you think, my friend, that you might have been better employed?  Here, in my Saturday Review, and in an American paper subsequently sent to me, I light, astonished, on an account of the dinners of my friend and publisher, which are described as “tremendously heavy,” of the conversation (which does not take place), and of the guests assembled at the table.  I am informed that the proprietor of the Cornhill, and the host on these occasions, is “a very good man, but totally unread;” and that on my asking him whether Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he said, “God bless my soul, my dear sir, there’s no person by the name of Johnson here, nor any one behind the screen,” and that a roar of laughter cut him short.  I am informed by the same New York correspondent that I have touched up a contributor’s article; that I once said to a literary gentleman, who was proudly pointing to an anonymous article as his writing, “Ah!  I thought I recognized your Hoof in it.”  I am told by the same authority that the Cornhill Magazine “shows symptoms of being on the wane,” and having sold nearly a hundred thousand copies, he (the correspondent) “should think forty thousand was now about the mark.”  Then the graceful writer passes on to the dinners, at which it appears the Editor of the Magazine “is the great gun, and comes out with all the geniality in his power.”

Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue?  Suppose the publisher (to recall the words of my friend the Dublin actor of last month) is a gentleman to the full as well informed as those whom he invites to his table?  Suppose he never made the remark, beginning—­“God bless my soul, my dear sir,” nor anything resembling it?  Suppose nobody roared with laughing?  Suppose the Editor of the Cornhill Magazine never “touched up” one single line of the contribution which bears “marks of his hand?” Suppose he never said to any literary gentleman, “I recognized your Hoof” in any periodical whatever?  Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which the writer to New York “considered to be about the mark,” should be between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there they are)?  Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and untrue, would any one wonder?  Ah! if we had only enjoyed the happiness to number this writer among the contributors to our Magazine, what a cheerfulness and easy confidence his presence would impart to our meetings!  He would find that “poor Mr. Smith” had heard that recondite anecdote of Dr. Johnson behind the screen; and as for “the great gun of those banquets,” with what geniality should not I “come out” if I had an amiable companion close by me, dotting down my conversation for the New York Times!