For myself, I confess that my reading in this line, though greatly beyond what was agreeable to my taste, has never approached anything that deserved the name of study; and, indeed, I should as soon have thought of forming an estimate of the "existing state of human intelligence" from the height to which the boys of Paris made their kites mount from the top of Montmartre, as from the compositions to which he alluded: but, nevertheless, I listened to him very attentively; and I only wish that my memory would serve me, that I might repeat to you all the fine things he said in praise of a multitude of authors, of whom, however, it is more than probable you never heard, and of works that it is hardly possible you should have ever seen. It would be difficult to give you any just idea of the energy and enthusiasm which he manifested on this subject. His eyes almost started from his head, and the blood rushed over his face and temples, when one of the party hinted that the taste in which most of these works were composed was not of the most classic elegance, nor their apparent object any very high degree of moral utility. It is a well-known fact that people are seldom angry when they are quite in the right; and I believe it is equally rare to see such an extremity of vehemence as this individual displayed in asserting the high intellectual claims of his favourites exhibited on any question where reason and truth are on the side espoused by the speaker. I never saw the veins of the forehead swell in an attempt to prove that "Hamlet" was a fine tragedy, or that "Ivanhoe" was a fine romance; but on this occasion most of the company shrank into silence before the impassioned pleadings of this advocate for ... modern French historiettes.