Benjamin Bobbin loves to moralise. He cannot help it. It is part of his nature. However, the reader need not necessarily accompany him where the ground has a suspicious appearance-where the truths are too apparent where facts are unblushingly set down as facts. When he turns aside for a slight digression, the reader can skip over the pages, and leave their dry morality for the digestion of more congenial spirits. Some folk there are who will doubtless be better pleased with these digressions. They speak of the world as it is, and not as fools paint it; of men as they really are, with such reflections as may lead them to ask themselves, "Are we exactly what we ought to be ?" As at the feasts of the ancients a skeleton was ever present, so as he transcribes the entries from his diary he ever and anon places a memento mori in the margin. It is a wise precaution-a safety-valve-a necessary amount of unpleasant ballast. The Egyptians did it; they were not all fools. Benjamin may be one-still he dares to follow their example.

CONCLUSION.

In the evening I accompanied Mr. Cripps to Leith Walk. It was after dinner. The sunshine was delightful, but the dust was not; at least I thought so; it made too free with my eyes. I turned my back upon it several times, hoping to get rid of it, but that was of no advantage to me; so I walked steadily forward, with my vision unimpaired for two or three minutes at a time, and then, as the dust commenced its game, I let fall my eyelids, pressing them tightly together, until I saw stars, and semicircles, and fishy scales, and other things too numerous to mention, and too shadowy to obtain belief. Mr. Cripps leaned upon my arm like a friend, advised me like a brother, and talked to me like a father. His exordium was wine-his climax, its abuses. His advice was well meant, judicious, and wholesome. I saw plainly that he feared I had enjoyed myself rather freely after the Sunday's dinner. I felt that he was right, so continued silent, and was a patient listener.

"Now, Bobbin, my dear boy," he said, when his subject was nearly exhausted-"you must excuse me for calling you boy, but you are little more-age brings its honours, but it ever looks with a species of envy upon youth. I am not an old man, yet have I seen as many years, perhaps, as your father. There was a time when I was your age; when I attempt to give you any advice, I feel how useful it would have been to me had I received it when I was a young man, and whilst you permit my tongue to run on, I almost imagine that I am living those sunny days over again. You must not be offended at anything I may have said."

"Offended! I really feel truly grateful to you, Mr. Cripps, for the advice you so generously have tendered me. I appreciate fully the kind spirit that actuates you, and I only wish to know how I can sufficiently thank you."

"I'll tell you, my lad. By admitting common sense into all your counsels, and taking advantage of the suggestions I have thrown out.

Never be without a certain amount of pride-I mean the pride that elevates man in the social scale, not that bastardised counterfeit begotten of arrogance and ignorance. Be choice in the selection of your companions, affable with all, open to few. Never let a well-cut coat, or a nicelyrounded speech, entirely win your confidence, nor a shabby suit and a plain appearance prejudice your judgment. Worthless pebbles often boast a gilded setting, whilst priceless pearls may lie unnoted in an oystershell. Never look upon a man as a friend merely because he has nodded to you over a glass of wine, proposed your health, or applauded your song; nor consider him perfectly disinterested because he speaks sharply to the waiter for bringing you mutton at dinner when there is venison upon the table. Disinterested friends, as the words ought to be construed, are a people that exist only where such travellers as Gulliver have been. We hear of them and read of them; so, also, we may of the Liliputians, and the sphinx, and the phoenix; we meet with the effigies of all such fabulous creatures, and think that they look like life and reality. But where are the originals?—what we see are impositions. The tangibility of the one in mortal flesh is as mythological as the history of the others; and, so far as existence is concerned, I am sorry to inform you that they are coequal.

"Never drink a glass of any liquor over your quantum merely for the sake of appearing social, and assisting another in emptying the decanters. Better leave it for the consumption of the waiter than take it to engender consumption in yourself. During my life I have known many a fine promising young fellow, who sat every bottle out upon one journey, drinking cod-liver oil on the next, and looking as though he were booked for a destination where refreshments are not required. Be advised by me, and never exceed your pint of sherry, or port, or whatever it may be. Remember that incontinence in youth overtakes helpless old age before life's half-way house has been reached. The steady pace keeps longest on the course. Practised runners husband their energies; impetuous amateurs expend theirs before the race has well commenced. I augur good things of you. You brook censure patiently, and do not despise the cautions of an elder. Continue ever to act upon the same principle. Many roses lie in your path; never trample upon the smallest, it will bud in time. Pluck them all if you will, but do not lacerate your fingers with their prickly stems. When the experience of others is offered to you gratuitously, accept it thankfully. It costs those a high price who have been compelled to purchase it. And now that I have concluded my lecture, I hope you are not annoyed."

"My dear sir, on the contrary, every word you have spoken is already graven in my memory. This evening the better part of it shall orna

ment my diary."

"Do you generally keep one?"

"I do," I replied.

"I honour you for it, my boy," he cried, enthusiastically, grasping my hand warmly. "When the gleanings of every day are sifted and conveyed to paper, you build for yourself the privilege of living younger moments over again when in after years you peruse the pages. Mr. Bobbin, I honour you for it."

I was not a little vain of his good opinion, for I felt that it was worth the holding, so I said,

"Since I have been so fortunate as to have gained a position in your esteem, Mr. Cripps, suffer me to express one selfish wish."

"That you will never permit me to forfeit your respect until I have proved either a thankless listener or an incorrigible pupil."

"Rest assured of it I shall not, my lad."

We had previously retraced our steps, and were then at the door of the hotel. He again gave me his hand as though he wished to convince me of his determination, and with a hearty "God bless you!" we parted.

The Minehead Pilots.

The belief is still current at Minehead that the Phantom Ship occasionally appears to lure pilots to their doom, and, when her object is accomplished, disappears.

206

New-Book Notes by Monkshood.

MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.*

IT is a little unreasonable to assume that Mr. Macaulay's next and subsequent volumes must needs, for form and consistency's sake, take the same time to appear, and occupy an equal space in the narrative of events Kar' 'evavrov, as these portly twain, the third and fourth. It is rather too matter-of-fact and mechanical a mode of calculation, to infer from the number of pages absorbed by the years 1689 and 1690, the inevitable quantum of any other given year in the hundred following. A year crowded with events, or pregnant with the germs of events, is not identical in philosophic eyes with a year of inaction and repose, though both have an equal tale of months and weeks and days, and fill a pretty equal space in the chronicles of a mere Annual Register. The seven years from 1691 to 1697 are disposed of in one of these two volumes, and an accelerated rate of movement may be expected in certain advanced stages of the history. Were it otherwise, there were small hope indeed of an even approximate fulfilment of the historian's design. To reach even half-way to his proposed terminus ad quem, he would, in that case, need to be as immortal in a physical, as an admiring public already proclaims him in a literary, sense. Nevertheless, making the fullest allowance for the difference between year and year, and between the time required for collecting historical matter and that for writing history, there is overmuch reason for misgivings that Mr. Macaulay has overshot his mark in dating so far onwards the finis which is to "crown" his "work"-his opus magnum. Happy we shall think him if he live to write, happy we shall think ourselves if we live to read, his History of England down to that epoch which forms the final "catastrophe" in the great drama of the Revolution-down to that year which shattered the last hopes of the Stuarts and made doubly sure the assurance of safety to constitutional power-down to the '45 which rehabilitated, re-affirmed, and gave the approving "last word" to the grand experiment of the '89.

The present instalment, if it does not increase, at least keeps up, the interest of the opening volumes. There is little change perceptible in the characteristic qualities of the author. He does not become more of the historian and less of the essayist as he goes on. Indeed, the twelve chapters read like twelve essays, such as made his fortune in the Edinburgh Review; and a more indolent man might be tempted to insert in the body of his work, as it

The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. By T. B. Macaulay. Vols. iii., iv. Longman.