surprise, that two specimens of humanity of such distant origin could have so much in common. In moral and social philosophy; in political speculation; in appreciation of eloquence, literature, art, they would really find themselves—some exceptions apart which would give zest to the conversation—almost on the same ground. In respect of matters of still more intimate interest—the inner clothing, as it were, of civilised existence—in their estimate of physical and mental pursuits, tendencies, weaknesses, pleasures, and pains, and their relation to each other—each would feel that he understood his companion; each would be conscious, as it were, of possessing a key to many of the other’s inmost feelings. This would be partly owing, no doubt, to the circumstance that the ancients have been our tutors, and that much of our mental furniture is derived directly from them. But also, in great measure, to mere similarity of circumstances, which engenders similarity of ideas. Civilisations so nearly resembling each other, even in many points of minuteness, as those of modern Europe and of the Rome of Cicero or the Athens of Demosthenes, must, from the necessity of the case, have strongly corresponding spiritual and mental emotions, and corresponding language wherein to express them. Now let us alter the picture: let the man of the nineteenth century wake up under the shadow of Winchester or Canterbury Cathedral, such as the Saxons had reared them, and, to give him the best company of the day, let him consort with a baron or an abbot of the time of the Norman conquest. Except the subject of religion, of which we would not now speak, what single topic could they have in common? Would they not be separated from each other by a barrier as high and strong as any which divides contemporary civilised from savage man? What object (except possibly horses and dogs), could they appreciate together? What points of morals or science or politics, small talk, sentiment, or humour, would suit them both? How could they argue on premises which one would assume as certain and the other would treat with contempt? The medieval wight would certainly rate the modern at a very different value from his own estimate of himself; and if the modern escaped with a whole skin from the interview, which is greatly to be doubted of, he would find his romantic respect for the baron, or veneration for the ecclesiastic, very little increased. They would be denizens of alien spheres, and would converse in utterly dissonant tongues.