the jealous, uneasy temperament is most favourable to continued exertion and improvement, if it does not lead us to fritter away attention on too many pursuits. By looking out of ourselves, we gain knowledge: by being little satisfied with what we have done, we are less apt to sink into indolence and security. To conclude with a piece of egotism: I never begin one of these Essays with a consciousness of having written a line before; and having got to the end of the volume, hope never to look into it again. ESSAY XVI. HOT AND COLD. "Hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mastery."-MILTON. "THE Protestants are much cleaner than the Catholics," said a shopkeeper of Vevey to me. "They are so," I replied, "but why should they?" A prejudice appeared to him a matterof-fact, and he did not think it necessary to assign reasons for a matter-of-fact. That is not my way. He had not bottomed his proposition on proofs, nor rightly defined it. Nearly the same remark, as to the extreme cleanliness of the people in this part of the country, had occurred to me as soon as I got to Brigg, where however the inhabitants are Catholics. So the original statement requires some qualification as to the mode of enunciation. I had no sooner arrived in this village, which is situated just under the Simplon, and where you are surrounded with glaciers and goitres, than |