People must have spoken more slowly in the time of Queen Elizabeth, than they do now. The cumbrous construction of phrases in the written style of that day, obliges one to read the page of an old author much slower than a modern one. It must have been the same in conversation: there being then fewer ideas in general circulation, the speaker had further to seek for subject matter: the words did not "come skipping rank and file." There was no ready money of mind in the market, although there were immense masses of unworked ingot, lying in the great bank of the national intellect. There was not then, as now, a ready-made set of conventional phrases, which served to dress up every man's thoughts, and often to supply the place of thinking; every man was then his own thinker. A rapid speaker, in such a state of things, must have cutstripped his hearers. "In all kinds of speech," (says Lord Bacon) "either pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary, it is convenient to speak leisurely, and rather drawlingly, than hastily; because hasty speech confounds the memory, and oftentimes, beside the unseemliness, draws a man either to stammering, a

nonplus, or harping on that which should follow; whereas a slow speech confirmeth the memory, and addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers,— besides a seemliness of speech and countenance." Here then was the beau-idéal of a good speaker in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

One of the most satisfactory evidences of improvement in the details of civilized life, is the increased rapidity of all its movements. Rapidity is power-omnipotence goes at once to its object, and reaches it. To be slow is to be feeble-to measure human action against time, and to overtake it, is to double existence. To live fast (properly understood) is not to wear out life briefly, but to multiply the sensations which extend it. The more thought, action, intellect, and sensation, can be crammed into this "petty space," the longer we live for it is not years, but the consciousness of living, that gives the true longevity.

"Mourir, sans avoir vécu,"

is therefore the fate of the whole tortoise tribe, whether in or out of their shell.

The events of the American and French re

volutions have quadrupled the

existence of the generation which witnessed them. More has been done in the last century, than in any three centuries which preceded it.

By rapidity, however, is not intended that description of haste, which is proverbially said to make the worst speed. That which is done imperfectly will require more time to mend, than, if properly bestowed, would have been consumed in its original completion; and as imperfect objects are objects not adapted to their end, to employ them in that state, occasions an equal waste of time in the business of life. The merit of the rapidity of civilization is, that it is combined with a greater perfection in the arts and sciences.

We travel over Macadamized roads, and sail in steam vessels, not only quicker, but safer and more comfortably. The modern speaker is not only more rapid, but clearer, and less exposed to fallacy. Society begins its progress, like life, feebly and slowly; the human intellect develops itself in ponderous poems, of a thousand and one cantos, essays in folios, and "hints," in quarto. Journeys, in the infancy of society, are made in moving

houses, over trackless mountains and "crack-skull

commons," at the rate of ten miles

per day. "Slow and sure," was a maxim of the wisdom of our ancestors; and (to end with the pleasant farce whence I took the motto for the head of this rapid rhapsody)" keep moving," should be the epigraph of ours. The "en avant" of Bonaparte set all the old dynasties in a bustle; and but for the whip and the spur, and the "allez, allez," of the French Revolution, we should have their absolutisms still moving their "minuet de la Lorraine." They have been taught to dance in quicker time, since that important pas grave nearly caused a war in which half Europe was to have taken a part.

MY FIRST ROUT IN LONDON.

Of all metaphysical mysteries, there is nothing more difficult to get at than the mystery of memory. Montaigne, complaining of his, observes, "et suis si excellente en oubliance, que mes escripts mêmes, je les oublie, pas moins que les autres."* This is precisely my own case. I never could remember any thing I wrote, beyond the moment when it was going through the press. The other evening I found a book lying open on the piano-forte, which somebody had just laid down, on being called to take a part in the Preghiera in the opera of the Mosé, and I chanced to light upon a high-flown and rather nonsensical passage, of which I could make nothing. This induced me to look at the title-page. It was "the Wild Irish Girl," seventh edition. I had not seen it for years. I was amused, and a little surprised.

In diebus illis, it was with my style, pretty

*"And I am myself so excellent at forgetfulness, that I forget my own works as much as those of other persons."