position) those natural and amusing things, which, as he himself quaintly expresses it, come, "à saute et à gambade."* But then I am not Menage nor Montaigne.

The danger of a book like this, lies in the lure it holds out to egotism. There it is, always ready to receive the perilous confidences of self-love and self-complacency, like an old lady's humble companion, or the confessor of a voluble devotee. "The reason," says the always quotable Madame de Sévigné, "why devotees love their confessors, is the pleasure they have in talking of themselves, even when they have nothing good to tell: 'on aime tant à parler de soi." "+ Oh, the terrible truth!

There is something too not less dangerous in the way-laying of such a book for every passing impression. What little sensations, which the world should never know, may there find permanency! What opinions may there be recorded, which to broach, were proscription! What honest indignation may there find vent against the falseness of the professed friend, or the vileness of the successful enemy,-feelings which it is vain to ex

"With a skip and a jump."

+

"We love so much to talk of ourselves."

press, and undignified to expose. What mere ebullitions of temperament may there assume the shape of habitual sentiment-though even in the writing, they dissipate with the breaking forth of a sun-beam, or lose their acrimony with the shifting of a north-east wind.

66

Had I not then better cast away this volume, "white and unwritten still," ere it bear evidence against me; and leave to some hand more calm and sage-the leaves to fill," who haply may make it the nucleus of one of those annuals, never destined to be perennial, or the repertory for some souvenir, soon to be forgotten? Such a book may have its value. It may preserve a sort of proof impression of one's self, taken at various sittings, and in various aspects; and thus give one portrait more to the gallery of human originals, to illustrate the great mystery of identity,-that volatile subject, which changes as we analyse it. For even the hand which traced the first line of this farrago, is not the same agent of the same volition, with that which will write the last; though the being, in which it resides, is still technically the same. To leave such an auto-transcript behind one, may assist the moral

anatomist in his demonstrations, as the bequeathing what is called "our mortal remains" to the dissecting-knife promotes the science of the physiologist. In either case, there is much to pity, and much to wonder at; but what is most marvellous and admirable in both, is the inscrutable mystery by which the complicated machinery is set in motion, independently of the subject in which it works; constructed, perfected, moving, stopping!-the power unknown, the end unguessed ! At this point, neither books nor bodies can be further of use. The anatomist drops his knife, the moralist his pen. At this point too I must drop mine: not that I am "weary of conjecture," for I like the animating and enterprising excursion, even when it proves nothing; but,-I must dress for a ball!.

Oh! what a refuge is folly against philosophy; what a shield is pleasure against persecution! How many have been burned at the stake, who never would have paid that terrible penalty had they learned to waltz! How many have been broken on the wheel, who would have escaped its tortures, had they been cut short in their unpardonable search after truth, by the necessity of dressing for a ball!

EGOISM AND EGOTISM.

EGOISM and egotism-what a difference! The one a vice, the other a weakness of temperament, The one inspires aversion, for it is always unsocial; the other awakens ridicule, for it is frequently absurd. Egoism is in a great degree referable to modern manners, and it is among the drawbacks on civilization. Egotism is of all ages, and more an affair of structure than of convention. The egotist must be a very vain man, but he may be a gifted, and generally is an amiable one. If he had many serious defects to hide, he would not so frankly give himself up to public inspection. The pains he takes to canvass for public suffrage is a proof that he values opinion; but the worst of it is, that the egotist entrenches on the self-importance of others that irremissible sin in society, where every

man is his own hero, whatever he may be to his valet de chambre.

Egotism, when accompanied by endowments, is infinite in its resources. When it cannot relate, it exhibits; but it must always be before the scene, and occupy the audience. It is seldom found among the heaven-born members of high society; because egoism and not egotism is the inherent, almost organic vice of that class. The egoist is one who, uncalled upon by his necessities for exertions, and led by breeding to resolve all things into self-who, without effort to make, or suffrage to court, feels not the value of public opinion, or, feeling it, believes himself above it. Divested of warm affections, and independent of all sympathy, he is ever on the side of taste; because no predominant impulse leads him to its violation. He breaks no form of conventional propriety, nor shocks a prejudice of time-honoured ignorance. Devoted to self-gratification, he never seeks it by any greater risk, than comports with his habitual ease, and place in society. His gallantry, even when profligate, is passionless, and calculating; it is an air, not an enjoyment—an