[Sidenote: Words are
Wind,
[Illustration]
all
know it.
[Illustration: _Driving a Bargain!_]
Never think
to please
a Poet.]
O Longman, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Co.
And other dons of Paternoster Row!
O enemies of authors here below,
From those who're great to those who are but so—
so;
Against you, Slop indignant does complain,
Clanks in your face his literary chain;
Stop, tyrants! who, for your peculiar gain,
By day and night the contents of his brain
drain.
He sows the seed, you gather in the crops;
You sack the till, and he supplies your shops;
You quaff champagne, while meanest malt and hops
Do scarcely once a fortnight enter Slop's
chops.
So wickedly does fortune treat our crew;
So partially she deals betwixt us two;
Nothing can miserable authors do
But squeeze and squeeze, while pitilessly you
screw,
Until you squeeze the hapless carcass dry.
For such great wrongs is there no remedy?
O, callous House of Commons! tell us why
You pass poor authors' wrongs so careless-ly
by?
Be these the terms for literary men:
_First pay us authors_, let booksellers then
Feed after us who wield the godlike pen.
O what shall I. O. U, learn'd ION,
when,
Thy happy bill, by law shall here prevail,
Leaving to me (and to my sons in tail),
Of all my works the profit of the sale:
As for the publishers—why, rat it, _they'll_
fail.
[Illustration]