Explore "Scribblers all! (Rhymes for the Times)" by Harry Graham on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
[In the House of Commons, Lord Claud Hamilton referred to Mr. / Birrell as a 'distinguished scribbler. ']
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!