“Sic mihi contingat vivere, sicque mori.”

Richard Baxter, whose facility and diligence, it is said, produced one hundred and forty-five distinct works, wrote, as he himself says, “in the crowd of all my other employments.”  Assuredly the one which may excite astonishment is his voluminous autobiography, forming a folio of more than seven hundred closely-printed pages; a history which takes a considerable compass, from 1615 to 1684; whose writer pries into the very seed of events, and whose personal knowledge of the leading actors of his times throws a perpetual interest over his lengthened pages.  Yet this was not written with a view of publication by himself; he still continued this work, till time and strength wore out the hand that could no longer hold the pen, and left it to the judgment of others whether it should be given to the world.

These were private persons.  It may excite our surprise to discover that our statesmen, and others engaged in active public life, occupied themselves with the same habitual attention to what was passing around them in the form of diaries, or their own memoirs, or in forming collections for future times, with no possible view but for posthumous utility.  They seem to have been inspired by the most genuine passion of patriotism, and an awful love of posterity.  What motive less powerful could induce many noblemen and gentlemen to transcribe volumes; to transmit to posterity authentic narratives, which would not even admit of contemporary notice; either because the facts were then well known to all, or of so secret a nature as to render them dangerous to be communicated to their own times.  They sought neither fame nor interest:  for many collections of this nature have come down to us without even the names of the scribes, which have been usually discovered by accidental circumstances.  It may be said that this toil was the pleasure of idle men:—­the idlers then were of a distinct race from our own.  There is scarcely a person of reputation among them, who has not left such laborious records of himself.  I intend drawing up a list of such diaries and memoirs, which derive their importance from diarists themselves.  Even the women of this time partook of the same thoughtful dispositions.  It appears that the Duchess of York, wife to James the Second, and the daughter of Clarendon, drew up a narrative of his life; the celebrated Duchess of Newcastle has formed a dignified biography of her husband; Lady Fanshaw’s Memoirs have been recently published; and Mrs. Hutchinson’s Memoirs of her Colonel have delighted every curious reader.