that, though not a positive, it has been at least a negative cause of their success-it has at least not prevented them from coming before the world, and reaping the full benefit of their talents. Alas, however, for the Hogsfleshes and the Higginbottoms !-alas for the innocent Clutterbucks and Meiklewhams! How many of these unhappy clans, with all the power and all the will to shine, have been deterred from even attempting to scribble their names in the book of Fame, conscious that the very sound would startle and disgust the world, and procure nothing but laughter and sarcasm for all their noblest efforts! Good worthy Gotobeds, it might wake Gray himself from the dead, to think how many of you have been mute and inglorious, not for want of opportunity, or any of the other accessory aids, but simply because you trembled to give the world your address, and, thrusting back your cards into your pockets, resolved rather to die as drys alters and bakers, than shock the ears of mankind with a sound so soporiferous and so ungraceful.

Then, again, some names, though tolerable enough, are so very common, that they give no distinction, but, on the contrary, almost appear to preclude it. The name Johr Smith, for instance, is a very decent name; it has been borne, no doubt, by many respectable persons in all ranks of life. But who could rationally expect, with such a name, to carve out for himself a reputation for either poetry, science, or military prowess? Why, he is lost in the myriad of John Smiths, and could no more extricate himself, so as to assume a distinct and distinguished position, than he could fly in the air, or walk upon the water. A man thus entitled bears about him a doom of everlasting mediocrity, which he can no more reverse than he can regenerate his bodily constitution. He is John Smith, and he will never be more than John Smith, though he were to live to the verge of time. He might be naturally capable of saying the brightest things, of making the most useful discoveries, of embodying the most beautiful and affecting sentiments: but

let his name accompany them, and they are heard of no more. That commonplace sound would dispel the admiration of a world, and cause him to sink at once, with all his fictitious glory, into the humbler shades of life. Down he would go, like a plummet, though he had the Waverley novels disposed like a cork-jacket all around him. His only chance of success is in anonymity, and, of course, if he is to remain for ever anonymous, he gains no fame. We are fully persuaded that Junius was a man of the name of John Smith-a greatly unfortunate man, not fearful of acknowledging his work for any thing that kings or men could do to him, or any other consideration whatever, than simply that he could not endure the idea of exploding all the utility and all the estimation of his piquant writings, by putting such a name upon the title-page.

The non-distinction of the name Dr Brown has been already illustrated, we believe, in an English comic song; and it is very remarkable, that, though there have been many literary and scientific characters bearing this designation, hardly one of them has ever found it possible to gain more than a comparatively local fame. What Doctor is to Brown, Captain is to Campbell—an inseparable adjunct, and one which tends quite as much to take away the individuality it pretends to give. The legion of the Captain Campbells, as they may well be called, might be a staff for the formation of a new army. There is a Captain Campbell in Scotland for every other hundred men. They might colonise a fifth continent. How much good broadcloth, how many pairs of respectable Wellington boots, have been worn away upon the limbs of the Captain Campbells, without any one of them having ever been singled out from the rest! No doubt, the Captain Campbells have all been capital fighters in their day: if war has ever done us any good at all, no small portion of that good has been gained by the Captain Campbells. But the misfortune is, that there are too many of them. Their glory is like a chandelier, where no single candle makes any great appear

ance; whereas, if there were only one of them, he would be like one light in a room, and his usefulness would be at once seen, and prized accordingly. The only advice that could be given to a man of this unfortunate designation, who wanted to signalise himself, would be, that he should commence a tour of the earth in search of a place where there was not another Captain Campbell within ten miles. If such a place there be, let him settle down upon it, with a happy mind, and try what he can do in the way of public service, though it should only be as executioner to the Grand Turk. But if he can nowhere find such a spot of earth, why, then, unless he becomes a kind of shoemaker of Cordova, and quietly poniards all his namesakes that fall in his way, we fear there is no hope for him.

Walter Scott was fortunate in his name. Had he been called Thomas Scott or John Scott, there is a great chance of his never having arrived at the distinction he did. Robert Burns was similarly fortunate. His father luckily changed the family designation from Burness, which would never have done as the name of a poet. Vulgar family names, it has to be observed, may be greatly ameliorated by the use of some fine-sounding classic Christian name. For instance, the addition of Horace to Smith, saves the plainness of the appellation vastly, and makes it fit for a title-page. We recommend fathers of families with common names to attend to this in the christening of their children. We have often regretted the slavishness with which the most of people adhere to old custom in this duty. The first children of the family are regularly called after their grandfathers and grandmothers, and those which follow, after even nearer relations; so that old plain names are perpetuated, and there is no distinguishing one person from another, either now or in future times. We have heard genealogists and lawyers complain much of this stupid system, and express their belief that many fortunes have been lost by it. Surnames are sometimes given as Christian names to children, as Douglas, Stewart, Dundas,

Nelson, &c. This is an intolerably mean custom, and afterwards marks the father as having been a dependent or expectant in some shape of the great man whose name he has adopted. Whenever we hear of a person with a surname for a first name, we have an idea that his father was a footman. A Christian name formed of a complete name of another person, is nearly as bad. A double Christian name, as William Frederick, is now in most cases the result of pure affectation, and is so much in use among characters of questionable respectability, that it ought, if possible, to be discarded. The giving of a name to a child

is one of the important trifling duties of human life, and, as such, requires a little more attention than what is usually bestowed on it. Let parents, therefore, take note of these hints, and give their children some really pleasing single Christian name, without regard to whether it was ever before in the family, and holding in view that it will be one which will suit any rank in life, and any distinction which the young individuals may attain.

OLD BACHELORS.

ABSTINENCE from marriage, where it is dictated by prudence, is not only commendable in itself as a safeguard against individual misery, but is entitled to the gratitude of the public, inasmuch as it is, when practised upon a large scale, at least in a country of the old world, the preservative of a nation from moral degradation and general distress.

This proposition, however, is of no weight against another which we have been in the habit of hearing from the lips of Miss E. P., an amiable young lady with whom we have had the honour of being acquainted for the last twoand-thirty years—namely, that "it is a great shame (such are her emphatic words) for gentlemen who have houses

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of their own, and every thing comfortable, that they should not take wives." Perhaps there is a little personal feeling in the remark of our respected friend, seeing that, in her own immediate neighbourhood, there are several middle-aged men, with capital domestic establishments-fit for the accommodation of a family every one of them-who yet, year after year, live dreamily on in single comfortlessness, apparently unobservant that there are ladies in the same predicament, almost next door, whom they might at once render happy, and themselves too, if they only would think of proposing a union of their respective places of residence. Personal, or not personal, the remark is just: we do think it a great shame" that some respectable persons of our acquaintance, between the ages of thirty and forty, not to speak of a few a little older, should confine to themselves the enjoyment, such as it is, of a house and fortune every way comfortable, when they at once might increase infinitely their own happiness and also that of others, if they would only open their eyes to the situation of such young ladies as our friend Miss E. P., and obey the grand scripture injunction, which commands them to love their neighbours as themselves. It is truly provoking to see men of this kind pretending to think themselves happy with their starved beaf-steak dinners, and their furniture unconscious of ever having been deranged or rumpled by children, all the time that their hearts secretly confess, and every other person knows, how deficient they are in all that gives a real charm to existence.

He has perhaps early years, and

Like the most of wrong things, resolute celibacy of this kind arises from want of sense; the old bachelor is simply a man who does not see human life in a right point of view, and has no foresight of the future. had a hard struggle with fortune in his never having been able to get over the fright which poverty gave him in his youth, thinks, even in the midst of plenty, and while life is advancing to its meridian, that so far from having any thing to spare for wife or for child,