ESSAY ON POPULARITY

"Rumour and the popular voice
Some look to more than truth, and so confirm Opinions."
CARY'S Dante.

Popularity is a busy talker: she catches hold of topics and offers
them to fame without giving herself time to reflect whether they are
true or false, and fashion is her favourite disciple who sanctions
and believes them as eagerly, and with the same faith, as a young
lady in the last century read a new novel and a tavern-haunter in
this reads the news. It is natural, with such foundations, to ask
whether popularity is fame, for it often happens that very slender
names come to be popular from many causes with which merit or genius
has no sort of connection or kindred. It may be some oddity in the
manner, or incident in the life, of the author that is whispered over
before his book comes out. This often macadamizes the way to
popularity, for gossip is a mighty spell in the literary world, and a
concealment of the author's name often creates an anxiety in the
public mind, for it leaves room for guesses and conjectures, and as
some are very fond of appearing wise in such matters by saying they
know from good authority that such a one is the author, it becomes
the talk of the card party and tea-table, and he gains a superficial
notoriety. Such was the case with the "Pursuits of Literature," a
leaden-footed satire that had as much claim to merit as the statue of
Pasquin in the Market-place of Rome, on which vulgar squibs were
pasted. Everybody knew the author, and nobody knew him. The first