A review of the circumstances attending the origin and career of John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, furnishes a subject of peculiar interest. Born, as we have observed, outside the legal pale, and as a consequence, subject to all its worldly disadvantages, this drawback appears to have found no hindrance to his advancement on the path of life, which ultimately led--short of sovereignty--to the highest station it had to offer. This result exhibits another striking instance of those marvellous careers, that have so often waited upon these natural children of mankind, who bearing down all obstacles in their way, and contemptuous of the goody-goody frowns and askant glances of their more piously-bred neighbours, by the force of their character, and the self-reliance engendered by what is termed misfortune of birth, have achieved the position of standing among the leaders and rulers of their race. Examined by the light of common sense, the cause of this innate distinction is perhaps not far to seek. In its highest and truest sense, such have received their being under the strongest impulses that animate the human heart, knit by the influence of attachment often so powerful, that no present consequence, or after consideration received at the time a moment's parley, and Nature in the result asserts the aristocracy of her lineage; whereof the life of the Archbishop is a notable example. Proscribed doubtless, then as now, by the social world from assuming equality with them, and unable therefore to pursue any of the usual worldly professions with equal chances of success, it is refreshing to find the highest human vocation, the office of the Christian minister, was at his acceptance,--the Church opened her door to the human waif,--who was destined afterward to become her chief pastor. From his presumed father--as usual--he received scant help, but five years before his death, Sir Humphrey bestowed on him a costless gift, by presenting the future Archbishop to the family living of Farnboro', in the diocese of Bath and Wells,--a See he afterward presided over. The close affection also that evidently existed between the Archbishop and his mother, cemented doubtless by the circumstances of his birth, and her consequent comparative isolation from society, is a delightful trait in his character; and it may be fully surmised caused him to take her to Canterbury, there to become a Sister of the religious house, of which fraternity he was a Brother, in order that she might be well cared for, and be near him, and where she probably passed the last twenty years of her life. She lived long enough to see her distinguished son ascend the Archiepiscopal throne, and as Lord Chancellor also to the reigning sovereign, King Henry VI., become at once the first citizen of his native land, both in Church and State; a remarkable privilege, that few mothers indeed,--no matter what distinction of birth or station they inherited,--have been destined to witness.