SCRIBBLERS ALL!

Who would be a Man of Letters,

Ink on paper daily dribbling,

In a fashion which his betters

Scornfully describe as‘ scribbling’?

Who would practise a vocation

So unlucrative and painful,

To deserve a designation

Cruelly disdainful?

Pity pen - or pencil-nibblers

Labelled as‘ distinguished scribblers’!

Sculptors are but seldom branded —

‘ Those illustrious plaster-shapers’;

Violinists’ friends, though candid,

Never call them‘ catgut-scrapers.’

Styling painters‘ canvas-scratchers’

Would offend against convention;

Surgeons as‘ appendix-snatchers’

Nobody would mention.

Who would term Lord Claud's directors

‘ Guinea-pigs’ or‘ fee collectors’?

Yet, although no politicians

We entitle‘ platform-stumpers,’

Nor refer to great musicians

As‘ immortal pedal-thumpers,’

Though we name no leading jurist:

‘ This notorious legal-quibbler,’

Ev'ry writer of the purest

Prose shall be a‘ scribbler,’

Till the Gribbles cease to gribble

And no more the Whibleys whibble!