Public men in London appear naked at the bar of public opinion; laced coats, ribands, embroidery, titles, avail nothing, because these things are common, and have the common fate of common things, to be cheaply estimated. The eye is satiated with them, they come like shadows, so depart; but they do not feed the eye of the mind; the understanding is not the better for such gingerbread; we are compelled to look out for some more substantial nutriment, and we try the inward man, and test his capacity. Instead of measuring his bumps, like a landsurveyor, we dissect his brain, like an anatomist; we estimate him, whether he be high or low, in whatever department of life, not by what he says he can do, or means to do, but by what he _has_ done. By this test is every man of talent tried in London; this is his grand, his formal difficulty, to get the opportunity of showing what he can do, of being put into circulation, of having the chance of being tested, like a shilling, by the _ring_ of the customer and the _bite_ of the critic; for the opportunity, the chance to edge in, the chink to _wedge_ in, the _purchase_ whereon to work the length of his lever, he must be ever on the watch; for the sunshine blink of encouragement, the April shower of praise, he must await the long winter of "hope deferred" passing away. Patience, the _courage_ of the man of talent, he must exert for many a dreary and unrewarded day; he must see the quack and the pretender lead an undiscerning public by the nose, and say nothing; nor must he exult when the too-long enduring public at length kicks the pretender and the quack into deserved oblivion. From many a door that will hereafter gladly open for him, he must be content to be presently turned away. Many a scanty meal, many a lonely and unfriended evening, in this vast wilderness, must he pass in trying on his armour, and preparing himself for the fight that he still believes _will_ come, and in which his spirit, strong within him, tells him he must conquer. While the night yet shrouds him he must labour, and with patient, and happily for him, if, with religious hope, he watch the first faint glimmerings of the dawning day; for his day, if he is worthy to behold it, will come, and he will yet be recompensed "by that time and chance which happeneth to all." And if his heart fails him, and his coward spirit turns to flee, often as he sits, tearful, in the solitude of his chamber, will the remembrance of the early struggles of the immortals shame that coward spirit. The shade of the sturdy Johnson, hungering, dinnerless, will mutely reproach him for sinking thus beneath the ills that the "scholar's life assail." The kindly-hearted, amiable Goldsmith, pursued to the gates of a prison by a mercenary wretch who fattened upon the produce of that lovely mind, smiling upon him, will bid him be of good cheer. A thousand names, that fondly live in the remembrance of our