tive of the Daily Telegraph is down here, to be on the look-out for justices' justice, and to prevent oppression." Immediately afterwards I was sorry I had said this, for there are unfortunately several things which operate on Arminius like scarlet on a bull, making him vicious the moment he comes across them; and the Daily Telegraph is one of these things. He declares it foments our worst faults; and he is fond of applying to it Dryden's dictum on Elkanah Settle, that its style is boisterous and its prose incorrigibly lewd. Though I do certainly think its prose a little fullbodied, yet I cannot bear to hear Arminius apply such a term to it as "incorrigibly lewd;" and I always remonstrate with him. "No, Arminius," I always say, "I hope not incorrigibly; I should be sorry to think that of a publication which is forming the imagination and taste of millions of Englishmen." "Pleasant news," was Arminius's answer, the last time I urged this to him, "pleasant news; the next batch of you, then, will be even more charming than the present!"

I trouble you with all this, Sir, to account for the acerbity of tone in some of Arminius's subsequent conversation; an acerbity he too often manifests, and which tends, as I tell him, to detract from the influence which his talents and acquirements would otherwise give him. On the present occasion he took no direct notice of my mention of the Daily Telegraph, but seemed quite taken up with scrutinising old Diggs. Such a peasant as that wretched old crea ture," he said at last, "is peculiar, my dear friend, to

your country. Only look at that countenance! Centuries of feudalism have effaced in it every gleam of humane life." .. "Centuries of fiddlesticks!" interrupted I (for I assure you, Sir, I can stand up to Arminius well enough on a proper occasion). “My dear Arminius, how can you allow yourself to talk such rubbish? Gleam of humane life, indeed! do but look at the twinkle in the old rogue's eye. He has plenty of life and wits about him, has old Diggs, I can assure you; you just try and come round him about a pot of beer!" "The mere cunning of an animal!" retorted Arminius. "For my part," pursued I, "it is his children I think most about; I am told not one of them has ever seen the inside of a school. Do you know, Arminius, I begin to think, and many people in this country begin to think, that the time has almost come for taking a leaf out of your Prussian book, and applying, in the education of children of this class, what the great Kant calls the categorical imperative. The gap between them and our educated and intelligent classes is really too frightful." "Your educated and intelligent classes!" sneered Arminius, in his very most offensive manner; "where are they? I should like to see them."

I was not going to stand and hear our aristocracy and middle class set down in this way; so, treating Arminius's ebullition of spite as beneath my notice, I pushed my way through the crowd to the inndoor. I asked the policeman there what magistrates were on the bench to-day. "Viscount Lumpington," says the man, "Reverend Esau Hittall, and Bottles,

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Esquire." "Good heavens !" I exclaimed, turning round to Arminius, who had followed me, and forgetting, in my excitement, my just cause of offence with him,—“Good heavens, Arminius, if Bottles hasn't got himself made a county magistrate! Sicitur ad astra.” "Yes," says Arminius, with a smile, "one of your educated and intelligent classes, I suppose. And I dare say the other two are to match. Your magistrates are a sort of judges, I know; just the people who are drawn from the educated and intelligent classes. Now, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if you put a pressure on one class to make it train itself properly, you must put a pressure on others to the same end. That is what we do in Prussia, if you are going to take a leaf out of our book. I want to hear what steps you take to put this pressure on people above old Diggs there, and then I will talk to you about putting it on old Diggs. Take his judges who are going to try him to-day; how about them? What training have you made them give themselves, and what are their qualifications ?"

I luckily happen to know Lord Lumpington and Hittall pretty well, having been at college with them in former days, when I little thought the Philistines would have brought my gray hairs to a garret in Grub Street; and I have made the acquaintance of Mr. Bottles since, and know all about him. So I was able to satisfy Arminius's curiosity, and I had great pleasure in making him remark, as I did so, the rich diversity of our English life, the healthy natural play of our free institutions, and the happy

blending of classes and characters which this pro motes. "The three magistrates in that inn," said I, "are not three Government functionaries all cut out of one block; they embody our whole national life ;the land, religion, commerce, are all represented by them. Lord Lumpington is a peer of old family and great estate; Esau Hittall is a clergyman; Mr. Bottles is one of our self-made middle-class men. Their politics are not all of one colour, and that colour the Government's. Lumpington is a Constitutional Whig; Hittall is a benighted old Tory. As for Mr. Bottles, he is a Radical of the purest water; quite one of the Manchester school. He was one of the earliest freetraders; he has always gone as straight as an arrow about Reform; he is an ardent voluntary in every possible line, opposed the Ten Hours' Bill, was one of the leaders of the Dissenting opposition out of Parliament which smashed up the education clauses of Sir James Graham's Factory Act; and he paid the whole expenses of a most important church-rate contest out of his own pocket. And, finally, he looks forward to marrying his deceased wife's sister. Table, as my friend Mr. Grant Duff says, the whole Liberal creed, and in not a single point of it will you find Bottles tripping!"

"That is all very well as to their politics,” said Arminius, "but I want to hear about their education and intelligence." "There, too, I can satisfy you," I answered. "Lumpington was at Eton. Hittall was on the foundation at Charterhouse, placed there by his uncle, a distinguished prelate, who was one of

the trustees. You know we English have no notion of your bureaucratic tyranny of treating the appointments to these great foundations as public patronage, and vesting them in a responsible minister; we vest them in independent magnates, who relieve the State of all work and responsibility, and never take a shilling of salary for their trouble. Hittall was the last of six nephews nominated to the Charterhouse by his uncle, this good prelate, who had thoroughly learnt the divine lesson that charity begins at home." "But I want to know what his nephew learnt," interrupted Arminius, "and what Lord Lumpington learnt at Eton." "They followed," said I, "the grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum." "Did they know anything when they left ?" asked Arminius. "I have seen some longs and shorts of Hittall's," said I, “about the Calydonian Boar, which were not bad. But you surely don't need me to tell you, Arminius, that it is rather in training and bracing the mind for future acquisition,-a course of mental gymnastics we call it, — than in teaching any set thing, that the classical curriculum is so valuable.” "Were the minds of Lord Lumpington and Mr. Hittall much braced by their mental gymnastics?" inquired Arminius. "Well," I answered, "during their three years at Oxford they were so much occupied with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity to judge. But for my part I have always thought that their both getting their degree at last with flying colours, after three weeks of a famous coach for fast men, four nights without going