man to whose dauntless courage, above all others, the marvellous
victory of Pilferabad was due? Speak to him on military matters,
and you will find the old warrior as shy as a school-girl; but only
mention the word poetry, and you'll have him reciting his ballads and
odes to you by the dozen, and declaiming for hours together about the
obtuseness of the publishing fraternity.

I don't speak now of literary men who value themselves above LAMB,
DICKENS, and THACKERAY, rolled into one; nor of artists who sneer at
TITIAN; nor of actors who hold GARRICK to be absurdly overrated. Space
would fail me, and patience you. But let me just for a brief moment
call to your mind ROLAND PRETTYMAN. Upon my soul, I think ROLAND the
most empty-headed fribble, the most affected coxcomb, and the most
conceited noodle in the whole world. He was decently good-looking
once, and he had a pretty knack of sketching in water-colours.

But oh, the huge, distorted, overweening conceit of the man! I have
seen him lying full length on a couch, waving a scented handkerchief
amongst a crowd of submissive women, who were grovelling round him,
while he enlarged in his own pet jargon on the surpassing merits
of his latest unpublished essay, or pointed out the beauties of the
trifling pictures which were the products of his ineffective brush.
He will never accomplish anything, and yet to the end of his life,
I fancy, he will have his circle of toadies and flatterers who will
pretend to accept him as the evangelist of a glorious literary and
artistic gospel. For unfortunately he is as rich as he is impudent
and incompetent. And when he drives out in a Hansom he never ceases to
simper at his reflected image in the little corner looking-glasses, by
means of which modern cab-proprietors pander to the weakness of men.
Such is your handiwork, my excellent VANITY. Are you proud of it?