too often failing of its object, contemptible also to others.

For the sake of distinction, I would propose to attach a different meaning to the love of fame and the love of praise. Under the influence of the latter, a man generally becomes contemptible in all

situations.

If an author takes up his pen fired only with the thirst of praise, and guides it according to what he has learned of the opinions and taste of others, instead of wishing only to afford solace to himself, he will never emerge through the cloud of deserved obscurity. It is when disdaining every fetter imposed by ordinary society and ordinary rules, when seizing his pen and guiding it as if with the carelessness of despair, that strains" of mounting fire," such as those of "Don Roderick," and " Childe Harolde," are produced, and the pure originality of the RUMINATOR'S ESSAYS, forms to me one of the greatest of their attractions.

In the same way, if a young orator arises with the preconceived intention of making a great impression on his audience, or even with the wish to speak and gesticulate well, what must be the inevitable consequence? His foolish vanity overpowers him. He is unable to act up to the pitch of his désires and preconceived intentions, and sits down mortified and agonized.

* To come to a third example, that of a mere ordinary drawing room-guest,-he who is bent on exciting the admiration of the company by the charms of his conversation, his dress, or his person, is invariably unhappy in himself and contemptible to others.

It is only by deserving and gaining our own individual approbation, by feeling happy in ourselves, that we can communicate happiness to others, either now or hereafter. Vivere convenienter naturæ, ought to be the motto of every wise man. It once led a society of eminent men from the crowded walks of what is called polished life, to the wilds of Cumberland. There Mr. Wordsworth formed his beautiful and enchanting theory of poetic composition; which is forcibly recalled to my remem brance by some of the remarks which I have just now ventured to make. " Ignorant and half-witted censurers," have affirmed that Mr. W. has borrowed his principles of style from the harsh and obsolete rhymes of " George Wither, Henry More," and Old English Ballads. Absurd! as if Wordsworth had not disdained to borrow from any writer whatever, ancient or modern. His theory is too long to detail here. Those who are capable of understanding his preface to the fourth edition of "Lyrical Ballads," will find it amply illustrated.

See the Edinb. Rev. passim.

Mr. W. has there asserted the independence of the poetical character: he has decried all petty artifices, all mean and subordinate considerations. The spirit of Wordsworth's theory, and that which prompts his assertion, that good poetry and good prose afford no strict antithesis, is briefly this, the conviction that he who "sets himself doggedly" to manufacture poetry (such for example as that of the Darwinian school) in contradistinction to prose, to the natural and free and unfettered language of passion, is like a fine lady, afraid to stir for fear of discomposing her dress; like a pleader who instead of interesting himself in his client's cause, should only consider how to bring forward certain tropes and figures and flowery descriptions! All petty artifice, and all passion for petty distinctions, and valueless applause, are contemptible and destructive of good sense and virtue and happiness.

H. F. A.

Dec. 11, 1812.

N° XCIII.

On Reserve in Conversation.

Of all the traits in the character of Burns I know not that any one ever struck me as so inconsistent and unaccountable, as his indiscriminate love of society. He seems actually to pour out the most cherished feelings of his heart, to waste the most exquisite of his emotions and energies, on the very "froth and scum" of the human race. He writes and talks in the loftiest moods of poetic ecstasy to drunken attorneys, and mawkishly sentimental wo◄ men of the town!

Nothing, I should think, is likely to be more injurious to a morbidly susceptible and highly gifted mind, than an over indulgence of frankness and candour in ordinary conversation, amid ordinary characters. Perhaps instead of frankness and can dour, it would have been better to have said an overindulgence in the display of genius and sensibility on improper occasions. For the truth is, that frankness and candour and a proper degree of reserve are not inconsistent, but on the contrary are perfectly compatible, and are almost invariably found existing at one and the same time in those lumi

naries of the world who have attained immortality, and become the benefactors of mankind.

Every man of sensibility and taste must have adopted many secret trains of cherished thought, many favourite principles of judgment and of action, probably first framed amid the wild vallies and wooded rocks of his rural solitude, which it is ruinous and heart-rending to bring forward in the presence of an uncongenial character, amid the tumult and coarseness and artificial polish of a city life. The pure streams of his heart and imagination would be contaminated by new and unhappy associations. The reign of enchantment would be usurped by the spectre forms of reality, and the secret talisman that protected and supported him broken into fragments.

Nothing that has ever very strongly affected the feelings, and on which the heart was dependent for consolation, should be degraded and made common by imparting it to those whom the communication cannot benefit because their minds are not awake to such foreign impressions, and whose efforts at participation can only serve to chill and disturb and darken the fancy.

There are secret stores of cherished thought that ought always to be secret, which we may partake indeed with the friendly paper on which they are arrested and fixed, but never never with any human