spotless persons for the purposes of court society. The court-line is drawn along an existing and well-marked social division. In Canada this preparation for court gayeties does not exist. If the persons soiled by commerce were to be excluded from the princess's presence, she would lead a lonely and dismal life, and the court would be substantially a failure. If, on the other hand, the court is to be made up exclusively of rich traders, it will not only excite the fiercest jealousies and bitterness among those who are excluded, but it will be very difficult to provide a rule for passing on claims for presentation when once the line of official position is passed. But, it may be said, why not throw all restrictions aside and admit everybody, as at White House receptions? Nobody will ask this question who has mastered even the rudiments of royalty, and we shall not take the trouble of answering it fully. We are now discussing the question for the benefit of persons of some degree of knowledge. Suffice it to say that any laxity of practice at Ottawa would do a good deal of damage to the monarchical principle itself, which, as Mr. Bagehot has pointed out, owes much of its force and permanence even in England to its hold on the imagination. The princess cannot go back to England receiving Tom, Dick, and Harry in Canada without a certain loss of prestige both for herself and her house. Not the least curious feature of the crisis is the interest the prospect of a Canadian court has excited in this country. Our newspapers know what they are about when they give whole pages to accounts of the voyage and the reception, including a history of the House of Argyll and a brief sketch of the feelings of Captain the Duke of Edinburgh, now on the Halifax Station, over his approaching meeting with his sister. They recognize the existence of a deep and abiding curiosity, at least among the women of our country, about all that relates to royalty and its doings, in spite of the labor expended for nearly a century by orators and editors in showing up the vanity and hollowness of monarchical distinctions. In fact, if the secrets of American hearts could be revealed, we fear it would be found that the materials for about a million of each order of nobility, from dukes down, exist among us under quiet republican exteriors, and that if a court circle were set up among us no earthly power could prevent its assuming unnatural and unmanageable proportions. A prince like the late Emperor Maximilian, whose purse was meagre but whose connection with a reigning house was unquestioned and close, might find worse ways of repairing his fortune than setting up an amateur court in some of the Atlantic cities and charging a moderate fee for presentation, and drawing the line judiciously so as to keep up the distinction without damaging his revenues. To prevent cutting remarks on the members of the circle, however, and too much ridicule of the whole enterprise, he