indeed, are often read to us, exquisitely
characteristic of him,—radiant, as our friend
says, of the graceful writer, but still they
are not himself. If they were, we should
not hesitate to affirm that our friend's
friend, was rather a dull person, rather
a heavy person, and rather, in short, a
person to be avoided than to be made into
a Juggernaut idol, and drawn about with us
for the indiscriminate crushing of our
acquaintance. As it is, however, we miss
certain things, it seems, which would more
than redeem everything. We can have no
idea of his surpassing eloquence, of his genial
disposition, of his keen appreciation of
humour, we are told, from his mere writings.
Just to give us a feeble example, a shadow
from the brilliancy of this first gift of his,
our friend, recites a speech made by his
terrible ally at the Grocers' Hall, perhaps,
upon the late monetary crisis. If this does
not seem to us to be of a nature to carry a
listener off his feet, our friend is ready at
once to take the blame upon himself; the
manner, the air, the tones are wanting, which
would have ravished eye and ear.

He regales us with such anecdotes illustrative
of this unapproachable person as make
him almost expire with laughter in the relation,
but which we ourselves cannot see the
force of for the life of us; and telling him so
without much ceremony, we produce a
quarrel. Otherwise (and we were delicate in
this matter at first), he can scarcely be stopped
in these biographical ana, nor is it of any use
to suggest to him that we have heard any
particular anecdote before, inasmuch as he
has score of others quite as long, and bearing
equally well upon the matter in hand; it is
better rather to suffer him to exhaust himself
upon the most wearisome, from which
he will sometimes drop off, after five and
forty minutes or so, like a boa of another
description, gorged.

If our friend's friend is a person of elevated
position, and (which is not uncommon) has a
title, or handle, to his name, the work which
that handle is made to do is something
astounding. The bucketsful of aristocratic
intelligence which are wound up by it, from
the best sources, to sluice us with, whether
we will or no, are countless; and while we
drip from head to heel, and painfully shrink
in dimension under its influence, our friend
will continue to play upon us without the
least remorse, like some mad garden-engine,
that has the end of its hose in a river.

Not only does our friend make light of us,
his companions and associates, through the
odious comparisons which he draws between
us and the unknown, but the worth and
wisdom of even public and renowned persons
are made to pale before this star, of whose
radiance we know nothing at all except by
reflection.

It seems to be positively offensive to our
friend to hear of a cheap edition of the
works of any author, and gall and wormwood
to him to see them sold at the railway stations,
while those of his own unappreciated favourite
are left without a public, and even without a
publisher.

"Why this person," cries our friend, denouncing
some popular writer, "I know for a
fact, is considered to be the dullest, by many
degrees, of the literary club to which my
friend and he both belong: he is only maudlin
when he thinks he is sentimental; he is never
amusing save when he is intoxicated; whereas,
the man of whom I have so often spoken to
you is rich in fancy, scintillating with wit;
withering in sarcasm, and superhumanly keen
in detecting the springs of human action. I
don't profess to be a critic [he makes use of
this phrase when he considers himself to be
essentially infallible, and out of the sphere of
human contradiction]; but when it comes to
conceding to a fellow like THAT [popular
author] the title of a great Writer, while such
a sublime spirit [our friend's friend], is, on the
other hand, seeking acceptance from the
world in vain, it is time indeed for me to put
in my protest." He is always putting in his
protest on behalf of this unknown protégé.
Our friend's friend happens, in the above
instance, to be a novelist; but he is often
times the greatest poet of the age (although
the age is not aware of it); also a mechanist,
and the original, though unacknowledged,
inventor of the electric telegraph; a painter
who has a quarrel with the Royal Academy,
who are jealous of him, and therefore does
not exhibit; an engineer, with a sub-marine
tunnel to Sidney upon paper, about the details
of which (thank Heaven!) our friend is bound
to secresy; and an officer in the Bengal army
who has merited the Victoria Cross, without
getting it, more than any other man in all
India.

If our friend were not really our friend,
and a person in every way admirable except
for this one hallucination, we should entertain
the most inimical feeling towards him. As
it is, we cannot turn an altogether deaf ear
to his detractors. It has been suggested to
us, not without some colour of probability,
that this extreme partiality for an unpresentable
person may be assumed for reasons.
May not this insensate praise for a being
whom none can appreciate save oneself, be,
after all, a safe form of self-laudation?
Shall we boldly state our suspicious that the
affection bestowed on our friend's friend by
the proprietor is something like that which
Mr. Punch, in the puppet-show, exhibits
towards his inanimate spouse, when he takes
her up in his arms and kisses her, the better
to use her poor head as an instrument wherewith
to knock down the clergyman?

There is still another solution of this
mystery, but it is almost too terrible to write.
It was uttered, probably, with bated breath,
at some convivial meeting over which the
shadow of our friend's friend had been cast,