to the dead to the living,
And that somehow your trump-of-contemporary-doom’s tones
Is tuned after old dedications and tombstones.’

Here the critic came in and a thistle presented—­[8]
From a frown to a smile the god’s features relented,
As he stared at his envoy, who, swelling with pride,
To the god’s asking look, nothing daunted, replied,—­
’You’re surprised, I suppose, I was absent so long, 1710
But your godship respecting the lilies was wrong;
I hunted the garden from one end to t’other,
And got no reward but vexation and bother,
Till, tossed out with weeds in a corner to wither,
This one lily I found and made haste to bring hither.’

’Did he think I had given him a book to review? 
I ought to have known what the fellow would do,’
Muttered Phoebus aside, ’for a thistle will pass
Beyond doubt for the queen of all flowers with an ass;
He has chosen in just the same way as he’d choose 1720
His specimens out of the books he reviews;
And now, as this offers an excellent text,
I’ll give ’em some brief hints on criticism next.’ 
So, musing a moment, he turned to the crowd,
And, clearing his voice, spoke as follows aloud:—­