of revels as frolicking and
frantic as those out of which the old Greek Goat Song ever tipsily rose.
This would not do. There was a great riot in the streets one night, and
the next morning the usher was dismissed. Fortunately for John Burley's
conscience, his father had died before this happened,--died believing
in the reform of his son. During his ushership Mr. Burley had scraped
acquaintance with the editor of the county newspaper, and given him
some capital political articles; for Burley was, like Parr and Porson,
a notable politician. The editor furnished him with letters to the
journalists in London, and John came to the metropolis and got employed
on a very respectable newspaper. At college he had known Audley Egerton,
though but slightly: that gentleman was then just rising into repute in
parliament. Burley sympathized with some question on which Audley
had distinguished himself, and wrote a very good article thereon,--an
article so good that Egerton inquired into the authorship, found out
Burley, and resolved in his own mind to provide for him whenever he
himself came into office. But Burley was a man whom it was impossible to
provide for. He soon lost his connection with the news paper. First, he
was so irregular that he could never be depended upon. Secondly, he had
strange, honest, eccentric twists of thinking, that could coalesce
with the thoughts of no party in the long run. An article of his,
inadvertently admitted, had horrified all the proprietors, staff, and
readers of the paper. It was diametrically opposite to the principles
the paper advocated, and compared its pet politician to Catiline. Then
John Burley shut himself up and wrote books. He wrote two or three
books, very clever, but not at all to the popular taste,--abstract and
learned, full of whims that were caviare to the multitude, and larded
with Greek. Nevertheless they obtained for him a little money, and among
literary men some reputation. Now Audley Egerton came into power, and
got him, though with great difficulty,--for there were many prejudices
against this scampish, harum-scarum son of the Muses,--a place in a
public office. He kept it about a month, and then voluntarily resigned
it. "My crust of bread and liberty!" quoth John Burley, and he vanished
into a garret. From that time to the present he lived--Heaven knows how!
Literature is a business, like everything else; John Burley grew more
and more incapable of business. "He could not