of it in our own case, so little a part of persons where their powers of expression ourselves - but what he was. They and other social gifts do justice to their make the difference between a dead and matter -some country rector perhaps, a living record. If we can imagine the whose life has brought him in contact feelings of those who know that, whether with every class of the community, and they wish it or not, their life will certain- who has found something to exercise his ly be written by somebody, who cannot talent in them all. How schoolmasters, read an obituary notice in the Times and learned doctors, and original thinkwithout reflecting that their turn willers, and fine ladies, and country magcome some day, we can fancy how anx-nates, and rustics, relics of another state ious they must be that something of their of things, rise and stand before us and real selves may shine through the words, say their say by turns! Or it may be words, words, the flatteries, the bad hits, the last, least distinguished member of the mistaken surmises and interpreta- an illustrious literary circle, or some sole tions that too often make up the account. lingerer of an exclusive coterie fondly For we really cannot suppose any re- dwelling on the memories that are now spectable shade being pleased by flatter- his world. What strange exciting intering blunders. If he is still open to any course have we been holding; what darkterrestrial interests, if his name is stillness closes over all when death breaks dear, it must be as attached to its owner, with all his characteristics and even failings, himself surviving in it.

A knowledge of the facts which go to make up character is of course a distinct thing altogether from the power of picturing character. A picture of character, however well delineated and true to its subject, has been assimilated and, so to say, digested by the writer's mind. It does not show us the man through his own words, manners, aspects, but only the effect which these and his actions combined have produced upon an acute observer. Clarendon's characters give his own summary; they do not supply us with material on which to form our independent estimate. It is the pure gift of reproduction that some possess, manifesting itself accidentally and without intention, which brings a man and the times he lived in suddenly within our reach, carries us back, and revives the dead. Lively picturesque chroniclers who are to do so much for their generation are of Course scarce. Most people are too full of themselves or their objects to note the instruments through which these objects are attained; and mere busybodies or scandal-lovers are a distinct species. But some men are born observers and readers of their kind, of what people say and do apart from any personal concern. How people look when they say and do anything, with what words, what deportment, what tricks, graces, mannerisms all this is interesting to them, constitutes their intellectual exercise and amusement. Passion, malignity, prejudice, alike disqualify one for taking in correct impressions, and committing them to memory intact. Few things are more delightful than the conversation of such

the magic spell of graphic narrative! Or perhaps it is some keen-sighted, active-minded, well-memoried old maid, whose life has been passed in one spot, herself the depository of other memories, the receiver of old confidences. What can she not tell of the old times which of all old times are most universally interesting the times out of our reach, but with which we still own some personal relations! Taking her in the vein we are transported into another world; she rises into the historical. Old scenes, old state, and courtesies, rivalries, courtships, bitternesses, diversions start into being; and always with some marked differences from the received notions of the characters and incidents concerned. The private view very rarely indeed coincides with the view which the outside world has settled into. The images retained, the words and action which emphasize them, all present another picture from our previous conception. The character which posed so gracefully in common fame and report looks a good deal more lifelike and less typical of the lofty virtues, while names which have had an ill sound till now are humanized by redeeming points and shine in unexpected merits.

But oracles of this sort are not to be had for the seeking; the present is with most people an absolute superseder of the past. Nothing is more unsatisfactory than the effort to probe a memory. More especially is the expectation vain that people will remember best what is in itself most important; their personal interests must have been concerned before a sufficient primary impression is made. We try to get from the rustic of average intelligence what the place be

has lived in all his life looked like when lasts in living memory; and so of other he was young, and we are astonished at delights. How few can recall the exhil the oblivion that hangs over things which aration of the old-fashioned countryare called within the memory of man. | dance; how few remain who saw Mrs. He has never had words to describe a Siddons act, or heard Tom Moore sing, scene or an effect to himself. So the or Sydney Smith joke, or Coleridge talk. vanished old hall has left nothing de- Still, while the few live, we who hear scribable in his mind. What he has to them know something; but the soul of say of its vanished inhabitants is hardly their memories is fast passing out of the more distinct. The old squire used to world. And to descend to more familiar walk past his door with his hands behind examples. When a good cook dies his back; his daughter, once the cyno- one invested with a genius in intimate sure of some neighbouring eyes, is solely correspondence with all the materials of remembered for the little dog walking her art, who can foresee the influence of close at her heels, which had one jacket a condiment or an essence upon all with for summer and another for winter. Not which it comes in contact, who underthat such research is ever wholly fruit-stands combinations and prognosticates less. The old fellow warms up. He has results hidden from the vulgar — what had his triumphs, his jealousies, above knowledge dies out with her, knowledge all his grievances; and he cannot talk of incommunicable! Not that she would them without some visions of past days wilfully withhold it, like Lady Bustle, comrising before his auditor. The bed-rid- memorated in the "Rambler," who had den old matron, reviving old scandals, culinary secrets which she resolved should lets out old habits and manners by the perish with her; whose orange-pudding way; but it needs natural powers above was concocted with such mystery," while the common, and also a mind at leisure the household was dispersed in all direcfrom itself, to have much to tell of a past tions till the oven-door closed upon it, which in no other way concerned self and all inquiries were vain." The real but that it interested a mind open to im-mysteries of the kitchen need no such pressions.

reserve; they are knowledge in action But much of the knowledge that passes not reducible to words, else would not away has little relation to this aspect of so many a confection dear to memory be the question. What a store of learning a memory only. Other sauces of as subpasses out of the reach of ordinary men tle a refinement of flavour, other pudwhen a great scholar dies, or a skilful dings of as ethereal an excellence, may doctor, or a subtle, hard-headed lawyer! be in being as we write; but the particuAnd it is learning of a kind which they lar combinations that enriched and poetcannot leave behind them, for the gath-ized our youth, and swell the heart in erings of a lifetime cannot be passed on recalling them, are a lost knowledge, in the form in which they exist in the things irrecoverable, alms for oblivion. mind's experience. The old labourer who Throughout all this range of losses we has spent his life's strength on one farm are lamenting over the inevitable. The cannot transfer his intimate acquaintance world has not room for all knowledge; in with the soil, and with every hedge and every active state of society new knowlditch and drain which have been his edge must supersede the old. If all peoworld. Every person whose business ple who had nothing else to do employed makes him acquainted with the charac-their leisure in reproducing their past, ters of men, through contact with their they would not find hearers. Old-world good and bad qualities, carries away with histories owe much of their attractivehim much important knowledge not trans-ness to their rarity, and each age has ferable. How many rogues must rejoice worthies of its own who must not be negwhen the ideal detective quits this lower lected for those who preceded them. scene! But, besides this, there are la-Yet such reflections may have their use bours and natural products of which the in taking down that common assumption knowledge has died out, or is dying out that we are in any literal sense the heir as we write. We all know of lost arts the secret of which expired with the possessor, but how long will there exist the man who has inhaled the full and exquisite sweetness of the cabbage-rose? We do not believe that the flavour of the golden pippin, so dear to our forefathers,

of all the ages; that we succeed to all that is good in them, that their amplest wealth is added to our own. Rather, as every period has some grace and charm peculiarly its own, so it has a knowledge and wisdom in harmony with it not to be inherited under new conditions. And as

with communities so with the individual; whatever can be written passes on, but that which belongs most intimately to the man, and constitutes his worth, and makes him what he is in men's eyes, dies with him. When we lose such a friend we rarely can point to the heir of what was most distinctively his own.

From The Liberal Review.
FEMININE SNOBS.

be led to act so that the lines of demarcation which separate the people of this country might become less broadly defined and in many cases be entirely obliterated. As it is, there are thousands of men who have hundreds of acquaintances whom they cannot-whom, indeed, they dare not admit to their family circles, and these acquaintances not unfrequently ripen into warm friends. The people whom a man meets at the various places which he visits during his walks abroad please him and he can freely mingle with them without his sense of self-respect IT would seem that there have ever being, in any way, hurt, for they are equal been class-distinctions and that there ever to him in point of ability and their natures must be, but there is no valid reason are as pure and elevated as his own. why a number of purely artificial barriers But he knows that if he were to introduce should be raised between the different them to his feminine connections things sections of a community. The creation would be said which would please neither of these artificial barriers has, in Eng- them nor him, so he keeps his knowledge land, done an immense amount of harm, of them, so to speak, to himself and gets inasmuch as it has excited a great deal his pleasures out of them in a stealthy of ill-feeling, prevented people from draw-manner. Perhaps he is wise to act in ing together who would be benefited by this fashion; but it may still be thought communion with each other, and ren-that it would be better if he pursued an dered the condition of society absurdly independent course and elected his anomalous. Nowadays, society does not friends on the score of their intrinsic consist merely of three classes but of a merits rather than on that of their merescore or two, the members of which tricious surroundings. It must not be heartily hate and mistrust each other. forgotten, however, that he would then, Indeed, it is not going too far to say that in many instances, be subjected to a society is divided into an immense num-never-ending course of "nagging," and ber of contemptible cliques; the result it may be remarked that as the constant being that when a hundred people are dropping of water will wear away a stone drawn promiscuously together the major- so will a nagging woman in the end get ity are so impressed with a sense of their pretty much what she wants. importance and exalted condition that It may be asked how it comes about they proudly decline to condescend to that women are more snobbish than men. have anything whatever to say to nine- Probably this is because they have less tenths of those by whom they are sur- real work to do, and so have more time rounded. A man may have brains, he to think about their neighbours and their may have refined tastes, he may be hard-surroundings than have men; because working and upright in all his doings, and he may be of presentable appearance, but he is not saved from receiving cruel rebuffs, as he journeys through life, from those who are vastly inferior to him and might be much improved by friendly intercourse with him, but who flatter themselves that they are his superiors in position. Now, men are largely responsible for this melancholy state of things; but we are inclined to think that the greater portion of the blame for what is deplored- must rest upon feminine shoulders. No doubt there are many male snobs; but, as a rule, men are not inclined to be so particular as to whom they associate with as are women, and it is highly probable that if they were not exposed to female influences they might

they have little actual contact with the world; and because they have, from their earliest days, the principles of snobbishness carefully instilled into them. The course of education to which schoolgirls are subjected, is, of itself, calculated to make them snobs. Certainly, it would be well if means were taken to render women less snobbish than they are, for bad as a male snob is, a female snob is infinitely worse. For one thing, she is more spiteful. It is the wife of Grandee, and not Grandee himself, who has such a magnificent contempt for people engaged in retail trade that she would become pale with indignation and dismay if it transpired that a daughter of the house of Grandee was being educated alongside the daughter of Haberdasher, who, though

he could buy Grandee up once or twice, | meet a so-called inferior in the street, has been unfortunate enough to make and gaze at him as if he were a piece of his money by selling tape by the yard inanimate sculpture. It is she who can and buttons by the dozen, while Grandee keep would-be upstarts down. It is she has dealt in them in the bulk. As for who can forsake old friends because they Grandee, if he had only himself to please, have "become so dreadfully low, you he would as soon his daughter were edu- know,” that it really would not do to assocated with little Miss Haberdasher as ciate with them. It is she who can quietly with the child of Swindle, the merchant, drop her poor relations because it does who has failed once or twice, and very not suit her purpose to retain a hold of neatly diddled the chief bulk of his cred- them, even though by so doing, she might itors; and he only takes action in order succeed in helping them up to her own that he may have peace and quietness at level - she is so afraid of being dragged his own fireside. Indeed, if he were left down to theirs. It is she who seems to to his own devices, his Gothic barbarity imagine that those who are paid to serve would carry him still further than we her are of a race apart from herself, in have indicated. He would hob-nob with the same, though a lesser degree, than Haberdasher himself, and he would not are dogs, horses, and other animals. it be at all annoyed if it came to his ears is she who flaunts her riches and power that his wife had been having a friendly in the face of the world. And, finally, it gossip with Mrs. Haberdasher. But his is she who sees a superiority and potengood lady has too much sense to fall into tiality in herself which are not discerned such an indiscretion as this, and she by other people. Of course, the amount makes it her business to see that his lax of harm that she does is incalculable. It notions do not run away with him. Then, will be, then, for those who have charge again, it is she, not he, who carefully of the education of women to consider weighs up all the qualifications and whether it is not time that their policy possessions of those persons who are were revised, and that instead of girls introduced into the house of Grandee. being taught to be snobs they should be It is she who goes in for making people taught not to be so. know their places. It is she who can

THE expedition to the Island of St. Paul to observe the transit of Venus will bring back | some interesting observations for the naturalists. At least there appear to have been some very interesting observations made on a tribe of great birds, - so far like ducks that they are much more agile in the water than on land, but without wings half as efficient as ducks, called the Sphemiscus, whose wings are rather fins than wings, and which climbs very laboriously from the sea to the plateaus six hundred feet high, where villages of its nests are built, by the help of legs and beak and wings (or fins) all used in combination. The track up which the males return to the nests is, in fact, worn by constant use into a sort of road, and the birds always keep to it in their ascent. The fishermen on the spot call this bird- which shows no fear of man"the magistrate," from its grave and weighty appearance. Clearly, this is another of the remarkable links between species of very different habits and instincts. Spectator.

THE article in the new number of the Quarterly Review, on "Indian Missions" is by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell, the well-known Orien talist. It is likely that it will be republished as a pamphlet by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and be also disseminated by the Church Missionary Society, for all such bodies have greatly at heart the principal thesis which Dr. Caldwell supports, that Hindus who have turned Christians in India, have by no means morally deteriorated. Dr. Cald well- -an LL.D. for many years of Glasgow University was made the other day a D.D. of Durham by diploma- -a step considered somewhat rare, as honorary D.D.s are much more common than D.D.s by diploma. It is understood Dr. Caldwell will, if certain technical difficulties can be removed, be shortly ap pointed to be the first bishop of a new Indian see, where he will have control over many of the chief Hindu pastorates of Southern India.

Athenæum.

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