to China, and import teas and mandarins by the route of Cape Blanco. I had at last the satisfaction of seeing a British squadron, consisting of three-deckers, pass through my canal into the Pacific.

It is not a week ago since I purchased Fonthill, and having turned Farquhar and Phillips, and the buyers and jobbers, out of the temple, I completed the edifice on its original model. Here, within a day's journey of the metropolis, and with a property in nubibus not equal to what some of our rich ones possess, I determined to fix my earthly rest, and to labour for posterity. A gallery, as long as any conducting to the halls of Eblis, I devoted to sculpture, and to exact models of the antique. I visited Rome to obtain the casts of ancient works, and those of Michel Angelo and Canova. Another gallery I filled with a noble collection of paintings as numerous as select. Every thing was severely and tastefully arranged, and I suffered no gewgaws and toys of virtù to enter my apartments. No Chinese nor Kamskatchan saloons made even the day-light hideous, but a severe simplicity governed every thing. The great hall I fitted up as a library to contain books of every nation, tongue, and people. The tower was my observatory, and I constructed a great telescope, to which Herschel's at Slough might serve as an eye-glass. I established a school for a hundred boys, taking good care to provide that the master should not have it in his power to subvert the founder's intention, and add to his profits by reducing his scholars to some half-a-dozen, a thing not uncommon in similar institutions-thanks to Mr. Brougham for the disclosure. I then made my will, and devised the whole to the Nation as a great seminary for public instruction without distinction of creed. I drew up a code of laws for its government, and provided that the students should learn something more than to be tolerable classics and mathematicians-something adapted to fit them for the active purposes of life, according to their respective prospects. In short, not to be tedious, I regulated my university agreeably to the state of modern discoveries and the present enlightened era, and rejected what smacked of monkish times, past superstitions, and all that in the present day is worse than useless. But I must not waste time in enumerating the kingdoms set free from despotism-public works constructed-triumphs of art achieved, and labours for the general benefit without number, which I have thus brought to perfection.

But I shall be told, perhaps, that all castle-building is "blear illusion," and that though every instance of it may not be followed by the consequences which overtook the unlucky castle-builder Alnaschar, the glass-seller, in the Arabian Nights, it is equally empty and unsubstantial. But I contend that it is better to build castles than not to employ the mind at all—than to lie down like the boor and steep both body and soul in oblivion, or to sit in one's after-dinner chair a very corpse with respect to intellectual action. The first hint thus casually afforded to the mind has been sometimes brought within the limits of possibility, shaped and fashioned for practical use, and ultimately proved of important service to society. Castle-building differs essentially from what students call "thinking;" in the latter case the mind is employed in one particular way upon a given subject with the greatest degree of intensity. No play is allowed to the imagination; but the mental fibre, if I may so express myself, the vibrations of which be

long to that one subject, becomes overstretched and overworked, and is injured by being kept a long time acting in the same direction. Castle-building, on the contrary, adapts itself to all the different functions of the mind, and to those in a peculiar manner which are agreeable to us at the moment. It may thus be styled a sort of spiritual game, invigorating while it affords delight, and enabling us to return with fresh energy to close study. There is something highly agreeable in the quiescence we experience when we are rearing these shadowy edifices: fancy has full play, and we invent the most graceful images-our thoughts reflect "colours dipt in heaven"—an interval of that happiness is felt, which consists in an absence from every disagreeable sensation and the enjoyment of a delightful illusion. Thus in the midst of the turmoil of life, in the very jaws of care and sorrow, we snatch a momentary respite from the troubles that environ us. Our enjoyment is not like dreaming, defective in its essentials, the judgment at one time being asleep with the body, and at another time the memory, so that the images which appear before us are incongruous and defective. The castle-builder is awake in the full plentitude of his mental functions; he may ride, or walk, or sit, or lie, and enjoy his amusement.

But it is obvious that the architecture of the edifices so constructed will partake of the leading character of the individual that plans them, and be coloured with the hue of the habits and manners to which he has been accustomed. What an infinite variety of these schemes must be eternally at work, and how amusing a couple of hundred closeprinted folios would be, descriptive of the better part of them, especially of those that are begotten by genius, and that

"Float in light visions round the poet's head."

Different nations also have their characteristics, agreeably to the peculiar impressions of each. The East is the centre of magnificent sensual castle-building, if we may judge from the fictions of the people. Incited by opium, the disciple of Mahomet sits stately and speechless upon his rich carpets for hours together, building palaces of topazes and emeralds, stocking his harems with the beauties of Paradise, and guarding them with the most faithful eunuchs of Africa, now lulled to repose by soft music in the midst of the luscious dances of the most beautiful Circassian slaves; quaffing rich wine for sherbet, slyly, out of ruby cups, in spite of the commands of the Koran; inflicting the bastinado even upon grand vizirs; cutting off the heads of Christian dogs; impaling Israelites; exploring enchanted islands, and supping with Mahomet and Cajira in the third heaven. At a less magnificent extreme of castle-building, but equally delightful to the architect, is the sober London citizen. His harem contains but one plump carneous fairone, the emblem of plethoric vacuity, in whose presence he rears his more humble edifice over a pipe and brown-stout after a calorific supper. The fabric which his less excursive and more humble fancy erects, will be limited by the possession of a brick-house of two or three stories in the City-road, or in the purlieus of Hackney, a onehorse chaise, a hot joint every day, with added pudding to "solemnize the lord's," in a state of retirement from his shop in Cripplegate. His utmost stretch of mind never grasps a coach-and-four, nor does his notion of space extend much beyond Finchley in one direction, and Norwood

in another; a steam-boat line to Margate, perhaps, excepted. Beyond this, the world, save through the speculum of a newspaper, is a terra incognita, and never enters into his fancies. Yet while contemplating the Ultima Thule of his desires, he is equally satisfied with the turban'd Musulman in the pomp of his paradisaical meditations. How infinite the variety between the before-mentioned extremes-the merchant gazing on his visionary plums, and aping the nobility at the West-end ; the parson contemplating accumulated tithes, pluralities, mitres, and translations; lawyers dazzling themselves with the glitter of gold gathered from litigations, bankruptcies, and felonies, amid a harvest of human misery; statesmen enjoying premierships with submissive parliaments and easy sovereigns; painters with cartoons out-Raphaelling Raphael, and imagining themselves without rivals; booksellers, each with an army of Scotch novelists; courtiers with toy-shops, ribbons, and baubles; princes with newly usurped powers and uncontrolled authority; and authors with literary leisure and literary glory.

Certain great geniuses have been notorious for castle-building. Fontenelle, the centenarian, was so accustomed to indulge in erecting these airy fabrics, that he may be said, fairly enough, to have lived as much out of the world as in it, and by this means there can be no doubt he prolonged his life. His perfect indifference to all those matters that commonly raise a great interest among mankind in general, made his temper even and placid, and his love of castle-building contributed to his long good health. Deaths, marriages, earthquakes, murders, calamities of all kinds, scarcely affected him at all. He built castles by day and by night, in society and out of it. His body was a machine with a moving power, and went through its actions mechanically, but his mind was generally in some region far remote from the situation it occupied. He got at one time among the stars, found them peopled, and began to study the laws, manners, and dispositions of the inhabitants of worlds many million times farther from the earth than thrice to "th' utmost pole." Going one day to Versailles early in the morning, to pay a visit to the court, he was observed to step under a tree, against which he placed his back, and beginning to castle-build, he was found pursuing his architectural labours in the evening upon the selfsame spot. Kings, courtiers, and such "small gear," were unable to abstract him from following his favourite amusement, when the temptation of enjoying it was strong. Perhaps Fontenelle and Newton may illustrate the difference between the profound thinking of the scholar, and the amusement of which we are treating. Newton directed all his faculties into one focus upon a single object, proceeding by line and rule to develope the mystery which it was his desire to unravel. No play was allowed to the fancy, nor operation to more than one faculty of the soul at once; it is this which is so wearying to the frame, that gives pallor to the student's complexion, and frequently abridges life. Your castle-builder, on the contrary, may be a ruddy, florid, healthy personage. He quaffs an elixir vita; his abstractions arising only from a pleasurable pursuit in following his wayward fancies, and not from painful attention to a single subject. Sancho Panza was something of a castle-builder, jolly-looking as he was. I mention him merely to show its effect on the person. When he appeared asleep, and his master demanded what he was doing, he replied "I govern,"

being at that very instant busy in regulating the internal affairs of the island of Barrataria, of which the worthy Don had promised him the government when he had conquered it himself. Don Quixote, on the other hand, was not a castle-builder of the higher class. He called in the strength of his arm to aid his delusions, believing to be matter of fact those airy nothings which the true castle-builder regards as recreative illusions, and which cease to be harmless, if he attempt to realize them. The Knight of Cervantes took shadows for substances, and this leads me to denominate the style of castle-building which I contend is so agreeable, refreshing, and innoxious-the Poetic, in contradistinction to what may be called the Prose order. The last species is a delusion respecting something, the attainment of which is possible, though it is extremely difficult and improbable. In furtherance of the actual realization of our schemes, we lay under contribution every moral and physical aid. Pyrrhus King of Epirus was an adept in this kind of castle-building, as his conversation with Cineas proves. When we have taken Italy, what do you design next? said Cineas; Pyrrhus answered, to go and conquer Sicily. And what next?-then Libya and Carthage. And what next?-why then to try and reconquer Macedon, when, his legitimateship said, they might sit down, eat, drink, and be merry, for the rest of their days. Cineas drily advised the king to do that which was alone certainly in his power-the last thing first. In like manner, a German author has recently constructed a castle: he has undertaken a work, which for bulk and labour will leave Lopez de Vega and Voltaire sadly in the lurch. It is to include the history, legislation, manners and customs, literature, state of arts, and language of every nation in the world from the beginning of time; and this, which he proposes to complete himself, will occupy him laboriously for half-a-century, and carry his own age several years beyond the hundred. The French are clever at this style of castle-building: they plan admirably well, commence their labours with enthusiasm, but leave off in the middle of them. Canals, harbours, triumphal arches, constitutions, and Utopian plans of polity, abundantly attest this. Who but a Frenchman would have written to Franklin, offering, with a preliminary apology for his condescension, to be King of America, and actually expect pecuniary remuneration for humbling himself to such a purpose! Poor Falstaff was one of this latter class of castle-builders, though it must be confessed he had something of a foundation upon which to erect his edifice, when he heard the Prince of Wales was king and exclaimed, "Away, Bardolph, saddle my horse-Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine— Pistol, I will double charge thee with dignities." So are lovers who cherish extravagant hopes and imagine their mistresses to be something between a very woman and an angel-like fish, neither flesh nor fowl. The supporters of a balance of power in Europe, for which England has entailed on herself and upon her posterity such an enormous debt, is like Falstaff's interest with the new king, and, together with the payment of the said debt, a piece of castle-building worthy of King Pyrrhus.

But poetical castle-building alone is a pleasant and harmless amusement of the fancy, which we must lay by when we pursue our everyday avocations, without suffering it to interfere with the realities of

existence. It is the mixing these up with its air-built pleasures that produces mischievous effects. An example of this may be found in the worthy country divine, who, having preached a score or two of orthodox sermons, thought therefore, in the simplicity of his heart, that he had some claim for patronage upon all good statute Christians, whom he determined to edify by publishing his labours for their benefit. He little guessed, greenhorn that he was, the real hold of religion upon his supposed patrons, and the true state of the market in respect to such commodities. His guilelessness of soul made him suppose that where there was a church-establishment, there must necessarily be among its numerous members a high value for religious discourses such as his were-an error he fell into for want of knowledge of the world. He calculated every thing, not forgetting the expenses or the profits of his undertaking; and that he might keep within the bounds of modesty, and show nothing like self-presumption in respect to the worth of his lucubrations, he determined to limit the impression of his volume to one copy for every parish. He printed, therefore, fearlessly, eleven thousand copies. The sequel may be gathered by enquiring about the affair in the Row.

"The wisest schemes of mice and men
Gang aft awry,"

says Burns. In these matters, therefore, castle-building must give place to dry evidence and the matter-of-fact testimony of the senses. Those who act otherwise in these affairs waste their years in running round a circle, and find themselves in the end at the point from which they set out. Among these materializers of the airy nothings of the mind, are the perpetual-motion-hunters, who astound society with their discoveries, and are at last obliged to creep off, as the sporting people say, "like dogs with their tails between their legs." The credulous experimenters after the discovery of the philosopher's stone; of an universal remedy, the elixir of life, by which man is to defy sickness and defer death for a thousand years; the gambler's martingale for subduing chance; and the navigators to the moon-afford examples enough of the folly of endeavouring to realize the fantasies of imagination, and of trying to build with sunbeams and prismatic colours the coarse and ponderous edifices of man's erections.

These objections, however, do not affect castle-building of the right kind the enjoyer of which truly believes his visions too subtle for the common world, from which he must withdraw himself to see them. He sets out with the perfect consciousness that the feast of which he is going to partake, belongs not to tangible existence, that it consists of ethereal aliment laid out in the universe of spirit, and that consequently it is an intellectual entertainment upon "ambrosial food," which, while he tastes, must receive from him no alloy of corporeal substances. He knows that this pleasure is an illusion, like all others, even those that consist of better things; but he, nevertheless, derives a temporary satisfaction from it. Pleasant to him is the short interval of rest in his armed-chair after dinner, for, when the foolish world thinks him taking his nod, he is in an elysium-pleasant are his silent devotions to Raleigh's soothing weed, to the solace of his segar or hookah-pleasant is the still hour of night when sleep is deferred a