liberal patronage, fired by emulation, proudly determined to maintain the post we have gained, and supported by the aid of many eminent literary characters, we have no apprehensions of failure, when we state our determination to persevere in the same course which we have hitherto trodden, being only constantly watchful for every opportunity of improvement. The same strict impartiality in judging the merits of our contributors; the same independence of censure or praise in our literary criticisms; and the same excellence and variety in our miscellaneous articles, shall be zealously maintained :—and, being maintained, we have little reason to doubt that we shall possess the same support, and the same eminence as hitherto. To the fair pretensions of honorable exertion, public patronage has seldom, perhaps never, been denied; and though effrontery and lofty professions may snatch a premature wreath of renown from the hands of fashion and folly, yet its bloom and lustre wither before the potent rays of unerring truth; while the laurels that are slowly awarded, spring up in the soil of patient judgement, and have in them a principle of vigour and of beauty which no transitory dereliction can destroy. January ist, 1809. "We shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if we can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth."-DR. JOHNSON. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. FIVE ORIGINAL LETTERS, addressed ing or ability; I have hitherto been to a LADY, upon the PLEASURES more conversant with my own specuand IMPORTANCE of INTELLEC- lations, and the solitary contemplaTUAL CULTIVATION. SIR, HE following letters were written lady in Edinburgh, and they were Sir, Your obedient servant, tions of my own thoughts, than with men or books; and, in general, I have drawn my notions of life purely from speculation. Yet perhaps I shall not events often knows more about them than they who mingle in the crowd and have a share in their production. the following letters, I leave entirely The topics which I shall discuss in to chance. They will be as various entice your mind, by an alluring vaas possible; for my design will be to riety, into the walks of literature; and what so poor and humble a guide your attention to the most interesting as myself can do, towards directing objects, you well know you can com mand. Be not, however, surprised, if I sometimes relinquish literature, science, and knowledge, and unfold M. myself to you in the prevailing colours of the moment; tell you my feelings, my hopes, my plans, my schemes, my desires; detail my studies, make you participate in all my joys and sorrows, in my hours of rapture and in my moments of despondency. Often shall I, my dear Eliza, sit down to write to you, as to one who can bear with patience my querulousness, endure the mournful anticipations I may sometimes indulge in, and pardon the ungrounded fears which a morbid melancholy may excite.How frequently, when I have laboured under these impressions, have I cast my eye upon the wide world, and shuddered to think, that in its ample space not a human being breathed in whose bosom I could repose my feelings! I have had acquaintance: yes, many; light, super THE promise which I have long made shall at length be fulfilled. I now sit down to commence a correspondence, which, whether advantageous to you or not, will certainly prove a source of great pleasure to myself. That pleasure indeed will be considerably heightened, if I can have reason to hope that your intellectual improvement will proceed with my exertions; and I assure you that those exertions shall not be spared. I can, however, promise you no great display either of learn It should be stated that Eliza is not the real name of the lady; but there are reasons for adopting the preseat appellation. ficial, vivacious, amusing beings, who which I hope will be attended with have fluttered around me while bask- advantage. Your last letter pleased ing in the sun; but when the clouds me much; it had, however, one fault, began to obscure the horizon, when it was too short: I mention this, a lowring aspect began to breathe not only because I shall receive more around, they-fled: and yet such, pleasure from long ones, but because Eliza, such is the intercourse of I deem it necessary to your improvesociety! ment that they should be more elaCould I ever rest my mind upon borate. Bear constantly in mind, such an intercourse? No. I heard that nothing valuable can ever be them: I disbelieved: I received them, effected without labour; and though but did not esteem; I endured their you may attain, in fifty short letters, caresses, but knew they were false a certain point of perfection, yet you and hollow; I mingled with them, will more assuredly attain the same because I was unable to quit them. point in ten long and labored ones. But my heart was unsatisfied. I de- I know this by experience. Whatspaired of ever realising pictures which ever requires repetition as a means solitude had impressed my mind: of success, must have each repetition I began to think I had formed vision- extensive; if it be not so, the immeary ideas of man and manners; and diate effects of your present exertions, that, in this corrupt and degenerate which are just beginning to dawn in age, it was in vain to look for noble the mind, are lost, and require to be sentiments, or generous sensibility. renewed by subsequent labours; You, Eliza, and your beloved hus- while, on the contrary, if you perband, have undeceived me, and con- severe, and give a sort of permanency vinced me I was not wrong. Judge, to those nascent impressions, they then, with what feelings I commence are fixed for ever. It is certainly a this correspondence; and how tena- great art to know where to stop; ciously I shall maintain it, when it is but is less dangerous, in given cirthe very thing which, for many years, cumstances, to undergo supereroga I have sighed for. tory labour, than to rest indolently satisfied with imperfect exertions. But here I must stop.-This is merely an introductory letter; a sort of catalogue of what you are to expect: however, such as it is, I expect you will reply to it; for, be it well understood, that I shall never allow you to be a single letter in arrears. In my next, I intend, as a very pro-" intellectual cultivation." per subject, to offer some remarks upon the importance of a regular appropriation of Time, and the advantages, pleasures, and necessity of intellectual cultivation. From these remarks, it is a natural transition to what are to be the immediate objects of this letter; viz.→ "The importance of a regular ap"propriation of Time, and the advan"tages, pleasures, and necessity of Farewel! Believe me to be, with the warmest sentiments of regard, Your's, most affectionately, MY DEAR ELIZA, HAVING once fairly entered upon the career, it is to be hoped that nothing now can impede our progress. I confess I had fears lest timidity would have prevented you from replying to my last; but I rejoice that your good sense has overcome that natural bashfulness which you possess, in regard to your own powers, and induced you to make an effort It was said by an Italian writer, that "Time was his estate:" and though this may not apply to you in the same way in which he meant it, yet it applies to every human being in a moral point of view. Time is every man's moral estate, and happy is he, who has early learned not to squander his patrimony! A just and correct knowledge of the importance of Time, I look upon to be one of the greatest marks of a sound head. A man who suffers moments to glide away imperceptibly, unemployed, except in listless, indolent inactivity, or in trifling and irrational amusements, fails in the great duty he owes himself and his fellow creatures: he fails in the duty he owes to himself, for he neglects to strengthen the virtuous principles of his character by proper exercise, without which they become corrupted and inert; and he fails in the duty which he owes to his fellow creatures, because no man should live for himself alone: action is his spehre: he should do something towards the general stock, or else he is to be regarded as an intruder upon the labours of his brethren : "Man, like the generous vine, supported lives, The strength he takes, is from the strength he gives." Next to a due sense of the importance of Time, nothing tends so much towards invigorating it, as a practical application of it. By a practical application, I mean that regular and distinct appropriation of it, (as far as circumstances will admit) by which every moment (if possible) may have its proper avocation. It is well observed by Dr. Young, that— "Sands make the mountain, minutes make the year.” and the glooms of sickness, when it may be presumed he found it necessary to avail himself of every interval that might offer. These instancès and many others which it would be tedious to enumerate, may serve to convince you that large and uninterrupted portions of time are by no means necessary for the carrying on extensive occupations. It has often vexed me to hear a person complain of want of time, setting very comfortably perhaps upon a sofa, their hands lying indolently before them, and stretching and yawning from mere idleness. how to take care of themselves; but A most useful auxiliary towards employing time to the best advantage, and one which I would earnestly recommend to you, is to form a kind of schedule, which is divided into as many distinct portions as there are hours between your rising and going its appropriate avocation; and by this to rest. Opposite to each hour mark He who has not learnt to appreciate mains vacant, by referring to the means, whatever portion of time rethe value of moments, will very sel- schedule, you will see what ought to dom employ hours to advantage. be its employment. I mention this Remember what an infinite deal may from experience; for I have myself be done by a persevering and per- employed it with great advantage. petual application; small portions of Let me again repeat, that nothing is time, when viewed in the aggregate, so essential as employing minute amount to a mass that will astonish scraps of hours properly; hours themyou: as a stone may be worn away selves are great big dogs, that know by the constant friction of a single drop of water, so the greatest labours may be overcome by continued repetition. Consider that some of those works which now obtain the admiration of posterity were prosecuted and completed amid the toils and bustle of public and active life. It has not been the lot of every man to repose under academic bowers, or to recline in the shades of solitude. Cicero wrote many of his finest orations during the most active part of his life; Hugo Grotius and Puffendorf, two of the greatest civilians of modern times, produced their invaluable works in very arduous situations: Machievelli is also another instance of this: Dryden wrote most of his pieces dis- ONCE more I take up my pen to tracted by various avocations, and, address you. It is astonishing what most of all, by straitened circum- an alacrity I feel in pursuing this corstances; and Johnson compiled his respondence, considering the averDictionary, certainly a most astonish- sion I have always had and still have ing proof of the powers of the human to writing. Some of my most intimind, amid the distractions of poverty mate acquaintance seldom get above "Procrastination is the thief of time." But I am so sleepy, and it is so late, that I fear, my dear Eliza, I must reserve my remarks upon intellectual cultivation till my next. Perhaps in that, too, I shall say a few more words upon the present subject. Good night; and believe me to be most affectionately, Your's, MY DEAR ELIZA, some such excuse to a few persons in this world. But now, to pass from "Grave to gay, from lively to severe ;" I have finished my aërial accusation and defence, and shall descend to the mundane occupation of these nether regions. The subject of this letter will be a more pleasing one than that of the last. We are now to consider the human mind in a state of cultivation; rising above the mist of error that in its infancy surrounds it, and beaming forth with resplendent lustre. Surely nothing can be so pleasing as to view the intellectual part of human nature adorned with every grace of which it is susceptible, and uniting at once the loveliness of ornament with the strength and vigour of perfection. To treat, first, of the advantages of intellectual cultivation : a letter in six months from me, and then the reflection that I have got to write it, makes me miserable a whole week before hand. But now, not only do I contrive to scribble three a week, but each of them is as long as five ordinary ones. Surely, Eliza, you have used some witchcraft in making me thus active, and contented at an occupation which hitherto has always been most irksome. Well, well, the sin, if there be any, shall be upon your head. When you go to the next world, you may expect to have a fine clatter about your ears Cicero, and Virgil, and Sallust, and Livy, and a whole host of modern writers, will all assemble round you, and demand back all that time which (they will say) ought to have been devoted to them. And when I make my appearance among them, methinks how downcast and self-condemned I shall look! How ridiculous I shall appear! What, in the It was sententiously observed by name of Mercy, shall I say, when Lord Bacon," that knowledge is they exclaim- Empty trifler! what power," and never a truer aphorism "object in the world could be suf- fell from the pen of man. The supe"ficiently attractive to draw you riority of mind over body has been "away from the sublime beauties of felt and acknowledged by every per- \ "our productions which have been son; except a few mad enthusiasts, "celebrated by the world? Could who, in endeavouring to advance the "there be any thing superior in plea- savage state of human nature over "sure to the reading and studying our the civilized, have at the same time "works? Could there be any thing tacitly placed corporeal power over "that could compensate for quitting mental. Rational men, however, "the pages of our immortal volumes?" who have taken more sober views of "Alas! Gentlemen," I shall say, life, have universally conceded the "I am unable to tell how it was my superiority of the latter; and poets "self; but if you would have the have dignified its attributes with some goodness to look at that lady, and of the finest flowers of imagination. "above all if you would have the It is beautifully observed by Sallust, "condescension to sit in her com- (forgive my quoting Latin to a Lady, pany for half an hour. I think you but you have one at your elbow who will discover the reason. I am will explain it to you) — “ Nostra I sure, for my part, I always loved" omnis vis in animo et corpore sita ; "books better than company; but "animi imperio, corporis servitio, "she, that ghost, Gentlemen, that “ magis utimur. Alterum nobis cum "stands laughing at me, contrived, "dis, alterum cum belluis, commune by the help of her tongue and eyes, Quo mihi rectius videtur "to draw nie from them: and the " ingenii quam virium opibus gloriam only justification I can make is, to beg that you will let her try their power upon you; and, unless she "is altered since her death, I think 66 you will have as little cause to boast as myself." Such, my dear Eliza, will be my excuse to these illustrious shades in the other world; and, indeed, I am forced sometimes to make 66 "est. quærere, et, quoniam vita ipsa quà "fruimur brevis est, memoriam nos"tri quàm maximè longam efficere. "Nam divitiarum et formæ gloria " fluxa atque fragilis; virtus "clara "æternaque habetur." A very superficial view of life will serve to convince you, that mankind are prized in proportion to their |