ve the stuff in
me to write an epic, by Jove I will try If I only feel that I am good
enough to crack a joke or tell a story, I will do that."

"Not a bad speech, young one," Warrington said, "but that does not
prevent all poets from being humbugs."

"What--Homer, Aeschylus, Shakspeare and all?"

"Their names are not to be breathed in the same sense with you pigmies,"
Mr. Warrington said: "there are men and men, sir."

"Well, Shakspeare was a man who wrote for money, just as you and I do,"
Pen answered, at which Warrington confounded his impudence, and resumed
his pipe and his manuscript.

There was not the slightest doubt then that this document contained
a great deal of Pen's personal experiences, and that 'Leaves from the
Life-book of Walter Lorraine' would never have been written but for
Arthur Pendennis's own private griefs, passions, and follies. As we have
become acquainted with these in the first volume of his biography, it
will not be necessary to make large extracts from the novel of 'Walter
Lorraine,' in which the young gentleman had depicted such of them as
he thought were likely to interest the reader, or were suitable for the
purpose of his story.

Now, though he had kept it in his box for nearly half of the period
during which, according to the Horatian maxim, a work of art ought to
lie ripening (a maxim, the truth of which may, by the way, be questioned
altogether), Mr. Pen had not buried his novel for this time, in order
that the work might improve, but because he did not know where else to
bestow it, or had no particular desire to see it. A man who thinks of
putting away a composition for ten years before he shall give it to the
world, or exercise his own maturer judgment upon it, had best be very
sure of the original strength and durability of the work; otherwise on
withdrawing it from its crypt he may find, that like small wine it has
lost what flavour it once had, and is only tasteless when opened. There
are works of all tastes and smacks, the small and the strong, those
that improve by age, and those that won't bear keeping at all, but are
pleasant at the first draught, when they refresh and sparkle.

Now Pen had never any notion, even in the time of his youthful
inexperience and fervour of imagination, that the story he was writing
was a masterpiece of composition, or that he was the equal of the
great authors whom he admired; and when he now reviewed his little
performance, he was keenly