r unamiable criticisms, poor
maltreated authors speak to many wrongs: and of them more anon.

What moreover shall we say of chilling friendships, near estrangements,
heartless lovers loitering behind, shy acquaintance dropping off?
Verily, there is a mighty sifting: you have dared to stand alone, have
expounded your mind in imperishable print, have manifested wit enough to
outface folly, sufficient moral courage to condemn vice, and more than
is needful of good wisdom to shame the oracles of worldliness: and so
some dread you, some hate, and many shun: the little selfish asterisks
in that small sky fly from your constellatory glories: you are
independent, a satellite of none: you have dared to think, write, print,
in all ways contrary to many; and if wise men and good be loud in their
applause, you arrive at the dignity of manifold hatreds; but if those
and their inferiors condemn, you sink into the bathos of multiplied
contempts. Of other wrongs somewhen and where, hereafter; meanwhile, a
better prospect glows on the kaleidoscopic field--a flattering accession
of new and ardent friends: "Sir," said an old priest to a young author,
"you have made a soft pillow for your head when it comes to be as white
as mine is;" a pretty saying of sweet charity, and such sink deep: as
for the younger and the warmer, being mostly of the softer sex, some
will profess admiring sensations that border not a little on idolatries;
others, gayer, will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful
admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with
the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when
they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate
for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do
handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can,
objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing
without envy for a virtue.

Many like phenomena has authorship: a certain class of otherwise
humanized and well-intentioned people begin to regard your scribe as a
monster--not a so-called "lion" to be sought, but some strange creature
to be dreaded: Perdition! what if he should be cogitating a novel or a
play, and means to make free with our characters? what if that libellous
coepartnership of Saunders and Ottley is permitted to display our faults
and foibles, flimsily disguised, before a mocking world? Disappointed
maidens that hover on the ve