"In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of hope and pleasure. It was to me the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field for every species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis of the world, of business, thought, and action. There, I was sure to find friends and companions, to hear the voice of encouragement and praise. There, society of the most refined sort offered daily its banquets to the mind, and new objects of interest and ambition were constantly exciting attention either in politics, literature, or science."
These feelings, so well described by a man of genius, have probably been felt more or less by most young men who have within them any consciousness of talent, or any of that enthusiasm, that eager desire to have or
