pect of a friend, in these degenerate times, is that he will be a person who will waste one's time, ruffle one's temper, betray one's secrets, and assist in spending one's money.

After all, to all men and at all times, the best friend is virtue, and the best companions are high endeavours and honourable sentiments.

I thus withdrew myself from all that might distract my thoughts or squander my time, and devoted my days and my nights to ardent and persevering study. I had selected and brought with me the best books from my father's collection, and had the command of the library of the college. Hitherto my connexion with literature had been almost entirely in the character of a recipient. At home, I had no motive of duty to incite me to composition, and the stimulus of ambition was not yet roused in my breast. Indolence and the pursuit of mental gratification had therefore kept me content with reading what others had written, rather than spurred me to write what others might read. My sole object, now, was to obtain fame as an author, and I accordingly made writing my chief occupation.

As soon as I had fixed myself in my solitary rooms, I began my labours. My first performance was slow and doubtful. I sat for the whole morning, before my table, and at the end of it had written but little. I still persevered, and by the evening had the satisfaction of finding that though my progress was still to be estimated by lines rather than by pages, yet that I had become master of my subject, and could see my way clearly before me. I resumed my pen with undiminished ardour on the following day, and soon found that what I had taken up as a painful task, was become a pleasing occupation. My work proceeded rapidly, and I became happy in the employment.

I continued my habits of composition steadily and devotedly, relieving my mind occasionally by the perusal of the best English classics. I read none but the best, and I read them with the utmost attention. I studied them closely, penetrated their merits. and saw wherein their greatness consisted. I had formerly approached them with the coldness of an admirer; I now followed their

steps with something of the daring of a rival. I wrote on for a long time, developing my thoughts on various subjects, and acquiring power and ease in the use of language, but without any direct reference to publication. Writing is as much a craft as any of the mechanic arts; and in it as in them, one must learn the use of his tools before he can work with advantage. He must learn by practice to arrest a passing sentiment, and teach the feelings to become vocal gracefully. For weeks and months I went on in perfect enthusiasm, familiarizing to my mind the elevated conceptions of the old masters of the lyre, and instructing it by severe but grateful discipline to produce the harvest of its own cultivation. I lived in a dreamy whirl of excitement. My intellect seemed to expand, and I grasped confidently things which formerly I would not have ventured to approach.

Walpole said of Gray that during certain years of his life, his mind was "in flower;" a happy illustration of the warm, and genial, and expanded state in which the understanding sometimes finds itself. I may with propriety apply the expression to myself during this part of my time. I could take up every subject with equal facility, and to each in succession I came with a mind acute in its perceptions and ardent in its feelings. My existence was a state of the highest happiness. Sensations of undefined pleasure occupied my mind, and in the intervals of employment, the thought of her for whom I wrought, stood by me, like a presence, lending interest to all my meditations and beauty to all my dreams. Not a moment was lost in vacancy or idleness; for, spurred on by ambition, and lured on by love, how could I choose but be always busy?

Many writers, having reference to the instinctive mirthfulness, the lively joy,

"The thoughtless day, the easy night,

The spirits pure, the slumbers light,"

which mark that period of life, have spoken of youth as the happiest portion of human existence. My own experience is different, and though my own morbidness of feeling, and the peculiarity of my situation, may have

rendered my case an unfit test of the general truth, yet I am inclined to think that the experience of most persons will contradict the opinion. For myself I must confess that my mind recurs to the days of my boyhood, not without a sensation of pain. The happiest period in the life of any man, is, in my judgment, that to which my narrative now refers. In original composition there is always an intoxicating delight, and to a young man it comes coupled with the fresh pleasure of novelty, and heightened by the wildness of fancy and enthusiasm: the fates have not yet begun to weave dark threads in the web of his life; care has not spread her damp and heavy mantle over his hopes, and experience has not yet availed to make the golden clouds of glory fade into "the light of common day." I recur to these passages of my existence, whose days in passing seemed like long paradisal years, but whose years now past, seem like a short summer day, with an emotion which I cannot describe. Memory pictures to Fancy, my former self, seated by my lonely fire, ardent in study, glowing in hope, untiring in exertion; the earth of my reality glad with a thousand gardens, the heaven of my anticipations bright with a thousand stars.

My thoughts now began to look toward publication. My whole being was at this time, poetry, and I naturally thought of making my first trial in this department. I finished with the utmost rapidity a poem which I had long meditated, and by adding a few minor pieces which I had thrown off in moments of peculiar enthusiasm, I had matter enough for a respectable volume. I easily procured a publisher, and the book appeared anonymously. My success was immediate and great: the poem was read every where, and from every quarter I heard my praises my fondest wishes and wildest dream of popularity were scarcely unrealized by the actual reception of the book.

When Mozart had finished his mortal career, and was just wavering on the brink of life, he is reported to have said to his attendants that he began to see what might be done in music. A similar feeling attaches to every one when he has completed a design upon which he has been

engaged. When a literary man has just got his work concluded, he begins to see what he might have made out of his subject, and the desire of commencing another to which he can do more justice, becomes irresistibly strong. So I found it with myself: like the woodman, who in felling an oak, gives the second stroke without waiting for the echoes of the first, I paused not to listen to the remarks upon this work before commencing a second.

After little delay I again appeared before the public. My second publication was a work of fiction, which was followed speedily by another poem. I then directed the channel of my ideas into another direction. I could turn with entire ease and pleasure to the driest and most technical subject. It is a common mistake of authors to confine their efforts to a single branch of literature, to poetry, philosophy, or prose fiction separately. The mind by devotion to one pursuit becomes stiff, ungraceful and onesided. From every change of employment we return with renewed and freshened vigour. It was the great and constant endeavour of Goethe, to keep his intellect in such a state as to be ready to exert itself upon any description of literary or scientific subject, and this was a source of his peculiar greatness. He attained higher eminence in all the subjects which he treated than he could have done in any one department by unrelieved application to it.

Week after week, and month after month, I went on in my enthusiastic labours. Men often are not aware of what severe and untiring labour they are capable, until they have made trial of their strength. I proceeded with. out a moment's rest, and on every successive day found myself better fitted for study and composition. Far from feeling any exhaustion of intellect, or any impoverishment of ideas, I found my mind growing more and more inventive, more ready in the application of its stores, and richer and more novel in thought than before. I took up in succession every subject which can engage attentionpoetry, criticism, philology, history and mathematics, in short, every topic which ancient and modern learning could suggest.

The period which I had fixed on for returning to Merton was now fast approaching. The class to which I belonged-I had entered the second—was graduated.

I was constrained, however, to remain in the city for a few weeks after the termination of the course, and I then began my arrangements for visiting Merton. On the evening of the day when all my preparations were completed, I went out to a jeweller's and purchased two rings, one plain and the other richly set with diamonds. The latter I intended for a present to Emily, when I reached her.

I returned again to my room; every thing was packed and placed in readiness about me, and having no occupation to employ the night. I sat down by the fire to think over my affairs. During the whole of my absence I had not addressed a single word to Emily, nor had I heard any thing from her. I had wished to bury myself in absolute retirement, and in silence and obscurity work out my triumph. I felt assured that she never could change, and I could foresee no possible circumstance which could interfere with my happiness.

It was a proud hour that I there spent in lonely meditation. The labour of three long years was brought to a conclusion, a conclusion even more successful than hope had promised. I had written books which I had only to avow, in order to obtain the highest reputation. I anticipated the gratification which I should have in telling Emily the secret of my glory. I amused myself in imagining how she had passed the long hours of our separation. I pictured her to myself as enduring patiently, with high hopes, but somewhat of apprehension and doubt, the time which she must pass ere we should meet again. By day she could build her happiness" on woman's quiet hours;" by night she could find a gentle solace in the tender memory of my departure. I asked myself-it was a fond but enticing thought-whether it were not possible that she had suspected or discovered by some secret sympathy, the author of the works which had excited so much notice. At least, thought I, she has seen and admired the poems which I have published, and it remains for me, electing for the purpose the moonlit bower, to enjoy the delight of disclosing to her the fact, and placing upon her