UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
grice. It must no doubt be "very soothing" to Mr. Buchanan's modesty to imagine himself the object of such notice as he claims to have received; but we may observe from how small a seed so large a growth of self-esteem may shoot up:—
σμικροῡ γένοιτ῾ ἂνσπέρματος μέγασ πύθμην
from a slight passing mention of "idyls of the gutter and the gibbet," in a passage referring to the idyllic schools of our day, Mr. Buchanan has built up this fabric of induction; he is led by even so much notice as this to infer that his work must be to the writer an object of especial attention, and even (God save the mark!) of especial attack. He is welcome to hug himself in that fond belief, and fool himself to the top of his bent; but he will hardly persuade any one else that to find his "neck-verse" merely repulsive; to feel no responsive vibration to "the intense loving tenderness" of his street-walker, as she neighs and brays over her "gallows-carrion;" is the same thing as to deny the infinite value, the incalculable significance, to a great poet, of such matters as this luckless poeticule has here taken into his "hangman's hands." Neither the work nor the workman is to be judged by the casual preferences of social convention. It is not more praiseworthy or more pardonable to write bad verse about costermongers and gaol-birds than to write bad verse about kings and knights; nor (as would otherwise naturally be the case)
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