its proportions aright, and we may depend upon it that the reader of the history of our period a hundred years hence will turn to the page that records the events of 1870 as at once the most interesting and important in the annals of many centuries. Reverting for a moment to the Annus Mirabilis of Dryden, it is but fair to acknowledge that they seem to have had one wonder to boast of in 1666 that we cannot claim for 1870, to this date at least; the wonder in question being two blazing comets in the nocturnal sky. Describing the English fleet advancing to attack the enemy at night, the poet, with a boldness of hyperbole for which he is always remarkable, says-- "To see that fleet upon the ocean move, Angels drew down the curtains of the skies; And Heaven, as if there wanted lights above, For tapers, made two glaring comets rise!" But if we have no comets to boast of in 1870, let not the reader forget that the 14th November is nigh at hand, and that he who gets up betimes on the morning of that day, and watches till the daybreak, will assuredly witness a sight more startling, and grand and "glaring" than Dryden's comets, wonderful and startling as they doubtless were. We must be permitted one other extract from this extraordinary poem. It describes the state of the contending fleets and the feelings of their respective crews on their withdrawing for a time from an engagement that resulted in something like what at the present day we should call a drawn battle:-- "The night comes on, we eager to pursue The combat still, and they ashamed to leave Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew, And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive. "In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy, And loud applause of their great leader's fame; In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy, And, slumbering, smile at the imagin'd flame. "Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done, Stretch'd on their decks, like weary oxen lie; Faint sweats all down their mighty members run (Vast hulks which little souls but ill supply). "In dreams they fearful precipices tread, Or, shipwreck'd, labour to some distant shore; Or in dark churches walk among the dead; They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more." We do not know whether the reader will agree with us, but we look upon these verses as wonderfully fine, and upon the Annus Mirabilis as, of its class, amongst the finest, if not the very finest, poem in the language.