“Pencil in pouch, and syllabus in hand, Hugging selected poets of the land, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge,--all but Thomas Hood And Byron (more’s the pity!), They caught the local colour where they could; And members of the feminine committee To native grace an added charm would bring Of light blue ribbons,--not of abstinence, But bearing just this sense-- Inquire within on any mortal thing.” This is charming, both in form and spirit, and I wish Sir Francis Doyle had lived to read it. But the same spirit and an even better form may be found in Pope’s familiar lines which mock--kindly as yet, and in a friendly fashion--at the vaunted scholarship of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. “In beauty and wit No mortal as yet To question your empire has dared; But men of discerning Have thought that, in learning, To yield to a lady was hard.” Even the little jibes and jeers which “Punch” and “Life” have flung so liberally at girl graduates, and over-educated young women, have their counterparts in the pages of the “Spectator,” when Molly and Kitty are so busy discussing atmospheric pressure that they forget the proper ingredients for a sack posset; and when they assure their uncle, who is suffering sorely from gout, that pleasure and pain are imaginary distinctions, and that if he would only fix his mind upon this great truth he would no longer feel the twitches. When we consider that this letter to the “Spectator” was written over a hundred and eighty years ago, we must acknowledge that young England of 1711 is closely allied with young England and with young America of 1897, both of whom are ever ready to assure us that we are not, as we had ignorantly supposed ourselves to be, in pain, but only “in error.” And it is even possible that old England and old America of 1897, though separated by nearly two centuries from old England of 1711, remain, when gouty, in the same darkened frame of mind, and are equally unable to grasp the joyous truths held out to them so alluringly by youth.