years, to his melancholic and too intense fancy, his
_bete noir_, his Frankenstein's familiar. Beside, he was ashamed of
the name of Briggs. It certainly is not an euphonious or aristocratic
name; and "The Soul's Agonies, by John Briggs," would not have sounded
as well as "The Soul's Agonies, by Elsley Vavasour." Vavasour was a
very pretty name, and one of those which is supposed by novelists and
young ladies to be aristocratic;--why so is a puzzle; as its plain
meaning is a tenant-farmer, and nothing more nor less. So he had
played with the name till he became fond of it, and considered that
he had a right to it, through seven long years of weary struggles,
penury, disappointment, as he climbed the Parnassian Mount, writing
for magazines and newspapers, subediting this periodical and that;
till he began to be known as a ready, graceful, and trustworthy
workman, and was befriended by one kind-hearted _litterateur_ after
another. For in London, at this moment, any young man of real power
will find friends enough, and too many, among his fellow book-wrights,
and is more likely to have his head turned by flattery, than his heart
crushed by envy. Of course, whatsoever flattery he may receive, he is
expected to return; and whatsoever clique he may be tossed into on
his _debut_, he is expected to stand by, and fight for, against the
universe; but that is but fair. If a young gentleman, invited to enrol
himself in the Mutual-puffery Society which meets every Monday and
Friday in Hatchgoose the publisher's drawing-room, is willing to
pledge himself thereto in the mystic cup of tea, is he not as solemnly
bound thenceforth to support those literary Catilines in their efforts
for the subversion of common sense, good taste, and established things
in general, as if he had pledged them, as he would have done in Rome
of old, in his own life-blood? Bound he is, alike by honour and by
green tea; and it will be better for him to fulfil his bond. For if
association is the cardinal principle of the age, will it not work as
well in book-making as in clothes-making? And shall not the motto
of the poet (who will also do a little reviewing on the sly) be
henceforth that which shines triumphant over all the world, on many a
valiant Scotchman's shield--

"Caw me, and I'll caw thee"?

But to do John Briggs justice, he kept his hands, and his heart also,
cleaner than most men do, during this stage of his career. After the
first excitement of n