This was the age of DIARIES! The head of almost every family formed one. Ridiculous people may have written ridiculous diaries, as Elias Ashmole's;[103] but many of our greatest characters in public life have left such monuments of their diurnal labours.
These diaries were a substitute to every thinking man for our newspapers, magazines, and Annual Registers; but those who imagine that _these_ are a substitute for the scenical and dramatic life of the diary of a man of genius, like Swift, who wrote one, or even of a lively observer, who lived amidst the scenes he describes, as Horace Walpole's letters to Sir Horace Mann, which form a regular diary, only show that they are better acquainted with the more ephemeral and equivocal labours.
There is a curious passage in a letter of Sir Thomas Bodley, recommending to Sir Francis Bacon, then a young man on his travels, the mode by which he should make his life "profitable to his country and his friends." His expressions are remarkable. "Let all these riches be treasured up, not only in your memory, where time may lessen your stock, but rather in _good writings_ and _books of account_, which will keep them safe for your use hereafter." By these _good writings_ and _books of account_, he describes the diaries of a student and an observer; these "good writings" will preserve what wear out in the memory, and these "books of account" render to a man an account of himself to himself.
It was this solitary reflection and industry which assuredly contributed so largely to form the gigantic minds of the Seldens, the Camdens, the Cokes, and others of that vigorous age of genius. When Coke fell into disgrace, and retired into private life, the discarded statesman did not pule himself into a lethargy, but on the contrary seemed almost to rejoice that an opportunity was at length afforded him of indulging in studies more congenial to his feelings. Then he found leisure not only to revise his former writings, which were thirty volumes written with his own hand, but, what most pleased him, he was enabled to write a manual, which he called _Vade Mecum_, and which contained a retrospective view of his life, since he noted in that volume the most remarkable occurrences which happened to him. It is not probable that such a MS. could have been destroyed but by accident; and it might, perhaps, yet be recovered.