hourly prelibations of broth, an oyster, even an egg, which break that seeming eternity (his impatient fancy counts it no seeming), between the great events of the day, breakfast and dinner! What an infinite absurdity appears to him that languid "coy toying with food," which the mad people in health waste their time in; and what an equal folly that ceremonious leaving of the last piece on the dish, appropriated of old time to "Colonel Manners!" How spotlessly clean is the condition of every platter and cup brought away from him, and how superfluous the scullion's ablutions! How is every stray crumb picked up and appropriated with a gratitude which says as plainly as any voracious "philanthropic society," "The smallest contributions thankfully received!" How, in the eager impatience of his expectancy of a first meal of roast, does it seem to him that the sun and all the clocks in the universe are standing still, and that the stupendous blessing of a mutton chop will never come.

Ah me! I fear that this very description will make your mouth water in an unlawful manner, unless you happen to take it in hand in that brief post-prandium of half an hour or so, which is all the repose, doubtless, that the wolf within you allows.

Yet I once knew a philosophic convalescent who delighted in the agreeable torments of imagination. He was pronounced out of danger, but not out of danger of a relapse, and was still confined to the nauseating things called "slops." At this stage his favourite reading was the "Cookery Book," which he insisted on having to bed with him; and after making up all the choicest dishes, and compounding the most savoury receipts, he devoured them-in fancy. To most men, I imagine, the employment would have been torture, not pleasure; as exasperating as the mirage of the desert to the traveller famishing with thirst.

Far different was the case of another friend of mine. He had just recovered from an attack of fever, and at length, after centuries of delay as seemed to him, the great auspicious day dawned (an epoch in his life, not to say of the universe) when he was to smell roast in his chamber again, and taste a delicate slice of a shoulder of mutton! His wife, his faithful nurse all through,

brought up at the appointed hour to the ravening man the dainty dish-the odour of which steamed towards him more fragrant than all the spices of "Araby the blest." But she had unfortunately forgotten the knife and fork, and hastened, after depositing the dish in the remotest corner of the room, whither she thought his drooping, wasted limbs could never drag themselves, to fetch the implement wherewith to cut off that delicate transparent sliver, which was all the medical Tantalus had, in his cruel wisdom, permitted. She was gone but a moment, but to great minds moments suffice for great deeds; and when she returned, she found, to her horror, that her supposed helpless patient, made heroically strong by appetite and the scent of burnt flesh, had dragged himself from his bed to his prize, and greatly scorning all the precautionary wisdom of doctor and nurse, and all the refinements of a shallow civilisation, had seized the whole joint with both hands, and, in night-cap and with beard of a fortnight's growth, sat tearing the flesh from the bones like a famished wolf. She told me that, what between terror of the consequences and the grotesqueness of the spectacle, she did not know whether to faint or laugh. As to wheedling it away from him, she might as well have come between a lion and his prey.

I think it is Marryat who tells us, in one of his novels, speaking of shipwrecked folks and the Thyestes' feasts to which hunger compels them, that "no man knows what hunger really is till he is willing to eat his own brother." Certainly I do not know, if that be the case. I have sometimes thought-though perhaps you, with your present experience, will rebuke the fond presumptuous confidence that I would sooner be the meat than the guest at such a feast. Yet the uniformity with which the phenomenon presents itself, when that extremity of hunger presses, makes me doubt; at all events, it is one of those cases in which one would prefer presumptuous ignorance to the ghastly wisdom of experience.

Well, my friend, be thankful that you are not likely to be cast on such alternatives. Don't look on your nurse or your wife with

longing eyes, I beseech you.

Remember there are still beeves and

sheep and corn in store, and be thankful.

I have read that, at some siege-of Rochelle, I think- -the inhabitants were driven to such extremity, that after having cleared off the whole race of cats, rats, mice, and all other unclean beasts, and doubtless even stewed down cast-off buckskins, and perhaps old boots ("unco tough," as those of Major Bellenden) for a pièce de résistance, they were driven even to turn their parchment title-deeds into a costly, though, I apprehend, thin potage. Think of snipping up three or four hundred a year for a bason of mock vermicelli, or to make one poor cup of thin gelatine! What an appropriate punishment for an old miser! Nay, methinks even the genuine, frank-hearted, hospitable man, who had called his friends together to partake of this costly, yet delicate refection, would press them, with a somewhat rueful complaisance, to take a cut of that delicious parchment fricassee, or try another spoonful of the strong vellum soup!

Thrice happy you! who are not driven to such Apician luxuries,-Apician at least in point of expense, if not of so palatable a quality. "But go thy way, eat the fat and drink the sweet;' but ah! forget not the latter part of that exquisite verse, which so beautifully harmonises permitted selfish enjoyment with benevolence towards others - "and send portions to them for whom nothing is provided!" Methinks now I hear you grumble out, with your mouth full and your spoon going, that you have not enough for yourself! Well, well, a week or two hence will do ; eat away just now; but I promise you I shall be surprised and disappointed if other people's stomachs are not the better for your long fast. You are not the man to forget a thank-offering to Him who can so easily disjoin our blessings, and give us food without appetite, or appetite without food. Ever yours,

R. E. H. G.

LETTER II.

To the same.

My dear West,

Dec. 27, 1838.

There is a peculiarity about our mental constitution as respects" association," which is worthy, I think, of more notice than metaphysicians have generally bestowed upon it. They have said much, and judiciously, on the principles and laws of suggestion in general, and many of the more remarkable facts which prove them. But I do not recollect that the fact, of which I have to-day had experience most painful, yet not unpleasing, has received the attention it deserves, though it has been sometimes touched upon. Such facts seem very instructive, both as affording an indication of the beneficence with which our mental constitution is constructed, and a presumption of the indestructible vitality which probably belongs to every thought and emotion that has once been present to us, -"being graven as with a pen

of iron" on the tablets of memory" for ever."

The fact to which I refer is this:-that while, from habit, those objects become indifferent to us which in themselves are most likely to excite vivid associations with any of the great events of our past life, and which, immediately after the occurrence of such events, did so to a pitch of rapture or agony, the most trivial of such objects that happens to have lain concealed, and is suddenly discovered after a lapse of years, shall prove to us that the whole power of association is unimpaired. Unlocking the cells of memory, which had been closed perhaps for a quarter of a century, it shall set the soul deeply musing, and seem to chide it for being so stolidly forgetful in the daily presence of objects much more intimately connected with our feelings of that distant date; and finally perhaps (as has been the case with me to-day), dissolve us in emotions which we vainly thought we had ceased to feel for ever! Thus, for example, on losing one very dear to

us, every object is a Medusa's head; the sight, the presence of mere trifles will excite profound melancholy, or melt us into tears. But as day after day passes, new associations deposit themselves, so to speak, around these objects; or rather, if I may change the metaphor, cover the exposed and exquisite nerves of the bleeding soul with a new cuticle, and thus mercifully blunt its sensibility. Thus we can still linger in the dwelling which the death of those we love has for ever darkened, and read the books which we once read together; touch the piano over which those loved fingers strayed; sleep in the very chamber where they looked the last look of love; pass the very path which leads straight by the sepulchre where we laid them in such agony of sorrow, and often, yes, often never think of them at all! But meantime, in turning out the contents of an old drawer, in setting to rights a desk or wardrobe, let but the eye rest on some memorial of the past, never seen since those happy days,-trivial enough it may be,and it seems to come straight to us from the distant land where they dwell, to upbraid us with our forgetfulness. It may be a little note, utterly valueless in its contents, but in that sweet hand we remember so well; a faded ribbon, love's gift in those youthful days; an old broken pencil case; a little book, redolent still of the dying fragrance in which love had embalmed its gift; and swift!—the past is present, the distant near; solemn shapes beckon to us from the depths of time; the voices of memory murmur in our ears, and the soul lives all its sorrows over again vividly as ever. It has been so with me to-day. It was a trifle, such as the above-mentioned; a flower, pale and faded, emblematic of the joys it told of, carefully smoothed and folded, in a little book. And so it told me when it was given, and to whom, and for what; and how it had been taken great care of when it was first given, and that the book had been faithful to its trust. I am (shall I confess it?) half ashamed to say that I sat down, and looked and mused at the poor symbol till memory overwhelmed me with the past, and I shed some of the most bitter and passionate tears I have shed since childhood.

No wonder that the classifications of the laws of suggestion,