“How could we be otherwise than pleased by any article upon the book by the author of Atalanta in Calydon?” I replied.
“But you were pleased with what I said?”
“Of course, but you must forgive me if I say that it was very much as if a schoolmaster had called up a boy out of the class, and, after lavishing undeserved praise upon him for good behaviour, had then taken him across his knee and thrashed him soundly for abominably bad conduct.”
He dived among the litter of papers, reviews, letters and manuscripts upon the floor, for a copy of his article, and then read aloud:
“‘There is no better or completer anthology in the language. I doubt indeed if there be any so good or so complete. No objection or suggestion that can reasonably be offered, can in any way diminish our obligation, either to the original editor, or to his evidently able assistant Mr. Kernahan.’
“Doesn’t that please you?” he enquired.
“Immeasurably,” I said.
“And there is more of it,” he went on, reading detached passages aloud. “‘The editors to their lasting honour ... the instinctive good sense, the manly and natural delicacy of the present editors ... this radiant and harmonious gallery of song.’ And so on and so on.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is the so ons that I’m thinking of. Suppose we dip into them.” Then I took the article from his hand and read as follows: “‘If elegance is the aim or the condition of this anthology, how comes it to admit such an unsurpassably horrible example as the line—I refrain from quoting it—which refers to the “settling” of “Gibson’s hash”?... The worst positive blemish—and a most fearful blemish it is ... will unluckily be found, and cannot be overlooked, on the fourth page. Sixth on the list of selected poems, is a copy of verses attributed to Shakespeare—of all men on earth!—by the infamous pirate, liar, and thief, who published a worthless little volume of stolen and mutilated poetry, patched up and padded out with dreary and dirty doggrel, under the preposterous title of The Passionate Pilgrim.... Happily there is here no second instance—but naturally there could not have been a second—of such amazing depravity of taste.’
“In fact,” I said, “your review of the book recalls to my mind the familiar lines by Bickerstaff, which are to be found in this very volume: