enian--Varthan and Koscht, and
illustrious writers they are, one in the simple, and the other in the
ornate style of Armenian composition, but neither of their names begins
with a Z. Oh, what a precious opportunity ye lost, ye ravening crew, of
convicting the poor, half-starved, friendless boy of the book, of
ignorance or misrepresentation, by asking who with a name beginning with
Z ever wrote fables in Armenian; but ye couldn't help yourselves, ye are
duncie. We duncie! Ay, duncie. So here ye are held up by the tails,
blood and foam streaming from your jaws.

The writer wishes to ask here, what do you think of all this, Messieurs
les Critiques? Were ye ever served so before? But don't you richly
deserve it? Haven't you been for years past bullying and insulting
everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour with everybody whom
you thought strong? "We approve of this. We disapprove of that. Oh,
this will never do. These are fine lines!" The lines perhaps some
horrid sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so. To
have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and by
whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But is
it not galling, after all?

"Ah, but _we_ don't understand Armenian, it cannot be expected that _we_
should understand Armenian, or Welsh, or--Hey, what's this? The mighty
_we_ not understand Armenian or Welsh, or--Then why does the mighty _we_
pretend to review a book like Lavengro? From the arrogance with which it
continually delivers itself, one would think that the mighty _we_ is
omniscient; that it understands every language; is versed in every
literature; yet the mighty _we_ does not even know the word for bread in
Armenian. It knows bread well enough by name in England, and frequently
bread in England only by its name, but the truth is, that the mighty
_we_, with all its pretension, is in general a very sorry creature, who,
instead of saying nous disons, should rather say nous dis: Porny in his
"Guerre des Dieux," very profanely makes the three in one say, Je
faisons; now, Lavengro, who is anything but profane, would suggest that
critics, especially magazine and Sunday newspaper critics, should
commence with nous dis, as the first word would be significant of the
conceit and assumption of the critic, and the second of the extent of the
critic's information. The _we_ says its say, but when fawning sycophancy
or vulgar abu