which caused our asinine friend to cloak himself in that cast leonine
skin. Who would be always reciting from a hornbook to Mistress Minerva?
What, I pray you, would become of the corn, if there were no scarecrows?
All honor to you, then, my looped and windowed sentinel, standing upon
the slope of Parnassus,--standing so patiently there, with your straw
bowels, doing yeoman-service, spite of the flouts and gibes and cocked
thumbs of Zoïlus and his sneering, snarling, verjuicy, captious
crew,--standing there, as stood the saline helpmate of Lot, to fright
our young men and virgins from the primrose-pitfalls of Poesy,--standing
there to warn them against the seductions of Phoebus, and to teach them
that it is better to hoe than to hum!

The truth is, that the good and clever and _polyphloisboic_ writers have
too long monopolized the attention of the world, so that the little,
well-intentioned, humble, and stupid plebeians of the guild have been
snubbed out of sight. Somebody--the name is not given, but I shrewdly
suspect Canon Smith--wrote to Sir James Mackintosh,--"Why do you not
write three volumes quarto? You only want this to be called the greatest
man of your time. People are all disposed to admit anything we say of
you, but I think it unsafe and indecent to put you so high without
something in quarto." This was, of course, half fun and half truth.
As there is, however, little need of setting the world on fire to
demonstrate some chemical theory, so it is possible that the flame of
culture may be cherished without kindling a conflagration, and truth
transmitted from sire to son without the construction of edificial
monsters too big for the knees, too abstruse for the brains, and too
great for the lifetime of humanity. I am not a very constant reader
of Mr. Robert Browning, but I own to many a pleasant grin over his
Sibrandus Schafnabrugensis dropped into the crevice of the plum-tree,
and afterward pitifully reclaimed, and carried to its snug niche with