ing--what do you think of the matter?"

"I should be happy, sir, to render you any assistance, but I am afraid
the employment you propose requires other qualifications than I possess;
however, I can make the essay. My chief intention in coming to London
was to lay before the world what I had prepared; and I had hoped by your
assistance--"

"Ah! I see, ambition! Ambition is a very pretty thing; but, sir, we
must walk before we run, according to the old saying--what is that you
have got under your arm?"

"One of the works to which I was alluding; the one, indeed, which I am
most anxious to lay before the world, as I hope to derive from it both
profit and reputation."

"Indeed! what do you call it?"

"Ancient songs of Denmark, heroic and romantic, translated by myself;
with notes philological, critical, and historical."

"Then, sir, I assure you that your time and labour have been entirely
flung away; nobody would read your ballads, if you were to give them to
the world to-morrow."

"I am sure, sir, that you would say otherwise, if you would permit me to
read one to you;" and, without waiting for the answer of the big man, nor
indeed so much as looking at him, to see whether he was inclined or not
to hear me, I undid my manuscript, and with a voice trembling with
eagerness, I read to the following effect:--

Buckshank bold and Elfinstone,
And more than I can mention here,
They caused to be built so stout a ship,
And unto Iceland they would steer.

They launched the ship upon the main,
Which bellowed like a wrathful bear;
Down to the bottom the vessel sank,
A laidly Trold has dragged it there.

Down to the bottom sank young Roland,
And round about he groped awhile;
Until he found the path which led
Unto the bower of Ellenlyle.

"Stop!" said the publisher; "very pretty indeed, and very original; beats
Scott hollow, and Percy too: but, sir, the day for these things is gone
by; nobody at present cares for Percy, nor for Scott, either, save as a
novelist; sorry to discourage merit, sir, but what can I do! What else
have you got?"

"The songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh bard, also translated by myself, with
notes critical, philological, and historical."

"Pass on--what else?"

"Nothing else," said I, folding up my manuscript with a sigh, "unless it
be a romance in the German style; on which, I confess, I set very little
value."

"Wild?"

"Yes, sir, very wi