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Rh He opened the volume;—it was Margaret Lindsay. "You need not blush so deeply about it; for I own I think it one of the most touching stories I ever read. I wonder very much, that in these days, when literature circulates as generally as money, an edition of Margaret Lindsay has not been printed for circulation among the lower classes. An appetite for reading is eagerly cultivated; but the necessity of proper and wholesome food has not been even yet sufficiently considered. Knowledge is the sine quâ non; but it is forgotten that moral is, to say the least, as useful as historical or scientific knowledge." "May I," replied Spenser, "hazard an opinion, or rather an impression—that I doubt the great advantage of the biographies of eminent men, who have arisen by their own efforts, being sedulously held up as examples to the lower classes. If great talents really exist, these very instances prove that example was not necessary to call them into action; and if they do not, the apparent ease and the high success which attended those objects of their emulation, are calculated rather to cause delusive hopes than a beneficial effect. Our self