beautiful master there is even in this English transcript an abundance of evidence. Melancholy apart, he was the Watteau of the old Greek world--an exquisite artist, a rare poet, a true and kindly soul; and it is very good to be with him. We have changed it all of course, and are as fortunate as we can expect. But it is good to be with Theocritus, for he lets you live awhile in the happy age and under the happy heaven that were his. He gives you leave and opportunity to listen to the tuneful strife of Lacon and Comatas; to witness the duel in song between Corydon and Battus; to talk of Galatea pelting with apples the barking dog of her love-lorn Polypheme; under the whispering elms, to lie drinking with Eucritus and Lycidas by the altar of Demeter, 'while she stands smiling by, with sheaves and poppies in her hand.' Old Lamps and New. It is relief unspeakable to turn from the dust and din and chatter of modern life, with its growing trade in heroes and its poverty of men, its innumerable regrets and ambitions and desires, to this immense tranquillity, this candid and shining calm. They had no Irish Question then, you can reflect, nor was theology invented. Men were not afraid of life nor ashamed of death; and you could be heroic without a dread of clever editors, and hospitable without fear of rogues, and dutiful for no hope of illuminated scrolls. Odysseus disguised as Irus is still Odysseus and august. How comes it that Mr. Gladstone in rags and singing ballads would be only fit for a police-station? that Lord Salisbury hawking cocoa-nuts would instantly suggest the purlieus of Petticoat Lane? Is the fault in ourselves? Can it be that we have deteriorated so much as that? Nerves, nerves, nerves! . . . These many centuries the world has had neuralgia; and what has come of it is that Robert Elsmere is an ideal, and the bleat of the sentimentalist might almost be mistaken for the voice of living England. RABELAIS His Essence.