tory, it was difficult to say whether the
laugh was at me or at the narrative. The wife hated me for my ugly face;
the servants, because I could not always get them tickets for the play,
and because they could not tell exactly what an author meant. If a
paragraph appeared against anything I had written, I found it was ready
there before me, and I was to undergo a regular _roasting._ I submitted
to all this till I was tired, and then I gave it up.

One of the miseries of intellectual pretensions is, that nine-tenths of
those you come in contact with do not know whether you are an impostor
or not. I dread that certain anonymous criticisms should get into the
hands of servants where I go, or that my hatter or shoemaker should
happen to read them, who cannot possibly tell whether they are well or
ill founded. The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of
its malice. There are people whose good opinion or good-will you want,
setting aside all literary pretensions; and it is hard to lose by an ill
report (which you have no means of rectifying) what you cannot gain by a
good one. After a _diatribe_ in the _Quarterly_ (which is taken in by
a gentleman who occupies my old apartments on the first floor), my
landlord brings me up his bill (of some standing), and on my offering
to give him so much in money and a note of hand for the rest, shakes his
head, and says he is afraid he could make no use of it. Soon after, the
daughter comes in, and, on my mentioning the circumstance carelessly to
her, replies gravely, 'that indeed her father has been almost ruined
by bills.' _This is the unkindest cut of all._ It is in vain for me to
endeavour to explain that the publication in which I am abused is a mere
government engine--an organ of a political faction. They know nothing
about that. They only know such and such imputations are thrown out; and
the more I try to remove them, the more they think there is some truth
in them. Perhaps the people of the house are strong Tories--government
agents of some sort. Is it for me to enlighten their ignorance? If
I say, I once wrote a thing called _Prince Maurice's Parrot_, and an
_Essay on the Regal Character_, in the former of which allusion is made
to a noble marquis, and in the latter to a great personage (so at least,
I am told, it has been construed), and that Mr. Croker has peremptory
instructions to retaliate, they cannot conceive what connection there
can be between me and such distin