He "wished" it, but was the wish a silent one, or did it find expression in a speech? No matter: there are the Old Masters and the Young Masters, there are the Middle-Aged Masters; there are the Great Masters; and, according to Mr. RUSSELL LOWELL, there are "the Little Masters," without any middle term at all. "The Little Masters," like children in the nursery of Art, not admitted to dinner, but who come in afterwards for dessert. May they come in for their just deserts, as no doubt they will some day. Well, according to this Lowelly estimation of merit, these would be the Lesser Masters, and after them the No Masters at all, except perhaps the Toast-Masters. But why not follow a kind of public school classification which divides one form--of course all the artists belong to the very best form, and, like Sir FREDERICK the President, show the very best form--into several compartments, so that we should have in one form say, the Fifth, Upper Fifth, Middle Fifth, subdivided into Upper and Lower Middle, then Lower Fifth, with a similar subdivision? Orders of merit to be worn in the button-hole could then be distributed, and a new Order of the "B.P.", not "British Public," but "Brush and Pencil," could be instituted, to be entitled fully, "_The Masters of the Black and White Art_." [Illustration: "(STAN)-HOPE TOLD A FLATTERING TALE." _Mr. Punch_ (_to War Secretary_). "VERY WELL ON ACCOUNT; BUT WHEN IS HE TO HAVE HIS REWARD IN FULL, LIKE HIS BROTHERS OF THE COMBATANT BRANCH?"] In the _Fortnightly_, besides an article on the prevailing epidemic, by Sir MORRELL MACKENZIE, M.D., which finishes with much the sort of general advice that was given by _Mr. Justice Starleigh_ to _Sam Weller_, to the effect that "You had better be careful, Sir," whoever you are, who read this short, but generally interesting paper. There is an anonymous paper on an imaginary election at the Royal Academy, noticeable only for an excellent imitation of Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH'S style. The Novelist is supposed to look in casually, and, finding an election imminent, he offers sage words of counsel, and then begs to be allowed to "float out of their orbit by a bowshot." It seems to me that the paper was written for the sake of this one short paragraph, which, as a close parody, is inimitable. _A Modern Idyll_, by the Editor, Mr. FRANK HARRIS, is, as far as this deponent is concerned, like the Rule of Three in the ancient Nursery Rhyme, for it "bothers me," and, though written with considerable dramatic power, yet it seems rather the foundation for a novel which the Author felt either disinclined to continue, or unable to finish. ALTER HEGO (_in the Office of the B. de B.-W._) * * * * * THE TYRANTS OF THE STRAND! (_FRAGMENT FROM A ROMANCE, FOUNDED UPON A MODERN STRIKE._)