drink, or sleep--are
always at hand when required, without regard to time or space. Now
there is a great beauty in this description of writing. The women adore
it because they find their sex divested of those human necessities,
without which they would indeed be angels! the mirror is held up to
them, and they find themselves perfect--no wonder they are pleased. The
other sex are also very glad to dwell upon female perfectability, which
they can only find in a romance, although they have often dreamt of it
in their younger days.

_Barnstaple_. There is some truth in these remarks. Every milliner's
girl, who devours your pages in bed by the half-hour's light of tallow
stolen for the purpose, imagines a strong similarity between herself and
your Angelicanarinella, and every shop-boy measuring tape or weighing
yellow soap will find out attributes common to himself and to your hero.

_Ansard_. Exactly. As long as you draw perfection in both sexes, you
are certain to be read, because by so doing you flatter human nature and
self-love, and transfer it to the individual who reads. Now a picture
of real life--

_Barnstaple_. Is like some of Wouvermans' best pictures, which will not
be purchased by many, because his dogs in the foreground are doing
exactly what all dogs will naturally do when they first are let out of
their kennels.

_Ansard_. Wouvermans should have known better, and made his dogs better
mannered if he expected his pictures to be hung up in the parlour of
refinement.

_Barnstaple_ Very true.

_Ansard_. Perhaps you would like to have another passage or two.

_Barnstaple_. Excuse me: I will imagine it all. I only hope, Ansard,
this employment will not interfere with your legal practice.

_Ansard_. My dear Barnstaple, it certainly will not, because my legal
practice cannot be interfered with. I have been called to the bar, but
find no employment in my calling. I have been sitting in my gown and
wig for one year, and may probably sit a dozen more before I have to
rise to address their lordships. I have not yet had a guinea brief. My
only chance is to be sent out as judge to Sierra Leone, or perhaps to be
made a commissioner of the Court of Requests.

_Barnstaple_. You are indeed humble in your aspirations. I recollect
the time, Ansard, when you dreamt of golden fame, and aspired to the
woolsack--when your ambition prompted you to midnight labour, and you
showed an energy--

_Ansard_.