Behold the Thompson of Edwinstowe. Time, in eight-and-forty years, has whitened his hair, though it has left the color of health on his cheek, and the fire of intelligence in his eye. With a well-built frame and figure, and a comely countenance, there is a buoyancy of step, an energy of manner about him, that agree with what he has written of his life and aspirations. Such are the men that England is now, ever and anon, in every nook and corner of the island, producing. She produces them because they are needed. They are the awakeners who are to stir up the sluggish to what the time demands of them. The two Thompsons of Sherwood are types of their ages. He of the grave--lies solitary and apart from his race. He lived to earn money--his thought was for himself--and there he sleeps, alone in his glory--such as it is. He was no worse, nay, he was better than many of his contemporaries. He had no lack of benevolence; but trade and the spirit of his age, cold and unsympathetic, absorbed him. He was content to lie alone in the desert, amid the heath "that knows not when good cometh," and where the lonely raven perches on the blasted tree. The living Thompson is, too, the man of his age: for it is an age of awakening enterprise, of wider views, of stronger sympathies. He lives and works, not for himself alone. His motto is Progress; and while the forest whispers to him of the past, books and his own heart commune with him of the future. Such men belong to both. When the present becomes the past, their work will survive them; and their tomb will not be a desert, but the grateful memories of improved men. May they spring up in every hamlet, and carry knowledge and refinement to every cottage fireside! [From Five Years' Hunting Adventures in South Africa.] HABITS OF THE AFRICAN LION.