BORN 1809. We are indebted to the kindness of Professor Blackie for three portraits of himself at widely different ages. Three-quarters of a century is so vast a span of human life, that the resemblance between the charming little boy of five in frills and the grey Professor of eighty, who might be his great-grandfather, though distinctly traceable, may not at first be visible to all. At five years old John Stuart Blackie was, we may assume, most interested in tops and pop-guns; at forty-five he was a University Professor, and just returning from his tour to Athens, which was the origin of his well-known advocacy of the study of modern Greek; at eighty he was--as he still is, and as we trust he may long be--at once the most learned and the most popular of living Scotchmen. [Illustration: _From a Painting._ AGE 5.] [Illustration: _From a Lithograph._ AGE 45.] [Illustration: _From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._ AGE 80.] [Illustration: AGE 21.] [Illustration: AGE 30.] [Illustration: AGE 36.] [Illustration: AGE 54.] THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON. BORN 1834. Most men born to be great preachers have, at the age of twenty-one, not yet attempted their first sermon. Four years before that age Mr. Spurgeon, "the boy preacher," was speaking every Sunday to a crowd which overflowed the chapel doors and mobbed the very windows. Before 1855--the date of our first portrait--he had been called to London, and was drawing such a throng to the chapel in New Park-street, that the building had speedily to be enlarged. That year was also memorable for another reason; in January Mr. Spurgeon issued the first sermon of the unexampled series which was to run without an interruption, week by week, for five-and-thirty years. Long before the date of our second portrait, the New Park-street chapel, in spite of its enlargement, had become too small to hold the congregation. The Metropolitan Tabernacle was erected, and from that time down to this has been crowded every Sunday to the doors. For leave to reproduce the portraits above given, our thanks are due alike to Mr. Spurgeon, and to Messrs. Passmore & Alabaster, to whom the copyright belongs. [Illustration: _From a Photo. by Miss Bond, Southsea._ AGE 8.] [Illustration: _From a Photo. by Window & Grove._ AGE 18.] [Illustration: _From a Photo. by Window & Grove._ AGE 28.] [Illustration: _From a Photo. by Window & Grove._ PRESENT DAY.] MISS ELLEN TERRY.