and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any wit or poet, sicken and break daily in the vain endeavour and unavailing struggle against life's difficulty. Don't we see daily ruined inventors, greyhaired midshipmen, balked heroes, blighted 5 curates, barristers pining a hungry life out in chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their garrets, whilst scores of them are rapping at the door of the successful quack below? If these suffer, who is the author, that he should be exempt? 10 Let us bear our ills with the same constancy with which others endure them, accept our manly part in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, or Fielding's fatal love 15 of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running races with the constable. You never can outrun that sure-footed officer-not by any swiftness or by dodges devised by any genius, however great; and he carries off the Tatler to the spunging-house, or 20 taps the Citizen of the World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal.

Does society look down on a man because he is an author? I suppose if people want a buffoon they tolerate him only in so far as he is amusing; 25 it can hardly be expected that they should respect him as an equal. Is there to be a guard of honour provided for the author of the last new novel or poem? how long is he to reign, and keep other potentates out of possession? He retires, grum- 30 bles, and prints a lamentation that literature is despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s

parties, he does not state that the army is 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 5 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 10 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; 15 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. 20 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 humour. 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 30 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

25

struggle!-but it treats you as you merit in the main. If you serve it, it is not unthankful; if you please it, 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 humour; it 5 deals not ungenerously with your weaknesses; it recognises 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 pen- 10 sion, 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 ill-will. Noble and illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Addison! dear and honoured memories of Goldsmith 15 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 honour to the literary calling in the honour which it bestows 20 upon you?

THE END.

NOTES.

SWIFT.

1. 6.—Harlequin. A popular character in the Italian comedy. He was a buffoon, dressed in party-colored clothes, who amused the audience by horse play.

2. 12. The humourous writer, etc. Thackeray is here doubtless referring to a famous humourist of the nineteenth century— himself.

2. 16. To the best of his means, etc. This sentence is an example of Thackeray's occasional carelessness in style. Note the extreme awkwardness of the construction.

3. 3.-Kilkenny. Town in the county of Kilkenny, in the southern part of Ireland. Congreve, Farquhar, and Berkeley also attended this grammar school. In view of Swift's quarrelsome disposition, it seems not inappropriate that his early life should have had associations in a place made famous by the legend of the Kilkenny cats.

3. 5.-Was wild. It does not appear that Swift was dissipated. He was morose and rebellious. Extreme poverty is not apt to lessen the pride and sensitiveness of an undergraduate like Swift. He did well in Greek and Latin, was poor in philosophy, and, curiously enough, the future Dean was marked negligenter in theology.

4. 8. He was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in Dublin, in April, 1713, and was installed on June 13.

6. 17.-Would you have liked to be a friend of the great Dean? The majority of Swift's readers would to-day undoubtedly answer in the affirmative.

8. 11.-His servility. This is surely unfair. Swift was not a

cringing toady, nor a boot-licker. Manliness was an essential feature of his character; and it is well known that in dealing out patronage he always served himself last, especially when there was not enough to go around.

9. 14.-Macheath. A highwayman who is the hero of Gay's Beggars' Opera (1728).

II. 7.-Condottieri. 11. 8.-The Boyne.

Italian for "soldiers of fortune."

Battle fought July 1, 1690, in Ireland, in which King William III decisively defeated the deposed Stuart King James II. The Boyne is the most important river in eastern Ireland, being 65 miles long. An obelisk, 150 feet high, now commemorates the great battle.

12. 6. South Sea Bubble. The South Sea Company was established by Lord Treasurer Harley in 1711 with the design of providing for the extinction of the public debt, then about £10,000,000. The debt was assumed by a number of merchants, the Government agreeing to pay 6 per cent. interest for a certain period, securing the sum by making permanent certain impost duties. The Government granted to purchasers of the fund a monopoly of the trade to the South Sea (the coast of Spanish America), and the Company was organised under the name "South Sea Company." The prevailing opinion was that enormous riches awaited all stockholders; the Company flourished; it vied with the Bank of England in controlling English finances. In 1720 the Company assumed the entire debt of over £30,000,000, bearing interest at 5 per cent. The stock was in great demand. A rage for speculation followed. The sum of £1000 was paid for a single share of £100. Other bubbles followed suit; to make oil from sunflowers, to extract silver from lead, etc. The streets near 'Change Alley were lined with desks. As the year 1720 drew to a close, the bubble burst. Thousands of families were ruined.

12. 24.-Coup. A political stroke, usually called coup d'état. 13. 1.-Copenhagen. The city was bombarded in 1807. "Shortly after the trea' of Tilsit Canning learnt that Napoleon meant to seize the fleet of Denmark, which was at that time neutral, and to employ it against Great Britain. A British fleet and army were sent to Copenhagen, and the Crown Prince of Denmark was asked to deliver up the Danish fleet on a promise that it should be