In the colonies, and especially in Canada, where there is so little in the local life to gratify the imagination, the court shines with a splendor which the distance only intensifies. To a certain class of Canadians, who enjoy more frequent opportunities than the inhabitants of the other great colonies of renewing or fortifying their love of the competition of English social life, and of the marks of success in it, the court, as the fountain of honor, apart from all political significance, is an object of almost fierce interest. In England itself the signs of social distinction are not so much prized. This kind of Canadian is, in fact, apt to be rather more of an Englishman than the Englishman himself in all these things. He imitates and cultivates English usages with a passion which takes no account of the restrictions of time or place. It is "the thing" too in Canadian society, as in the American colony in Paris, to be much disgusted by the "low Americans" who invade the Dominion in summer, and to feel that even the swells of New York and Boston could achieve much improvement in their manners by faithful observation of the doings in the Toronto and Ottawa drawing-rooms. As far as admiration of courts and a deep desire for court-life and a belief in the saving grace of contact with royalty can go, therefore, there are Canadians fully prepared for the establishment of a court "in their midst." The society of the province was, in fact, in an imflammable eagerness to kiss hands, and back out from the presence of royalty, and perform the various exercises pertaining to admission to court circles, and in a proper state of Jingo distrust of the wicked Czar and his minions--which in the Colonies is now one of the marks of gentility--when the magician, Lord Beaconsfield, determined to apply the match to it by sending out a real princess. In spite of his contempt for the "flat-nosed Franks," however, he can hardly have been prepared for the response which he elicited. He cannot have designed to make monarchy and royalty seem ridiculous, and yet the articles and addresses and ceremonies with which the new Governor-General and his wife have been received look as if the Minister had determined, before he died, to have the best laugh of his farcical career over the barbarians who have called him in to rule over them. A court is a very delicate thing, and a strong capacity for enjoying it does not of itself make good courtiers. In England the reasons which prevent a man's being received at court--such as active prosecution of the dry-goods business--are a thousand years old; in fact, they may be said to have come down from the ancient world along with the Roman law. They have, therefore, a certain natural fitness and force in the eyes of the natives of that country. That is, it seems to "stand to reason" that a trader should not go to court. Moreover, they can be enforced in England and still leave an abundant supply of