Most people have heard of that Mr. Gerard Hamilton who, suddenly and unexpectedly making in the House of Commons an oration which 'threw into the shade every other orator except Pitt,' was henceforth known by the nickname of 'Single-Speech'--not because he never addressed the House again, but because those who so nicknamed him chose to regard this performance as the distinguishing feature of his career. He continued to be known by that one discourse, and it is by virtue of it that he has a place in history. The fact is notable, and yet by no means uncommon. The world is, and always has been, full of Single-Speech Hamiltons--male and female--who have gained and maintained their notoriety by one special effort. Human nature is so constituted that the man or woman who is unable to produce a series of successes may yet have the capacity to compass one--may possess the energy and the ability to make at least one strong impression before retiring wholly into the background. The truth of this is observable, for example, in the sphere of poetry. How many are the excellent versifiers whose reputation is based wholly upon a solitary effusion! They have been inspired once, and the outcome is literary immortality. They cannot always be regarded strictly as poets, and yet they have a vogue which any poet might envy. They reign and shine by virtue of what may be called a happy accident. Thus, Lady Ann Barnard is known, in the world of verse, only by her 'Auld Robin Gray,' just as Miss Elliott and Mrs. Cockburn are known only by their respective 'Flowers of the Forest.' We remember Oldys merely by his 'Busy, curious, thirsty fly,' Sir William Jones by his 'What constitutes a State?' Blanco White by his one Sonnet upon Night, Charles Wolfe by his 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' John Collins by his 'In the Downhill of Life,' and Herbert Knowles by his 'Lines in a Churchyard.' As Artemus Ward said of the oil-painting achieved by the Old Masters: 'They did this, and then they expired.' Some of them wrote other things, but the world received them not. It took count only of the single occasion on which they had been influenced by the divine _afflatus_--of the one thing which they had done 'supremely' well.