for human error may by-and-by reach to an inconvenient pitch; as a man may be tempted to transgress for the sake of acquiring a certificate of innocence-to blunder outrageously, by way of distinguishing himself for his infallibility. We are yet in our infancy of intelligence, and, like infants, must be fed through the medium of a quill for some time longer. But the day is fast approaching when we shall no longer buy other people's papers, but write them ourselves; when every family will produce its own journal, and every man will be his own editor. Then what a rivalry will there be in the race of generosity! Society will be one virtue, and the world will be an "entire and perfect chrysolite." So may we prophesy from the fact, that every one of us can already reckon up a dozen acquaintances whom we might suppose to be really vulgar people, if the world had not decreed them to be persons of high breeding; and as many more whom we should be apt enough to mistake for dull dogs, if the world were not in raptures with their brilliant gifts and incredible accomplishments.

ECCENTRICITIES OF AFFECTATION.

" "Tis affectations, look you."-SIR HUGH EVANS.

ASSUME a virtue if you have it not," is Hamlet's recommendation to the Queen. It is one which, however plausible in sound, and practically admissible in particular cases, prescribes in reality the addition of the odious vice of hypocrisy to the vices in existence before. It says in other words, "Seem more virtuous by committing another gross fault."

But the advice is distinct and intelligible-we can at

least understand the policy of it, whether we approve or condemn. The adoption of it may be a piece of knavery, but it does not follow that the knavery is sheer folly— except in the sense in which all knavery is, from first to last.

Now there are assumptions and affectations which, though equally common, are not so comprehensible. Why people pretend to be virtuous; why they affect to be pious, witty, frank, and honest; why they "makebelieve" to be amiable and generous; a child can understand. But it is not so easy to comprehend the principle upon which they affect to be less perfect than they really are; why they lay claim to defects which are not legally their own; why they pretend to possess weaknesses and demerits as things admirable and honourable.

"Assume a failing if you have it not," seems the perfection of the absurd and irrational.

"Open this muffin for me, there's a good fellow, for positively I haven't strength-and in the mean time I'll just flirt a little with a bit of toast."

This was lisped out at breakfast by a hale, vigorous specimen of youthful activity, all bone and muscle, six feet high, and as strong as Hercules. Strength and Health, indeed, were his father and mother, and the son took mightily after his parents. Yet there he was, affecting the invalid, and insinuating a claim to compassion-a necessity for assistance in the opening of a muffin. With tremendous energy, and a frame that might have led one to expect, when he spoke,

"That large utterance of the early gods,"

he articulated languidly and low; pretending first to be possessed with indolence, which is a pernicious and disgraceful quality; and next to be afflicted with bodily

weakness, which is an ailment that nobody admires, though it is sometimes pitied, much to the mortification of the sufferer.

But it may be said that all this affectation is but humour and masquerade, and that the pretence of feebleness is the strong man's joke—“it was only his fun." There is not an atom of fun in the case. The good people of both sexes, who creep about occasionally, with dismal looks, and too little strength to tell you they are invalided, are incapable of a joke they have no fun in them-they all sham in sober seriousness. Were it indeed a trick intended to be funny; a little bit of hoaxing of the very silliest kind; it might pass as all bad jests do pass, and be pardoned for its intention's sake. But again we say, the affectation is no joke.

As there are some who thus deny and cast off their own bodily graces, make rueful their good looks, and drag their limbs after them to disguise their manly activity, so are there many more who affect to be destitute of certain honourable qualities, moral and intellectual, which are their own private property.

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It is reasonable enough for the hard, sour, selfish grasper to affect a touch or two of the charitable; and we can all comprehend why he who hoards every farthing, scatters his munificent sentiments about so profusely but why should the tender-hearted and generous reliever of his poor fellow-worms in this world—the heroic struggler on behalf of the neglected, the injured, the trampled, the kind and active sympathizer with all who are in pain, or trouble, or penury-put on the aspect of a selfish disbeliever, assume unpitying airs, affect the cynic and the tyrant, and speak in the tones of misanthropy! This masquerading is to be seen to this day; out of novels, and beyond the pale of the stage. Where is the sense, the sanity of this affectation

of the hard worldly feeling, in natures to which it is perfectly foreign, and never had a resting-place for a single moment?

The affectation of the unintellectual is as marked, as the pretended lack of moral warmth when there is a good blazing fire within. Observe, for instance, what is so frequently to be seen-that pretended indifference to the beautiful, which, if real, would denote a nature "without form, and void," with darkness ever growing thicker upon the face of it. There are plenty of good worldly reasons, grounded upon self-interest, personal vanity, or the desire of pleasing even, for exclaiming aloud, "How beautiful!" at sight of some object of art, or some combination of the forms of nature, which nevertheless produces no corresponding emotion in the spectator. For playing the hypocrite, by affecting admiration, every hour brings with it some inducement; but is it not strange, that anybody born in a steady, respectable planet, and not in a comet, should ever have been tempted to affect an insensibility to the profound and fascinating influences of beauty!-should pretend to be so very much lower than the angels as to see nothing angelic anywhere!

Nothing is more natural than that a foolish heavyeyed plodder among pictures should affect to fall into raptures about Raphael, and boast of a capacity to appreciate all his divine doings. But nothing surely is more unnatural than the affectation of not perceiving any thing remarkable in the Cartoons; than the affectation of a want of eye-sight, a want of interest, a want of soul, which if real would be a monstrous and most pitiable defect.

We know well enough, why, in rambles under summer-hedges and along garden-walks, the prettiest

"sentimentalities" are uttered about flowers by persons who have no real taste for those perfumed delicacies; but we do not know so well what people mean by affecting a fine disdain, turning up their noses filled with fragrance, and protesting that "they can't bear flowers." Yet we witness both spectacles.

To boast of a fine sense, an exquisite perception, which has unhappily been denied to us, is in the usual order of things, and a rational lie enough: but to boast of some sad deficiency, some gross deformity and distortion, which nevertheless has no existence in us, is, by pretending to be contemptible, to become so.

To do at Rome as the English do, when they go there-see all that is to be seen-denotes, at any rate, a laudable curiosity, and a degree of interest which is rather better than the total absence of it; but on the other hand, what a profound affectation of indifference to grandeur and beauty, of insensibility to the charm which thousands, though not sensibly touched, have yet the grace to pretend to be enslaved by, is conveyed in the answer of the elegant tourist to the inquiry"Did you visit Rome?"

"I think we stopped there to change horses!"

Equally deep and exquisite was the affectation of a certain scholar, learned in all languages, who was for the space of a minute in some doubt whether he had ever read a tragedy, entitled "Macbeth."

"Yes, I think I did read it once-I believe I considered its merits to be over-estimated. Yes, I remember it now very well."

This pretence to a bad memory ranks of course, under some circumstances, among the more reasonable makebelieves; it may be convenient to forget; but it must be included in our category of absurdities, because