in any periodical publication; _but that won’t serve the fellow, he must write books forsooth_. His parts are middling, but _his head has got a wrong twist, common sense presides not in his brain_. Dicky would _shine_! To a man that seeks literary distinctions, without great powers and acquirements, an obvious tract is _singularity_. Scribble is a great controverter of established opinions: He does not gainsay them by any ingenuity of hypothesis, but by simple contradiction. He is also a great exclaimer against established, or rising characters, especially in literature; that springs, partly from envy, but chiefly from vanity and self-conceit, or rather from an envy proceeding from vanity and self-conceit.” “What kind of books does he write?” said Mr. Mortimer, “I never heard of his name.”--“He is not eminent, but still he is noted.”--“But his books,” rejoined Mr. Mortimer, “what are they? scissars and paste, I suppose.”--“No; that they ought to be: scissars and paste is the resource of book-manufacturers, without invention or wisdom; but Scribble tries originals, and often spends more time and pains in speaking, (for he is a great coffee-house declaimer,) or in writing paradoxical nonsense, than might by compilation furnish a good-looking fair book for his worthy friend Billy Nincompoop.” “Who the devil is Billy Nincompoop?”--“An undertaker-general in the book-manufactory line. I shall give you some account of him another time: all I can now say is, that he has more journeymen at work than any mailer-manufacturer either at Birmingham or Manchester, and a great deal of work they do, and often very dirty work it is. Billy keeps a very sooty forge.”