very low. “Did you not think him remarkably well-behaved?'—He was unexceptionably dressed. “But were not Mr. C{{{1}}}’s manners quite insinuating?”—He said nothing. “You will at least allow his friend to be a well-informed man.”—He talked upon all subjects alike. Such would be a pretty faithful interpretation of the tone of what is called good society. The surface is everything; we do not pierce to the core. The setting is more valuable than the jewel. Is it not so in other things as well as letters? Is not an R. A. by the supposition a greater man in his profession than any one who is not so blazoned? Compared with that unrivalled list, Raphael had been illegitimate, Claude not classical, and Michael Angelo admitted by special favour. What is a physician without a diploma? An alderman without being knighted? An actor whose name does not appear in great letters? All others are counterfeits—men “of no mark or likelihood.” This was what made the Jackals of the North so eager to prove that I had been turned out of the Edinburgh Review. It was not the merit of the articles which excited their spleen—but their being there. Of the style they knew nothing; for the thought they cared nothing:—all that they knew was
