either from fear of his superior knowledge, as the critic's vanity
suggested, or from (what was equally likely) want of a word to express
his meaning.

"Why, I was thinking, sir," said Paul, with that desperate courage which
gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or
think they set, their fate upon a cast,--"I was thinking that I should
like to become a critic myself!"

"W-h-e-w!" whistled MacGrawler, elevating his eyebrows; "w-h-e-w! great
ends have come of less beginnings!"

Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from the lips of so
great a man and so great a critic, at the very moment too when nothing
short of an anathema against arrogance and presumption was expected to
issue from those portals of wisdom, yet such is the fallacy of all human
hopes, that Paul's of a surety would have been a little less elated, had
he, at the same time his ears drank in the balm of these gracious words,
been able to have dived into the source whence they emanated.

"Know thyself!" was a precept the sage MacGrawler had endeavoured to
obey; consequently the result of his obedience was that even by himself
he was better known than trusted. Whatever he might appear to others, he
had in reality no vain faith in the infallibility of his own talents and
resources; as well might a butcher deem himself a perfect anatomist from
the frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of "The
Asinaeum" have laid "the flattering unction to his soul" that he was
really skilled in the art of criticism, or even acquainted with one of
its commonest rules, because he could with all speed cut up and disjoint
any work, from the smallest to the greatest, from the most superficial to