head full
of anticipations of fame and fortune. With what swelling pride did I
cast my eyes upon old London from the heights of Highgate. I was like a
general looking down upon a place he expects to conquer. The great
metropolis lay stretched before me, buried under a home-made cloud of
murky smoke, that wrapped it from the brightness of a sunny day, and
formed for it a kind of artificial bad weather. At the outskirts of the
city, away to the west, the smoke gradually decreased until all was
clear and sunny, and the view stretched uninterrupted to the blue line
of the Kentish Hills.

My eye turned fondly to where the mighty cupola of St. Paul's swelled
Dimly through this misty chaos, and I pictured to myself the solemn
realm of learning that lies about its base. How soon should the
Pleasures of Melancholy throw this world of booksellers and printers
into a bustle of business and delight! How soon should I hear my name
repeated by printers' devils throughout Pater Noster Row, and Angel
Court, and Ave Maria Lane, until Amen corner should echo back the
sound!

Arrived in town, I repaired at once to the most fashionable publisher.
Every new author patronizes him of course. In fact, it had been
determined in the village circle that he should be the fortunate man. I
cannot tell you how vaingloriously I walked the streets; my head was in
the clouds. I felt the airs of heaven playing about it, and fancied it
already encircled by a halo of literary glory.

As I passed by the windows of bookshops, I anticipated the time when my
work would be shining among the hotpressed wonders of the day; and my
face, scratched on copper, or cut in wood, figuring in fellowship with
those of Scott and Byron and Moore.

When I applied at the publisher's house there was something in the
loftiness of my air, and the dinginess of my dress, that struck the
clerks with reverence. They doubtless took me for some person of
consequence, probably a digger of Greek roots, or a penetrator of
pyramids. A proud man in a dirty shirt is always an imposing character
in the world of letters; one must feel intellectually secure before he
can venture to dress shabbily; none but a great scholar or a great
genius dares to be dirty; so I was ushered at once to the sanctum
sanctorum of this high priest of Minerva.

The publishing of books is a very different affair now-a-days from what
it was in the time of Bernard Lintot. I found the publisher a
fashionably-dres