uire about my 'sensitiveness to criticism,' and I shall be
glad to tell you exactly, because I have, more than once, taken a
course you might else not understand. I shall live always--that is for
me--I am living here this 1845, that is for London. I write from a
thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief
that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things
considered--that is for _me_, and, so being, the not being listened to
by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me. But of
course I must, if for merely scientific purposes, know all about this
1845, its ways and doings, and something I do know, as that for a
dozen cabbages, if I pleased to grow them in the garden here, I might
demand, say, a dozen pence at Covent Garden Market,--and that for a
dozen scenes, of the average goodness, I may challenge as many
plaudits at the theatre close by; and a dozen pages of verse, brought
to the Rialto where verse-merchants most do congregate, ought to bring
me a fair proportion of the Reviewers' gold currency, seeing the other
traders pouch their winnings, as I do see. Well, when they won't pay
me for my cabbages, nor praise me for my poems, I may, if I please,
say 'more's the shame,' and bid both parties 'decamp to the crows,' in
Greek phrase, and _yet_ go very lighthearted back to a garden-full of
rose-trees, and a soul-full of comforts. If they had bought my greens
I should have been able to buy the last number of _Punch_, and go
through the toll-gate of Waterloo Bridge, and give the blind
clarionet-player a trifle, and all without changing my gold. If they
had taken to my books, my father and mother would have been proud of
this and the other 'favourable critique,' and--at least so folks
hold--I should have to pay Mr. Moxon less by a few pounds,
whereas--but you see! Indeed I force myself to say ever and anon, in
the interest of the market-gardeners regular, and Keatses proper,
'It's nothing to _you_, critics, hucksters, all of you, if I _have_
this garden and this conscience--I might go die at Rome, or take to
gin and the newspaper, for what _you_ would care!' So I don't quite
lay open my resources to everybody. But it does so happen, that I have
met with much more than I could have expected in this matter of kindly
and prompt recognition. I never wanted a real set of good hearty
praisers--and no bad reviewers--I am quite content with my share.
No--what I laughed at in my 'ge