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!