On this point we have only to remember the melancholy experience of Robert Burns, who, after having been flattered and feasted by certain individuals who were, in an ephemeral sense, influential for the time being, either through their rank or their wealth, was afterwards shamefully neglected by them, and finally, notwithstanding the various social attentions and courtesy he had at one time received, he was left, when ill and dying, in such extremity as to be compelled to implore his publisher for the loan of five pounds! What had become of all his wealthy and “influential” friends? Why they were exactly where all “influential” persons would be now in a similar case--“otherwise engaged” when their help is needed. Nothing can well be more deplorable than the position of any author who depends for success on a clique of “distinguished” or “society” persons. He or she has exchanged independence for slavery--the nectar of the gods for a base mess of pottage--and the true “happiness” of the Life Literary for a mere miserable restlessness and constant craving after fresh excitement, which gradually breeds nervous troubles, and disturbs that fine and even balance of brain without which no clear or convincing thought is possible. Again, authors who deliberately prostitute their talents to the writing of lewd matter unfit to be handled by cleanly-minded men and women need never hope to possess that happy and studious peace which comes from the Pure intent to do the best Purely--and leave to God the rest. For the highest satisfaction in the Life Literary is to think that perhaps, in a fortunate or inspired moment, one may have written at least a sentence, a line, a verse, that may carry comfort and a sense of beauty to the sorrowful, or hope to the forlorn; while surely the greatest pang would be to know that one had cast the already despairing soul into a lower depth of degradation, or caused the sinner to revel more consciously in his sin.