When finished, I invited a confidential friend to hear me read it, and I am, at this very distant period, strongly impressed with his continued exclamations on its force, truth, severity, and humour. He compared it to the best things of the kind in our language, and indeed said every thing which could soothe and satisfy my vanity. When he left me, I began to reflect on what I had done, and its probable consequences. I examined myself with some severity, and the result was much self-reproach. I had indulged many unamiable propensities—anger, revenge, and every duality which was in opposition to candour and to charity. I threw my satire into the fire, and since that time, though I have had abundance of temptations, I never wrote severe satire. But to return.—The period of my first appearance at the university was marked by one circumstance unfavourable to my literary ambition. The number of students of my own standing was great, beyond all ordinary precedent, and no small proportion of them were distinguished as well by their literary diligence, as by superior abilities. Many of those who yet remain, are at this moment of the highest reputation, and are displaying their great talents in the senate, and in the highest situations of the bar, and the church; so that my tutor immediately told me, that in any other year I might have expected an exalted situation, but as things were circumstanced, I must moderate my ambition. Sic neque Peliden terrebat Achillea Chiron Thessalico permixtus equo, nec pennifer Atlas Amphitryoniadem puerum, sed blandus uterque. CHAPTER VII. With the above chapter, Egotism nearly terminates. The remainder of the manuscript consists chiefly of unconnected scraps and memorandums, written with less or greater care, as the subject prompted, or as opportunity presented itself, but obviously with the determination of forming the whole into one connected series, at some future period. The reader will unite, as he thinks proper, what follows with what precedes. MY TUTOR.