is plain that his powers have been cramped with the space of two thick octavo volumes. In order to make his Iliad perfect, we ought to have had a catalogue of the chiefs of the navvies. But we must rest satisfied with the acute remark of Herder, that "the burden of the song is infinite, but the powers of the human voice are finite." Mr Francis has done what he can. Creed and Brassey--Brunel and Locke--Chaplin, Peto, and Vignolles, live within his inspired volumes; and we beg to congratulate them on account of that assured immortalisation. They are the salt of the earth. The compilers of traffic-tables have disappeared--the old standing witnesses before committees of the House of Commons are dumb--the young engineering gentlemen, who could do anything they pleased in the way of levelling mountains, are amusing themselves in California or elsewhere--even the mighty counsel, the holders of a hundred briefs, for which, for the most part, they rendered but indifferent service, are unsung. But the others live. In the British Valhalla they are assured of an adequate niche, thanks to Mr Francis, who, as Captain Dangerfield says, is ready to stake his reputation that they are the only men worthy of record in such an enlightened age as our own. No--we are wrong. The man of all others to be deeply venerated is "George Carr Glyn, Esq., Chairman of the London and North-Western Railway," to whom these volumes are respectfully dedicated. Of Mr Glyn's career as a statesman we know absolutely nothing. We are not even aware to what section of politicians he belongs, so utter is our ignorance of his fame. As we read the pages of Francis, and encountered the continual eulogiums heaped upon this gentleman, we felt remarkably uncomfortable. We could not divest ourselves of the notion that we had been asleep for some quarter of a century, and had therefore missed the opportunity of witnessing the appearance of a new and most brilliant star in the political horizon. About Mr Glyn, Francis has no manner of doubt. He is not only the most sagacious, but the most clever personage extant, for every purpose which can smooth railway difficulties. He is the Ulysses of his line, and can rap Thersites on the sconce, if that cynical fiend should insist upon an awkward question. We really and unaffectedly ask pardon of Mr Glyn, if we mistake him through his eulogist. We have no other means of knowing him; and therefore he must settle the correctness of the following sketch with Mr Francis, who appears as the voluntary artist. If the drawing is to the mind of Mr Glyn, and if it meets his ideas of ethics, we have nothing in the world to say against it, having no interest whatever in the line over which he presides. Hear Francis: "The proper place to see Mr Glyn is as chairman in that noble room, where, with an earnest multitude around him, with the representative of every class and caste before him--with Jew and Gentile ready to carp at and criticise his