Page:Table-Talk, vol. 2 (1822).djvu/109

 by parity of reasoning, to those old authors themselves: the poet or prose-writer of true and original genius, by the courtesy of custom, “ducks to the learned fool:” or, as the author of Hudibras has so well stated the same thing—

These preposterous and unfounded claims of mere scholars to precedence in the commonwealth of letters which they set up so formally themselves and which others so readily bow to, are partly owing to traditional prejudice: there was a time when learning was the only distinction from ignorance, and when there was no such thing as popular English literature. Again, there is something more palpable and positive in this kind of acquired knowledge, like acquired wealth, which the vulgar easily recognise. That others know the meaning of signs which they are confessedly and altogether ignorant of is to them both a matter of fact and a subject of endless wonder. The languages are worn like a dress by a man, and distinguish him sooner than his natural figure; and we are, from motives of self-love, inclined to give