The clever, like the handsome, to be pardoned for being so, should affect a humility they are but too seldom in the habit of feeling; and to acquire popularity must appear unconscious of meriting it. This is one of the many penalties entailed on the gifted in mind or person. _January 1st_, 1829.--There is always something grave, if not awful, in the opening of a new year; for who knows what may occur to render it memorable for ever! If the bygone one has been marked by aught sad, the arrival of the new reminds one of the lapse of time; and though the destroyer brings patience, we sigh to think that we may have new occasions for its difficult exercise. Who can forbear from trembling lest the opening year may find us at its close with a lessened circle. Some, now dear and confided in, may become estranged, or one dearer than life may be snatched away whose place never can be supplied! The thought is too painful to be borne, and makes one look around with increased affection on those dear to us. The custom prevalent at Paris of offering an exchange of gifts on the first day of the new year was, perhaps, originally intended to banish the melancholy reflections such an epoch is calculated to awaken. My tables are so crowded with gifts that I might set up a _petit Dunkerque_ of my own, for not a single friend has omitted to send me a present. These gifts are to be acknowledged by ones of similar value, and I must go and put my taste to the test in selecting _cadeaux_ to send in return. Spent several hours yesterday in the gallery of the Louvre. The collection of antiquities, though a very rich, one, dwindles into insignificance when compared with that of the Vatican, and the halls in which it is arranged appear mean in the eyes of those accustomed to see the numerous and splendid ones of the Roman edifice. Nevertheless, I felt much satisfaction in lounging through groups of statues, and busts of the remarkable men and women of antiquity, with the countenances of many of whom I had made myself familiar in the Vatican, the Musée of the Capitol, or in the collection at Naples, where facsimiles of several of them are to be found.