HOMER A SPORTSMAN. 207 



implement : each in itself the merest trifle, which the 

 million .would not perceive, but which the initiated — he 

 of practical experience — would at once observe ; and he 

 thus would instantly discover that the author or artist 

 was not at home in that thing which he had delineated 

 or ^\Titten about. 



An amateur performance, however good it may be, 

 always betrays its origin to him who is more than an 

 amateur ; for, be as much pains taken as there may, 

 some little tell-tale incompleteness, or too anxious finish, 

 will characterise at once the author of the handiwork. 



Only a practical fox hunter could write about a run 

 as Harry Hieover has done, or a man who had lived at 

 sea tell of sea-life like Captain Marryatt. For there 

 will be some very little things which the dilettante will 

 overlook, and to others which strike him particularly, 

 he, the novice, will attach an undue importance.* A 

 disproportion, a want of harmony, is thus produced ; and 



^ " So dangerous, however, is it for tlie ablest man to attempt speaking 

 of wliat lie does not understand, that, as a sailor will detect a lands- 

 man, however expert in the use of nautical diction, before he has uttered 

 two sentences, so with all his art and finesse, and speaking besides to 

 questions of his own choosing, yet cannot Schlegel escape detection in 

 any one instance when he has attempted to act the philosopher. Even 

 vihen the thing said is not otherwise objectionable, it generally dec jts it- 

 self as the remark of a novice, by addressing itself to something extra- 

 essential in the philosophy, and which a true judge woidd have passed 

 over as impertinent to the real business of the system." — Be Quincey, 

 Fote 6 to ^'Letters to a Young Man." 



