It requires only a knowledge of the world and a self-respect to enable one to treat such attacks with the contempt they merit; and those who allow themselves to be mortified by them must be deficient in these necessary qualifications for passing smoothly through life.
It seems to me to indicate great weakness of mind, when a person permits his peace to be at the mercy of every anonymous scribbler who, actuated by envy or hatred (the invariable causes of such attacks), writes a libel on him.

If a person so attacked would but reflect that few, if any, who have acquired celebrity, or have been favoured by fortune, have ever escaped similar assaults, he would be disposed to consider them as the certain proofs of a merit, the general acknowledgment of which has excited the ire of the envious, thus displayed by the only mean within their reach--anonymous abuse.
Anonymous assailants may be likened to the cuttle-fish, which employs the inky secretions it forms as a means of tormenting its enemy and baffling pursuit.
I have been reading the poems of Mrs.Hemans, and exquisite they are.
They affect me like sacred music, and never fail to excite religious sentiments.

England only could have produced this poetess, and peculiar circumstances were necessary to the developement of her genius.

The music of the versification harmonises well with the elevated character of the thoughts, which inspire the reader (at least such is their effect on me) with a pensive sentiment of resignation that is not without a deep charm to a mind that loves to withdraw itself from the turmoil and bustle incidental to a life passed in a gay and brilliant capital.
The mind of this charming poetess must be like an AEolian harp, that every sighing wind awakes to music, but to grave and chastened melody, the full charm of which can only be truly appreciated by those who have sorrowed, and who look beyond this earth for repose.

Well might Goethe write, "Wo du das Genie erblickst Erblickst du auch zugleich die martkrone"[7] for where is Genius to be found that has not been tried by suffering?
Moore has beautifully said, "The hearths that are soonest awake to the flowers, Are always the first to be pierced by the thorns;" and so it is with poets: they feel intensely before they can make others feel even superficially.
And there are those who can talk lightly and irreverently of the sufferings from which spring such exquisite, such glorious music, unconscious that the fine organization and delicate susceptibility of the minds of Genius which give such precious gifts to delight others, receive deep wounds from weapons that could not make an incision on impenetrable hearts like their own.