industry, and with an equally unparalleled neglect of the laws of
health; of whom it is scarcely too much to say literally, that he knew
no change, but from his desk to his bed, and from his bed to his desk
again. A voluminous writer, who, if he produced no work of positive
genius, has done more than any other man to illustrate the Scriptures,
and to make familiar and vivid the scenery, the life, the geography, and
the natural history of the Holy Land. And he died in the harness,--but
not so very early,--at fifty. And we say that he would have lived much
longer, had he given his constitution a fair chance. But when we
remember his passionate fondness for books, how they compensated him for
the want of wealth, comforts, and the pleasant voices of wife and
children that he could not hear, we grow doubtful. And we hear him
exclaim almost in rhapsody,--"If I were blind as well as deaf, in what a
wretched situation should I be! If I could not read, how deplorable
would be my condition! What earthly pleasure equal to the reading of a
good book? O dearest tomes! O princely and august folios! to obtain you,
I would work night and day, and forbid myself every sensual joy!" When
we behold the forlorn man, shut out by his misfortune from so many
resources, and finding more than recompense for this privation within
the four walls of his library, we are tempted to say, No, he would not
have lived as long; had he studied less, he would have remembered his
griefs more.

Of course it is easy to take exception to all evidence drawn from the
life and experience of individual men,--natural to say that one must
needs be somewhat old before he can acquire a great name at all, and
that our estimate considers those alone to whom mere prolongation of day
has given reputation, and forgets "the village Hampdens, the mute,
inglorious Miltons," the unrecorded Newtons, the voiceless orators,
sages, or saints who have died and made no sign. To this the simple
reply is, that individual cases, however numerous and striking, are not
relied upon to prove any position, but only to illustrate and confirm
one which general data have already demonstrated. Grant the full force
of every criticism, and then it remains true that the widest record of
literary life exhibits no tendency of mental culture to shorten human
life or to create habits which would shorten it. Indeed, we do not know
where to look for any broad range of facts which would indicate that
edu