All which is nothing to Us, but what does it lead to? "Him W ... son follow'd"-- Why those dots, Mr. Landor? "Him W ... son follow'd, of congenial quill, As near the dirt and no less prone to ill. Walcot, of English heart, had English pen, Buffoon he might be, but for hire was none; Nor plumed and mounted in Professor's chair Offer'd to grin for wages at a fair." The rest is too foul-mouthed for repetition. You are a man of nasty ideas, Mr. Landor. You append a note, in which, without any authority but common rumour, you exhibit the learned Professor as an important contributor to Blackwood, especially in those graces of delicate wit so attractive to his subcribers. You declare, too, that we fight under cover, and only for spite and pay; that honester and wiser satirists were brave, that-- "Their courteous soldiership, outshining ours, Mounted the engine and took aim from towers;" But that "From putrid ditches we more safely fight, And push our zig-zag parallels by night." Again, at page 19-- "The Gentleman's, the Lady's we have seen, Now blusters forth the Blackguard's Magazine; And (Heaven from joint-stock companies protect us!) Dustman and nightman issue their prospectus." _Landor (who has sate listening, with a broad grin, while Mr. North was getting rather red in the face_.)--Really, Mr. North, considering that you have followed the trade of a currier for the last thirty years, you are remarkably sensitive to any little experiment on your own skin. Put what has my unpublished satire to do with our present affair? _North_.--The answer to that question I will borrow from the satire itself, as you choose to term your scurrilous lampoon. Our present affair, then, is to consider whether Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversation writer, in rushlight emulation of the wax-candles that illumine our Noctes, shall be raised, as he aspires, to the dignity of Fellow of the _Blackwood_ Society. In the note at page 13 of the said lampoon, you state that "Lord Byron declared that no gentleman could write in _Blackwood_;" and you ask, "Has this assertion been ever disproved by experiment?" Now, Mr. Landor, as you have thus adopted and often re-echoed Lord Byron's opinion, that _no gentleman could write in Blackwood_, and yet wish to enrol yourself among our writers, what is the inference? _Landor_. That I confess myself no gentleman, _you_ would infer. _I_ make no such confession. I would disprove Byron's assertion, by making the experiment.