f. I did not write to my friend as a ‘student of Positivism,’ for I have no idea what positivism means. I wrote to him as an assertor, in the paper I was reading, of the splendours of Evolution; and therefore ventured to imply, not that it was an impertinence, but an absurdity, in him to linger under the scholastic architecture dimly evolved from the superstition of Magdalen, when he might have disported himself under the commercial architecture more brightly evolved from the moral consciousness of Oriel. g. Simply because I know a goose when I see one,—and when my friend has himself learned to know geese from swans, he will not think himself ‘entitled’ to call either anything else. h. Mr. Harrison underlines the word ‘whole.’ I am bound, therefore, to italicize it. Whether my friend will, hereafter, thank me for so faithfully echoing his emphasis on this sentence, my respect for his general common sense makes very doubtful to me. I do not see anything requiring notice in the rest of the letter so far as it regards myself. I seldom flaunt my poor little ragged feathers in my friends’ faces; but must in simplicity confess to my feeling that it is not necessary for the author of ‘Modern Painters’ to defend himself against the charge of uttering “indiscriminate abuse of all that the human race has now become;” nor for the author of ‘Sesame and Lilies,’ to receive lessons in courtesy to women, from modern Anglo-French chivalry, because he chooses to call a Cobbe, a Cobbe, no less plainly than a Plantagenet, a Plantagenet. IV. “Pious Sentiment.—‘I wish to God we could get a good bloody war somewhere.’ It is not without reluctance that we reproduce these awful words, but they were literally spoken in our hearing in that most sober place of business, Mincing Lane, only a few hours ago. They were spoken by a merchant or broker of gentlemanly appearance and apparent respectability, in a public room, and the most melancholy incident in connection with the utterance is that the atrocious sentiment apparently created no surprise, and was met with no outburst of indignation. We say apparently, for we ourselves were greatly surprised,” (There is nothing whatever to be surprised at, except the frankness of the expression. Modern Liberal Protestantism has always held that you must not kill a man for his creed; but you may, for his money,) “and we felt burning indignation, but we controlled our feelings, and we hope others may have felt as we did, and had equally good reasons for silence. We are accused of taking a pessimist view of mercantile morality and mercantile activity. We commend the expressed wish of an English merchant, publicly expressed, in a public place, where merchants most do congregate, to consideration of those who differ from us in opinion, and we merely place the fact on record without further comment.”—Monetary Gazette, June 14th.