to the foreign air of their performances; the
success of the _Persian Letters_ arose from the delicacy of their
satire. That satire which in the mouth of an Asiatic is poignant,
would lose all its force when coming from an European." And it must
certainly be said that the charm of the strictures of the _Citizen of
the World_ lies wholly in their delicate satire, and not at all in any
foreign air which the author may have tried to lend to these
performances. The disguise is very apparent. In those garrulous,
vivacious, whimsical, and sometimes serious papers, Lien Chi Altangi,
writing to Fum Hoam in Pekin, does not so much describe the aspects of
European civilisation which would naturally surprise a Chinese, as he
expresses the dissatisfaction of a European with certain phases of the
civilisation visible everywhere around him. It is not a Chinaman, but
a Fleet-Street author by profession, who resents the competition of
noble amateurs whose works--otherwise bitter pills enough--are gilded
by their titles:--"A nobleman has but to take a pen, ink, and paper,
write away through three large volumes, and then sign his name to the
title-page; though the whole might have been before more disgusting
than his own rent-roll, yet signing his name and title gives value to
the deed, title being alone equivalent to taste, imagination, and
genius. As soon as a piece, therefore, is published, the first
questions are--Who is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where lies his
estate? What sort of a table does he keep? If he happens to be poor
and unqualified for such a scrutiny, he and his works sink into
irremediable obscurity, and too late he finds, that having fed upon
turtle is a more ready way to fame than having digested Tully. The
poor devil against whom fashion has set its face vainly alleges that
he has been bred in every part of Europe where knowledge was to be
sold; that he has grown pale in the study of nature and himself. His
works may please upon the perusal, but his pretensions to fame are
entirely disregarded. He is treated like a fiddler, whose music,
though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a
gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws
the audience into raptures. The fiddler, indeed, may in such a case
console himself by thinking, that while the other goes off with all
the praise, he runs away with all the money. But here the parallel
drops; for while the nobleman triumphs in