.

The writer wishes to ask here, what do you think of all this, Messieurs
les Critiques? Were ye ever served so before? But don't you richly
deserve it? Haven't you been for years past bullying and insulting
everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour with everybody whom
ye thought strong? '_We_ approve of this. We disapprove of that. Oh,
this will never do. These are fine lines!' The lines perhaps some
horrid sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so.
To have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and
by whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But
is it not galling after all?

Ah, but _we_ don't understand Armenian, it cannot be expected that _we_
should understand Armenian, or Welsh, or-- Hey, what's this? The mighty
_we_ not understand Armenian, or Welsh, or-- Then why does the mighty
_we_ pretend to review a book like 'Lavengro'? From the arrogance with
which it continually delivers itself, one would think that the mighty
_we_ is omniscient; that it understands every language; is versed in
every literature; yet the mighty _we_ does not even know the word for
bread in Armenian. It knows bread well enough by name in English, and
frequently bread in England only by its name, but the truth is, that the
mighty _we_, with all its pretension, is in general a very sorry
creature, who, instead of saying nous disons, should rather say nous dis:
Porny in his 'Guerre des Dieux,' very profanely makes the three in one
say, Je faisons; now, Lavengro, who is anything but profane, would
suggest that critics, especially magazine and Sunday newspaper critics,
should commence with nous dis, as the first word would be significant of
the conceit and assumption of the critic, and the second of the extent of
the critic's information. The _we_ says its say, but when fawning
sycophancy or vulgar abuse are taken from that say, what remains? Why a
blank, a void like Ginnungagap.

As the writer, of his own accord, has exposed some of the blemishes of
his book--a task, which a competent critic ought to have done--he will
now point out two or three of its merits, which any critic, not
altogether blinded with ignorance, might have done, or not replete with
gall and envy would have been glad to do. The book has the merit of
communicating a fact connected with physiology, which in all the pages of
the multitude of books was never previously mentioned--the