in a part which, like the lion's (allotted to Snug*), is done "extempore, for it is nothing but roaring," it is not pleasant to communicate. A desire to avoid divulging the exact antiquity of the chronicle commenced by Time coëval with our birth, is a delicate refinement now so generally displayed, that a definite reference to the calendar is out of date, and, indeed, indicates eccentricity in a writer. The cause may be questionable—whether this exquisite sensibility be fostered by the increase of infant seminaries sanctioned by an enlightened legislature, or by the diffusion of liberal arts and sciences, by ultra-liberal hawkers promulgated upon the lowest possible terms on the mercurial side of nothing—the cause, I repeat, may be questionable, but this effect is undeniable, that an antipathy to reveal with precision the passage of Time over our heads, is becoming universal as intelligence. It seems to be a resolution of the day, that if the mighty Hunter's† reckless Whipper-in will ride rough-shod over this corporeal compound, his defacements shall not be noisily blazoned but rather sighed over secretly. So that (out of life-insurance offices) the utmost admission made consists of a plaintive

* Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1.

ተ "Death, that mighty Hunter!"-Night Thoughts.

iteration of the Patriarch's lament-"few and evil have the days of the years of my life been."

66

I borrow from the Prophet the paternal, maternal, and grand-maternal decree concerning myself: here it is briefly," To the law!" I grew up in the dangerous and isolated position of an only son-not dangerous because isolated, but because idolised. I always foresee fearingly the fate of an only sonshudderingly if there be a grandam in existence. A unique pledge," in such a case, is more hapless and more to be lamented over than the least-likely to be redeemed at a pawnbroker's. To every volition of his will there is regard-to every appeal, assent; and how can either teeth or temper maintain a purity against indulgences, dispensed with freer hand than that of Pope of Rome in direst poverty! Much less to be expected then, from such matriculation, is any. premature penchant for those interesting studies and that agreeable discipline adjudged by Lord Eldon to be essential to such as hope to live by the law.

My forensic future was proverbial in my boyhood, and numberless were the exhortations to docility and studiousness to which it supplied a text. "I heard them, but I heeded not." The pedagogue to whose training I was entrusted at a later stage, bewailed my

"mania for wood-walking and vagaries in verse, which for the most part were vanity, and would doubtlessly end in vexation of spirit;" but was too tender-hearted to chastise, and, like Southey's, "never consumed birch enough in his vocation to make a besom." How strongly some oddities protest against oblivion! Poor M-! never shall I forget the " anger, insignificantly M—! fierce," which, when it distorted thy patient features, was certain to defeat its purpose, provoking to risibility, with difficulty suppressed, the culprit it was intended to daunt. Nor ever can I fail to remember those quiet bubblings from thy natural fount of humour, whose current the cares of a contentious wife and seven clamorous bantlings had not sufficed entirely to dam.

M- astounded and delighted me a few weeks ago, by presenting himself at my chambers. London has always a choice collection of comicalities in human shape, or claiming a kindred with humanity, and the worthy dominie of D— (in the far west) was no mean metropolitan marvel during his sojourn in the vast city, "whose streets," quoth he, " are verily interminable, presenting a changeless perspective of sooty dwellings, dimly visible through an atmosphere of smoke." M. was an amateur of lowly pretensions on the violin ; and

in the lull of holiday-freedom he sought in psalmody a refuge from connubial reproach, which yielded to but one assuaging influence-sleep. M. had a tune on the title of which he jested with lugubrious levity -There is balm (said he) in Gilead! Conscious of his enjoyment of sweet sounds, I insisted on his accompanying me to a concert in Hanover-square; and during the plaudits which followed a pathetic aria from a female singer, he remarked, with a physiognomical expression in which humour, ecstasy, and gravity were strangely mingled, "Of a verity, Mr. C., yon syren's was the sweetest melody that, in the years of my experience, I ever heard produced by a Birch!*

The season of boyhood is certainly as swift of wing as the seasons which succeed it—ay, by the light of Memory, whose property it is to condense tribulation and to dilate joy, it appears scarcely less swift than that Spring of the seasons of the soul-its first love. Before I was half prepared to relinquish my capacity as

I was summoned to sterner engagements, in the coil of which, narrowing as it did the boundaries of all

*It was the cantatrice of that name who sung.

previous pleasures, I syllabled, in con expressione monotony,

"Ah, happy years! who would not be again a boy?"

Let all on the side male who cannot plead guiltless of this ejaculation, in spirit if not in the very letter, come with me hereupon to an arbitrement; and as many elegant minds have imbibed many unintelligible fancies from "The Childe," who, were the state of childhood again their own, would not appear as boys, either by creation or by choice, let us embrace the supplicants of both sexes, and determine who are they that—were the change optional-would antedate their lives agreeably to their longings.

Not the youth who is professing love, nor the maiden who is pondering upon marriage.

The youth might who has gone before the priest, and finds himself nearer purgatory than paradise; and so might a wife wedded "by attorneyship," or the mother of a thankless child.

Not the youth who is advancing to manhood and to great possessions-to the freedom of majority and the unrestrained right to do as he likes with his own.

Such a "major" might who has gained discretion and lost his domain; and so might a young man