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    to it yet . Go on , Will . ' And Will does go on , much to edification . But we must c stint , ' as we wish to give the Doctor ' s admonition against poetry , and the story of young Wellerby . The justice inquires whether Shakspeare did not get himself lectured for his versifying propensities . To which he replies :

    ' Sir , to my mortification I must confess , that I took to myself the counsel he was giving to another ; a young gentleman who , from his pale face , his abstinence at table , his cough , his taciturnity , and his gentleness , seemed already more than half poet . To him did Doctor Glaston urge , with all his zeal and judgment , many arguments against the vocation ; telling him that , even in college , he had few applauders , being the first , and not the second or third , who always are more

    fortunate ; reminding him that he must solicit and obtain much interest with men of rank and quality , before he could expect their favour ; and that without it the vein chilled , the nerve relaxed , and the poet was left at next door to the bellman . * In the coldness of the world / said he , in the absence of ready friends and adherents , to light thee upstairs to the richly tapestried chamber of the muses , thy spirits ' will abandon thee , thy heart will sicken and swell within thee ; overladen , thou wilt make

    O Ethelbert ! a slow and painful progress , and , ere the door open , sink . Praise giveth weight unto the wanting , and happiness giveth elasticity unto the heavy . As the mightier streams of the unexplored , world , America , run languidly in the night , * and await the sun on high to contend with him in strength and grandeur , so doth genius halt and pause in the thraldom of outspread darkness , and move onward with all his vigour then only when creative light and jubilant warmth surround him . '

    4 Ethelbert coughed faintly ; a tinge of red , the size of a rose-bud , coloured the middle of his cheek ; and yet he seemed not to be pained by the reproof . He looked fondly and affectionately at his teacher , who thus proceeded : * " My dear youth , do not carry the stone of Sisyphus on thy shoulder

    to pave the way to disappointment . If thou writest but indifferent poetry , none will envy thee , and some will praise thee ; but nature , in her malignity , hath denied unto thee a capacity for the enjoyment of such praise . In this she hath been kinder to most others than to thee : we know wherein she hath been kinder to thee than to most

    others . If thou writest good poetry , many will call it flat , many will call it obscure , many will call it inharmonious ; and some of these will speak as they think ; for , as in giving a feast to great numbers , it is easier to possess the wine than to procure the cups , so happens it in poetry ; thou hast the beverage of thy own growth ,

    but canst not find the recipients . What is simple and elegant to thee and me , to many an honest man is flat and sterile ; what to us is an innocently sly allusion , to as worthy a one as either of us is dull obscurity ; and that moreover which swims upon our brain , and which throbs against our temples , and which we delight in sounding to ourselves when the voice has done with it , touches their ear , and awakens no

    harmony in any cell of it . Rivals will run up to thee and call thee a plagiary , and , rather than that proof should be wanting , similar words * Humboldt notices this , '

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    Examination of Shakspeare . 53

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 53, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/53/