This, you would avow, was your offence, and perhaps you were not altogether mistaken.  Yet posterity declines to read a line of yours, and, as we think of you, we are again set face to face with that eternal problem, how far is popularity a test of poetry?  Burns was a poet, and popular.  Byron was a popular poet, and the world agrees in the verdict of their own generation.  But Montgomery, though he sold so well, was no poet, nor, Sir, I fear, was your verse made of the stuff of immortality.  Criticism cannot hurt what is truly great; the Cardinal and the Academy left Chime’ne as fair as ever, and as adorable.  It is only pinchbeck that perishes under the acids of satire:  gold defies them.  Yet I sometimes ask myself, does the existence of popularity like yours justify the malignity of satire, which blesses neither him who gives, nor him who takes?  Are poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet?  I doubt it, Sir, holding that, even unpricked, a poetic bubble must soon burst by its own nature.  Yet satire will assuredly be written so long as bad poets are successful, and bad poets will assuredly reflect that their assailants are merely envious, and, while their vogue lasts, that Prime Ministers and the purchasing public are the only judges.

Monsieur,
Votre tre’s humble serviteur,
Andrew Lang.

XI.

To Sir John Manndeville, Kt.

(Of the Ways Into Ynde.)

Sir John,—­wit you well that men holden you but light, and some clepen you a Liar.  And they say that you never were born in Englond, in the town of Seynt Albones, nor have seen and gone through manye diverse Londes.  And there goeth an old knight at arms, and one that connes Latyn, and hath been beyond the sea, and hath seen Prester John’s country.  And he hath been in an Yle that men clepen Burmah, and there bin women bearded.  Now men call him Colonel Henry Yule, and he hath writ of thee in his great booke, Sir John, and he holds thee but lightly.  For he saith that ye did pill your tales out of Odoric his book, and that ye never saw snails with shells as big as houses, nor never met no Devyls, but part of that ye say, ye took it out of William of Boldensele his book, yet ye took not his wisdom, withal, but put in thine own foolishness.  Nevertheless, Sir John, for the frailty of Mankynde, ye are held a good fellow, and a merry; so now, come, I shall tell you of the new ways into Ynde.

In that Lond they have a Queen that governeth all the Lond, and all they ben obeyssant to her.  And she is the Queen of Englond; for Englishmen have taken all the Lond of Ynde.  For they were right good werryoures of old, and wyse, noble, and worthy.  But of late hath risen a new sort of Englishman very puny and fearful, and these men clepen Radicals.  And they go ever in fear, and they scream on high for dread in the streets and the houses, and they fain would flee away from all that their fathers gat them