publisher
(to recall the words of my friend the Dublin actor of last month) is a
gentleman to the full as well informed as those whom he invites to his
table? Suppose he never made the remark, beginning--"God bless my soul,
my dear sir," nor anything resembling it? Suppose nobody roared with
laughing? Suppose the Editor of the Cornhill Magazine never "touched
up" one single line of the contribution which bears "marks of his hand?"
Suppose he never said to any literary gentleman, "I recognized YOUR
HOOF" in any periodical whatever? Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which
the writer to New York "considered to be about the mark," should be
between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there they
are)? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and
untrue, would any one wonder? Ah! if we had only enjoyed the happiness
to number this writer among the contributors to our Magazine, what
a cheerfulness and easy confidence his presence would impart to our
meetings! He would find that "poor Mr. Smith" had heard that recondite
anecdote of Dr. Johnson behind the screen; and as for "the great gun of
those banquets," with what geniality should not I "come out" if I had an
amiable companion close by me, dotting down my conversation for the New
York Times!

Attack our books, Mr. Correspondent, and welcome. They are fair subjects
for just censure or praise. But woe be to you, if you allow private
rancors or animosities to influence you in the discharge of your public
duty. In the little court where you are paid to sit as judge, as critic,
you owe it to your employers, to your conscience, to the honor of your
calling, to deliver just sentences; and you shall have to answer to
heaven for your dealings, as surely as my Lord Chief Justice on the
Bench. The dignity of letters, the honor of the literary calling, the
slights put by haughty and unthinking people upon literary men,--don't
we hear outcries upon these subjects raised daily? As dear Sam Johnson
sits behind the screen, too proud to show his threadbare coat and
patches among the more prosperous brethren of his trade, there is no
want of dignity in HIM, in that homely image of labor ill-rewarded,
genius as yet unrecognized, independence sturdy and uncomplaining. But
Mr. Nameless, behind the publisher's screen uninvited, peering at the
company and the meal, catching up scraps of the jokes, and noting down
the guests' behavior and conversation,--what a figure h