Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush [60]
mimber there has told me a hunder times by the smallest computation, of his intense admiration of your talents, and the wonderful sthir they were making in the world. He can't bear a rival. He's mad with envy, hatred, oncharatableness. Look at him, Plush, and look at me. My father was not a juke exactly, nor aven a markis, and see, nevertheliss, to what a pitch I am come. I spare no ixpinse; I'm the iditor of a cople of pariodicals; I dthrive about in me carridge: I dine wid the lords of the land; and why--in the name of the piper that pleed before Mosus, hwy? Because I'm a litherary man. Because I know how to play me cards. Because I'm Docther Larner, in fact, and mimber of every society in and out of Europe. I might have remained all my life in Thrinity Colledge, and never made such an incom as that offered you by Sir Jan; but I came to London--to London, my boy, and now see! Look again at me friend Bullwig. He IS a gentleman, to be sure, and bad luck to 'im, say I; and what has been the result of his litherary labor? I'll tell you what; and I'll tell this gintale society, by the shade of Saint Patrick, they're going to make him a BARINET." "A BARNET, Doctor!" says I; "you don't mean to say they're going to make him a barnet!" "As sure as I've made meself a docthor," says Larner. "What, a baronet, like Sir John?" "The divle a bit else." "And pray what for?" "What faw?" says Bullwig. "Ask the histowy of litwatuwe what faw? Ask Colburn, ask Bentley, ask Saunders and Otley, ask the gweat Bwitish nation, what faw? The blood in my veins comes puwified thwough ten thousand years of chivalwous ancestwy; but that is neither here nor there: my political principles--the equal wights which I have advocated--the gweat cause of fweedom that I have celebwated, are known to all. But this, I confess, has nothing to do with the question. No, the question is this--on the thwone of litewature I stand unwivalled, pwe-eminent; and the Bwitish government, honowing genius in me, compliments the Bwitish nation by lifting into the bosom of the heweditawy nobility, the most gifted member of the democwacy." (The honrabble genlm here sunk down amidst repeated cheers.) "Sir John," says I, "and my lord duke, the words of my rivrint frend Ignatius, and the remarks of the honrabble genlmn who has just sate down, have made me change the detummination which I had the honor of igspressing just now. "I igsept the eighty pound a year; knowing that I shall ave plenty of time for pursuing my littery career, and hoping some day to set on that same bentch of barranites, which is deckarated by the presnts of my honrabble friend. "Why shooden I? It's trew I ain't done anythink as YET to deserve such an honor; and it's very probable that I never shall. But what then?--quaw dong, as our friends say? I'd much rayther have a coat-of-arms than a coat of livry. I'd much rayther have my blud- red hand spralink in the middle of a shield, than underneath a tea- tray. A barranit I will be; and, in consiquints, must cease to be a footmin. "As to my politticle princepills, these, I confess, ain't settled: they are, I know, necessary; but they ain't necessary UNTIL ASKT FOR; besides, I reglar read the Sattarist newspaper, and so ignirince on this pint would be inigscusable. "But if one man can git to be a doctor, and another a barranit, and another a capting in the navy, and another a countess, and another the wife of a governor of the Cape of Good Hope, I begin to perseave that the littery trade ain't such a very bad un; igspecially if you're up to snough, and know what's o'clock. I'll learn to make myself usefle, in the fust place; then I'll larn to spell; and, I trust, by reading the novvles of the honrabble member, and the scientafick treatiseses of the reverend doctor, I may find the secrit of suxess, and git a litell for my own share. I've sevral frends in the press, having paid for many of those chaps' drink, and given them other treets; and so I think I've got all the emilents of suxess; therefore, I am detummined, as I said, to igsept your kind