A well-known
judge was spoken of as being another of the writers, and the idea
spread ere long that six or seven of the leading bishops and judges
had laid their heads together to produce a volume, which should at
once outbid "Essays and Reviews" and counteract the influence of
that then still famous work.
Reviewers are men of like passions with ourselves, and with them
as with everyone else omne ignotum pro magnifico. The book was
really an able one and abounded with humour, just satire, and good
sense. It struck a new note, and the speculation which for some time
was rife concerning its authorship made many turn to it who would
never have looked at it otherwise. One of the most gushing weeklies
had a fit over it, and declared it to be the finest thing that had
been done since the "Provincial Letters" of Pascal. Once a month or so
that weekly always found some picture which was the finest that had
been done since the old masters, or some satire that was the finest
that had appeared since Swift or some something which was incomparably
the finest that had appeared since something else. If Ernest had put
his name to the book, and the writer had known that it was by a
nobody, he would doubtless have written in a very different strain.
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