At the time of the Boer war poets had been vociferously active. By 1904 a "slump" had set in; and in an interview Mr. John Lane, of the Bodley Head, had declared that verse had ceased to be remunerative. Embroidering this text Punch traced the cause to the material self-indulgence of the public. People dined too well to want to read rhymes, and poets wanted better pay:—
And this is why no bards occur.
None ever knows that aching void,
That hunger, prompting like a spur,
Which former genii enjoyed;
For all the poets dead and gone,
Whose Muse contrived to melt the nation,
Habitually did it on
A regimen of strict starvation.
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