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 a popular writer anxiously searching the catalogue, with a bundle of proofs under his arm. He proffered his assistance, as he was merely reading at large for a few days, and would be glad to have an object. "Oh," said the author with a sigh, "I want to know the colour of So-and-so's hair, and I don't know where to find out." My friend spent three days in discovering this fact, and observed, when the book appeared, that the information was used in a description of the hero at a great crisis of his fortunes: "He stood with his shock of red hair and flashing eyes," etc. Now in this case it is obvious that the judgment on which the book was written was formed first, and then picturesque details were sought to deck it out. I have sometimes meditated whether or no the judgment would have been the same if the writer had known at first that his hero had red hair. As we are affected in daily life by personal appearance as an index of character, so we might well be affected by some corresponding conception of temperament in great men of the past. Historical portraits are very valuable; the knowledge how a man's appearance impressed those who saw him is equally valuable. No outburst of description makes a man real. This is only possible by a sympathy between the writer and his character, which penetrates all that he says of him. A large, yet consistent, representation is the best form of picturesqueness in this important field. The danger of an excessive desire for picturesqueness is that it leads to a purely external view of the course of affairs. The writer passes hastily from one strongly marked personality to another, from one