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CIV SOME NOTICK OF THE
diligent than he was in the search for evidence or more
capable of testing its value.
In reflecting on the great zeal for learning and accornplish-
inrnt displayed by him and his brother one is inclined to
ask whence came this desire to shine and to excel ? His
eldest brother William Haliday was a prodigy of learning
for he was only that age when
before he was twenty-four ;
he died.
We find the author of the present work giving himself
up to study, in a career so inimical to letters, with such
zeal as to hurt his health.
"
I feel it now," said he to me
one day not six years before his death. They had no- com-
panions winning fame at the bar to stimulate their rivalry ;
they had no hopes of getting into Parliament ; competition
for the public service was not yet dreamt of. The family
was not moving in so high a circle as to make such
accomplishments necessary or even acceptable yet they
both dedicated all their efforts to training and exercising
their faculties.
It was a saying of one of the first masters of athletics in
ancient Greece that he could distinguish his pupils at a
distance even though only carrying meat from the market ;
so the sentiments of those who have received a polite
education exercise a similar influence over their manners.
And thus in the most trivial intercourse with Mr.
Haliday one could scarce fail to be sensible of the high
training his mind had undergone.
To me who enjoyed so much of his intimacy these
characteristics were most strikingly displayed. His reading
and recollection furnished him with a fund of anecdote
about the public men of his time, particularly of the period
of '
98 of this era he had read fill the literature besides
;
knowing personally some of the families of those concerned
in that rebellion. His memory was so retentive and
accurate and the style of his conversation was so pointed
and animated that our, Sunday dinners were to me a