ey will form no unimportant chapter in the science of the human mind.

In relation to all the members of the second class then, I should say,
that human life is made up of term and vacation, in other words, of
hours that may be intellectually employed, and of hours that cannot be
so employed.

Human life consists of years, months and days: each day contains
twenty-four hours. Of these hours how many belong to the province of
intellect?

"There is," as Solomon says, "a time for all things." There must be a
time for sleep, a time for recreation, a time for exercise, a time for
supplying the machine with nourishment, and a time for digestion. When
all these demands have been supplied, how many hours will be left for
intellectual occupation?

These remarks, as I have said, are intended principally to apply to the
subject of productive literature. Now, of the hours that remain when
all the necessary demands of human life have been supplied, it is but a
portion, perhaps a small portion, that can be beneficially, judiciously,
employed in productive literature, or literary composition.

It is true, that there are many men who will occupy eight, ten, or
twelve hours in a day, in the labour of composition. But it may be
doubted whether they are wisely so occupied.

It is the duty of an author, inasmuch as he is an author, to consider,
that he is to employ his pen in putting down that which shall be fit for
other men to read. He is not writing a letter of business, a letter
of amusement, or a letter of sentiment, to his private friend. He is
writing that which shall be perused by as many men as can be prevailed
on to become his readers. If he is an author of spirit and ambition,
he wishes his productions to be read, not only by the idle, but by the
busy, by those who cannot spare time to peruse them but at the expence
of some occupations which ought not to be suspended without an adequate
occasion. He wishes to be read not only by the frivolous and the
lounger, but by the wise, the elegant, and the fair, by those who are
qualified to appreciate the merit of a work, who are endowed with a
quick sensibility and a discriminating taste, and are able to pass a
sound judgment on its beauties and defects. He advances his claim
to permanent honours, and desires that his lucubrations should be
considered by generations yet unborn.

A person, so occupied, and with such aims, must not attempt to pass
his crudities upon the public. If