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WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH THE LORDS?

VARIOUS SUGGESTIONS FROM MANY QUARTERS. By far the most important paper on the House of Lords is that which Lord Hobhouse contributes to the Contemporary Review. It is indeed the only article in the magazines this month which approaches the subject with gravity worthy of the occasion. Lord Hobhouse in this as in all questions takes a judicial view of the question at issue.

ARISTOCRATIC RULE TEMPERED BY INCIPIENT REBELLION.

He is not in favour of abolishing the House of Lords, although he sets forth with the utmost lucidity his objection to the existence of a Second Chamber which can only be made to work in harmony with the opinion of the representatives of the people by the threat of rebellion. As he puts it, if we are to get any Liberal measures through the House of Lords it is indispensable to get up "the necessary little rebellion," or the preparation for such, and all measures which are not important enough to justify the invoking of such a deux ex machiná are stolidly vetoed year after year. At the same time he feels that it is wiser that we should have a Chamber of Revision, and he makes the following remarks:

WANTED A CHAMBER OF REVISION!

We want a great amount of legislation, and we want our laws turned out in a workable state. Now the composition and procedure of the House of Commons is such that it does not infrequently turn out some very rough work, which even its well-wishers are glad to have an opportunity of reviewing. It is impossible to deny that through hurry, through inadvertence, through excess of work, through weariness of long combat, through casual combinations of different groups of men, Bills may pass which it is very desirable to reconsider, and which any body of responsible men would think it right to modify or reject, and in so doing would meet with general support.

The House of Commons does not act in most matters till the nation has been persuaded, and then it acts with a velocity which might without public detriment be greater. But I am afraid of a number of small mistakes; and I have never heard any suggestion of a corrective machinery in the House of Commons itself likely to be so efficacious as a Second Chamber.

Lord Hobhouse does not discuss the possibility of securing the revision of hasty and crude legislation by a committee of revising judges experienced in legislation and in the interpretation of the law, who would certainly smooth down the rough work of the House of Commons much more effectively than the House of Lords. He takes it for granted that the only tribunal of revision must be a Second Chamber. This being the case, he proceeds to discuss how he can prevent this indispensable body from becoming an intolerable nuisance.

WITHOUT MORE THAN A SUSPENSIVE VETO.

Then how shall we prevent the Second Chamber from becoming obstructive? In order to be efficient, a power to review must include a power to reject when necessary; indeed, "amendments" so-called, may, and frequently have been, so applied as to amount to destruction. It would probably be idle, and certainly undesirable, to limit the area of review. But the power may be effectually controlled by providing that when it has been exercised to some prescribed extent it shall not prevent the passing of the measure reviewed. If it were provided that after (say) a second rejection by the Peers of a measure passed by the Commons, or a second alteration of it, the Commons should have power to resolve that the measure ought to become law notwithstanding the opposition of the Peers; and if it were provided that the Commons should be the sole judges whether the measure was substantially the same as had been rejected or altered before; and if it were provided that

upon such a resolution of the Commons the royal assent might be given to the measure, and so it should become law; and if similar arrangements were made with regard to schemes or other sub-legislative matters, we should see the will of the majority prevail, when it ought to prevail, without ruinous delay or stormy agitation.

Lord Hobhouse does not explain how he would get up the necessary little rebellion in order to force this compromise through the House of Lords. But supposing that the House of Lords veto were dispensed with, this would still leave the House very far from being an ideal assembly.

ABOLISH HEREDITARY LEGISLATORS.

By way of amending matters he proposes to abolish hereditary legislators altogether:

If this reform could be effected, if the House of Lords could be placed in a position, not of such entire subordination as it now occupies with respect to finance, but of ultimate subordination to the persistent views of the popular House, other reforms would be of minor importance, indeed of very little importance so far as regards the danger of the present situation. But for the constitution of a good Second Chamber. some would still be of great importance.

It would greatly strengthen the House of Lords to put an end to all hereditary rights of legislation (except perhaps in the very peculiar case of the Royal Family), and to make it a working body, not liable to irruptions of inexperienced men whipped up for special political combats Each member should hold his position for life or during some office.

The House should have enough members to man its Committees, and to supply sufficient variety of thought and experience to its debates, and to give weight to its decisions If there were (say) from 200 to 250 men appointed for life or ex officio to serve in the House, it would probably make as strong a body as the nation would want. Then members should be allowed to resign their seats at will, and all peers not in the House of Lords should be quite free to enter the House of Commons.

So with regard to hereditary lawgivers: the House of Lords has existed without them; it existed for centuries, during the period of its greatest power, with a majority of Life Peers, unless, indeed, the Prelates are to be ranked as ex officio Peers. And as to recruitment, the will of the Crown is the recognised constitutional method.

Lord Hobhouse's proposal is interesting and deserving of all respect; but it is to le feared that his colleagues in the Upper House will regard his scheme for strengthening the House of Lords by putting an end to all hereditary rights of legislation very much as the Turk regarded Lord Beaconsfield's impudent assertion that the loss of several provinces at the close of the Russo-Turkish war was a benefit conferred upon Turkey by "consolidating the dominions" of the Sultan. Lord Beaconsfield may have been right, and so may Lord Hobhouse; but the subject upon whom the experimen is to be tried seldom can be persuaded to see things in the right light.

BY A PATRONISING FRENCHMAN.

M. Augustine Filon in the Fortnightly Review kindly volunteers to give Englishmen some hints as to the solution of the difficulty about the Second Chamber. France, he says, has made so many blunders about her senate that she ought to be competent to advise us in the matter. About one thing he is quite clear: we should not do what Lord Rosebery proposes to do, about which, by the way, M. Filon seems to know a good deal more than Lord Rosebery himself:

The principle of heredity is slow to bear fruit of any kind. either good or bad: but in every other form, whether based upon intellectual pre-eminence or upon the mandate of the

country, composed of the heads of the old families or of the splendid parvenus of the democracy, our Second Chamber has proved a failure. The system now proposed for your consideration is made up of all our errors and all our abortive combinations.

HEREDITY PLUS SELECTION.

The true solution, according to this writer, is

Heredity, pure and simple, tempered by selection. These two principles are working in harmony all round us; we can see that their union sustains the world to which they have given birth.

By a process of natural selection the House of Lords reduces itself almost exactly to the number of Privy Councillors in the Chamber:

The statistics of the last ten years give an average attendance of 110 members at every sitting, and in this present year of grace the House contains as many as 109 Privy Councillors. That is to say, five-sixths of the peers are wise enough to efface themselves for reasons which it is unnecessary to enumerate, so that practically one-sixth think, deliberate and vote for the rest. If you sanction this application of the survival of the fittest, and regulate this natural selection by appointing a number of delegates for a given term, you will have performed upon the House of Lords the one and only surgical operation which the constitution admits of, and which is not absolutely certain to involve the death of the patient.

THE REFERENDUM.

M. Filon is quite peremptory on another point. England must adopt the Referendum which, by the bye, France has not yet thought necessary to introduce. He

says:

As to the Lords' veto, it ought clearly to be only the power of delaying measures. In that case who ought to give the final verdict? Not the House of Commons, because it cannot be both judge and litigant. Is it to be the people at a general election? No; for there are too many individual and local questions at work in a general election to ensure a direct answer or a final decision, yes or no, upon a definite point. We must have recourse to a Referendum. England will have to follow the example of Belgium and Switzerland on this point, just as France will have to come back to it. She would have come back before now but for a sort of shame and a perverse mistrust of the great ideas of Napoleon III. The plebiscite is the necessary corollary of universal suffrage. I think that the defenders of the House of Lords adopt far too humble a tone and rate their claims far too low.

THE TIMID HUMILITY OF THE PEERS.

The concluding extract is a fine specimen of the patronising air of this cocksure critic. After having admonished Lord Rosebery and generally demonstrated the imbecility of the Liberal Party, he turns round and admonishes the Conservatives. They are poor craven creatures who have not the courage of their convictions, and need this sympathetic Republican to tell them to have a little more confidence in their own opinions. The following passage is quite exquisite :—

At a time when there are plenty of cool and vigorous advocates ready to advance the boldest propositions, it is strange that no one has yet been found to urge that the House of Lords is an institution of the future, and that it not only ought to survive as the representative of a living principle which lies at the root of all societies, but that it has becoine an absolute necessity as the sole embodiment of the principles of stability and permanence in the midst of a multitude of contingent interests and fluctuating opinions. In short, if there were no hereditary chamber, this would be the moment to invent it.

THE OBITER DICTA OF MR. ATHERLEY JONES. The hand of Mr. Knowles must have lost some of its ancient cunning when he failed to secure, as the writer of the opening article in the Nineteenth Century on a ques

tion of a great constitutional reform, no more important person than Mr. Atherley Jones. Mr. Atherley Jones is a very painstaking, industrious Radical politician, but he can hardly be said to have attained to the rank of those whom Mr. Knowles usually selects to lead off the discussion of a great constitutional reform proposed by Her Majesty's Ministers. Nevertheless, Mr. Atherley Jones has done his best, and with this result, that it would puzzle Solomon himself to say what Mr. Atherley Jones really means. It is an article full of grave shakings of the head, and of oracular warnings and paragraphic misgivings strung together in such a fashion that for the life of me I cannot say whether Mr. Jones wishes Lord Rosebery to leave the subject alone or whether he would have him take it up. Mr. Jones begins somewhat pompously by announcing that :

At the instance of the Ministers of the Crown, Parliament is to be invited to enter upon the task of fundamentally changing that legislative system which has remained, during the past seven hundred years, organically identical.

He is good enough to admit, however, that something must be done:

It is obvious that the Liberal party cannot continue to quietly submit to a situation which places their legislative achievements at the absolute and unchecked discretion of their political antagonists, and operates as a helpful factor to a Conservative Ministry by facilitating their legislative and administrative work.

To abolish the House of Lords, Mr. Jones plainly sees is impossible. The Lords cannot be ended, but he has a still greater objection to their being mended :

The statesman who sets about the task of destroying the archaic survival of our early civilisation and building up a new Senate, equally unpopular in its instincts, but resting on a higher constitutional sanction, may be likened to the biblical character who swept and garnished his house only to realise results more disastrous.

If Lord Rosebery does not purpose the destruction of the House of Lords, but only its reconstruction or re-organisation, in that policy he may secure the co-operation of the Conservative party, but he will purchase that co-operation at the expense of the support of the preponderating section of his own party.

What then should Lord Rosebery do? Mr. Atherley Jones may know, but he certainly does not tell us. His final conclusion is expressed in the following finelybalanced sentence of ifs and ans :

If Lord Rosebery can arouse a like national sentiment, if even he can induce those who profess the Liberal creed to lay aside the narrow and selfish interests of faction and address themselves to the realisation of the ideal of a perfected democracy, then, though the struggle may be arduous, ultimate success will attend his efforts; but if at the coming election the verdict of the country, be it through indifference to the issue raised or greater regard to other and more immediate issues, result in the rejection of Lord Rosebery's policy, while the House of Lords will gain in prestige and receive encouragement to assertion of a larger authority, on the other hand, the democratic principle of government will sustain a shock of which the Liberal party will be at once the author and the victim.

END THEM! BY MR. BRADLAUGH'S SUCCESSOR. Mr. Robertson in the Free Review sets forth with considerable earnestness the arguments of those who are opposed to a Second Chamber. He sums up his case by declaring that

If a Second Chamber be representative it will simply express the will of the people as the House of Commons does, in which case it is a useless multiplication of machinery; that if it be not representative it must succumb to the representative House on all important occasions; that it is absurd to select

a body of men of certain experience as being competent to sit in an Upper House, and thereby exclude them from the Lower; that a body selected mainly from the official and military classes is, in any case, sure to be reactionary; that it is plainly unreasonable to ask the people to choose a body with a view to frustrating popular aspirations; that to place a responsible House over the House of Commons is to make the latter careless and rash in experiment; that there is no reason to believe an Upper House will ever resist a popular craze; and that to define the House of Commons as a body likely to be carried away by a popular craze is a tolerably effective way of producing the tendency in question. It might be said, in brief, that to create for ourselves a Second Chamber on the understanding that it is to resist our own hasty proposals, is on a par with resolving always to walk into another room when one is tempted to speak angrily or without sufficient thought. If one can be deliberate enough to go into the other room, one can do as well without going.

He apparently had written this part of his essay before Lord Rosebery's recent speeches, so he adds a postscript in which he dissents very emphatically from the Prime Minister, and winds up as follows:

The end of the matter is that if Lord Rosebery's declaration for Second Chambers is to carry the meaning men naturally attached to it, there will be a new and serious split in the Liberal party. The thoughtful even of that party will certainly not consent to be delivered over to a reconstituted and strengthened Upper House on the strength of Lord Rosebery's respect for the practice of other States which have more or less mistakenly followed our own bad example. And if Lord Rosebery evades such a division by reducing his demand to a scheme for a Supreme Court on the lines of that of the United States, it must once more be declared that he has a distressing gift of causing a great deal of trouble to his party by ill-considered language.

THE GRADUAL ABOLITION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

MR. SIDNEY Low writes an article in the Nineteenth Century which he calls "If the House of Commons were Abolished," but which is really a demonstration that the House of Commons is really being abolished without any one noticing it. He argues with considerable ingenuity that if it were abolished, the government of the country would go on with very little alteration. The gist of his paper is contained in the following paragraph:

The most important of the functions of the House of Commons, according to all the text books and theories of the Constitution, are these:

1. Legislation.

2. Administration and executive control.

3. Financial policy and management.

4. The discussion of abuses and the redress of grievances.

5. The appointment of Ministers.

6. The testing and selecting of public men in debate. It is impossible to maintain that the ouse of Commons still retains its old and theoretical supremacy and efficiency in all these matters, or indeed in any of them. The Cabinet in the first place, the Caucus in the second, the Platform, the Press, Public Opinion, Society, and other powers and influences, have encroached on the dominion of Parliament, and more particularly on that of the Lower Chamber, in one or other province, till now there is none in which the control of the House of Commons is absolute, and scarcely one in which it has not largely abandoned the real, though not the formal, authority and effective force to other hands.

By what means has this extraordinary decadence of the popular assembly been brought about? Mr. Low answers this question as follows:—

The comparative weakness and inutility of the House of Commons is due mainly to the increased power of the Cabinet, and to the position of members of Parliament as delegates

directed to vote with the party according to the orders of the Caucus, rather than as representatives able to exercise an independent judgment.

It is natural that having succeeded in demonstrating the gradual disappearance of the House of Commons as an effective force in the government of the country, Mr. Low should conclude by asking whether anything could be done to mend matters. He replies, certainly there is one simple and practical expedient by which, if it were adopted

the House of Commons would be, in fact, a Sovereign Assembly, and become, what it is not now, the real ruling element in the Constitution.

What is that expedient? Nothing more or less than that the members of the House of Commons should vote by ballot. If it did the power of the Caucus would wane, Ministers would cease to be despots, and M.P.'s would once more count for something in the State. It is a very ingenious article, and there is a good deal more in it than many people would at first be inclined to admit. HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN TO PLAY. A HINT FROM GERMANY.

MR. J. L. HUGHES, in the Educational Review for November, has a very interesting paper entitled "The Educational Value of Play." It describes the systematic efforts which have been made in Germany during the last twenty years to teach children to play. The Germans took the idea originally from the English, but, as is often the case, they have improved upon their teacher. The beginning of the new era was marked by the appointment by the Government of

a large committee to visit England to watch English children. youths, and men playing, and to report the games which in their opinion would be most attractive to the German people, and could be adapted most easily to their tastes and habits. The committee reported, and their recommendations were officially circulated throughout Germany. The country was evidently ready for the movement. Already over four hundred cities and towns have opened public playgrounds. Most of these playgrounds have been provided at the public expense by the cities or towns in which they are situated, but some of them have been opened by people of wealth who have become deeply interested in the movement. In a few cases money las been left by will for the purchase and maintenance of playgrounds by gentlemen who were convinced that the best thing they could do for the world they were leaving was to help their successors to be happier by making them stronger and more energetic. These playgrounds provide attractions for all ages. There are sand-heaps fresh every day for the babies and little children, and the necessary equipment for attractive and interesting games suitable for children, youths, and adults. It is of the utmost importance that young children shall be trained to play, not only that their health and tempers may be improved, but that they may form the habit of playing and thus develop a love for play, and a play tendency in character.

From the first the movement has been essentially educa tional, although it is not directly connected with the work of the schools. Each playground is in charge of a "play leader," who has under him a number of assistant leaders. The "play leader" is usually a teacher, and the regulations issued by the Government provide that he must be a trained educator. The "play leader" is on duty on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons when the schools have half-holidays; and on other days from four to six o'clock. The most popular games so far are the various running and ball games for the warm weather. and skating in winter. I hope they may learn the Scotchman's game of curling, too. The German people are entering upon a new era in the development of physical, mental, and moral manhood and womanhood, by the cultivation of the tendency to vigorous play.

SHOULD ENGLAND JOIN THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE?

THE ANTI-ENGLISH POLICY OF ITALY.

THE first place in the Contemporary Review is occupied by an article by " Ex-Diplomat," entitled "Peace and the Quadruple Alliance." The writer, however, has much nore to say about the shiftiness and untrustworthiness of the Italian policy with regard to England than about the peace of Europe. He begins well enough by pointing out the frightful danger which would menace Europe should war break out. He does not believe that such a war would be of short duration. He says:—

The hightest probability is that the war will be long and exhaustive, exhaustive of wealth and of human life; of the finest results of civilisation, as of the resources of future progress. The first results of such a struggle, prolonged, would be a general bankruptcy of all the Powers involved.

THE WAY OF PEACE.

The question, therefore, of how this catastrophe can be averted is the supreme question for all civilised men. Ex-Diplomat" has his own particular scheme, and that is-

The accession of England to the Triple Alliance, forming a Quadruple Alliance on the basis of the maintenance of peace.

He thinks that the only alternatives are English alliance with Italy or the adhesion of England to the Triple Alliance. By way of proving that the latter is the preferable policy, he proceeds to set forth the unfriendliness which the Italian Government has shown in relation to this country. His paper is an attempt, as he says, to put

The

the diplomacy of Italy in relation to England, and to put the Italian diplomacy in its true light, for the benefit, not only of the English, but of all European public opinion. machinery can be started by a very weak hand, but no one knows where to look for one strong enough to stop it. The war will end in social revolution, and windfall republics.

His story is not likely to encourage England to form an alliance either with Italy or with any federation of which Italy forms a part, for he has no difficulty in

showing how inconsistent towards England, but how blind to her own good, was the manner of conducting affairs adopted by that Power which owed so much to English goodwill.

ITALY'S ANTI-ENGLISH POLICY.

The following is "Ex-Diplomat's" own summary of Italian policy in relation to this country :

Having done what was in its power to counteract the operations of England in Egypt, the Italian Government continued to oppose the English administration of Egyptian affairs. In all the sanitary questions arising in the Levant (which are an fond political) Italy has always been in agreement with France in opposition to English views. Italy has repeatedly called on England, clearly under the instigation of France, to give effect to her promises made on assuming the administration of Egyptian affairs and to withdraw from Egypt; and instead of acting as a link between the Triple Alliance and England, has devoted all her influence to draw England into line with Paris and away from Berlin. For these endeavours of its diplomats and agents in the conferences about Egypt and the Suez Canal the Italian Government received the thanks of the French.

MACHIAVELLI IN OFFICE.

Nor is it only England which has reason to complain of the uncertain policy of Italian statesmen. He says:Under the guidance of Crispi and Robilant the Italian Government has never, since Cavour, acted in good faith with any of its associates, but has leaned to France one day, and to Germany the next; England on one side and Russia on the other, according to some momentary advantage for which it hoped. It is the inheritance of the Middle Ages, the method of Machiavelli, entered into by the great majority of the public men and diplomats of Italy.

WHAT ENGLAND SHOULD DO.

The writer thinks that Crispi and Robilant can be relied upon to persist in the policy of the Triple Alliance, but in order to secure this desirable end England must help. He says:-

Nothing more is needed to paralyse its action and ensure the conformity of the Government under any lead with the sentiment of the nation, than the placing of the issue plainly before king, Parliament, and country, by the conclusion of a definite agreement with England, which shall leave no ambiguity or pretext for misunderstanding the relations of the two countries, or Italy's relations to the Triple Alliance. The moral influence of England over the Italian people is such that any distinct declaration of policy by England, in the direction of consolidation of interests, would compel any possible Ministry to follow it, and ensure the full adhesion of Italian Parliaments to it. The position is not one to be trifled with or met by a see-saw dilettantism, seeking to be all things to all interests. SHALL THERE BE WAR OR PEACE?

"Ex-Diplomat" sums up his point as follows:— Bismarck, long ago, expressed the opinion that the Triple Alliance without an accord between Italy and England would not guarantee the peace of Europe. The material support of England may affect the event of a war, but her moral influence alone cannot influence the decision of the almost more important question-Shall there be war or peace ? An accord once established between England and Italy would determine the relations of England with the central empires, and in all human probability the assured maintenance of peace and a final disarmament.

That is all very well, but English policy is far more bound up with Russia than with Italy. We know where we are when we are dealing with Russia. With Italy no one knows where he is from day to day. Even if we did come to an understanding with Italy, that would not be sufficient to secure peace. If England were to join the Triple Alliance, it would add one to the alliance which at any rate has the appearance of hostility to Russia and France, the two Powers with whom it is most important we should be on good terms. With France such an understanding may be impossible, but with Russia it seems not to be only possible, but almost within our reach.

A Picture of Mrs. Barrett Browning. MISS CORKRAN contributes to Temple Bar a charming paper entitled “A Little Girl's Recollections of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Makepeace Thackeray, and the late Emperor Louis Napoleon." From this article I only make one extract, that in which she describes a visit paid by Mr. and Mrs. Browning to her mother when she was living in Paris :

The French servant opened the door and announced: "Monsieur et Madame Brunig." Could that frail little lady. attired in a simple grey dress and stray bonnet, and the cheerful gentleman in a brown overcoat, be great poets? They had brought with them their little son, Penini; he had long, flowing, fair, curly hair, and wore white drawers edged with embroidery. These peculiarities impressed me, for I thought he looked like a girl. The trio were followed by a beautiful brown dog, with golden eyes. We lived on the fifth floor; Mrs. Browning was quite exhausted after climbing so many stairs; she was pale, and she panted a great deal. My mother gently pushed her into a large, low arm-chair. How thin and small she looked, lying back in the big seat! I remember staring at her, overpowered by a kind of awe, wondering where was the poetry; and then I felt sure it was in her large dark eyes, so full of soul. She wore her thick brown hair in ringlets which hung down on each side of her cheeks; she struck me then as being all eyes and hair, not unlike a spaniel dog.

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OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES:

HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK.

THE Character Sketch in the American Review of Reviews for November is devoted to Oliver Wendell

Holmes, and is from the pen of Mr. Edward Everett Hale, who has more than once made Dr. Holmes his subject in the American magazines. It is a thoroughly interesting paper, lending itself freely to purposes of quotation.

A happy boy in a happy home, with books and friends, with the love of nature and the chance to enjoy it; such are the conditions with which Oliver Wendell Homes starts upon life. . . . . Holmes passed through his medical studies in the University school, called the Boylston School, all the work of which, however, was done in Boston. and then went to Paris: to study, as did many others of a group of young physicians who have since given distinction to their profession in America. He was very fond of referring afterwards to those days in Paris. Young as he was, he won the respect of some of the more distinguished teachers there. And it would be fair to say, perhaps, that there is no better

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DR. HOLMES AT SIXTY, MARCH, 1869. way for a New Englander to break loose from the provincialisms of his birth than when he plunges into the full bath of the world's life as he does by a few years in Paris. . . . Good or bad, Holmes had this touch of European life at a time when it was

not as much a matter of course as it is now. He had the literary passion from the first. The moment he took hold of the Collegian, a little graduate magazine, the Collegian became popular; and he has never written better verses than some of those which were published there.

Dr. Holmes started the publication of the series called " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" as early as 1832 in the New England Magazine, which expired shortly afterwards, although it has since been revived. Loosing this means of publication, there followed a considerable gap between the two "Autocrats," a gap which he speaks of as "a silence of twenty-five years." Holmes now continued hard at work at his profession, and was appointed a professor in the medical school at Hanover, in New Hampstead, and although

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THE BAY WINDOW IN DR. HOLMES'S STUDY.

nothing happened in public affairs or private in which he was not interested, he made few public appearances except in the capacity of lecturer. At last, however, Messrs. Phillips and Sampson, the publishers, determined on the initiation of a new magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and they at once pressed Holmes into their service. Mr. Hale quotes an interesting little speech which Mr. Phillips made to his most distinguished contributors at an inaugural dinner-party in Boston, the company consisting of Bancroft, Prescott, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Motley, Underwood, and others-a notable company.

"Gentlemen," (Mr. Phillips began) "we are going to publish a magazine, and it is to be called the Atlantic Monthly. I have the pleasure of welcoming you here, not because I can write

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0. W HOLMES'S RIRTHPLACE AT CAMBRIDGE, MASS, ERECTED IN 1725, A D.

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