Well, it is a magnificent inheritance, and most certainly it is our duty, as well as our interest, to maintain it. But how? Magnificent as it is, it has certain incumbrances; memories of wrongs unredressed, actualities of mismanagement unremoved. To maintain _these_ is not to improve the inheritance, and enable us to hand it down better worth maintaining by those who will inherit it from us. As stewards of the splendid patrimony of empire, we must not only keep it together, but properly--that is, justly and sagaciously--administer it, which, indeed, is the only sure and safe way of maintaining it. The accumulated mortgage of our ancestors' errors and misdeeds is, unfortunately, but inevitably, a part of our "inheritance." To pay it off may seem a burdensome duty, but a duty it is, in the resolute doing, not the haughty ignoring or cowardly shirking, of which we shall be at least as truly "maintaining our inheritance," as by stroke of sword, or statute of coercion. _Verb. sap_. * * * * * We see a book advertised by Messrs. KEGAN, PAUL & CO., called _Tertium Quid_. Ask an Eton Boy, about Christmas time, or when he is going back to school, what is the translation of _Tertium Quid_, and he will probably hold out his hand and reply, "The third sovereign--but I'll take one to go on with, or to go off with." Well, you can "owe him one" for that. * * * WHAT'S IN A NAME?--The person who ought to write a weird Christmas story is, evidently, the Author of _Bootles' Baby, That Imp!_ &c., JOHN STRANGE WINTER. * * * MOTTO FOR THE NEW LORD MAYOR.--"_Aut Keyser aut nullus._" * * * * * THE FISHERS. (_Some way after Kingsley._) The Fishers went sailing North, South, East, and West, And they raised lots of rows ere the sun went down. Each fancied the foreigners' waters the best, And wished in those waters to let his nets down. And Commissions must work and Statesmen must weep, And weary with trying the peace for to keep, Whilst the Public heart is groaning. The Smack-owners rush to Lord SALISBURY'S side, And genial JOSEPH'S to Canada gone; And the end of this selfishness, temper, and pride, Will be a great big all-round fight ere all's done, Unless men will try their hot tempers to keep, And establish some rule of fair-play on the deep, For which honest hearts are all moaning. * * * * * POLITICAL SEPULTURE.--The Senior Member for Northampton lately told his constituents that:-- "The Conservatives were digging their own graves, and it was about the only good and sensible thing they possibly could do." But if they wanted an interment, the Home-Rulers could supply them with a SEXTON ready and willing to save them that trouble. * * *