The present guide, which is final, will run to no such extremes. Secrecy is indeed essential; yet there are three excellent reasons for writing Personal Pars, at least in early youth. (1.) The Personal Par is the easiest to produce of all forms of literature. Any man or woman, famous or infamous for any reason, is a subject ready to hand, and to these may be added all persons whatsoever living, dead, or imaginary; and anything whatever may be said about them. Editors, in their honest dislike of giving pain, encourage the inane, and hence more facile, form of praise. Moreover, it takes but a moment to write, and demands no recourse to books of reference. (2.) The Personal Par can always be placed--if not in England, then in America. Though written in any odd moments of one’s leisure time, it will always represent money; and the whole of the period from July to October, when ordinary work is very slack, can be kept going from the stock one has by one. (3.) It has a high economic value, not only in the price paid for it, but indirectly, as an advertisement. This is a point which Lieut.-Col. Lory and Mrs. Railston both overlook. A short specimen, written in August, 1885, at the very beginning of the movement, by my friend, Mrs. Cowley (the Folk-Lorist, not the Poetess), for the _Gazette_, will make these three points clear:-- “The capture of that rare bird, the Cross-tailed Eagle, which is cabled from St. Fandango’s, recalls the fact that the famous Picture ‘Tiny Tots’ was formerly in the possession of the present Governor of that island. The picture is put up to auction by Messrs. Philpots next Saturday, and, judging by the public attendance at their galleries during the last fortnight, the bidding should be brisk.” There is no such bird as the Cross-tailed Eagle, nor any such person as the Governor of St. Fandango’s, nor indeed is there even any such island. Yet Mrs. Cowley was paid 5_s._ by the _Gazette_ for her little bit of research; it was copied into most of the papers, with acknowledgment, and she got a commission from Messrs. Philpots. The former owner of “Tiny Tots” (Mr. Gale of Kew, a wealthy man) wrote a long and interesting letter explaining that some error had been made, and that not he, but his wife’s father, had been an _Inspector_[10] (not Governor) in _St. Vincent’s_. He begged the writer to call on him--her call was the origin of a life-long friendship, and Mrs. Cowley was mentioned in his will. I must detain the student no longer with what is, after all, a very small corner of our art, but conclude with a few carefully chosen examples before proceeding to the next section on Topographical Essays. EXAMPLES. _Wit and Wisdom of the Upper Classes._