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Ignorance is universally contemned, and yet ignorance itself is universal. There is nothing more fiercely denounced than ignorance: yet, in general, they are most ignorant who denounce it most fiercely. All men are ignorant: and yet mankind is not a mass of ignorance; all men have knowledge: but man is not omniscient. Ignorance is comparative: there is not a man breathing who does not know something of which every other man breathing is ignorant. The great art is to conceal our ignorance; and this art is highly valuable, seeing that it constitutes the germ of knowledge: nay, the man who endeavours to conceal his ignorance, is already in possession of a most important branch of human knowledge—the knowledge of the ignorance he is anxious to conceal. Some men have a talent for the display of their ignorance. Such men are ignorant of their ignorance, and are consequently much to be pitied. To be ignorant of one's own ignorance is to be in the most profound state of ignorance in which a man can be involved. The common answer, "I don't know," is candid, but it is at the same time a very palpable manifestation of ignorance—and yet where, is the man who knows everything? There is not such a man upon earth. The lowest species of ignorance is that which prompts a man to think that he knows everything: and the highest caste of knowledge is that which makes him feel that in reality he knows only this—that he knows nothing. There are, however, men who are expected to know everything; but of this expectation disappointment must always be the fruit. Take our greatest men-men of the mightiest minds-men most highly distinguished for wisdom—how ignorant they are of those common things with which common men are conversant. A journeyman barber would curl his lip and look with feelings of contempt upon a head of hair cut by an astronomer: his exclamation doubtless would be, "He must be a hignoramus as cut this ear air!" Nor is it unworthy of belief that there is not one statesman in a thousand, either native or foreign, who knows how to cut out a pair of short gaiters. Place Wellington and Napier in the kitchen, and Gunter and Ude in the field, and what consummate ignorance would be displayed by them all! But this term ignorance is applied with more indiscrimination than any other. A is said to be ignorant by B, because he happens not to know that which B knows, albeit he knows that of which B himself is ignorant. Tom thought the clerk at the police-office ignorant, because he professed not to know exactly how to spell "bed'cide;" he thought the magistrate ignorant; he thought the officers ignorant; indeed, the only man in