Petulant. If he says black's black,—if I have a humour to say it is blue—let that pass. All's one's for that. If I have a humour to prove it, it must be granted.
Witwould. Not positively must,—But it may, it may.
Petulant. Yes, it positively must,—upon proof positive.
Witwould. Ay, upon proof positive it must; but upon proof presumptive it only may. That's a logical distinction now.
CONGREVE.
“In the ignotum pro magnifico,” says Umbra “resides a humble individual's best chance of being noticed or attended to at all.” Yet many are the attempts which have been made, and are making, in America too as well in Great Britain by Critics, Critickins and Criticasters, (for there are of all degrees,) to take from me the Ignotum, and force upon me the Magnificum in its stead, to prove that I am not the humble, and happily unknown disciple, friend, and however unworthy, memorialist of Dr. Dove, a nameless individual as regards the public, holding the tenour of my noiseless way contentedly towards that oblivion which sooner or later must be the portion of us all; but that I am what is called a public character, a performer upon the great stage, whom every one is privileged to hiss or to applaud; myself a Doctor, L.L.D. according to the old form, according to the present usage D.C.L.—a Doctor upon whom that triliteral dignity was conferred in full theatre amid thundering peals of applauding hands, and who heard himself addressed that day in Phillimorean voice and fluent latinity by all eulogistic epithets ending in issimus or errimus. I an issimus!—I an errimus! No other issimus than that Ipsissimus ego which by these critics I am denied to be.
These critics will have it that I am among living authors what the ever memorable Countess of Henneberg was among women; that I have more tails to my name than the greatest Bashaw bears among his standards, or the largest cuttle fish to his headless body or bodyless head; that I have executed works more durable than brass, and loftier than the Pyramids, and that I have touched the stars with my sublime forehead,—what could have saved my poor head from being moonstruck if I had.
Believe them not O Reader! I never executed works in any material more durable than brass, I never built any thing like a pyramid, Absurdo de tamaña grandeza no se ha escrito en letras de molde. And as for the alledged proofs which depriving me of my individuality and divesting me even of entity, would consubstantiate me with the most prolific of living writers, no son mas que ayre ó menos que ayre, una sombra ó menos que sombra, pues son nada, y nada es lo que nunca ha tenido ser verdadero.1 It is in vain, as Mr. Carlyle says when apostrophizing Mirabeau the father upon his persevering endeavours to make his son resemble him in all points of character, and be as it were his second self, it is in vain. He will not be Thou, but must and will be himself, another than Thou. In like manner, It is in vain say I: I am not, and will not and can not be any body but myself; nor is it of any consequence to any human being who or what I am, though perhaps those persons may think otherwise who say that “they delight more in the shadow of something than to converse with a nothing in substance.”2
1NICOLAS PERES.