owed without any desert whatever; and that title to
admiration and respect, which has died with ancestry, patriotism, and
suffering in the cause of freedom, is transferred from the illustrious
dead to the undistinguished living.

Without giving a catalogue _raisonne_ of the slow fellows, (we use the
term not disrespectfully, but only in contradistinction to the others,)
we may observe that, besides the public service in which the great names
are sufficiently known, you have poets, essayists, dramatists,
astronomers, geologists, travellers, novelists, and, what is better than
all, philanthropists. In compliment to human nature, we take the liberty
merely to mention the names of Lord Dudley Stuart and Lord Ashley. The
works of the slow fellows, especially their poetry, indicate in a
greater or less degree the social position of the authors; seldom or
never deficient in good taste, and not without feeling, they lack power
and daring. The smooth style has their preference, and their verses
smack of the school of Lord Fanny; indeed, we know not that, in poetry
or prose, we can point out one of our slow fellows of the present day
rising above judicious mediocrity. It is a curious fact, that the most
daring and original of our noble authors have, in their day, been fast
fellows; it is only necessary to name Rochester, Buckingham, and Byron.

Among the slow fellows, are multitudes of pretenders to intellect in a
small way. These patronize a drawing-master, not to learn to draw, but
to learn to talk of drawing; they also study the _Penny Magazine_ and
other profound works, to the same purpose; they patronize the London
University, and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, as
far as lending their names; for, being mostly of the class of
fashionable _screws_, they take care never to subscribe to any thing.
They have a refined taste in shawls, and are consequently in the
confidence of dressy old women, who hold them up as examples of every
thing that is good. They take chocolate of a morning, and tea in the
evening; drink sherry with a biscuit, and wonder how people _can_ eat
those hot lunches. They take constitutional walks and Cockle's pills;
and, by virtue of meeting them at the Royal Society, are always
consulting medical men, but take care never to offer them a guinea. They
talk of music, of which they know something--of books, of which they
know little--and of pictures, of which they know less; they have always