The truth is, that the good and clever and _polyphloisboic_ writers have too long monopolized the attention of the world, so that the little, well-intentioned, humble, and stupid plebeians of the guild have been snubbed out of sight. Somebody--the name is not given, but I shrewdly suspect Canon Smith--wrote to Sir James Mackintosh,--"Why do you not write three volumes quarto? You only want this to be called the greatest man of your time. People are all disposed to admit anything we say of you, but I think it unsafe and indecent to put you so high without something in quarto." This was, of course, half fun and half truth. As there is, however, little need of setting the world on fire to demonstrate some chemical theory, so it is possible that the flame of culture may be cherished without kindling a conflagration, and truth transmitted from sire to son without the construction of edificial monsters too big for the knees, too abstruse for the brains, and too great for the lifetime of humanity. I am not a very constant reader of Mr. Robert Browning, but I own to many a pleasant grin over his Sibrandus Schafnabrugensis dropped into the crevice of the plum-tree, and afterward pitifully reclaimed, and carried to its snug niche with the promise,-- "A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay; And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment Day!" How often, when one is roving through a library in search of adventures, is he encountered by some inflated champion of huge proportions, who turns out to be no better than a barber, after all! Gazing upon "That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid, Those ample clasps, of solid metal made, The close-pressed leaves, unloosed for many an age, The dull red edging of the well-filled page, On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, Where yet the title stands, in burnished gold,"-- what wisdom, what wit, what profundity, what vastness of knowledge, what a grand gossip concerning all things, and more beside, did we anticipate, only to find the promise broken, and a big impostor with no more muscle than the black drone who fills the pipes and sentries the seraglio of the Sophi or the Sultan! The big, burly beggars! For a century nobody has read them, and therefore everybody has admitted them to be great. They are bulky paradoxes, and find a good reputation in neglect,--as some fools pass for philosophers by preserving a close mouth and a grave countenance. "Safe in themselves, the ponderous works remain."