I don't much care whether I have quoted correctly or not. I suggested last week in these columns that one might be allowed, as a compensation for advancing years, to use one's quotations without fastidious regard for their accuracy. On consideration I don't see why this liberty should not be even further extended. I can see ("in my mind's eye, Horatio") whole masterpieces coming within its scope and yielding with a sufficiently bad grace to a courageous candour like JAMES PAYN'S. Why should _Don Quixote_, for instance, tyrannise over us? He has had a good innings, in the course of which, it is only fair to acknowledge, he has been enormously helped by his henchman, _Sancho Panza_, a fellow of infinite wit, no doubt. There are however readers who set up these two as idols and would compel us to kneel to them, especially when _Sancho_ receives the appointment of Governor of Barataria. I acknowledge I am a constant devotee of _Don Quixote_ and his _Sancho_, but it is conceivable that there are people who have no liking for them. Let such, if they are old enough, proclaim it, as JAMES PAYN did his opinion about RABELAIS' fun. I should like to bring certain long poems of universal renown within the scope of my principle. What about _Paradise Lost_? Did any woman, except perhaps GEORGE ELIOT, ever read it throughout unless under scholastic compulsion? I doubt it; her sense of humour would not allow her to. Take, for instance, the following lines, describing the simple amusements of our first parents:-- "About them frisking played All beasts of the earth since wild, and of all chase In wood or wilderness, forest or den. Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards, Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant, To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed His lithe proboscis." Now, if anybody does not like MILTON'S fun, why, in the name of a "lithe proboscis," should he not say so--in his mature middle-age? * * * * * "There is a shamelessness among many in both high and low life that calls for vehement protest. The question with many seems to be how near they can come to the verge of decency without falling over."--_Ashore and Afloat_. We have noticed a few who have had quite a narrow escape. * * * * * WAY OUT. _(Thoughts on leaving the Crystal Palace.)_ A brigadier or two beside the portal To cry to me with anguish half disguised, "Hail and farewell, O brother! pomp is mortal"-- Something, I fancied, something of this sort'll Happen to me when I'm demobilised. That was an error. Not a drum was sounded; No personage, no panoply, no pep; Only a single private who expounded My pathway out, and I went forth dumbfounded; Merely remembering to mind the step.