The horse classes, however, afford the two
most effective scenes of a Royal Show, though
denied to a Smithfield Club Show. Each morning
there is a cavalcade to and from the yard
to the stables. Then successively pass along the
long-maned, long-tailed, thick-necked, fat, and
shining sires, pawing, whinnying, screaming,
rearing, restrained by the sharp bit and chain and
coaxing words of their attendant grooms; there
are the huge dray-horses, elephantine in size,
stately in gait, reminding one of the impossible
chargers Rubens loved to paint as war-horses—-
horses that must have charged at a walk; then the
brilliant red Suffolks, the most high-bred of all the
cart breeds; the Clydesdales of many colours,
mottled grey and rich brown prevailing,
distinguished by their activity not less than their
height; and then the commonalty of bays, and
blacks, and greys, and roans, all as fat, as
round, as sleek, as the utmost grooming and an
unlimited supply of corn, sugar, and oil-cake
can make them. The thorough-bred sires, the
perfection of beauty, not leggy and wire-
drawn as they appear on the turf, but plump,
and sleek, and shining. The mares, equally
fat and sleek, often with whinnying foals, but
less proud and fractious, follow; and after
them a series of hobbledehoy colts and fillies,
ponies and hacks, and hunters sent in for local
prizes. But at Leeds a new feature was added
to the Show, and new interest to the horse
department, by a daily march out into a
prepared roped ring, where, before thousands of
anxious critical spectators, each sire of quality
was successively trotted round and round, his
name being duly announced as he entered.
Thus, at the same moment, a dozen thorough-
bred stallions, succeeded by as many dray and
cart sires, paraded triumphantly, and for more
than two hours found an undimiuished still excited
ring of spectators.

MARKS OF GENIUS.

SOME time ago, the author of this paper, having
fallen into a very low state of mind in consequence
of a perfectly futile attempt to comprehend
one work on the History of Civilisation,
and another on the Human Understanding, was
sent away by his friends to a quiet place near
the sea, and placed under the care of some
relatives—most respectable persons for their station
in life. Books were strictly forbidden; but the
family library, not being of a dangerous character,
was left unlocked. It consisted (exclusive of
several Prayer-books and a green-baized, brass
-clasped Bible) of a Murray's Grammar and
Magnalls Questions, a Ready-reckoner, an odd
volume of Harvey's Meditations, and a curious
old biography. As the recluse did not want to
learn arithmetic or grammar, and never yet
could make out why people persist in writing
down meditations, he fell back upon the biography,
and, in the course of his reading, arrived
at some facts which startled him. Whether they
are new or not he does not pretend to say. He
therefore offers them to the reader, in order that,
if they are novelties, he may also enjoy the pleasure
of being startled.

First of all, he made out that it is impossible
to be a genius and a big man at the same time.
The heaven-born spark, the divine afflatus, must
not be lodged in too ample a tenement. It is
not impossible to find great ability and energy
established in a bulky habitation of flesh and
blood, but then there are so often drawbacks
attendant upon this. Thus, Ariosto, Johnson,
and Scott were all three burly fellows. But
then Johnson shook and rolled about like a
huge jelly-fish, Scott was paralysed from childhood,
and Ariosto was ill made. Caius Patroculus
says that Caesar exceeded his fellow-
citizens in stature, but then he seems to have
had no hair on his chin, and very little on his
head. Alfred the Great was tall and stout, but
weakly from his childhood to the close of his
noble and eventful life. M. Guillard fixed the
height of the illustrious Charlemagne, a very
practical man, and no unworthy follower of
Sigbert and Clovis, at six feet and a quarter of
an inch. Columbus was tall and well formed.
Cromwell was a big fellow; and Buffon and
Boerhaave, quite as able men in their way, and
perhaps much more useful, were tall, commanding,
and powerful in their build.

But these are striking exceptions, and the
utmost height even such favoured mortals attain
to is about six feet, or the minimum size for the
Guards. This is an exceedingly painful
statement to make, as the imagination naturally
connects great deeds with a lofty presence. The
older writers clearly looked upon them as
inseparable. It was ever the Achilles, the Hercules,
the Theseus that charmed the mind. It was to
no purpose that great Homer drew his portraits
of the crafty Ulysses and spear-shaken Tydaeus
from nature; that he made the one a square,
high-shouldered Greek, after true varmint build;
the other,

Whose little body lodged a mighty mind,

like our own Roebuck, or the renowned William
the Testy, whose magnanimous spirit utterly
consumed him. It was all in vain; the Greeks
continued to lay as much stress upon height as
at the Horse Guards, and fined a little general
(Agesilaus) for marrying a little woman. The
ridicule of Addison was powerless against the
despotism of belief; the genius of Gariick had
to bow to the influence of a long-cherished
creed—the immortal little actor could not play
Hamlet (who seems, after all, to have been a fat
imbecile young man, of very moderate personal
attractions) without an extra inch of leather on
his heels; while Johnson felt himself almost
bound to apologise for Milton not being "of
the heroic stature."

And yet history tells us that the masters of
the intellectual world at least, and very often
of the material part of it too, were frequently
enough insignificant, though respectable, looking
persons. Alexander the Great was a wry-necked
little monarch; others have rather extolled his
beauty not an uncommon attribute of great
genius; Napoleon, certainly a very handsome