perspective, so to speak, and it was rather sad in a way to see such a grand old scholar and large-minded man filling up his fine brain with such gew-gaws and fribbles as the affairs of Merivale. He was, moreover, more Conservative than ever, and I felt really ashamed to find anybody with such wrong ideas on demand and supply and the rights of man. But to have corrected his opinions on these subjects would have been an impossible task; because, as Mr. Blades once neatly said on another subject, you can’t bring a back-number up to date, and the Doctor, while he might have appeared to the old advantage in the scholastic and venerable atmosphere of Merivale, was distinctly of the ancient and honourable order of back-numbers as he appeared at “The Bishop’s Keys” in London. There was great unrest among the working classes at this time, and Dr. Dunston was very angry with the proletariat. “The sons of labour,” he said, “will soon be the sons of perdition, for, at the rate they are going, they will inevitably dislocate forever the relations between Capital and Labour—with disastrous results to themselves, Corkey; with disastrous results to themselves!” Of course, to one saturated in the sayings of Mr. Bright and Mr. Walter, these views appeared erroneous; but it would not have done to tell the Doctor that I was now a Radical. He must have felt it as a personal slight in his scheme of education. Still, I had to assert myself to some extent and didn’t hesitate to smoke a cigarette with my coffee. It may be added that the Doctor didn’t hesitate to resent it. “A stupid habit, even in the adult, Corkey,” he said; “and I regret that you have allowed yourself to acquire it at your tender age. To suck into the system a deadening smoke from the conflagration of a poisonous vegetable has always seemed to me unworthy of a gentleman and a Christian. No doubt your companions have seduced you, but I am sorry the armour of Merivale was not proof against their temptation.” After this I hid my secret flights toward literature and the boards. His view of the theatre appeared to be that the Greek drama was worthy of all praise, but that the English drama was not. I asked him if he was going to see _Hamlet_, as performed by Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry, and he said, “No, Corkey. The modern theatre is no place for a preceptor of the young. Shakespeare, in fact, is far too sacred a subject for the modern stage. The spirit evaporates, the poet takes wing, and what is left is not worth going to see. I read my Shakespeare in the privacy of my own chamber, Corkey; and I do not expect that the modern generation of actors can teach me anything I do not already know of the Swan of Avon, either from a poetic or philosophical standpoint.”