the French seem to assimilate most what is characteristic in the inhabitants of adjacent countries. A Basque of the French provinces is not easily discernible from his neighbour of the other side of the mountains; an inhabitant of French Flanders is almost a Belgian, and an Alsatian is but little removed from a German. Whatever else France may do, she must not, if the mission assigned her by the hopes of free men is to be fulfilled to the benefit of the world, allow proximity to Spain to Africanise her institutions.

IN

PLEASURES OF BOOK-COLLECTING.

N Mr. Lang's delightful book, "The Library," one of the most attractive contributions to bibliographical knowledge of recent days, there is an assumption against which, as a bibliomaniac, I feel bound to protest. It is that power to buy at the chief book-shops and auction-rooms, even though it be associated, as in the case of the old Duke of Roxburgh, with the ability to fish in the best of salmonstreams, constitutes happiness from the point of view of the bibliophile. In book-buying, as in other things, possession is dangerously near satiety. A book, to be thoroughly enjoyed, should either reach you as the reward of your own diligence or penetration, or come as the result of some sacrifice. Speaking for one individual, I never prized books more than the Withers, Carews, Brownes, or Daniels I purchased as a boy with the money given me to pay for my dinners. Middle age does not believe in "pinching the belly" to grace the bookshelves. Ability to purchase all that comes in your way is a dubious sort of blessing, and I doubt if a collector like the late Mr. Huth en joyed his possessions half as much as does the man described by Mr. Austin Dobson as "the slave of shelf and stall;" one of those whoHold

IN

Patched folios dear, and prize "the small
Rare volumes black with tarnished gold."

RECENT WRITERS OF BURLESQUE.

N the latest of his many gossiping and entertaining works upon the stage, "The World Behind the Scenes," Mr. Percy Fitzgerald pays a well-merited tribute to the fine humour of Mr. Planche's extravaganzas, and indeed to the many literary gifts of that esteemed dramatist. That Mr. Planché's more ephemeral work had in it qualities which he alone could impart is now conceded, and the five volumes of his plays, which were published by subscription, will some of these days be a dear, perhaps unattainable, book. There have,

however, been other writers of burlesque of days comparatively recent whose productions deserve to be rescued from the chance of disappearance. Some of the burlesques of Frank Talfourd are inimitably comic, and one or two of those of the Broughs are not less good. Talfourd's puns are the wildest ever known. Witness his famous conundrum: Why is a crockery-shop like a nursery?—Answer: Because it's full of coffee-cups and tea-things-cough, hiccoughs, and teethings. I remember a burlesque of one of the Broughs upon a Greek subject, produced at the St. James's, under the management, I believe, of Miss Herbert, in which the name of a Greek physician was given as Putaplasteron, and that of an agricultural labourer as Clodoppa. Mr. Fitzgerald's book is full of agreeable reminiscences and pleasant suggestions.

A SUGGESTED SPECULATION.

OTHING less than iniquitous is the manner in which the food supply of London is arranged in the interest of the vendor. Especially disgraceful is it as regards the provision for fish. While toil-worn millions of workers in our large cities are in a state not far removed from absolute want, tons of fish are cast upon the fields as manure. From the Billingsgate dealer down to the fisherman, all are in the conspiracy to keep up the price of what should be the cheapest form of food. This is a time of public companies. In place of the schemes for working distant mines and placing British capital under foreign control, why do not some capitalists start a cheap fish-supply association? This, while conferring a priceless boon upon the labouring poor, is bound, with judicious management, to prove one of the most remunerative of speculations. Everything, however, must be undertaken by the company. It must have its own smacks at our principal fishing-ports, its own sailors, its own carriages for conveyance, its own markets. Fish could then be supplied at a fourth of the price now demanded. At Whitby the other day fine herrings were being sold at a halfpenny each, and cod, in excellent condition, fetched eighteenpence. Some opposition from those interested in the preservation of existing monopolies is probable; a little firmness would, however, soon sweep this aside, and an investment likely to be little less profitable than the great water companies and the like would be supplied. When a company like this is started, and makes the fortune of all concerned, I shall expect a few shares for the suggestion.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER 1881.

THE COMET OF A SEASON.

MOST

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P.

CHAPTER XXXII.

ONCE MORE ON TOWER HILL.

OST of us have observed with curious interest some of the old Italian pictures with their apparently irreconcilable varieties of personages, incidents, scenes, and types of character crowded within the one frame. There is a feast or a wedding going on in one corner, a skirmish of high-plumed cavalry a little farther off, a palace in flames here, a waterfall there, a garden party of courtly dames and lovers in the foreground, while Jupiter and Juno, Venus and Bacchus, float in the air or recline on substantial clouds over the heads of the earthly personages.

Common life is like this more often than we are apt to imagine. Take this scene on Tower Hill, for example, the night when the Church of Free Souls was burnt; while that church, in fact, was still burning. Here, if one had had an opportunity of studying, he would have found that private loves and hates were at work, and were represented by persons who appeared to be only spectators of the fire. Private dislikes and class detestations, selfish personal interests and lofty public purposes, were illustrated unseen and unnoticed of all observers in the midst of that crowd and within the light of that conflagration. One might have imagined at first that those who stood and watched the fire were talking and thinking only of the fire. But if we try to discover what one or two groups here and there were talking or thinking of, and find that their talk and VOL, CCLI. NO. 1811.

LL

thoughts had little or no reference to the fate of the Church of Free Souls, we may perhaps not unreasonably infer that other groups of whose conversation we know nothing were sometimes equally indifferent as to what became of that temple, and were talking and thinking only of what concerned their immediate interest, as indifferent to the work of the flames as if it were but a family fireside, within whose comfortable glow they were seated.

Clement Hope did not, it is greatly to be feared, care much just at this moment whether the Church of Free Souls was to be saved or destroyed. He knew that all the people whose lives he valued were safe; he knew that the congregation generally were safe, and his thoughts soon became purely personal, not to say selfish. The expression in Geraldine's face when he let out his love was terrible to him; it was such an expression of alarm, it was so evidently genuine. It seemed like the death-sentence to his hopes, the wreck of his life. He fought his way recklessly through the crowd, meeting a face he knew here and a face he knew there, and passing on without a word of recognition. He had an impression of having looked into Frank Trescoe's face, and scen it livid with spite and wrath, and he wondered for half a moment, and then let all thought of Trescoe pass away. Frank Trescoe, too, was about this time little concerned for the fate of the Church of Free Souls.

Geraldine meanwhile found herself borne by the crowd down the narrow street where the Church of Free Souls stood, and was carried round the corner to the open space of Tower Hill. She found that she was separated from her companions. She was not in the least alarmed. To be brought up in an inland American community makes a girl brave as it makes her honest. Geraldine had not the least idea that any personal harm could come to her because she could no longer see Captain Marion or any of his friends. She knew she had only to wait quietly somewhere and they would seek for her. Tower Hill was densely crowded, on the side of the Tower itself; but luckily for Geraldine, the crowd was not great on the side where she found herself. Those who had rushed to the spot on the alarm of fire found, of course, that they could see the flames much better from the Tower side of the hill than from the other side on which the narrow street opened, and where, indeed, those who were compelled to take their stand saw nothing more of what was going on than an occasional burst of lurid light across the sky over their heads. Geraldine, therefore, found herself in comparative quietude. very many paces from the corner of the street in which the Church of Free Souls was burning, she saw a little entrance, a sort of court

with an iron gateway, which stood half open. There was a gas-lamp far down in the court, and she could see some neat-looking buildings of red brick, with brasses here and there that shone in the flickering light; the whole looking, as Geraldine thought even in that confused moment, temptingly like some Dutch interior in a picture. Nowhere could she be better off than standing back in this little court behind the closed half of the iron gateway, and waiting till some of her friends came up that way and found her. She had not been alarmed even while the crowd was yet within the church, and the flames were spreading over them. There was a curious sense of unreality, a savour of the theatrical in the whole affair, which prevented Geraldine from being awe-stricken or terrified. She had an odd whimsical consciousness all the time of a suspicion that the whole scene was got up by Montana for the dramatic business of his part. The idea, of course, was merely chimerical, but it so affected her mind as to prevent her from regarding the crisis with the seriousness which it certainly deserved. Now that she was out in the open air, that she saw the excited crowds all around, saw the red flames spreading broadly across Tower Hill, and heard the crash of the falling beams and rafters, the rattle of the fire-engines, the throb and splash of the hose, and the shouts and cheers and cries of the people, she became somewhat more impressed with a sense of what the reality was, and how terrible that reality might have been. Yet it must be owned that her thoughts were not for the moment fixed on the burning of the Church of Free Souls. The few hasty words that Clement had spoken had frightened her more than all the flame and crash of the fire. What could he have meant? Had she been mistaken in him all the time? With keen pain there was borne in upon her a memory of other words he had said, of looks and tones which at the time she had not dwelt on, but which now seemed to correspond only too well with the meaning, if she understood the meaning rightly, of the wild words he had spoken a few moments before. If that should prove to be so-if people had told her wrongly, or had been mistaken, about his supposed love for Melissa; if he really cared for her, and was ever led to believe that she cared for him— what a cruel misfortune for both of them! What ruin to two lives! How perplexed, how miserable her life would seem for the future! What was to be done now if this should prove to be true? If it should prove true? Already it seemed to be revealed to her conscience as if by light that it was true, and that she ought to have known of it before.

The crowd kept streaming on in front of her, new-comers always