rest of his life to literary and agricultural pursuits. When I was able to converse, I told him all. I knew he would feel for me, but I expected also he would blame me severely. I was, however, mistaken; he uttered not a word of reproach. "Every thing," cried he, embracing me, may yet be retrieved: you are young enough to make choice of a profession; you have abilities to render you an ornament to any that you may choose. Come back with me to London; we will arrange every thing." I complied, without thanks or professions, for I knew the heart of Henry too well to believe that either were necessary. My generous friend settled with my creditors: the next thing to be done was, to choose a profession; I wished to become a merchant. Henry heard me with pleasure, but he insisted upon my reflecting before I fixed my choice. While I was deliberating about it, he came in one day with a countenance so full of animation and pleasure, that I saw directly some unexpected piece of good fortune had befallen him, and I inquired what it was. your hitherto insensible heart?"— "It is Miss Glanville; and when you see her, you will allow that she is peerless indeed.” Alas! I was but too well convinced of it; for Miss Glanville was Sophia, my Sophia. I recollected at that moment, that, in speaking of her, I had never mentioned her name: I was about to reveal it, but I checked myself. Why, thought I, should I blight his probable happiness? She is lost to me for ever. The next day I told my friend, that I was determined to make commerce my profession; and I set out in a few days for Germany, with letters, which he gave me to a mercantile house there. When I bade Henry farewell, I felt as if it were a last one, for I knew that I could never bear to meet him as the husband of Sophia. More than once I was tempted to reveal the truth to him, but pride, honour, and friendship equally combined to prevent it. We corresponded constantly during some months; his letters were filled with praises of Sophia, but though he saw her frequently, he feared to reveal his passion till he had made some interest, her heart. How shall I paint my feelings when I read his letters, the mingled terror and anxiety with which I waited for the fatal one that was to announce that he had at length suc "I have discovered a treasure, my dear friend,” cried he, " if I can but make it mine. My late benefactor divided his fortune between myself and a young lady, a distant relation of his, whom he described to me as having afford-ceeded, and was become her aced, when a child, the fairest promise of excellence. He more than once hinted a wish that we might be united, and now that I have seen the lady, this wish is mine also."—" And pray," said I laughing," who is this peerless Dulcinea, whose charms have subdued cepted lover! A few days more than usual elapsed without my hearing from him, and I was tormenting myself by placing his silence.to the account of his success with Sophia, when one evening he himself appeared. "I am come," cried he, after He we had shaken hands, " to con- told him I was the unworthy revince you that I have not lost my jected lover; and forgetful of himold habit of finding fault with you. self and his own happiness, he You have, from a piece of non- sought only to justify me. sensical refinement and false pride, painted with all the glowing warmth been very near making three peo- of friendship, the injury which exple miserable."-" How so?"-cessive indulgence had done to my "By concealing from me that my natural disposition; he pourtrayed paragon was your mistress." in the liveliest colours the good "But to what purpose should I qualities for which his partiality reveal it?" "To a very good purpose, that of gaining her hand yourself." gave me credit; he dwelt on the steadiness and attention with which, since my ruin, I had applied to Myself! What, in my destitute | business. In short, he pleaded so situation?"-"A man is never de-energetically, that he wrung from stitute when he has industry and the blushing Sophia a tacit conabilities: this is Sophia's opinion as well as mine; and the proof of it is, that I am come to offer you her hand." At these words I could hardly believe my senses, but Henry soon convinced me that he was in earnest. He concealed from me the part he had taken in the promotion of my happiness, but my first interview with Sophia revealed to me all that I owed to his generous friendship. She had seen for some time that he loved her, and fully sensible of his worth, she strove to banish from her heart those sentiments, which, spite of my follies, she still entertained in my favour. When he at last declared his passion, she frankly told him the state of her affections: she owned that her heart was not entirely weaned from one whose unworthiness left her no excuse for loving him; but she had done much towards conquering her partiality, and she hoped, in a little time, to subdue it entirely. Some allusions which she made to my fondness for gaming, roused Henry's suspicions: he uttered my name; her countenance sent to my happiness. Ah! this happiness would have been indeed too exquisite, but for the thought that it was purchased at the expense of his repose. I wished to delay my marriage, in order to give him time to conquer his passion, but he would not hear of it. "It is only when Sophia becomes your wife," said he, "that I can resolve to think of her no more." Our nuptials were celebrated. I embarked a part of my property in trade; I was successful beyond my hopes. Three years after my marriage, I had the happiness to see my friend united to a woman worthy of him, a counterpart of my own Sophia. Heaven had blessed me in the first year my marriage with a son, and when my boy was nearly five years old, Henry became the father of a girl. They were the only children we either of us ever had, and from the moment of his daughter's birth, Henry and myself cherished the hope of one day cementing our friendship by their union. That hope is accomplished, for they were this morning married. And now, of Mr. Editor, do you wonder that I || find it impossible to close my eyes? Methinks I hear you reply, "Really, sir, though you cannot sleep yourself, you possess the power of rendering the drowsy god propitious to others; for I have more than once shut my eyes over your long story." I plead guilty, my good sir: but consider, that every thing has its use, and give the readers of the Repository the chance of a nap by inserting my Memoirs; you will thus serve them, and oblige your very humble servant, THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. open, and some strange favoured being, generally clothed in black, would steal forth, and glide through the rooms, without noticing any of the surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid curiosity, and I determined to attempt the passage of that strait, and to explore the unknown regions that lay beyond. The door yielded to my hand, with all that facility with which the portals of enchanted I HAVE often wondered at the ex- || but every now and then it would treme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads,on which nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, yet teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a scene which unfold-castles yield to the adventurous ed to me some of the mysteries of the book-making craft, and at once put an end to my astonishment. knight errant. I found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded with great cases of venerable books. Above the cases, and just under the cornice, were arranged a great number of quaint black-looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room were placed long tables, with stands for reading and writ I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons of the British Museum, with that listlessness with which one is apt to saunter about a museum in warm weather; sometimes lolling over the glass cases of minerals, some-ing, at which sat many pale, cadatimes studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the allegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. Whilst I was gazing about in this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door at the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, verous personages, poring intently over dusty volumes, rummaging among mouldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their contents. The most hushed stillness reigned through this mysterious apartment, excepting that you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, or, occasion sages, as he shifted his position to turn over the pages of an old folio; doubtless arising from that hollowness and flatulency incident to learned research. ally, the deep sigh of one of these || brary-an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read. To these sequestered pools of obsolete literature, therefore, do many modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or "pure English, undefiled," wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought. Being now in possession of the Now and then one of these personages would write something on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell; whereupon a familiar would appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and return shortly loaded with ponde-secret, I sat down in a corner, and rous tomes, upon which the other watched the process of this bookwould fall tooth and nail with fa- manufactory. I noticed one lean, mished voracity. I had no longer bilious-looking wight, who sought a doubt that I had happened upon none but the most worm-eaten a body of magi, deeply engaged in volumes, printed in black letter. the study of occult sciences. The He was evidently constructing scene reminded me of an old Ara- some work of profound erudition, bian tale of a philosopher, shut up that would be purchased by every in an enchanted library, in the bo- man who wished to be thought som of a mountain, that opened learned, placed upon a conspicuonly once a year; where he made ous shelf of his library, or laid the spirits of the place obey his upon his table-but never read. commands, and bring him books I observed him, now and then, of all kinds of dark knowledge; so draw a large fragment of biscuit that at the end of the year, when out of his pocket, and gnaw; the magic portal once more swung whether it was his dinner, or wheopen on its hinges, he issued forth ther he was endeavouring to keep so versed in forbidden lore, as to off that exhaustion of the stomach be able to soar above the heads of produced by much pondering over the multitude, and to controul the dry works, I leave to harder stupowers of nature. dents than myself to determine. My curiosity being now fully There was one dapper little aroused, I whispered to one of the gentleman in bright coloured familiars, as he was about to leave clothes, with a chirping, gossipthe room, and begged an interpre- ing expression of countenance, tation of the strange scene before who had all the appearance of an me. A few words were sufficient author on good terms with his for the purpose. I found that bookseller. After considering him these mysterious personages, whom attentively, I recognised in him a I had mistaken for magi, were diligent getter up of miscellaneous principally authors, and were in works, which bustled off well with the very act of manufacturing the trade. I was curious to see books. I was, in fact, in the read- how he manufactured his wares. ing-room of the great British Li-He made more stir and show of business than any of the others; || ges into a modern play-and a so dipping into various books, fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out of another, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." The contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches' cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a finger and there a thumb, toe of frog and blind worm's sting, with his own gossip poured in like "baboon's blood," to make the medley" slab and good." ber philosophical treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands: where we burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi. Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient writers descend; they do but submit to the great law of nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which decrees also, that their elements shall never perish. Generation after generation, both in animal and vegetable life, pass away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species continues to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep with their fathers; that is to say, with the au After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be implanted in authors for wise purposes? May it not be the way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced? We see that nature has wisely, though whimsically, provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparent-thors who preceded them-and ly the lawless plunderers of the from whom they had stolen. orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate her blessings. In like manner, the beauty and fine thoughts of ancient and obsolete writers, are caught up by these flights of predatory authors, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works also undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance-an old legend chan Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies, I had leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the soporific emanations from these works; or to the profound quiet of the room; or to the lassitude arising from much wandering; or to an unlucky habit of napping at improper times and places, with which I am grievously afflicted; so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my imagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene remained before my mind's |