orn-out acerbity of an old slasher.
To be sure, a little ignorance of ordinary facts, and an innovating
method of applying words to meanings which they never were meant to
denote, were now and then distinguishable in the criticisms of the new
Achilles; nevertheless, it was easy to attribute these peculiarities
to an original turn of thinking; and the rise of the paper on the
appearance of a series of articles upon contemporary authors, written
by this "eminent hand," was so remarkable that fifty copies--a number
perfectly unprecedented in the annals of "The Asinaeum"--were absolutely
sold in one week; indeed, remembering the principle on which it was
founded, one sturdy old writer declared that the journal would soon do
for itself and become popular. There was a remarkable peculiarity about
the literary debutant who signed himself "Nobilitas:" he not only put
old words to a new sense, but he used words which had never, among the
general run of writers, been used before. This was especially remarkable
in the application of hard names to authors. Once, in censuring a
popular writer for pleasing the public and thereby growing rich, the
"eminent hand" ended with "He who surreptitiously accumulates bustle
[money] is, in fact, nothing better than a buzz gloak!" [Pickpocket].

These enigmatical words and recondite phrases imparted a great air of
learning to the style of the new critic; and from the unintelligible
sublimity of his diction, it seemed doubtful whether he was a poet from
Highgate or a philosopher from Konigsberg. At all events, the reviewer
preserved his incognito, and while his praises were rung at no less
than three tea-tables, even glory appeared to him less delicious than
disguise.

In this incognito, reader, thou hast already discovered Paul; and now
we have to delight thee with a piece of unexampled morality in the
excellent MacGrawler. That worthy Mentor, perceiving that there was an
inherent turn for dissipation and extravagance in our hero, resolved
magnanimously rather to bring upon himself the sins of treachery and
malappropriation than suffer his friend and former pupil to incur those
of wastefulness and profusion. Contrary therefore to the agreement
made with Paul, instead of giving that youth the half of those profits
consequent on his brilliant lucubrations, he imparted to him only one
fourth, and, with the utmost tenderness for Paul's salvation, applied
the other three portions of the same to his