on the misery of those who had been unjustly deprived of their liberty. The king blushed for very shame. He felt that Heaven, in permitting this fearful humiliation, did no more than render to the man the same torture as was inflicted by that man upon so many others.”—It is in a glowing description of one of the great fêtes at Versailles under the auspices of this, the Grand Monarque, that M. Arsène Houssaye delivers himself of this pensive aside: “Et la musique de Lulli achève d’enivrer tout ce beau monde, qui ne pense pas un seul instant que près de là, à la grille même du château des merveilles, une pauvre femme prie et pleure, tout affamée, pour ses enfants. Qu’importe! passe ton chemin, et reviens plus tard. Comment t’appelles-tu, bonne femme?—Je m’appelle la France: _je reviendrai_.” Part of the education of the royal heir-apparent of the Incas consisted in a course of gymnastic training, with competitive trials of skill—during which, for a period of thirty days, “the royal neophyte fared no better than his comrades, sleeping on the bare ground, going unshod, and wearing a mean attire,—a mode of life, it was supposed, which might tend to inspire him with more sympathy with the destitute.” It is to royalty that Jeanie Deans is pleading, when she exclaims, “Alas! it is not when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves, that we think on other people’s sufferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then.... But when the hour of trouble comes—and seldom may it visit your leddyship—and when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low—lang and late may it be yours—O my leddy, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly.” An English traveller in Russia, discussing the difficulty with which news of starving peasants reaches the ears of the czar, and tracing the roundabout track by which, at last, when many have died, and many more are dying, a stifled wail penetrates through the “official cotton-stuffed ears of district police auditoria, district chambers of domains, military chiefs of governments, and imperial chancelleries without number,” and comes soughing into the private cabinet of the czar at the Winter Palace or Peterhoff,—goes on to say: “The empress, good soul, sheds tears when she hears of the dreadful sufferings of the poor people so many hundred versts off. The imperial children, I have no doubt, wonder why, if the peasants have no bread to eat, they don’t take to plum-cake; the Emperor is affected, but goes to work,” etc. Which last expression, by the way, reminds us of a _quasi_ quotation by Mr. Carlyle of Shakespeare’s text in juxtaposition with mention of the greatest of czars: “Descend, O Donothing Pomp; quit thy down-cushions; expose thyself to learn what wretches feel, and how to cure it! The czar of Russia became a dusty toiling shipwright; ... and his aim was small to thine.” There was a miserable day in the Highland wanderings of