It must be allowed that some men do not stand so much in need of confessors, or do not indulge so much in them, as others; but, upon the whole, it may be taken as a general rule, that no man can altogether do without such an official. In the fair on-going business of life, one acts _suo more solito_, according to one’s regular custom of trade, or by the common rules of the world. But occasions occur, where common practice does not furnish a rule. You are in love, and wish to interest a friend in your passion; you are about to marry, and require information about arrangements, and also some one to stand beside you, and pull off your glove, preparatory to the ceremony; you have a quarrel, and need a third party to tell you that you are in the right; you are about to enter into some commercial or other enterprise a little beyond your usual depth, and find it necessary to fortify your resolution by the sanction of a friend; or you write a poem or a novel, and require to have somebody to read the manuscript, and tell you that it is sure of success. In all these cases, the confessor is indispensable. _Without him_, you would be crossed in love; get stranded in the straits of matrimony; permit yourself, after giving offence and insult, to let off the object of it with impunity for his remonstrance; break down in your new business scheme; and let your manuscript waste its sweetness on the desert scrutoire. But _with him_ all goes smooth. Upon the whole, it is better that one’s confessor should be a little poorer, as well as a little more plausible in speech, than one’s self: he ought to be a man to whom meat and drink are things of some account—a broken-down Scotch licentiate—an author who has published respectable books which have never sold; in short, some idle, poor, servile individual, to whom it is of the last importance to get a good grazing ground in the back premises of a substantial trader, upon whom he may revenge that partiality of fortune, which decrees all the real comforts of life to the mercantile and common-place, while the real “clever fellows” starve.