upon the memory of old straight-laced Queen
Charlotte.

Besides these, however, there are others
of the most motley kind, Diarists the
most widely contrasting and the most
picturesquely diversified. There are those numberless
and nameless multitudes, for example, who
might be accurately described according to
lago's phrase, as doing little else with their
journals than "chronicle small beer"—scoring
off their days in ponderous books about as
monotonous in their general effect, and not by
any means one half as interesting as the far-
famed sticks Robinson Crusoe used to notch
for a calendar. There are, however, on the
contrary, those extremely rare and
inestimable exceptions, Diarists who come
conscientiously, night by night, to their self-
imposed duty; come with their periodical
gatherings of revelations, telling their
secrets right out, and making a clean breast
of it; Diarists whose writings are like
the whisperings of devotees at the
confessional. The value of the treasures
picked up from time to time by these
wayfarers, depending entirely, of course, upon
the nature of the ground they happen to
have traversed. Sometimes they almost
seem, from the contents of their wallet, to
have been wandering at large over the fabulous
possessions of that redoubtable millionaire
of the nursery, Mr. Thomas Tiddler,
originally, of course, of Cathay and El Dorado;
but latterly, no doubt, of the Australian gold
diggings, or those of California. Occasionally,
even a few appear to have descended,
like our old friend, Sinbad the Sailor, into
another wondrous valley of diamonds; and,
like him, to have cunningly availed
themselves of the very tempting opportunity.
These, it should be observed, have not
always emptied out before us, clumsily and
pell-mell, the precious store of their girdles
—pouring forth their accumulations
confusedly in most admired disorder, just as
they may have been first collected,
haphazard. One, perchance, instead of this, has
clustered them hastily together in a glittering
mass as a pendant to the Life they may
appear designed to illustrate. Precisely in
this way, for example, it is that the history
of Alexander Pope has been embellished by
Spence's Anecdotes. Another, setting more
ingeniously, and with a greater amount of
elaboration, the gems of price he has
carefully gathered up, and yet more carefully
selected, transforms them from a mere heap
of resplendent particles into a very aigrette
or aureole—that radiant diadem of genius, a
perfected biography. It was thus, for
instance, with James Boswell's ever-memorable
masterpiece.

Incidentally, moreover, there has
appeared upon occasion, some more amusing
egotist, with a self-sufficiency resembling
that of Æsop's fly upon the wheel: some
personage of such supreme importance in
his own estimation, that out of the loose
memorabilia of his notebook, he has
deliberately compiled the History of His Own
Times—a title equivalent in His Own mind,
probably, to the Georgian Era, or the
Augustan Age, or the epoch, say of the
Carlovingians. As a notable representation of
these rather entertaining class of Diarists,
may be particularised Sir William Wraxall
—an observer of His Own contemporaries,
chiefly remarkable now, as the individual
who first suggested to the British Government
the selection of the Island of Saint
Helena as the fittest place of exile for the
discrowned Emperor and King, Napoleon
Bonaparte. Journal-writers of a much
nobler, because of a much more modest
description, however, have assumed to
themselves like John Evelyn—the learned and
accomplished Evelyn—the character as it
may be termed of Gentlemen Ushers to
History. And ONE, the most delightful
Diarist of all—meaning, of course, Mr.
Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty—
has he not achieved for himself a recognised
pre-eminence in his craft, as a systematic
collector of unconsidered trifles, solely by the
evidence on his part, through his incomparable
journals, of a supreme faculty for—what?
Well, plainly and candidly, for—Blabbing!

It is, frankly be it spoken, as about the
honestest blab in the world that Mr. Samuel
Pepys has taken his place among Diarists,
the Saul among that multitude—higher than
the highest of them all, by a head and
shoulders. Little, in truth, was it conjectured
(not so very many years ago), when
the manuscript diary of Mr. Pepys was first
discovered down at Oxford, poked away,
dusty and yellow, in a corner of an old
ram-shackle bookcase, what very strange
secrets were lying hid there under the mask
of that queer, and fantastic, and apparently
inscrutable specimen of short-hand. Happily,
the key being almost simultaneously
brought to light, we have ever since then
enjoyed the privilege of peeping, with a
happier fate than that of Fatima, as often as
we have felt disposed, into the forbidden
chamber of this comical and perfectly
harmless Bluebeard.

Fortunately for every individual, who, like
ourselves—shame be it said—delights in the
colloquial scandal and conversational tittle-
tattle of old Sam Pepys, formerly of the
Admiralty, and now for ever of the book-
shelves, there has recently appeared a
kind of kindred diary, a companion-
picture, though one, of course, not by any
means so highly coloured—a similarly
social banquet, yet, it must be confessed,
one not to any comparable extent so
highly seasoned. Nevertheless, tamed down,
cooled—even, it might be said, iced—in its
general effect, by the refrigerating influence
of the proprieties, the journal here particularly
alluded to may honestly, we fancy, come