epitomised in two epithets, by Dr. Lingard, when speaking of "the gallant but unprincipled Sir Walter Raleigh," it is difficult to picture him to ourselves, whether at the storming of Fayal, or the reviewing at Dover; whether pencilling sonnets in a dungeon, or standing in the Privy Gardens while the Earl of Nottingham wiped the dust off his shoes "in compliment," in is still more difficult to imagine him to ourselves, whether as a soldier, a sailor, a debater, a voyager, or an author; whether chatting in the Mermaid," or perishing undaunted upon the scaffold, without regarding him, in the words of Hallam, as "a splendid ornament to his country," without feeling the frigid apprehensions of our judgment in his regard merged in a glow of forgiving admiration.

66

THOMAS RAIKES-THE BOND ST. LOUNGER.

DIARISTS may be the most slovenly, but they are also at the same time, without doubt, the most candid of autobiographers. We may picture them as sitting down to the entry of their daily jottings with that excruciatingly starched cravat, called Conventional Reserve, thrown aside (with what a sigh of relief!), and the old abominable strait-waistcoat of Social Formality, just for once in the twenty-four hours, luxuriously unbuckled.

One fancies the mere journal-scribbler writing invariably as Oliver Goldsmith loved to write-in his dressing-gown and slippers. Certainly never preparing himself for his task after the fastidious fashion of the musician Haydn, who is related to have occasionally arrayed himself in full Court costume-his peruke sprinkled with a fresh bloom of powder, his wrists clouded with delicate ruffles of cobweb-lace, his fingers radiant with diamond, amethyst, and carbuncle-simply for the purpose of composing quartetts and sonatas in the privacy of his own apartment; creaking on his red-heeled shoes alternately, to and fro between his desk and his harpsichord. The Muse of the Diarist, if he have one, ought always assuredly to be portrayed in déshabille. As assuredly as the manuscript volumes, penned by him in such careless and straggling characters, lay bare at a glance to the inspection of every one who lists, not merely the writer's individual temperament, but with it also that intimate inner-self, which we have all of us learned to call respectively each one's own peculiar idiosyncrasy.

The journal of the Diarist is in reality, of his own especial idiosyncrasy, the most vivid and uncompromising revelation. It is the very window-in-a-man's-breast, which was longed for so many ages ago by the old Greek philosopher. It is that window, moreover, with the shutters flung wide open, and the blind drawn up. We can see through it all instantaneously- the

medium being very thin, and transparent. We are privileged, each one amongst us, to pry at our own free will and pleasure into the every crevice and involution of the complicated human hearts of these poor dead and buried Diarists. While they, in turn-the spirits of these dear brothers departed-seem to reveal most clearly and distinctly through that same mysterious loophole, their own natural features, stamped with their own real and genuine expression. Some looking out upon us laughingly -like Holbein's jocund portrait of Will Somers, the King's Jester, peeping, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, through the lattice in the picture-gallery at Hampton Court. Others appearing before us dolefully-like the beautifully-shrouded face of St. Amelia, the Nun, wistfully gazing between the conventual bars in the famous French lithograph. The former category implying, what may be termed, the purely anecdotal Diarists: such as might be instanced through the journals of Thomas Moore-journals kept apparently, somewhat as the squirrel keeps his teeth for cracking nuts, chiefly for the pleasure of cracking jokes flavoured with the wine of wit and the salt of good-fellowship. The second category referring, on the other hand, to such outpourings of effervescent lamentation as those in the midst of which Madame D'Arblay has unwittingly sprinkled, not, as she fancied, the rose-water of compliment, but the nitric acid of satire, upon the memory of the "Sweet Queen,"-old straitlaced Queen Charlotte.

Besides these, however, there are others of the most motley kind, Diarists the most widely contrasting and the most picturesquely diversified. There are those numberless and nameless multitudes, for example, who might be accurately described, according to Iago's phrase, as doing little else with their journals than "chronicle small beer"-scoring off their days in ponderous books about as monotonous in their general effect, and not by any means one half as interesting, as the far-famed sticks Robinson Crusoe used to notch for a calendar. There are, however, on the contrary, those extremely rare and inestimable exceptionsDiarists who come conscientiously, night by night, to their selfimposed duty; come with their periodical gatherings of revelations, telling their secrets right out, and making a clean breast of it; Diarists whose writings are like the whisperings of devotees at the confessional. The value of the treasures picked up from time to time by these wayfarers, depending entirely, of course, upon the nature of the ground they happen to have traversed. Sometimes they almost seem, from the contents of their wallet, to have been wandering at large over the fabulous

possessions of that redoubtable millionaire of the nursery, Mr. Thomas Tiddler, originally, of course, of Cathay and El Dorado, but latterly, no doubt, of the Australian gold diggings, or those of California. Occasionally, even a few appear to have descended, like our old friend, Sindbad the Sailor, into another wondrous Valley of Diamonds, and, like him, to have cunningly availed themselves of the very tempting opportunity. These, it should be observed, have not always emptied out before us, clumsily and pell-mell, the precious store of their girdles-pouring forth their accumulations confusedly in most admired disorder, just as they may have been first collected, hap-hazard. One, perchance, instead of this, has clustered them hastily together in a glittering mass as a pendant to the Life they may appear designed to illustrate. Precisely in this way, for example, it is that the history of Alexander Pope has been embellished by Spence's Anecdotes. Another, setting more ingeniously, and with a greater amount of elaboration, the gems of price he has carefully gathered up, and yet more carefully selected, transforms them from a mere heap of resplendent particles into a very aigrette or aureole that radiant diadem of genius, a perfected biography. It was thus, for instance, with James Boswell's ever-memorable masterpiece.

Incidentally, moreover, there has appeared upon occasion, some more amusing egotist, with a self-sufficiency resembling that of Esop's fly upon the wheel: some personage of such supreme importance in his own estimation, that out of the loose. memorabilia of his note-book, he has deliberately compiled the History of His Own Times-a title equivalent in His Own mind, probably, to the Georgian Era, or the Augustan Age, or the epoch, say of the Carlovingians. As a notable representative of this rather entertaining class of Diarists, may be particularised Sir William Wraxall-an observer of His Own contemporaries, chiefly remarkable now, as the individual who first suggested to the British Government the selection of the Island of Saint Helena as the fittest place of exile for the discrowned Emperor and King, Napoleon Bonaparte. Journal-writers of a much nobler, because of a much more modest description, however, have assumed to themselves like John Evelyn-the learned and accomplished Evelyn- the character as it may be termed of Gentlemen Ushers to History. And ONE, the most delightful Diarist of all-meaning, of course, Mr. Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty-has he not achieved for himself a recognised pre-eminence in his craft, as a systematic collector of unconsidered trifles, solely by the evidence on his part, through his

incomparable journals, of a supreme faculty for-what? Well, plainly and candidly, for-Blabbing!

It is, frankly be it spoken, as about the honestest blab in the world that Mr. Samuel Pepys has taken his place among Diarists, the Saul among that multitude - higher than the highest of them all, by a head and shoulders. Little, in truth, was it conjectured (not so very many years ago), when the manuscript diary of Mr. Pepys was first discovered down at Oxford, poked away, dusty and yellow, in a corner of an old ram-shackle bookcase, what very strange secrets were lying hid away there under the mask of that queer, and fantastic, and apparently inscrutable specimen of short-hand. Happily, the key being almost simultaneously brought to light, we have ever since then enjoyed the privilege of peeping, with a happier fate than that of Fatima, as often as we have felt disposed, into the forbidden chamber of this comical and perfectly harmless Bluebeard. It is such capital fun, tucking ourselves under the arm of this unconscionably candid Guide, and being conducted by him, after the lapse of a couple of centuries, behind those far-off scenes, and into so many a remote sanctum sanctorum! He lifts the curtain, too, with such a ludicrously composed air, as it might be called, of sly innocence-his index-finger hesitating by his nose, and the ghost of a wink quivering upon his eyelid! All these unexpected revelations of the past, remember, coming to us from a seemingly insoluble enigma-a mystery in the explanation of which Lord Braybrooke has, happily for us, displayed a sagacity only comparable to that brought to bear by Colonel (now Sir Henry) Rawlinson, upon the problem of the cuneiform hieroglyphics.

Fortunately for every individual, like ourselves-shame be it said-delighting in the colloquial scandal and conversational tittle-tattle of old Sam Pepys, formerly of the Admiralty, and now for ever of the book-shelves, there has recently appeared a kind of kindred diary, a companion-picture, though one, of course, not by any means so highly coloured-a similar social banquet, yet, it must be confessed, one not to any comparable extent so highly seasoned. Nevertheless, toned down, cooledeven, it might be said, iced-in its general effect, by the refrigerating influence of the proprieties, the journal here particularly alluded to may honestly, we fancy, come within the range of this really alluring and appetising description. A portion of the journal kept by the late Thomas Raikes, Esquire, the titlepage of these four garrulous volumes announces their contents to be. Thomas Raikes, Esquire, himself proving to be-before we