indeed, too well, that politics are not gov-mental idea in politics, that of basing the erned by logic, and that a condition of throne of absolute power on universal sufthings which seems to defy all reasonable frage. They recognize in the ignorance, predictions often may last for a long while. the passion, the excitable prejudice or Nor do we presume to prophesy when a the stagnant stupidity of the masses, crisis will come, or what direction it will their natural allies, their surest supportgive to the future fate of Germany; but we maintain that it will come sooner or later, and that we have as yet seen only the first act of the great drama when the curtain fell after Sadowa.

The Emperor introduced Free Trade in France; to the Prussian Premier Germany is indebted for many useful economical reforms, which he carried in spite of his feudal friends. But he is as little inclined as the French potentate had been, previous to the great concessions which were extorted from him in August by the result of the last elections, to grant unrestrained liberty to the press, or to accept an effective Parliamentary control, and he thinks himself a better judge of what suits the country than all the rest of the community.

ers, the strongest foundation of their power. Democracy is at the root of their system, autocracy at the summit. The middle classes in all countries, which furnish the largest con ingent of the advocates As regards Count Bismarck's part in fu- of really liberal principles, are to be preture transactions, we feel considerable con- sented and ridiculed as 66 egotistical bourfidence as far as his foreign policy is con- geois." It is this fundamental idea which cerned, but very great distrust for all in- makes both these remarkable men so prone ternal questions. What human foresight, to socialist opinions. Louis Napoleon's cunning reserve, and daring energy can do writings in that sense are known. Bisto frustrate the plans of the enemies of marck had held friendly intercourse with Prussia, he will certainly do. But this de- Lassalle, and proposed to that agitator a fence will only protect the approaches to league with the Conservative party against the fortress, and we have little trust in his the Fortschritts" party, and Herr Wagability to finish the inside of the building. ner, his Parliamentary jackal, is constantly The reason of this disbelief is his hatred of coquetting with the Socialist members of real liberty and his incapacity for internal the Reichstag, praising Lassalle as a great, administration. His imperious nature re- unappreciated man. Napoleon and Bisbels against all control. The King he marck have both a keen and attentive must endure, and he manages him with eye for the material wants of the people. wonderful dexterity, divining the rising thoughts of the Royal mind; but he will not have a second and real task-master, and therefore declares that parliamentary responsibility is contrary to Prussian traditions. Nor can his introduction of universal suffrage be alleged in favour of his having popular principles; he had seen by the example of France that it was long found to be consistent with an uncontrolled executive; it corrupted the mass of the people with a show of liberty by withholding real power from the intelligent part of the community. On his accession to office the Berlin Punch Kladderadatsch," published a caricature representing Bismarck taking leave of Napoleon, who said to him "Now mind you show that you have learnt something in my school." There was much truth in this; he had indeed well learnt the lesson which the Second Empire had seemed to convey to him, and his character is in many points similar to that of the present Emperor. We find both inclined to think more of ends than of means, alike unscrupulous as to the paths and measures by which they may achieve their purposes; with this difference, that in Louis Napoleon the propelling force is rather quiet and tough volition, in Bismarck vehement self-will. Both have a strong leaning to secret plotting and intrigues in their foreign policies; they want to achieve great things in war and peace by Cabinet conspiracies. Both are above all possessed with the same funda

To govern is, according to his ideas, to command, and parliamentary government is to command with a flourish of speeches and debates which should always end in a happy subserviency with the ruling Minister. This arbitrary disposition is of course strengthened by his success of 1866; but he will be grievously deceived in believing that only stubborn resolution is wanted to triumph again. He is a man of the type of Richelieu and Pombal, but this style of statesmanship is rather out of place in our century, at least for obtaining a lasting success.

We cannot therefore consider him as a really great statesman, though he has certainly gifts of the highest order. He is a first-rate diplomatist and negotiator. No man can captivate more adroitly those he wants to win; nobody knows better to strike at the right moment, or to wait when the tide is running in his favour. His

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personal courage is great, physically as forming admirably the part he chooses to well as morally; he shrinks before nothing play. He knows how to flatter his interconducive to his end. He is not naturally locutors by assuming an air of genuine eloquent, but his speeches are generally admiration for their talents; they leave impressive and full of terse argument. He him charmed by his condescension, whilst is a capital companion in society, witty, he laughs at the fools who took his fine genial, sparkling in his conversation. His words for solid cash. His contempt of private life is pure; nobody has accused men is profound; he dislikes independence, him of having used his high position for his though he probably respects it. There is pecuniary advantage. It is natural that not a single man of character left in the such qualities, backed by an indomitable Ministry or the more important places of will, a strong belief in himself, and the Civil Service. Few things or persons an originally robust constitution, should exist at which he would not venture achieve much. But by the side of these sneer. virtues the darker shades are not wanting. At present he has chosen to retire, for We will not reproach him with ambition; an indefinite period, from a perplexing it is natural that such a man should be situation which he has himself created. ambitious. But his ambition goes far to Nobody can tell in what direction he is identify the interests of his country with going to steer his vessel. He likes to his own personal power. Everything is strike the imagination of the public by personal with him; he never forgets a sudden resolutions. Nobody can prophesy slight, and persecutes people who have what will be the final result of the great offended him with the most unworthy political experiment upon which he has malice. His strong will degenerates fre- entered, for it depends on the working of quently into absurd obstinacy; he is feared so many different factors that even the by his subordinates, but we never heard boldest will scarcely venture to calculate that anybody loved him. Driven into a the issue. We have simply tried in these strait, his courage becomes the reckless pages to give an outline of his past life and daring of the gambler who stakes every-career; and, incomplete as it must be, we thing on one card. He can tell the very should be surprised if our general apprereverse of the truth with an amazing cool-ciation of this extraordinary man is not ness; still oftener he will tell the plain borne out by the facts which the future truth when he knows that he will not be historian of Prussia and of Europe will believed. He is a great comedian, per- have to relate.

IN MEMORIAM.

THE sudden death of Professor Conington has entailed a severe loss not merely upon Oxford University, where his encouragement and friendship were open to every youth of promise who came thither, but upon the literary world. At the age of forty-four, when he died, Mr. Conington had achieved a combination probably unique, at least in England, of scholarly with literary attainment: a combination, the result of which was apparent, as well in the variety of his works as in their general character, and the style of their execution. Before his election to the Oxford Professorship of Latin in 1854, he had published a spirited translation of the Agamemnon (1848), and a Preface to Dr. Maginn's Homeric Ballads (1850). In 1857 he brought out an edition of the Choephoroe, probably the completest of his contributions to classical literature. In 1858 appeared the first volume of an edition of Virgil for Mr. Long's Bibliotheca Classica; in 1863 a classical and poetical verse translation of the Odes of Horace, as well as

the second volume of the Virgil. A translation of the Eneid into the ballad-metre of Scott (the most generally known of all his works) followed in 1867; in 1868 he had completed the late Mr. Worsley's Spenserian translation of the Iliad. Shortly before his death he published a translation (in the heroic couplet) of Horace's Satires and Epistles. The third volume of the Virgil is now going through the press.

Of his occasional papers, perhaps the most valuable in a philological point of view is an article on the second collection of the Fables of Babrius (Rheinisches Museum, 1861), in which he refutes the pretensions of a forged Codex Athous, which had imposed on Sir Cornewall Lewis. A short paper in the Hermes (1867) upon a curious point in Greek popular physiology should be read by all students of the Greek plays. Several of his emendations in the fragments of the Greek tragedians may be found in Nauck's edition. The essay on Pope (Oxford Essays, 1858) is an interesting contribution to the study of English literature. Academy.

CHAPTER VII.

REGRETS AND FOLLIES.

WHEN Childersleigh found himself at last alone with his blighted hopes, free to chew the cud of his disappointment, he scarcely made the use of his opportunities that might have been expected. True, he kept telling himself over and over again that he was ruined instead of rich; but although his mind took in the sense of the words, it was slow to follow them out to their consequences. Yet, as we said, such philosophy as he possessed came chiefly of the lower teachings of an Epicurean school, dashed by a bastard cynicism. His whole life had been a practice of the faith that in pleasure lies the chief good or, in other words, that bother of any sort is unmixed evil. The painful excitement of the day had left him partly stupefied and partly intoxicated. Perhaps, too, the latent elasticity of his nature was already asserting itself in the bracing atmosphere of serious trouble. In spite of his grave personal pre-occupations he was surprised to find his thoughts still occupying themselves with the sorrows of Lucy Winter; thence, by easy transition, they went flying away to Maude Childersleigh; and then, no less naturally, came back again to their starting point in the altered fortunes that had lifted her beyond his reach.

his face homeward to the " Albany." The inquisitive Sams, as he brought in the hot water, could gather little from his master's face, and puzzled himself over the curt rejection of his services and his abrupt dismissal.

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"Ang me if I know what to make of it!" he confided to his ally, Mr. Roper, General Sir George Gruff's man, whom he found lounging against the door-post, sunning himself in what hazy light came filtering down, and looking out for treasuretrove in the way of gossip. Ang me if I know what to make of it! If it were any one else, I'd make sure he'd bin and found himself out of the will; but the governor's a queer sort, and you never know where to 'ave 'im. I'd step up and try and pump the people in 'Arley Street; but if he was to chance to hear of me there, I should get the sack and no mistake."

to weakness, a fatal precedent when there was an abundance of unpleasantness before him that must of necessity be faced and lived down.

Meanwhile the object of his valet's anxiety was wending his way to his club. Of the half-dozen establishments he belonged to, he chose the most exclusive, as the one where he ran the least risk of being troubled by acquaintances. Once he had thought of having dinner quietly in his rooms, but he shrunk from the desolate companionship of his own cheerless thoughts. Then it had occurred to him to seek some out-of-the-way dining-place where he could look on at life It is easy to say that it would have been without being forced to mix in it; but he weak and pitiable, utterly beneath the dig-dismissed the idea as a humiliating yielding nity of a man in the full vigour of his prime, and with many a point still in his favour, to be crushed under a mere monetary disappointment, Training has to the full as much to do with these things as constitution, "If the bull's to be taken by the horns, and the training of Childersleigh had been it had better be done at once, and it will grovellingly practical, such as taught him to never do to begin a hard fight by giving in. see mountains in the molehills of the loftier I shall dine at Light's." And so to moralist. Say what you like, it hits a Syba-"Light's " he went. rite hard when, just as he is starting on the journey of life in a postchaise, with wellfilled purse, all his little comforts about him, and possibly a fair companion of congenial tastes by his side, he is told to get out and foot it alone, working, or worse still, begging his solitary way. Possibly the time may come when he may own the trial to have been all for the best, as he finds the vigorous health and appetite that wait on honest work, but at first he may surely claim some credit if he resign himself, with even a semblance of philosophy, to his altered circum

Not a soul in the coffee-room except a couple of men whom he did not even know by sight-Chesterton Sloper, who never looked you in the face when he could help it, and always slunk about the house as if he had got some of the plate in his pocket; Harrington, the most reserved of men, who perched high on the permanent staff of the Foreign Office; and old Boresby. To be sure, Boresby was the least welcome vision that could have greeted him, or would have been, had he not been half prepared for it. For Boresby never goes out of town, thinking with old Q. that empty as London may Having tired out his body in the Regent's be, there are always more people to be butPark, while his thoughts all the time went ton-holed there than in the country. Every dancing hither and thither-chiefly from day in the year he dines at one or other of Hampstead to Harley Street — tossing about his clubs, and studying the names on the like straws in a whirlwind, at last he turned, dinner-bills beforehand, selects his daily vic

stances.

tim in summer from the luckless birds of | The one you can combat or bear down, the passage.

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God bless me, Childersleigh, you here! what a piece of luck! Thought you were in Germany; sure I heard of you there the other day. Just looked in at Doodle's,' and I give you my solemn word of honour there was not a man dining but old Brounker, the greatest nuisance in the world- deaf as a post, even if he didn't jabber so fast that he never gives you a chance of making him hear. Besides, the house smells of whitewash, and they had no grouse soup; so I came on here, and very glad I am. We'll dine together, eh? what do you say? and have a magnum of Cutler's Lafite afterwards."

But Hugh, forearmed as he was, called to mind a weakness of the enemy.

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Nothing I'd like better, Boresby. You're not a man that minds infection I know, but it's fair to tell you there's been illness and a death in the house where I've been passing the afternoon."

Boresby jerked away the hand he had laid in friendly appropriation on Hugh's shoulder, and started back with a lightness highly creditable to a man of his weight and habits.

other you must submit to whether you like or not. He imagined the more tenderhearted and thoughtful of his acquaintances dismissing him contemptuously with a "poor devil," while enemies and the envious would laugh openly at the baffled fortune-hunter, who had pinned his hopes on an old woman's humours, only to be tricked and sold after all.

"Fancy old Boresby there, rolling himself from club to club, from smoking-room to dining-room, repeating all their lies for gospel, pledging his word for them, and making it his particular business to write circulars on my affairs to old fogies in half the country-houses of England."

In such a frame of mind he made short work of his dinner, and the beef might have been mutton for all he knew or cared. He felt thoroughly restless. He gulped down two or three glasses of sherry, made his way to the smoking-room, swallowed a cup of scalding coffee, smoked half a cigar by fits and starts, flung it away, and took refuge in the library, where he buried himself in an arm-chair, while the lines of the magazine in his hand danced before his eyes, and his thoughts went back again, whirling round in the old circles. Then in a morbid apprehension that his long immunity from intrusion must come to an unhappy end if he lingered, he seized suddenly on his hat and rushed into the streets. There he wan

"By Jove! I remember now. Hestercombe was talking of it only yesterday. It's that monstrous rich old aunt of yours, I suppose? He said you had come into 20,000l. a year, or something like that. Well, I wish you joy; but what was it car-dered about with no more definite idea than ried her off? And Boresby stood at gaze to keep moving, till midnight found him at arms' length, frightened from Childer- dead beat in mind and body, opening his sleigh by fear of death, drawn to him by door with the latch-key. taste for gossip and respect for wealth.

"It was very sudden," rejoined Childersleigh, ignoring the first part of his friend's speech, which gave him as sharp a twinge as any he had experienced yet; and, after all, I should never forgive myself if anything happened to you by my imprudence, so I'll take myself off into quarantine at that table in the corner."

Any troubles that may beset you are pretty sure to settle down in clouds on your mind at your very first awakening. If you have burned your fingers the night before at unlimited loo, gone a little farther than you intended with that very fascinating girl you took down to supper, or caught a rap over the fingers for going too far and too fast - shadows of the sort fall on you in a Boresby looked after him, hesitated, shook waking nightmare, long before you have his head, and doubtless deciding in favour disentangled a single idea for your morning of prudence, toddled from the room. use. Like the Ginnee the Persian fisherChildersleigh seated himself and meditated too. Congratulations like Boresby's were just the things he had to make up his mind to confront, and he found they hurt him more than he had feared. For the time he forgot the grave results of his disappointment in the petty annoyances it was likely to bring on him. Sensitive and proud, knowing the world and his own particular set, he was quite aware of the turn his kind friends would give his little history. He could face ridicule, but he shrunk from pity.

man freed from the jar, they envelop you in a vague mist before they shape themselves into a palpable horror. Childersleigh had matter enough for gloomy thought, and from the point of view in which he lay contemplating his position, everything seemed hopelessly dismal. If a ray of light did come struggling in, it was by the chink that opened at the prospect of an interview with Maude. What he hoped from the meeting he scarcely knew, and had he dared to reason it out, no parts of his future would

have shown blacker than those that she had brightened in his Channel dreams. While that after so long an absence the visitor he had a good position and better expectations he had chosen to dally over asking her hand; his indifference had kept their love-making within the bounds of simple flirtation; and did he mean to cast himself at her feet now that he was well nigh penniless? As she had said, he was the last man in the world to stoop to being accepted in charity; to being pensioned by his wife and patronized by her family; and his blood boiled at the mere thought of courting rebuff from Sir Basil or inviting the sneer of Purkiss.