n to the Cornish
coast. The only question which, in conclusion, I should like to address to
geologists, is this: As geologists are obliged to leave it doubtful
whether the insulation of St. Michael's Mount was due to the washing of
the sea-shore, or to a general subsidence of the country, may it not have
been due to neither of these causes, and may not the Mount have always
been that kind of half-island which it certainly was two thousand years
ago?

1867.

XVI. BUNSEN.(97)

Ours is, no doubt, a forgetful age. Every day brings new events rushing in
upon us from all parts of the world; and the hours of real rest, when we
might ponder over the past, recall pleasant days, gaze again on the faces
of those who are no more, are few indeed. Men and women disappear from
this busy stage, and though for a time they had been the radiating centres
of social, political, or literary life, their places are soon taken by
others,--"the place thereof shall know them no more." Few only appear again
after a time, claiming once more our attention through the memoirs of
their lives, and then either flitting away forever among the shades of the
departed, or assuming afresh a power of life, a place in history, and an
influence on the future often more powerful even than that which they
exercised on the world while living in it. To call the great and good thus
back from the grave is no easy task; it requires not only the power of a
_vates sacer_, but the heart of a loving friend. Few men live great and
good lives; still fewer can write them; nay, often, when they have been
lived and have been written, the world passes by unheeding, as crowds will
pass without a glance by the portraits of a Titian or a Van Dyke. Now and
then, however, a biography takes root, and then acts, as a lesson, as no
other lesson can act. Such biographies have all the importance of an _Ecce
Homo_, showing to the world what man can be, and permanently raising the
ideal of human life. It was so in England with the life of Dr. Arnold; it
was so more lately with the life of Prince Albert; it will be the same
with the life of Bunsen.

It seems but yesterday that Bunsen left England; yet it was in 1854 that
his house in Carlton Terrace ceased to be the refreshing oasis in London
life which many still remember, and that the powerful, thoughtful,
beautiful, loving face of the Prussian Ambassador was seen for the last
time in London society. Bunsen then retired from