hem. The position, indeed,
conceded to him in the book-hunting field through the influence of these
becoming decorations has communicated to him something of the uneasiness
of Juvenal's

"Miserum est aliorum incubere famae,
Ne collapsa ruant subductis tecta columnis."

And having so disburdened himself, he rejoices in the thought that
whoever compliments him again on the taste and talent displayed in the
printing and adorning of this volume, will only prove that he has not
read it.

Returning to compositors, and what they note and do not note, if the
fresh author has happened to feel it a rather damping forecast of his
reception by the public that those who have had the first and closest
contact with his efforts are not in any way aroused by their remarkable
originality, yet one who may have had opportunities of taking a wide
view of the functions of the compositor will not wonder that, like the
deaf adder, he systematically closes his ear to the voice of the
charmer.

That the uninitiated reader may form some practical conception of my
meaning, I propose to set down a few items from the weekly contents of a
compositor's "bill-book," slightly enlarging his brief entries with the
view of rendering them the more intelligible.

"1. A time job--viz., inserting, as per author's proof, 50 'hear hears'
and 20 'great cheerings' in report of speech to be delivered by Alderman
Noddles at the great meeting on the social system.

"2. Picking out all the 'hear hears' and 'great cheerings' from said
speech, in respect it was not permitted to be delivered, the meeting
having dispersed when the alderman stood up; and breaking up the same
into pages, with title, 'A plan for the immediate and total extirpation
of intemperance by prohibiting the manufacture of bottles.'

"3. A sheet of a volume of poems, titled 'Life thoughts by a Life
thinker,' beginning--

"'Far I dipt beneath the surface, through the texture of the earth,
Till my heart's triumphant musings dreamt the dream of that new birth,
When the engineer's deep science through the mighty sphere shall probe,
And the railway trains to Melbourne sweep the centre of the globe,
And the electro-motive engine renders it no more absurd
That a human being should be in two places like a bird.'

"Item--Introduction, explaining the difficulties in the way of the
poet's success, in an age devoted to forms and superficialities, by
reason of hi