THE CASTLE-BUILDER. 627 



virtue the conquest of nobleness over selfish superiority the vic- 

 tory of human love ! I have experienced the battling sensations 

 above described, and in their acutest and most etherializing shape, 

 for I have been mayor of Cuttleborough I but when in the very act 

 of dispensing my favours, or astonishing the natives with the mild 

 sublimity of my demeanour, the miserable school-bell has rung, and 

 brought me back to the wretched drudgery of every-day humanity 

 pro tern only, luckily; for my soul has soon taken flight again, and 

 mingled with its native element. 



Imagination ! what a what a I will be hanged if I know what 

 you are. I begin to suspect it is all imagination together, and to 

 think Berkley's theory well founded on what I know not, for he 

 favours us with so few material arguments, though with so many im- 

 material, that the consideration " must forgive us pause," and I, for my 

 part, must beg leave to have a touch at him again before I venture a 

 conclusion. Certain it is that he was a great enemy to matter, and 

 as certain his whole works prove it an uncompromising disciple of 

 the philosophy of Castle-building. Nay, he tells us that the whole 

 universe is one huge castle in the air, maintaining his opinion with a 

 force and eloquence that defies assault. Dear me ! I think I could 

 be brought to believe the whole was imagination, were it not for 

 certain ugly realities that thrust their abominable faces through the 

 curtains of my fancy, and convince me pretty well of their existence 

 by sundry hints of a rather unambiguous nature, which I would fain 

 were not so. I am persuaded, moreover, that the question of reality 

 or imagination might be more prudently, if not more satisfactorily 

 tried, than by presenting your calf to the surly menaces of a bull- 

 dog, or your body to the soft embraces of a bear, or by the jocular 

 experiment of tickling a sleeping tiger behind the ear. 



Be this as it may, I think I may venture to say of a verity, though 

 it may not be considered a very logical deduction from the above, 

 and perhaps may not be that at the age of twenty-one, I was as 

 handsome a young fellow as ever pulled on a pair of breeches. For 

 describing myself, it is necessary, probably, that the reader should be 

 apprized that my general features were very much resembling those 

 which comprise the countenance of the Apollo Belvidere, while the 

 figure was far more beautifully turned and elastic. I am not vain, 

 far from it ; but the truth must be told, and I see no more vanity or 

 conceit in speaking praisingly of your own charms than of those of 

 others. I wrote a poem ! The fame of Byron and of Scott the 

 fame then denied to Shelley the poems of Southey, which I read 

 with delight ; of Coleridge, which I read with greater, and some of 

 the poems of Wordsworth had stirred my soul to a pitch of literary 

 ambition, approaching to madness. I knew all of them, the men and 

 their writings ; was the friend of all. My work was done, and the 

 awful time quickly approached, when I was either to " burst forth 

 into sudden blaze" immortal, or curse the bad taste of the public, and 

 revenge myself upon them by writing no more. 



The morning of that day that was destined to usher my produc- 

 tion into the world, rose lowering. Sad omen ! I have always been 

 superstitious, and I dreamed the night before that the ghost of Mr. 



