remember how a dear friend, once the editor of a certain well-known magazine (whom all who knew him well miss more and more as days and weeks go on, and never will cease to miss), used to remark this fact in various warm-hearted and playful letters, with wonder not unmixed with indignation. And I remember how a very great prelate (who could compress all I have said into a page and a half) once comforted me by telling me that for the consumption of many minds it was desirable that thought should be very greatly diluted; that quantity as well as quality is needful in the dietetics both of the body and the mind. With this soothing reflection I close the present essay.

Annotations on the foregoing Chapter.

BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

(1.) The Indian Brahmin who purchased, for a great price, an elaborate microscope which had shown him that he swallowed multitudes of minute animalculæ in every draught of water, dashed it to pieces, saying it should never inflict that misery upon others it had upon him.

(2.) E. S. (now Lord St. L.), is the son of a hairdresser, said to have been very eminent in his own way. A gentleman asked the man who was cutting his hair whether he remembered anything of

him. 'Oh, yes; I remember him very well when I was an apprentice. Wonderful man! Had halfa-guinea for cutting hair! Nobody like him since!' Well,' said the other, his son is a very eminent man too in his way.' 'Oh, is he, sir?' 'Yes; the first lawyer in England.' 'Oh, is he, sir—I never heard of him.'

(3.) A gentleman who was fond of attending at the Lord Mayor of London's, to hear the trials and petitions and memorials that were going on, heard a memorial sent in by some Chimney Sweepers, who complained of an interference which encroached on their annual May-Day festival, on which they dress themselves up and go round to receive contributions from their customers. They complained that their place had been usurped by certain Dustmen and other low fellows pretending to be Chimney Sweepers!

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CHAPTER VI.

CONCERNING VEAL;

A DISCOURSE OF IMMATURITY.

HE man who, in his progress through life, has

TH

listened with attention to the conversation of human beings; who has carefully read the writings of the best English authors; who has made himself well acquainted with the history and usages of his native land; and who has meditated much on all he has seen and read; must have been led to the firm conviction that by VEAL, those who speak the English language intend to denote the flesh of calves; and that by a calf is intended an immature ox or cow. A calf is a creature in a temporary and progressive stage of its being. It will not always be a calf; if it live long enough, it will assuredly cease to be a calf. And if impatient man, arresting the creature at that stage, should consign it to the hands of him whose business it is to convert the sentient animal into the impassive and

unconscious meat, the nutriment which the creature will afford will be nothing more than immature beef. There may be many qualities of Veal; the calf which yields it may die at very different stages in its physical and moral development; but provided only it die as a calf-provided only that its meat can fitly be styled Veal-this will be characteristic of it, that the meat shall be immature meat. It may be very good, very nutritious and palatable; some people may like it better than beef, and may feed upon it with the liveliest satisfaction; but when it is fairly and deliberately put to us, it must be admitted even by such as like Veal the best, that Veal is but an immature production of nature. I take Veal, therefore, as the emblem of IMMATURITY; of that which is now in a stage out of which it must grow; of that which, as time goes on, will grow older, will probably grow better, will certainly grow very different. That is what I mean by Veal.

And now, my reader and friend, you will discern the subject about which I trust we are to have some pleasant and not unprofitable thought together. You will readily believe that my subject is not that material Veal which may be beheld and purchased in the butchers' shops. I am not now to treat of its varied qualities, of the sustenance which it yields, of the price at which it may be procured, or of the laws according to which that price rises and falls. I am not going to take you to the green fields in

which the creature which yielded the Veal was fed, or to discourse of the blossoming hawthorn hedges from whose midst it was reft away. Neither shall I speak of the rustic life, the toils, cares, and fancies of the farm-house near which it spent its brief lifetime. The Veal of which I intend to speak is Moral Veal, or (to speak with entire accuracy), Veal Intellectual, Moral, and Æsthetical. By Veal I understand the immature productions of the human mind; immature compositions, immature opinions, feelings, and tastes. I wish to think of the work, the views, the fancies, the emotions, which are yielded by the human soul in its immature stages; while the calf (so to speak) is only growing into the ox; while the clever boy, with his absurd opinions and feverish feelings and fancies, is developing into the mature and sober-minded man. And if I could but rightly set out the thoughts which have at many different times occurred to me on this matter, if one could catch and fix the vague glimpses and passing intuitions of solid unchanging truth, if the subject on which one has thought long and felt deeply were always that on which one could write best, and could bring out to the sympathy of others what a man himself has felt, what an excellent essay this would be! But it will not be so; for as I try to grasp the thoughts I would set out, they melt away and elude me. It is like trying to catch and keep the rainbow hues you have seen the sunshine