she said, "Excuse me, friends,
I feel all have their proper places,
And _Common Sense_ should stay at home
With cheerful hearts and smiling faces."

Mr. Fields has been a frequent contributor to his own periodicals, his
latest effort being a paper devoted to personal recollections of Charles
Dickens, which was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" soon after the
death of the great master.

He has made several extended tours throughout Europe, where he has
enjoyed social advantages rarely opened to travelers. One of his friends
says that, in his first visit to the Old World, "he passed several
months in England, Scotland, France, and Germany, visiting the principal
places of interest, and forming most delightful and profitable
intimacies with the most distinguished _literateurs_ of the day. He was
a frequent guest at the well-known breakfasts of the great banker-poet
of 'The Pleasures of Memory' and of 'Italy,' and listened or added his
own contributions to the exuberant riches of the hour, when such
visitors as Talfourd, Dickens, Moore, and Landor were the talkers." He
also formed a warm friendship with Wordsworth, and, during his stay in
Edinburgh, with Professor Wilson and De Quincey. The writings of the
last-named author were published by Ticknor and Fields, in eighteen
volumes, and were edited by Mr. Fields, at the author's own request.

Mr. Fields is now in his fiftieth year, but shows no sign of age, save
the whitening of his heavy, curling beard. He is still young and active
in mind and body. He is of medium height, and well proportioned, with an
erect carriage. Polished and courteous in manner, he is easily
accessible to all. To young writers he is especially kind, and it is a
matter of the truest pleasure to him to seek out and bring to notice
genuine literary merit. He has a host of friends, and is widely popular
with all classes.

V.

EDITORS.

CHAPTER XXIII.

JAMES GORDON BENNETT.

James Gordon Bennett was born at New Mill, Keith, in Banffshire, on the
north-eastern coast of Scotland, about the year 1800. His relatives were
Roman Catholics, and he was brought up in a Catholic family of French
origin. In his fourteenth year, having passed through the primary
schools of his native place, he entered the Roman Catholic Seminary at
Aberdeen, for the purpose of studying for the priesthood of that Church.
During the two or three years which he passed here he was a close