does not impair the magnificent funniness.

* * * * *

From his tenderest years Wordsworth succeeded in combining the virtues of
Milton and of _Punch_ in a manner that no other poet has approached. Thus,
at the age of eighteen, he could write:

_Now while the solemn evening shadows sail,_
_On slowly-waving pinions, down the vale;_
_And fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines_
_Its darkening boughs...._

Which really is rather splendid for a boy. And he could immediately follow
that, speaking of a family of swans, with:

_While tender cares and mild domestic loves_
_With furtive watch pursue her as she moves,_
_The female with a meeker charm succeeds...._

Wordsworth richly atoned for his unconscious farcicalness by a multitude
of single lines that, in their pregnant sublimity, attend the
Wordsworthian like a shadow throughout his life, warning him continually
when he is in danger of making a fool of himself. Thus, whenever through
mere idleness I begin to waste the irrecoverable moments of eternity, I
always think of that masterly phrase (from, I think, the "Prelude," but I
will not be sure):

_Unprofitably travelling towards the grave._

This line is a most convenient and effective stone to throw at one's
languid friends. Finally let me hail Mr. Nowell Smith as a benefactor.

NOVELISTS AND AGENTS

[_20 June '08_]

A bad publishing season is now drawing to a close, and in the air are
rumours of a crisis. Of course the fault is the author's. It goes without
saying that the fault is the author's. In the first place, he will insist
on producing mediocre novels. (For naturally the author is a novelist;
only novelists count when crises loom. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Edward
Carpenter, Robert Bridges, Lord Morley--these types have no relation to
crises.) It appears that the publishers have been losing money over the
six-shilling novel, and that they are not going to stand the loss any
longer. It is stated that never in history were novels so atrociously
mediocre as they are to-day. And in the second place, the author will
insist on employing an Unspeakable Rascal entitled a literary agent, and
the poor innocent lamb of a publisher is fleeced to the naked skin by this
scoundrel every time the two meet. Already I have heard that one
publisher, hitherto accustomed to the services of twenty gardeners at his
country house, has been obliged to