rce, carefully to wind up his watch at night, and "with
lack-lustre eye" more than once in the course of the day look to see
what o'clock it was. Yet he had nothing else in his character in
common with the elder Mr. Shandy. Were I to attempt a sketch of him,
for my own or the reader's satisfaction, it would be after the
following manner:----but now I recollect, I have done something of the
kind once before, and were I to resume the subject here, some bat or
owl of a critic, with spectacled gravity, might swear I had stolen the
whole of this Essay from myself--or (what is worse) from him! So I had
better let it go as it is.

_Hazlitt._

OF THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH

No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my
brother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth,
which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of
the Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown--the other half
remains in store for us with all its countless treasures; for there is
no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make
the coming age our own.----

"The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us."

Death, old age, are words without a meaning, that pass by us like the
idle air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still
be liable to them--we "bear a charmed life," which laughs to scorn all
such sickly fancies. As in setting out on a delightful journey, we
strain our eager gaze forward--

"Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail,"--

and see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as
we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our
inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying
them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it
seems that we can go on so for ever. We look round in a new world,
full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in
ourselves all the vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not
foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the
natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the
grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were _abstractedness_ of our
feelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us with nature, and
(our experience being slight and our passions strong) deludes us into
a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lived connection with
existence, we fond