42 ATTAINABLE IDEALS. 



and lie ended his days in the dignity of knight- 

 hood, as keeper of Kiug George's private observa- 

 tory at Kew. But not more than one German 

 bandsman at a time can ever hope to preside with 

 distinguished success over the great national in- 

 stitution at Greenwich or Wasliington ; and it 

 has not been noticed that Sir William Herschel's 

 marvellous energy has succeeded in insjiiriiig 

 future musical performers with any profound in- 

 terest in the science of astronomy. So, again, 

 George Stephenson, engine-driver and inventor, 

 was brouglit up in a north-country colliery-vil- 

 lage, where he ran about barefoot among the 

 trucks and coal-heaps througliout his entire boy- 

 hood, never even learning to read and write till he 

 was over twenty; but lie lived to invent tlie first 

 truly practicable locomotive, and lie died a mil- 

 lionnaire among his halls and gardens, his peaches 

 and his pineries. Yet no large proportion of 

 north-country colliers have since collected for- 

 tunes of five millit)n dollars; nor is it conceivable 

 (even if it were desirable) that any great number 

 of people t(igether should ever rise to such a high 

 and giddy j)innacle of wealth. To be President 

 of the United States, to be Prime ]\Iinister, to be 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, to be Lord Chancellor, 

 to be the greatest painter, or the leading physician, 

 or the most popular author, or the finest singer, or 

 the biggest land-owner, or the richest merchant in 



