KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



15 



But Genius when it works, which is not 

 often, works prodigies-, — and without any- 

 apparent means ; it is a kind of mental 

 engine, substituting steam ; and empty 

 pockets are its locomotive power ; a power, 

 unfortunately, never new, but yet in constant 

 activity. Nature, said the philosophers, 

 terribly abhors a vacuum, and every effort 

 to obtain a plenum by the materia subtil is ; 

 so does her favoured son ; both on the same 

 system, carry it out to the utmost of their 

 means, and spread it wherever they go : it is 

 a power that is substance in vacuity ; and 

 in obscurity light ; that in coldness wakes 

 warmth, and glows amid destitution : that 

 whispers to leaves, and feeds the fountains 

 of the stars, and mingles for ever with the 

 soul's overflowings ; bears the voice of winds, 

 and holds the planets in their aerial course, 

 and fills, though unseen, the blank intervals 

 of life itself with a glow and a balm of 

 ethereal ecstacy. In short, it does every- 

 thing — but get money ! 



Food for Thought, 

 "Forsan et hccc olim meminisse juvabit" 



Choice op Compant. — There is a certain 

 magic or charm in company, for it will assimilate 

 and make you like to them by much conversation 

 with them. If they be good company, it is a 

 great means to make you good, or confirm you 

 in goodness ; but if they be bad, it is twenty to 

 one but they will corrupt and infect you. There- 

 fore be wary and shy in choosing and entertain- 

 ing, or frequenting any company or companions ; 

 be not too hasty in committing yourself to them ; 

 stand off awhile till you have acquired of some 

 that you know by experience to be faithful, what 

 they are ; observe what company they keep ; be 

 not too easy to gain acquaintance ; but stand off 

 and keep a distance yet awhile, till you have ob- 

 served and learned touching them. Men or 

 women that are greedy of acquaintance, or hasty 

 in it, are oftentimes snared in ill company be- 

 fore they are aware, and entangled, so that they 

 cannot easily get loose from it after, when they 

 would. — Sir Matthew Hale. 



The Folly op Anger. — Two disputants 

 arguing upon a religious subject, one of them 

 grew angry, and began to use very violent lan- 

 guage, which put an end to the debate. Some 

 time after, when he had grown cool, he began 

 to make excuses for his intemperate heat — he 

 was interrupted by his opponent, who said, " Oh, 

 sir, make no apology ; I was flattered by the cir- 

 cumstance : for I felt assured that if you could 

 have replied satisfactorily to my argument, you 

 would not have become angry." This should 

 be read by all the world ; for we hold it to be an 

 invariable rule, that when men once get angry, 

 argument is at an end. They are fairly worsted, 

 and their quiet, reasoning opponent, always comes 

 off victorious. — Probation est. 



Judgments, and Perverse Judgments. — 

 When misfortunes happen to such as dissent 

 from us in matters of religion, we call them 



judgments; when to those of our own sect, we 

 call them trials; when to persons neither way 

 distinguished, we are content to impute them to 

 the settled course of things Shenstone. 



The Sea a Great Cemetery. — The sea is 

 the largest of cemeteries, and its slumberers 

 sleep without a monument. All other grave- 

 yards, in all other lands, show some symbol of 

 distinction between the great and small, the rich 

 and the poor; but in that ocean cemetery the 

 king and the clown, the prince and the peasant, 

 are alike undistinguished. The same wave rolls 

 over all — the same requiem by the minstrelsy of 

 the ocean is sung to their honor. Over their 

 remains the same storm beats and the same sun 

 shines ; and there, unmarked, the weak and the 

 powerful, the plumed and the unhonored, will 

 sleep on until awakened by the same trump when 

 the sea will give up its dead. I thought of sail- 

 ing over the (slumbering but devoted Cookman, 

 who, after his brief, but brilliant career, perished 

 in the President — over the laughter-loving Power, 

 who went down in the same ill-fated vessel we 

 may have passed. In that cemetery sleeps the 

 accomplished and pious Fisher; but where he 

 and thousands of others of the noble spirits of 

 the earth lie, no one but God knoweth. No 

 marble rises to point out where their ashes are 

 gathered, or where the lover of the good or wise 

 can go and shed the tear of sympathy. Who 

 can tell where lie the tens of thousands of Africa's 

 sons who perished in the "middle passage?" 

 Yet that cemetery hath ornaments of Jehovah. 

 Never can I forget my days and nights as I 

 passed over the noblest of cemeteries without a 

 single human monument! — Thoughts by a Wan- 

 derer. 



Excellence is never granted to man but as 

 the reward of labour. It argues indeed no small 

 strength of mind, to persevere in habits of indus- 

 try without the pleasure of perceiving those ad- 

 vances, which like the hands of a clock, whilst 

 they make hourly approaches to their point, yet 

 proceed so slowly as to escape observation.— Sir 

 Josh. Reynolds. 



Stray Meditations. 



Sorrows op Authors.— Many an immortal 

 Avork, that is a source of exquisite enjoyment to 

 mankind, has been written with the blood of the 

 author, at the expense of his happiness and of 

 his life. Even the most jocose productions have 

 been composed with a wounded spirit. Cowper's 

 humorous ballad of Gilpin was written in a state 

 of despondency that bordered upon madness. 

 " I wonder," says the poet, in a letter to Mr. 

 Newton, "that a sportive thought should ever 

 knock at the door of my intellects, and still more 

 that it should gain admittance. It is as if har- 

 lequin should intrude himself into the gloomy 

 chamber where a corpse is deposited in state." 

 In the Quarterly Review, it has been justly ob- 

 served, that " our very greatest wits have not. been 

 men of a gay and a vivacious disposition. Of 

 Butler's private history, nothing remains but the 

 record of his miseries; and Swift was never 

 known to smile." Lord Byron, who was irrita- 

 ble and unhappy, wrote some of the most amus- 

 ing stanzas of Don Juan in his dreariest moods. 



