“Yes.”
“If you have it, lend it to me. What kind of thing is it?”
“Oh! what should it be! ingenious and imbecile. He advises the Catholics, in the old nursery language, to behave like good boys; to open their mouths and shut their eyes, and see what God will send them.”
“Well, that is the usual advice. Is there nothing more characteristic of the writer?”
“What think you of a proposition of making Jockey of Norfolk Patriarch of England, and of an ascertained credo for our Catholic fellow-subjects? Ingenious, is not it?”
“Have you seen Puff’s new volume of Ariosto?”
“I have. What could possibly have induced Mr. Partenopex Puff to have undertaken such a duty? Mr. Puff is a man destitute of poetical powers, possessing no vigour of language, and gifted with no happiness of expression. His translation is hard, dry, and husky, as the outside of a cocoanut. I am amused to see the excellent tact with which the public has determined not to read his volumes, in spite of the incessant exertions of a certain set to ensure their popularity; but the time has gone by when the smug coterie could create a reputation.”
“Do you think the time ever existed, Cleveland?”
“What could have seduced Puff into being so ambitious? I suppose his admirable knowledge of Italian; as if a man were entitled to strike a die for the new sovereign merely because he was aware how much alloy might legally debase its carats of pure gold.”
“I never can pardon Puff for that little book on Cats. The idea was admirable; but, instead of one of the most delightful volumes that ever appeared, to take up a dull, tame compilation from Bingley’s Animal Biography!”