My friend was proceeding to detail further the admonitory conversation of this honest bibliopole, when I interrupted him by asking, naturally enough, how he could continue to derive any pleasure from a pursuit in which he admitted himself to have been so very unsuccessful? to which he adroitly replied, “On the very same principle that a bad shot may have just as much amusement as a capital sportsman; perhaps more,—one good hit being as gratifying to him as twenty to an undeviating fowler.” I coincided in my friend’s remark, adding, that the same sort of observation would apply to random jokers as well as rhymesters; and that I have more than once absolutely envied the inordinate happiness of a universal punster when he chanced to say any thing that had a symptom of wit in it.
My friend then, gravely opening his portfolio, selected two of his productions, which he gave me permission to publish, particularly as one of them had been most abruptly rejected by an eminent newspaper, and the other by a magazine of considerable reputation.
The intended Magazine article ran as follows:—but as one of the attachés was a northern gentleman of the Edinburgh Review, it was sent back to my friend with what he called a tantara rara.
THE HIGHLANDER.
I.
A sans culotte from Caledonia’s wilds,
Rasp’d into form by Nature’s roughest files,
Hearing of savoury meats—of monies made—
Of unsmoked women—and of dexterous trade;—
Resolved, from sooty cot, to seek a town,