to blow a flute accompaniment in the national concert, and leave others
to play the fiddle and Frenchhorn." This diffidence was not assumed.
All through his career, a breath of criticism ever so slight acted
temporarily like a boar-frost upon his productive power. He always saw
reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking of "vanity" in a letter
of March, 1820, when Scott and Lockhart and all the Reviews were in a
full chorus of acclaim, he says: "I wish I did possess more of it, but
it seems my curse at present to have anything but confidence in myself
or pleasure in anything I have written."

In a similar strain he had written, in September, 1819, on the news of
the cordial reception of the "Sketch-Book" in America:

"The manner in which the work has been received, and the eulogiums
that have been passed upon it in the American papers and periodical
works, have completely overwhelmed me. They go far, far beyond my
most sanguine expectations, and indeed are expressed with such
peculiar warmth and kindness as to affect me in the tenderest
manner. The receipt of your letter, and the reading of some of the
criticisms this morning, have rendered me nervous for the whole day.
I feel almost appalled by such success, and fearful that it cannot
be real, or that it is not fully merited, or that I shall not act up
to the expectations that may be formed. We are whimsically
constituted beings. I had got out of conceit of all that I had
written, and considered it very questionable stuff; and now that it
is so extravagantly be praised, I begin to feel afraid that I shall
not do as well again. However, we shall see as we get on. As yet I
am extremely irregular and precarious in my fits of composition.
The least thing puts me out of the vein, and even applause flurries
me and prevents my writing, though of course it will ultimately be a
stimulus....

"I have been somewhat touched by the manner in which my writings
have been noticed in the 'Evening Post.' I had considered Coleman
as cherishing an ill-will toward me, and, to tell the truth, have
not always been the most courteous in my opinions concerning him.
It is a painful thing either to dislike others or to fancy they
dislike us, and I have felt both pleasure and self-reproach at
finding myself so mistaken with respect to Mr. Coleman. I like to
out