My eccentric companion proceeded in his story,
gathering new animation as he recapitulated the
battles which he had fought, and the victories which
he might have won.

“For a long time, sir, after the melancholy catastrophe
of my novel, I was completely discouraged.
I felt an indifference towards the world. I had
soared so high upon the wings of hope that the fall
almost broke my heart; but soon the disappointment
began to lose its bitterness, and I received a
consolation (which, wicked as it was, I could not
repress) in discovering that hundreds of unsuccessful
authors were exactly in my condition: then
I remembered that as great fame, once acquired,
would be everlasting, I could not expect to acquire
it without immense trouble and assiduous application.
Gradually I shook off the hateful fetters of
gloomy despair, and, like some deluded slave, to a

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

false woman's charms, I allowed cheating hope to
lead me captive again. My brain began to effervesce
with exuberance of imagination, and gave
promise of something more exquisite still. Novelwriting
was out of the question: I had manufactured
one, and if the public did not like it, they
might let it alone; and so they did—the more
shame for them.

“I felt as proud as Lucifer in my defeat, and was
resolved never to compliment with another the
world who had used my last so villanously. No,
thought I, I'll write a play, and give Shakspeare
and Otway a little rest. If I cannot get in the
great temple one way, I'll try another; and, with
increasing avidity, I went at it again. It was not
long before I began to entertain the idea that my
mind was peculiarly adapted for dramatic writing.
I was not formed to wade through the dull drudgery
of novel descriptions—to expatiate upon little rivulets,
tinkling among big rocks—and amorous breezes
making love to sentimental green trees. In my
present avocation, the azure heavens, the frowning
mountain, the broad ocean, the shadowy forest, and
`all that sort of thing,' would fall beneath the
painter's care: skies would be manufactured to give
light to my heroes, and cities would sprout up, in
which they could act their adventures. My play
would present a great field for triumph, and `young,
blushing Merit, and neglected Worth,' must be seen,
and consequently admired. Now would the embodied
visions of my fancy go to the hearts of the

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

public through their ears, as well as their eyes, and
genius would wing its sparkling way amid the
thundering acclamations of thousands of admiring
spectators. `Now,' said I to myself, `I have the eel
of glory by the tail, and it shall not escape me, slippery
as it is.'

“With a perseverance which elicited praise from
myself, if from nobody else, I mounted my Pegasus,
and jogged along this newly discovered road to
immortality. The external and common world
melted from my mind when I sat down to my task,
and, although it was evanescent as poets' pleasures
generally are, few men enjoyed more happiness
than I—as the tattered trappings of my poor garret
seemed dipped in the enchanting magnificence of
my dreams, and I rioted in visions of white paper
snow-storms, and dramatic thunder and lightning.
I sought every opportunity for stage effect—to
have trap-doors and dungeons, unexpected assassinations,
and resurrections more unexpected still.

“My undertaking seemed very easy at first, but
I soon found myself bewildered amid difficulties
seriously alarming. At one time I brought a whole
army of soldiers on the stage, and made them fight
a prodigious battle, without discovering, till half the
poor fellows were slain, that the whole affair had
taken place in a lady's chamber! This was easily
remedied, but I experienced infinitely more trouble
with the next. I had formed a hero, in whom were
concentrated all the virtues, beauties, and accomplishments
of human kind: a real Sir William

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

Wallace—gigantic in person and mind—who never
opened his lips but to speak blank verse—who did
not know that there was such a person as Fear on
the face of the globe, and could put a whole army
to flight by just offering to draw his sword. It was
my design artfully to lead him into the greatest extremes
of danger, and then artfully to lead him out
again; but, in the paroxysm of my enthusiasm, I
at length got him into a scrape from which no
human power could possibly extricate him.

“His enemies, determined not to give so terrible
a fellow the slightest chance of escape, had confined
him in a tremendous dungeon, deep, and walled
around on all sides, by lofty rocks and mountains
totally impenetrable. To this dreadful abode there
was only one little entrance, which was strictly
guarded by a band of soldiers, who were ordered
never to take their eyes off the door, and always to
keep their guns cocked. Now here was a predicament,
and I knew not what to do. The whole of
the preceding was so beautifully managed, that to
cut it out would be impossible. Yet there he was,
poor youth, without the slenderest hope of freedom,
cooped up among everlasting mountains, beneath
which Atlas himself might have groaned in vain.
What was I to do? He must be released. The
audience would expect it, as a common civility, that
I would not murder him before their eyes. It would
have been ungenteel to a degree. At length I hit
it, after having conceived almost inconceivable plans,
and vainly attempted to manage ponderous ideas

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

which were too heavy for my use. I proposed to
introduce a ghost—a spirit, which would at once
please the pit, and be a powerful friend to the imprisoned
soldier.

“At the dead of the night, when he sat ruminating
on the vicissitudes of life, and spouting extemporaneous
blank-verse soliloquies, (at which I had spent
many midnight hours,) the genius of the mountain
comes down in a thunder cloud, and thus addresses
the pensive hero. You will be pleased to observe
the rude and natural dignity of language, which it
was a great point with me to preserve.

“The alliteration in the last line melts the tender
heart of the genius: he waves his hand in the air;

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

his cloudy throne streams thunder and lightning
from every side; instantaneously a convulsion ensues;
the stage becomes the scene of general conflagration;
a number of small imps, and little devils,
fiery-breathed dragons, and red-nosed salamanders,
are seen sporting about in the confusion, till the
whole explodes, and out walks my man through a
prodigious crack in the mountain, which heals up
after him as he goes along. The consternation of
the guards may be imagined, but unless I had the
MS. here, I could not attempt to describe it.

“At length it was written, rehearsed, and advertised,
and its name, in great capitals, stared from
every brick wall and wooden fence in the city.

“Delightful anticipations of immortality began to
throng upon my mind, and I could almost hear
the various theatre cries of `bravo,' `encore,' and
`author.' With some trouble, I had prepared a
very handsome speech, to be spoken when I should
be called out, and practised bowing before a looking-glass
with great success. Indeed, by the time the
evening of representation arrived, I was prepared
for every triumph which fate could have in store for
me; and I had vowed an unalterable determination
not to lose my firmness of mind in the heaviest
flood of prosperity that could possibly pour in
upon me.

“The evening arrived—a fine, cool, moonlight
night. The stars twinkled upon me as I hastened
to the theatre, as if congratulating me from their
lofty stations in the sky, and the most refreshing

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

breezes played around my head, methought, whispering
soft nonsense in my ear. I walked with a
proud step to the door, entered majestically, and took
my seat modestly.

“The house was already thronged with ladies
and gentlemen, with their various appendages of
quizzing-glasses and bamboo canes; and frequent
murmurs of impatience buzzed around, by which
I felt extremely flattered. The end of my troubles
seemed already at hand, and I thought Fame, on
her adamantine tablet, had already written `William
Lackwit, Esquire, Author in general,' in letters
too indelible for time itself to erase. Fear
faded away in the dazzling brilliancy of that
smiling multitude, and my soul floated about in
its delicious element of triumphant hope, with a
sensation such as arises after a good dose of exhilarating
gas.

“Alas! `'twas but a dream!' I soon perceived
that fortune frowned on my efforts, and had taken
the most undisguised method of blasting my hopes.
A most diabolical influenza had for some time
raged in the city, which on this very evening seemed
at its height. A convulsion of coughing kept the
whole audience in incessant confusion; and with
the most harrowing apprehensions, I listened to
noises of every description, from the faint, sneeze-like
effusion of some little girl's throat, to the deeptoned
and far-sounding bellow of the portly alderman.
Besides this, I had the pleasure to observe
some of my most devoted enemies scattered, as if

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

intentionally, through the critical pit, scowling in
tenfold blackness upon the scene, and apparently
waiting in composed hatred, an opportunity to give
me `the goose.' Meditation raged high, as I observed
these significant and threatening appearances,
and I could scarcely have been in greater
trepidation if I had been attacked with hydrophobia
itself.

“The curtain rose soon, and my first characters
appeared; but, fire and fury! I did not recognize
them myself!

“The play proceeded, and a scene ensued which
gentlest moderation might denominate `murder,
most foul.' My dear sir, you can have no idea
of it. They had cut out my most beautiful sentiments.
The very identical remarks which I had
intended should bring the house down, were gone,
and `left not a trace behind.' One recited a speech
which was intended to have been spoken by another,
and he spouted one that should not have
been spoken at all. My finest specimens of rhetoric
failed, from their clumsy manner of delivery,
and all my wit missed fire. Oh! if you could have
seen them, like a pack of wild bulls in a garden of
flowers, breaking rudely over all those delicate
bushes of poetry, and trampling down the sweetest
roses in the field of literature. The prettily
turned expressions, which should have been carefully
breathed upon the audience, with a softened
voice and pensive eye, were bawled out in an unvaried,
monotonous tone of voice, and a face as

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

passionless as a barber's block. The whole play was
destroyed.

“ `There was nip, and snip, and cut, and slish,
and slash,' till the first act ended, and then was a
slight hiss. `Cold drops of sweat stood on my
trembling flesh;' but I pulled my hat fiercely over
my beating brow, and, angry and desperate, prepared
for the brooding storm. On my mountain
scene I laid my principal dependence; and if that
failed me, `then welcome despair.' At last it came:
there was the dungeon and a man in it, with a
wig, which covered the greatest part of his real hair,
and a face sublimely cut and slashed over with a
piece of coal. Instead of the beautiful countenance
which had gleamed upon me in my poetic vision,
there was a thin, hump-backed little fellow, with a
tremendous pair of red whiskers, and a pug nose!
My fac-simile of Sir William Wallace with red
whiskers and a pug nose!! Sir, it threw me into
one of the most violent fevers I ever had. Besides
all these, `his face was dirty, and his hands unwashed;
' and he proceeded to give such a bombastic
flourish of his arm, and his voice rose to such a
high pitch, that he was hailed with loud laughter,
and shouts of `Make a bow, Johnny—make a bow,'
till my head reeled in delirious despair.

“But the language and stage effect might redeem
the errors of the actor, and I remained in a
delightful agony for the result. Lazy time at length
brought it upon the stage; but oh, ye gods! what
a fall was there! As the thunder-cloud and genius

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

were floating gracefully down, one of the ropes
cracked, and the enchanter of the cavern hurt his
nose against the floor, notwithstanding a huge
pair of gilt pasteboard wings, which spread themselves
at his shoulders. He got up, however, and
went on till the explosion was to have taken
place: then he waved his wand, with an air
which was not intended to have been resisted;
but, miserabile dictu! the crack would not open,
and Bamaloosa trotted off by one of the side-scenes,
amidst hoots of derision from every part of
the house.

“The green curtain fell. A universal hiss, from
`the many-headed monster of the pit,' rung heavily
in my ears. I had seen my poor play murdered
and damned in one night, and it was enough to
quench all future hopes of literary eminence. I
rushed, desperate, from the spot, not choosing to
stay for the farce; and, in the confusion of unsuccessful
genius, I kicked two little red-headed fellows
into the gutter for asking of me a check.

“In the anguish of my disappointment, I dreamed
a combination of every thing horrible, to tantalize
and terrify my poor, tired brain; and I arose with a
head-ach and a heart-ach, and no very great opinion
of any one in the world, but myself.

“You have convinced me that generosity has
not taken French leave of every bosom, and I shall
always look back upon the moments I have spent
with you as bright exceptions to those of my past
life. And, now,” continued he, pocketing the

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

remaining bone, putting a couple of potatoes in his
bosom, and taking a long draught of wine—“and
now, I trust, we are square: you have provided me
a dinner, and I have treated you to `a feast of
reason and a flow of soul.' If I see you again, `I
shall remember you were bountiful;' if not, God
bless you and yours.”

He gave me a hearty shake by the hand, and
darted from the room. I caught a glimpse of his
figure as he passed the window—and saw the poor
author no more.