"This carelessness about the goods of fortune is an infirmity very naturally resulting from their studies, and is only to be cured by years and experience; or by a combination--very rare, indeed--of poetical genius with a more than ordinary share of that homely endowment COMMON SENSE." BULLER. Speak louder--yet that might not be easy. I feel the want of an ear-trumpet, for you do drop your voice so at the end of sentences. TALBOYS. "A few exceptions"-- BULLER. Stentor's alive again--oh! that I were head over ears in a bale of cotton. TALBOYS. "A few exceptions to these observations may undoubtedly be found, but they are so very few, as, by their singularity, to confirm rather than weaken the general fact. In proof of this, we need only appeal to the sad details recorded by Dr Johnson in his Lives of the Poets." BULLER. Skip--skip--skip-- SEWARD. Skip--skip--skip-- TALBOYS. May I, sir? NORTH. You may. TALBOYS. "Considered in its moral effects on the mind, one of the most unfortunate consequences to be apprehended from the cultivation of a poetical talent, is its tendency, by cherishing a puerile and irritable vanity, to weaken the force, and to impair the independence of character. Whoever limits his exertions to the gratification of others, whether by personal exhibition, as in the case of the actor and mimic, or by those kinds of literary composition which are calculated for no end but to please or to entertain, renders himself, in some measure, dependent on their caprices and humours." BULLER. Skip--skip--skip-- TALBOYS. "In all the other departments of literature besides, to please is only a secondary object. It is the primary one of poetry. Hence that timidity of temper, and restless and unmanly desire of praise, and that dependence on the capricious applause of the multitude, which so often detract from the personal dignity of those whose productions do honour to human nature." NORTH.