onfounded, conceited pendant, and a
stuck-up puppy. The review was calculated to damage the sale of any
book; it was a dastardly attack on BROWZER'S reputation as a man of wit
and humour, a linguist, and a grammarian. They thought (as BROWZER
wished to know) that an action would lie against the reviewer, or the
review. BROWZER went to a Solicitor, who espoused his cause, but without
enthusiasm. The name of the reviewer was demanded. Now ST. CLAIR was not
the reviewer; the critic was a man just from College, hence his fresh
indignation. Whether for the sake of diversion, or for the
advertisement, the critic wished himself to bear the brunt of BROWZER'S
anger, and the _Erechtheum_ handed him over to justice; his name was
_Smith_. This damped BROWZER'S eagerness; no laurels were to be won from
the obscure SMITH. The advocate of that culprit made out a case highly
satisfactory to the learned Judge, who had been a reviewer himself upon
a time. He showed that malice was out of the question; SMITH had never
heard BROWZER'S name, nor BROWZER, SMITH'S (in this instance) before the
book was published. He called several professors of the French tongue,
to prove that BROWZER'S French was that usual in fiction, but not the
language of MOLIERE, or of the Academy. He left no doubt on the question
of grammar. As to the wit and pathos, he made much mirth out of them. He
cross-examined BROWZER: had other reviews praised him? Had publishers
leaped eagerly at his work? On what terms was it published? BROWZER'S
answer appeared to show that _Wilton's Wooing_ was not regarded as a
masterpiece by the Trade.

BROWZER'S advocate put it that BROWZER was being crushed by unfair
ridicule on his first entry into a noble profession, or art, that of
SCOTT and FIELDING. He spoke of mighty poets in their misery dead. He
drew a picture of BROWZER'S agonies of mind. He showed that masterpieces
had, ere now, been rejected by the publishers. He denounced the licence
of the Press. Who was an unheard-of SMITH, who had written nothing, to
come forward and shout at BROWZER from behind the hedge of the
anonymous? The novelist was a creature of delicate organisation; he
suffered as others did not suffer; his only aim was to lighten care, and
instruct ignorance. Why was _he_ to be selected for cruel sarcasm and
insult?

The learned Judge summed-up dead against BROWZER. BROWZER had published
a book, had invited criticism, and then, when he only got what his work