nions for them, as doctors do the prescriptions which they are to take, or consent to be the tools and the dupes of party any more.

Let us now by way of contrast rather than comparison, turn our eye towards some eminent leaders of mankind in countries where no Party spirit can ever be shown, or in circumstances where a great danger threatening all alike, excludes the influence of faction altogether, though only for a season, and while the pressure continues.

Contemporary with George III., and with the statesmen whose faint likenesses we have been surveying, were some of the most celebrated persons whom either the old or the new world have produced. Their talents and their fortunes came also in conflict with those of our own rulers, upon some of the most memorable occasions which have exercised the one or affected the other. It will form no inappropriate appendix to the preceding sketches, if we now endeavour to pourtray several of those distinguished individuals.

FRANKLIN.

ONE of the most remarkable men certainly of our times as a politician, or of any age as a philosopher, was Franklin; who also stands alone in combining together these two characters, the greatest that man can sustain, and in this, that having borne the first part in enlarging science by one of the greatest discoveries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one of the greatest empires in the world.

Born

In this truly great man everything seems to concur that goes towards the constitution of exalted merit. First, he was the architect of his own fortune. in the humblest station, he raised himself by his talents and his industry, first to the place in society which may be attained with the help only of ordinary abilities, great application, and good luck; but next to the loftier heights which a daring and happy genius alone can scale; and the poor Printer's boy who at one period of his life had no covering to shelter his head from the dews of night, rent in twain the proud dominion of England, and lived to be the Ambassador of a Commonwealth which he had formed, at the Court of the haughty Monarchs of France who had been his allies.

Then, he had been tried by prosperity as well as adverse fortune, and had passed unhurt through the perils of both. No ordinary apprentice, no commonplace journeyman, ever laid the foundations of his independence in

habits of industry and temperance more deep than he did, whose genius was afterwards to rank him with the Galileos and the Newtons of the old world. No patrician born to shine in Courts, or assist at the Councils of Monarchs, ever bore his honors in a lofty station more easily, or was less spoilt by the enjoyment of them than this common workman did when negociating with Royal representatives, or caressed by all the beauty and fashion of the most brilliant Court in Europe.

Again, he was self-taught in all he knew. His hours of study were stolen from those of sleep and of meals, or gained by some ingenious contrivance for reading while the work of his daily calling went on. Assisted by none of the helps which affluence tenders to the studies of the rich, he had to supply the place of tutors, by redoubled diligence, and of commentaries, by repeated perusal. Nay, the possession of books was to be obtained by copying what the art which he himself exercised furnished easily to others.

Next, the circumstances under which others succumb he made to yield, and bent to his own purposes-a successful leader of a revolt that ended in complete triumph after appearing desperate for years; a great discoverer in philosophy without the ordinary helps to knowledge; a writer famed for his chaste style without a classical education; a skilful negociator, though never bred to politics; ending as a favourite, nay, a pattern of fashion, when the guest of frivolous Courts, the life which he had begun in garrets and in workshops.

Lastly, combinations of faculties in others deemed impossible, appeared easy and natural in him. The