plain enough.

"One hundred and seven last Christmas," said the Director. "He lost his
answers about the age of ninety-eight. Of late years he puts his whole
Conundrums in blank,--but they please him just as well."

We took our departure, much gratified and instructed by our visit,
hoping to have some future opportunity of inspecting the Records of this
excellent Charity and making extracts for the benefit of our Readers.

* * * * *

THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR.

Dean Swift, in a letter to Lord Bolingbroke, says that he does not
"remember to have ever heard or seen one great genius who had long
success in the ministry; and recollecting a great many in my memory and
acquaintance, those who had the smoothest time were, at best, men of
middling degree in understanding." However true this may be in the
main,--and it undoubtedly is true that in ordinary times the speculative
and innovating temper of an original mind is less safe than the patience
of routine and persistence in precedent of a common-place one,--there
are critical occasions to which intellect of the highest quality,
character of the finest fibre, and a judgment that is inspired rather
than confused by new and dangerous combinations of circumstances, are
alone equal. Tactics and an acquaintance with the highest military
authorities were adequate enough till they were confronted with General
Bonaparte and the new order of things. If a great man struggling with
the storms of fate be the sublimest spectacle, a mediocre man in the
same position is surely the most pitiful. Deserted by his presence
of mind, which, indeed, had never been anything but an absence of
danger,--baffled by the inapplicability of his habitual principles of
conduct, (if that may be called a principle, which, like the act of
walking, is merely an unconscious application of the laws of gravity,)
--helpless, irresolute, incapable of conceiving the flower Safety in
the nettle Danger, much more of plucking it thence,--surely here, if
anywhere, is an object of compassion. When such a one is a despot who
has wrought his own destruction by obstinacy in a traditional evil
policy, like Francis II. of Naples, our commiseration is outweighed by
satisfaction that the ruin of the man is the safety of the state. But
when the victim is a so-called statesman, who has malversated the
highest trusts for selfish ends, who has abused constitutional forms
to the destruction of t