SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE. 55 



is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended itself to 

 me (though I like the " Excursion ") ; hut, except for the rhyme, it has 

 a fatal facility of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid 

 that I should "with shadowed hint confuse" the faith in a British 

 classic ; but, ye gods, how men have gaped (in private) over " Childe 

 Harold " ! 



" Gil Bias," though not a native classic, is included in the articles 

 of the British literary faith, not as a matter of pious opinion, but de 

 fide a necessity of intellectual salvation. I remember an interview 

 I once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal work. He 

 is a well-known writer now, but at the time I speak of he was only 

 budding and sprouting in the magaziues a lad of promise, no doubt, 

 but given, if not to kick against authority, to question it, and, what 

 was worse, to question me about it, in an embarrassing manner. The 

 natural affability of my disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat 

 me as his father confessor in literature ; and one of the sins of omis- 

 sion he confided to me was in connection with the divine Le Sage. 



" I say about ' Gil Bias,' you know Bias [a great critic of that 

 day] was saying last night that, if he were to be imprisoned for life 

 with only two books to read, he would choose the Bible and ' Gil 

 Bias.' " 



"It is very gratifying to me," said I, wishing to evade my young 

 friend, and also because I had no love for Bias, "that he should have 

 selected the Bible, and all the more so since I should never have 

 expected it of him." 



"Yes, papa" (that is what the young dog was wont to call me, 

 though he was no son of mine far from it) ; " but about ' Gil Bias ' ? 

 Is it really the next best book ? And after he had read it say, ten 

 times would he not have been rather sorry that he had not chosen 

 well, Shakespeare, for instance?" 



The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the growth of twenty 

 years, reading that tattered copy of "Gil Bias" in his cell, almost 

 affected me to tears, but I made shift to answer gravely : " Bias is a 

 professional critic, and persons of that class are apt to be a little dog- 

 matic and given to exaggeration. But ' Gil Bias ' is a great work. As 

 a picture of the seamy side of human life, of its vices and its weak- 

 nesses at least, it is unrivaled. The archbishop " 



" Oh, I know that archbishop icell" interrupted my young tor- 

 mentor. " I sometimes think, if it hadn't been for that archbishop, 

 we should never perhaps have heard of ' Gil Bias.' " 



"Tchut, tchut ! " said I ; "you talk like a child." 



" But to read it all through, papa three times, ten times, for all 

 one's life ? Poor Mr. Bias ! " 



" It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy," I said. " Bias has this 

 great advantage over you in literary matters, that he knows what he 

 is talking about, and if he was quite sure" 



