If, among the exulting crowd that welcomed King William of glorious and happy memory to England, a spectator had seen the flowing white locks of some old soldier of Cromwell's Ironsides, as the men of Hadley were fabled to have seen the venerable head of Goffe, the regicide, suddenly appearing as their deliverer, he would have felt his heart throbbing with gratitude at the vision of one of the heroes who founded the liberty which William came to complete. So some musing observer in the church where the reverend graybeards met to renew their friendship and to tell their story might well have gazed with gratitude, amid the peace and prosperity of the country, upon the thinned and thinning remnant of that old guard whose constancy and devotion made that peace and prosperity possible. REFORM CHARITY The State Board of Charities in New York would deal severely with Elia if it found him upon the street, stammering out his admiration of the fine histrionic powers of a beggar, and searching in his pocket for a penny. Lamb said that it was shameful to pay a crown for a seat in the theatre to enjoy the representation of woes that you knew to be fictitious, and to grudge a sixpence to the street performer who was so excellent that you could not tell whether his sufferings were real or affected. He is undoubtedly responsible for a great deal of easy and irresponsible alms-giving, which greatly increases human suffering and the expense of society. It is not possible to conceive anything more comical than Lamb's probable reception of a politico-economical or scientific view of charity. He would have felt his genius for humor to be hopelessly surpassed. His view would have been the ludicrous aspect of the idea which is more solemnly held by those who regard ordinary alms-giving as one of the cardinal virtues, and who have a vague conviction that a liberal disbursement of money to the poor in this world is a strong lien upon endless felicity in the next. There is, indeed, something very affecting in the old picture of conventional charity--the groups of disabled and destitute assembling at the great gate or in the courtyard, and the benign priests distributing food and clothing. And there is a similar picturesque interest in the ancient English bounties--a trust which secures to every wayfarer who may demand it a loaf of bread or a mug of beer.