[Blake's apology for his Catalogue]
HAVING given great offence by writing in prose,
I’ll write in verse as soft as Bartoloze.
Some blush at what others can see no crime in;
But nobody sees any harm in riming.
5Dryden, in rime, cries ‘Milton only plann’d’:
Every fool shook his bells throughout the land.
Tom Cooke cut Hogarth down with his clean graving:
Thousands of connoisseurs with joy ran raving.
Thus, Hayley on his toilette seeing the soap,
10Cries, ‘Homer is very much improv’d by Pope.’
Some say I’ve given great provision to my foes,
And that now I lead my false friends by the nose.
Flaxman and Stothard, smelling a sweet savour,
Cry ‘Blakified drawing spoils painter and engraver’;
15While I, looking up to my umbrella,
Resolv’d to be a very contrary fellow,
Cry, looking quite from skumference to centre:
‘No one can finish so high as the original Inventor.’
Thus poor Schiavonetti died of the Cromek—
20A thing that’s tied around the Examiner’s neck!
This is my sweet apology to my friends,
That I may put them in mind of their latter ends.
If men will act like a maid smiling over a churn,
They ought not, when it comes to another’s turn,
25To grow sour at what a friend may utter,
Knowing and feeling that we all have need of butter.
False friends, fie! fie! Our friendship you shan’t sever;
In spite we will be greater friends than ever.