were written. The author might do better,--we recommend him a study of
the best writers;' then conclude by a Latin quotation, which you may take
from one of the mottoes in the 'Spectator.'

"Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the metaphorical tickle: 'We beg
this poetical aspirant to remember the fate of Pyrenaeus, who, attempting
to pursue the Muses, forgot that he had not the wings of the goddesses,
flung himself from the loftiest ascent he could reach, and perished.'

"This you see, Paul, is a loftier and more erudite sort of tickle, and
may be reserved for one of the Quarterly Reviews. Never throw away a
simile unnecessarily.

"Now for a sample of the facetious tickle: 'Mr.---has obtained a
considerable reputation! Some fine ladies think him a great philosopher,
and he has been praised in our hearing by some Cambridge Fellows for his
knowledge of fashionable society.'

"For this sort of tickle we generally use the dullest of our tribe; and I
have selected the foregoing example from the criticisms of a
distinguished writer in 'The Asinaeum,' whom we call, _par excellence,
the_ Ass.

"There is a variety of other tickles,--the familiar, the vulgar, the
polite, the good-natured, the bitter; but in general all tickles may be
supposed to signify, however disguised, one or other of these meanings:
'This book would be exceedingly good if it were not exceedingly bad;' or,
'this book would be exceedingly bad if it were not exceedingly good.'

"You have now, Paul, a general idea of the superior art required by the