out of old world stock, a fresh instrument in the great orchestra of humanity? Indicate these differences, these traits! says the impatient reader. They are too subtle for words, like the perfume of flowers, the flavour of fruit, too much intermingled with individual qualities also, at any rate for mere descriptive words, though no doubt in time the imaginative literature of America will creatively embody them.

One lesson whoever has lived in, not merely travelled through America, must learn perforce. It is that the swift steamers bringing a succession of more or less keen observers, the telegrams and newspapers, which we fondly imagine annihilate space and make us fully cognisant of the character and affairs of our far-off kindred, are by no means such wonder-workers.

In spite of newspapers, and telegrams, and travellers, and a common language and ancestry, we are full of misconceptions about each other. Nay, I found the actual condition of my own country drift slowly out of intelligible sight after a year or two's absence. Even if every word uttered and printed were true, that which gives them their significance cannot be so transmitted; whilst the great forces that are shaping and building up a people's life and character work silently beneath the surface, so that truly may it be said of a nation, as of an individual, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy." Save by the help of vital literature—in that, at last, the souls of the nations speak to one another.

Ir must be fairly admitted that the first effects of Mr Gladstone's Mid-Lothian campaign in September were to raise the drooping Ministerial banner and make Radicals jubilant from one end of Great Britain to the other. The Prime Minister, we were told, had entirely dispersed the clouds of Tory misrepresentation which had lately brooded over the land, triumphantly vindicated the policy of his Government from first to last, and scattered his enemies before him as chaff before the wind. The haughty Peers who had presumed to thwart his will must now, pale and abashed, shrink back from a course which can only lead to their own destruction; the Conservative Associations which have ventured to approve the action of the Upper House must hide their diminished heads; criticism of the Government proceedings during the last five years must be hushed for ever; and the sound of no voice shall be tolerated which does not raise itself to swell the chorus of approbation with which Scotland has welcomed the infallible statesman.

For the moment, the spectacle of a man half-way between seventy and eighty years of age, still full of power and vigour, holding large masses of men in attentive audience by his winning eloquence, and ranging with infinite address and triumphant complacency over the whole field of political controversy, commanded not only the respect but the admiration of his fellow-countrymen, and inclined them to forget or pardon all the imperfections and shortcomings of one whose ability and energy are so far beyond those of ordinary men, and who must be admitted to be one

of the most marvellous men of this or any other time.

But since the first feelings of admiration have had time to subside, since the triumphant shouts of the Radicals have died away and calmer moments have arrived, it may well be doubted whether those three Mid-Lothian speeches, which have given the key-note to all that outburst of eloquence which has since stunned the country, will bear the scrutiny to which they must of necessity be subjected. With the first of these speeches we can only deal shortly. Its simple and palpable object was to place before the public the case of the Government against the House of Lords in as popular a form as possible. This, indeed, was most adroitly accomplished by such a clever misrepresentation of facts and imputation of motives as to make it appear that it is the Lords and not the Government who are adopting an unconstitutional course, and endeavouring to force their arbitrary will down the throat of the nation. The Peers, forsooth, according to the Prime Minister's version of the matter, deny the franchise to two million of their fellow-countrymen, pretending meanwhile to be in favour of that extension of electoral right which by "invidious and indirect means they are striving to defeat.

Of course the truth is very different. The Peers have only claimed and claimed, be it remembered, on behalf of the peoplethat the whole of the reform scheme of the Government should be openly laid before the country before any one part of it becomes law, in order that a complete