frequently seen, when the credits and debits are struck out to leave the surplus to direct or indirect heirs. Alas! I have only to offer you a passive balance.' (Motion of surprise.) Do not expect to receive thirty per cent., twenty per cent., ten per cent. of what is due to you; you will receive nothing-positively nothing.' (Expressions of amazement amongst the 300 and upwards.)

66 6

"My father the democrat left me nothing but a volume of Constitutions; yet I had to live-it was necessary. I conceived the great idea of credit. I discovered that it was founded on the fidelity of paying arrears. I have been a proof of the justice of this fact. If you have the least doubt of it, I beg of you to cast your eyes over my accounts, in which I defy any one to detect the slightest error. I am at a loss to know which you will most admire, my discovery or my moderation, when you reflect that I could have drawn on all the capitals of Switzerland, and that by my exactitude in paying up the interests which I drew from your chests, I could easily have enlarged my bankruptcy to twenty times its present amount. You may assure yourselves that it does not exceed 389,722 rix dollars, of which, thanks to my skilful administration, the division is in nearly equal proportions amongst you. I made it my duty up to these my last moments so to manage my loans, that at this hour the sum borrowed is from as many as possible, and they the richest of the land. And what, let me inquire, my creditors, is this loss when compared with the admirable system of finance which you will now be able to present to your Country? I, wretched mortal, am condemned to be a bankrupt; but our Country dies not, and its immortality will solve the sublime problem of credit! Yes, gentlemen, a country may borrow on indefinitely, because it lives on to an indefinite period. Let Switzerland pay the precise interest of her debts, and then there is no reason why she should not some day absorb all the capitals of the world. Can you think that any one of you would have paid too dearly for this discovery even by a million of rix dollars? You may see that by this an inexhaustible source of prosperity is open to peaceful Helvetia, by my example, and it would be ridiculous to talk to you of my Gruyères cheeses. Were I to expatiate upon the good I have done, I know that I should end by proving that you are all my debtors, and I prefer separating from you with the soothing idea that we are quits in the fullest extent of the word. I have served as an example to the rich; I have aided the poor. I have only moved some of your immense and torpid capitals to introduce them into channels in which they may find full occupation. I have begun the levelling those mountains of gold which it has pleased fortune to surround us withal. She was blind, and I, to use a characteristic expression, have performed on her the operation for the cataract.'

"This discourse, so unexpected, produced in the minds of the assembled creditors sentiments of ecstasy and admiration. Each merchant, as a token of respect and gratitude, deposited at the foot of Schneider's bed the last bills which that worthy citizen had accepted; he offered a pen, and each signed his acquittance. After putting all these bills in a packet, he raised them in his hands as if to show them to the world, and yielded his last breath, crying- Com

merce of Switzerland, hail the standard of credit! To parody the words of a celebrated poet

"With dying hand, above his head

He waved the bills, then sunk in bed,
And shouted victory!

Credit, Sirs, credit! wide and wider!

Were the last words of worthy Schneider.'"

"It is unnecessary to add that the most eloquent of the creditors proposed a small subscription from each to erect a monument to the noble Schneider, which was unanimously complied with, and Schneider was interred without pomp at Bruning, which divides Underwald from Oberland. It was there, on leaving Sarnen and coasting along the lake, that Mr. Pitt saw the tomb which covers the mortal remains of the interesting Schneider,' on which was the inscription:

"DER ENTLEHNER."

Or the Borrower.' The peculiarity of this epitaph attracted the attention of the embryo statesman. He questioned the guide, who told him the whole of Schneider's story word for word. When he arrived at the part—' I, wretched mortal, am condemned to be a bankrupt, but our Country dies not,' Pitt, as though wonder-stricken, continued to repeat the words but our Country dies not,' with perfect enthusiasm. He ordered his horses without being able to assign any other motive than repeating our Country dies not,' which he reiterated the whole way from Sarnen to Downing Street. It was rumoured he was mad until he realized those famous loans with which England made war against Europe, conquered the Indies, subdued the colonies, and overthrew Napoleon, who would still have been living and on his throne if the inventor of Gruyères cheeses had never existed.

"It was from this outline of Schneider's life, progress, and death, that I formed my own elaborate drawing, which I believe without conceit I may affirm was replete with all that could give effect and finish. My own picture was certainly well made out, in good keeping, fore-ground clearly defined, colours justly blended, and the framework worthy of the gilding which was perpetually renewed. It is not worth while to detail my progress; you and others remember me as I was, and therefore my advice will only be wanting, and not my history.

"Meditate day and night on the story, beautiful and simple as it is, of Schneider, and deduce your own inference. He was moral and economical, a philosopher-a citizen in the best sense of the words, and skilful in pecuniary matters to a point beyond or below which rectitude cannot exist,ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum,' -as Moore says in his Little's' Poems." H. T. R.

GARRICK CORRESPONDENCE.*

It

THE pleasure of philosophizing is much greater than the pleasure of reading philosophical reflections, and the satisfaction of making discoveries exceeds the satisfaction of having them made for us. is this feeling which renders a collection of letters, to or from persons of eminence and notoriety in the world so extremely fascinating. It is not a matter of mere curiosity, or if it be curiosity there is an especial and philosophical motive which excites it. Letters, as lettersmerely the lively prate of pen-loving gossips, are often highly amusing, but there is a much greater degree of amusement in them when they are written by, or addressed to persons of mind, merit, and distinction. Every public character, and especially when talent has been the instrument of publicity, is a thing for speculation, a source of philosophical thought; and nothing opens to us the mind of an individual more completely than epistolary correspondence. Scarcely one person in a hundred writes a letter without having something of individuality developed in it. There is not unfrequently more of character shown in a letter than in conversation. In letters, a man is off his guard and yet on his guard, he is off his guard as respects the public, he is on his guard as respects the individual to whom his letter is addressed. If a man writes a book, he may not have one reader; if he writes a letter, he is tolerably sure of one reader, and he prepares himself accordingly. There is more heart in a letter than in a book, and men can, if they will, put themselves into a tremendous passion with the pen in their hands. Letters are the medium between the formal study of book-work, and the slovenly slip-slop of mere talk, chatter, or prate. There is just enough art not to destroy nature, and just enough heart not to be smothered by artifice. In this second volume of Garrick's Correspondence we find an increasing interest of topic and a fuller developement of character; and in spite of all that may be said by those whom Garrick disappointed, or by those whom the world disappointed in Garrick's line, we are bound to acknowledge that he was an amiable and intelligent man. His very vanity, which abounded, superabounded in him, was a developement of his amiableness. He loved the species and therefore he enjoyed the applause which the world lavished upon him. He seems to have been in good-humour with the world throughout the whole course of his public life, and when he met with troublesome people, and it was his lot to meet with many such, he regarded them as the exception rather than as the rule of humanity. This is a refreshing sight: for ordinarily, such is the irritability of the species, it is the practice of human beings, when they meet with troublesome people, to fly into a tremendous passion with all the world, and to talk about retiring from a troublesome world to the society and confidence of a select few, who are complimented as being the only rational and intelligent persons on the face of the earth. It was not so with David Garrick; he was in love with the world, and could say

"How sweet's the love that meets return!"

The Private Correspondence of David Garrick; the second and concluding

volume.

for the world was in love with him. He had much to hurry and much to worry him, for he was at once monarch and minister, sovereign and secretary. If there be any business more perplexing and wearying than another, it is that of manager, so called, like lucus à non lucendo, because he has to do with a set of creatures who will not be managed. The world has been told before now that Garrick was fond of praise: to be sure he was, or he could never have gained so much applause. The world has a great deal of discernment; it is not indeed an intellectual being, but it is an animal of most marvellous sagacity, and it never long gives its applause to those who do not deserve or do not appreciate it. There is not one man in a thousand who knows how to manage the world so well as David Garrick did; and having read through these entertaining volumes, we can now appreciate and understand a saying, which we have often heard, viz. "As deep as Garrick." His was not a superficial craft like Jacob Bunting's, who was always boasting himself to be a man of the world, but without pretence he had the world at his fingers' ends. In these volumes we have the world, as it were, doing homage to his geniusthe world of fashion-the world of wit-the professional and the unprofessional world. There are three ways by which the world may be won, and ruled, and rendered subservient to a man's interest, by genius, by conduct, by business. Garrick was a man of genius, a man of conduct, and a man of business, and we may add, that he was a philosopher in all but talking about it. We see by the volumes of his Correspondence, now submitted to the curiosity of the public, how completely he was devoted to his profession, and how dexterously he rendered his tastes subservient to his interests. When a man makes money his object, he may get it; when he makes popularity his object, he may get it; when he makes eminence in his profession his object, he may attain that too:-but the remarkable merit of Garrick was, that he obtained all three objects. He enjoyed the world as a man of the world, he was successful in it as a man of business, he was eminent as a man of genius. His Correspondence, therefore, is peculiarly valuable, as illustrating all this. His letters, and the letters of his correspondents, may be studied as some of the happiest illustrations of that dexterity with which he fought his way through life. He was conscious of the possession of great powers, but he had the wisdom to know that great powers might be a great curse without good management, and accordingly we find from his letters and their topics, and his dexterous manner of handling those topics, that he was always alive to the necessity of caution and diligence. One of the most valuable lessons, that a man of genius can give, or that a youth of genius can receive, is, that success in life depends not on what a man's talents will do for him, but on what he does with his talents. Many are the men who, because they can do any thing with their talents, will therefore do nothing with them. We have an illustration in the volume now before us. In a letter from Mrs. Clive to Garrick, the following sentence occurs.

"Every body is raving against Mr. Sheridan for his supineness; there never was in nature such a contrast as Garrick and Sheridan."

There never was, and nature seems to have brought them together

to demonstrate the contrast and to display it more strongly. One of Sheridan's letters, in this collection, contains a pleasant and accurate exhibition of Sheridan's self. It occurs among those of uncertain date, most appropriately.

"I have been about finishing the verses which were to have followed you to Althorp every day since you left town; and as idle as such an employment is, I have been diverted from it by one thing or other, still more idle than rhyming. I believe I shall give up all attempts at versifying in future, for my efforts in that way always bring me into some foolish predicament: what I write in a hurry, I always feel to be not worth reading; and what I try to take pains with, I am sure never to finish."

Is not this Sheridan all over? If talents could do anything for a man who would do nothing with his talents, they surely must have done something for Sheridan-but they did nothing for him but excite the pity and admiration of the world.

This second volume of the Correspondence is interesting, from a number of letters from Hannah More. It is a pleasant and pretty contrast for the present generation to regard this eloquent theologianess in earnest correspondence with the manager of a theatre, discussing with all gravity and intense interest the minutiae of stage management, and the particulars of acts and scenes, and prologues and epilogues. Her letters are lively, voluble, and womanlike, but not equal to Mrs. Montague's, nor to Lady Spencer's, whose letters, by the way, are very short, as though she knew that she could never write one long enough, and therefore never attempted to write a long

one.

There is some interest in the endorsements with which Garrick has marked some of his letters: these show the man's character, and the very fact of endorsement is an illustration of the business-like habits of the great actor. All the world has talked of Garrick's love of praise. The following is a specimen.

"Mr. Pitt to Mr. Berenger."

"Friday, one o'clock."

"Lady Hester and Mr. Pitt hope Mr. Berenger is better, and return him many thanks for his obliging good offices with Mr. Garrick. Inimitable Shakspeare! but more matchless Garrick! always as deep in nature as the poet, but never (what the poet is too often) out of it. Continue to give us your good offices if you like to be truly thanked, or your friend to be truly admired." On the back of the note.

"The note on the other side I received from Mr. William Pitt, and it is in his own hand-writing. RICHARD BERENGER."

In Garrick's hand-writing.

"A note from Mr. Pitt, to Berenger, about ME-having, at his request, acted Macbeth. Rich and exquisite flattery!"

Has not Garrick opened to us, not indeed the source of, but one strong impulse to persevering diligence in his profession? The appetite for praise, where it exists thus strongly, calls forth diligence as much as, perhaps more than, the appetite for food.

In our notice of the first volume of this interesting Correspondence, we recollect differing in some point from the editor of this work, and we differ from him again as to a note which he has appended to a very striking part of the Correspondence. It appears