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are common and cheap, and we know that things that are common and cheap are always undervalued; but this, perhaps, may not always be the case; for, in point of cheapness, the objection has been gradually removing for some time.

To appreciate their true value, therefore, we have only to suppose that they were totally to be discontinued for a month. I turn with horror from the frightful idea! I deprecate such a shock to the circulation of table talk. It would operate more unfavourably than the gloom of November is said, by foreigners, to operate on the nerves of Englishmen and after such a suspension of news, I am afraid the papers would contain nothing but accounts of sudden deaths, which had happened in the interval, with the deliberate opinion of the coroner's jury "Died for want of intelligence!!"

"Let us praise Newspapers," says Dr. Johnson. "One of the principal amusements of the Idler is to read the works of those minute historians, the writers of news, who, though contemptuously overlooked by the composers of bulky volumes, are yet necessary in a nation where much wealth produces much leisure, and one part of the people has nothing to do but observe the lives and fortunes of the other."

L.

THE HYPOCHONDRIAC*.

He would not taste, but swallow'd, life at once;
And scarce had reach'd his prime ere he had bolted,
With all its garnish, mix'd of sweet and sour,
Full fourscore years. For he, in truth, did wot not
What most he craved, and so devoured all;
Then, with his gases, follow'd Indigestion,
Making it food for Night-mares and their foals.
Bridgen.

Ir was the opinion of an ancient philosopher, that we can have no want for which nature does not provide

*From the 2d No. of "The Idle Man," a series of desultory essays, published at New York in 1821.

an appropriate gratification. As it regards our physical wants, this appears to be true. But there are moral cravings which extend beyond the world we live in; and, were we in a heathen age, would serve us with an unanswerable argument for the immortality of the soul. That these cravings are felt by all there can be no doubt; yet that all feel them in the same degree, would be as absurd to suppose, as that every man possesses equal sensibility or understanding. Boswell's desires, from his own account, seem to have been limited to reading Shakspeare in the other world, whether with, or without his commentators, he has left us to guess; and Newton probably pined for the sight of those distant stars whose light has not yet reached us. What originally was the particular craving of my own mind I cannot now recall; but that I had, even in my boyish days, an insatiable desire after something which always eluded me I well remember. As I grew into manhood my desires became less definite; and by the time I had passed through College they seemed to have resolved themselves into a general passion for doing.

It is needless to enumerate the different subjects which one after another engaged me- -Mathematics, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy were each begun with enthusiastic ardour, and each in turn given up in disgust.

It is the fate of all inordinate passions to meet their extremes; so was it with mine. Could I have pursued any of these studies with moderation, I might have been to this day, perhaps, both learned and happy. But I could be moderate in nothing. Not content with being employed, I must always be busy; and business, as every one knows, if long continued, must end in fatigue, and fatigue in disgust, and disgust in change, if that be practicable-which unfortunately was my case.

The restlessness occasioned by these half-finished studies brought on a severe fit of self-examination. Why is it, I asked myself, that these learned works, which have each furnished their authors with sufficient excitement to effect their completion, should thus weary me

before I get midway into them? It is plain enough. As a reader I am merely a recipient, but the composer is an active agent; a vast difference! And now I can ac-count for the singular pleasure which a certain bad poet of my acquaintance always took in inflicting his verses on every one who would listen to him; each perusal being but a sort of mental echo of the original bliss of the composition. I will set about writing immediately.

Having time out of mind heard the epithet great coupled with historians, it was that, I believe, inclined me to write a history. I chose my subject, and began collating and transcribing, night and day, as if I had not another hour to live; and on I went with the industry of a steam-engine; when it one day occurred to me, that, though I had been labouring for months, I had not yet had occasion for one original thought. Pshaw! said I, 'tis only making new clothes out of old ones. will have nothing more to do with history.

I

As it is natural for a mind suddenly disgusted with mechanic toil to seek relief from its opposite, it can easily be imagined that my next resource was poetry. Every one rhymes now-a-days, and so can I. Shall I write an epic, or a tragedy, or a metrical romance? Epics are out of fashion; even Homer and Virgil would hardly be read in our time, but that people are unwilling to admit their schooling to have been thrown away. As to tragedy, I am a modern, and it is a settled thing that no modern can write a tragedy; so I must not attempt that. Then for metrical romances-why, they are now manufactured; and as the Edinburgh Review says, may be "imported" by us " in bales." I will bind myself to no particular class, but give free play to my imagination. With this resolution I went to bed, as one going to be inspired. The morning came; I ate my breakfast, threw up the window, and placed myself in my elbow-chair before it. An hour passed, and nothing occurred to me. But this I ascribed to a fit of laughter that seized me, at seeing a duck made drunk by eating rum cherries. I turned my back on the window. Another hour followed, then another, and another: I was

still as far from poetry as ever; every object about me seemed bent against my abstraction; the card-racks fascinating me like serpents, and compelling me to read, as if I would get them by heart, Dr. Joblin, Mr. Cumberback, Mr. Milton Bull, &c. &c. I took up my pen, drew a sheet of paper from my writing-desk, and fixed my eyes upon that;-'twas all in vain; I saw nothing on it but the watermark, D. Ames. I laid down the pen, closed my eyes, and threw my head back in the chair. "Are you waiting to be shaved, sir?" said a familiar voice. I started up and overturned my servant. "No, blockhead !-I am waiting to be inspired;" but this I added mentally. "What is the cause of my difficulty?" said I. Something within me seemed to reply, in the words of Lear, " nothing comes of nothing.' Then I must seek a subject. I ran over a dozen in a few minutes, chose one after another, and, though twenty thoughts very readily occurred on each, I was fain obliged to reject them all; some for wanting pith, some for belonging to prose, and others for having been worn out in the service of other poets. In a word, my eyes began to open on the truth, and I felt convinced that that only was poetry which a man writes because he cannot help writing; the irrepressible effluence of his secret being on every thing in sympathy with it-a kind of flowering of the soul amid the warmth and the light of nature. am no poet, I exclaimed, and I will not disfigure Mr. Ames with common-place verses.

I know not how I should have borne this second disappointment had not the title of a new novel, which then came into my head, suggested a trial in that branch of letters. I will write a novel. Having come to this determination, the next thing was to collect materials. They must be sought after, said I, for my late experiment has satisfied me that I might wait for ever in my elbowchair, and they would never come to me; they must be toiled for-not in books, if I would not deal in secondhand-but in the world, that inexhaustible storehouse of all kinds of originals. I then turned over in my mind the various characters I had met with in life; amongst

these a few only seemed fitted for any story, and those rather as accessories; such as a politician who hated popularity; a sentimental grave-digger, and a metaphysical rope-dancer; but for a hero, the grand nucleus of my fable, I was sorely at a loss. This, however, did not discourage me. I knew he might be found in the world, if I would only take the trouble to look for him. For this purpose I jumped into the first stage-coach that passed my door; it was immaterial whither bound, my object being men, not places. My first day's journey offered nothing better than a sailor who rebuked a member of Congress for swearing. But at the third stage, on the second day, as we were changing horses, I had the good fortune to light on a face which gave promise of all I wanted; it was so remarkable that I could not take my eyes from it; the forehead might have been called handsome but for a pair of enormous eye-bones that seemed to project from it like the quarter-galleries of a ship, and beneath these were a couple of small, restless, gray eyes, which, glancing in every direction from under their shaggy brows, sparkled like the intermittent light of fireflies in the nose there was nothing remarkable, except that it was crested by a huge wart with a small grove of black hairs; but the mouth made ample amends, being altogether indescribable, for it was so variable in its expression, that I could not tell whether it had most of the sardonic, the benevolent, or the sanguinary, appearing to exhibit them all in succession with equal vividness. My attention, however, was mainly fixed by the sanguinary; it came across me like an east wind, and I felt a cold sweat damping my linen; and when this was suddenly succeeded by the benevolent, I was sure I had got at the secret of his character-no less than that of a murderer haunted by remorse. Delighted with this discovery, I made up my mind to follow the owner of the face wherever he went till I should learn his history. I accordingly made an end of my journey for the present, upon learning that the stranger was to pass some time in the place where we stopped. For three days I made minute inquiries, but all I could gather was, that he had

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