as instinct with the most
convulsing fun. It is intended to set out in a metrical form the career
of a certain judge, who went up as a poor lad from Scotland to England,
but did well at the bar, and ultimately found his place upon the bench.
Here is Lord Chancellor Eldon's humorous poem:--

"James Allan Parke
Came naked stark
From Scotland:
But he got clothes,
Like other beaux,
In England!"

Now the fact that Lord Eldon wrote that poem, and valued it highly,
would lead some folk to suppose that Lord Eldon was next door to an
idiot. And a good many other things which that Chancellor did, such as
his quotations from Scripture in the House of Commons, and his attempts
to convince that assemblage (when Attorney-General) that Napoleon I. was
the Apocalyptic Beast or the Little Horn, certainly point towards the
same conclusion. But the conclusion, as a general one, would be
wrong. No doubt, Lord Eldon was a wise and sagacious man as judge and
statesman, though as wit and poet he was almost an idiot. So with other
great men. It is easy to remember occasions on which great men have
done very foolish things. There never was a truer hero nor a greater
commander than Lord Nelson; but in some things he was merely an awkward,
overgrown midshipman. But then, let us remember that a locomotive
engine, though excellent at running, would be a poor hand at flying.
_That_ is not its vocation. The engine will draw fifteen heavy carriages
fifty miles in an hour; and _that_ remains as a noble feat, even though
it be ascertained that the engine could not jump over a brook which
would be cleared easily by the veriest screw. We all see this.

But many of us have a confused idea that a great and clever man is (so
to speak) a locomotive that can fly; and when it is proved that he
cannot fly, then we begin to doubt whether he can even run. We think he
should be good at everything, whether in his own line or not. And he is
set at a disadvantage, particularly in the judgment of vulgar and stupid
people, when it is clearly ascertained that at some things he is very
inferior. I have heard of a very eminent preacher who sunk considerably
(even as regards his preaching) in the estimation of a certain family,
because it appeared that he played very badly at bowls. And we all know
that occasionally the Premier already mentioned reverses the vulgar
error, and in appointing men to great places is guided by an axiom which
amounts to jus