ng tongue whom none can trust,"

and so forth, as a caution against a great man's special gift, so
proverbially dangerous. Some of our most honest Ministers, _e.g._,
Althorpe and Wellington, have been very bad speakers: some of our most
eloquent orators have proved very bad Ministers.

And in this place I may introduce some account, long ago in print, of
the famous Aristotle class under the tutorship of Mr. Biscoe at Christ
Church, wherein (among far nobler and better scholars) your present
confessor took the lowest seat.

Fifty years ago Biscoe's Aristotle class at Christ Church was comprised
almost wholly of men who have since become celebrated, some in a
remarkable degree; and, as we believe that so many names, afterwards
attaining to great distinction, have rarely been associated at one
lecture-board, either at Oxford or elsewhere, it may be allowed to one
who counts himself the least and lowest of the company to pen this brief
note of those old Aristotelians.

Let the central figure be _Gladstone_--ever from youth up the beloved
and admired of many personal intimates (although some may be politically
his opponents). Always the foremost man, warm-hearted, earnest,
hard-working, and religious, he had a following even in his teens; and
it is noticeable that a choice lot of young and keen intelligences of
Eton and Christ Church formed themselves into a small social sort of
club, styled, in compliment to their founder's initials, the "W.E.G."

Next to Gladstone Lord _Lincoln_ used to sit, his first parliamentary
patron at Newark, and through life to death his friend. We all know how
admirably in many offices of State the late Duke of Newcastle served his
country, and what a good and wise Mentor he was to a grateful Telemachus
in America.

_Canning_ may be mentioned thirdly; then a good-looking youth with
classic features and a florid cheek, since gone to "the land of the
departed" after having healed up the wounds of India as her
Governor-General. Next to the writer, one on each side, sat two more
Governors-General _in futuro_, though then both younger sons and
commoners, and now both also gone to their reward elsewhere; these were
_Bruce_, afterwards Lord Elgin, and _Ramsay_, Lord Dalhousie; the one
famous from Canada to China, the other noted for his triumphs in the
Punjaub. When at Toronto in 1851, the writer was welcomed to the
splendid hospitality of Lord Elgin, and the very lecture-room here
depicted was me