By the bye, the rapidity with which this collecting class has increased of late years is really alarming; who can foresee the state of things likely to exist in the next century, should matters go on at the same rate? Reflect for a moment on the probable condition of distinguished authors, lions of the loudest roar, if the number of autograph-hunters were to increase beyond what it is at present. Is it not to be feared that they will yet exterminate the whole race, that the great lion literary, like the mastodon, will become extinct? Or, perhaps, by taming him down to a mere producer of autographs, his habits will change so entirely that he will no longer be the same animal, no longer bear a comparison with the lion of the past. On the other hand should the great race become extinct, what will be the fate of the family of autograph-feeders? What a fearful state of things would ensue, even in our day, were the supply to be reduced but a quire! The heart sickens at the picture which would then be presented--collectors turning on each other, waging a fierce war over every autographic scrap, making a battle-field of every social circle. Happily, nature seems always to keep up the balance in such matters, and it is a consoling reflection that if the million are now consumers, so have they become producers of autographs; it is therefore probable that the evil will work its own remedy; and we may hope that the great writers of the next century will be shielded in some measure by the diversion made in their favor through the lighter troops of the lion corps.