slander, or the pulling down of a party, or a great reputation, even at the expense, now and then, of a good fat lie as long as this will insure more readers than the milk-and-water virtue of being just, so long will this system prevail, and so long will this most puissant Spleenwort take the sale of his strictures as a proof that he is the sovereign power of criticism of the day, and then-"

"What then?"

"He will, like

'Jove in his chair,

Of the press Lord Mayor,

With his nods,

Men and gods

Keep in awe.'"

"You have described," said I," a wonderful animal, of which I had no idea; and, from your account, he must have many requisites to complete so redoubtable a character. Great learning, of course?"

"The appearance of it will do," answered Granville, “provided it be disguised under a certain set of phrases, which have been justly called the cant of criticism, and are grown so mechanical that the lowest dabblers brandish them with dexterity; provided also the proper self-sufficiency, and contempt for those they attack, are always preserved. If once modesty and candour are allowed to mingle in such a critic as Spleenwort or Paragraph, there is an end of him."

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Learning, then," said I, "according to you, will do little."

"Not without other qualifications, denoting, indeed, very high gifts of mind."

"Will you name those gifts?" said I.

"Some of them," returned he, "are even heroic. For, in the first place, a true critic of the character we are discussing (for I speak only of the dross, not the gold of the class)—he who writes for the shop, with a view to sell his wares -must be able to bluster, and bully, and call names; and yet be so thick-skinned himself, as to rise superior to a sense of shame, or even of insult, if he meet the same treatment in return. This, you will allow, is great mental courage."

"Great indeed,” said I.

"Next, he must be able to abuse the person, birth, and private life of his victim, without caring whether what he says be true or false; and if its falsehood be demonstrated, he must hold such a liberty as defending a man's self in sovereign contempt; or if he does not choose to be silent, he must write another paper, and abuse the presumptuous blockhead ten times more than at first. This you will also allow is heroic."

"You paint," said I, "a man without a heart." "You have hit it exactly," returned Granville; a trading critic is, and must be, without a heart. But we have forgot poor Graves all this while."

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"True," said I, "and I am anxious to know how he succeeded finally with Mr. Spleenwort."

66

Why, he had no success at all; for, under all his meekness and simplicity, his pride would not permit him to dance attendance a single moment longer on Sir Oracle. But the alternative was unfortunate for this neglected son of literature; for it produced so much distress to his mind, from the affronts he was forced to sustain, and to his body, from its depriving him even of sustenance, that he applied to me to obtain a clerkship in a public office. Yet so modest is his character, and so few his wants, that when not actually without a dinner, he is not unhappy, as long as he can loiter at what he calls his home, in his dressing-gown, unbuttoned and ungartered, with his book and his inkstand."

This colloquy over, we proceeded to Wine Office Court, which we entered through a low and dirty passage, and beheld a gloom, and felt a closeness which formed a lamentable contrast to the light and cheerful airiness of the quarter we had left.

The court was none of the cleanest, and the house we entered, where Mr. Graves was a lodger up two pair of stairs, was certainly not wanting in the obsoleti sordibus tecti. The door, a pannel of which was split, was opened by the landlady, whose appearance, however, did not prove that either air

or water was absolutely necessary to make a person rubicund and fat.

Upon our asking whether Mr. Graves was at home, “There,” said she (pointing up a crazy staircase)," you will find him as high as you can go."

I blessed myself, when I recollected what I had once thought of as a pleasant profession, and how forcibly Manners put it to flight by a picture which here seemed about to be realized.

On ascending to the second story, we knocked at a door, which had certainly once been painted. The answer, "Come in," brought us to the sanctum of our man of letters.

He was, as Granville had described him, in his state of happiness—that is, in a loose dressinggown, seemingly unacquainted with any laundress, leaning back in an arm-chair, so rickety, that it made us tremble for his safety. His legs were stretched aloft over a table, on which were several books, and also a plate, with the beaux restes of some bread and cheese, an empty egg-shell, and as empty a porter pot.

Poor Graves started up dismayed, and full of blushes, at being thus surprised.

"I never thought, or expected, or hoped," said he to Granville, stammering, "that you would take the trouble of coming so far to return my visit, and I only left my address in case you should have occasion to write to me."

Then looking at me inquiringly, I was introduced to him as Lord Castleton's secretary, which brought an evident blush into his cheek, particularly when Granville added, I was his good friend, and he had communicated his views to me.

This, I believe, made the good gentleman (happily for himself, of a sanguine temper) think the thing was done; for he became on the alert, begged us to sit down, and would have offered us chairs if he had had them.

There was indeed a window-seat; but as that also formed a locker for coals, which lay in scattered fragments on the cover, it could not be used. After a little conversation, which, therefore, took place standing, Granville told him that he wondered, with his attainments, that a poor clerkship would content him.

"You will be a mere piece of mechanism," said Granville; "a slave."

"I am both already," replied Graves, with a sigh; and my servitude, being of the mind as well as the fingers, is far worse than the same quilldriving would be with the will free. Take the last specimen of what I am."

At this, opening his table-drawer, he pulled out a letter from the editor of one of the weekly papers who employed him, and which ran thus:

"Mr. Graves,-I am sorry to say that you have again transgressed the line to which I have