And shaking Hands with him, Mr. Caryl departed.
This Conversation afforded me afterwards, as I sat netting behind the Counter, Subject for a good deal of Thought. Here was Jealousy peeping out again; a great Poet jealous of a small one; for so, without any competent Knowledge of their respective Merits, I concluded them to be. But if (which I was not sure of) Mr. Caryl were the better Poet, Mr. Fenwick was the better Man. I had seen him absorbed in the Composition of that Poem Day after Day; he had given it the nicest Finish in his Power; there were Thoughts in it which he cherished as part of himself, and would not be false to, nor give up, to please any Patron in the World; but yet a favourite Passage, the Fancy and Expression of which he believed to be good, but which another Man was envious of, he could obliterate with Magnanimity. That seemed a great Word for a little Thing; but was it a little Thing? The Wits at Will's had applauded it; had given it to a popular Writer; then the real Writer deserved to be as popular. He might have been as popular, had he kept it in; he might not become popular if it were taken out. Then again, Expediency. Had it crossed his Mind that it was expedient to keep well with Mr. Caryl, at the Expense of a Passage of Poetry? That did not seem like Mr. Fenwick; I did not believe the Thought had weighed with him.
Then I proceeded, in my Foolishness and Self-Ignorance, to ponder how strange it was that it should be hard to Anybody of Common-Sense and Good-Feeling, to hear:
"Praise of another with unwounded Ear."
"Why now," thought I to myself, "I have never found it a hard Matter to do so. These many Years I have known that Everybody considered Prudence pretty Prue, and me plain Patty, and yet I have never experienced the slightest Emotion of Envy or Jealousy on that Account."
Ah! we little know ourselves. "The Heart is deceitful above all Things, and desperately wicked—who can know it?" That's the Scriptural Account of the Matter; and however we may gloss it over, escape from it, or flatly disbelieve in it altogether, it turns out to be the true one at last.
