lutions and manly endeavour, but it fits too closely to us. It is born with us, it exists with us—and some, vainly let us hope, say that it does not die with us but will rise again.

What we call egotism, the French, who have formed their noun somewhat more closely than we, term égoïsme ; and speaking of an adept in this passion, of which their nation furnishes brilliant examples, say, 'dont je connaissais l'égoïsme renforcé-of whose thorough selfishness I was aware.' You see hereby that a whole nation places to the account of egotism a passionate love and admiration of self. It may not be always selfishness; it has even been reduced to a philosophical opinion. 'Descartes,' says Reid, in his Essays on the Human Mind,' was uncertain of everything but his own existence, and the existence and operations and ideas of his own mind. Some of his disciples remained, it is said, at this stage of his system, and got the name of Egoists.'

Another author tells us that the gentlemen of Port Royal banished from their method of speaking any reference to the first person, and called anyone who spoke that way an egotist. Editors are obliged to follow this rule, and to banish the eternal reference to their own opinions; for egotism, if pleasing to oneself, is always distasteful to others. The leader-writers of the newspapers therefore say 'we,' instead of 'I;' and certainly that method of speaking to the public seems to be best

suited to the English and Americans, two nations of egotists. We are of opinion that the Ministry has signally failed, is more condemnatory and weighty than the simple I, because it is less egotistic. One way of depriving newspapers of their weight and force would be to make the writers drop the anonymous and sign their names. Actually an opinion is an opinion, and worth what it is worth, whether it be of A or of B. Really the opinion of the same writer in the 'Daily Universe' will cause more stir than the same theory put forward in the 'Morning World ;' for office clings to a man and adorns him. You combat the unfledged opinions of Brown at your dinner-table, and yet his crude opinion clothed in weighty words will 'damn' a delicate author. When Brown is thoroughly known, and the blind taken away from the window, his naked egotism is seen, and the world regards him not.

It was not without reason that the Oracles inhabited the darkest recesses of the Temple, and that in the olden Mythology the voice issued from the fissures of the rock or from behind the veil.

A certain amount of egotism, that is, belief in self, is natural to all men. It has been said that every man thinks he can poke the fire better than any other man. In shooting, fishing, novel-writing, riding, many men believe they can surpass others; and although women, from their greater subjection to society, are less offensive in their egotism, it is said they are as bad. We must do

them this justice, that they conceal it better; and we cannot doubt that they must be often punished by hearing men talk of nothing but themselves: how I am going to plough the ten-acre lot and sow it with red wheat; and I shall go shooting, and I shall have my bay mare clipped, together with a thousand instances of my cigars, my port, my claret, my tandem, my books, and my tailor, or the fellow who 'built' my hunting coat. People of fair position and education talk like this; of course they will indignantly deny it when put thus plainly; but let anyone ask the ladies. Let them ask what barristers talk about, what university men, club men, authors or artists talk about. It is little else but an experience of self; ' each thinks his little set mankind.' Everybody believes in his own circle, his friends, his native village, his school, his college; and the centre of that circle is self. It is so hard to go out of the centre; we play at puss in the corner with ourselves, and keep to the corner as long as we can ; and some people, sublime egotists, are virtuous because it is comfortable, and religious because thereby they please the world; and by pleasing the world they of course please themselves.

Happily this self-opinion is not an unmixed evil. It may have caused half the troubles in the world; but it has certainly caused half the triumphs and more than half the comforts and inventions. Unless Nelson had believed in himself, we should not have been where we are now. Unless Brindley had believed in his one im

portant scheme, and had thought that 'God Almighty
made rivers to feed navigable canals,' we should not have
had the water-transit; and unless Watt and others had
believed in their own merits and inventions, our land-
transit would now have been pretty much as it was a
century ago.
What belief in self must not Doctor Living-
stone, Captains Grant and Burton, Sir Samuel Baker, and
other travellers have, who go alone into a continent of
savages-alone, and to conquer all difficulties, discover
and open up new lands? We can see this egotism plainly
enough in Bruce, the great Abyssinian traveller: he was
perpetually full of himself and what he had done.
may reasonably suppose it in the others—no doubt 'toned
down' by courtesy, religion, or philosophy; but there it
is. How thoroughly every satirist must have it! Let
us look at Juvenal condemning all Rome; Horace sati-
rising all the weaker poets; Persius abusing Bavius and
the whole Roman world, nay, mankind—

When I look round on Man, and find how vain
His passions-

We

as if he were not a man himself! Can there be anything more pitiable than the picture which Pope gives of himself as persecuted by everybody, followed by poets who begged his help

No place is sacred; not the church is free:

E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath Day to me.

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy to catch me-
e-just at dinner-time :

ACTORS, ARTISTS, AND AUTHORS.

9

-and the measure he dealt out to obscure scribblers in the Dunciad? How could he write those lines in the Universal Prayer-'that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me,' when half his life had been spent in mercilessly cutting and wounding others?

own.

All painters have much self-love: their imagination is great, their reflection little; their success easily perceived, and brilliant. All actors are of course immense egotists. How else could they strut in kingly parts, and believe themselves fit representatives of Hamlet, Cæsar, Brutus, and King Cambyses? As the vanity of Sir Godfrey Kneller, in an anecdote, throws a light upon his class, so does one of Cooke, the actor, illuminate his Kneller said to a sitter, 'Flatter me, my dear sir ; I paint better when you flatter me;' and Pope, who says he never before saw such vanity, tells us that when Sir Godfrey lay dying, he spent his time contemplating his own monument, and had a dream, in which he saw St. Luke in heaven, who welcomed him there, crying, 'Are you the famous Sir Godfrey Kneller from England?' and then embraced him, and paid him 'many pretty compliments,' said Sir Godfrey, 'on the art we both had followed while in this world.' Can egotism go further? It would seem impossible; yet that exclamation of Farinelli's, the musician, exceeds it. 'What a divine air!' said an admirer to him, when he ceased playing. 'Yes,' said the Italian, as he laid down his violin, 'one God, one