In England we have seen senators of mark and authority, nay, even a prime minister, the haughtiest, [1] the most despotic, and the most irresponsible of his times, at an age which, in many states, both ancient and modern, would have operated as a ground of absolute challenge to the candidate for offices the meanest. Intellectually speaking, again, a very large proportion of men _never_ attain maturity. Nonage is their final destiny; and manhood, in this respect, is for them a pure idea. Finally, as regards the moral development,--by which I mean the whole system and economy of their love and hatred, of their admirations and contempts, the total organization of their pleasures and their pains,--hardly any of our species ever attain manhood. It would be unphilosophic to say that intellects of the _highest_ order were, or could be, developed fully without a corresponding development of the whole nature. But of such intellects there do not appear above two or three in a thousand years. It is a fact, forced upon one by the whole experience of life, that almost all men are children, more or less, in their tastes and admirations. Were it not for man's latent tendencies,--were it not for that imperishable grandeur which exists by way of germ and ultimate possibility in his nature, hidden though it is, and often all but effaced,--how unlimited would be the contempt amongst all the wise for his species! and misanthropy would, but for the angelic ideal buried and imbruted in man's sordid race, become amongst the noble fixed, absolute, and deliberately cherished. But, to resume my question, how, under so variable a standard, both natural and conventional, of every thing almost that can be received for a test or a presumption of manhood, shall we seize upon any characteristic feature, sufficiently universal to serve a _practical_ use, as a criterion of the transition from the childish mind to the dignity (relative dignity at least) of that mind which belongs to conscious maturity? One such criterion, and one only, as I believe, there is--all others are variable and uncertain. It lies in the reverential feeling, sometimes suddenly developed, towards woman, and the idea of woman. From that moment when women cease to be regarded with carelessness, and when the ideal of womanhood, in its total pomp of loveliness and purity, dawns like some vast aurora upon the mind, boyhood has ended; childish thoughts and inclinations have passed away forever; and the gravity of manhood, with the self-respecting views of manhood, have commenced. "Mentemque priorem Expulit, atque hominem toto sibi cedere jussit Pectore."--_Lucan_.