It is in looking back to such scenes that I draw my best consolation for the future. Later impressions come and go, and serve to fill till the intervals; but these are my standing resource, my true classics. If I have had few real pleasures or advantages, my ideas, from their sinewy texture, have been to me in the nature of realities; and if I should not be able to add to the stock, I can live by husbanding the interest. As to my speculations, there is little to admire in them but my admiration of others; and whether they have an echo in time to come or not, I have learned to set a grateful value on the past, and am content to wind up the account of what is personal only to myself and the immediate circle of objects in which I have moved, with an act of easy oblivion, 'And curtain-close such scene from every future view.' Winterslow, _Feb. 20, 1828_. FOOTNOTES: [17] Dryden's _Theodore and Honoria_, princip. [18] Dryden's _Theodore and Honoria_, princip. [19] Dryden's _Sigismonda and Guiscardo_. Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. Constable Transcriber's Note Minor punctuation errors have been repaired. Archaic spelling is preserved as printed. The following typographic errors have been repaired: Page 35--Crichton amended to Chrichton (with reference to the "Cabinet of Curiosities," which also contains the story of Eugene Aram)--"The name of the 'Admirable Chrichton' was suddenly started ..." Page 134--lawer's amended to lawyer's--"... on a word, or a lawyer's _ipse dixit_." Page 156--stimulute amended to stimulate--"... something like an attempt to stimulate the superficial dulness ..." Page 162--on amended to no--"Burke was so far right in saying that it is no objection ..."