with some spirit. "That is what makes him a poet. I suppose that he
sees and feels more keenly: it is that which makes him speak of what
he feels and sees. You speak eagerly enough in your leading articles
when you espy a false argument in an opponent, or detect a quack in
the House. Paley, who does not care for any thing else in the world,
will talk for an hour about a question of law. Give another the
privilege which you take yourself, and the free use of his faculty,
and let him be what nature has made him. Why should not a man sell his
sentimental thoughts as well as you your political ideas, or Paley his
legal knowledge? Each alike is a matter of experience and practice. It
is not money which causes you to perceive a fallacy, or Paley to argue
a point; but a natural or acquired aptitude for that kind of truth:
and a poet sets down his thoughts and experiences upon paper as a
painter does a landscape or a face upon canvas, to the best of his
ability, and according to his particular gift. If ever I think I have
the stuff in me to write an epic, by Jove, I will try. If I only feel
that I am good enough to crack a joke or tell a story, I will
do that."

"Not a bad speech, young one," Warrington said, "but that does not
prevent all poets from being humbugs."

"What--Homer, Aeschylus, Shakspeare, and all?"

"Their names are not to be breathed in the same sentence with you
pigmies," Mr. Warrington said; "there are men and men, sir."

"Well, Shakspeare was a man who wrote for money, just as you and I
do," Pen answered, at which Warrington confounded his impudence, and
resumed his pipe and his manuscript.