THE LAY OF THE LITERARY AUTOLYCUS.
(See Correspondence in the Times on "Literary Thefts.")
Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.
When books and magazines appear,
With heigh! the hopes of a big sale!—
Why, then comes in the cheat o' the year,
And picks their plums, talk, song, or tale.
The white sheets come, each page my "perk,"
With heigh! sweet bards, O how they sing!—
With paste and scissors I set to work;
Shall a stolen song cost anything?
The Poet tirra-lirra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! he must be a J.—
His Summer songs supply my wants;
They cost me nought—but, ah! they pay.
I have served Literature in my time, but now Literature is in my service.
But shall I pay for what comes dear,
To the pale scribes who write,—
For news, and jokes, and stories queer?
Walker! my friends, not quite!
Since filchers may have leave to live,
And vend their "borrowed" budget,
For all my "notions" nix I'll give,
Then sell them as I trudge it.
My traffic is (news) sheets. My father named me AUTOLYCUS, who, being as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With paste and scissors I procured this caparison; and my revenue is the uninquiring public; gallows and gaol are too powerful on the highway; picking and treadmilling are terrors to burglars; but in my line of theft I sleep free from the thought of them. A prize! a prize!...
Jog on, jog on, the foot-pad way,
In the modern Sikes's style-a:
Punctilious fools prefer to pay;
But I at scruples smile-a.
... Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman ... I understand the business, do it; to have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand with the shears is necessary for a (literary) cutpurse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out the good work of other people. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.