I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a mountain inn, with the
'Rambler' and one other publication. The latter was a Shepherd's Guide,
with illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked by their
various owners for the purpose of identification: 'Cropped near ear,
upper key bitted far, a pop on the head and another at the tail head,
ritted, and with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It was
monotonous, but I confess that there were times when I felt it some
comfort in having that picture-book to fall back upon, to alternate
with the 'Rambler.'

The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires age for its due
appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' comprises some admirable essays,
but the general public have not a word to say for them; it may be urged
that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' But why then do
they praise the 'Rambler' and Montaigne? That comforting word,
'Mesopotamia,' which has been so often alluded to in religious matters,
has many a parallel in profane literature.

A good deal of this mock worship is of course due to abject cowardice.
A man who says he doesn't like the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks,
the risk of being thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that,
for something or another, under any circumstances; and, at all events,
why should he not content himself, when the 'Rambler' is belauded, with
holding his tongue and smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that
there are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' a work, of
course, I am merely using as a type of its class. In their young days
it was used as a schoolbook, and thought necessary as a part of polite
education; and as they have read little or nothing since, it is only
reasonable that they should stick to their colours. Indeed, the French
satirist's boast that he could predicate the views of any man with