i.] ANTECEDENTS. 15 



duction because his family likeness proclaimed 

 him to be the son of an old friend. The English- 

 man did not conceal his difficulties, and the 

 stranger actually lent him the sum he needed 

 on the guarantee of his family likeness, con- 

 firmed, no doubt, by some conversation. In this 

 and similar instances how small has been the 

 influence of nurture ; the child had developed 

 into manhood, along a predestined course laid 

 out in his nature. It would be impossible to 

 find a converse instance in which two persons, 

 unlike at their birth, had been moulded by simi- 

 larity of nurture into so close a resemblance that 

 their nearest relations failed to distinguish them. 

 Let us quote Shakespeare again as an illustra- 

 tion ; in "A Midsummer- Night's Dream" (iii. 2), 

 Helena and Hermia, who had been inseparable 

 in childhood and girlhood, and had identical 

 nurture 



" So we grew together, 

 Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 

 But yet a union in partition," 



were physically quite unlike : the one was short 

 and dark, the other tall and fair ; therefore, the 



