a traveller who has lost his way in a mist, or a navigator who is steering his ship without a compass.  The influence exercised by Mr. Mill does not chiefly depend upon the originality of his writings.  He did not make any great discovery which will form an epoch in the history of human thought; he did not create a new science, or become the founder of a new system of philosophy.  There is perhaps not so much originality in his “Political Economy” as in Ricardo’s; but there are thousands who never thought of reading Ricardo who were so much attracted by Mr. Mill’s book, that its influence might be traced throughout the rest of their lives.  No doubt one reason of his attractiveness as a writer, in addition to other circumstances to which allusion has already been made, is the unusual power he possessed in applying philosophical principles to the facts of ordinary life.  To those who believe that the influence Mr. Mill has exercised at the universities has been in the highest degree beneficial,—­to those who think that his books not only afford the most admirable intellectual training, but also are calculated to produce a most healthy moral influence,—­it may be some consolation, now that we are deploring his death, to know, that, although he has passed away, he may still continue to be a teacher and a guide.  I believe he never visited the English universities:  it was consequently entirely through his books that he was known.  Not one of those who were his greatest admirers at Cambridge, when I was an undergraduate, ever saw him till many years after they had left the University.  I remember that we often used to say, that there was nothing we should esteem so great a privilege as to spend an hour in Mr. Mill’s society.  There is probably no bond of attachment stronger than that which unites a pupil to one who has attracted him to new intellectual pursuits, and has awakened in him new interests in life.  Some four or five years after taking my degree, I met Mr. Mill for the first time; and from that hour an intimate friendship commenced, which I shall always regard as a peculiarly high privilege to have enjoyed.  Intimacy with Mr. Mill convinced me, that, if he had happened to live at either of the universities, his personal influence would have been no less striking than his intellectual influence.  Nothing, perhaps, was so remarkable in his character as his tenderness to the feelings of others, and the deference with which he listened to those in every respect inferior to himself.  There never was a man who was more entirely free from that intellectual conceit which breeds disdain.  Nothing is so discouraging and heart-breaking to young people as the sneer of an intellectual cynic.  A sarcasm about an act of youthful mental enthusiasm not only often casts a fatal chill over the character, but is resented as an injury never to be forgiven.  The most humble youth would have found in Mr. Mill the warmest and most kindly sympathy.