_T._ How is “mihi” governed, if it does not come after “accessit”? _C. pauses, then_, “Mihi” … “mihi” is often used so; and “tibi” and “sibi”: I mean “suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo”; … “venit mihi in mentem”; that is, _it came into my mind_; and so, “accessit mihi ad tollendam,” etc.
_T._ That is very right. _C._ I recollect somewhere in Horace, vellunt tibi barbam.
And now, my patient reader, I suspect you have had enough of me on this subject; and the best I can expect from you is, that you will say: “His first pages had some amusement in them, but he is dullish towards the end.” Perhaps so; but then you must kindly bear in mind that the latter part is about a steady careful youth, and the earlier part is not; and that goodness, exactness, and diligence, and the correct and the unexceptionable, though vastly more desirable than their contraries in fact, are not near so entertaining in fiction.
I am able to present the reader by anticipation with the correspondence which will pass between Mr. Brown’s father and Mr. White, the tutor, on the subject of Mr. Brown’s examination for entrance at the University. And, in doing so, let me state the reason why I dwell on what many will think an extreme case, or even a caricature. I do so, because what may be called exaggeration is often the best means of _bringing out_ certain faults of the mind which do indeed exist commonly, if not in that degree. If a master in carriage and deportment wishes to carry home to one of his boys that he slouches, he will caricature the boy himself, by way of impressing on the boy’s intellect a sort of abstract and typical representation of the ungraceful habit which he wishes corrected. When we once have the simple and perfect ideas of things in our minds, we refer the particular and partial manifestations of them to these types; we recognize what they are, good or bad, as we never did before, and we have a guide set up within us to direct our course by. So it is with principles of taste, good breeding, or of conventional fashion; so it is in the fine arts, in painting, or in music. We cannot even understand the criticism passed on these subjects until we have set up for ourselves the ideal standard of what is admirable and what is absurd.