such like.' 'Oh !' (exclaimed the other, as a broader light appeared to dawn upon him), 'why, it's me thou wants! Jack Jones-Gentleman Jack, if thou likes,' he added, laughing loudly at the discovery. 'When thou comes this way ageyn ask for plain Jack Jones, not marine manufacturer, but anchor-smith, and thou'll find me out.' Jones had a remarkable faculty for money-making, and it is said that he would raffle' sovereigns among his workmen on a Saturday night, twenty-five lots at a shilling a lot; but this, I think, is slander. Certain it is, however, he could sooner recognise his own portrait when depicted in his moleskins and leather apron, as the incident mentioned above clearly shows, even after he became wealthy, than he could in his Sunday broadcloth."

SUPPOSING Sir Philip Francis and "Junius" to represent a couple of individuals, what a curious and perplexing question arises upon Mr. Chabot's comparison of their MS.! Here are two men with precisely the same tricks of style, the same peculiarities of punctuation, the same habits of dating their letters, of interpolating words in their MS., of correcting their proofs; and doing this, too, not only when writing in a feigned hand, but even when writing naturally and without the remotest thought of mystification. Taking the MS. of the Junian Letters and comparing it under a microscope with the MS. of Sir Philip Francis, Mr. Chabot tells us that there are ten distinct and most suggestive circumstances of identity between the two handwritings :-1. The mode of dating letters. 2. The placing of a full stop after the salutation. 3. The mode of signing initials between two dashes. 4. Writing in paragraphs. 5. Separating paragraphs by dashes placed between them at their commencement. 6. Invariable attention to punctuation. 7. The enlargement of the first letters of words. 8. The insertion of omitted letters in the line of writing, and not above it, and the various modes of correcting miswriting. 9. Mode of abbreviating words, and abbreviating the same words. 10. Misspelling certain specified words. And yet we have it distinctly asserted by men of the highest authority that the MSS. which contain all these characteristic marks were not only written by two distinct men, but by two men who knew no more of each other than, say, the editor of the Times and Mr. Disraeli. Is this possible? And supposing it to be possible, how is it to be explained? By peculiarities of temperament, of genius, of intellect, of moral nature in common? And if this identity of handwriting does arise from resemblances of this sort, how far are we to suppose that handwriting is a key to the tone of a man's intellect or moral nature? It is a well-authenticated fact that a peculiar style of handwriting often runs in a family; and Lord Brougham used to maintain that handwriting was as hereditary as temper and feature, citing, in illustration, the close resemblance which his own handwriting bore to that of his grandfather, although his grandfather was in his grave when Brougham was born, and his father's handwriting was perfectly distinct in all its features from that of the grandfather and the

son. Perhaps in the case of a man like Brougham, and in the case of all men of distinctly marked character, it may be easy to spell out their temperament and two or three other points from the lines and curves of their MS. But what about men with two or three styles of writing? Most men who are accustomed to write much have two styles-a style, say, for their private correspondence, and a style for the printer or for themselves. This was the case with Moore and Macaulay. Now and then you may meet men with three or four styles of handwriting. Melancthon had four, all distinct, all strongly marked, yet never intermingling, and not adopted, like the hands of Moore and Macaulay or "Junius," for the purpose of legibility or mystification, but from pure caprice, for he frequently adopted all four forms in the course of a single letter or article.

THE Early English Text Society have just issued four more of their most valuable works. The first belongs to the extra series. It is Alexander J. Ellis's laborious investigation of the correspondence of writing with speech in England, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. The book is called "On English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer." It is preceded by a systematic notation of all spoken sounds by means of the ordinary printing types, and is altogether a very remarkable work. I am not surprised to learn that the volume has been delayed through the indisposition of the author, arising from overwork. There is a fourth and concluding part of the treatise yet to come. The author's notes on Shakespeare's metre and his pronouncing vocabulary of the period are especially noteworthy, as examples of a rare intelligence coupled with patient inquiry. Part V. of Sir David Lyndesay's Works, edited by J. A. H. Murray, completes the Lyndesay set. In the present number is added an admirable sketch of Scottish poetry, by Mr. John Nichol. "Legends of the Holy Rood," and "The Times Whistle," are the other latest works of the society, published for the association by Trübner. Though the "Times Whistle" is a satire on society written more than two hundred and fifty years ago, it is full of "modern instances." We are no worse and certainly no better than our forefathers were. The ancient satirist's description of going to church two hundred and fifty years ago is quite à propos in 1871. I transcribe a few lines by way of example :

Of every new framd fashion,

This is the place to make moste ostentation,
To shew the bravery of our gay attire

Hether to come on purpose.

Here is another note on the manners and customs of the ladies in ancient times :

Madame Fucata seemeth wondrous faire,
And yet her face is painted and her haire,
That seemes so goodly, a false periwig:
Thus all her beauty is not worth a fig.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

OCTOBER, 1871.

THE VALLEY OF POPPIES. BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHRISTOPHER KENRICK" AND "THE TALLANTS OF BARTON."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIRST BLARE OF THE TRUMPETS.

HAD a whole spring and
summer of such happi-
ness as I fear rarely falls
to the lot of mortals.
Nature herself seemed
bent on contributing to
the felicity of my mar-
ried life.
The spring

was bright and full of
joyous promise. The
summer came in with a
lapful of roses. There
never had been so glo-
rious a spring, never a
more delightful sum-
mer. Our cottage fairly
budded and blossomed.
It was clothed in flowers.
Swallows came and built

on the chimney stack. Butterflies competed with the colours of the flowers in our garden. The river passed to and fro as the tide changed, carrying picturesque vessels out to sea, or sending lazy barges into the country, where the air was fragrant with the smell of newly-mown hay. Ruth was the central figure of all these blissful pictures. Happiness seemed to attend her footsteps. She was the light of that sombre VOL. VII., N.S. 1871.

LL

Mall on the Thames.

body acknowledged it.

There was sunshine in her smile. EveryThe Vicar said it was well he had no wife, or jealousy might have divided the households of the Vicarage and "The Cottage." Mrs. Himbleton was on every lip, and, I do believe, in every heart. Ruth's was a face that wins confidence and affection at once. She made her way alike with rich and poor. Her success was the natural triumph of goodness and beauty. When these two qualities are combined in a woman she may do what she pleases with the world. Women do not always understand how kindness heightens beauty, how modesty sweetens the voice, what a charm true love gives to grace of figure and amiability of manner.

You have watched a storm gather in the summer, presaged by a bright sky at early morn and a dead calm at noon. I have noted these summer tempests in the Valley. They are heralded by pleasant weather, and when the air is heaviest with rich perfumes the tempest bursts, the thunderbolt falls, and darkness covers the earth. They are almost worthy of Ossian, those lines penned by the bards of the North, who tuned their plaintive harps a thousand years after Cona's songs were sung. The wind is up, they said; the Spirit of the Mountain shrieks. Woods fall from high. The growing river roars. The storm drives the horse from the hill, the goat, the lowing cow. The hunter starts from sleep in his lowly hut. He wakes to see the fire decayed, his wet dogs smoking round him. Sad on the hill the wandering shepherd sits. The trees resound above him. The Ghosts ride in the storm. Ruth in the figure of Darthula.

Their songs

Her

stream roars down the rock. are of other worlds. I see hair sighs on the ocean's wind; her robe streams in dusky wreaths. She is like the fair spirit of heaven looking out of the shadowy mist. She has fled, but not from the love of her lord. Rest, Darthula, by the river; rest in peace, thou beam of light, till the soul of Nathos joins thee in the peaceful land of spirits. How my soul cleaves to these songs of the ancient bard!

The storm came

It boots not now to tell how happy we were. after the sunshine. There are times when I cannot look back on the light; when woe has a morbid charm for me. I could sit down with Richard in the play and talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs, make dust my paper and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Like Scroop, too, I play the torturer, by small and small to lengthen out the worst that must be spoken. Oh, who would have thought so fair a day could bring a bitter ending? My poor Ruth-gentle, tender partner of my joys, and ministering angel in my

sorrow.

If I could have had the smallest glimpse into that dark

cloud that began to gather even while we sat in the sun at Boulogne, I might have stood between thee and the tempest. It were useless trying to recall this rebellious thought. I am but human. In my calmer hours I know and feel that God is good. As sure as Ulysses was restored to the arms of Penelope shall I meet Ruth again, not in mine own halls, but in that land of everlasting flowers which hungering man had dreamed of long before the Lord Himself came down from Heaven to tell us of the many mansions of His Father's kingdom. But, God be thanked, He has preserved me from the wiles of Circe and the enchantments of Calypso's island.

The first shadow of the storm that overwhelmed our cottage on the Thames came out of the promotion of the Vicar to another living. He was succeeded by a morose and worldly man, whose first act was to rid himself of his predecessor's Curate. I call him a worldly man. For that matter, was not my chief, the Vicar himself, worldly? He had lived among his flock on the Thames for many years. It was a favourite pulpit theme of his, this long-existing association of pastor and flock. But when a living worth two hundreds more a year was offered, straightway he left his flock to another's guidance. A "call" to another parish at a less stipend, you may be sure, would not have made him unfaithful to his old friends. Do I blame him? No. But let me make no mistake in regard to this term "worldliness." A stranger came, I say, who knew not Joseph. Neither did he consider the feelings and opinions of the parish. Though every member of the parish memorialised the new Vicar to retain for them the ministrations of the Rev. George Himbleton, he held firmly to his first decision, and thus began the storm that flooded and sacked our homestead.

I found out Mr. Fenton and offered him my pen. I determined to have no more to do with the Church. Her bonds were sufficiently galling without the addition of insult and injury. The new Vicar behaved rudely both to myself and my wife. It was well for him and for me that respect for our calling held my rage in check. Mr. Fenton heartily promised me all the assistance in his power. He came to the Mall, and his society started many entertaining discussions on art and literature. It was during one of these early visits that he told us, with a frank, mirthful glimmer in his eye, how he had fallen in love with Ruth on that Christmas Eve at Old Sidbree House; and before the blush which this confession started in Ruth's cheeks had faded out, he mentioned the day on which he was to be married to Miss Masters. Soon afterwards Masters and his sister came to see us, and the wedding arrangements and what our present should