Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Time.
fresh channels of selfishness and avarice , and woven new meshes in the law whereby more dexterously to ruin one another . Nevertheless , to 1855 we repeat our gratitude . It has swamped a series of bad reviews in the great daily metropolitan journal ; .
it has emptied our basket of much poetry contributed by Misses of Sixteen ; it has cleared off engagements by the score ; it has given us no legacies , but paid several bills ; it has afforded us fresh experience of the falsity of great men ' s promises ; of the facility with which " our dear friend" whom we served
ninety-nine times , rubs out the debt of gratitude because we could not oblige him with more money for the hundredth . It has , besides , amused us vastly by exhibiting the pageantry of " tinkers and tailors , and candlestick makers , " dressed up in court suits , like hogs in armour , and straining which should bow lowest to lords ,
princes , et hoc genus omne : by urging the daughter of Lord Highnose to prefer happiness with a poor tutor , to pompous misery with a noble rake , of constitution broken at twenty-eight , or with a withered senility old enough to be her grandsire , and redolent of check-books and cataplasms . ¥ e have laughed to see how " vaulting ambition doth o ' erleap itself ; " how fine feathers make fine
birds ; to hear a speech applauded though only the echo of two ideas wrangling with each other in an unfurnished head , and both wrong , provided that ornamental appendage to the human figure , used for shaking , hanging a hat on , or taking snuff , be only surmounted with a coronet or a mitre . So we shake hands with the Past Year , and only hope—( alas ! fallacious hope !) that its lessons may be practically learned and enunciated by its successor .
But how ? Ay , " there ' s the rub , " as Hamlet says . Not by letting church dignitaries legislate for themselves , and enact oppressive laws in the House of Peers , whereby to " belord" it over the unrepresented clergy , but by making the bishops exhibit in their lives the beauty of those admirable precepts they now reserve for
their charges . Not by letting Government patrons , cabinet officers , give all patronage to their own family , their partizan hacks , but by submitting official appointments to public scrutiny in parliament or in committee . Not by peace-mongers trading in the great interests of the nation , like lawyers ready to take any side for 6 s . 8 dL but
bycontrolling such venality with a stanch resolution of public opinion . Not by sacrificing the genius of the nation ( if it has any now left ) to plagiarists , robbers of young authors' MSS ., and to publishers ' " readers !''•—save the misnomer!—who can 1 lardhy spell or write . Not by private persons of influence being apathetic as to whether ministers encourage talent , but by showing a determination to rescue Mind
from obscurity , and to lessen , by individual interference , the heirloom of knaves and fools with which we threaten to overwhelm posterity . How many works , unread , of men of genius ; how many labours for distinction , wrought at midnight and in a garret , on a " crust , by the vexed brain of unpatronized , unsoiight-for intellect ; aye ! how many broken hopes , the young opening leaves of a nation ' s future great-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Time.
fresh channels of selfishness and avarice , and woven new meshes in the law whereby more dexterously to ruin one another . Nevertheless , to 1855 we repeat our gratitude . It has swamped a series of bad reviews in the great daily metropolitan journal ; .
it has emptied our basket of much poetry contributed by Misses of Sixteen ; it has cleared off engagements by the score ; it has given us no legacies , but paid several bills ; it has afforded us fresh experience of the falsity of great men ' s promises ; of the facility with which " our dear friend" whom we served
ninety-nine times , rubs out the debt of gratitude because we could not oblige him with more money for the hundredth . It has , besides , amused us vastly by exhibiting the pageantry of " tinkers and tailors , and candlestick makers , " dressed up in court suits , like hogs in armour , and straining which should bow lowest to lords ,
princes , et hoc genus omne : by urging the daughter of Lord Highnose to prefer happiness with a poor tutor , to pompous misery with a noble rake , of constitution broken at twenty-eight , or with a withered senility old enough to be her grandsire , and redolent of check-books and cataplasms . ¥ e have laughed to see how " vaulting ambition doth o ' erleap itself ; " how fine feathers make fine
birds ; to hear a speech applauded though only the echo of two ideas wrangling with each other in an unfurnished head , and both wrong , provided that ornamental appendage to the human figure , used for shaking , hanging a hat on , or taking snuff , be only surmounted with a coronet or a mitre . So we shake hands with the Past Year , and only hope—( alas ! fallacious hope !) that its lessons may be practically learned and enunciated by its successor .
But how ? Ay , " there ' s the rub , " as Hamlet says . Not by letting church dignitaries legislate for themselves , and enact oppressive laws in the House of Peers , whereby to " belord" it over the unrepresented clergy , but by making the bishops exhibit in their lives the beauty of those admirable precepts they now reserve for
their charges . Not by letting Government patrons , cabinet officers , give all patronage to their own family , their partizan hacks , but by submitting official appointments to public scrutiny in parliament or in committee . Not by peace-mongers trading in the great interests of the nation , like lawyers ready to take any side for 6 s . 8 dL but
bycontrolling such venality with a stanch resolution of public opinion . Not by sacrificing the genius of the nation ( if it has any now left ) to plagiarists , robbers of young authors' MSS ., and to publishers ' " readers !''•—save the misnomer!—who can 1 lardhy spell or write . Not by private persons of influence being apathetic as to whether ministers encourage talent , but by showing a determination to rescue Mind
from obscurity , and to lessen , by individual interference , the heirloom of knaves and fools with which we threaten to overwhelm posterity . How many works , unread , of men of genius ; how many labours for distinction , wrought at midnight and in a garret , on a " crust , by the vexed brain of unpatronized , unsoiight-for intellect ; aye ! how many broken hopes , the young opening leaves of a nation ' s future great-