* * * * * A member of the Chancery Bar consults us on the following point: "I was awakened," he says, "by my dog during a recent air-raid. He was so annoyed that he consumed the whole of _Lewin on Trusts_ and commenced _Tudor on Wills_, and is now suffering from severe indigestion. Have I or has the dog any equitable remedy?" * * * * * [Illustration: TERRORS OF THE SCOTTISH LANGUAGE. _Housemaid in Glasgow Hotel_. "YE CANNA GANG TO THE BATHROOM THE NOO." _Sassenach_. "WHY NOT?" _Housemaid_. "THERE'S A BODY IN THE BATH."] * * * * * THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM. IV. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LXXI. _Mary_. You spoke, Mamma, of CHAUCER being the Father of English poetry. Was there _any_ English poetry before the discoveries of Lord EDWARD MARSH? _Mrs. M_. Certainly, my dear. CHAUCER was our first eminent poet, but, as a distinguished American critic has observed, he could not spell. This greatly interfered with his popularity. Then there was SHAKSPEARE, who wrote quaint old-fashioned plays quite unsuitable for filming, but nevertheless enjoyed a certain fame until it was proved that he never existed and that SHAKESPEARE was the name of a syndicate; or that if he did exist he was somebody else; when all interest in his work naturally evaporated. The abolition of rhyme, about the year 1920, gave a fresh impetus to English poetry, and now, as you know, almost anyone can write it fluently, whereas formerly the easiest poems were written with the greatest difficulty. Indeed one reads of some old poets who were not able to produce a mere hundred lines in a day. Under the "free-verse" system, some of the Palustrine (or Marshy) School have been known to produce as many as three thousand lines in a day and to earn in a week as much as MILTON, an old poet of the seventeenth century, received for the whole of his greatest work, on which he was engaged for years. _Richard_. You have often talked about people going into sanctuary. What does it mean? _Mrs. M_. Originally every church, abbey, or consecrated place was a sanctuary, and all persons who had committed crimes or were otherwise in fear of their lives might secure themselves from danger by getting into them. But in the reign which we have been discussing it came to be used specially of the House of Commons from the number of tiresome and objectionable people who sought refuge there, because of the freedom from legal penalties which they enjoyed. Once safe in the House of Commons they said and even did things which, if they had been said or done in public, or even in private, would have exposed them either to prosecution or personal chastisement. Ultimately the nuisance became so great that the privilege of sanctuary was abolished, and the tone of the House of Commons greatly improved. _Mary_. I could not quite understand that story about the King and the public jester.