world is well aware; and your
thorough-paced lawyer is not less born a lawyer; while the junction of
these two most militant incompatibles clearly bears out the hackneyed
quotation as above, with the final misfit, that is, "_non fit_." Your
poetaster at the bar is that grotesque ideal, which Flaccus thought so
funny that his friends _must_ laugh; (although really, Romans, it _is_
possible to contemplate a sort of sphinx figure, "a human head to a
horse's neck," and so on, varied plumes and all, without much chance of
a guffaw;) and yonder sickly-looking clerk, perched upon his high stool,
penning "stanzas while he should engross," is the lugubrious caricature
of Apollo on his Pegassus, with Helicon for inkstand.

It may be nothing extraordinary that, jostled in so wide a theatre as
ours of the world, chance-comers should not, at once or at all,
comfortably find their proper places; but that wise-looking chaperons,
having with prospective caution duly taken a box, should by malice
prepense thrust all the big people in front, and all the little folks
behind, is rather hard upon the latter, and not a little foolish in
itself. Even so in life: who does not wish a thousand times he could
help some people to change places? Look at this long fellow, fit for
Frederick of Prussia's regiment of giants: his parents and guardians
have bent him double, broken his spirit, and spoiled his paces, by
cramming him, a giraffe in the stable, between that frigate's gun-decks
as a middy: while yonder martial little bantam, by dint of exaggerated
heels, and exalted bear-skin, peeps about among his grenadiers, much as
Brutus and Cassius did with their collossal Caesar. So also of minds:
look at brilliant Burns, the exciseman; and quaintly versatile Lamb, the
common city clerk: Look at--had you only patience, you should have
examples by the gross; but, to make a shorter tale of it, (I presume
this shows the etymology of cur-tail,) just think over the pack of your
acquaintance, and see if you could not shuffle those kings, queens--yes,
and knaves too--more to your satisfaction, and their own advantage: at
least, so most folks imagine, silly meddlers as they are; for, after
all, what with human versatility, and the fact of a probationary state,
and the influence of habit, and the drudging example set by others,
things work so kindly as they are, that, notwithstanding misfits, the
wiser few must be of Pope's mind, "whatever is, is right;"--ay, tha