admiration than conviction, and rarely delivers an important speech without making an enemy for life. Had he been a less man he would be a greater speaker, and a better leader in a popular assembly.

This good faith in controversy not only manifests, but nourishes also another great oratorical excellence, -a hearty love of the subject and a deep sense of the public welfare, prevailing over that self-regard and desire of victory, inseparable, in some degree, from the infirmity of human nature. They who have no real feeling, always pitch their expressions too high, or too low; as deaf people do their voices.

It is not without some misgiving that I perceive with how much more interest you talk of parliament than of chancery. It is very usual and very natural to prefer the former. Let me entreat you to consider well. I have heard one of the ablest and most efficient men in this country (actually at the time the chosen leader of the Opposition, enjoying the fame of such a station, and looking forwards, doubtless, to high office) own, more than once, with much emotion, that he had made a fatal mistake in preferring par

liament to the Bar. At the bar he well knew that he must have risen to opulence and to rank, and he bitterly regretted having forsaken his lawful wife, the profession, for that fascinating but impoverishing harlot, Politics.

If you should abandon your Penelope and your home for Calypso, remember that I told you of the advice given, in my hearing, at different times to a young lawyer, by Mr. Windham, and by Mr. Horne Tooke-not to look for a seat till he had pretensions to be made Solicitor-general.

Yours is so laborious a calling and your competitors are so many and so keen, that not only ambition but amusement tempts many to quit the Inns of Court, and I have known several very able young men drawn aside by making a single continental tour, during the long vacation. A passion for travelling has overcome both prudence and the love of distinction.

You will now understand why I was glad to hear that you are going with your sisters, no farther than to Brighton. There Coke and Blackstone will help

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you profitably (and why not pleasantly ?) through the hot hours in the middle of the day, and, if you should take the siesta, you will dream of being Lord Chancellor, or Lord Chief Justice.

TO THE SAME.

2nd December, 1817.

IF your low spirits arise from bodily illness

often the case) you must consult Dr. Baillie.

(as is

I can

Perhaps you should fast a little

do nothing for you. and walk and ride. But if they are caused by disappointment, by impatience, or by calamity, you can do much for yourself. The well-known, worn-out topics of consolation and of encouragement are become trite, because they are reasonable, and you will soon be cured, if you steadily persevere in a course of moral alteratives.

You have no right to be dispirited, possessing as you do all that one of the greatest, as well as oldest

sages has declared to be the only requisites for happiness a sound mind, a sound body, and a competence.

An anxious, restless temper, that runs to meet care on its way, that regrets lost opportunities too much, and that is over-pains-taking in contrivances for happiness, is foolish and should not be indulged. "On doit être heureux sans trop penser à l'être "

If you cannot be happy in one way, be happy in another, and this facility of disposition wants but little aid from philosophy, for health and goodhumour are almost the whole affair. Many run about after felicity, like an absent man hunting for his hat, while it is on his head, or in his hand.

Though sometimes small evils, like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an under-growth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let on long leases.

I cannot help seeing that you are dissatisfied with your occupation, and that you think yourself unlucky in having been destined to take it up, before you

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were old enough to chuse for yourself.

Do not be too sure that you would have chosen well. I somewhere met with an observation, which, being true, is important, that in a masquerade, where people assume what characters they like, "how ill they "often play them!" Many parts are probably preferred for the sake of the dress, and do not many young men enter into the navy or army, that they may wear a sword and a handsome uniform, and be acceptable partners at a ball? Vanity is hard-hearted and insists upon wealth, rank, and admiration. Even so great a man as Prince Eugene owned (after gaining a useless victory), that "on travaille trop "pour la Gazette." Such objects of pursuit are losing their value every day, and you must have observed that rank gives now but little precedence, except in a procession.

But I am really ashamed even to hint at such endless and obvious commonplaces, and I shall only repeat the remark, which seems to have struck you, that in all the professions, high stations seem to come down to us, rather than that we have got up to them.