Hume's three, or Brown's four, or somebody else's dozen for aught I know, are insufficient to comprehend all possible cases of association. Resemblance, contrast, contiguity in time or place, cause and effect, do not exhaust them: for to these must be added any relation whatsoever between any two or more things whatsoever; and I hope that is comprehensive enough! Anything may suggest anything, according to the momentary mood of the individual mind, as well as according to the laws of minds in general.

But, assuredly, the things now adverted to are presumption of both the facts I set out with :- - that the past but "sleeps " and is not "dead" within us; and that it is a proof of the beneficence with which the mind has been constructed, that we become blind and deaf to objects far more fit to awaken memory than are the rarely seen tries that often do what the former cannot. If it were otherwise, it would be impossible to live in the world at all after any great trouble. Everything would wear perpetual mourning to us. I know no reason why it should not be so why everything should not continue to affect us as strongly as at first, or as strongly as these insignificant things which if not seen for a time possess this strange power; for to say it is habit is but to repeat the fact that we are so constituted. We know no reason; we can only say that such is our constitution; and like the other laws of mind, it affords a presumption of a beneficent Creator who knew that we must not remember the past every day, or we could not live the present day to any purpose nor wholly forget the past, but be held to it by invisible ties, else the discipline of sorrow and the schooling of life would be for us in vain.

Ever yours,

R. E. H. G.

P. S.-I rejoice to infer from your letter that you are quite yourself again, and have had no relapse.

LETTER III.

To the same.

My dear West,

London, March 22, 1839.

I gave the poor man, as you requested, a few shillings, because he came from you; and if he had been without any such recommendation, I would gladly have given him as much to get rid of him. What a terrible bore he is! He is, I doubt not (as you say), a sensible man: but there are people whose sense is worse than other people's nonsense; and as you listen to the solid, unimpeachable, prolix, slowly-pronounced commonplace, you feel almost made a convert to paradox, and are ready to deny everything that the good soul utters. The truest and the grandest things in the world suffer inexpressibly from such doleful commentators.

I almost think there ought to be a tax imposed on every dull good man who ventures to open his lips in the way of moral prosing, considering the injury he does truth and goodness; he ought to be forbidden to preach to his fellow-creatures, except by what is infinitely more persuasive than any eloquence-good deeds and an attractive example. It is melancholy to think of the havoc which a dull speaker will soon make in a crowded audience. The preaching of some good parsons is like reading the Riot Act, or reminds one of that ingenious method by which it is said the magistrates of St. Petersburgh sometimes cool the zeal of a mob in that genial climate, that is, by playing on them with a fireengine.

I cannot conceive of what use this poor clergyman can be, unless, indeed, our churches and chapels were crowded to suffocation; then one or two like him might be employed to itinerate about the country and bring down crowded congregations to par. A very few, however, would be sufficient; the effects of the sermon, and consequently its length, might be regulated by a thermometer.

But great care would be necessary in the application: for a little excess in the duration of the humdrum might end in the extinction of the audience altogether. In any case, I think, it should be provided by law that no such enthusiasm-extinguisher should be permitted to play more than an hour, lest the congregation should be annihilated. One might then read such announcements as these: "The church of that lively preacher, the Rev., was on Sunday se'nnight so excessively crowded, even to the aisles and pulpit-stairs, that it was found necessary to send for the most 'distinguished' of the 'extinguishing' preachers, to counteract the effects of his oratory last Sunday night. So effectual was the eloquence of this gentleman, that in twenty minutes the thermometer fell ten degrees in the gallery, and the air of the church before the benediction became delightfully cool and salubrious!" But our dull acquaintance told me one thing I was glad to hear. So young Wis really applying to his profession in earnest. As it was said of some pope (Leo X., if I recollect), that he would have been an excellent man if he had had but the slightest tincture of religion, and of another pope, that he was a very good man for a pope, so I am ready to say of our young friend, that he has been a good student for a young man of expectations, and that he would make an excellent lawyer, if he had but the slightest tincture of "law." He certainly has, and eminently, all the qualities of mind which would make an excellent lawyer : great logical acuteness; ingenuity in the "invention" of arguments, -I use the word in its rhetorical, not in any invidious sense, and much subtlety and quickness of apprehension. And so I hope I shall yet hear of him shining at the bar. If not, at least if some serious occupation of life does not engross him, all his money will not save him. He is of too lively a temperament, and too excitable passions, to live a life of fat indolence. Money answereth all things," saith Solomon; and so it does in one sense. It can 66 answer the purpose " of all things that it will exchange for, or that will exchange for it; it can purchase other people's time, industry, learning, if we have none of our own, and can even pick up a sort of second-hand faded beauty and repu

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tation; but it cannot, amongst other things, buy the advantages which attend the very process of producing the things it buys. These advantages of our possessions come in the getting of them, and are usually far more valuable than the possessions themselves; I mean freedom from ennui; a mind habitually preoccupied, and thus shut against many temptations, "not at home" when Satan knocks at the door; imagination and passions in the busy school and under the ferula of the practical reason, and without leisure to go gaping out into the streets in search of idleness, mischief, vain hopes, and moral chuck-farthing; a contented, because a busy mind; the consciousness of useful exertion at the day's end; the healthful weariness which brings healthful repose; all of which are amongst the guards, if not the rewards, of virtue.

Evρnkа! Evρnkа! Congratulate me, my dear friend. I am made for life. If every other resource fail, I find I can turn cook.

Yesterday was a broiling day with us. I am speaking of the weather, and you see how naturally I fall into metaphors congruous to my new occupation. Thermometer at 86° in the shade. But to my business; only follow me to the cuisine, and I promise that you shall all but die with envy at the thought of my accomplishments.

My little household yesterday consisted of my sister and two servants. An old acquaintance of my sister's was expected to a family dinner. I wanted a little business done in two different directions, and wished the two servants to go. "But the dinner!"

said my housekeeper. I looked despairingly through the Venetian blinds at the blazing sky. A bright thought struck me. "It is better to roast than be roasted, any way," said I; "I will cook the dinner." She laughed, and asked, "Who would eat it?" This saucy challenge confirmed me. "Away with them," said I; "put me in possession of the kitchen. What is to be cooked?" "Oh, it is only to roast a leg of lamb; and as to the pudding, anything you like," said she maliciously; "but whether anybody else will like it, I have my doubts." No sooner said than done. I shut and barred the kitchen door and went to work. I cudgelled my brains to remember what I had seen in that region of fiery but pleasing mysteries when I was a child, and used to watch with wonder and delight, and keen presaging appetite, the progress of the "neat-handed Phillis." Faint were the " antiquæ vestigia flammæ." However, I made short work with the fiery part of the process. I looked at the joint—had dim recollections of having seen it well sprinkled with flour and then put to the fire: I sprinkled it accordingly, and commended it to Vulcan. "Let him look after it now," said I; "it is his business, and not mine." Then came the grand arcanum—the pudding. "Simplicity,” said I, “after all, is the great secret of cookery, as of every other fine art." I resolved on a primitive form,—a pudding under the meat. That is soon made, I thought. A couple of handfuls of flour, with a little water, were mixed up in a bowl; it was too soft; more flour, too dry; more water, too soft; more flour, too dry; more water, and so it went on, and I began to despair of the un ayar, the ne nimis- the juste milieu-thewhat word can express the happy mean of solid and fluid, wherein the law of cohesion only just reigns? Meantime my ugly pudding was assuming alarmingly voluminous dimensions. At last I it of the required consistence, rolled it out into a huge plane that half covered the dripping-pan, and chucked it in to let it take its chance. I then sat down, complacently enough, at the further extremity of the cool kitchen with a book; occasionally glancing with a curious yet admiring eye at the twirling joint, and hearing with much satisfaction the click of the jack as it reversed the

got