who have adopted it on the authority of the Times. I am not going to enter upon a dissertation on an elementary rule of English grammar, and therefore I will content myself, just now, with the somewhat dogmatic statement that rule and reason, authority, euphony, and usage are almost unanimous in favour of a against an in these cases. Then why will the Times insist upon setting our teeth on edge with "an universal"? There ought to be a court of appeal.

WHILE I am constrained to deprecate the misuse of the article an in the manner I have just mentioned, I commend the editor of that paper for laying down rigid rules and insisting upon their observance. Those who are unacquainted with the machinery of a newspaper office may not know by what means the grammatical laws proclaimed from the editor's rooms are enforced, seeing that each morning's paper represents the work of many writers, and that there is a very frequent introduction of new hands upon the various departments. The plan is very simple. The "proof readers" work by the orders of their chief. It is their business to convert "a universal" into "an universal," wherever the expression occurs. Some time ago instructions were given in the "reading-room" that the phrase "took place" was to be banished from the pages of the Times. From that day, I am informed, no accident, no fire, no collision at sea, no marriage, no offence has ever been referred to in the columns of the leading morning paper as having "taken place." Events may "occur," they may "happen," they may assume verbal form in any legitimate fashion, but they are not allowed to "take place." The "reader" must correct the writer, the reporter, the penny-a-liner, and find an equivalent and euphonious substitute for the too familiar and certainly awkward phrase. It is creditable to English journalism that it should even attempt to carry out nice rules of verbal construction in the midst of the hurry and high pressure of daily publication.

I HAVE received the following letter from the Thatched House Club, St. James's :

SIR. Will you allow me to point out a slight error in the very able article on Mr. Irving's impersonation of "Mathias" in "The Bells," which appears in this month's Gentleman's? The writer appears to think the piece is adapted from a novel by Erckmann-Chatrain (see pages 196 and 197). I saw the play at the Théatre de Cluny in Paris, in the summer of 1869, under the title of Le Juif Polonais, when it was causing a great excitement in the theatrical world. The version at the Lyceum is a most literal rendering of this play, so literal that in the dream scene Mathias is made to say, "I give him his money," i. e., change; a literal rendering of "Je lui rends sa monnaie." It is stated, moreover, in the playbills that the services of the chef d'orchestre at the Théatre de Cluny have been secured to give completeness to the representation. One change, a decided improvement, is the substitution of the vision of the Jew in the sleigh in the first act for the arrival of a real Jew who, in the French play, enters and salutes the house in the identical words used by the Jew murdered eighteen years before. I trust these remarks will not be deemed an intrusion on your space by one who has been A SUBSCRIBER FROM No. 1. (N.S.)

WHAT does Mr. Peter Taylor want? It is not pleasant, I agree, to put on silk stockings and breeches, and to dress yourself up in what Mr. Bright with a sneer calls a picturesque costume, especially if your figure is not quite equal to that of the gallants of Charles the Second's days. But the parliamentary and court costume was modified two or three years ago to suit Mr. Bright; and till now I thought we were all satisfied that we had struck out a very ingenious compromise between the traditions of the Stuarts and the fashion of the day. But here is Mr. Peter Taylor with fresh criticism and fresh complaints. The new costume does not suit him; and he is vexing his spirit over the thought of how Mr. Odger will feel when in the fulness of time he finds himself in St. Stephen's and receives an invitation for one of the Speaker's full-dress dinners. Perhaps it would be as well to let the working men speak for themselves when their turn comes. But may I ask where is all this higgling about court dress and republican simplicity to stop? Mr. Peter Taylor objects to silk stockings and breeches. Mr. Bright objects to swords and ruffles. A third man objects to sit down to dinner in the dress of a waiter. The Quaker objects to everything except drab. The working man, according to Mr. Peter Taylor, will object to anything except corduroy. Perhaps in a year or two the sans culottes may turn up in Palace-yard; and of course like Mr. Odger they will object very strongly to "turn themselves and their class into the semblance of court lackeys." What then? Are we to take our fashion from the Texan hunters, and attend Parliamentary banquets in a straw hat and a pair of spurs? This, to my thinking, is the ne plus ultra of Republican simplicity. But I have no doubt that Mr. Peter Taylor of the day will quarrel about the spurs, and ask the Speaker if it is politic to "Set up class distinctions of this kind within the walls of Parliament ?"

I HAVE a suggestion to make which will, I fear, startle a few ladies and gentlemen of delicate susceptibilities. But I make it purely in the interests of science. It is that the British Association, the Royal College of Physicians, the Institute of Architects and of Actuaries, and a few other representative societies, should use their influence to induce a few of the most distinguished of their members to leave their brains, when they have done with them, for purposes of scientific investigation. Mr. Grote left us his brain; and it was analysed with the most interesting results. But Mr. Grote stands almost alone in this. Most people, and especially men of genius and of high attainments, I am sorry to say, insist upon taking their brains with them, and science suffers. What we want, if we are to turn phrenology into a science, is the head or two of a poet, of a novelist, of a peer, and an M.P., of a railway engineer and a stockbroker, an Oxford professor and a statist; and if a few of these could but be persuaded to add codicils to their wills bequeathing their brains to an anatomist, they might die with the sweet satisfaction of knowing that they were contributing to the advancement of science even after they were in their graves. It is useless, I suppose, to think of a

Puisne Judge and a Bishop; but they might make the collection more complete to give us a fairer basis for induction. At present the anatomists complain that they get nothing but the brains of paupers, and these, as a keen critic hints, are about as useless for their purpose of discovering the working of the intellect as would be the bodies of people who have been bedridden all their lives for the purpose of exhibiting the normal action of the muscles. All that is wanted is a man of some position in science or art to follow Mr. Grote's example.

WHAT is the origin of this custom of the Speaker of the House of Commons deprecating his appointment to the chair, and professing his utter unworthiness of the honour which the House wishes to confer upon him, and then of being forced into the chair by his proposers? It is easy to understand the Nolo episcopari of the Priest; and this stroke of mock modesty on the part of a Member of Parliament arises from the same spirit. But these are the only protestations of the sort that are now left in our Constitution, and although of course they are always made with the most profound sincerity, they must be rather trying to the consciences of Bishops and M.P.'s alike. Plato lays down a rule that no man ought to be entrusted with power but those who are most unwilling to accept it did these protestations of unworthiness and of disinclination originate in any ideas of this sort on the part of our ancestors? Or were they originally imposed upon M.P.'s and Bishops in a spirit of satire? I do not wish to press the question too closely; but it is worth asking.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1872.

SATANELLA.

A STORY OF PUNCHESTOWN.

BY G. J. WHYTE MELVILLE, AUTHOR OF "THE GLADIATORS," &c.

CHAPTER XV.

WINNERS AND LOSERS.

INNER that day at the castle seemed less lively than usual. Macormac, indeed, whose joviality was invincible, ate, drank, laughed, and talked for a dozen; but Lady Mary's spirits were obviously depressed; and the guests, perhaps not without private vexations of their own, took their cue rather from their hostess than their host. An unaccountable sense of gloom and disappointment pervaded the whole party. The General, having come down early, in hopes of a few minutes with Miss Douglas in the drawing-room before the others were dressed, had been disappointed by the protracted toilet and tardy appearance of that provoking young lady, with whom he parted an hour before on terms of mutual sympathy and tenderness, but who now sat pale and silent, while the thunder-clouds he knew and dreaded gathered ominously on her brow. His preoccupation necessarily affected his neighbour-a budding beauty fresh from the school-room, full of fun and good-humour, that her sense of propriety kept down, unless judiciously encouraged and drawn out. Most of the gentlemen had been wet to the skin, many had lost money, all were tired, and Norah Macormac's eyes filled every now and then with tears. These discoveries Mrs. Lushington imparted in a whisper to Lord St. Abbs as he sat between herself and her hostess, whom he had taken in to dinner, pausing thereafter to mark the effect of her VOL. VIII., N.S. 1872.

C C

condescension on this raw youth, lately launched into the great world. The young nobleman, however, betrayed no symptoms of emotion beyond screwing his eye-glass tighter in its place, and turning round to look straight in her face, while it dropped out with a jump. Even Mrs. Lushington felt at a disadvantage, and took counsel with her own heart whether she should accost him again.

Why Lord St. Abbs went about at all, or what pleasure he derived from the society of his fellow-creatures, was a puzzle nobody had yet been able to find out. Pale, thin, and puny in person, freckled, sandy-haired, bearing all outward characteristics of Scottish extraction, except the Caledonian's gaunt and stalwart frame, he neither rode, shot, fished, sang, made jokes, nor played whist. He drank very little, conversed not at all, and was voted by nearly all who had the advantage of his acquaintance "the dullest young man out!"

Yet was he to be seen everywhere, from Buckingham Palace or Holland House to Hampton races and the fireworks at Cremorne; always alone, always silent, with his glass in his eye, observant, imperturbable, and thinking, no doubt, a great deal.

It was rumoured, indeed, that on one memorable occasion he got drunk at Cambridge, and kept a supper-party in roars of laughter till four a.m. If so, he must have fired all his jokes off at once, so to speak, and blown the magazine up afterwards; for he never blazed forth in such lustre again. He came out a wrangler of his year, notwithstanding, and the best modern linguist, as well as classical scholar, in the university. Though the world of ball-goers and diners-out ignores such distinctions, a strong political party, hungering for office, had its eye on him already. As his father voted for Government in the Upper House, a provident director of the Opposition lost no time in sounding him on his views, should he become a member of the Lower. How little, to use his own words, the whip "took by his motion" may be gathered from the opinion he expressed in confidence to his chief, that "St. Abbs was either as close as wax or the biggest fool (and it's saying a great deal) who ever came out of Cambridge with a degree !"

Gloomy as a dinner-party may appear at first, if the champagne circulates freely people begin to talk long before the repast is half over. What must children think of their seniors when the diningroom door opens for an instant, and trailing up-stairs unwillingly to bed, they linger to catch that discordant, unintelligible gabble going on within? During a lull Mrs. Lushington made one more effort to arouse the attention of Lord St. Abbs.

"We're all getting better by degrees," said she, with a comic little