BABBALANJA—Probably some one who lived in Lombardo’s time, and went by that name. He is incidentally mentioned, and cursorily immortalized in one of the posthumous notes to the Koztanza. MEDIA—What is said of him there? BABBALANJA—Not much. In a very old transcript of the work—that of Aldina—the note alludes to a brave line in the text, and runs thus:— “Diverting to tell, it was this passage that an old prosodist, one Pollo, claimed for his own. He maintained he made a free-will offering of it to Lombardo. Several things are yet extant of this Pollo, who died some weeks ago. He seems to have been one of those, who would do great things if they could; but are content to compass the small. He imagined, that the precedence of authors he had established in his library, was their Mardi order of merit. He condemned the sublime poems of Vavona to his lowermost shelf. ‘Ah,’ thought he, ‘how we library princes, lord it over these beggarly authors!’ Well read in the history of their woes, Pollo pitied them all, particularly the famous; and wrote little essays of his own, which he read to himself.” MEDIA—Well: and what said Lombardo to those good friends of his,— Zenzori, Hanto, and Roddi? BABBALANJA—Nothing. Taking home his manuscript, he glanced it over; making three corrections. ABRAZZA—And what then? BABBALANJA—Then, your Highness, he thought to try a conclave of professional critics; saying to himself, “Let them privately point out to me, now, all my blemishes; so that, what time they come to review me in public, all will be well.” But curious to relate, those professional critics, for the most part, held their peace, concerning a work yet unpublished. And, with some generous exceptions, in their vague, learned way, betrayed such base, beggarly notions of authorship, that Lombardo could have wept, had tears been his. But in his very grief, he ground his teeth. Muttered he, “They are fools. In their eyes, bindings not brains make books. They criticise my tattered cloak, not my soul, caparisoned like a charger. He is the great author, think they, who drives the best bargain with his wares: and no bargainer am I. Because he is old, they worship some mediocrity of an ancient, and mock at the living prophet with the live coal on his lips. They are men who would not be men, had they no books. Their sires begat them not; but the authors they have read. Feelings they have none: and their very opinions they borrow. They can not say yea, nor nay, without first consulting all Mardi as an Encyclopedia. And all the learning in them, is as a dead corpse in a coffin. Were they worthy the dignity of being damned, I would damn them; but they are not. Critics?—Asses! rather mules!—so emasculated, from vanity, they can not father a true thought. Like mules, too, from dunghills, they trample down gardens of roses: and deem that crushed fragrance their own.—Oh! that all round the domains of genius should lie thus unhedged, for such cattle to uproot!