h and spleen) leads him to compare works of the
highest repute; the works of contemporaries; and his own. In all
cases where success is most difficult, he will be most severe; this
naturally leads him to criticise the very best works.

He has himself failed; he sees errors in successful writers; he knows
he possesses certain merits, and knows what the perfection of them
should be. This is the ground work of envy, which makes a man of
parts a comparative fool, and a confederate against "true genius."

No. III. Mental Scales

I make out my case thus--

There is an exact balance in the distribution of causes of pleasure
and pain: this has been satisfactorily proved in my next paper, upon
"Cause and Effect," therefore I shall take it for granted. What,
then, is there but the mind to determine its own state of happiness,
or misery: just as the motion of the scales depends upon themselves,
when two equal weights are put into them. The balance ought to be
truly hung; but if the unpleasant scale is heavier, then the motion
is in favor of the pleasant scale, and vice versa. Whether the beam
stands horizontally, or otherwise, does not matter (that only
determines the key): draw a line at right angles to it, then put in
your equal weights; if the angle becomes larger on the unpleasant
scale's side of the line, happiness is the result, if on the other,
misery.

It requires but a slight acquaintance with mechanics to see that he
who would be happy should have the unpleasant side heavier. I hate
corollaries or we might have a group of them equally applicable to
Art and Models.

_June_, 1848.

Reviews

_Some Account of the Life and Adventures of Sir Reginald Mohun, Bart.
Done in Verse by George John Cayley. Canto 1st. Pickering._ 1849.

Inconsistency, whether in matters of importance or in trifles,
whether in substance or in detail, is never pleasant. We do not here
impute to this poem any inconsistency between one portion and
another; but certainly its form is at variance with its subject and
treatment. In the wording of the title, and the character of
typography, there is a studious archaism: more modern the poem itself
could scarcely be.

"Sir Reginald Mohun" aims, to judge from the present sample, at
depicting the easy intercourse of high life; and the author enters on
his theme with a due amount of sympathy. It is in this respect, if in
any, that the mediaeval tone of the work lasts beyond the title page.