to stick in a skewer, and see the great wind-bag col lapse!

The more

And, to the

You do not respect the jack pudding who amuses you, though he may amuse you remarkably well. you laugh at him, the less you respect him. vulgar apprehension, any man who amuses you, or who approaches towards amusing you, or who produces anything which interests you (which is an approximation towards amusing you), will be regarded as, quoad hoc, approaching undignifiedly in the direction of the jackpudding. The only way in which to make sure that not even the vulgarest mind shall discern this approximation, is to instruct while you carefully avoid interesting, and still more amusing, even in the faintest degree. Even wise men cannot wholly divest themselves of the prejudice. You cannot but feel an inconsistency between the ideas of Mr. Disraeli writing Henrietta Temple, and Mr. Disraeli leading the House of Commons. You feel that somehow it costs an effort to feel that there is nothing unbefitting when the author of The Caxtons becomes a secretary of state. You fancy, at the first thought, that you would have had greater confidence in some sound, steady, solid old gentleman, who never amused or interested you in any way. The office to be filled is a dignified one; and how can a man befit a dignified office who has interested and amused you so much?

But the consideration which above all others leads the sober majority of mankind to respect and value decent and well-conducted dulness, is the consideration of the outrageous practical folly, and the insufferable wickedness, which many men of genius appear to have regarded it their prerogative to indulge in. You can quite understand how plain, sensible people may abhor an eccentric

cated by any one who takes a violates all the dictates of comm prudence, and blasphemes becau doing so; who will not dress, o men; who wears round jackets scribbles Atheist after his name in brief, who is distinguished marked as the entire absence of reader, that if you were sickene duration from one of these ger that for the remainder of your li respectable mortals should eve Let us be thankful that the d was generally associated with happily passing away. Clever dress, look, and talk like beings all, they appear to understand t may be, that is no reason why he er's bill. How fine a characte

Scott combining homely sense with great genius! And how different from the hectic, morbid, unprincipled, and indeed blackguard mental organization of various brilliant men of the last age, was Shakspeare's calm and wellbalanced mind! It is only the second-rate genius who is eccentric, and only the tenth-rate who is unintelligible.

But if one is driven to a warm sympathy with the humdrum and decently dull, by contemplating the absurdities and vagaries of men of real genius, even more decidedly is that result produced by contemplating the ridiculous little curvetings and prancings of affectedly eccentric men of no genius. You know, my reader, the provincial celebrity of daily life; you know what a nuisance he is. You know how almost every little country town in Britain has its eminent man - its man of letters. He has written a book, or it is whispered that he writes in certain periodicals, and simple human beings, who know nothing of proof-sheets, look upon him with a certain awe. He varies in age and appearance. If young, he wears a moustache and long, dishevelled hair; if old, a military cloak, which he disposes in a brigand form. He walks the street with an abstracted air, as though his thoughts were wandering beyond the reach of the throng. He is fond of solitude, and he gratifies his taste by going to the most frequented places within reach, and there assuming a look of rapt isolation. Sometimes he may be seen to gesticulate wildly, and to dig his umbrella into the pavement as though it were a foeman's breast. Occa sionally moody laughter may be heard to proceed from him, as from one haunted by fearful thoughts. His fat and rosy countenance somewhat belies the anguish which is preying upon his vitals. He goes much to tea-parties, where he tells the girls that the bloom of life has gone for

ion thinks him a great genius. thinks him a poor silly fool.

And now, my friend, turning & let us sit down on this large stone shine, by the river side. Swiftly The sky is bright blue, the wate soft wind comes through those b field on the other side I see a t terrier frisks about; solemnly think here for a while; we need companiment to the old rememb as this brings back, let us have t river.

CHAPTER XIII.

CONCERNING GROWING OLD.

WAS sitting, on a very warm and bright summer morning, upon a gravestone in the churchyard. It was a flat gravestone, ele

I

vated upon four little pillars, and covering the spot where sleeps the mortal part of a venerable clergyman who preceded me in my parish, and who held the charge of it for sixty years. I had gone down to the churchyard, as usual, for a while after breakfast, with a little companion, who in those days was generally with me wherever I went. And while she was walking about, attended by a solemn dog, I sat down in the sunshine on the stone, gray with lichen, and green with moss. thought of the old gentleman who had slept below for fifty years. I wondered if he had sometimes come to the churchyard after breakfast before be began his task of sermon-writing. I reflected how his heart, mouldered into dust, was now so free from all the little heats and worries which will find their way into even the quietest life in this world. And sitting there, I put my right hand upon the mossy stone. The contrast of the hand upon the green surface caught the eye of my companion, who was not four years old. She came slowly up, and laid down her own hand beside mine on the mossy expanse. And after