"Hon. Pierre Glendinning, "Reverend Sir,

"The fine cut, the judicious fit of your productions fill us with amazement. The fabric is excellent-the finest broadcloth of genius. We have just started in business. Your pantaloons- productions, we mean-have never yet been collected. They should be published in the Library form. The tailors-we mean the librarians, demand it. Your fame is now in its finest nap. Now-before the gloss is off-now is the time for the library form. We have recently received an invoice of Chamois-Russia leather. The library form should be a durable form. We respectfully offer to dress your amazing productions in the library form. If you please, we will transmit you a sample of the cloth-we mean a sample-page, with a pattern of the leather. We are ready to give you one tenth of the profits (less discount) for the privilege of arraying your wonderful productions in the library form:-you cashing the seamstresses'-printer's and binder's bills on the day of publication. An answer at your earliest convenience will greatly oblige,-

"Sir, your most obsequious servants,

"wonder wen."

"P.S.-We respectfully submit the enclosed block-sheet, as some earnest of our intentions to do every thing in your behalf possible to any firm in the trade.

"N.B.-If the list does not comprise all your illustrious wardrobe-works, we mean-, we shall exceedingly regret it. We have hunted through all the drawers-magazines.

"Sample of a coat-title for the works of Glendinning:

the COMPLETE WORKS

OF ^:.-

GLENDINNING,

AUTHOR OF

That world famed production, "The Tropical Summer: a Sonnet," "The Weather: a Thought." "Life: an Impromptu." "The late Reverend Mark Graceman: an Obituary." "Honor: a Stanza." "Beauty: an Acrostic." "Edgar: an Anagram." "The Pippin: a Paragraph."

c. c. c. c.

c. c. c.

c. c.

c. "

From a designer, Pierre had received the following:

"Sir: I approach you with unfeigned trepidation. For though you are young in age, you are old in fame and ability. I can not express to you my ardent admiration of your works; nor can I but deeply regret that the productions of such graphic descriptive power, should be unaccompanied by the humbler illustrative labors of the designer. My services in this line are entirely at your command. I need not say how proud I should be, if this hint, on my part, however presuming, should induce you to reply in terms upon which I could found the hope of honoring myself and my profession by a few designs for the works of the illustrious Glendinning. But the cursory mention of your name here fills me with such swelling emotions, that I can say nothing more. I would only add, however, that not being at all connected with the Trade, my business situation unpleasantly forces me to make cash down on delivery of each design, the basis of all my professional arrangements. Your noble soul, however, would disdain to suppose, that this sordid necessity, in my merely business concerns, could ever impair-

"That profound private veneration and admiration "With which I unmercenarily am,

"Great and good Glendinning, "Yours most humbly,

"PETER PENCE."

These were stirring letters. The Library Form! an Illustrated 'Edition! His whole heart swelled.

But unfortunately it occurred to Pierre, that as all his writings were not only fugitive, but if put together could not possibly fill more than a very small duodecimo; therefore the Library Edition seemed a little premature, perhaps; possibly, in a slight degree, preposterous. Then, as they were chiefly made up of little sonnets, brief meditative poems, and moral essays, the matter for the designer ran some small risk of being but meager. In his inexperience, he did not know that such was the great height of invention to which the designer's art had been carried, that certain gentlemen of that profession had gone to an eminent publishing-house with overtures for an illustrated edition of "Coke upon Littleton." Even the City Directory was beautifully illustrated with exquisite engravings of bricks, tongs, and flat-irons.

Concerning the draft for the title-page, it must be confessed, that on seeing the imposing enumeration of his titles- long and magnificent as those preceding the proclamations of some German Prince ("Hereditary Lord of the back-yard of Crantz Jacobi; Undoubted Proprietor by Seizure of the bedstead of the late Widow Van Lorn; Heir Apparent to the Bankrupt Bakery of Fletz and Flitz; Residuary Legatee of the Confiscated Pin-Money of the Late Dowager Dunker; c. c. c.")- Pierre could not entirely repress a momentary feeling of elation. Yet did he also bow low under the weight of his own ponderosity, as the author of such a vast load of literature. It occasioned him some slight misgivings, however, when he considered, that already in his eighteenth year, his title-page should so immensely surpass in voluminous statisticals the simple page, which in his father's edition prefixed the vast speculations of Plato. Still, he comforted himself with the thought, that as he could not presume to interfere with the bill-stickers of the Gazelle Magazine, who every month covered the walls of the city with gigantic announcements of his name among the other contributors; so neither could he now-in the highly improbable event of closing with the offer of Messrs. Wonder and Wen-presume to interfere with the bill-sticking department of their business concern; for it was plain that they esteemed one's title-page but another un-windowed wall, infinitely more available than most walls, since here was at least one spot in the city where no rival bill-stickers dared to encroach. Nevertheless, resolved as he was to let all such bill-sticking matters take care of themselves, he was sensible of some coy inclination toward that modest method of certain kid-gloved and dainty authors, who scorning the vulgarity of a sounding parade, contented themselves with simply subscribing their name to the title-page; as confident, that that was sufficient guarantee to the notice of all true gentlemen of taste. It was for petty German princes to sound their prolonged titular flourishes. The Czar of Russia contented himself with putting the simple word «nicholas» to his loftiest decrees.

This train of thought terminated at last in various considerations upon the subject of anonymousness in authorship. He regretted that he had not started his literary career under that mask. At present, it might be too late; already the whole universe knew him, and it was in vain at this late day to attempt to hood himself. But when he considered the essential dignity and propriety at all points, of the inviolably anonymous method, he could not but feel the sincerest sympathy for those unfortunate fellows, who, not only naturally averse to any sort of publicity, but progressively ashamed of their own successive productions-written chiefly for the merest cash-were yet cruelly coerced into sounding title-pages by sundry baker's and butcher's bills, and other financial considerations; inasmuch as the placard of the title-page indubitably must assist the publisher in his sales.

But perhaps the ruling, though not altogether conscious motive of Pierre in finally declining-as he did-the services of Messrs. Wonder and Wen, those eager applicants for the privilege of extending and solidifying his fame, arose from the idea that being at this time not very far advanced in years, the probability was, that his future productions might at least equal, if not surpass, in some small degree, those already given to the world. He resolved to wait for his literary canonization until he should at least have outgrown the sophomorean insinuation of the Law; which, with a singular affectation of benignity, pronounced him an "infant." His modesty obscured from him the circumstance, that the greatest lettered celebrities of the time, had, by the divine power of genius, become full graduates in the University of Fame, while yet as legal minors forced to go to their mammas for pennies wherewith to keep them in peanuts.