Southey, — You  cannot  be  accused  of  either  fault :  but  you  demand  too  much,
and  pardon  no  remissness.  However,  you  have  at  no  time  abetted  by  your
example  the  paltry  pelters  of  golden  fruit  paled  out  from  them.
Porson, — Removed  alike  from  the  crowd  and  the  coterie,  I  have  always
avoided,  with  timid  prudence,  the  bird-cage  walk  of  literature.  I  have  with-
holden  from  Herman  and  some  others,  a  part  of  what  is  due  to  them  ;  and  I
regret  it.  Sometimes  I  have  been  arrogant,  never  have  I  been  malicious.
Unhappily,  I  was  educated  in  a  school  of  criticism  where  the  exercises  wero
too  gladiatorial.  Looking  at  my  elders  in  it,  they  appeared  to  roe  so  ugly,  in
part  from  their  contortions,  and  in  part  from  their  scars,  that  I  suspected  it
must  be  a  dangerous  thing  to  wield  a  scourge  of  vipers ;  and  I  thought  it  no
very  creditable  appointment  to  be  linkboy  or  pandar  at  an  alley  leading  down


692  Imaginary  Comfersaiion.  [Dk.
