Then, is he to select the part which he is to act? Is he to be the great warrior, "striding from victory to victory, and making his path a plane of continued elevation"--dethroning and unmaking princes, and grasping the destiny of empires in his single hand? Or is he, by overturning the fair fabric of his country's government, and wading through war, anarchy and blood, at last to triumph over the law and the constitution, and build up his own throne on the melancholy ruins of his country's liberty? Or will he be the philosopher of his age, taking "His ardent flight Through the blue infinite;" numbering the planets, noting their complex but harmonious movements, and deducing the unerring laws by which they are governed? Or, by pouring truth after truth upon the world, is he to break up the prejudices and dissipate the errors which have before bound down the restless energies of the mind under the fatal spell of ignorance and superstition? Perhaps he is to be the genuine philanthropist, and like Howard, to travel from country to country, "not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurement of the remains of ancient grandeur; not to form a scale of the curiosity of modern arts; nor to collect medals or to collate manuscripts: but to dive into the depths of dungeons--to plunge into the infection of hospitals--to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain--to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression and contempt--to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken--and compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries." Or is he to be the simple, but contented being, whose world is bounded by his visual horizon,-- "Who never had a dozen thoughts In all his life; and never changed their course; But told them o'er, each in its 'customed place, From morn till night, from youth till hoary age, And never had an unbelieving doubt; But thought the visual line that girt him round The world's extremes: and thought the silver moon That nightly o'er him led her virgin host, No broader than his father's shield."--