PREFACE.

I PRESENT these volumes to the reader with considerable diffidence, and with the full consciousness that they need an apology. A series of papers which I published some time since in the New Monthly Magazine, under the title of "Conversations with an Ambitious Student," attracted much favourable attention; and I have been often earnestly requested to collect and republish them. I postponed, however, doing so, from time to time, in the impression that their grave and serious character was not likely to command an attentive audience with the many, at all commensurate with the exaggerated and enthusiastic estimate already conceived of their value by the few. At length deciding to publish certain Essays and Tales, I found that their general train of thought was so much in harmony with the Conversations referred to, that I resolved to incorporate the latter (corrected, somewhat enlarged, and under the altered denomination of "The New Phædo")-leaving them at the end of the collection-to be read or avoided, as the inclination of the reader may prompt him ;-a sort of supplementary walk in the enclosure, at which he may stop short, or through which he may pursue his wanderings, in proportion as the preliminary excursion may have allured or fafigued him.

Of the general nature both of these Conversations and the various papers which precede them (some of which have also appeared before), I should observe that they belong rather to the poetical than the logical philosophy-that, for the most part, they address the sentiment rather than the intellect-choosing for their materials the metaphysics of the heart and the passions, which are more often employed in the Fiction than the Essay. If the title were not a little equivocal and somewhat presumptuous, I should venture to entitle them "Minor Prose Poems :" they utter in prose, what are the ordinary didactics of poetry. I allow that they must therefore be taken cum grano—that they assert rather prove, and that they address themselves more to those pre

than

pared to agree with the views they embrace, than to those whom it would be necessary to convert. This is yet more the case, perhaps, with the Essays than the Tales, in which latter the moral is often more homely — more addressed to the experience of the reason, and less constructed from the subtleties and refinements of the feelings. The Tales, in short, partake as much of the nature of the essay as the Essays themselves-availing themselves of a dramatic shape, the more earnestly and the less tediously to inculcate truths.

Although some of the contents of these volumes have appeared before, I yet trust that the component parts have been so selected and arranged as to form a tolerably symmetrical whole-each tending to maintain an unity of purpose, and to illustrate one general vein of ethical sentiment and belief.-Nay, from my desire to effect this the more completely, I fear that I may occasionally have incurred the charge of repetition and tautology-although, perhaps, the fault was unavoidable, and it was necessary to repeat the deduction of one Essay in the problems contended for in another.

Perhaps I may hereafter (when I have completed an historical work, in which I am now, and at different intervals, have, for years, been engaged)—add to these volumes, by some papers of a more solid and demonstrative character, divided into two additional series-the one upon certain topics of the Ancient Learning, the other upon Politics and Commerce. It was with this intention that I adopted the present title, which, if my plan be completed, will be more elaborately borne out than it is by these volumes, regarded as a single publication.

I repeat that it is with the most unaffected diffidence, that after mature deliberation and long delay, I decide upon committing these papers to the judgment of the Public. I am fully aware that they are trifles in themselves, and that miscellanies of this nature are liable to be considered even more trifling than they are--still they convey some thoughts, and some feelings which I wished not to have experienced without result; and the experience by which an individual believes he has profited is rarely communicated without some benefit, however humble, to the world.

ON THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AUTHORS

AND

THE IMPRESSION CONVEYED OF THEM BY
THEIR WORKS.

THIS is one of those subtle and delicate subjects which Literary philosophers have not taken the trouble to discuss; it is one which is linked with two popular errors. The first error

is in the assertion that Authors are different from the idea of them which their writings tend to convey; and the second error is in the expectation that nevertheless Authors ought to be exactly what their readers choose to imagine them. The world does thus, in regard to Authors, as it does in other matters-expresses its opinions in order to contrast its expectations. But if an Author disappoint the herd of spectators, it does not follow that it is his fault. The mass of men are disappointed with the Elgin Marbles. Why? Because they are like life because they are natural. Their disappointment in being brought into contact with a man of genius is of the same sort. He is too natural for them,-they expected to see his style in his clothes. Mankind love to be cheated: thus the men of genius who have not disappointed the world in their externals, and in what I shall term the management of self, have always played a part, they have kept alive the vulgar wonder by tricks suited to the vulgar understanding, they have measured their conduct by device and artifice, and have walked the paths of life in the garments of the stage. Thus did Pythagoras and Diogenes, thus did Napoleon and Louis XIV. (the last of whom was a man of genius if only from the delicate beauty of his compliments), -thus did Bolingbroke, and Chatham (who never spoke

Thou wert not happy; as the Carmelite Sister,

Say-art thou happy?

DUCHESS DE LA VALLIÈRE.

Yes!

BRAGELONE (laying his hand on her head.)
O Father, bless her!

CHORUS. Hark! in heaven is mirth !

Jubilate !

Grief leaves guilt on earth!

Jubilate !

Joy for sin forgiven!

Jubilate !

Come, O Bride of Heaven!

Jubilate !

Curtain falls slowly.

END.

AUTHOR OF "EUGENE ARAM," "ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH,"

&c. &c.

"The situation of the most enchanted enthusiast is preferable to that of a philosopher who, from continual apprehensions of being mistaken, at length dares neither affirm nor deny any thing."

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