Barnstaple. Is like some of Wouvermans’ best pictures, which will not be purchased by many, because his dogs in the foreground are doing exactly what all dogs will naturally do when they first are let out of their kennels.
Ansard. Wouvermans should have known better, and made his dogs better mannered if he expected his pictures to be hung up in the parlour of refinement.
Barnstaple Very true.
Ansard. Perhaps you would like to have another passage or two.
Barnstaple. Excuse me: I will imagine it all. I only hope, Ansard, this employment will not interfere with your legal practice.
Ansard. My dear Barnstaple, it certainly will not, because my legal practice cannot be interfered with. I have been called to the bar, but find no employment in my calling. I have been sitting in my gown and wig for one year, and may probably sit a dozen more before I have to rise to address their lordships. I have not yet had a guinea brief. My only chance is to be sent out as judge to Sierra Leone, or perhaps to be made a commissioner of the Court of Requests.
Barnstaple. You are indeed humble in your aspirations. I recollect the time, Ansard, when you dreamt of golden fame, and aspired to the woolsack—when your ambition prompted you to midnight labour, and you showed an energy—
Ansard. (putting his hands up to his forehead, with his elbows on the table.) What can I do, Barnstaple? If I trust to briefs, my existence will be but brief—we all must live.
Barnstaple. I will not reply as Richelieu did to a brother author, “Je ne vois pas la nécessité;” but this I do say, that if you are in future to live by supplying the public with such nonsense, the shorter your existence the better.