To register the transactions of the day, with observations on what, and on whom, he had seen, was the advice of Lord KAIMES to the late Mr. CURWEN; and for years his head never reached its pillow without performing a task which habit had made easy. "Our best and surest road to knowledge," said Lord Kaimes, "is by profiting from the labours of others, and making their experience our own." In this manner Curwen tells us he acquired by habit _the art of thinking_; and he is an able testimony of the practicability and success of the plan, for he candidly tells us, "Though many would sicken at the idea of imposing such a task upon themselves, yet the attempt, persevered in for a short time, would soon become a custom more irksome to omit than it was difficult to commence." Could we look into the libraries of authors, the studios of artists, and the laboratories of chemists, and view what they have only sketched, or what lie scattered in fragments, and could we trace their first and last thoughts, we might discover that we have lost more than we possess. There we might view foundations without superstructures, once the monuments of their hopes! A living architect recently exhibited to the public an extraordinary picture of his mind, in his "Architectural Visions of Early Fancy in the Gay Morning of Youth," and which now were "dreams in the evening of life." In this picture he had thrown together all the architectural designs his imagination had conceived, but which remained unexecuted. The feeling is true, however whimsical such unaccomplished fancies might appear when thrown together into one picture. In literary history such instances have occurred but too frequently: the imagination of youth, measuring neither time nor ability, creates what neither time nor ability can execute. ADAM SMITH, in the preface to the first edition of his "Theory of Sentiments," announced a large work on law and government; and in a late edition he still repeated the promise, observing that "Thirty years ago I entertained no doubt of being able to execute everything which it announced." The "Wealth of Nations" was but a fragment of this greater work. Surely men of genius, of all others, may mourn over the length of art and the brevity of life!