ter all, the first or
most important to your happiness. Could the hope of literary fame, could
the passion for it, could the esteem even of its possession, keep a
steady place in your mind, there were but little danger in admitting
this species of ambition as the ruling spirit of your house. But, alas!
whilst it is the most tenacious, it is also the most fluctuating of
passions. It rises all radiant with the morning, and before the sun is
in the zenith, it forsakes you, and the bright world at your feet is as
a glittering desert. But if you should make good resolutions to reform
and eject your tyrant, it will not fail to return before the night
descends to dash and confound them.

I remember meeting somewhere with the complaint of a young poet who had
made trial of his muse and failed; the style was perhaps somewhat
quaint, but it spoke the language of truth, and I copied it out. I will
transcribe it for your edification, and so conclude this wandering
epistle. You must not ask me for the title of the book, for I am not
sure that I could give it you correctly. Besides, it would be of no use,
as the work I know is out of print.

"I could do better," says the poet in reply to his friend, who
had been suggesting the usual consolations and lenitives
applicable to the case, "but I could not so far excel what I
have written, as to make all the difference between obscurity
and fame. It is not a brief and tolerated existence in the
world of letters that can be a sanction and motive to my
endeavours; and since a noble immortality is denied me, I am
willing to sink at once into oblivion. The sentence has been
passed. I have not that obstinacy of hope which can make an
appeal to the decision of posterity. My labours have been
futile--my whole being has been an error--my life is without
aim or meaning."

"I sought it not," continued the disappointed bard, "I sought
not this gift of poesy--I despised not the ruder toils of
existence--I strove to pursue them, but I strove in vain. I
could not walk along this earth with the busy forward tread of
other men. The fair wonder detained and withheld me. Flowers on
their slender stalks could prove an hindrance in my path; the
light acacia would fling the barrier of its beauty across my
way; the slow-thoughted stream would bend me to its winding
current. Was it fault of mine that all n