Boyd sanctified his association with the stage by marrying Miss Agnes Hewitt, a well-known actress who is understood to supply her husband with his Society gossip and his latest fashions. His original ties were rather with the Church than with the Stage. He was the son of Dr. A. K. H. Boyd, of St. Andrews, author of “The Recreations of a Country Parson”—the “Boyd that writes” of Carlyle’s famous sneer. The passing of the Puritan sabbath has conferred benefits also on those who are entirely out of sympathy with the new order of things, and who still patronize the institution of public worship to the extent of attending church or chapel twice or even thrice on Sunday. The priests and the pastors have awakened to the fact that if they would retain their congregations they must give them bright, cheery services, and sermons which, if not eloquent or convincing, shall at least be interesting and intelligent. Huxley flung a gibe at the “corybantic Christianity” of General Booth. But “corybantic Christianity” has held the proletariat by substituting one sort of excitement for another. And the great middle classes can only be kept in leash for a while longer by music and oratory of a kind which, a century since, our militant Protestant forbears would surely have regarded as, in themselves, grievous acts of Sabbath-breaking. Sabbath-breaking, quotha! The Sabbath set up by the dour, morose, uncharitable religionists of my childhood has been broken into bits, nor will all the skilled science of enthusiastic collectors ever piece it together again. CHAPTER VIII ODD FISH LONDON streets have been cleared of their professional “odd fish” owing to the parental solicitude of the police. The expensive operations of the London County Council having swept away all the remnants of Dickensland, the police have gathered up and carried away any Dickenesque characters that survived the advent of the reforming Council. All things considered, our ædiles have acted wisely in the interests of Londoners. They have gained experience and confidence. Such early mistakes as the architecture of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road will never be repeated. The progress of Kingsway and Aldwych prove _that_ at all events. If we are to lose the ancient picturesqueness, we are to have in return spacious roadways flanked by architectural dignity.