P.S.--Once more ashore, and abed, convalescenting, in view of the _poluphosboytoning thalasses_ (Yes, my boy O! the Baron knoweth the Greek is not thus, but why not lug in the name of sea-going BOYTON on such an appropriate occasion?), the Baron readeth _Ships that pass in the Night_. A deeply pathetic story in one volume, which the Baron cannot regret not having read long ere this, as it suits his mood so exactly now. He thanks Miss BEATRICE HARRADEN, and would recommend the book everywhere, and to everybody, but that by now no such passport is necessary. Certain personages and localities in the story recall to the Baron's mind a pretty play, and a most successful one, produced at the St. James's Theatre under Mr. ALEXANDER'S management. It was _Liberty Hall_, by SIDNEY CARTON, and the characters were the friendless girl, played, I fancy, by MARION TERRY; the somewhat cynical and mysterious lonely man, played by Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER; and, finally, _Toddy_, the old bookseller and book-collector, a part that suited Mr. RIGHTON down to the ground. Such undesigned coincidences are interesting to reader and playgoer, and in no way detract from the author's originality. B. DE B-W. * * * * * "OUR BENIGHTED ANCESTORS"; OR, HOW IT WILL STRIKE POSTERITY. (_Circa_ 2894 A.D.) _Amanda_ (_looking over_ AMANDUS'S _shoulder_). What _are_ you so absorbed in, my dear? _Amandus_ (_rousing himself_). Why darling, in this very clever, though painful, antiquarian work by Dr. DIGEMUP called "Dips into the Dismal Ages." (_Shudders sympathetically._) Dear, dear, how it makes one pity one's poor, respectable, but ridiculous ancestors of about a thousand years syne,--say the end of the "so-called Nineteenth Century!" _Amanda._ Why dear, what did they do? _Amandus._ You should rather ask, what did they _suffer_? I was reading a graphic, but harrowing, account of an extraordinary annual "Custom" they had--they, the conventional, commonplace, conformists of the day, top-hatted Philistines, "civilised" into characterlessness, polished into pithlessness, humanised into moral pap and pulp. It seems to have been a custom almost as cruel as the blood-bath of Dahomey, as irrational and tormenting as the hari-kari of old Japan. _Amanda._ Dear me! Poor dear deluded duffers, why did they do it?