as it enhances the cost of production, so far as to throw many poor miners out of employ. Of late, supplies of quicksilver have been got from China, and a new mine has been discovered in Mexico, which, in addition to the old one, worked at Queretaro, must affect the monopoly price. The prospect is, under all these circumstances, that the large supply of the precious metals must aid in effecting that reduction in their value, which, with the same supply, would naturally be brought about by a more liberal internal policy on the part of the governments of Europe. The extension of railroads, the promotion of internal intercourse, and the development of individual enterprise, are annually combining to make the circulation of coins more active; and, therefore, virtually to increase their quantity. At present the precious metals are all tending to London, where the supply lying idle is greater than ever before known. That country is, however, short of food, and the United States are the only nation that can supply the enormous quantities wanted. In exchange for this, large sums of coin will, doubtless, be imported. presenting an auspicious moment to effect the establishment of that sound currency which was in vain sought to be effected through the mint laws of 1792, and the gold bills of 1834-37. The large and increasing sums of both gold and silver that have been reposing, to an extent never before known, in the banks of France and England for the last few years, while money has been cheap in London, the great centre of the commercial world, and commercial enterprise active, are evidences that the supply of money to the wants of commerce increases rather than diminishes. That is to say, notwithstanding the great impulse which has undeniably been given to industry and trade throughout Europe in the last ten years, and the vast sums that have been expended in railroads, the quantities of both gold and silver, instead of diminishing, are constantly swelling in the great central reservoirs. In the bank of France and the bank of England, there are this moment $60,000,000 of silver, and $67,500,000 of gold coin, making 100 per cent. greater than ever before known; yet money is as cheap, speculation as active, and commercial pursuits as exten

ded as ever before known. This apparent anomaly arises from that to which we have alluded, viz: the increased feeling of security-the extension of railroads, and other facilities for quick returns. In the United States money is also abundant in the Atlantic cities, but not sufficiently so in the interior. A combination of circumstances has, however, as it were, brought the farms of the west in direct contact with those accumulations of coin in London and Paris to which we have alluded. The effect of the existing war, and of a change in commercial policy, has been to restrict the movements of banks, and depress prices of imported goods, at a time when western produce is in high demand in Europe. Under such circumstances, coin may be the best remittance to the United States, and the moment highly favorable for the final establishment of a national currency on that broad and firm basis contemplated by Jefferson and Washington. The policy of Jackson, in 1835, of promoting the circulation of gold, requires to be carried out in an adherence to the Independent Treasury, and the establishment of a branch mint in New-York.

As an instance of the great difficulty in weeding out the habits of a people, we may mention the fact, that notwithstanding the extract we have given above, from the report of Mr. Jefferson, in 1790, to the effect, that "nothing but the establishment of a mint was wanting to banish the old monies of account," the currencies of all the states are familiarly reckoned in pounds, shillings and pence, and almost the whole silver currency consists of those depreciated Spanish fractions of the dollar, which Washington complained of, as making five quarters to the dollar. So slow has been the progress in 51 years of national exertion! The great errors have been, 1st, the false location of the mint, which should have been at the place of import; 2d, the allowing of foreign coins to be a legal tender at any price; 3d, the recognition of bank paper by the federal government. The latter has been done away with under the Independent Treasury law. By its operation, in a few years we shall have an abundant and sound national currency, and no longer be circulating among republicans the heads of "by the grace of God, his most Christian majesty."

THE subject we propose to contemplate in the present chapter, although somewhat trite, is yet, it is believed, so rife with interest, presenting the various fallacies and foibles of the literary profession, in such anomalous complexity of forms and circumstances, that we cannot be diverted from our task, from the fact of its having already been so often dilated upon. Without attempting a psychological analysis of literary life, we propose simply to group together a few of the more striking peculiarities which seem to be indigenous to great minds. If frailty and fame are indeed twin attributes, one might be tempted to conclude that nature designed such an allotment as an equipoise, to silence the envy of those from whom she has withheld her noblest endowments on the one part, and to serve as a counteracting check to the inordinate self-esteem, which their possession might otherwise superinduce in the other.

Before entertaining the reader with our citation of the eccentricities and trials of the author, it will not be inopportune to remind him of the curious mode in which the public requite his literary labors: the usual awards of a man of genius being a marble monument to his memory, while in life denying him sustenance; making "their luminous leaves," to adopt the phrase of a modern journalist, "to flourish like the yew tree, because planted over a grave." We shall not pause to inquire into the causes which have provoked such injustice towards a class so signally meriting a course of treatment diametrically the reverse of this, or why succeeding posterity have perpetuated the like crusade against the craft of authorship; it is enough for regret to find it so. Our forefathers, however, must have had their patience

(Young.

pretty severely taxed, by the prolixity of some of the early scribes. What should we think of twenty-one huge folios ?-yet we find, in 1651, a writer of such interminable dimensions; while another, Peter D'Alva, even extended his learned lucubrations to no less than forty-eight, in an abortive attempt to expound a mystery unfathomable, and which his labyrinth of words but rendered the more mysterious. While not to name Confucius, or the reputed 600 volumes by the French bishop, Du Bellay, we might remind the reader of the astounding intimation given by St. Jerome, to the effect that he had perused six thousand books written by Origen, who "daily wearied seven notaries, and as many boys, in writing after him!" It ought not to have amazed his friends, therefore, to have learned of the sickness of that multifarious writer, Sir John Hill, (the author of the "Vegetable System,") when he confessed it was in consequence of over working himself on seven productions at once! We read of Hans Sacks, a Nuremburg shoemaker, who lived about the close of the fifteenth century, and who seems to have apportioned his labors equally between boots and books, the praiseworthy arts of making poetry and pumps, sonnets and shoes, to the 77th year of his age; when he took an inventory of his poetical stock in trade, and found, according to his own calculation, that his works filled thirty folio volumes, all written with his own hand. They comprised 4200 songs; 208 comedies, tragedies and farces; 1700 fables, miscellaneous poems and tales, and 73 military and love songs-forming a grand total of six thousand and fortyeight pieces, small and great; out of which he culled as many as filled three huge folios, which were published in

Peruse with heede, then friendly judge, and blaming rash refraine;

So maist thou reade unto thy good, and shalte requite my paine.

One Joshua Barnes wrote a poem with the design of proving the authorship of the Iliad traceable to King Solomon, of Holy Writ; and another French critic, Daurat, who lived in the sixteenth century, pretended, according to Scaliger, to find all the Bible in Homer. Du Guere wrote an eulogium on wigs, though he never wore one. Erasmus amused himself, it will be recollected, by discussing the praise of folly, in his work entitled" Moria Encomium," which, for the sake of the pun, he dedicated to Sir Thomas More. Pierrius' treatise on beards-Homer's war between the frogs and mice, and Lucian's dissertation on a fly, present a curious triumvirate of classic taste; and Gray's ode on the death of a catPope's epic verses on a lock of hair, and Swift's meditation on a broomstick, may serve as their companions in modern times. And as we have already seen, ingenuity itself seems to have been overtasked in the fabrication of the titles of books in early times, as, indeed, it is again becoming in our own; authors of the olden time used to puff their own works, by affixing "taking titles" to them; such as "A right merrie and wittie enterlude, verie pleasante to reade, &c. "A marvellous wittie treatise, &c. "A delectable, pithie and righte_profitable worke," &c. Addison's "6 Spectator" proved so successful, that it provoked Johnson to adopt "The Idler," and 66 • Rambler." A very amusing blunder was committed by a certain French critic, who, notwithstanding the conventional use of the term, rendered it Le Chevalier Errant, and who afterwards, on meeting with the Colossus of English literature, addressed him with the astounding and complimentary epithet of Mr. Vagabond!

A pamphlet, published in 1703, had the following strange title :-"The

66

Many adopted allegorical titles. In theological works these were most frequent such as "The Heart of Aaron," "The Bones of Joseph," The Garden of Nuts," and a host of others, even less allowable, might be adduced: as, A fan to drive away flies," a treaties on purgatory;-" The shop of the spiritual apothecary," " Matches lighted by divine fire,” "The gun of penitence," &c. One of famous Puritan memory, Sir Humphrey Lind, published a book, which a Jesuit answered by another, entitled " A pair of spectacles for Sir Humphrey Lind;”—the doughty knight retorted by "A case for Sir Humphrey Lind's spectacles." Gascoigne's title page is no less quaint than copious: "A hundred sundrie flowres bounde vp in one small poesie: gathered partly by translation in the fyne and outlandish gardens of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarch, Ariosto, and others; and partly by invention out of our own fruitefull orchardes in England: yielding sundrie and divers swete savours of tragical, comical, and moral discourses, both pleasant and profitable to the well-smelling noses of learned readers." It is fortunate for these laborious scribes that they lived in times when they found readers courageous enough to venture beyond their titles.

We will leave them, and proceed to the foibles and frailties of the learned, which present a prolific theme for our contemplation; in some instances these are traceable to physical causes, superinduced by their peculiar habits and pursuits, and in others, not unfrequently to the neglect, which their seclusion and overwrought sensibilities provoked from their cotemporaries. All the devotees of the pen are more or less the victims of nervous debility, caused by their habits of excessive mental efforts. Thus to overtask the powers of the intellect, it is reasonable to expect, will as naturally tend to enervate them,

as we find the like exertion of the bodily functions resulting in lassitude and fatigue. Dr. Johnson thus expresses himself on this equivocal state between actual health and disease: "I pine in the solitude of sickness, not bad enough to be pitied, and not well enough to be endured;" yet this powerful writer was never so great as when he was in this gloomy state: he then exhibited most of the vast opulence and gigantic energy of his intellect, as well as his delicate analysis of the secret sensibilities of the heart, as portions of his correspondence sufficiently evince. This feeling of physical languor and ennui, made the author of the "Castle of Indolence" so indolent himself, that he was reluctant to rise from his bed; and when once remonstrated against the practice by a friend, replied, "troth, mon, I see nae motive for rising." He was so excessively lazy, that he once was seen to be eating fruit from a peach tree, as it grew, standing with both hands in his pockets. It would be uncharitable, however, to suppose Thomson a fit denizen for the Augustan Apragapolis of old, "a city built for those void of business."

Some of the habits and methods of study exhibit curious traits of character. The historian Mezerai studied by candlelight; and so accustomed was he to this use, that even at noon-day, and in the summer too, as if neither the heat nor the light of the burning sun were available for him, he is reported generally to have waited upon his company to the very door with a candle in his hand. When the famous Brindley encountered any extraordinary difficulty in the execution of his mechanical labors, he usually retired to his bed, where he has been known to be ensconced one, two, and even three whole days, till he had acquired strength to surmount it; when he would get up and finish his design. This practice contravenes Dr. Whittaker's advice to Mr. Boyce, which, it will be remembered, ran as follows:-"First, to study always standing; second, never to study in a window; and third, never to go to bed with his feet cold." Pope, besides being an epicure, would sometimes lie in bed at Lord Bolingbroke's for whole days together.

We might add to the number of literary sleepers, but it is needless; and

we shall, therefore, merely mention the fact of our own Irving, whose dormancy is such, that he has been known, even surrounded by a brilliant coterie, when left alone for some little interval, to stand by the fire, and even go to sleep in that posture.

It must be obvious, that indolent ease is as bad in its effects on the health as over-working. Lord Bacon is a case in point, with others, including the three divines, Hervey, Toplady, and Dr. Owen, the last of whom once exclaimed, that he would gladly barter all his learning obtained in bed for his lost health. Euripides studied in a dark cave-Demosthenes at night, and apart from the habitations of men-and the monks of the monastic times, in the hidden cloisters and ascetic cells; but we do not see that a neatly-fitted and convenient library or study offers less immunities to the votaries of science or the muses, than those abodes referred to. Not a few literary men seem to have loved "libations deep ;" but we should not perhaps regard this species of moral delinquency with the stern vision of modern teetotalism, as the inebriate was not, till modern days, outlawed from the best society. Eschylus is said to have been always under the influence of the rosy god when he wrote it is related then his face looked ferocious-perhaps to this cause may be referred his vigorous imaginativeness. A similar weakness might also be chargeable on Alcæus, Aristophanes, and others of the classic age. son, the eminent Greek scholar, was a great tippler, while Anacreon only feigned the bacchanalian in his writings. In later days, Tasso and Schiller might be classed with the foregoing. Sir William Blackstone was considerably indebted to " good old port" for some of his Commentaries; and even Addison and Byron must also be named, the latter confessing to the world that his poem of Don Juan was the joint product of genius and gin and water. Without presuming any commentary on such indulgences, we prefer quoting the description of one Prynne, who bequeathed to posterity some forty volumes, for perpetrating one of which he was barbarously doomed to have his ears cropped in the pillory, and was almost suffocated by the immolation of his huge volumes-in which he main

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