whom--directly or indirectly--he receives head-money. It is possible, of
course, that one particular sergeant may be drunken, or careless of his
own interests, but in that case the literary recruit has only to apply
next door. The opportunities for action in the field of literature are
now so very numerous that it is impossible that any able volunteer
should be long shut out of it; and I have observed that the complaints
about want of employment come almost solely from those unfit for
service. Nay, in the ranks of the literaryarmy there are very many who
should have been excluded. Few, if any, are there through favour; but
the fact is, the work to be done is so extensive and so varied, that
there is not a sufficiency of good candidates to do it. And of what is
called 'skilled labour' among them there is scarcely any.

The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor to an aspirant,
generally astonishes him very much. The aspirant is ready to do
anything, he says, which the other will please to suggest. 'But what is
your line in literature? What can you do best--not tragedies in blank
verse, I hope?' Perhaps the aspirant here hangs his head; he _has_
written tragedies. In which case there is good hope for him, because it
shows a natural bent. But he generally replies that he has written
nothing as yet except that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the
editor has already shaken his head), and that defence of Mary Queen of
Scots. Or perhaps he has written some translations of Horace, which he
is surprised to find not a novelty; or some considerations upon the
value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, in short, he is but an
overgrown schoolboy. He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge of
a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has been taught to
observe nothing; he is ignorant upon all the subjects that interest his
fellow-creatures, and in his new ambition is like one who endeavours to
attract an audience without having anything to tell them. He knows some