I will tell you what you are; you are a great, ugly, many headed beast, with a great many ears which are long, hairy, ticklish, moveable, erect and never at rest.
Look at your picture in Southey's Hexameters,—that poem in which his laureated Doctorship writes verses by the yard instead of the foot,—he describes you as “many headed and monstrous,”
with numberless faces,
Numberless bestial ears, erect to all rumours, and restless,
And with numberless mouths which are fill'd with lies as with arrows.
Look at that Picture my Public!—It is very like you!
For individual readers I profess just as much respect as they individually deserve. There are a few persons in every generation for whose approbation,—rather let it be said for whose gratitude and love,—it is worth while “to live laborious days,” and for these readers of this generation and the generations that are to follow,—for these
Such as will join their profit with their pleasure,
And come to feed their understanding parts;—
For these I'll prodigally spend myself,
And speak away my spirit into air;
For these I'll melt my brain into invention,
Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words
As polished jewels in their bounteous ears.5
5 BEN JONSON.
Such readers, they who to their learning add knowledge, and to their knowledge wisdom and to their wisdom benevolence, will say to me
ὦ καλὰ λέγων, πολὺ δ᾽ ἄμεινον᾽ ἔτι τῶν λόγων
ἐργασάμεν᾽, εἴθ᾽ ἐπέλ—
θοις ἅπαντά μοι σαφῶς·
ὡς ἐγώ μοι δοκῶ
κἂν μακρὰν ὁδὸν διελθεῖν ὥς᾽ ἀκοῦσαι.
πρὸς τάδ᾽ ὦ βέλτιστε θαῤῥήσας λέγ᾽, ὡς ἃ—
παντες ἡδόμεσθά σοι.6
But such readers are very few. Walter Landor said that if ten such persons should approve his writings, he would call for a division and count a majority. To please them is to obtain an earnest of enduring fame; for which, if it be worth any thing, no price can be too great. But for the aggregate any thing is good enough. Yes my Public, Mr. Hume's arithmetic and Mr. Brougham's logic, Lord Castlereagh's syntax, Mr. Irving's religion and Mr. Carlisle's irreligion, the politics of the Edinburgh Review and the criticism of the Quarterly, Thames water, Brewer's beer, Spanish loans, old jokes, new constitutions, Irish eloquence, Scotch metaphysics, Tom and Jerry, Zimmerman on Solitude, Chancery Equity and Old Bailey Law, Parliamentary wit, the patriotism of a Whig Borough-monger, and the consistency of a British cabinet; Et s'il y a encore quelque chose à dire, je le tiens pour dit;—