and to omit these were to give forth a false impression of his talents. But the mighty fiat had gone forth, and altered they must be. Accordingly, he in a measure re-wrote them; but it was then found, without a hearing, that their printers were employed for many months to come. Thus, after keeping him months in continued suspense, he was in every case put off with some palpable lie, or some frivolous excuse. These annoyances, nay, misfortunes, are told in few words, but the time of their duration was some eighteen months. For some months his funds had been getting alarmingly low; and at this period he was forced to part with much of his wardrobe, his books, and other articles. This continued until he had parted with every thing that would procure the means of existence. “I left my home in a state of mind bordering upon insanity. I walked rapidly, with a scowling brow, through the crowded streets, and felt the demon of despair brooding over my heart. I knew myself to be disunited from my kind by misfortune; none could feel sympathy with the starving musician; he is a being apart from the rest—let him die! I had wandered unconsciously out of the city, and found myself in view of the river. My soul seemed to start with joy at the sight. Deliverance was at hand—total oblivion was within my grasp, eternity already seemed gained, and I rushed on wildly to the banks of the Thames. For awhile I remained gazing abstractedly upon the darkly flowing stream, till the floodgates of memory opened upon my soul; my happy, joyous childhood, my mother’s fond and tender smile, my sister’s pure and deep devotion, seemed to call me back to earth. But with my childhood, memory’s pleasures ceased. I recalled my youth passed amidst strangers, in the cold and calculating world; the severing by death of all those sweet endearing ties, and finally, my manhood, barren in aught save misery, without parents, sisters, friends, starving and desolate, my talents unappreciated, my hopes blasted! What had I to live for? Oh! welcome then the oblivion of thy wave, dark river! One plunge, one struggle with mortality, and the world, with its petty, though maddening miseries, is lost forever. Oh, if it be a sin for the soul to resume its immortality, yet surely it were better thus to die, having some hope of forgiveness, than starving, die. Parting with life inch by inch; enduring days of mortal agony, till the overburthened soul, cursing its Maker, dies despairing. I took out my pocket-book, to pencil a short note to the owner of my wretched home, begging her to accept my small stock of worldly goods as a remuneration for her slight pecuniary loss, when, as I opened it to tear from it a leaf, a letter fell upon the ground. I snatched it up; a gleam of hope flashed upon my soul. It was the letter of introduction given to me by my generous friend of a day. I felt the hand of heaven had interposed between me and damnation. The