There is no pleasanter kind of reading than a good personal memoir. Works of this description serve a double purpose; for they not only convey to us most lively impressions of society, illustrated with portraits of the most eminent and remarkable men of the time, but, taken in the aggregate, they furnish the best and most authentic store of materials available to the future historian. Ponderous or brilliant, gossiping or grave, according to the peculiar style and idiosyncrasy of their writers, they have all claims to our notice; and more than one posthumous reputation has been achieved through compositions such as these, by men whose other labours have failed to attract the slightest share of the public notice or approbation. But even in this light walk of literature, there are certain conditions which must be observed, in order to excite interest and to insure success. We expect from the compiler of memoirs a narrative, however desultory, of what passed before his own observation. He must not be altogether a reporter at second-hand--a mere relater of stories or scandals which he has chanced to pick up from others--a dilator, through simple hearsay, of closet or antechamber gossip. The substance at least of his tale must be derived from his personal knowledge, else we have no voucher at all for the authenticity of what he is pleased to relate. The memoirs, in short, must be his own, not fragments from those of other people. The announcement of the publication of a volume of Memoirs or Reminiscences from the pen of the late Lord Holland could hardly have failed to stimulate the public curiosity. His known intimacy with many of the leading characters of the last generation, his near relationship to the most conspicuous of modern Whig statesmen, his inclination towards letters--which made him appear the centre of a certain literary coterie--were all so many distinct pledges for the value of his literary legacy. True, Byron in his early satire had irreverently scoffed at the reunions of Holland House, and thrown no slight degree of ridicule on the fame of that rising academy; but the satire served at the same time to commemorate the hospitality of the noble Mæcenas. We observe that a critic in the last number of the _Edinburgh Review_ is still magniloquent on this theme. With the savour of past banquets still lingering in his nostrils, he manfully declares his intention of being impartial, nay stern, in the execution of his censorial duty; and attempts to persuade us, as he is persuaded himself, "that the very prepossessions which we feel, and have endeavoured to describe, have been disadvantageous rather than favourable to the author." If so, the inevitable conclusion must be, that the critic is a monster of ingratitude. Had he contented himself with simply stating that no amount of dinners, no extent of hospitalities received, should influence his judgment one whit in favour of the book, the declaration,