"Ah! yes. Famous for what?" I inquire. "For being the wife of Sir Solomon." Then, in order, comes a gentleman in a huge, curling wig, looking indifferently like James the Second, or Louis the Fourteenth, and holding a scroll in his hand. "The Right Honorable Haddock Sculpin, Lord Privy Seal, etc., etc." A delicate beauty hangs between, a face fair, and loved, and lost, centuries ago--a song to the eye--a poem to the heart--the Aurelia of that old society. "Lady Dorothea Sculpin, who married young Lord Pop and Cock, and died prematurely in Italy." Poor Lady Dorothea! whose great grandchild, in the tenth remove, died last week, an old man of eighty! Next the gentle lady hangs a fierce figure, flourishing a sword, with an anchor embroidered on his coat-collar, and thunder and lightning, sinking ships flames and tornadoes in the background. "Rear Admiral Sir Shark Sculpin, who fell in the great action off Madagascar." So Minim goes on through the series, brandishing his ancestors about my head, and incontinently knocking me into admiration. And when we reach the last portrait and our own times, what is the natural emotion? Is it not to put Minim against the wall, draw off at him with my eyes and mind, scan him, and consider his life, and determine how much of the Eight Honorable Haddock's integrity, and the Lady Dorothy's loveliness, and the Admiral Shark's valor, reappears in the modern man? After all this proving and refining, ought not the last child of a famous race to be its flower and epitome? Or, in the case that he does not chance to be so, is it not better to conceal the family name? I am told, however, that in the higher circles of society, it is better not to conceal the name, however unworthy the man or woman may be who bears it. Prue once remonstrated with a lady about the marriage of a lovely young girl with a cousin of Minim's; but the only answer she received was, "Well, he may not be a perfect man, but then he is a Sculpin," which consideration apparently gave great comfort to the lady's mind. But even Prue grants that Minim has some reason for his pride. Sir Solomon was a respectable man, and Sir Shark a brave one; and the Right Honorable Haddock a learned one; the Lady Sheba was grave and gracious in her way; and the smile of the fair Dorothea lights with soft sunlight those long-gone summers. The filial blood rushes more gladly from Minim's heart as he gazes; and admiration for the virtues of his kindred inspires and sweetly mingles with good resolutions of his own. Time has its share, too, in the ministry, and the influence. The hills beyond the river lay yesterday, at sunset, lost in purple gloom; they receded into airy distances of dreams and faery; they sank softly into night, the peaks of the delectable mountains. But I knew, as I gazed enchanted, that the hills, so purple-soft of seeming, were hard, and gray, and barren in the wintry twilight; and that in the distance was the magic that made them fair.