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lasaßa&Asrff. A LAWYERS LIFE. From a MS found a few years ago. in an At torney's ehamber after his death. “ . . . Had I Sol low od the example of my fathers, I should now be a farmer ol thirty a- C’-es, on the hanks of a little stream that runs the Somersetshire Avon. My ancestors had vegetated there for the greater part of a couple of centuries; few of them having ex ceeded, during their lives, the limit of twen ty miles from the village church, and ail of them having been born and buried there. — Even I myself should probably have trod the same Cjuoit and confined course had not a solitary spark of ambition flamed up *in my fathers heart, and fired him to honor to the family name. For we descended origin ally from a noble and very ancient stock and we never forgot it. * The .? were knight ed at the Conquest / This was the sentence that kept the pride and vanity boiling in our bloods. Like the secret hoard of the miser, it cheered us in our poverty; perhaps it also nourished a vague feeling of honour, and sa ved us from committing unworthy actions; but this is doubtful. We had passed • through eight of ten generations since we could boast of unmixed nobility; and ever since that tune we had been mingling our blood—marriage after marriage—with the yeoman’s and the peasant’s. Our wealth had been dissipated, our consequence humbled, our minds over grow’: with ignorance ; but the Pride —tiie “airy nothing” of our name, survived ell changes and disasters. Thus the human taste (I mean the bodily sense) which appears to be so obvious, is known to retain its impres sions longer than any other faculty. The mind forgets a name or an image, a peculiar touch, a note of music ; but an odour or a • flavour is remembered in an instant, with all its concurring circumstances, after a lapse of thirty or forty years. Our pride, which one would have been of so frail and evanescent a nature as to have extinguished by the first brush of poverty, remained to us—adhered to us like a canker or a disease, when all our im portant distinctions had perished. “I was brought up somewhat roughly, and was suffered to run about wild and idle enough until I attained my tenth year, when I was committed to the management of the village schoolmistress. With satchel and a well thumbed primer, my pocket half full of mar bles, and a couple of formidable slices of bread, (with butter or bacon between,) for my dinner, i used regularly every morning to take my way to the little school. What pro gress 1 attained there has escaped my mem ory ; but I think that lessons in three syl ablcs wete the summit of my accomplishments. My father who was dissatisfied at my progress, wished anxiously to remove me to a better school; and at hist a legacy of £7OO enabled him to put his ambitious schemes in execu tion. 1 was removed without loss of time to the “classical academy’of Mr. , and af ter remaining there three or four years, was pronounced to’be ‘lit i’or any thing.’ But then came the question—the serious and too often discussed question—what course should I like to follow ? ‘What shall we make of you, John? asked my father, with an inquisi tive exulting look. He had evidently visions of bishops, and judges, and generals, floating before his eyes. All the splendid accidents of fortune had been repeatedly tlm subject f conversation between us. The stories of men who had risen from a low beginning— from the most squalid servitude—from the poorhouse and the prison—and afterwards realized the wealth of CYcesus, were familiar to us. We lived in a dream of riches. We surmounted obstacles; we overtook rivals in the race to power. No opposition deterred us? Fame, and profit, and power, were at the end of every prospect. The only question was, which was the lu st road to pursue ? that promblem, however, it was difficult to solve ? “Will you study politics ?—or law?—or physic?’' asked my father, with an earnest face, ‘or will you become a soldier or a sailor (lie was slopped here by my mother, who pronounced a rapid negative on the two last posstssions ;—‘or turn your mind to divinity ?’— ‘ I will not be a parson, returned I, at once, And why?’was the question. ‘Be cause 1 do not want to be a curate, “ passing yoor with forty pounds a year.” I like to spec ulate aud think, even to the limit or ortho doxy; I cannot raise myself o a living by flat tery ; and could I do so, I should fear to en counter the hate ofevery inhabitant of my pa rish, by stripping them yearly for my tithes. Let it be something else.’ Thus it was that tve discussed the hours away. Sometimes a red coat was most attractive to me; some times a blue one. Then the carriage and ruffles of the physician caught my fancy; and then the debates in Parliament, which the ‘County Chronicle’regularly pared down to suit its columns, inflamed my wishes, till I was absolutely bewildered by the number of the avenues to fame. At last however, my father and I (my mother concurring) det r mined upon—the Law ? 1 remember the happy .evening whereon this resolution was funned. My father was in high spirits. We will drink a glass of wine, for once in a way, to the future Judge-,’ said he. 1 hope you will never hang any body, John’? said my mother; ‘if I thought so, I would call back my consent’ —‘Never fear, replied my father; ‘he will do v/hat i3 right, I know. If his country should require such a painful act from him, he w ill not flinch from his duty.’—l will never hang r. man for forgery, however,’ exclaimed I: dog gedly : ‘Blood for blood, is the old law; but nothing farther for me.’—‘My dear John,’ in terrupted my mother reprovingly, ‘do you • hear what yourfuthersays? If your duty should require it, Ac. It will scarcely be believed that we could go on quarrelling respecting so re mote contingency. But so it v:as. I tried— I am almost ashamed to tell it—l tried on mv Other’s v. ig that very evening, in order that * might we, before the matter was absolutely irrevocable, how a wig would become me, when I should be advanced to the bench ? How re ar I arrived to that point of ambition v. ill be seed hereafter. “ The Law being resolved upon, tho only tncstion that rcihained was, whether I should ie sent f o college, or paw through the rett ing process of an attorney’s office. We were I ii i E MAC* .N AI IVE \ V USB IS. AM) AORLOt LTURAL AND MERLANTI LE INTELLIGENCER. in considerable perplexity o:i this point,when a friend of inv father’s happened to step in, and determined the matter for us. He was a rough, eccentric man, hill had withal his share of sense ; and on the difficulty being stated to him, he replied with a loud continuous \v:is tle, that augured any tiling but an approval of our objects. ‘College?’ he exclaimed, look ing askant at me : why he is half fool alrea dy: if you send him to college, you’ll make him a fool complete.’ It must be owned in extenuation of the old man’s rudeness, that my deportment at this time somewhat justi fied his suspicions. 1 had so long been dr< ant ing af er the fashion of Ahnasehar, that 1 bore myself now and then towards my old acquain tance and equals in 4 way that not even the elevation’l reckoned on could have justi fied. In truth I had become a considerable coxcomb. I was not, 1 think, naturally vain; but my poor fathers hopes, and my mother’s smiles and prophesies, brought out the germ of folly into sudden blossom. It was well for me lhat it was timely checked. Our friend’s advice was taken. All notions of college were abandoned, and I was sent off, for five years, to the office of an attorney in our county town. “ Tiie toil of an attorneys life is much ex aggerated. It is held upas a sort of hideous spcctruum to the imaginations of youth, and lias deterred many an intelligent anddiffident boy—and hundreds of floating mothers from adding a victim to the shrine of Law. 111 the country, at least, there is little to do that need alarm an ordinary student. A brain of very common strfngth is sufficient to bear up a gainst ail file impediments that usually beset tiiis period of probation. Even the fictions of our jurisprudence (not the least vicious of its qualities) may be mastered, though not admired. Admiration demands a subtle scru tiny, a longer and closer intimacy with law, than a youth—nay than even 1, a veteran of thirty years, have been able to contract with it. in truth, its first aspect is rugged and se vere towards all. It was so with me ; but ha bit reconciled 111 c to my labors ; and thus— with an occasional novel in the evening,a walk with a rustic belle on Sunday, a short half yearly visit to my parents; and a dance or two 111 the cold winter weather—L managed to run through my five years of clerkship, with considerable satisfacton to myself, and not wholly without the approbation of my employ ers. At the expiration of that period, I had thy choice before me—whether to pursue the humbler but safer course of an attorney, or to nature upon the dangerous but dazzling chances ol the bar. ] preferred the latter; and after a short sojourn at home, I was at once let loose upon—London ! “The stride from the quiet of the country— from its sleepy, stagnant current of existence, to tiie soil and centre of intellectual, busy and ambitious life, is great and fearful. 1 think of it with a shudder even now. The sudden es cape from all controul is of itself perilous e nough. But when, in addition to this, one is thrown amongst the struggling and vicious crowds if London, into her noisy streets and abandoned haunts (arenas more dangerous than even the bloody circuses of Rome,where the wild and the gladiator fought and mangled each otln r, for—what ?) the wonder is, that so many ot the young, and inexperienced sur vive to attain uny thing like a moral maturity. “ i was ready enough to see the world’ and 1 was ready enough to behold it. ‘You should see every thing one, at least.,’ said anew ac quaintance ; ‘Take a glance at every tiling ; sow your wild oats ; and then sit down and fag steadily at law.’ This was the advice of a nian who was esteemed for his prudence, and not a little respected for his knowledge of‘the town.’ It was impossible to reject such counsel; and accordingly I resolved to see and judge of every thing. What places this resolution led me into, it is unnecessary to detail. It is sufficient to say, that the death of my father and mother about this time, liyan infectious fever, enabled me to sec Lon don to my hearts content. I was the sole heir of tiieir little property, which I spee dily disposed of; not, however, before I had given an honest plumper at the comity elec tion to a candidate who was hard beset, and made my maiden speech at the husting.*,which it was said, turned the contest in his favour. Anew member is always grateful; and my vote obtained for me a world of thanks, and a pres sing invitation to his metropolitan residence. “ I was now pursuing rny way professedly to the bar. 1 kept several terms, and had my self as pupil of a special pleader, at whose chambers 1 duly read the newspapers, peeled an orange, drank a glass of soda/.vater, and now and then, (but this was a rate event) at tempted to scrawl a declaration in trover and assumpsit, in which my bad writing and legal incapacity were the only things conspicuous. ‘You will never do for special pleading, nor the common law bar,’ said one of my co-pu pils ; ‘you take the nv/.ter too leisurely.— Suppose you were to fry conveyancing?—or see what figure you can make in a court of equity ? I caught at this suggestion. Six months of pleailmg had satisfied me that my genius lay another way. In other words, I heartily disliked my employment, and was glad to escape from it under any show or pre tence. Mr. had no objection, of course, ton-y quitting his office at the end of six, in stead of twelve months, and leaving my desk open for another pupil ; and accordingly I left him without ceremony, and transferred my person to tiie chambers of a celebrated conveyancer. This from my country educa tion, suited me better than my previous tasks. 1 had some glimim ring notion of the law of real property, and I was not unwilling to in ert ase my knowledge. The rapid diminution of my funds began to make me think; and after a few strugglesu ith Feurne. Se.gden and Zan ders, a few sigus cast towards the distant the atres, and a month of severe but wholesome illness, 1 east off the trammels of idleness,and sat down to work in earnest. “ I had uot been here more than a quarter of a year, when I one day suddenly met in tin street Sir Charles 1, our county member. He had not forgotten my election services, and hastened to reproach me for not having called upon him. 1 pleaded the usual num ber of excuses—protested that he was ‘very kimi—that he overrated my trifling exertions’ Arc.—and concluded by accepting his invita tion to dinner for the following Saturday.— The interval was spent in ordering anew and fashionable dresses, and in getting up for con versation, some of the ordinary topics for dis course—the last poem or novel; but when the hour arrived, and I entered the members, spacious mansion, and heard my name go sounding up the marble staircase, I forgot all my late conversational acquisitions, my new dress, and even applause that followed rny last speech at the club, and tumbled into the drawing-room with a dizzy head and almost trembling step3. The reception which Bir Charles gave me, however, speadily measured me. He was a weli-lm and, polite man, and, it may be, was a little pleased at the homage which I thus involuntarily paid to his station. He introduced me to his wife; to his son (an only child, whom Nature seemed to have constructed for the sole purpose of hanging one of Stultz’s ot Weston’s suits upon;) and finally to a poor relation of the family, whom the death of both parents, and her own utter indigence, had cast upon the member’s cha rity?—Mary S was, when 1 first knew her, about nineteen years of age. I remember her as though it were but yesterday. She had not that beauty without fault, either in face or figure, nor that romantic melancholy expres sion, which novelists delight to expatiate on ; but she had a pleasing and intelligent coun tenance, a little dashed by sorrow, but not injured—an unaffected manner—and a voice more musical than any sound I have ever heard. It was to me ’More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s car,’ ’twas sweeter than ‘the Sweet South; richer than Juliet’s voice; softer than Ariel’s song ; and—l was never weary of listening to it ? “Being both persons of small importance (for 1 was no longer a freeholder of- shire) Mary and I were generally left together to a tnuse ourselves whenever I visited Sir Charles house. I had a general invitation there, for which L was, believe, partly indebted to some musical talent that 1 possessed, but which I should have neglected, had not‘attractive me tal’ drawn me thither with a power that 1 could not resist. That being the case, I be came a visitor; sometimes at the evening parties of Lady L. and always fti the mor nings ; for then the masters of the mansion were usually absent, and their protegee was left to the solitude of her thoughts. The consequences of this intimacy may easily be foreseen. 1 fell in love with the excellent Mary, who returned my affection, but at the same time resolutely refused to accept my hand, and entail poverty on us both. I pro posed to ask the consent of Sir Charles. She dissuaded me, however, from this ; assuring me that he would reject me—professedly up on some plea of family pride, but in reality to save himself from the necessity of aiding our slender means, as well as to preserve for his wife a cheap and useful companion. For the condition of Mary was not that of a sine curist. She was the chief secretary of the house; the writer of all Lady L ’s letters; the copyist, and often the corrector of Sir Charles’s speeches; the milliner and dress maker of her lady cousin, sometimes on ordi nary, and always on extraordinary occasions. She filled, in short, one of those thankless, nameless offices, where the ties of blood are admitted solely fora sordid purpose—where the victim to endure, uncomplaining, (or starve!) all that the proud will sometimesdare to inflict —where all the labors and hardships of servitude are undergone, without even the wages of a menial. In these cases, there is but too often no mercy on the one hand, and no spirit of resistance on the other. The first act of reluctant charity justifies every species of tyranny. The value of original benevo lence is exacted to the uttermost farthing—no abatement, no relenting.—‘Do you remember who it was that took you in? and fed you? and —Ac.’ ‘Oh! hither let soft charity repair!’ Lct her repair to such melancholy places, and often the ungenerous heart, and sweeten, wtth her smiles, the bitter, bitter bread of de. pendence! “Wc married. The consent of Mary’s ‘protectors’ had been asked, and immediately refused; and upon this, I tried repeatedly to induce her to fly with me, but in vain. At last our situation made us desperate, and some prospect of professional success opening at the time, I wrung from her a slow consent to —elope. We fled, and were, as may be im agined, never pursued. The consequences of this step, however, were, that my wife was cast off’, and I discountenanced. But I nev ertheless plodded steadily on iny way; never relaxing, never forgetiug that on iny success depended the comforts, nay the existence, of one who was dearer to me than myself. By the time 1 had arrived at the bur, and was qualified to practice ‘in court,’ we had one child born to us, —a girl. It was the only one we ever had, and we loved it in proportion. No one can tell how entire and unselfish our love was/ Men may imagine and speculate on other things; but this is beyond all guess, all divining. It is, beyond comparison, the most painful, the most powerful, and mysteri ous sympathy that ever wanned the human heart. Let no one talk of it, who has not felt the care and anxiety which beset a pa rent’s mind:— ‘He talks to me who— never had a child.' How wise is Shakespeare in this, (as in all other things!) The single man knows no more of what we endure for the child we love, than the blind or deaf know of sound or eid our: his idea is a guess altogether unfouni or remote from reality. “I forget how long it was that we continued under the ban of Sir Charles and Lady L—’s displeasure; but I recollect that the interdic tion was taken off at the request of a good natured visitor of their house, to whom 1 had once (for 1 used to carve occasionally there) accidently given the prime slice from a haunch of venison. He recollected this with grati tude, and was not easy till wc were restored to favour. After some discussion some show of resentment, und an intimation that were to ‘expect nothing,’ except the countenance of the family, Lady L—signified that she ‘llO longer objected to receive Mr. and Mrs.’ Her willingness to bo reconciled was communica ted to us; and we once walked up the mar ble staircase of the L —’sjieard our names thundered out by powdered lacqueys, and once more underwent ‘The proud man contumely,’ and all the ungracious and worthless favours which the poor but too frequently submit to ; receive from ‘the great.’ It would be little 1 use to recount, one after one, the numberless slights and stinging condescensions which were showered upon our ‘bare’ unsheltered heads.” I myself would have fled into the forest, or the poorhouse, to avoid them: but we had—a child! and for her dear and tender sake, my poor Mary entreated that I would bear up against ill fortune a little longi r. — “Accordingly,a ‘little longer,’ and ‘a little longer,’ we went on; our situation never amending. Custom, which reconciles us to all other things, never renders caprice or ty ranny the less difficult to be borne. \\ e en dured—more than shall be told, and we felt that we were descending, with swift and cer- j tain steps from one stage of discomfort to an other, and with the prospect of inevitable poverty full in our view. First trifling deli cacies were abandoned—then the finer cloth ing common to our condition; then the solid comforts of life, meat, tea, firing,Ac, passed out of our reach. Our child suffered last; for we were daily guilty of little pious frauds towards her, to conceal from her the abso lute poverty of our lot. “During all this period, I was the visitor (on no intimate footing, however, for I could not return the substantial civilities offered me) at gentlemen’s tables. I dined off plate and china, spread with all the delicacies of the seasons, when I had not a meal at home. On tli se occasions, I have been compelled to restrain myself (to an extent that it would be difficult to credit),in order to conceal from the persons present the voracious hunger that was devouring me. I have abstracted food (the share, howevor, allotted to myscll) —bread, cake or other substantial edibles— to carry home for the next day’s sustenances In the course of time, this foraging was cal culated upon between ns; and my wife would see me depart almost with pleasure upon one of these expeditions, knowing that I should reserve for our domestic necessities a portion of the superfluities of which I was expected to partake. I have heard of a wealthy miser doing this to a great extent. We however had a better excuse than lie. He abstracted what belonged to others whereas I pilfered only from myself. ’’But lam writing confusedly, and without order. I should have mentioned that my funds were, for some time, sufficient to fur nish us with common comforts; and even to appear suitably to our station. Our honey moon did uot wane and disappear so very rap idly in the chill atmosphere of poverty to call for that commisseratton which a sudden acci dent alone excites. We were exposed in ' the end, indeed, to the rigorous seasons.— We had our fill of calamity. But it descend ed upon us, drop after drop, like the icy dew lhat fails ‘upon the earth beneath.’ We re tired from our places gradually, and left our acquaintances on opportunity (and perhaps an excuse,) for discovering and attaching themselves to other friends. The common intercourse and advantages of the world an not to be had for nothing; we must pay for them with other things. We must return fa vour for benefits, good humour for vivacity, nay, almost meal lor in. al; oth rrvise, vve shrink out of the circle of society and our place is supplied by fresh comers. We wore willing to do all that could be done in this in terchange, but wc found that money failed us at last, and with money good spirits also van ished, —we w< re, therefore, fairly dismissed. I made, indeed, a few efforts to recover my self. A sudden iuflux of business gave a tem porary colour to our fate, but it did not last long enough, nor was it of sufficient amount, to give to our prosperity even the appearance of stability. We feel ‘ln many an ai-rv wheel,’ deeper and deeper still, till we touched the lowest level of our destiny. “But let me return, for a short space, to our child. We had, as I have said, one cli'ld — one only. To give her the appearance of re spectability, to afford her the wholesome, and sometimes delicate food, which her youth and infirm health required, was the struggle of every day. We ourselves fared hardly, and were content. My own expenses were trivial: those of my wife were less. But even rent and the coarsest clothing are fearful things for those whose income is utterly pre carious. Sometimes we had nothing— .ot a shilling* not a solitary farthing; and then we were driven to borrow trifling sums by depos iting the few poor trinkets of my wife, some books that were seldom in use, or a portion of our clothes, with the pawnbroker. These sometimes remained unredeemed for months. At such times our distresses have been great indeed. I have sought and petitioned for employment of any sort, and my wife has shed tears of joy at having the commonest la hour offered to her. It produced bread! I should cause the visages of some of rny bar acquaintance to grow doubly supercilions were I to innumerate the shifts and projects that I had been reduced to, to obtain a shil ling or two for the next morning’s meal.— But what will not the father and the husbaml do! It may be well enough for a single man to go to his bed and sleep, careless of the next day’s fortune; but he who has creatures whom he loves dependant on him, must be busy and a anxious, and provident. I have (thank God!) never yet lain down at night without know ing that iny wife and child would the next morning bave bread before them, sometimes, indeed, scanty fare, but always something.— What I have undergone, more than once to procure this, shall remain locked in my own hertrt. 1 have never provoked the generosity of iny professional brethren, nor the con tempt or compassion of strangers by an open exposure of my wants: for I had a character and station to preserve by day, on which all the hope that was left depended. But secret ly, and by night, and where I Was unknown, 1 shrunk from nothing. The labour of the porter, the hack writer’s midnight toil, the work of the common copyist, eeocary, have all been familiar to me 1 look back on these occupations without shame or regret, and, in deed, at times, when my pulse of pride beats —as it will beat feebly even now —I recur to some of them with a smile. “In our sunny seasons we had one appa rent luxury—music. It was in truth, a great enjoyment; although the real object of its introduction among us (to whom luxury of 1 any sort was necessarily a stranger,) was that our child, who inherited her mother’s sweet voice, should find it a means of livelihood.— When wc grew' much poorer than usual, our little borrowed piano-foTte was dismissed; but, in other times, wc struggled hard to keep it for oaf daughter’s sake. 1 remem ber still our evening concerts, my flute or voice accompanying her instrument, and our sole dear auditor standing beside us with glistening eyes. We almost forgot our pov erty, and turned aside from the dark face of futurity, to listen to gentle airs and solemn movements. We wandered with Ilandcl, ‘by hedgerow elms on hillocks green,’—with Kent, and Boyce, andjPurcel. Hayden and Bethoven were our friends; the learning qf Sebastian Bach was familiar tons; the di vine melodies of Mozart were our perpetual delight. t‘Music, however, could afford no help, farther than to enable us occasionally to for get misfortune. It did not purchase for us bread or meat, nor revive iny coat of rusty black, which the malice of several winters and of as many summers had conspired to in jure. My wife’s clothes faded, while she hearkened to harmonies that were ever fresh. In a w r ord our miserable wardrobe became so flagrantly bare, that our ‘friends’ at L house announced the fact to us in unmitiga ted te r ms, and desired that, unless it could be renewed, we might straight become better strangers.. ‘We will leave them, my dear Mary,’ said I, ‘to their poor pride-1 They arc lowmr than we arc, after all.’ She sighed, and made no answer; for she saw, notwith standing all her humility, that w r e could nev er return there again. We never did return! “One of the most painful and irksome things to myself was the necessity of appear ing ‘ in Cburt’ during the period of our ex treme poverty. It is supposed necessary, with what reason 1 know not, that the bar rister should appear in Court at all events, w hether allured there by business or not.— 111 compliance with this custom I have sat • out many a weary morning, with my blue bag before me, (its sole ballast a quire or two of 1 paper, or an old volume of reports,) soine -1 times listening to arguments on matters of no interest, but generally meditating on my own mournful prospects, and forming hundreds of projects to retrieve our fallen fortunes. How . little have the frequenters of the Court of ( Chancery imagined that, under the imposing . though grotesque dress of ‘the bar,’ one man . has sat there as poor and friendless as I have [ b en. There is a sort of equality in the cos . tume and in the rank which rejects the idea 1 of any great diversity of condition. Yet . have I sate there, more than once, utterly . pennyless, whilst Mr. Itomily, or Mr. Bell, Mr. Hart, or Mr. Leach, Ac. have been . ‘winning golden opinions from all sorts of • men.’ At these times I have sometimes i thought that, had 1 fair opportunities, I might have taken rny stand by the side of 1 those cefcbratcd advocates ; but, alas! when some casual opportunity came, I found that I • was tongue-tied, and that all the faculties that I gave mvs< If credit for w r ere either not , there, or were in a moment dispersed and put to flight. Self-possession,—confidence ■ in one’s own strength, is scarcely a seconda ry requisite at the bar. The learning and . even ingenuity of man are nothing without : it. The course of the advocate should ever be ‘As confident 3S is the falcon’s flight,' if he hopes to conquer. For myself, 1 never could attain this self-possession. I have dreamed, indeed, of Bacon and Coke, and Ilardvvicke and Holt, and Thurlow and Mansfield, (‘silver-tongued Murray’) and all who have made a name, and I have vowed tixat I too would win the same airy and sub stantial glory that had encircled the heads of famous lawyers. I have read, and read, and written, early and late, morning, noon, and ■ miit: 1 have compiled and digested, specu lated and invented: All branches of law, all sorts of literature have I tried:—But my writings accumulated, my information in creased—in vain! My labours were fruitless. My piles of manuscript were destined only to ii; and the worm or the moth, or to afford a habitation to the spider. # # * # “I know not why I should pursue farther this downward path. It would be easy to go on recounting fact after fact, feeling after feeling, ‘Facilis descensus Averni.’ “But, having thus far traced the narrative of my calamities, lam content to stop. If any one shouldever read over what is written he will probably find it even now sufficiently irksome. There is too little of incident or adventure to stir up the blood, —to make ‘the hair to stand on end,’ —to force from the eyes of readers deluges of tears. Mine is notan ‘eventful history.’ It is a melancholy one ; and, I fear toe, that it i3 not a solitary in stance of misplaced ambition. But it is dull, and dark, and uniform! It is without a spot of pleasantness; sterile in all its aspects, un less, indeed, it prove (and it may well prove) a timely and v aluable warning for those who have yet the race of life to run. That it may be useful in this sort, I will complete it. I will not, by publishing it new, encounter the jeers or the sympathy of critics; but 1 will leave it for the edification of those who come after me. It will be of little moment then what becomes of my poor memoirs. Wit, rancour, praise, compassion,—what will they avail to the ear that is deaf? to the eye that is blind? to the sense—the intellect that has soared, or sunk, or fled—whither ? “ ... A few more sentences and I have done. They comprehend (notwithstanding all 1 have already said,) the hitter sum of my existence. But I cannot linger over them. I cannot (like tiie hegerar by the way-side,) exhibit and grow garrulous over iny holier sorrows. Let it be sufficient to say that 1 have followed my wife and my only child to their graves; and that I am now utterly— alone ! My misery needs no exaggeration, and it asks for no sympathy. 1 go on, as 1 have always done, struggling and toiling to day for the food of to-morrow. But I no longer feel apprehensive of the future. It is even some alleviation when my own insigni ficant personal wants obtrude upon me and call me away for a moment from substantial grief, It •.■•as with this view—with this hope, that I sate down to pen this story of my dis appointments ; and, in truth, the task has now and then geguiled me—not into forget fulness indeed—but it has mingled with the almost intolerable pain of the present, recol lections of the comparatively trivial sorrows of the past. I have all my life been pursu ing a phantom—professional success. I have been ‘chasing the rainbow’ for fifty vears. 1 have failed in every undertaking. 1 have striven my best, have been honest, industri ous, and constant to my calling; yet nothin" has prospered with me. I do not seek to im quire into the reasons for all this; but it may be worth the while of another person to do so. The causes of success in life deserve a minute scrutiny. Whether they be owing to accident, —to imprudence,— to genius.— to perseverance,—it will be well to know. It will then be seen why my learning has been useless, my honesty of no account, my daily, nightly, unceasing toil unavailing. Let me not be understood as being now querulous or indignant. The time for those feelings has passed away. I have no motives now to de si re rank or professional success. I would not possess them if I could.” *#* Such is the Counsellor’s story. I have nothing to add to it; except that we heard he had thriven in his business somewhat, better latterly. His health, however, (his clerk said,) became very indifferent; he did not attend Court so regularly as usual, and never walked out as formerly, except to visit a lit tle churchyard in the suberbs of London, where his wife and child lay buried. To this place he went regularly every Saturday even ing (about sunset,) and sometimes, when his spirits were more than usually depressed, he would wander there every afternoon for a week or a fortnight successively. E. E. „ LOVE. It is said that writers of my sex- have but two themes—religion and love. If equality was not a stranger to human destinies, a vo cation thus exclusive would place its vota ries beyond the possibility of rivalship; yet oh, humiliating fact! those altars of the heart’s interest worship are heaped with rich er gifts than ours. From the pious speci mens that I have seen, the best raptures of St. Theresa were but as earth-born scintilla, tions compared to the holy fire ol'St. Francis de Sales; and near love’s gentle shrine, the impassioned muse of Byron wrests from de .Stacl the palm of superior devotion. I find a strong family resemblance in the effusions of Byron and Bulwcr, in each exist tiiose effeminate voluptuous traits which, se curing to their authors the suffrages of all youthful hearts, awaken in maturer judgments craving and distrust. It is possible for one of these latter to imagine,.Byron, arrived at his thirty-fifth year, weeping in the garden of his Arinide over the page of Corinne, with other sentiments than tiiose of pity and contempt.’ Neither is Bulwer deserving of a higher fate, he that eternally breaks the thread of his na-- ratives with episodes and hymns of love, and whose enamoured heroines are of a softness* and insipidity that might nauseate a nunnerv. It over love’s tautologies a reader should yawn, women are made responsible for his weariness; they are such mad, doating crea tures, than an unlucky author, sighing for popularity, must sacrifice taste and judgment to their predilections, or forfeit his hopes of fame. It was in subservience to the amorous taste of actresses that Racine and Addison enervated their tragedies with frequent love scenes; at least so say the critics, and we must submit to their decisions* In the Chinese laws, one of flic grounds on which a husband can divoce his wife is, her be ing gicen too much to talking. CHARLOTTE, (N.C.) APRIL 14. Gold — Extraordinary. —We have substan tial foundation for the rumours of tiie Ir/-t eight or ten days, of the great original deposit of gold discovered in this The ac count almost cxeeeds belief, and surpasses any thing of the kind in the history of mi* ning. The land on which the gold was found, about 18 or 20 miles east of this place, was purchased two or three years ago by a Mr. Carlton, from Virginia, for the purpose of mining, who after spending his time and mo ney for a year or two, relinquished the under taking as unsuccessful. Lately, however, the week was pursued by others, which was eventuated in the discovery of the extraordi nary rich deposit, on the 2d instant. The whole amount of gold obtained is variously stated to be from 75 to 120 pounds, but from the statement of a certain gentleman who was called upon to make a probable estimate of the weight A value, it is supposed there is at least one hundred pounds of Gold, all ob tained in one day. The gold was found in a small space, two or three feet below the sur face, in grains and masses weighing from ounces and pounds, to pieces office, seven and eight pounds! There was no vein discov ered, or sign of any, but the laborers came suddenly upon the whole mass of gold as it were in a nest, and imbedded in red clay. On pursuing the labor of digging .during the past week, we understood that 110 more discoveries have been made, —(his rich deposit being en tirely isolated, promising no continuance of the extraordinary developcmcnt. The value of the gold, it is estimated, will not come un der 020,000, after being seperated front all extraneous substances. The man who would he known, ar.d not know, should vegetate in a village; but he who would know and not be known, should li.vc in a city— Spirit of Literature. We understand (says the National Intelli gencer) that Com. Barron will lie placed in command of the Navy Yard at Philadelphia, as the successor of Coin. Warrington : and that the last named officer will take the pbice ofCom. Barron at the Norfolk Navy Yard. —.) 0 4*.—- We have seen a letter from Philadelphia, says the Baltimore Gazette, of the 4th instant which states that there is not 100 bags St. Do mingo coffee in the city, in first hands,and that some persons think the price will 12 J cents in a f ".r days,should there be any forstde-