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the new sphere of British enterprise. Yet this apparently adverse current, which tore him from his sheltered moorings, proved to be the rising tide "which, taken at the flood, led on to fortune." For the present, however, he could aspire to nothing more than honest bread-getting. "His impecuniosity was almost as absolute as when, at twelve years old, he entered the office of the auctioneer with the deep resolve to retrieve the fortunes of his family. He had now the responsibilities and the counterbalancing supports of wedded life. But the most disheartening aspect of his affairs was in his shattered state of health. He had not long before been utterly disabled by a succession of sharp and threatening sicknesses. This, however, did not diminish his mental activity, and his habits of perseverance and punctuality continued unaltered. To extend his business he visited England, and, after a sojourn of six months, returned to Melbourne with a selection of goods adapted to its market. It was the epoch of the gold-fever, and his picks and spades were largely in demand. With the profits thus realised he made judicious investments, never yielding to the mania for speculation, but making large purchases of land, erecting stores in new localities, and extending his business connections. "I can picture him," says his partner, "as he was then, full of energy, doing the work of three men, now serving customers, now buying gold, then snatching a few minutes to write letters, working hard early and late to keep his business under control, and, in the midst of all this activity, never forgetting the classmeeting or the Sabbath-school, and loving the public worship of the Lord's day. The trying ordeal he thus passed through left his Christian character unchanged. He was the same genial friend when prosperous and immersed in business affairs as when struggling and comparatively low. The round of occupation did not cause him to forget the intimacies of less stirring times. And as his business prospered he promptly recognised the claims of benevolence, and lent a ready hand to the various schemes then laid to meet the exigencies of the time."

Genius has been happily defined as "an immense capacity for taking trouble," and its achievements are owing to its passionate patience" rather than to its faculty of imagination

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THE CULTIVATION OF true genius.

or insight. No great musician or painter has accomplished his masterpieces by a "sudden inspiration." "Ecstatic bursts," and "divine impulses," and "flashes of thought," are known only to feeble sentimentalists. What is the cultivation to which true genius, the genius of men like Mendelssohn and Beethoven, Michael Angelo and Turner, Gibson and Canova, willingly submits? "It needs unwearied labour at what to another man would seem the drudgery of the art-what ceases to be drudgery only because the light of genius is always present in every trifling act. Nothing can be a greater mistake than to suppose that genius dispenses with labour. What genius does is to inspire the soul with a power to persevere in the labour that is needed; but the greatest geniuses in every art invariably labour at their art far more than all others, because their genius shows them the value of such patient labour, and aids them to persist in it." What is true of the musician and the painter is true also of the actor. Macready was a patient and industrious student; so was Garrick; so was Mrs. Siddons. "Acting," said the elder Kean, whose marvellous power electrified audiences, "does not, like Dogberry's reading and writing, 'come by nature;' with all the high qualities which go to the formation of a great exponent of the book of life (for so the stage may justly be called), it is impossible, totally impossible, to leap at once to fame. 'What wound did ever heal but by slow degrees?' says our immortal author; and what man, say I, ever became an actor without a long and sedulous apprenticeship? I know that many think to step from behind a counter or jump from the high stool of an office to the boards, and take the town by storm in 'Richard' or 'Othello,' is as easy as lying.' Oh, the born idiots! they remind me of the halfpenny candles stuck in the windows on illumination nights; they flicker and flutter their brief minute, and go out unheeded."

"Where there is a will there is a way." Like most proverbs, this oft-repeated one needs to be taken with large qualification, for in human affairs there can be no absolute certainty; but, as a general rule, it may safely be accepted and acted upon. So long as body and mind preserve their soundness, the " way" will be found by the resolute "will." Only the weak, the cowardly, or the idle, seek to excuse themselves by prating of difficulties that cannot be overcome or obstacles

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that cannot be removed. The engineer, when he cannot carry his railway across or around a mountain, tunnels through it. "Impossibilities!" cried Lord Chatham; "I trample upon impossibilities!" "Impossible!" exclaimed Mirabeau. "Talk not to me of that blockhead of a word." If a man's faith in himself and his mission be real and earnest, he cannot fail to gain a certain measure of success. If he do not satisfy the world, he will at least satisfy the voice of conscience. When we look back upon the history of humanity, we see nothing else but a record of what has been achieved by men of strong will. The present elevation of the race, the refined civilisation of Christendom, is due to their unflinching courage. Their will it is that has opened up the way to their fellows. Their enthusiasm of purpose, their fixity of aim, their heroic perseverance-we are all inheritors of what these high qualities have won. "The world is no longer clay," says Emerson, "but rather iron in the hands of its workers, and men have got to hammer out a place for themselves by steady and rugged blows." But it is the persistent effort of those who have come before us that has made the world thus plastic.

Let us turn to some examples. Quintin Matsys, the painter of Antwerp, failed in his worship of art until his master told him that he should not wed his daughter until he had produced a great picture. There was "the way" to the prize he coveted; he soon showed that he had "the will." Early and late he toiled at his breathing canvas, and produced within six months the famous masterpiece of "The Misers." We have read of an English carpenter who was observed one day to be planing the magistrates' bench, then under repair, with singular carefulness. He was asked the reason for this unusual application. "Because," he said, "I wish to make it easy against the time when I come to sit upon it myself." The author of "Pickwick" and "Nicholas Nickleby" was accustomed to ascribe his splendid literary success to his habits of industry and perseverance. bethink ourselves also of Sebastian Gomez, a celebrated Spanish painter. He was a mulatto, and a slave of that still more famous master, Murillo, on whose pupils he waited as an attendant. Heaven had endowed him with a fervent love of art; and little did the gay young Spaniards who amused them

Let us

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MURILLO'S MULATTO.

selves by jests at his dark complexion and ungainly features suspect the elevation of soul that animated his misshapen body. He received no lessons; from none did he obtain a kindly suggestion or a precious hint; but with an intelligent eye he watched the operations of the students, and carefully did he examine the progress of their daily labours. At length he found courage to imitate what he had seen, devoting the hours of night to his secret, happy toil; and, as he grew bolder and more confident, venturing even to correct the errors of outline and colouring which he discovered in the rude essays of Murillo's pupils. Great was the surprise of the latter when they returned to their studio in the morning, to find that here an arm had been added and there a leg; that inharmonious proportions had been carefully adjusted; that woolly skies, harsh and discordant, had been toned and softened down into radiant heavens; and meaningless patches of ultramarine converted into sweet woodland lakes. With the credulous superstition of the time, they ascribed these improvements to the nocturnal labours of some supernatural power; and Gomez, to avert suspicion, strengthened them in their folly by declaring that it must be the Zomba, a spirit of whom the West Indian negroes were mortally afraid. But a finely painted head of the Blessed Virgin having attracted Murillo's attention, the great master, disinclined to believe that Zombas would paint Madonnas, instituted a close investigation, and discovered, to his no small wonder, that it was the production of his mulatto page. He summoned him to his studio; and when the poor slave confessed on his knees the secret of his nights of toil, he raised him up with words of encouragement, promised him his liberty, and adopted him as his pupil and successor. Gomez, as is well known, rose to a high position as a painter, and executed many highly-finished pictures, distinguished by their truthfulness and depth of expression, by their warmth and mellowness of colouring. In the history of art he figures as "Murillo's Mulatto." He survived his illustrious master only a few years, dying about 1689 or 1690.

Mr. Horace Twiss, in a work of considerable interest, has traced the career of the late Lord Eldon, and we commend it to our readers as full of cheerful inspiration, if at any time they should feel overcome by "the heat and burden of the Jay." Our political sympathies must not blind us to the noble

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qualities of character by which he triumphed over the disadvantages of his early years. The son of a Newcastle coalfitter, he was educated at an indifferent school, where he was chiefly remarkable for his incorrigible idleness and love of mischief. So scant was the promise he gave of future distinction, that his father hesitated whether he should bring him up to his own trade or apprentice him to a grocer. Fortunately, his elder brother, William (afterwards Lord Stowell), had greater confidence in his abilities, and having just gained a scholarship at Oxford, he wrote to his father, "Send Jack up to me, I can do better for him." Jack went to Oxford, threw aside his indolent habits, and won a fellowship. Going home, however, in the vacation, he met and fell in love with a beautiful, virtuous, but penniless maiden, and eloping with her, married, and entered upon life without home or fortune. By marrying he had lost his fellowship, and hence there was no hope of his being able to enter the Church. He turned his attention to the study of law, and animated by a sheer determination to provide for the wife he loved, repaired to London, hired a small house in Cursitor Street, and applied himself to his new pursuit. Never did any toiler exhibit a greater self-command or a more heroic assiduity. Rising at four in the morning, he studied until far into the following night, frequently compelled to bind a wet towel round his head to keep himself awake. As he was too poor to seek his instruction of a special pleader, he copied out no fewer than three folio volumes of "precedents" from a manuscript collection, he and his wife sitting down, after the day's hard study, to a supper of sprats. His labours were so far successful that he was at length called to the bar; but even then he had to wait wearily for clients. His first year's earnings did not exceed nine shillings; but eventually the opportunity came; he had the spirit and the skill to profit by it. Succeeding in a very difficult case, he rose at once into favour with solicitors and clients; and so rapid was his progress, that, at the age of thirty-two, he was appointed King's Counsel. In due time he rose to be Solicitor-General, then Attorney-General, and at last Lord Chancellor, which high office he held for a quarter of a century.

The heroism of perseverance was surely exhibited by Euler when, prevented by blindness from committing his calcula