courtesy; nor are you permitted to take your leave without a promise to
dine on the next Sunday or holiday--Mrs Stimpson rating you for not
coming last Easter Sunday, and declaring she cannot think "why young men
should mope by themselves, when she is always happy to see them."

Honour to Joe Stimpson and his missus! They have the true _ring_ of the
ancient coin of hospitality; none of your hollow-sounding _raps_: they
know they have what I want, _a home_, and they will not allow me, at
their board, to know that I want one: they compassionate a lonely,
isolated man, and are ready to share with him the hearty cheer and
unaffected friendliness of their English fireside: they know that they
can get nothing by me, nor do they ever dream of an acknowledgment for
their kindness; but I owe them for many a social day redeemed from
cheerless solitude; many an hour of strenuous labour do I owe to the
relaxation of the old wainscotted dining-room at Bermondsey.

Honour to Joe Stimpson, and to all who are satisfied with their station,
happy in their home, have no repinings after empty sounds of rank and
shows of life; and who extend the hand of friendly fellowship to the
homeless, _because they have no home_!

THE ARISTOCRACY OF TALENT.

"There is a quantity of talent latent among men, ever rising to
the level of the great occasions that call it forth."

This illustration, borrowed by Sir James Mackintosh from chemical
science, and so happily applied, may serve to indicate the undoubted
truth, that talent is a _growth_ as much as a _gift_; that circumstances
call out and develop its latent powers; that as soil, flung upon the
surface from the uttermost penetrable depths of earth, will be found to
contain long-dormant germs of vegetable life, so the mind of man, acted
upon by circumstances, will ever be found equal to a certain sum of
production--the amount of which will be chiefly determined by the force
and direction of the external influence which first set it in motion.

The more we reflect upon this important subject, we shall find the more,
that external circumstances have an influence upon intellect, increasing
in an accumulating ratio; that the political institutions of various
countries have their fluctuating and contradictory influences; that
example controls in a great degree intellectual production, causing
after-growths, as it were, of the first luxuriant crop of masterminds,
and giving a character an