Sonnet Viii.

You were not born to hide such gifts as yours 'Neath dreary law-books, nor amid the dust And dry routine of desks to sit and rust Where clerks plod through their tasks on office-floors. Let duller laborers drudge through daily chores, And do what fate for them makes fit and just. You bravely do your work because you must; And when released, your genius sings and soars. Such humor from your pen hath ever run In pictures or in letters all unforced, As Hogarth, Lamb, or Dickens might have done; Finer than many a noted wit, who, horsed Upon the people's favor, waves his blade Like Harlequin, and makes his jests his trade.