been there. Men revisit the
old school, though hateful to them, with ever so much kindliness and
sentimental affection. There was the tree under which the bully licked
you: here the ground where you had to fag out on holidays, and so
forth. In a word, my dear sir, YOU are the most interesting subject
to yourself, of any that can occupy your worship's thoughts. I have no
doubt, a Crimean soldier, reading a history of that siege, and how Jones
and the gallant 99th were ordered to charge or what not, thinks, "Ah,
yes, we of the 100th were placed so and so, I perfectly remember."
So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater
interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in
a different part of the field, and engaged, a young subaltern, in the
Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory.
"The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, his Heights of Abraham--sickly,
weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and fame of that great victory.

* Memorials of Thomas Hood. Moxon, 1860. 2 vols.

What manner of man was the genius who penned that famous song? What like
was Wolfe, who climbed and conquered on those famous Heights of Abraham?
We all want to know details regarding men who have achieved famous
feats, whether of war, or wit, or eloquence, or endurance, or knowledge.
His one or two happy and heroic actions take a man's name and memory out
of a crowd of names and memories. Henceforth he stands eminent. We scan
him: we want to know all about him; we walk round and examine him, are
curious, perhaps, and think are we not as strong and tall and capable as
yonder champion; were we not bred as well, and could we not endure
the winter's cold as well as he? Or we look up with all our eyes of
admiration; will find no fault in our hero: declare his beauty and
proportions perfect; his critics envious detractors, and so forth.
Yesterday, before he performed his feat, he was nobody. Who cared about
his birthplace, his parentage, or the color of his hair? To-day, by some
single achievement, or by a series of great actions to which his genius
accustoms us, he is famous, and antiquarians are busy finding out under
what schoolmaster's ferule he was educated, where his grandmother was
vaccinated, and so forth. If half a dozen washing-bills of Goldsmith's
were to be found to-morrow, would they not inspire a general interest,
and be printed in a hundred papers? I lighted upon Ol