THE life of a self-made man is at all times a deeply interesting study. We like to see how he mastered surrounding circumstances, with what bravery he met adverse fate, and how he fared when he had triumphed and become strong. Such a man is not always a model to be held up for admiration. Often there is a hardness and coarseness about him which is undesirable, and an assumption of greatness on account of pecuniary success, which, in good society at any rate, will be resented. When the late Mr. Peabody was honoured with a statue under the shadow of the Royal Exchange, and within the heart of the City, it was said by some ill-natured Yankee, that if England wished to erect statues to such men, there were plenty of rich men America could supply us with for that purpose; and certainly it is not in the true interests of humanity that we should get into the habit of paying too much homage to worshippers of the Golden Calf. Undoubtedly it will be much to be deprecated if that be the worship of the future; but it is a danger in these levelling days, when democracy is coming more and more to the front, against which the preacher and the moralist must ever guard the nation. At all times the tone of public thought must be pitched low, and when rank has lost its _prestige_, the danger of being swamped by vulgar plutocrats is immensely increased. As was to be expected, Mrs. O’Connell is very proud of her father, and, as was also to be expected, the father was very proud of himself. He was a very illiterate man. He even could not spell the word money properly; but no man knew better what it meant, and no man could have ever anticipated that he would have secured so much of it as he did. As a boy he had the reputation of being stupid, and also wild; and it seems to have been with the view of getting rid of him that his father sent him from his home in the Lombard Highlands, in company with one Andrea Faroni, to England, where he was to learn to become a dealer in prints, barometers, and eye-glasses. It was a fortunate thing for Charles Bianconi that Favoni brought him instead to Ireland. In London—the great cold world of London—it would have fared hard with the poor Italian lad. In Dublin and the country round, the good-looking foreigner, with his bright eyes and his civil tongue, met with a warm reception—a reception all the more warm, inasmuch as he was of the Irish faith; but even then it is strange how he prospered as he did. Without knowing a word of the language, and with fourpence in his pocket to pay expenses, he was sent out into the country on the Monday morning with two pounds’ worth of prints to sell, and with the understanding that he was to be back by Saturday night; but the lad had made up his mind to be a somebody, and he was as good as his word; and he had not been long in Ireland before he hit on the idea which led him to fame and fortune.