despised if Lord C. no longer asks Counsellor D. to dinner, Counsellor D. does not announce that the bar is insulted. He is not fair to society if he enters it with this suspicion hankering about him; if he is doubtful about his reception, how hold up his head honestly, and look frankly in the face that world. about which he is full of suspicion? Is he placehunting, and thinking in his mind that he ought to be made an Ambassador, like Prior, or a Secretary of State, like Addison? his pretence of equality falls to the ground at once: he is scheming for a patron, not shaking the hand of a friend, when he meets the world. Treat such a man as he deserves; laugh at his buffoonery, and give him a dinner and a bon jour ; laugh at his self sufficiency and absurd assumptions of superiority, and his equally ludicrous airs of martyrdom laugh at his flattery and his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth the having. Let the wag have his dinner and the hireling his pay if you want him, and make a profound bow to the grand homme incompris, and the boisterous martyr, and show him the door. The great world, the great aggregate experience, has its good sense as it has its good-humor. It detects a pretender, as it trusts a loyal heart. It is kind in the main: how should it be otherwise than kind, when it is so wise and clear-headed? To any literary man who says, "It despises my profession," I say, with all my might — no, no, no. It may pass over your individual case how many a brave fellow has failed in the race, and perished unknown in the struggle! — but it treats you as you merit in the main. If you serve it, it is not unthankful; if you please, it is pleased; if you cringe to it, it detects you, and scorns you if you are mean; it returns your cheerfulness with its good-humor; it deals not un generously with your weaknesses; it recognizes most kindly your merits; it gives you a fair place and fair play. To any one of those men of whom we have spoken was it in the main ungrateful? A king might refuse Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might keep his masterpiece and the delight of all the world in his desk for two years; but it was mistake, and not illwill. Noble and illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Addison! dear and honored memories of Goldsmith and Fielding! kind friends, teachers, benefactors! who shall say that our country, which continues to bring you such an unceasing tribute of applause, admiration, love, sympathy, does not do honor to the literary calling in the honor which it bestows upon you! CRITICAL REVIEWS. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.1 ACCUSATIONS of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, are made against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself somewhat above water-fighting for reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger to-morrow a man in such straits has hardly time to think of anything but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. In the midst of such a combat as this, the "ingenious arts, which prevent the ferocity of the manners, and act upon them as an emollient" (as the philosophic bard remarks in the Latin Grammar) are likely to be jostled to death, and then forgotten. The world will allow no such compromises between it and that which does not belong to it—no two gods must we serve; 1 Reprinted from the "Westminster Review" for June, 1840. (No. 66.) |