painting. Of the fine arts, music alone attracted
and pleased him. His conversation was often
eminently suggestive, touching on much, whether
in books or mankind, that set one thinking; but
I never remember him to have uttered any of
those lofty or tender sentiments which form the
connecting links between youth and genius. For
if poets sing to the young, and the young hail
their own interpreters in poets, it is because the
tendency of both is to idealise the realities of
life: finding everywhere in the Real a something
that is noble or fair, and making the fair yet
fairer, and the noble nobler still.

In Margrave's character there seemed no special
vices, no special virtues; but a wonderful vivacity,
joyousness, animal good humour. He was
singularly temperate, having a dislike to wine,
perhaps from that purity of taste which belongs to
health absolutely perfect. No healthful child
likes alcohols, no animal, except man, prefers
wine to water.

But his main moral defect seemed to me, in a
want of sympathy, even where he professed
attachment. He who could feel so acutely for
himself, be unmanned at the bite of a squirrel,
and sob at the thought that he should one day
die, was as callous to the sufferings of another
as a deer who deserts and butts from him a
wounded comrade.

I give an instance of this hardness of heart
where I should have least expected to find it in
him.

He had met and joined me as I was walking to
visit a patient on the outskirts of the town,
when we fell in with a group of children, just let
loose for an hour or two from their day-school.
Some of these children joyously recognised him
as having played with them at their homes; they
ran up to him, and he seemed as glad as
themselves at the meeting.

He suffered them to drag him along with them,
and became as merry and sportive as the youngest
of the troup.

"Well," said I, laughing, " if you are going to
play at leap-frog, pray don't let it be on the high
road, or you will be run over by carts and dray-
men; see that meadow just in front to the left—
off with you there!"

"With all my heart," cried Margrave, " while
you pay your visit. Come along, boys."

A little urchin, not above six years old, but
who was lame, began to cry, he could not run,
he should be left behind.

Margrave stooped. " Climb on my shoulder,
little one, and I'll be your horse."

The child dried its tears, and delightedly
obeyed.

"Certainly," said I to myself, " Margrave,
after all, must have a nature as gentle as it is
simple. What other young man, so courted
by all the allurements that steal innocence from
pleasure, would stop in the thoroughfares to play
with children?"

The thought had scarcely passed through my
mind when I heard a scream of agony. Margrave
had leaped the railing that divided the meadow
from the road, and, in so doing, the poor child,
perched on his shoulder, had, perhaps from
surprise or fright, loosened its hold and fallen heavily—
its cries were piteous. Margrave clapped his
hands to his ears—uttered an exclamation of
anger— and not even stopping to lift up the boy,
or examine what the hurt was, called to the other
children to come on, and was soon rolling with
them on the grass, and pelting them with daisies.
When I came up, only one child remained by
the sufferer—its little brother, a year older than
itself. The child had fallen on its arm, which
was not broken, but violently contused. The pain
must have been intense. I carried the child to its
home, and had to remain there some time. I did
not see Margrave till the next morning; when he
then called. I felt so indignant that I could scarcely
speak to him. When at last I rebuked him for
his inhumanity, he seemed surprised; with
difficulty remembered the circumstance, and then
merely said—as if it were the most natural con-
fession in the world—-

"Oh, nothing so discordant as a child's wail.
I hate discords. I am pleased with the company
of children; but they must be children who laugh
and play. Well! why do you look at me in that
way? What have I said to shock you?"

"Shock me— you shock manhood itself! Go;
I can't talk to you now. I am busy."

But he did not go; and his voice was so sweet,
and his ways so winning, that disgust insensibly
melted into that sort of forgiveness one accords
(let me repeat the illustration) to the deer that
forsakes its comrade. The poor thing knows no
better. And what a graceful beautiful thing this
was!

The fascination— I can give it no other name—
which Margrave exercised was not confined to
me, it was universal— old, young, high, low, man,
woman, child, all felt it. Never in Low Town
had stranger, even the most distinguished by
fame, met with a reception so cordial— so
flattering. His frank confession that he was a natural
son, far from being to his injury, served to
interest people more in him, and to prevent
all those inquiries in regard to his connexions
and antecedents, which would otherwise have
been afloat. To be sure, he was evidently
rich; at least he had plenty of money. He
lived in the best rooms in the principal hotel;
was very hospitable; entertained the families
with whom he had grown intimate; made them
bring their children— music and dancing after
dinner. Among the houses in which he had
established familiar acquaintance was that of the
mayor of the town, who had bought Dr. Lloyd's
collection of subjects in natural history. To that
collection the mayor had added largely by a very
recent purchase. He had arranged these various
specimens, which his last acquisitions had
enriched by the interesting carcases of an
elephant and a hippopotanms, in a large wooden
building contiguous to his dwelling, which had
been constructed by. a former proprietor (a