“It mortified me, I confess, to hear from my son, that you did not try him in a greater number of subjects, in handling which he would probably have changed your opinion of him. He has a good memory, and a great talent for history, ancient and modern, especially constitutional and parliamentary; another favourite study with him is the philosophy of history. He has read Pritchard’s Physical History, Cardinal Wiseman’s Lectures on Science, Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, Macaulay, and Hallam: I never met with a faster reader. I have let him attend, in England, some of the most talented lecturers in chemistry, geology, and comparative anatomy, and he sees the Quarterly Reviews and the best Magazines, as a matter of course. Yet on these matters not a word of examination! “I have forgotten to mention, he has a very pretty idea of poetical composition: I enclose a fragment which I have found on his table, as well as one of his prose Essays. “Allow me, as a warm friend of your undertaking, to suggest, that the _substance_ of knowledge is far more valuable than its _technicalities_; and that the vigour of the youthful mind is but _wasted_ on _barren_ learning, and its ardour is _quenched_ in _dry_ disquisition. “I have the honour to be, etc.” On the receipt of this letter, Mr. White will find, to his dissatisfaction, that he has not advanced one hair’s breadth in bringing home to Mr. Brown’s father the real state of the case, and has done no more than present himself as a mark for certain commonplaces, very true, but very inappropriate to the matter in hand. Filled with this disappointing thought, for a while he will not inspect the enclosures of Mr. Brown’s letter, being his son’s attempts at composition. At length he opens them, and reads as follows: _Mr. Brown’s poetry_. THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.(40) Oh, might I flee to Araby the blest, The world forgetting, but its gifts possessed, Where fair-eyed peace holds sway from shore to shore, And war’s shrill clarion frights the air no more. Heard ye the cloud-compelling blast(41) awake The slumbers of the inhospitable lake?(42) Saw ye the banner in its pride unfold The blush of crimson and the blaze of gold? Raglan and St. Arnaud, in high command, Have steamed from old Byzantium’s hoary strand; The famed Cyanean rocks presaged their fight, Twin giants, with the astonished Muscovite. So the loved maid, in Syria’s balmy noon, Forebodes the coming of the hot simoon, And sighs.… And longs.… And dimly traces.… * * * * * _Mr. Brown’s prose._ “FORTES FORTUNA ADJUVAT.”