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Rh that desperate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a cast:—"I was thinking that I should like to become a critic myself!"

"W—h—e—w!" whistled Mac Grawler, elevating his eye-brows. "W—h—e—w! great ends have come of less beginnings!"

Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from the lips of so great a man and so great a critic, at the very moment too when nothing short of an anathema against arrogance and presumption was expected to issue from those portals of wisdom: yet, such is the fallacy of all human hopes, that Paul's of a surety would have been a little less elated, had he, at the same time his ears drank in the balm of these gracious words, been able to have dived into the source whence they emanated.

"Know thyself!" was a precept the sage Mac Grawler had endeavoured to obey; consequently the result of his obedience was, that even by himself he was better known than trusted. Whatever he might appear to others, he had in reality