Of

place of his early sorrow. His orgies were often carried into morning. Sometimes he drank with wild companions; sometimes he was seen alone, staggering towards the window, stupid and bloated, ere the last light of the autumn sunset concealed him from our sight. There were steadier intervals, indeed, when reflection would come upon him,- perhaps remorse ; when he would gaze with a grave (or oftener a sad) look upon the few withered flowers that had once flourished in his gay window. What was he then thinking of? Of vanished hopes and happy hours? her patience, her gentleness, her deep untiring love? Why did he not summon up more cheerful visions? Where was his old vivacity? his young and merry spirit? The world offered the same allurements as before, with the exception only of one single joy. Oh! but that was all. That was the one hope, the one thought, that had grown vast and absorbed all others. That was the mirror which had reflected happiness a thousand ways. Under that influence the present, the past, the bright to come-all had seemed to cast back upon him the pictures of innumerable blessings. He had trod, even in dreams, upon a sunny shore. And now !

'But why prolong the pain and disgrace of the story? He fell, from step to step. Sickness was on his body; despair was in his mind. He shrank and wasted away, "old before his time;" and might have subsided into a paralyzed cripple or a moody idiot, had not death (for once a friend) come suddenly to him, and rescued him from further misery.

'He died, as his wife and child had died before him.

-

The same signs were there the unnatural quietthe closed shutters-and the funeral train. But all, in their time, disappeared; and in a few weeks workmen came thronging again to the empty house; the rooms were again scoured the walls beautified. The same board which two years before had been nailed to the wall, with the significant words "To Let" upon it, was again fixed there. It seemed almost as though the old time had returned again, and that the interval was nothing but a dream.'

And is this all? Yes, that is all. I wish that I could have crowned my little tale with a brighter ending. But it was not to be. I wish even that I could have made it more heroic, or have developed some grand moral for your use. As it is, it contains little beyond the common threadbare story of human life - first hope, and then enjoyment, and then sorrow all ending quietly in the grave. It is an ancient tale. The vein runs through man's many histories. Some of them may present seeming varietiesa life without hope or joy or joy or a career beginning gaily, and running merrily to its close. But this is because we do not read the inner secrets of the soul the thousand, thousand small pulsations, which yield pain or pleasure to the human mind. Be assured that there is no more an equality or stagnation in the heart, than in the evermoving ocean.

You will ask me, perhaps, to point out something from which you may derive a profitable lesson. Are you to learn how to regulate your passions? to arm your heart with iron precepts? to let in neither too

much love nor sorrow? and to shut out all despair? Some wise friend will tell you that you may learn, by precepts, never to lean too much on others; for that thereby you lose your independent mind. To be the toy of a woman - to rest your happiness on the existence of a fragile girl, whom the breath of the east wind may blow into the dust - it is anything but the act of a wise and prudent man. And to grieve for her after she is dead! to sigh for what is irrecoverable! What can be more useless? All this can be proved by every rule of logic.

For my part, I can derive nothing for you from my story, except perhaps that it may teach you, like every tale of human suffering, to sympathize with your kind. And this, methinks, is better, and possibly quite as necessary, as any high-wrought or stern example, which shuts the heart up, instead of persuading it to expand; which teaches prudence instead of love; and reduces the aim of a good man's life to a low and sordid mark, which all are able, and most of us too well contented, to reach.

We should not commit ourselves to the fields, and inhale the fresh breath of the spring, merely to gain strength to resume our dry calculations, or to inflict hard names upon simple flowers. We should not read the sadness of domestic history, merely to extract some prudent lesson for ourselves. We should open

our hearts beneath these great influences, and endeavor to learn that we possess the right, the power, nay, the wish, (though it may sleep,) of doing good to others, to a degree that we little dream of.

So persuaded am I of this truth, that I have invented

a sentence wherein to enshrine it, and I hope that you will not entirely contemn this until you have given it the consideration of a friend. It is this - 'Let but the heart be opened, and a thousand virtues will rush in!'

1838.

A CHAPTER OF FRAGMENTS.

(BEING A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF A PHILOSOPHER.)

HERE (if you have no objection) we will leave, for a while, the regular course of our history; for I am able — luckily, I was about to say-to tell you something of this same Baliol, whom I have just adverted to. Take it, by way of episode. Look, where it is, all written down by 'some person or persons unknown,' in a clear and somewhat precise hand! You, who are a philosopher, will scarcely object to hear tell of the failings of one of your tribe. The backslidings of a brother sage will make you doubly happy, in the security of your own uprightness. Independently of which, it is sometimes pleasant enough to turn aside from the dusty and fatiguing road, and refresh oneself in some shady recess with a cup of water, or a glance at the hedgerow flowers.

It is thus that the MS. runs: - which, by the way, is not perfect. It is comprised in several slips of paper, and appears to be the result of certain recollections, referring to different periods; or else, if it ever consti