£2 



endeavoured to fix me with an hostile stare and finally dis- 

 missed me with the curt remark that, " No notice could, 

 be taken of my complaint." 



On a later visit, after my letter to the Trustees, when I 

 had perhaps become more formidable, he placed my chair 

 as near his as if we had been lovers on the stage, and avowed 

 his intention five or six times of " listening to me with much- 

 respect," — a phrase which, I have a vague idea, is some- 

 times used by unskilled and self-conscious servants, but 

 never by one gentleman to another. 



My correspondence was, as readers may see, treated 

 like myself to the same alternations of rudeness and fawn- 

 ing courtesy. 



The men who are in Mr. Jones's confidence, and whom 

 he seizes every occasion to promote over the heads of 

 their fellows, are even more modest in their contributions 

 to literature. They edit few handbooks, and they make 

 no translations from Blackstcne or otherwise. There is 

 hardly one of them who could venture on translation without 

 certain disaster. I have seen, with my own eyes, an auto- 

 graph letter, written by Mr. Rye when he was still an assis- 

 tant, in which " compositor" is spelled phonetically: "com- 

 positer." There ! Mr. Rye did, however, once get bitten 

 by the literary oestrus, or rather he was bitten and others- 

 felt the sting. He published a book " England as seen by 

 Foreigners ;" compiled from foreign memoirs and books 

 of travel. This '* original work " was translated and put 

 into good English (the Dutch part of it) by Mr. Martineau,. 

 a distinguished scholar, but only an assistant. The Latin- 

 portion received the same kind attention from Mr. Knight; 

 while poor Deutsch, for the sake of peace and quiet, under- 

 took to do the German part. Thenceforth behold Mr. Rye 

 the original author ! Th^ others mentioned are like unto him. 



