last men, if we have read his character correctly, who would have assumed what he did not, at the time, think himself entitled to; and one of the last who would shrink from claiming a right where his title was clear. Mr Dixon not only rejects the claim, but is highly indignant that it should ever have been suggested. "Howard sprang from a virgin and undistinguished soil;"--why the upholsterer's should be peculiarly _a virgin soil_ we do not see. "Attempts, however, have not been wanting to _vulgarise_ his origin--to rob its greatness of its most natural charm--by circling his brows with the _distant glitter_ of a ducal crown; by finding in his simple lineaments the trace of noble lines, and in his veins the consecrated currents of patrician blood." Strange waste of eloquent indignation! But he does not keep quite steady in his passion. "No," he exclaims, "let Howard stand alone. His reputation rests upon a basis already broad enough. _Why should we pile up Pelion on Olympus?_" There was, then, a Pelion to pile upon Olympus? We had thought not. Our author should have kept these red and purple patches at a greater distance: they do not harmonise. Meanwhile the father of Howard had so little of what is commonly called aristocratic pride, that although he had retired from business, and had a good property--and property, too, in land--to leave to his son, he yet wished that son to tread in his own footsteps. He apprenticed him to a wholesale grocer in Watling Street. The education of young Howard was such as is, or was, generally given to a lad of respectable parents intended for trade. He was at two schools. Of the first, Howard himself is reported to have said, that, having been there seven years, "he left it not fully taught in any one thing." He left it when a boy, and what boy ever left his school "fully taught in any one thing?" The remark is rather characteristic of the speaker than condemnatory of John Worsley, the schoolmaster in question. His second school was kept by a Mr Eames, a man of acknowledged ability. But how long he remained there is not known. At this school he made the friendship of one Price, afterwards that Dr Price who remains, to all posterity, impaled in Burke's _Letter on the French Revolution_. The great orator thrust his spear through his thin texture, and pinned him to the board; and never, but in this rich museum, will any one behold or think of Dr Price. Perhaps he deserved a better fate, but his case is hopeless now. Yet, if it can heal his memory to connect his name with one who was not a _revolutionary philanthropist_, let him have all the benefit of the association. Howard had never acquired the art of writing his own language with ease and correctness, and therefore it will be directly understood how valuable to him, in the preparation of his reports, was the help of a literary friend. That literary friend he found in Dr Price. In a letter to him, Howard writes, "It