among men with respect to him? and that man must be worthy of the highest place, whether for his virtue or his vice-he must be a Cato, or a Sylla, on whom the world unites in lavishing praise or dispraise.

I am wandering very far from my subject-but, to whom am I responsible? To myself only, I imagine, and, moreover, I promised myself to be incoherent and desultory; and it would give me great pain to disappoint-as de Maictre calls it, "my other self."

JULY 20th.-What though the world oppose us what though mind and matter unite to frustrate our every design. Is it a truly great mind which sinks under any weight? No, let men be calm-be true to themselves, and all the powers that be, cannot daunt them-neither can they bear them down.

Men frequently say, they cannot bear the severe toil, and struggle their situation is heir to-but if they enter their particular life-occupation, with a determined mind, and, indeed, make it a pleasure, they will feel themselves quite unconscious of any hardship or privation. If all men knew the fact, that the atmosphere bears down on them with a great weight; they would, doubtless complain that life was intolerable on account of it; and to breathe, being to overcome the great pressure on the chest-I dare say it would become so laborious, that the pleasures of life, would not be a sufficient compensation for the toils incident to breathing.

Coming to reason with myself about it, I find that every man, without exception, has his trials; although it is said idiots and maniacs have none. That is an error, however, for the consciousness of their situation, in their lucid moments-and all without doubt have those moments-is an agony from which

the poor mind shrinks, and they only can know it who have felt it.

Different persons from their individual natures, have quite different trials-the anxiety of the merchant, about the safety of his cargo; and the author, as regards the success of his bookthe painful anticipation of death, experienced by the miner of cobalt; and by the individual subject to apoplexy, or hemorrhage. I consider that every man is in a balloon, to be wafted with the wind; and if he be venturous, is subject to the peculiar local atmosphere to which his spirit may allow him to be borne or, perhaps, it may be more like—that every man is in a delicate sail-boat, on the vast ocean, to sail where he will, and to trim his sail when and how he may think fit. And while we see one ride in safety, with a gallant pennant flying, a flaw of wind has struck another, and boat and mariner are being imbosomed in the deep.

But some men imagine that they are destined for the greatest trials, but it evidently is, because they make them so. How often have I seen men, with the slightest bodily affection, create for themselves the most painful mental ones-Indeed, I remember a schoolmaster of mine, rather inclined to foppishness, who imagined his clothes never fitted his person; and, on that account, came to be perfectly miserable. I have often heard him say, that he was the most unhappy man in existence; and I invariably told him, that I thought he had great cause for being so for I had never seen a finely-formed man so difficult to fit in clothes in my life.

There are, daily, instances of men catching slight cold from some little exposure to the honest air to which all men ought to be exposed who desire health or prosperity, having all sorts

of pulmonary diseases; and each time of catching fresh cold, they think that the disease is but progressing.

I knew a man, as every body knows such, poor fool! who, having a small excrescence on his neck, went to one of those creatures who are accustomed to envelope their real nature in the lion's skin. The animal convinced him that he had an hereditary cancer. family, till convinced of their certain existence there, by learned argument. The so-called cancer was removed, and for the very dangerous operation, and in consideration of the great and profound blessing he had conferred upon the overgrown child of ignorance, meekness, and terror, Monsieur Medecin received the contemptible compensation of one hundred dollars. Men deserve, I think, to pay for their credulity; therefore, this sum might only be a tariff paid on the pleasures of imagination, for Akenside says they are great pleasures.

The poor fellow had never heard of one in the

Although a creature of imagination myself, and a perfect passion's child-yet I do not sink under little burthens-or great ones either. This may arise from my determination, and my patience. I have made up my mind, that there is nothing to be done, but I can do it if I choose; and so little regard have I paid to failure-for I have failed many times, and in many things that I rise higher and superior at each successive fatality, as men call it, and think, with my present spirit, I could roll Sisyphus and his rock, too, to the top of the mountain and keep them there.

Napoleon said there was no such word in the French language as impossible; and Richelieu denied that he was acquainted with any such one as fail-or Bulwer makes him say so—which is just the same; for we know great men always

say those bold, expressive things. And Alexander and Cæsar, I have no doubt, were equally uninformed on portions of their mother tongues. But there are a great many young men nowa-days-and old ones, too, who seem never to have known any other words. The first word the former learned to lisp, was can't; and, I expect, the last one the latter will utter, when the physician invites them to be a little longer dwellers in the land— will be, can't. Then I come to the painful, punning conclusion, that although most men lead the life, and speak the language of cant;—few live the life, or die the death of Kant—not to say anything of the aforementioned worthies, who we are inclined to hope dignified death, as they exalted life.

Speaking of Kant-Immanuel Kant was a very remarkable man; the founder of a system of Philosophy-who was yet, never seven miles beyond his native town. A man whose body would have gotten lost, had he at any time been so abstracted, as to take a more than usually long walk. It would have been worth Gall's travel to Kant's old town to see his Organ of Locality.

Because I consider Kant a remarkable man, I do not, as other people, think that he was a strange man. He did not choose to wander from home, before he had exhausted all the philosophy which was there, or might be produced in that region of country.

I have no doubt, but that Immanuel had heard of that celebrated philosopher, who, so busied in looking in the skies, fell into a well. Enough—he did not deem it necessary, and future times must determine whether he was correct or not:-for a man to run all over the world, to see the Chinese eat opium

to peep into a harem, and discover what concupiscent fellows the Turks are-see whether the beastly Laplanders really do gorge whale-oil, and settle the matter as to the identity of the American Indian with other men.

Those pursuits he thought, and perhaps justly too, suited spendthrifts. Many of whom I have seen come back home, perfectly natural men, and having on them their real character and manners. For, finding beings in their distant travel, with hair all over their faces, and with every peculiarity of themselves certainly assimilated to themselves; they recognise them as brothers, imbibe their becoming habits, and intellectual pursuits and on their return home, every one is surprised to see for they had not dreamed of such a thing, from want of knowledge of foreign parts; that the body would so become an index to the mind. So like are they, that one would take them for the genuine orang-outang, if odious custom had not proscribed perfect nudity. But away with such trash, and such trashy fellows, for I find that I commenced this paragraph with a philosopher, and I am about to end with a fool.

I had like to have left men's trials for philosophy—and well might I have done so, for it is a more advantageous, and a nobler study. Trials show men as they are--but as they dislike to be seen. It is humiliating to our nature to feel that we are subject to either physical, or mental infirmities. It makes us "smell of mortality." It is to say, that we are not what we

are.

An old, though fashionable lady, seems to have felt the force of this, when she protested to me, that she was perfectly well, when I saw she was positively ill. She was very pardonable,