is scarce a faculty in man but has been exercised. We
need not wonder, then, if perfect sentences are rare, and perfect pages
rarer.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Milton.

[19] Milton.

[20] Milton.

[21] As PVF will continue to haunt us through our English examples,
take, by way of comparison, this Latin verse, of which it forms a
chief adornment, and do not hold me answerable for the all too Roman
freedom of the sense: "Hanc volo, quae facilis, quae palliolata
vagatur."

[22] Coleridge.

[23] Antony and Cleopatra.

[24] Cymbeline.

[25] The V is in "of."

[26] Troilus and Cressida.

IV

THE MORALITY OF THE PROFESSION OF LETTERS

The profession of letters has been lately debated in the public prints;
and it has been debated, to put the matter mildly, from a point of view
that was calculated to surprise high-minded men, and bring a general
contempt on books and reading. Some time ago, in particular, a lively,
pleasant, popular writer[27] devoted an essay, lively and pleasant like
himself, to a very encouraging view of the profession. We may be glad
that his experience is so cheering, and we may hope that all others, who
deserve it, shall be as handsomely rewarded; but I do not think we need
be at all glad to have this question, so important to the public and
ourselves, debated solely on the ground of money. The salary in any
business under heaven is not the only, nor indeed the first, question.
That you should continue to exist is a matter for your own
consideration; but that your business should be first honest, and second
useful, are points in which honour and morality are concerned. If the
writer to whom I refer succeeds in persuading a number of young persons
to adopt this way of life with an eye set singly on the livelihood, we
must expect them in their works to follow profit only, and we must
expect in consequence, if he will pardon me the epithets, a slovenly,
base, untrue, and empty literature. Of that writer himself I am not
speaking: he is diligent, clean, and pleasing; we all owe him periods of
entertainment, and he has achieved an amiable popularity which he has
adequately deserved. But the truth is, he does not, or did not when he
first embraced it, regard his profession from this purely mercenary
side. He went into it, I shall venture to say, if not with any noble
design, at least in the ardour of a first love; and he enjoyed its
practice long before he p