is a remembrance of my honoured friend.

The philosophic ruler, who secured the favours of fortune by seeking
wisdom and knowledge in preference to them, has pathetically
observed--"The heart knoweth its own bitterness; and there is a joy
in which the stranger intermeddleth not." A simple question founded
on a trite proverb, with a discursive answer to it, would scarcely
suggest to an indifferent person any other notion than that of a mind
at ease, amusing itself with its own activity. Once before (I
believe about this time last year), I had taken up the old memorandum
book, from which I transcribed the preceding essay, and they had then
attracted my notice by the name of the illustrious chemist mentioned
in the last illustration. Exasperated by the base and cowardly
attempt that had been made to detract from the honours due to his
astonishing genius, I had slightly altered the concluding sentences,
substituting the more recent for his earlier discoveries; and without
the most distant intention of publishing what I then wrote, I had
expressed my own convictions for the gratification of my own
feelings, and finished by tranquilly paraphrasing into a chemical
allegory the Homeric adventure of Menelaus with Proteus. Oh! with
what different feelings, with what a sharp and sudden emotion did I
re-peruse the same question yester-morning, having by accident opened
the book at the page upon which it was written. I was moved; for it
was Admiral Sir Alexander Ball who first proposed the question to me,
and the particular satisfaction which he expressed had occasioned me
to note down the substance of my reply. I was moved; because to this
conversation I was indebted for the friendship and confidence with
which he afterwards honoured me, and because it recalled the memory
of one of the most delightful mornings I ever passed; when, as we
were riding together, the same person related to me the principal