If you have a son or daughter inclinable to the folly of Authorship, pray warn them by my example of the mortifications which are the constant attendants upon it. I do not advert to the trite instances of unfair and malignant reviewing, though that is not nothing--but to the mortifications they may expect from their friends and common acquaintance. I have been a dabler this way, and cannot resist flinging out my thoughts occasionally in periodical publications. I was the chief support of the * * * * * * * * * Magazine while it lasted, under the signature of OLINDO. All my friends guessed, or rather knew, who OLINDO was; but I never knew one who did not take a pleasure in affecting to be ignorant of it. One would ask me, whether I had read that clever article in the * * * * * * * * * Magazine of this month (and here I began to prick up my ears) signed "ZEKIEL HOMESPUN."--(Then my ears would flap down again.)--Another would praise the verses of "X. Y. Z.;" a third stood up for the "Gipsy Stranger;" a long rambling tale in prose, with all the lengthiness, and none of the fine-heartedness and gush of soul of A----n C----m to recommend it. But never in a single instance was Olindo ever hinted at. I have sifted, I have pumped them (as the vulgar phrase is) till my heart ached, to extort a pittance of acknowledgment. I have descended to arts below any animal but _an Author_, who is veritably the meanest of Heaven's creatures, and my vanity has returned upon myself ungratified, to choke me. When I could bear their silence no longer and have ventured to ask them how they liked "such a Paper;" a cold, "O! was that yours?" is the utmost I ever obtained from them. A fellow sits at my desk this morning, spelling _The New Times_ over from head to tail, and I know that he will purposely skip over this article, because he suspects me to be LEPUS. So confident am I of this, and of his deliberate purpose to torment me, that I have a great mind to give you his character--knowing that he will not read it--but I forbear him at present. They have two ways of doing it. "The * * * * * * * * * Magazine is very sprightly this month, Anticlericus has some good hits, the Old Baker is capital," and so forth. Or the same Magazine is "unusually dull this month," especially when Olindo happens to have an article better or longer than usual. I publish a book now and then. In the very nick of its novelty, the honey moon, as it were--when with pride I have placed my bantling on my own shelves in company with its betters, a friend will drop in, and ask me if I have anything new; then, carefully eluding mine, he will take down _The Angel of the World_, or _Barry Cornwall_, and beg me to lend it him. "He is particularly careful of new books." But he never borrows _me_. To one Lady I lent a little Novel of mine, a thing of about two hours' reading at most, and she returned it after five weeks' keeping, with an apology that she had "so