This taint is not surprising in one so young, who has done so much, and in order to do it has been compelled to great self-confidence and light heed of the authority of other minds, and who is surrounded almost exclusively by admirers; neither is it, at present, a large speck; it may be quite purged from him by the influence of nobler motives and the rise of his ideal standard; but, on the other hand, should it spread, all must be vitiated.

Let us hope the best, for he is one that could ill be spared from the band who have taken up the cause of Progress in England.
In this connection I may as well speak of James Martineau, whom I heard in Liverpool, and W.J.Fox, whom I heard in London.
Mr.Martineau looks like the over-intellectual, the partially developed man, and his speech confirms this impression.

He is sometimes conservative, sometimes reformer, not in the sense of eclecticism, but because his powers and views do not find a true harmony.

On the conservative side he is scholarly, acute,--on the other, pathetic, pictorial, generous.

He is no prophet and no sage, yet a man full of fine affections and thoughts, always suggestive, sometimes satisfactory; he is well adapted to the wants of that class, a large one in the present day, who love the new wine, but do not feel that they can afford to throw away _all_ their old bottles.
Mr.Fox is the reverse of all this: he is homogeneous in his materials and harmonious in the results he produces.