1829.] My Inabilities. 267 



to give the thing a fair trial, and let me use it, I have no more doubt 

 than I have of wanting their money, that I should be able to give them 

 satisfaction. But to return from this digression, I repeat, it is incalcu- 

 lable, the good I should have done to the world, had the world been 

 good to me. Where I now give only a tear to misery, because I can 

 give nothing else, I should give a guinea ; and every body knows how 

 much farther that will go with bakers and butchers. Where now I can 

 only sigh over misfortune, I should pay misfortune her wages, and send 

 her about her business ; and where now I am fain to content myself with 

 simply advising a friend in distress what is the best thing for him to do, 

 if he can, namely, to get out of it, I should do it for him, and get him 

 out. I am quite, positively, certain, these would be among the conse- 

 quences of my having only ten thousand a-year ; and therefore I do 

 maintain, that besides the injustice which the want of it inflicts upon 

 myself, exhausting every day, my stock of sensibility, wliich is con- 

 stantly oozing away in tears and sighs, and my store of common sense, 

 which is hourly melted down into good advice to a numerous circle of 

 friends who stand much in need of it, an equal iiij ustice is done to every 

 man, woman, and child, to every maid, widow, and wife, who do not get 

 what t/ict( might, because / have not got what I ought. 



I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND what COmmonly paSSCS 



for Jiiie writing ; that is, fine words strung together, like a row of 

 painted egg-shells, with nothing inside ; or like an artist's palette, 

 daubed over with vivid colours of bright yellow, deep purple, glowing 

 crimson, &:c., a mere confusion of gaudy hues, which offend the eye, 

 and convey no meaning to the mind. There is a knot of these writers, 

 just noAv, who figure in annuals, monthlies, weeklies, and hot-pressed 

 duodecimos, and who call aloud for another Gifford to sweep them 

 away with the besom of common-sense. They are upheld in their 

 fooleries by another knot of small critics, each of whom has his pet poet 

 or poetess, and snivels or drivels, as the case may be, over his or her 

 " affecting," " sublime," " touching," and " powerful" effusions. There 

 is ]\Iiss A., and Mrs. B. ; Caroline C, and Letitia D. ; Mr. E., and 

 Leonard Lubykin F., Esq. ; Lady Matilda G., and the Hon. Augustus 

 H. ; and so on, to the end of the alphabet — each and all of whom are, 

 severally and individually, taught to look back with supreme contempt 

 upon that age which was contented with such authors only as Shaks- 

 peare, IVIilton, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Collins, Thomson, Akenside, Gold- 

 smith, and Cowper. They blot quire after quire of foolscap ; but, as 

 they never think, it is not surprising the thought never comes into their 

 heads of l^lotting out what they write. They are the idols of the afore- 

 said small critics ; the paragons of young ladies, who subscribe by the 

 year to circulating libraries ; the astonishment of that very numerous 

 class of readers who wonder " how people can write a book," because 

 they themselves find it a serious business to write a letter ; and the oracle 

 of every circle where they appear, because they are always careful never 

 to appear where they are not an oracle. I may take another opportu- 

 nity, and in a different character, perhaps, of illustrating the opinions 

 here expressed, by quotations from their works ; but, as I have often 

 fancied I could write very much like these modern Sapphos and 

 Shakspcarcs, I will take l/iis opportunity for the experiment : — 



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