“Miserable work, indeed! I have got a pamphlet on the West India Question sent me this morning. Do you know any raving lawyer, any mad Master in Chancery, or something of the kind, who meddles in these affairs?” “Oh! Stephen! a puddle in a storm! He is for a crusade for the regeneration of the Antilles; the most forcible of feebles, the most energetic of drivellers; Velluti acting Pietro l’Eremita.” “Do you know, by any chance, whether Southey’s Vindiciae is out yet? I wanted to look it over during the holidays.” “Not out, though it has been advertised some time; but what do you expect?” “Nay, it is an interesting controversy, as controversies go. Not exactly Milton and Salmasius; but fair enough.” “I do not know. It has long degenerated into a mere personal bickering between the Laureate and Butler. Southey is, of course, revelling in the idea of writing an English work with a Latin title! and that, perhaps, is the only circumstance for which the controversy is prolonged.” “But Southey, after all, is a man of splendid talents.” “Doubtless; the most philosophical of bigots, and the most poetical of prose writers.” “Apropos to the Catholic Question, there goes Colonial Bother’em trying to look like Prince Metternich; a decided failure.” “What can keep him in town?” “Writing letters, I suppose, Heaven preserve me from receiving any of them!” “Is it true, then, that his letters are of the awful length that is whispered?” “True! Oh! they are something beyond all conception! Perfect epistolary Boa Constrictors. I speak with feeling, for I have myself suffered under their voluminous windings.” “Have you seen his quarto volume: ‘The Cure for the Catholic Question?’” “Yes.” “If you have it, lend it to me. What kind of thing is it?” “Oh! what should it be! ingenious and imbecile. He advises the Catholics, in the old nursery language, to behave like good boys; to open their mouths and shut their eyes, and see what God will send them.” “Well, that is the usual advice. Is there nothing more characteristic of the writer?” “What think you of a proposition of making Jockey of Norfolk Patriarch of England, and of an ascertained _credo_ for our Catholic fellow-subjects? Ingenious, is not it?” “Have you seen Puff’s new volume of Ariosto?” “I have. What could possibly have induced Mr. Partenopex Puff to have undertaken such a duty? Mr. Puff is a man destitute of poetical powers, possessing no vigour of language, and gifted with no happiness of expression. His translation is hard, dry, and husky, as the outside of a cocoanut. I am amused to see the excellent tact with which the public has determined not to read his volumes, in spite of the incessant exertions of a certain set to ensure their popularity; but the time has gone by when the smug coterie could create a reputation.” “Do you think the time ever existed, Cleveland?”