education, theology, the influence of Egypt on Homer, the effect of English legislation on King O’Brien, contributing something noteworthy to all the discussions of the day.  But I am not aware that he has ever produced a single page of literature.  Whatever space he has filled in his own country, whatever and however enduring the impression he has made upon English life and society, does it seem likely that the sum total of his immense activity in so many fields, after the passage of so many years, will be worth to the world as much as the simple story of Rab and his Friends?  Already in America I doubt if it is.  The illustration might have more weight with some minds if I contrasted the work of this great man—­as to its answering to a deep want in human nature—­with a novel like ‘Henry Esmond’ or a poem like ‘In Memoriam’; but I think it is sufficient to rest it upon so slight a performance as the sketch by Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh.  For the truth is that a little page of literature, nothing more than a sheet of paper with a poem written on it, may have that vitality, that enduring quality, that adaptation to life, that make it of more consequence to all who inherit it than every material achievement of the age that produced it.  It was nothing but a sheet of paper with a poem on it, carried to the door of his London patron, for which the poet received a guinea, and perhaps a seat at the foot of my lord’s table.  What was that scrap compared to my lord’s business, his great establishment, his equipages in the Park, his position in society, his weight in the House of Lords, his influence in Europe?  And yet that scrap of paper has gone the world over; it has been sung in the camp, wept over in the lonely cottage; it has gone with the marching regiments, with the explorers—­with mankind, in short, on its way down the ages, brightening, consoling, elevating life; and my lord, who regarded as scarcely above a menial the poet to whom he tossed the guinea—­my lord, with all his pageantry and power, has utterly gone and left no witness.