Hampton Court, one of the Royal Palaces near London, to which the public at large, as its true proprietors, have free admission now:

"The servant who showed us the apartments, which were very splendid, gave us a circumstantial detail of the pictures, and the judgments passed upon them by different connoisseurs: he seemed to be a good deal pleased with his manner of explaining a suite of tapestry, representing the Persian war of Alexander: though a simple fellow, he had his lesson well by rote, and ran over the battles of Issus and Arbela, &c., with a surprising flippancy. But where is Alexander?' cries Apjohn. 'There sir, at the door of Darius's tent, with the ladies at his feet.' 'Surely,' said I, that must be Hephestion, for he was mistaken by the Queen for Alexander.' 'Pardon me, sir: I hope I know Alexander better than that; and he shook his head in confirmation of his opinion, while I paid myself the same compliment. But which of the two do you really think the greater man?' 'Greater! Bless your soul, sir, they are both dead this hundred years.' O Harry! what a comment on human vanity! By my soul, there was the marrow of a thousand folios in the answer. I could not help thinking, at the instant, what a puzzle that mighty man would be in, should he appear before a committee from the Temple of Fame, to claim those laurels he thought so much of, and be opposed in his demand, though his competitors were Thersites, or the fellow who rubbed Bucephalus's heels. How would his identity be ascertained? Chærilus, stand forth; but should Mævius contest the bays with Charilus, would a million of critics decide the difference? What then must be the sentence? Why, since the conqueror cannot be distinguished from the slave, let the chaplet be divided between them, et curru servus portetur eodem. Thus, in a few years, may my dear Harry be a Tillotson, and his friend as much Cicero as Cicero himself."

The following extract shows how Curran spent his time in London. What a happy kind of life, what-a blessed flashing of mirth and meditation-sport and study-fun and philosophy-purl and politics-shaded, as it must have been, with the constitutional melancholy which pressed on him through life, and at length wrapped his mind in the darkest folds of despondency and hopelessness, such a way of living must have had charms for one who liked variety, and could accommodate himself to all phases of society.

"I happened at first to be rather unlucky in my lodgings; I was not aware of their being situated exactly under the bells of St. Martin, and that I was to be eternally stunned with the noise of praying bells, rejoining bells, and passing bells. I had the additional inconvenience of being exposed to the conversation of a man, no ways agreeable to me, a dull, good-natured, generous, unexperienced, opinionated, deep-read, unlearned, disputative sort of a character, still more offensive to me than my other neighbour, the steeple; for I had learned to endure unpleasing sounds, but I never had an opportunity of learning to bear with a troublesome companion. So I changed my tabernacle not a little to my satisfaction Besides being disengaged from the nuisances that infected me before, I have procured much better accommodations, on more reasonable terms. For the future, you will direct to me, No. 9 Orange Street, Leicester Fields.

"Notwithstanding a fit of illness, which somewhat retarded my application in the beginning, I have exerted a degree of assiduity, of which I once thought myself incapable. For the first five months I was almost totally a recluse, indeed, too much so. When we seclude ourselves entirely from all intercourse with the world, our affections will soon grow impatient of the restraint, and strongly convince us that much of our happi ness must be drawn from society; and if we exert too much rigour, however philosophical it may appear at the time, to suppress these struggles, the temper is apt to fall into a gloomy kind of apathy. This I found to be my case, and I accordingly resolved to soften the severity of the discipline I had over zealously adopted, and to that end made some additions to my wardrobe, and purchased a fiddle, which I had till then denied myself. Do not think, however, from my mentioning those indulgences, that I have diminished my hours of reading; all I have done by the change is, employing the time that must otherwise be vacant, in amusement instead of solitude. I still continue to read ten hours every day, seven at law, and three at history, or the general principles of politics; and that I may have time enough, I rise at half after four. I have contrived a machine after the manner of an hour-glass, which, perhaps, you may be curious to know. which wakens me regularly at that hour. Exactly over my head I have suspended two vessels of tin, one above the other; when I go to bed, which is always at ten, I pour a bottle of water into the upper vessel, in the bottom of which is a hole of such a size, as to let the water pass through. so as to make the inferior reservoir overflow in six hours and a half. I have had no small trouble in proportioning those

vessels; and I was still more puzzled for a while how to confine my head, so as to receive the drop, but I have at length succeeded.

"You will, perhaps, be at some loss to guess what kind of amusement I allow myself: why, I'll tell you. I spend a couple of hours every night at a coffee-house, where I am not a little entertained with a group of old politicians, who meet in order to debate on the reports of the day, or to invent some for the next, with the other business of the nation. Though I don't know that sociability is the characteristic of this people, yet politics is a certain introduction to the closest intimacy of coffee-house acquaintance. One meets with a great deal of amusement from this sort of conversation, and I think it can scarcely be devoid of improvement. Six or seven old fellows who have spent the early part of their lives in a variety of adventures, and are united at last by no other principle than a common vacancy, which makes it necessary for them to fill up their time by meddling in other people's business, since they have none of their own, is certainly a miscellany not unworthy a perusal; it gives a facility at least of discerning characters, and what is no less useful, enures us to a toleration that must make our passage through life more easy. I also visit a variety of ordinaries and eating-houses, and they are equally fertile in game for a character-hunter. I think I have found out the cellar where Roderick Random ate shin of beef for three-pence, and actually drank out of the identical quart, which the drummer squeezed together when poor Strap spilt the broth on his legs."

From the last letter in this collection I quote a passage, a little too formal, perhaps, for the off-hand style of friendly letters, but showing vigour of thought, feeling and expression:

"My not writing to you since I came to England, proceeding wholly from a scarcity of any thing worth communicating, I might justify a continuance of silence from the same cause. But yet I know not well how it happens, there is something in the first day of the new year that seems peculiarly to demand the tribute of remembrance: I could not let it pass without apprizing you that I am still in the land of the living: "vivo equidem." These anniversary days serve as light-houses on the great ocean of time, by which we direct and compute our courses. They alarm us to a momentary recollection of the tempests we have weathered,

the quicksands we have escaped, or the fortunate gales we have enjoyed. If any of the stars of heaven have shone with propitious influence, we adore them for their benevolent regards, and endeavour to engage their superintendence for the remainder of our voyage.

"As Young says

'We take no heed of time but by its loss;'

the moments slide unperceived away, we think it still in our possession, still in being, till the knell of our departed hours startles us into a perception of its decease. These returning periods are not then without their advantage. They admonish us, at least, to dedicate one day in the year to a little reflection. The incidents of our life crowd in upon our thoughts, the pleasures we have found, the anxious moments we have spent-and Reason, elated with the temporary submission of her authority, makes a merit of passing an impartial sentence, and of changing, for an instant, from the venal advocate to the upright judge of our passions or our follies. Then, too, the heart counts over its attachments; and if Fate has blotted out any name of the catalogue, we fix our expectation with a more anxious solicitude on the survivors. When any of our fortresses against the outrages of fortune have sunk into ruin, we are doubly bound to attend to the preservation of those that remain, lest we should be found totally defenceless in the day of danger.

"Thus have I in some sort accounted for my troubling you with a letter at this particular time, as well as for the melancholy mood in which I sit down to write : in truth I do not remember to have been much more dejected. To you, my dear Harry, I hope this merry season has been more favourable. And yet, situated as you are, you can scarcely avoid sometimes feeling the heaviness of time, especially now when Newmarket has lost so many who might contribute to enliven it. As for my part, you can neither envy nor congratulate my situation with half the reason that I may yours. I once thought that solitude amidst thousands was no better than a paradox; but now I find it effectually verified. It is, indeed, the most dreary of all solitudes to walk abroad amongst millions, to read the most legible of all characters, those written by fortune or affliction, in every face you meet; to feel your heart elated or depressed by every story, and with the most disinterested solicitude, acknowledging the object for its fellow-creature; to have all these exquisitely respondent sympathies for which nature has so finely formed the bosoms of her children, unobserved and unavailing. *]

In a letter of nearly the same date, to another friend,* he says: "By the time you receive this I shall have relapsed into the same monastic life that I led before. I do not expect, however, that it will lean so heavily on me, as I am now tolerably recovered, and shall continue to read with unabated application; indeed, that is the only means of making solitude supportable; yet, it must be owned, a man of speculative turn will find ample matter in that way without stirring from his window. It is here that every vice and folly climb to their meridian, and that mortality seems properly to understand her business. If you cast your eyes on the thousand gilded chariots that are dancing the hayes in an eternal round of foppery, you would think the world assembled to play the fool in London, unless you believe the report of the passing bells and hearses, which would seem to intimate that they all made a point of dying here. It is amazing, that even custom should make death a matter of so much unconcern as you will here find it. Even in the house where I lodge, there has been a being dead these two days. I did not hear a word of it till this evening, though he is divided from me only by a partition. They visit him once a day, and so lock him up till the next (for they seldom bury till the seventh day), and there he lies without the smallest attention paid to him, except a dirge each night on the Jew's-harp, which I shall not omit while he continues to be my neighbour."

It was during his attendance at the Temple that Mr. Curran made the first trial of his rhetorical powers. He frequented a debating society that was composed of his fellow-students. His first attempt was unsuccessful, and for the moment quite disheartened him. He had had from his boyhood a considerable precipitation and confusion of utterance, from which he was denominated by his school-fellows "stuttering Jack Curran." This defect he had labored to remove, but the cure was not yet

Jeremiah Keller, Esq., a member of the Irish bar.-C.