The fact is, that most of these authors know nothing whatever of the society which they affect to describe, but which in truth they grossly libel. Their starting-point is usually not a high one; but by dint of some talent--in certain cases naturally great--and a vivacity of style, joined with a good deal of drollery and power of bizarre description, they at last gain a portion of the public favour, and become in a manner notables. This is as it should be; and such progress is always honourable. Having arrived at this point, not without a certain degree of intoxication consequent upon success, our author begins to look about him and to consider his own position--and he finds that position to be both new and anomalous. On the one hand he has become a lion. The newspapers are full of his praises; his works are dramatized at the minor theatres; he is pointed at in the streets, and his publisher is clamorous for copy. At small literary reunions he is the cynosure of all eyes. And so his organ of self-esteem continues to expand day by day, until he fancies himself entitled to a statue near the altar in the Temple of Fame--not very far, perhaps, from those of Shakspeare, of Spencer, or of Scott. One little drop of gall, however, is mingled in the nectar of his cup. He does not receive that consideration which he thinks himself entitled to from the higher classes. Peers do not wait upon him with pressing invitations to their country-seats; nor does he receive any direct intimation of the propriety of presenting himself at Court. This appears to him not only strange but grossly unfair. He is one of nature's aristocracy--at least so he thinks; and yet he is regarded with indifference by the body of the class aristocrats! Why is this? He knows they have heard of his name; he is convinced that they have read his works, and been mightily tickled thereby; yet how is it that they show no manner of thirst whatever for his society? In vain he lays in scores of apple-green satin waistcoats, florid cravats, and a wilderness of mosaic jewellery--in vain he makes himself conspicuous wherever he can--he is looked at, to be sure; but the right hand of fellowship is withheld. Gradually he becomes savage and indignant. No man is better aware than he is, that not one scion of the existing aristocracy could write a serial or a novel at all to be compared to his; and yet Lord John and Lord Frederick--both of them literary men too--do not insist upon walking with him in the streets, and never once offer to introduce him to the bosom of their respective families! Our friend becomes rapidly bilious; is seized with a moral jaundice; and vows that, in his next work, he will do his uttermost to show up that confounded aristocracy. And he keeps his vow.