Ben Jonson called Inigo Jones Sir Lanthorn Leatherhead, but St. Paul's still stands; and how many flies are there in the sparkling amber of "The Dunciad"! Have the critics, poor birdling, torn your wings, and mocked at your recording? I know, as Howell wrote to "Father Ben," that "the fangs of a bear and the tusks of a wild-boar don't bite worse and make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes; no, not the badger himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite that he will not give over his hold until he feels his teeth meet and bone crack." I know all about it, my minstrel boy! for have I not, in my day, given and taken, and shouldered back again when I have been shouldered? Pray, do not finger your eyes any longer! Screw your lyre up to concert pitch, and go on with your stridulous performances! Neither you nor I know how bad may be the taste of our grandchildren, or how high you may stand when they have "Made prostitute and profligate the Muse." If you cannot be a poet, be a poetaster; and if you cannot be that, be a poetess, or "she-poet," as Johnson, in his big dictionary, defines the word. So "gently take all that ungently comes," and hammer away as sedulously as old Boileau. Somebody will, undoubtedly, in the next age, relish your rinsings. A poet, you know, is a prophet. Console yourself by vaticinating in the bower of your bed-chamber, as you count the feet upon your fingers, your own immortality. If 'tis a delusion, 'tis a cheap one, to which even a poet can afford to treat himself. Play with and humor your life, till you fall asleep, and then the care will be over! Meanwhile, you must be more stupid than I think, if you cannot find somebody to give you your fodder of flattery. You need not blush, for I know that you like it, and you need not be ashamed of liking it. We all do,--we are all women in that regard; although the honestest man to confess it that I ever heard of was Sir Godfrey Kneller, who said to Pope, when he was painting his picture, "I can't do so well as I should do, unless you flatter me a little; pray, flatter me, Mr. Pope! You know I love to be flattered."