feelings with respect to his own deficiencies; but we cannot believe that the same modesty which besought his friend to chide with Fortune, 'the guilty goddess of his harmful deeds,' would have shrunk from confessing want of knowledge as an evil to be lamented, at the same time that it was imputed to want of opportunity. If he was self-centred, it was in his strength, not in his weakness. His eulogists may show the greatness of their faith in him by doubting whether he could have assimilated the learning which obstructs Ben Jonson's _Catiline_ and _Sejanus_; but we have no proofs that he thought so meanly of himself or of that which he happened not to possess. On the contrary, it may be argued, from the diligent use which he has made of such information as he had, that he would gladly have taken advantage of more. Arnold, in his Roman History, has noted the poet's perception of historical truth in a matter where it might well have been overlooked; and future critics may perhaps spend their time more profitably in discovering other indications of a like vigilant industry than in laboring to prove that the absence of so servile a virtue has been conducive to his preeminence as a creative artist." SLIDING SCALE OF THE INCONSOLABLES. The editor of _The Albion_ thus christens, while he translates, the following lively narrative, culled from the varied columns of the _Courrier des Etats Unis_. The malicious writer dates from Paris; but for such experiences our own city would probably be quite as prolific a hunting-field. * * * * * How rapid is the progress of oblivion with respect to those who are no more! How many a quadrille shall we see this winter, exclusively made up from the ranks of inconsolable widows! Widows of this order exist only in the literature of the tombstone. In the world, and after the lapse of a certain period, there is but one sort of widows inconsolable--those who refuse to be comforted, because they can't get married again!