“Though this is the first letter I ever wrote
to you, I trust you will excuse the familiarity of the address, and the more
especially as I can assure you it can boast of greater truth than most
‘dears’ at the top of epistolary correspondence. But I hear you
exclaim, Why take the trouble of writing to me, since you may at any private
time let me know what you desire in person? To this my answer is, that I am of
opinion a formal and public communication will
| THE “LITERARY GAZETTE.” | 197 |
“To come to the point, then, I am credibly informed
and believe that you have undertaken the responsible office of editing the
‘Literary Gazette;’
purporting to fill a chasm in the overstocked periodical literature of this
scribbling era, and to lay as it were a moving panorama of the learning, arts,
sciences, political history, and moral and intellectual and ornamental advance
of the age continually before your readers, ‘Audentes fortuna
juvat!’ but, my good fellow, the strength of
Hercules, united to the talents of the
admirable Crichton, and the
calculating powers of the American boy, would not suffice for the execution of
so vast a task. I am afraid you have over-rated your capabilities, as my
talkative friend in the Chapter Coffee-house calls them. Nay, even if you
possess the allies you muster on the parade of your prospectus, will the
confederation be firm and united in the field of the work? Can you trust in
your regulars, and rely on your volunteers? If not, the Lord have mercy on your
soul, for you will soon have a host of enemies. Ah! Mr. Editor! Mr. Editor! I
am afraid you have not well considered either your difficulties or your
dangers, ‘Ira quæ tegitur nocet;’
but comfort ye! this is only one-half of your troubles. You review new books
forsooth; every censure makes an author and his partisans your foes. You
criticise the drama; have you forgotten, or did you never attend to what
Shakspeare says of the
players’ good words, ‘After your death you were better have a
bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.’ You will be
pilloried in a farce, caricatured by Matthews, and transfixed by as many thousand shafts of ridicule
as the wit of modern dramatic writers can supply. You also criticise the arts:
artists are even more irritable
| 198 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
“‘Ah me! what perils do environ The man who meddles with cold iron,’ |
“‘Ten thousand greater perils diddle The ass who doth with goose-quill meddle.’
|
“I remember, and well may you, a sorrowful sight—a
hive of bees, with an infernally mischievous Queen
Semiramis at their head, took it into their fancy to form a
settlement on the jowl of an honest, unsuspecting mastiff, who was
| THE “LITERARY GAZETTE.” | 199 |
“‘Vive sine invidiâ, mollesque inglorius
annos
Exige,’ |
“You will then be happy with one another, for you may be assured that,
| 200 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
“P.S. I desire my best compliments may be presented to Tom and Dick. I hope you have succeeded, as indeed you ought, with Aldeborontiphoscophornio; but this is no time for private matters. Adieu.
