tted down what he considered to be his failures; he
found himself fuller of faults than he had imagined, but at length his
blots diminished. This self-examination, or this "Faultbook," as Lord
Shaftesbury would have called it, was always carried about him. These
books still exist. An additional contrivance was that of journalising his
twenty-four hours, of which he has furnished us both with descriptions and
specimens of the method; and he closes with a solemn assurance, that "It
may be well my posterity should be informed, that to this _little
artifice_ their ancestor owes the constant felicity of his life." Thus we
see the fancy of Jones and the sense of Franklin, unconnected either by
character or communication, but acted on by the same glorious feeling to
create their own moral and literary character, inventing similar although
extraordinary methods.

The memorials of Gibbon and Priestley present us with the experience and
the habits of the literary character. "What I have known," says Dr.
Priestley, "with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my
admiration and my contempt of others. Could we have entered into the mind
of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced
his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process."
Our student, with an ingenuous simplicity, opens to us that "variety of
mechanical expedients by which he secured and arranged his thoughts," and
that discipline of the mind, by means of a peculiar arrangement of his
studies for the day and for the year, in which he rivalled the calm and
unalterable system pursued by Gibbon, Buffon, and Voltaire, who often only
combined the knowledge they obtained by humble methods. They knew what to
ask for; and where what is wanted may be found: they made use of an
intelligent secretary; aware, as Lord Bacon has expressed it, that some
books "may be read by deputy."

Buffon laid down an excellent rule to obtain originality, when he advised
the writer first to exhaust his own thoughts, before he attempted to
consult other writers; and Gibbon, the most experienced reader of all our
writers, offers the same important advice to an author. When engaged on a
particular subject, he tells us, "I suspended my perusal of any new book
on the subject, till I had reviewed all that I knew, or believed, or had
thought on it, that I might be qualified to discern how much the authors
added to my original stock." The advice of L