and the bills unpaid, which are the necessary results of nights of excitement and days of languor, are then to be regarded as the consequences not of the misfortunes, but the faults of the sufferer. It is a wretched way of life any how. Literary men are sad spendthrifts, not only of their money, but of themselves. At an age when other men are in the possession of vigorous faculties of mind and strength of body, they are often used-up, enfeebled, and only capable of effort under the influence of strong stimulants. If a man has the distribution of his own time--if his literary avocations are of that nature that they can be followed at home--if they demand only continuous effort, there is no reason why the waste of vital energy should be greater in his case than in that of the follower of any other learned profession. A man soon discovers to what extent he can safely and profitably tax his powers. To do well in the world he must economize himself no less than his money. Rest is often a good investment. A writer at one time is competent to do twice as much and twice as well as at another; and if his leisure be well employed, the few hours of labor will be more productive than the many, at the time; and the faculty of labor will remain with him twice as long. Rest and recreation, fresh air and bodily exercise, are essential to an author, and he will do well never to neglect them. But there are professional writers who can not regulate their hours of labor, and whose condition of life it is to toil at irregular times and in an irregular manner. It is difficult, we know, for them to abstain from using themselves up prematurely. Repeated paroxysms of fever wear down the strongest frames; and many a literary man is compelled to live a life of fever, between excitement and exhaustion of the mind. We would counsel all public writers to think well of the best means of economizing themselves--the best means of spending their time off duty. Rest and recreation, properly applied, will do much to counteract the destroying influences of spasmodic labor at unseasonable hours, and to ward off premature decay. But if they apply excitement of one kind to repair the ravages of excitement of another kind, they must be content to live a life of nervous irritability, and to grow old before their time. THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE.