company. Everybody else, he said, made amongst you learned and philosophic men, I some silly or impertinent jest. Ellesmere. I have long seen that Milverton considers himself one of the few gentlemen left; and that the rest of us form one wide, waste, howling wilderness of snobs. am kicked about like a foot-ball. I suppose you have some fine name for that process, which quite takes it out of the nature of discourtesy. Milverton. My dear Sir John (we will always give him his title for the future), one are an attackative animal. If we did not reply sharply to you, you would imagine that your attacks had been feeble. We, therefore, reply to you somewhat sharply sometimes, in order to persuade you that your attacks have not been feeble. We do it in a spirit of the Milverton. You may sneer, Ellesmere, but, if asking the fewest possible questions, measures the stroke by the rebound. You making the fewest impertinent comments, and being always on the watch, lest my intimacy with any one should suppress my courtesy towards him, constitute any part of a gentleman, I lay claim to that part. One must speak up for one's self sometimes. Now your treatise on Contingent Remainders highest courtesy. (Ellesmere, gentlemen, is one of those judicious men who have always some great book on hand, which never appears) — have I ever asked you a question about it? As you are silent on the subject, I suppose you to be worried by some Contingent Remainder which will not fall into the right track; and I avoid asking any question which might be disagreeable. Ellesmere. You do not care about the matter you will never look at the book when it does come-which will be shortly, perhaps in seven years. Ellesmere. And the deepest satire. Thank you all for your great consideration. I suppose Miss Mildred is actuated by the same charitable motives. I knew that in this sublime company fine words would never be wanting, whatever else might be. Milverton. Ah, I assure you I am quite in earnest. I do not know of any things that are more abused in this world than intimacy, friendship, relationship, companionship. have written, I trust, my last essay, but if Ellesmere. Thank goodness. I Let the world say grace over that announcement. Your essays were a little better than sermons Great they were shorter. As, however, frail human nature always sees great merit in suffering, it reads serious books, and, of course, looks out for the least dull amongst them. But they were dull, my dear fellow. Milverton. Yes, I shall. I shall look at the preface, and see whether anything occurs to me to suggest for a second edition. lawyers sometimes fail to write good English. Then I shall endeavor to ascertain what a Contingent Remainder is — whether it is animal, mineral, or vegetable; and then I shall put the book down-proud of it, and prouder still of you. Dunsford. The Duke of Wellington Ellesmere. Now we are going to have one of Dunsford's tremendous jumps in conversation. Milverton. Well, my great objection to them is not their dulness, though I admit that, but that such writing tends to place the writer in a dignified and seemingly virtuous position, which, in my case certainly, the writer had no business whatever to occupy. Dunsford. I do not admit that. most." Dunsford. The Duke of Wellington told Colonel Gurwood, who in a day or two after-"He best shall paint them who has felt them wards told a gentleman, whose son, one of my pupils, told me (I like a good voucher for a story), that over familiarity had been the cause of more friendships being broken off than anything else. And without any great duke to back me up, I say that friends cannot be too courteous to one another, and that courtesy never hindered love. Midhurst (aside). There is not much of that to hinder. Ellesmere. Then how do you account for your conduct to me? When I venture Who so fit to write about errors, passions, follies, as the man who has felt them, suffered from them, transacted them? Perhaps the reason that men of my cloth write so ill, as you wits say we do, is that, in the main, they are such good men. Ellesmere. Well, this surpasses anything I have ever heard in audacity. The quiet way in which Dunsford has brought round this conversation to a sort of beatification of the clergy is something stupendous. Milverton. There is a great deal of truth us lasting lessons in humanity, and do not write essays. in what he says, though. Mildred. Butif I may interrupt, and suggest that any of you wise, logical men-creatures ever wander from the subject, may I ask upon what subject we might have had one more "last essay"? Milverton. Upon teasing, my dear. Ellesmere. Pray give us the heads of it, Milverton; especially if so doing will prevent the thing itself being written. But I always distrust you didactic writers. Virtuous or vicious, modest or presuming, you are always breaking into didaction. Confine yourself therefore to heads, and when you come to "Seventeenthly," and "To conclude," do conclude, instead of beginning again with apparently renewed energy, and thus driving your hearers to despair. Milverton. Ellesmere is not fond, himself, of teasing, that is one comfort. But what you say of animals, Ellesmere, reminds me of something I was going to ask you. You know how quickly and easily you lawyers make money, when you have once got to the top of the tree: now, will you give the next hundred guineas you earn to the Society which there is for protecting animals? I will add five to it; and if you knew the difficulty with which we poor devils of authors get money, and the love which we have for spending it recklessly, you would not think I am asking you to give disproportionably much. Ellesmere. Consider, my dear fellow, the good we do, and the evil that for the most part you do. But I will give the money. That certainly is a most creditable Society. Mildred. I am quite out of my province, Milverton. Well, I should show how teasing pervaded all societies, - boys' schools, girls' schools, private families, the men in factories-in workshops -on cab-stands-in I know, in making any remarks to such a Boards-in Parliaments. I should endeavor to show the base cowardliness of it, the immense unkindness; how, veil it as you please, it is the many against one. Ellesmere. Just my case; just what I suffer in this worshipful company. Milverton. No, you are more than equal to us all, you oppress us all. The practised power of your tongue makes you into a mob against us. But, to resume. I should even try to show how this habit of teasing sometimes entered into our conduct with animals. I should then turn about and make some palliation for it, and endeavor to prove, what I firmly believe, that it results from dulness that, to speak mathematically, it is a function of dulness, and that according as a community is in itself gay and joyful (and truly good men are full of joy), and as a community has the rational means of amusement, so does teasing diminish. Were there, indeed, more good music in the world, there would be much less ill-natured personal comment, much less teasing. Dunsford. Please write all this out for me, Milverton, some day. Ellesmere. I like the part about animals. As the King of Portugal said when our great animal painter was introduced to him, "I am so glad to know you, sir; I am so fond of beasts." By the way, good painters give learned and wise company; but is it not funny, the way in which we began by talking about passports, and have come to a subscription to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Midhurst. There is the closest connection, Miss Vernon, between the subjects. A more cruel, ludicrous, unmeaning persecution than this of passports I cannot imagine. mean. Ellesmere. Taking the whole case fairly into consideration, I think we Britishers must annoy foreigners when they come to see us far more than they annoy us when we come to see them — in a passive way, I Think what his first English Sunday must be to a lively Frenchman. However, our dulness has this advantage it secures us against the occupation of our country for more than six days. A foreign enemy would be so tired of us after the seventh, that he would retreat upon some pretext or other—“strategical,” he would call it, but anti-Sabbatical it would be. Dunsford. How can you jest, Ellesmere, upon such subjects? And, if I might say a word in answer to this gentleman [bowing to MR. MIDHURST], I think, considering all the hardships and agonies that thousands of brave men are undergoing just at present, it is hardly the time to be dilating upon minor miseries. [After this speech of DUNSFORD's there was an awkward pause for some moments. Most of the company looked at the dog, who looked at his master with a cross, inquiring look, and made a short growl, as if he were asking whether it was his duty to bite anybody.] Milverton. My dear Dunsford, of course we are all duly impressed with the horrors and sufferings in the Crimea; but after just coming through the Custom House, Englishmen must be allowed to grumble a little, or they would die; and my friend Mr. Midhurst is not a person who will expire from any suppression of his disgust with the human race in general, and with the gendarmerie in particulaf. Why, even the two young ladies here, Blanche and Mildred, became positively pugnacious over some bonnet-box which was being rudely treated. Ellesmere. The fact is, we are all desperately cross, and we shall not be happy again until we have had some sound political conversation, and abused everybody connected with the conduct of everything connected with the war. Mr. Dunsford will perhaps allow us to do that. It will be consistent with all the first principles of virtue, and be as allowable as listening to an oratorio. Young ladies, will you take this seat? Milverton. Dunsford may allow you, Ellesmere. Pray don't limit yourself, my dear sir. Do not be bound by mean considerations of space. Extend your noble sentiments to the whole human race. Milverton. I assure you I am quite in earnest in what I have just said. I am astounded at the audacity with which civilians comment upon the short-comings of the military departments. Ellesmere. This really won't do, Milverton, if you are in earnest. Dunsford. O, pray hear him. He is going to prove to us how little the law needs reform. Why, there was a poor widow in my parish who was left two hundred pounds by her father; five years were spent in litigation over a trumpery point which a sensible man would have settled in five minutes; her share dwindled down to thirty-eight pounds ten; the lawyer's bill is fifty-seven pounds fifteen shillings and fourpence; and the poor woman, without waiting for my advice, has fled the country. Ellesmere. How a parson always believes that the events in his parish explain all hutan life to him. I dare say that this point, which you say a sensible man could have settled in five minutes, was a very great difficulty, and that her case will form a precedent. Mildred. I don't think that circumstance, Mr. Ellesmere, will be a great comfort to the poor woman. Ellesmere, but I shall not. I am not sure that I do not agree with that eccentric indi- Ellesmere. Thank you, Miss Mildred, for vidual, Horace Walker, who stoutly, with your assistance. I suppose you imagine that his back to the fire at our club, maintains because you have a fine-sounding Anglo-Saxon the army to be, and to have been, the best-name, we are all to go back to the barbarous managed thing in England. Dunsford. Good Heavens, Milverton ! Ellesmere. Don't swear, my reverend friend; he means to make an exception for the Church. The good discipline in that body is well known and thoroughly appreciated. If you, for instance, were to set up a nice little heresy in that pleasant parish of yours, Twaddleton-cum-Mud, it would only take your bishop five years and three thousand pounds to eject you; and if you entrust me with your defence, I think I could make the proceedings a little more costly than they have hitherto been in such cases. simplicity of Anglo-Saxon times. Milverton. You may jest, Ellesmere, but any one such case as Dunsford has just related ought not to be possible. I think you will hesitate before you attack the administration of the army again. But in sober seriousness, my dear friends Address Ellesmere. Now don't preach. yourself to Fixer - that is the name of this pretty dog, is it not?-and perhaps to that gentleman [pointing to MR. MIDHURST]. Milverton. Well, I shall be quite content with my audience if it consist of Fixer only. Well, then, Fixer, you must know that these Midhurst. I quite agree with Mr. Mil- men and women, very superior creatures to verton; at least I mean to say, if it is no you, come from a great town, where they live, offence to this good gentleman [bowing to or at least the poorer dogs amongst them, DUNSFORD], that one thing is not worse than very much worse than you, in dirty kennels, another in this country - I mean in England. | drinking foul water, inhaling impure air, eat ing adulterated food, and yet paying large sively concerned-in which we forbid soltaxes. Here the dog, thinking perhaps that diers to meddle: namely, the election of his master was blaming him, set up a long mel-members of Parliament? Here, no doubt, ancholy howl.] This won't do, it teases the the British civilian shines; and after he poor animal, so I must address the bipeds, has elected his members of Parliament, is after all; and they see at once, without more generally so well 'pleased with them. talking on my part, what I mean to say in this .department of affairs. Ellesmere. O yes, we all know that you can talk for hours upon sanitary matters, and that all you say is dreadfully, and, if I may use the expression, beastly true; but really that does not settle the question. Milverton. Let us turn to something else, then. A new locomotive power was invented some years ago; the application of that power to the purposes of life was entrusted to civilians. The lawyers had something to do with it, I believe. Now, I ask you, sir, upon your oath [here MILVERTON tucked an imaginary gown behind him, and addressed himself in a forensic style to ELLESMERE], is there any one branch of human affairs in which human folly has been more conspicuous, continuous, and pervading than in the formation and in the working of English railways? crook Midhurst. Their brevity of talk, their despatch of business, the labor and the study which it is evident they give to great questions, — in short, their general manners, bearing, and appearance, not to speak of their faultless English, make them a credit to the men who send them there. - And now, if I have any vote in this discussion, I beg to leave it in the hands of my friend, Mr. Milverton, while I go and attend to the most important thing in life, the ordering of dinner. [Erit MR. MIDHURST.] Ellesmere. I declare to goodness, Milverton, if you go about with that man and that dog, I shall not proceed further with you than Tournay. Blanche. Mr. Ellesmere is jealous of any one who says more disagreeable things than himself. Ellesmere. 0, 0, the soft and simpering Midhurst. Millions spent in law, Blanche imitating the stern, wise, and wicked ed lines break of gauge clumsy carriages Mildred. My fair friends! may your bon-the poor penned like cattle-shameful nets be crushed to atoms by douaniers; may competition— stupid stations-immense expense-a starved staff- the public everywhere fleeced, injured, and bullied,- O, it is a triumphant system! Ellesmere. Really, this gentleman seems quite happy. What would he do in a wellregulated world? Pray go on, sir. Midhurst (smiling pleasantly, and bowing). No, sir, I leave the discussion in better hands. Milverton. Ellesmere so soon becomes tired of any one subject, his impatience is so inordinate, that I must turn to other departments of civil life. Let us discuss the making of Acts of Parliament, in which grave matter, no doubt, sound sense and skilful organization are to be seen. the fashions that you bring back to astonish your village be pronounced old fashions; when your luggage is in the hold of the vessel, coming back, may salt water trickle into a silk dress; may Milverton. Why, this is a sort of Ernulphus' curse. It is too serious, my dear fellow. Boy. It would be such a lark, though! boys. But how we have wandered from our subject! You must own, Dunsford and Ellesmere, that I have indicated, if not made out, a train of argument which would show that we have not fewer complaints to make of the management of civil than of military affairs, and that it becomes us civilians to talk with great modesty of the errors, omissions, and oversights in military matters. Think of the government of London: behold its public buildings and its statues; inhale the fresh breezes of the river; look at the water we have to drink, after it has stood a day or two; come with me some day, and behold the glad Milverton. Shall I proceed to consider population of Bethnal Green. [ELLESMERE another matter in which civilians are exclu-walked up and down, whistling, for a turn or Ellesmere. Now don't be so provoking, Milverton. Truth, which (not being an author or a clergyman) I am bound at once to acknowledge, compels me to confess that in this department of human affairs English civilians do not distinguish themselves. No doubt if military men were concerned it would be still worse. two, and then said he must go and look at his room. Suddenly, however, turning upon his heel, he resumed the conversation.] Ellesmere. I suppose, Milverton, we may number you as one of the Peace party. about discretion. Swiftness and sternness 66 And Milverton. O! yes, that you may. I am an Englishman, and we are all of the Peace party. Of war, as war, none of us, that I know of, are especially fond. But if you mean that I am one of those who do not intend to go thoroughly through with anything I have once undertaken, you do not know our errors in this respect sprang from our your man. I will tell you in few words what deep-seated reluctance to go to war at all. I think about this war, for that is what I am very far from having the presumpyou are endeavoring to find out. A more tion to suppose that the few men amongst us, righteous war on our side, I believe was never who from the first have declared that they undertaken. No war, I believe, was ever did not see sufficient cause for the war, are more reluctantly, more sadly, less to be scouted, and their opinions treated revengefully, commenced. You jeer at me with contempt. I can only say that those philosopher, by which you mean a man who opinions fail to have any weight with me. is curious and careful about his opinions. At the same time, I feel deeply anxious that Such men are apt to differ with the views of we should, wherever and whenever we can, the majority of those about them; and this limit the question at issue, so that we do not liability to differ is the surest source of suffer- weaken or obscure the basis on which alone ing for them. In this case, however, I am, peace can be made lasting. These matters to my signal delight, in thorough accordance are not for us private persons to decide. We with the great masses of my fellow-country- have not the requisite data before us. They men. I am completely a commonplace are questions that require the gravest, nicest, Englishman. I am convinced that we have and most forbearing statesmanship. acted most unselfishly in the whole affair. that we private persons can do at present is Brushing away all subtleties, I lay my finger to inculcate the spirit in which proposals for upon that most iniquitous act, the occupation peace should be regarded. as a All of the Principalities, and I say that upon Then, if you talk to me about the manthe authors of that act lie the guilt and agement of the war in minor matters, I will bloodshed of the war. You will hear noth- agree with you that it was bad, bitterly bad ing from me but what plain, unpretending in many instances. But be careful whom Mr. Smith, or Mr. Jones, in the omnibus, you blame; throw your blame very wide. would tell you. We (I mean Smith, Jones, Let each one of us take his fair share. and Milverton) would almost have Remember how fond we all were of injudicious gone down on our knees to avoid this war. I can saving. Consider how difficult it has been say for myself that I lived in an agony of for years and years to get the least question apprehension while the negotiations were of official reform wisely considered; and do pending, and mourned unutterably over the not throw upon some few unfortunate men evils which I saw to be imminent. Once, the condemnation which justly rests upon however, embarked in such a contest, my the whole constituencies of Great Britain,only thought was, how most speedily and ay, and upon the most intellectual men in most forcibly our just ends might be accom- the country, who must have their share of plished. If you tell me we failed as states- blame too. men, and as men of the world, in not bring- If there is any one thing in which I suping sufficient force, sufficiently early, to bear pose we must confess ourselves to have been upon the enemy, I agree with you. Some wanting, it is boldness, especially as regards of you now present may recollect how I the operations of our fleets. Mark you, I deplored, on or near the day of his departure, should be very sorry to pronounce upon this the fetters which I saw were being fashioned subject without further evidence, but I confor Sir Charles Napier by our foolish talk jecture that the accusation has some justice |