alike and all illegible. At that time women wrote better and all spelled worse: but letter writing was not one of their accomplishments. It had not yet become one of the general pleasures and luxuries of life-perhaps the greatest gratification which the progress of civilization has given us. There was then no mail coach to waft a sigh across the country at the rate of eight miles an hour. Letters came slowly and with long intervals between; but when they came, the happiness which they imparted to Leonard and Margaret lasted during the interval, however long. To Leonard it was as an exhilarant and a cordial which rejoiced and strengthened him. He trod the earth with a lighter and more elated movement on the day when he received a letter from Margaret, as if he felt himself invested with an importance which he had never possessed till the happiness of another human being was inseparably associated with his own.

So proud a thing it was for him to wear

Love's golden chain,

With which it is best freedom to be bound.*

Happy indeed, if there be happiness on earth, as that same sweet poet says, is he

Who love enjoys, and placed hath his mind

Where fairest virtues fairest beauties grace,
Then in himself such store of wealth doth find
That he deserves to find so good a place.*

This was Leonard's case; and when he kissed the paper which her hand had pressed, it was with a consciousness of the strength and sincerity of his affection, which at once rejoiced and fortified his heart. To Margaret his letters were like summer dew upon the herb that thirsts for such refreshment. Whenever they arrived, a headache became the cause or pretext for retiring earlier than usual to her chamber, that she might weep and dream over the precious lines.

True gentle love is like the summer dew,
Which falls around when all is still and hush ;
And falls unseen until its bright drops strew
With odours, herb and flower, and bank and bush.
Oh love-when womanhood is in the flush,

And man's a young and an unspotted thing,

His first breathed word, and her half-conscious blush,
Are fair as light in heaven, or flowers in spring.t

INTERCHAPTER VII.

OBSOLETE ANTICIPATIONS; BEING A LEAF OUT OF AN OLD ALMANAC, WHICH, LIKE OTHER OLD ALMANACS, THOUGH OUT OF DATE IS NOT OUT OF USE.

You play before me, I shall often look on you,
I give you that warning beforehand.
Take it not ill, my masters, I shall laugh at you,
And truly when I am least offended with you;
It is my humour

MIDDLETON.

WHEN St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, “By reading one book;" "meaning," says Bishop Taylor, "that an understanding entertained with several objects is intent upon neither, and profits not." Lord Holland's poet, the prolific Lope de Vega, tells us to the same purport :

"Que es estudiante notable

El que lo es de un libro solo.
Que quando no estavan llenos
De tantos libros agenos,
Como van dexando atras,
Sabian los hombres mas

Porque estudiavan en menos.'

The homo unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes. Like your sharp shooter, he knows his piece perfectly, and is sure of his shot. I would therefore modestly insinuate to the reader what infinite advantages would be possessed by that fortunate person who shall be the homo hujus libri.

According to the lawyers the king's eldest son is for certain purposes of full age as soon as he is born-great being the mysteries of law! I will assume that in like manner hic liber is at once to acquire maturity of fame; for fame, like the oak, is not the product of a single generation; and a new book in its reputation is but as an acorn, the full growth of which can be known only by posterity. The doctor will not make so great a sensation upon its first appearance as Mr. Southey's Wat Tyler, or the first two cantos of Don Juan; still less will it be talked of so universally as the murder of Mr. Weire. Talked of, however, it will be-widely, largely, loudly, and lengthily talked of; lauded and vituperated, vilified and extolled, heartily abused and no less heartily admired.

Thus much is quite certain; that before it has been published a week, eight persons will be named as having written it: and these eight positive lies will be affirmed each as positive truths on positive knowledge.

Within the month Mr. Woodbee will write to one marquis, one earl, two bishops, and two reviewers major, assuring them that he is not the author. Mr. Sligo will cautiously avoid making any such declaration, and will take occasion significantly to remark upon the exceeding impropriety of saying to any person that a work which has been published anonymously is supposed to be his. He will observe also that it is altogether unwarrantable to ask any one under such circumstances whether the report be true. Mr. Blueman's opinion of the book will be asked by fourand-twenty female correspondents, all of the order of the stocking.

Professor Wilson will give it his hearty praise. Sir Walter Scott will deny that he has any hand in it. Mr. Coleridge will smile if he is asked the question. If it be proposed to Sir Humphrey Davy he will smile too, and perhaps blush also. The laureate will observe a careless silence; Mr. Wordsworth a dignified one. And Professor Porson, if he were not gone where his Greek is of no use to him, would accept credit for it, though he would not claim it.

The opium-eater while he peruses it, will doubt whether there is a book in his hand, or whether he be not in a dream of intellectual delight.

"My little more than nothing," Jeffrey the Second, (for, of the small Jeffreys, Jeffrey Hudson must always be the first,) will look less when he pops upon his own name in its pages. Sir Jeffrey Dunstan is Jeffrey the Third: he must have been placed second in right of seniority, had it not been for the profound respect with which I regard the university of Glasgow. The Rector of Glasgow takes precedence of the Mayor of Garratt.

And what will the reviewers do? I speak not of those who come to their office, (for such there are, though few,) like judges to the bench, stowed with all competent knowledge and in an equitable mind; prejudging nothing, however much they may foreknow; and who give their sentence without regard to persons, upon the merits of the case; but the aspirants and wranglers at the bar; the dribblers and the spitfires; (there are of both sorts ;) the puppies who bite for the pleasure which they feel in exercising their teeth, and the dogs whose gratification consists in their knowledge of the pain and injury that they inflict; the creepers of literature, who suck their food like the ivy from what they strangulate and kill; they who have a party to serve, or an opponent to run down; what opinion will they pronounce in their utter ignorance of the author? They

VOL. II.-8

cannot play without a bias in their bowls! Ay, there's the rub!

Then the discussion that this book will excite among blue stockings, and blue beards! The stir! the buzz! the bustle! The talk at tea tables in the country and conversazione in town-in Mr. Murrays's room, at Mr. Longman's dinners, in Mr. Hatchard's shop-at the Royal Institution-at the Alfred, at the admiralty, at Holland House! Have you seen it? Do you understand it? Are you not disgusted with it? Are you not provoked at it? Are you not delighted with it? Whose is it? Whose can it be?

Is it Walter Scott's?-There is no Scotch in the bookand that hand is never to be mistaken in its masterly strokes. Is it Lord Byron's?-Lord Byron's! Why the author fears God, honours the king, and loves his country and his kind. Is it by little Moore ?-If it were we should have sentimental lewdness, Irish patriotism, which is something very like British treason, and a plentiful spicing of personal insults to the prince regent. Is it the laureate ?-He lies buried under his own historical quartos! There is neither his mannerism, nor his moralism, nor his methodism. Is it Wordsworth?-What-an elephant cutting capers on the slack wire! Is it Coleridge -The method indeed of the book might lead to such a suspicion-but then it is intelligible throughout. Mr. A- ? There is Latin in it. Mr. B-There is Greek in it. Mr. C--?-It is written in good English. Mr. Hazlitt ?—It contains no panegyric upon Bonaparte; no imitations of Charles Lamb; no plagiarisms from Mr. Coleridge's conversation; no abuse of that gentleman, Mr. Southey, and Mr. Wordsworth-and no repetitions of himself. Certainly therefore it is not Mr. Hazlitt's. Is it Charles Lamb?

"Baa! baa! good sheep, have you any wool
Yes, marry, that I have, three bags full."

Good sheep I write here, in emendation of the nursery song; because nobody ought to call this Lamb a black one.

* British Bibliographer.

?

Comes it from the admiralty ?-There, indeed, wit enough might be found, and acuteness enough, and enough of sagacity, and enough of knowledge both of books and men; but when

The raven croaked as she sat at her meal,
And the old woman knew what he said,*

the old woman knew also by the tone who said it.

Does it contain the knowledge, learning, wit, sprightliness, and good sense which that distinguished patron of letters, my Lord Puttiface Papinhead, has so successfully concealed from the public and from all his most intimate acquaintances during his whole life?

Is it Theodore Hook, with the learned assistance of his brother the archdeacon? A good guess that of the Hookhave an eye to it!

"I guess it is our Washington Irving," says the New-Englander. The Virginian replies, "I reckon it may be ;" and they agree that none of the old country authors are worthy to be compared with him.

Is it Smith?

Which of the Smiths? for they are a numerous people. To say nothing of blacksmiths, whitesmiths, goldsmiths, and silversmiths, there is Sidney, who is joke-Smith to the Edinburgh Review; and William, who is motion-Smith to the dissenters, orthodox and heterodox, in parliament, having been elected to represent them-to wit, the aforesaid dissenters-by the citizens of Norwich. And there is Cher Bobus, who works for nobody; and there is Horace and his brother James, who work in Colburn's forge, at the sign of the Camel. You probably meant these brothers; they are clever fellows, with wit and humour as fluent as their ink; and, to their praise be it spoken, with no gall in it. But their wares are of a very different quality. Is it the author of Thinks I to Myself? "Think you so ?" says I to myself, I. Or the author of the Miseries of Human Life? George Coleman? Wrangham, unfrocked and in his lighter moods? Yorick of Dublin? Dr. Clarke ? Dr. Busby? The author of My Pocket Book? D'Israeli? Or that phenomenon of eloquence, the celebrated Irish barrister, Counsellor Phillips? Or may it not be the joint composition of Sir Charles and Lady Morgan? he compounding the speculative, scientific, and erudite ingredients; she intermingling the lighter parts, and infusing her own grace, airiness, vivacity, and spirit through the whole. A well-aimed guess; for they would throw out opinions differing from

* Southey.