not unreasonably might a man who could write the whole piece as it stands tell us that he felt he was yet destined to perform on other instruments of the Muses beside the banjo—not unreasonably might he still sing and tend the deserted Shrine, in the hope that
'Some deity on wandering wing
Might there incline.
And, finding all in order meet,
Stay while he worshipped at her feet.'
II
'barrack-room ballads and other verses'
On the Departmental Ditties followed much in the life of their author which counted for an extraordinary stimulus and expansion, and which must be taken into account in any estimate of his later work. It is given to the experience of few writers to awake and find themselves famous. Those who achieve fame achieve it for the most part slowly and with effort, and are too sick of the thing to care much for it when they have got it. Mr. Kipling, after the sojourn of a few years in his town of banishment, was suddenly called upon to shake off the shifting dust wherewith he played, and cast away the bread of discontent wherewith he balked his hunger, for a residence in metropolitan haunts of
