mind. I passed at once, like Melmoth, from youth to age. What were any
longer to me the ordinary avocations of my contemporaries? I had
exhausted years in moments--I had wasted, like the Eastern Queen, my
richest jewel in a draught. I ceased to hope, to feel, to act, to burn;
such are the impulses of the young! I learned to doubt, to reason, to
analyse: such are the habits of the old! From that time, if I have not
avoided the pleasures of life, I have not enjoyed them. Women, wine, the
society of the gay, the commune of the wise, the lonely pursuit of
knowledge, the daring visions of ambition, all have occupied me in turn,
and all alike have deceived me; but, like the Widow in the story of
Voltaire, I have built at last a temple to "Time, the Comforter:" I have
grown calm and unrepining with years; and, if I am now shrinking from
men, I have derived at least this advantage from the loneliness first
made habitual by regret; that while I feel increased benevolence to
others, I have learned to look for happiness only in myself.

They alone are independent of Fortune who have made themselves a separate
existence from the world.



FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

I went to the University with a great fund of general reading, and habits
of constant application. My uncle, who, having no children of his own,
began to be ambitious for me, formed great expectations of my career at
Oxford. I staid there three years, and did nothing! I did not gain a
single prize, nor did I attempt anything above the ordinary degree. The
fact is, that nothing seemed to me worth the labour of success. I
conversed with those who had obtained the highest academical reputation,