ilised country it gets
on pretty well. Is it not something in itself to possess genius? and is
it seemly, or a good example to the uninspired world, that its owner
should deem it rather a misfortune than a blessing because he is not
also surrounded by plush and shoulder-knots? If all geniuses had a
prerogative right to rank and wealth, and all the pomps and vanities of
this wicked world, could we be sure that none but genuine geniuses would
claim them, and that there would be no margin for disputation with
"solemn shams"? Milton's fifteen pounds are often referred to by him who
finds how hard it is to climb, &c.; but we have no "return," as the
blue-books call it, of all the good opportunities afforded to intellects
ambitious of arising as meteors but only showing themselves as farthing
rush-lights. On the other hand, no doubt, the wide fame and the rich
rewards of the popular author are not in every instance an exact measure
of his superiority to the disappointed aspirant. His thousand pounds do
not furnish incontrovertible evidence that he is a hundred times
superior to the drudge who goes over as much work for ten pounds, and
there may possibly be some one making nothing who is superior to both.

Such aberrations are incident to all human affairs; but in those of
literature, as in many others, they are exceptional. Here, as in other
spheres of exertion, merit will in the general case get its own in some
shape. Indeed, there is a very remarkable economic phenomenon, never, as
it occurs to me, fully examined, which renders the superfluous success
of the popular author a sort of insurance fund for enabling the obscure
adventurer to enter the arena of authorship, and show what he is worth.
Political economy has taught us that those old bugbears of the statute
law called forestallers and regraters are eminent benefactors, in as far
as their mercenary instincts enable them to see scarcity from afar, and
induce them to "hold on" precisely so long as it lasts but no longer,
since, if they have stock remaining on hand when abundance returns, they
will be losers. Thus, through the regular course of trade, the surplus
of the period of abundance is distributed over the period of scarcity
with a precision which the genius of a Joseph or a Turgot could not
achieve.

The phenomenon in the publishing world to which I have alluded has some
resemblance to this, and comes to pass in manner following. The
confirmed popular author whose