CHAPTER XXXIX.
No Authority Whatever--Interference--Wondrous Farrago--Brandt and Struensee--What a Life!--The Hearse--Mortal Relics--Great Poet--Fashion and Fame--What a Difference!--Oh, Beautiful!--Good for Nothing.
And now once more to my pursuits, to my Lives and Trials.

However partial at first I might be to these lives and trials, it was not long before they became regular trials to me, owing to the whims and caprices of the publisher.

I had not been long connected with him before I discovered that he was wonderfully fond of interfering with other people's business--at least with the business of those who were under his control.

What a life did his unfortunate authors lead! He had many in his employ toiling at all kinds of subjects--I call them authors because there is something respectable in the term author, though they had little authorship in, and no authority whatever over, the works on which they were engaged.

It is true the publisher interfered with some colour of reason, the plan of all and every of the works alluded to having originated with himself; and, be it observed, many of his plans were highly clever and promising, for, as I have already had occasion to say, the publisher in many points was a highly clever and sagacious person; but he ought to have been contented with planning the works originally, and have left to other people the task of executing them, instead of which he marred everything by his rage for interference.