From George Orwell’s “As I Please” for 11th February 1944, Tribune:

THE FOLLOWING lines are quoted in Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography:

When Payne-Knight’s Taste was issued on the town
A few Greek verses in the text set down
Were torn to pieces, mangled into hash,
Hurled to the flames as execrable trash;
In short, were butchered rather than dissected
And several false quantities detected;
Till, when the smoke had risen from the cinders
It was discovered that — the lines were Pindar’s!

Trollope does not make clear who is the author of these lines, and I should be very glad if any reader could let me know. But I also quote them for their own sake — that is, for the terrible warning to literary critics that they contain — and for the sake of drawing attention to Trollope’s Autobiography, which is a most fascinating book, although or because it is largely concerned with money.

Elsewhere Other-Accessible…

• Pindar (c. 518-438 BC) at Wikipedia
• An Analytical Inquiry Into the Principles of Taste (1806) by Richard Payne-Knight at Archive.org
• An Autobiography and Other Writings (1869) by Anthony Trollope at Gutenberg