my time successively and successfully smitten and smashed all the
potentates, big and little, of Europe, and who has in his museum a
wooden model of the Alsop bomb. Give them money, and Sanders will
rebuild and refurnish the Alexandrian Library,--Smooch will bid every
young painter in America reset his palette and try again,--and Brevier
Lead will be fool enough to start a newspaper upon his own account,
and, while his purse holds out to bleed, will make it a good one. But
until all these high and mighty things happen,--until we come into our
property,--we must make the best of matters. I know a clever Broadway
publisher, who, if I were able to meet the expenses, would bring out my
minor poems in all the pomp of cream-laid paper, and with all the
circumstance of velvet binding, with illustrations by Darley, and with
favorable notices in all the newspapers. I should cut a fine figure,
metaphorically, if not arithmetically speaking; whereas my farthing
rush-light is now sputtering, clinkering, and guttering to waste, and
all because I have not a pair of silver snuffers. If you wish me to
move the world, produce your lever! Your wealthy bard has at least
audience; and if he cannot sing, he may thank his own hoarse throat,
and not the Destinies.

For myself, dear Don Bob, having come into my inheritance of oblivion
while living,--having in vain called upon Fame to sound the trumpet,
which I am sure is so obstinately plugged that it will never syllable
my name,--having resolutely determined to be nobody,--I do not waste my
sympathy upon myself, but generously bestow it upon a mob of fine
fellows in all ages, who deserved, but did not grasp, a better fortune.
All that live in human recollection are but a handful to the tribes
that have been forgotten. You will be kind enough, my sardonic friend,
to repress your sneers. I tell you that a great many worthy gentlemen
and ladies have been shouldered out of the Pantheon who deserved at