lively picture of Rugby as it was a hundred years ago, mentioning the number of classes, the authors read, the price of school-books used, and the most minute domestic details. Three-quarters of a pound of meat James considered rather above the mark" for a boy's dinner, half a pound rather below, except immediately after the holidays, when he had plenty of money in his pocket. There are letters from Hawtrey and Longley showing how much the method of teaching at Eton and Harrow was altered in imitation of Butler's reforms at Shrewsbury.

THE death is announced of Mr. Francis Hitchman, author and journalist. Mr. Hitchman was perhaps best known by his "Public Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield," which has reached three editions; but he was also the author of several other works, among them, "The Life of Pius IX.," The Life of Sir Richard Barton, " and 66 Eighteenth Century Studies," while he edited with copious annotations "Coningsby" and "The Runnymede Letters." Mr. Hitchman was for some time assistant editor of the Standard, and for ten years editor of the Manchester Courier. He was also a contributor to the Quarterly Review and many other periodicals.

MR. DAVID DOUGLAS is about to publish a volume containing accounts of Scotland by travellers who visited that country prior to the eighteenth century. These accounts, many of which are both curious and interesting, have never before been brought together in any form. The book will be edited by Mr. P. Hume Brown, author of "The Life of George Buchanan,"

UNDER the management as well as the editorship of M. Octave Uzanne, Le Livre Moderne, which has replaced Le Livre, will not aim at a long existence. To suit le dandyisme des sélections rares et délicates," from which long series are banished, and to remain before all things bibliophilesque, it will at the close of this or next year be brought to a conclusion, and succeeded by something still more fin de siècle.

SOME time ago we announced the publication of the " Correspondence between King Maximilian II, and Schelling," brought to light from the private and public State archives at Munich. Now we learn that Dr. L. Trost, one of the editors of that volume, will shortly issue from the same source the "Correspond.

ence between Louis I. and his Son, King Otto of Greece," which is expected to contain some interesting facts regarding that country.

A SCOTTISH clergyman, Mr. James Hay, min. ister of Kirn, is going to issue a new work on Swift, in which he will propound a novel theory of Swift's relations to Stella and Van

essa.

MR. W. CONNOR SYDNEY-a well-known student in the British Museum-has nearly finished printing a work in two volumes, to be entitled "England and the English in the Eigh. teenth Century: Chapters in the Social History of the Times." The work is based upon a careful investigation of original sources of information, particularly the curious and voluminous collection of MSS. relating to national manners and morals under the House of Brunswick, made by Francis Place, the political reformer, and now deposited in the British MuMr. Sydney has also drawn largely from the Fleet Registers, preserved at Somerset House. His book will be published by Messrs. Ward & Downey.

seum.

THE Wyclif Society was beginning to congratulate itself that it was half through its work, the printing of all the Reformer's MS. Latin treatises; but it has just received from St. Petersburg the tidings that a mass of Wyclif MSS. exists there, no doubt removed from Warsaw when the Russians captured that city. Rumor says that the executive committee hope that no fresh treatises are among these MSS.; for if there are many, a fresh Wyclif Society will be needed to print them.

THE Academy makes the following comment on recently discovered Washington genealogy: 'Mr. Moncure D. Conway has added a fresh link to the chain of evidence that connects

George Washington with the Sulgrave family. In the Academy of October 26, 1889, was printed an analysis of the genealogical researches by which Mr. H. F. Waters succeeded in almost demonstrating that the two brothers, John and Lawrence, who emigrated to Virginia circa 1657, were the sons of the Rev. Lawrence Washington, of the Sulgrave family, by his wife Amphillis. This John was the greatgrandfather of George Washington. His will, which has long been sought for in vain, has now been found by Mr. Conway, and printed in the Nation of December 18. It is dated September, 1675, and was proved in January, 1677. Unfortunately, the only mention of his

A CHRISTMAS AT HOLYROOD IN THE DAYS OF MARIE STUART.-The group at the chapel-door melts away, the gazers from the Canongate and the High Street disperse, and Marie has passed to her own apartments in the old northwestern tower, followed only by a few nobles whose business brings them into close relationship with her. Secretary Lethington, Randolph, Buchanan, also Archibald, Earl of Argyle, the Lord Justice General of the kingdom, who had a long story to tell the queen about Master William Balfour, from Leith, brought up yesterday before the Criminal Court and charged with rioting to restore the Popish religion, he having come openly into the church of St. Giles with sundry others like himself when godly Master John Carnys was examining or catechising the common people prior to the last Communion, and when the said John asked a poor old woman "if she had any hope of salvation by her own works," this William Balfour had cried out, "Master Carnys, you demand of this poor old woman what neither you nor any of your opinion either allow or keep." Then Master Carnys had turned and reviled him, and William, being hot-blooded, had cried out at last, "Sir, you are a very knave; and both you and your doctrines are very false." The queen's eyes gleamed with suppressed fun as Argyle narrated what he termed the unseemly tumult caused in the kirk by such language, unsuited to any place of Christian worship. The conduct of the Protestant lords and their language in her own Chapel Royal, when first after her arrival she heard Mass there, may have floated through her mind, but she was bound to listen patiently and approve when Argyle told her how this William was bound by sureties in a thousand pounds Scots money to appear before an assize on the following December 31. So he prosed on concerning the cases brought before him, and the state of the kingdom as regarded crimes, safer than for merly he said, though there had been a fair number of notoricus rascals hanged, and the body of William Cadenhead, who had stolen the Earl Marshall's bob-tailed horse, was still dangling from the gallows in the Borough. muir. Whereat Marie shuddered somewhat,

and bent over her needlework, which she usually brought to business meetings. Most diligent was she in seeing and conferring with her statesmen while in Edinburgh, but when away hawking in the summer-time at Craig Millar Castle, spending whole days in the saddle, or gay as a child with her maidens among the pleasant hills of Fife, she cast all care and State to the winds. "I sent for you," she said to Randolph, once in Fife, to be merry, and to see how, like a bourgeois wife, I live with my little troop, and you will interrupt our pastime with great and grave matters.' Here at Holyrood, however, she was a queen, and presided with sweet dignity over her Council. Her cloth of State bore the impresa which so puzzled Randolph and others of the raconteurs of the day, the serpent of eternity surrounding the interlaced triangle, so full of mystic meaning, and the motto, ma fin est mon commencement," testifying, as Agnes Strickland points out, her hope of a better inheritance, when the mortal should have put on immortality, a warning now in her brilliant youth, a consolation in the wintry days of adversity.

"En

But Council business was brief this blithe Christmastide; there was a royal dinner party to come, and festivities after, to which all the élite of the Scottish nobility were bidden, and very curious it is that with so much that is dim and mysterious in that old time, we can yet read the very menus of their dinners and appraise the price of every article, as, for instance a pint of Bordeaux wine, 12d.; a pint of sherry, 10d.; a quart of good ale, 8d.; a capon, 12d.; great chickens, 6d.; a gryse or pig, 12d. All Scots money be it observed, which is but one-twelfth of the same amount sterling. The board was richly adorned, and very tasteful with all its profusion; the claws of the pheasants were gilt, the peacock came to table with all hisrich plumage. The boar's head was garnished with rosemary, and had a lemon between his mighty fangs. And then, when the cloth was drawn, came the revels, but sorely had these old merrymakings so dear to the Scottish heart been shorn of their glory by the dour Lords of the Congregation. Only last May-day, the time-honored sports of choosing Robin Hood and the Abbot of Unreason and the Lord of Misrule had been interfered with by some of the Covenanters, and some honest citizens had found themselves lodged in the Tolbooth, and then their comrades had made a rush for the rescue, and the guard had fired on the people, and a general

fray out of which were several cases in the criminal courts in the following July. But at Holyrood, for this Christmas at least, the old masking and mumming and merrymaking shall go on even as it did before these grim-visaged Protestants ever protested against our national gayety. Ay! and dancing, too, though up there in the Canongate Master Knox may thunder from his little preaching window against all such as dare to dance, which is a deadly sin. And so the hours wear themselves away, until the silence of night falls over Marie Stuart's first Christmas at Holyrood, and in spite of Master Knox and the Lords of Congregation, in spite of Buchanan and his vile Detection," in spite of Elizabeth of England and all the political intrigues, she has won the place and title she is never more to loseQueen of Scotland, but still more Queen of Scots, in the hearts of her loyal subjects was and ever will be her truest and firmest throne. -Newbery House Magazine.

PLACES THAT HAVE BEEN BENEFITED BY FICTION. -How many people realize that American tourists leave in this country from twelve to twenty millions sterling at least per annum ! Such is the fact. Does anybody imagine that they come here to look at our buildings and streets? No. Upon reflection, nobody can fail to see that the main reason why the bulk of them visit us is to see the places made memorable by Shakespeare and Jonson, Scott and Burns, Dickens and Thackeray, George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë, Blackmore and Black, The indebtedness of Gradgrind to romance is, therefore, by no means inconsiderable, particularly when it is remembered that we, too, spend a considerable sum yearly in the same direction. Shakespeare has indirectly be. stowed millions of pounds on the inhabitants of those places with which his name is associated. Not to mention Stratford-on-Avon, there is, for example, Rochester, a town which unites recollections of the great dramatist and of Dickens. Near Gad's Hill stands an inn on the very spot that Shakespeare doubtless had in mind when writing that scene in Henry IV. where Falstaff meets with the "men in bnckram. Round about, as everybody knows, are many buildings and districts made famous by the creator of the Pickwick Club. To this neighborhood American pilgrims come in shoals, either before going or after having gone round such bits of Dickens's London as still remain, Scott, even while living, enriched whole districts. When "St. Ronan's Well"

The

was published, the notables of the little town honored in the romance "voted by acclamation," says Lockhart, "that the old name of Innerleithen should be, as far as possible, dropped thenceforth, and that of St. Ronan's adopted. Nor were they mistaken in their auguries. An unheard of influx of water bibbers forthwith crowned their hopes; and spruce 'hottles' and huge, staring lodging. houses soon arose to disturb woefully every association that had induced Sir Walter to make Innerleithen the scene of a romance. Nor were they who profited by these invasions of the genius loci at all sparing in their demonstrations of gratitude. The traveller reads on the corner of every new erection there Ab. botsford Place,' Waverley Row,' The Marmion Hotel,' or some inscription of the like coinage." Such was one case in point. interest in the works of the Northern Magician has, since his death, scarcely, if at all, dimin. ished. Abbotsford itself is still so popular a resort that the fees paid by visitors amount to about £400 a year; and tourists go about in as great numbers as of yore, the " Lady of the Lake, ," "Marmion," or one of the "Scotch novels" in hand, looking up the places they have long pictured in imagination, with much the same feelings that Cobden had when he visited Burns's birthplace. "He describes himself," says John Morley, as boiling over with enthusiasm upon approaching' Alloway's auld haunted kirk,' the Brig o' Doon, and the scene of Tam o' Shanter's headlong ride," though the hero worship was driven out of him, as it has been out of many other tourists, by the inevitable utilitarian who is pretty sure to be knocking about a place hallowed by great deeds or celebrated by words that live. On the principle that the punishment should fit the crime, such men ought to have blasting operations constantly going on in their back garden and be made to turn a treadmill in order to get to bed.-Cassell's Saturday Journal.

A FIND OF OLD CHINA.-About one hundred and fifty years have now elapsed since the Swedish bark Göteborg, in full sail for Europe, encountered a heavy gale when nearing the coast of Sweden, struck upon a dangerous rock, foundered, and became a total wreck. She was the property of an association of merchants of Gothenburg, and was returning from China laden with a cargo of silk, silver, tea, and a great quantity of valuable articles of Chinese manufacture, including upward of thirty thousand blue-and-white china bowls of

A small

different shapes and sizes. Some years ago attempts were made by divers to raise the cargo; and, after great difficulties, their arduous efforts were rewarded with success, and many thousands of unbroken china articles were brought to the surface, consisting principally of plates, teacups, and bowls of various designs and qualities. quantity of silver plate was also discovered, which was evidently intended for the royal family of Sweden, as it was embellished with the monogram of Frederick I. A great number of the teacups were particularly fine and elegantly shaped, being almost equal to glass in transparency. It had, no doubt, been in. tended to smuggle in a portion of the pottery and silverware, as the divers found that many hundreds of these articles were carefully hidden away in the hold of the vessel. There is even a tradition in the neighborhood that the Göteborg was purposely run aground by the officers and crew; and it is believed that many valuables were removed from the ship soon after she struck upon the rock. The bulk of the cargo was, however, ultimately brought to England and the market literally flooded with these blue-and-white bowls. It was at this time that the rage for old and Ori. ental china was at its height. Considerable excitement was created by the strange discovery of these thousands of curious bowls; and the interest attaching to the fact of their hav. ing remained for so many years beneath the sea, together with the dangers and difficulties which attended their recovery, caused them at first to realize high prices as curiosities. Unfortunately, however, for the promoters of the scheme, the craze, which was then at its zenith, commenced to decline rapidly, and the financial result of the enterprise proved so disastrous that the company which made the explorations was thrown into liquidation.— Chambers's Journal.

THE REVIEWER ON SHELLEY'S " SKYLARK." -If Shelley were unknown, were alive, and were to publish his "Skylark" to-day, says Mr. Andrew Lang, in Longman's Magazine, one can well imagine how it would be review. ed.

"Mr. Shelley, for a young poet, is singularly careless both in his rhyme and his reason, if one may call that reason which is a mere tissue of incongruous metaphors. He makes spirit rhyme to near it,' and accents the penultimate in 'profuse' in his very first stanza. Next, his lark is like a cloud of fire,' a pyrotechnic simile which is justified

6

neither by observation nor by common sense. A lark is no more like a 'cloud of fire' than like a turnip. This extraordinary fowl is next said to float and run,' in the golden lightning of the setting sun,' whatever that may mean, The lark is an early bird, he does not haunt sunset hours, and he does not run like a red-legged partridge. Mr. Shelley's lark, which has been a cloud of fire, is next like a star of heaven in the broad daylight.' And why? Because, as Mr. Shelley informs us, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy loud delight.' He cannot, we presume, hear a star's delight, so the simile is nonsense. He might as well say that a brass band round the corner is like a star of heaven because he can

hear it, but cannot see it. Then the lark, which has just been like a star, because Mr. Shelley cannot see it (nor can we), is like the moon, because 'the heaven is overflowed' when night is bare.' 'What thou art we know not,' he observes, and by this time it is no wonder that he has forgotten what a lark is like, even in a lark pudding. Then come a string of things, nearly as like a lark as a whale, a poet hidden in the light of thought ' -or in the ink of this most random effusion a high-born maiden,' a glow-worm, & rose, and so forth. Mr. Shelley ends by saying that if he knew what a lark knows, harmonious madness from his lips would flow.' He can produce the madness already; it is only the harmony that Mr. Shelley needs to borrow from the bird. The world should listen then,' he adds. Perhaps it would listen then. We warn Mr. Shelley that it will not listen at present to this imitation of poetry, this sound without sense, in which 'gives' rhymes to leaves,' and 'known' to 'none. That would be the humor of it.

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RAJAHS ADVERTISING FOR EUROPEAN WIVES. -An Indian paper contains the following advertisements: "A Rajah of Bengal Province, having an Estate valued at 1,500,000 rs., the yearly income of which is 99,000 rs. after pay. ing the Government Revenue, wishes to correspond with a respectable European Young Lady in the view of Matrimony.-Enclose photograph, which will be returned, and address, etc." A respectable Native Gentleman with a large estate of 1,300,000 rs. wishes to get married to a respectable European Young Lady. Enclose address and photographs, which will be returned, to the Manager, etc., for submission to advertiser. The utmost secrecy assured.”

OITAN

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NOTHING strikes one more forcibly in reading the lives of some of the world's greatest artists than the difficulty they experienced in obtaining suitable materials in which to embody their immortal creations. What strenuous and painful efforts Benvenuto Cellini, for instance, was forced to make to induce even his most generous patrons to dole him out a little gold and silver to coin in the mint of his genius! Plated bronze, magniloquently termed "" silver,' was the most precious metal they cared to part with for the purpose; and even the historic block of marble over which Bandinelli broke his heart, and which Cellini's hands would have fashioned into such a Neptune as the world has never yet beheld, was denied him, and given to a mere architect.

Nature, in her dealings with heroic peoples, seems as close-fisted as royal patrons were wont to be toward their favorite NEW SERIES.-VOL. LIII., No. 3.

artists; and the noblest deeds in the world's history were performed upon barren hills, by the banks of tiny rivulets, and on Liliputian plains that would scarcely be missed out of the vast estate of a modern American corn-grower or Russian noble. It is thus that the malarial swamps, dreary wastes, and snow-clad mountains. of ancient Media were metamorphosed, by the energetic tribe that once dwelt there and produced Zarathustra, into a country of ideal order, the source of the brightest and purest religious light that ever burned in Pagan antiquity; it is thus that in more modern times the Dutch have worked out their political and religious ideals under most adverse conditions, stamping the indelible mark of order upon a heap of mud. snatched from the ocean's embrace; it is thus that the English have engraved many a thrilling page of the world's history and their own upon a haze-enveloped island of