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dox ideas wherever he may find them, hence he sent the Conservative a long, bitter, and unsolicited criticism of the (March) article on pan-Teutonism as soon as he had read it. Being not particularly designed for the Bostonian typo of involved intellect, "The Crime of the Century" failed to appeal to Mr. Whittier's refined taste, wherefore the young man admitted frankly that he did not like it, stated that the Conservative is a superficial, unscientific, and prejudiced reasoner; and accounted for his own violent opposition on the grounds that the Conservative's point of view 'so revolted him'! Mr. Whittier has requested permission to use in print certain portions of the Conservative's letters to him. This permission is hereby granted with extreme pleasure, since no pursuit is more gratifying than that of helping a worthy youth to shake off his natural timidity, and to come forth fearlessly into the United's public eye as a controversial giant. So long as the Conservative shall exist, Mr. Whittier need never want a victim for his bold sallies. Edgar Ralph Cheyney, in the May New Member, calls upon adolescence to express itself. Let him look Bostonward, for in David H. Whittier he may behold such expression at most exquisitely developed pitch!
An Impartial Spectator
Mr. John Russell, the United's clever satirist, has composed the following lines concerning the controversy over regular metre lately waged through the pages of The Looking Glass, The Lake Breeze, and the Conservative:
Metrical Regularity;
Or, Broken Metre.
Dear Youth, if you would be a poet,
Pray study this, and see you know it:
With careful rhyme and one smooth metre,
Your poem can't but be much neater.
Should you prefer to rhyme in anapaest,
Convinc'd that such conveys your fancy best,
Change not the form, nor try heroic lines,
Howe'er your fleeting mood your pen inclines.
Just see that you hold to the same old refrain,
For if you change once, sure you'll change it again.
And the critics (confound them) will haughtily say
'Tis the worst thing they've seen for full many a day.
And now, in conclusion, pray shun the illusion
That all you've to do is to write:
If you study your rhymes; feet, metre and times,
You'll a masterpiece some day indite!
J.R.
