d
had published the "Life of Schiller" and his translation of Goethe's
"Wilhelm Meister." "Sartor Resartus" in that year was beginning its
course through the monthly numbers of _Fraser's Magazine_.]

He had names of his own for all the matters familiar to his discourse.
_Blackwood's_ was the "sand magazine"; _Fraser's_ nearer approach to
possibility of life was the "mud magazine"; a piece of road near by
that marked some failed enterprise was the "grave of the last
sixpence." When too much praise of any genius annoyed him, he profest
hugely to admire the talent shown by his pig. He had spent much time
and contrivance in confining the poor beast to one enclosure in his
pen, but pig, by great strokes of judgment, had found out how to let a
board down, and had foiled him. For all that, he still thought man the
most plastic little fellow in the planet, and he liked Nero's death,
"_Qualis artifex pereo!_" better than most history. He worships a man
that will manifest any truth to him. At one time he had inquired and
read a good deal about America. Landor's principle was mere rebellion,
and _that_ he feared was the American principle. The best thing he
knew of that country was that in it a man can have meat for his
labor. He had read in Stewart's book that, when he inquired in a New
York hotel for the Boots, he had been shown across the street and had
found Mungo in his own house dining on roast turkey.

We talked of books. Plato he does not read, and he disparaged
Socrates; and, when prest, persisted in making Mirabeau a hero. Gibbon
he called the splendid bridge from the old world to the new. His own
reading had been multifarious. "Tristram Shandy" was one of his first
books after "Robinson Crusoe," and Robertson's "America" an early
favorite. Rousseau's "Confessions" had discovered to him that he was
not a dunce; and it was now ten years since he had learned German, by
the advice of a man who told him he would find in that language what
he wanted.

He took despairing or satirical views of literature at this moment;
recounted the incredible sums paid in one year by the great
booksellers for puffing. Hence it comes that no newspaper is trusted
now, no books are bought, and the booksellers are on the eve of
bankruptcy.

He still returned to English pauperism, the crowded country, the
selfish abdication by public men of all that public persons should
perform. "Government should direct poor men what to do. Poor Irish
folk