Our Portrait Gallery 



401 



would appear that its rhizomorphs must be almost ubiquitous, 

 for there is no trace of it elsewhere. Against the belief that 

 its spores have been wind-blown is the fact that none of the 

 dead or dying branches, of which there are plenty on the 

 neighbouring trees, have been attacked. That fact, you must 

 admit, points to its having killed the tree, for how if the tree 

 first died could melleus have found it out ? 



We admit the inference, but we still beg to ask why are not 

 the other trees attacked ? 



Professor : Perhaps they will be some time. 



OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. 



We gave as the Frontispiece to our last Gazette a fine 

 portrait of Erasmus from a print not often reproduced. The 

 one more usually copied is that which we now supply. 

 Making allowance for difference in head-dress and for the 

 presence of a flowing beard in the one and its absence in 

 the other, it may be said that the features are the same. 

 There is the same arched nose, the same eyebrows, and the 

 same lower lip. The mouth is, however, smaller in the 

 frontispiece portrait than in the other. Both represent a 

 man past middle age, the latter of a decidedly old man. In 

 both the features reveal Jewish descent, and it is known that 

 one at least of Erasmus' parents was of that race. In him 

 we may claim another example of the advantages of mixed 

 blood. Erasmus was not only a man of rare attainments and 

 most extensive culture, but possessed a force of intellect and 

 clearness of insight which constituted genius. He was a 

 lover of knowledge for its own sake, for he knew its value 

 to humanity. Free from the prejudices alike of nationality 

 and of superstition, he attained a wide outlook on the destinies 

 of the human family. This kind of unimpassioned grasp of 

 realities and ability to value them at their true worth is, it 

 may be suggested, rarely gained, excepting by those who are 



