supplied him with a lexicon (after the old fashion) in which the meanings were given in the latter language only, thus rendering it necessary that the boy should apply to him for the requisite information. He seems to have purposely rendered the road to learning as rugged as possible, in order to draw out his son's energies, and to equip him as a literary wrestler of the finest skill and of the firmest muscle.

But the unhappiest feature in this strange curriculum was the total exclusion of all the nobler learning of Faith and Devotion, as well as of high humanity. Religion was regarded by the teacher as a worn-out superstition, and even a Deist was, in his opinion, little better than a credulous simpleton. The boy must therefore be brought up a blank-minded atheist. All feeling, all sentiment too, must be carefully avoided. For this purpose poetry was long interdicted, and even in his Greek studies, he was not allowed to handle Homer or the dramatists. until some acquaintance with them became absolutely indispensable.

With the best intentions, doubtless, James Mill seems to have totally forgotten the fact that a genuine man possesses a heart as well as a head. He acted as if his object had been to cram the latter to repletion, and to leave the former a hopeless vacuum. Carlyle would have said that his great aim was to bring up his son as a chopper of logic, whose business it was to deal with facts as if they were dead things, and to treat this universe as if it contained nothing but lifeless, soulless matter. The feminine element in our humanity appeared to him to have been totally overlooked, and it is precisely in such a case that we recognise the prodigious force of George Herbert's remark'A good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.' Highly as we may estimate the younger Mill's intelligence, it must be

admitted that, so far as education was concerned, he was a machine-made man. Nature had little to do with his development, He was in some sense an intellectual Frankenstein of his father's creation.

Let it not be forgotten, too, that in the case of earnest genuine labourers, the work of self-education never ends. Michael Angelo, who lived to the gorgeous old age of eightynine, was found one day wandering amongst the ruins of the Coliseum, and when questioned as to his motive, replied, 'I go still to school, in order that I may continue to learn.'

And who, indeed, need be ashamed to snatch his satchel, and sally forth, though with feeble feet and waning strength, if he has this fair universe for his academy, and the All-wise One for his Instructor?

CHAPTER IV.

LIONS IN THE PATH.

BUT it frequently happens that the neophyte is placed in circumstances which seem to be utterly adverse to the development of his powers. Nature may call, but he may be unable to reply hopefully, still less confidently.

Schiller's eight years' training at the Duke of Würtemburg's Military School, amidst 400 beings who were all repetitions 'of the same creature, true casts from the same mould, and that a mould which nature solemnly disclaimed,' appeared to be the most unfavourable to which a poet could well be exposed, for 'any disposition to poetry did violence to the laws of the institution, and contradicted the plan of the founder.' Yet happily, as he afterwards acknowledged, the very restrictions and coldblooded formalities of the place compelled him to seek refuge in the world of ideas, and, instead of extinguishing his passion for the muse, fanned it into a flame.

Very frequently indeed genius has to commence operations by stealth. Its first productions may be treated as crimes. This has been specially the case with poets, though it is only fair to remember that their offence has often consisted in penning stanzas at a time when they ought to have been more prosaically employed.

1 Carlyle's Life of Schiller,

Wieland was forbidden to make rhymes during the day, and therefore rose at an unnatural hour in the morning for the purpose; but he pursued his art with such ardour that he produced a vast amount of forbidden verse, not forgetting the infallible epic, which in his case was on the Destruction of Jerusalem.

Hans C. Andersen describes his sufferings when his master casually learnt that he had written some verses, and audaciously recited them in company as if they were things of worth. With cutting irony, harsher than any corporal infliction, the brainless pedagogue told the boy he would forgive him if one spark of poetry could be found in the composition! Tremblingly the youth brought him the 'Dying Child,' which was perused and pronounced execrable trash! This verdict was accompanied by a burst of anger, and from that day the boy was treated with such cruelty that he nearly sank under it, for it proved, as he said, the 'darkest period of his life.'

There are more formidable people, however, than pedagogues to encounter. What if the obstructor happens to be your own father? Ariosto, like Petrarch, had a long tussle with his sire before he was allowed to follow the course which his instinct prescribed. The father said 'Law,' the son said 'Literature.' For five years the youth was compelled to study jurisprudence, many an angry scene being the result of the strained relationship between the two. These occasions, however, the born poet managed to turn to sly account; for as he was meditating a comedy in which an enraged parent constituted a prominent figure, the wrathful doings of the elder Ariosto supplied the chuckling lad with rich material for his secret production.

It is certainly very unfortunate when one has to fight one's own father. A good son would, of course, much rather that it

should be some other person's progenitor. But it seems to be a little necessity which is occasionally laid upon genius. 'Governors' are at times uncommonly blind and obstinate; and if nature speaks out, and impels a youth forward in the dazzling pursuit of fame, what can the poor fellow do? On the one hand, it seems like treason to Nature to resist the biddings of the power within ; on the other, it is painful to snap your fingers at your own sire. It appears very much like a breach of the fifth commandment to rush into poetry if the estimable but self-willed gentleman who gave you breath, who keeps you in pocket-money, and pays your tailor's bills, and from whom you have considerable expectations, should sternly require you to devote yourself to prose. Verily it is a difficult position. Here the calls of genius-there the claims of the Decalogue! Is it not a case upon which the public should take the opinion of some eminent counsel or experienced casuist for the guidance of future disputants?

Benjamin Haydon was destined for the counting-house by his parents, but nature beckoned him from the desk to the easel. From the first his wishes were opposed to the paternal scheme, and a battle royal ensued when he was bound apprentice to business. His purpose to become an artist, however, was unconquerable. His father threatened him with his anger, his mother plied him with her tears, his friends 'baited' him with their entreaties and admonitions. Nor did the lad's resolution falter even when he fell ill, and lost his sight in consequence of inflammation in the eyes. For six weeks he remained quite blind, and it was not until the glitter of a silver spoon awakened some sense of vision that he could hope for a return of the lost faculty. The opposition, of course, availed themselves of the calamity to represent the hopelessness of the course he proposed to pursue. 'Become a painter,' said they, 'why, you can't see!' 'See or