th which he maintained a life-long connection was in his
early days the object of a regard mixed with awe, and always of pride
and devotion. He used to think President Styles the greatest of human
beings; and one reads with a kind of dismay, that he was once fined
sixpence for kicking a football into the President's door-yard.

There was in this grave youth the making of many kinds of greatness. He
who became so eminent in science could have been a great jurist, for he
had the tranquillity and perseverance necessary to legal success; he
could have been a great statesman, for his political views were clear
and just and far-reaching; he wrote some of the most popular books of
travels in his day, and he could have shone in literature; while he
appears to have been conscious of the direction in which a sole weakness
lay, and with early wisdom forsook the muse of poetry. He tells us that
it was no instinctive preference which led him to the study and pursuit
of the natural sciences, but the persuasion of Dr. Dwight, who was
President of Yale in Silliman's twenty-third year, and who opened this
career to him by offering him the Professorship of Chemistry, then about
to be established. At that time Silliman was studying law; but, once
convinced that he can be of greater use to himself and others in the way
proposed, he enters it and never looks back; goes to Philadelphia to
hear the learnedest professors of that day; goes to Europe for the
culture unattainable in this country; overcomes poverty in himself and
in Yale; will not be tempted from New Haven by the offer of the
Presidency of the University of South Carolina, but devotes himself to a
generous study of science, to the diffusion of scientific knowledge, and
the promotion of the greatness of the institution to which he belongs.
His devotion is not blind, however: he finds time to write attractive
accounts of his voyages to Europe, to concern himself in religious
affairs, to sympathize and cooperate with whatever is noble and good in
political movements. He lives long enough to enjoy his fame, to see Yale
prosperous and great, and his country about to triumph forever over the
evil of slavery, which he had hated and combated. It was a noble
life,--simple, pure, and illustrious,--and its history is full of
instruction and encouragement.

_Fifteen Days._ An Extract from EDWARD COLVIL'S Journal. Boston: Ticknor
and Fields.

This is a work of fiction, in which the passion