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.

“Equality”

By Charles Dudley Warner

In accordance with the advice of Diogenes of Apollonia in the beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy—­“It appears to me to be well for every one who commences any sort of philosophical treatise to lay down some undeniable principle to start with”—­we offer this: 

        All men are created unequal.

It would be a most interesting study to trace the growth in the world of the doctrine of “equality.”  That is not the purpose of this essay, any further than is necessary for definition.  We use the term in its popular sense, in the meaning, somewhat vague, it is true, which it has had since the middle of the eighteenth century.  In the popular apprehension it is apt to be confounded with uniformity; and this not without reason, since in many applications of the theory the tendency is to produce likeness or uniformity.  Nature, with equal laws, tends always to diversity; and doubtless the just notion of equality in human affairs consists with unlikeness.  Our purpose is to note some of the tendencies of the dogma as it is at present understood by a considerable portion of mankind.