Montesinos.—­“—­meritoque probas artesque locumque.”

The simile of the bees,

“Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes,”

has often been applied to men who have made literature their profession; and they among them to whom worldly wealth and worldly honours are objects of ambition, may have reason enough to acknowledge its applicability.  But it will bear a happier application and with equal fitness:  for, for whom is the purest honey hoarded that the bees of this world elaborate, if it be not for the man of letters?  The exploits of the kings and heroes of old, serve now to fill story-books for his amusement and instruction.  It was to delight his leisure and call forth his admiration that Homer sung and Alexander conquered.  It is to gratify his curiosity that adventurers have traversed deserts and savage countries, and navigators have explored the seas from pole to pole.  The revolutions of the planet which he inhabits are but matters for his speculation; and the deluges and conflagrations which it has undergone, problems to exercise his philosophy, or fancy.  He is the inheritor of whatever has been discovered by persevering labour, or created by inventive genius.  The wise of all ages have heaped up a treasure for him, which rust doth not corrupt, and which thieves cannot break through and steal.  I must leave out the moth, for even in this climate care is required against its ravages.

Sir Thomas More.—­Yet, Montesinos, how often does the worm-eaten volume outlast the reputation of the worm-eaten author!

Montesinos.—­Of the living one also; for many there are of whom it may be said, in the words of Vida, that —

“—­ipsi Saepe suis superant monumentis; illaudatique Extremum ante diem faetus flevere caducos, Viventesque suae viderunt funera famae.”

Some literary reputations die in the birth; a few are nibbled to death by critics, but they are weakly ones that perish thus, such only as must otherwise soon have come to a natural death.  Somewhat more numerous are those which are overfed with praise, and die of the surfeit.  Brisk reputations, indeed, are like bottled twopenny, or pop “they sparkle, are exhaled, and fly”—­not to heaven, but to the Limbo.  To live among books, is in this respect like living among the tombs; you have in them speaking remembrancers of mortality.  “Behold this also is vanity!”

Sir Thomas More.—­Has it proved to you “vexation of spirit” also?

Montesinos.—­Oh, no! for never can any man’s life have been passed more in accord with his own inclinations, nor more answerably to his own desires.  Excepting that peace which, through God’s infinite mercy, is derived from a higher source, it is to literature, humanly speaking, that I am beholden, not only for the means of subsistence, but for every blessing which I enjoy; health of mind and activity of mind, contentment, cheerfulness, continual employment, and therewith