y
partial to modern poetry on subjects of old mythology. Of course,
however, he means to read it--some of these days.

"I wish you would," says Johnson, tendering a copy of the thin
volume. "I really wish you would; and let me have your candid
opinion. The press certainly have not noticed it much, and what they
have said has been very luke-warm."

"I am sorry for that," says Thompson, looking grave.

"And I did my best with it too. You would hardly believe how hard
I worked at it. There is not a line that has not been weighed and
written, perhaps, three times over. I do not think I am conceited;
but I cannot but believe that there is something in it. The reviewers
are so jealous! if a man has not a name, they will give him credit
for nothing; and it is so hard to begin."

"I am sure it is," says Thompson.

"I don't expect fame; and as for money, of course I don't think of
that. But I should like to know that it had been read by one or two
persons who could understand it. I have given to it the best of
my time, the best of my labour. I cannot but think that there is
something in it." Thus pleads the unsuccessful one for mercy.

And thus answers to him the successful one, with no grain of mercy in
his composition:--"My dear Johnson, my maxim is this, that in this
world every man gets in the long run exactly what he deserves--"

"Did Milton get what he deserved?"

"These are not the days of Milton. I don't want to hurt your
feelings; but old friends as we are, I should not forgive myself if I
didn't tell you what I really think. Poetry is all very well; but you
can't create a taste for it if it doesn't exist. Nobody that I know
of cares a d---- for Iphigenia."

"You think I should change my subject, then?"

"To tell you the truth, I think you should change your trade. This is
the third attempt, you know. I dare say they are very good in their
way; but if the world liked them, the world would have found it out
by this time. '_Vox populi, vox Dei_'--that is my motto--I don't
trust my own judgment; I trust that of the public. If you will take
my advice, you will give up Iphigenia and the rest of them. You see
you are doing nothing whatever at the bar," &c., &c.

And thus Johnson is left, without a scrap of comfort, a word of
consolation, a spark of sympathy; and yet he had given to that
Iphigenia of his the best that was in him to give. Had his publisher
sold ten thousand copies of it, how Thompson would have ad