We are a practical people, we English, enthusiastic for physical
-science, eager for wealth, desirous, above all things, of increasing the dominion of man over Nature and her forces. In this genera- tion our two representative men in that work have been Professor Wheatstone and the late Mr. Faraday. Consequently, it is stated 'that the Government intend to grant Mr. Wheatstone a Knight- hood—to elevate him to the position of a Mayor who has entertained -a Prince—and it is certain that it will require pressure to get Faraday's pension continued to his wife, who is in need of it. It is all their own fault, of course. Faraday ought to have wasted his life in a futile endeavour to protect patents, as poor Henry 'Cori did, and then his heirs would have been rich ; and Mr. Wheat- atone ought to have devoted his genius for subtle observation to. electioneering, and then he would have been made a Baronet or a Peer ; but still the country does not seem quite content with the perfection of its arrangements. Suppose Mr. Disraeli, who is suspected of a suspicion that brain-work is useful, improves them just a little—say, by establishing a Knight Companionship of the Brain, with a pension attached to the decoration ?
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