294 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



upon the nether hmbs with which beneficent Provi- 

 dence had provided them. To us living at the present 

 day, it seems almost impossible to believe that so 

 many distinguished men, whose names figure in history, 

 or whom we know only through their biographers, 

 should have flourished and had their being within 

 the short period of one hundred years ago ; yet such 

 was the case. There was alive then, Napoleon 

 Bonaparte, who was at the zenith of his power ; he 

 did not die until 1821. The man who conquered him, 

 and who was instrumental in his deposition, Arthur, 

 Duke of Wellington, did not quit this world till 1852, 

 and a hundred years ago he was only a lad of nineteen. 

 It is a circumstance worthy of recording, that Bonaparte 

 and Wellington were born on the self-same day and 

 year. 



In the year 1788 Nelson was also alive, being 

 at that time only a post-captain ; it was not till some 

 ' years afterwards that he became the distinguished 

 admiral and England's greatest naval hero. 



Amongst ecclesiastics were Wesley and Whitfield. 

 The great lawyers of the day were Sir William 

 Blackstone and Sir Samuel Romilly. Poetry was repre- 

 sented by Cowper, Burns, Shelley, and Keats, whilst 

 this period was rich in historians, since there were 

 David Hume, Gibbon, the author of " The Rise and 

 Fall," and Dr. Robertson. Smollett had died in 1771, 

 consequently he did not live within the hundred years^ 

 although well within the last century. As for authors 

 of more general literature, Dr. Johnson just escaped 

 living within this period, since he died in 1784. 

 Oliver Goldsmith, too, had not long been dead. Adam 

 Smith, to whom we are indebted for " The Wealth 

 of Nations," was alive ; so was Boswell, Johnson's 



