The Art-public, the Spirit, I might, perhaps, leave altogether out of consideration; the few who have a taste, not only for all kinds of taste, and for the taste of all nations, but for higher, almost cosmopolitan beauties, such as Herder, Goethe, Lessing, Wieland and one or two more--an author has little need to trouble himself about _their_ votes, they are in such a minority, and moreover, they don't read him. At all events, they don't deserve the dedication with which I, at the fireside, came to the conclusion that I would bribe the great Buying-public, which is, of course, what keeps the book trade going. I resolved, in fact, regularly to dedicate my 'Hesperus,' or the 'Kuhschnappler Siebenkæs,' to Jacob Oehrmann; and through him, as it were, to the Buying-public. To wit, in this way:-- Jacob Oehrmann is not a man to be despised, I can tell you. He served as porter of the Stock Exchange in Amsterdam for four years, and rang the Exchange bell from 11.45 till 12 o'clock. Soon after this, by scraping and pinching, he _became_ a "pretty rich house" (though he _kept_ a very poor one), and rose to the dignity of seal-keeper of a whole collection of knightly seals pasted on to noble, escheated, promises to pay. True, like celebrated authors, he assumed no municipal offices, preferring to do nothing but write; but the town militia of Scheerau, whose hearts are always in the right place (that is to say, the safest), and who bravely exhibit themselves to passing troops as a watchful corps of _observation_, insisted upon making him their captain, though he would have been quite content to have been nothing but their cloth contractor. He is honest enough, particularly in his dealings with the mercantile world; and, far from burning the laws of the Church, like Luther, all he burns even of the municipal law is a title or two of the Seventh Commandment, indeed, he only _makes_ a _beginning_ at burning them, as the Vienna censorship does with prohibited books; and even this only in the cases of carriers, debtors, and people of rank. Before a man of this stamp I can, without any qualms of conscience, burn a little sweet-smelling incense, and make his Dutch face appear magnified, to some extent, like a spectre's through magic vapour.