lets. Bah! I have no
patience with Master Posterity, that has chosen to take up this fellow,
and make a hero of him! And there was another gentleman of my time, Mr.
Thiefcatcher Fielding, forsooth! a fellow with the strength, and the
tastes, and the manners of a porter! What madness has possessed you all
to bow before that Calvert Butt of a man?--a creature without elegance
or sensibility! The dog had spirits, certainly. I remember my Lord
Bathurst praising them: but as for reading his books--ma foi, I would as
lief go and dive for tripe in a cellar. The man's vulgarity stifles me.
He wafts me whiffs of gin. Tobacco and onions are in his great coarse
laugh, which choke me, pardi; and I don't think much better of the
other fellow--the Scots' gallipot purveyor--Peregrine Clinker, Humphrey
Random--how did the fellow call his rubbish? Neither of these men had
the bel air, the bon ton, the je ne scais quoy. Pah! If I meet them in
my walks by our Stygian river, I give them a wide berth, as that
hybrid apothecary fellow would say. An ounce of civet, good apothecary;
horrible, horrible! The mere thought of the coarseness of those men
gives me the chair de poule. Mr. Fielding, especially, has no more
sensibility than a butcher in Fleet Market. He takes his heroes out of
ale-house kitchens, or worse places still. And this is the person
whom Posterity has chosen to honor along with me--ME! Faith, Monsieur
Posterity, you have put me in pretty company, and I see you are no wiser
than we were in our time. Mr. Fielding, forsooth! Mr. Tripe and Onions!
Mr. Cowheel and Gin! Thank you for nothing. Monsieur Posterity!"

"And so," thought I, "even among these Stygians this envy and
quarrelsomeness (if you will permit me the word) survive? What a pitiful
meanness! To be sure, I can understand this feeling to a certain extent;
a sense of justice will prompt it. In my own case, I often feel myself
forced to protest against the absurd praises lavished on contemporaries.
Yesterday, for instance, Lady Jones was good enough to praise one of my
works. Tres bien. But in the very next minute she began, with quite
as great enthusiasm, to praise Miss Hobson's last romance. My good
creature, what is that woman's praise worth who absolutely admires the
writings of Miss Hobson? I offer a friend a bottle of '44 claret, fit
for a pontifical supper. 'This is capital wine,' says he; 'and now we
have finished the bottle, will you give me a bottle of that ordin