lker had no such infirmity. He laboured in those fields
which ensure instant payment. Verily he _had_ his reward: ten per cent.,
at least, beyond all other men, without needing to think of reversions,
either above or below. The unearthly was suffocated in _him_ by the
earthly. Let us leave him, and return to a better man, viz., to the Rev.
John Coleridge, author of the _Quale-quare-quidditive_ case--a man equal
in simplicity oL habits and in humility, but better in the sight of God,
because he laboured in the culture of his higher and not his lower
faculties.

Mr. John Coleridge married a second time; and we are perplexed to say
_when_. The difficulty is this: he had by his second wife ten children.
Now, as _the_ Coleridge, the youngest of the flock, was born in 1772,
the space between that year and 1760 seems barely adequate to such a
succession of births. Yet, on the other hand, _before_ 1760 he could not
probably have seen his second wife, unless, indeed, on some casual trip
to Devonshire. Her name was Anne Bowden; and she was of a respectable
family, that had been long stationary in Devonshire, but of a yeomanly
rank; and people of that rank a century back did not often make visits
as far as Southampton. The question is not certainly of any great
importance; and we notice it only to make a parade of our chronologic
acumen. Devilish sly is Josy Bagstock! It is sufficient that her last
child was her illustrious child; and, if S. T. C.'s theory has any
foundation, we must suppose him illustrious _because_ he was the last.
For he imagines that in any long series of children the last will,
according to all experience, have the leonine share of intellect. But
this contradicts our own personal observation; and, besides, it seems to
be unsound upon an _a priori_ ground, viz., that to be the first child
carries a meaning with it: _that_ place in the series has a real
physiologic value; and we have known families in which, from generation
to generation, the first-born child had physical advantages denied to
all that followed. But to be the last child must very often be the
result of accident, and has in reality no meaning in any sense known to
nature. The sixth child, let us suppose, is a blockhead. And soon after
the birth of this sixth child, his father, being drunk, breaks his neck.
That accident cannot react upon this child to invest him with the
privileges of absolute juniority. Being a blockhead, he will remain a
blockh