e fine ear of nature's worshipper, bathed in music.

Pomposo never reads Magazine poetry--nor, we presume, ever looks at a
field or wayside flower. He studies only the standard authors. He walks
only in gardens with high brick walls--and then admires only at a hint
from the head-gardener. Pomposo does not know that many of the finest
poems of our day first appeared in magazines--or, worse still, in
newspapers; and that in our periodicals, daily and weekly, equally with
the monthlies and quarterlies, is to be found the best criticism of
poetry anywhere extant, superior far, in that unpretending form, to
nine-tenths of the learned lucubrations of Germany--though some of it,
too, is good--almost as one's heart could desire. What is the
circulation even of a popular volume of verses--if any such there
be--to that of a number of Maga? Hundreds of thousands at home peruse it
before it is a week old--as many abroad ere the moon has thrice renewed
her horns; and the Series ceases not--regular as the Seasons that make
up the perfect year. Our periodical literature--say of it what you
will--gives light to the heads and heat to the hearts of millions of our
race. The greatest and best men of the age have not disdained to belong
to the brotherhood; and thus the hovel holds what must not be missing in
the hall--the furniture of the cot is the same as that of the
palace--and duke and ditcher read their lessons from the same page.

Good people have said, and it would be misanthropical to disbelieve or
discredit their judgment, that our Prose is original--nay, has created a
new era in the history of Periodical Literature. Only think of that,
Christopher, and up with your Tail like a Peacock! Why, there is some
comfort in that reflection, while we sit rubbing our withered hands up
and down on these shrivelled shanks. Our feet are on the fender, and
that fire is felt on our face; but we verily believe our ice-cold shanks
would not shrink from the application of the red-hot poker. Peter has a
notion that but for that red-hot poker the fire would go out; so to
humour him we let it remain in the ribs, and occasionally brandish it
round our head in moments of enthusiasm when the Crutch looks tame, and
the Knout a silken leash for Italian Greyhound.

Old Simonides--old Mimnermus--old Theognis--old Solon-old Anacreon--old
Sophocles--old Pindar--old Hesiod--old Homer--and old Methuselah! What
mean we by the word _old_? All these men are old in