page 275:-"I was pleased to behold Dr. Johnson rolling about in this old magazine of antiquities" (the Under-Parliament House, Edinburgh). "There was by this time a pretty numerous circle of us attending upon him. Somebody talked of happy moments for composition, and how a man can write at one time and not at another. Nay,' said Dr. Johnson, 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.'" Yours, W. R. W.

I agree in the main with my illustrious contributor; but much depends upon the nature of the work to be done. A man cannot always command the reins of fancy, however doggedly he may set himself to do it. There are times when ideas crowd into the mind as if they were propelled by a rush of inspiration; sometimes the mind is a blank, and no effort of the will can fill it. Clearly the author of romance or fiction cannot write well in this latter mood. He might at all times be equal to a political article, or to the compilation of a biography, but he would certainly fall short of poetry in prose or verse.

SOME twenty or five-and-twenty years ago an outcry arose in literature against what was called "abnegation." I like to watch the history of the coming and going of those fancy ideas which grow into fashion for a time, are bandied about exclusively among intellectual men and women, and then disappear, and are perhaps heard of no more. Mr. Thornton Hunt, if I am not mistaken, spoke as an oracle in those days on abnegation. The idea was, in the first instance, perhaps, Rousseau's, but it came to us through the alembic of the brains of Carlyle and Emerson, and had a good deal of influence on the young intelligence of the time. It helped, I think, to make us a little more real than we had been, and to cause individual character to labour under fewer shackles. Life is more interesting, more picturesque, more worth living for, by such conditions. Mr. John Morley has awakened us to a reconsideration of the peculiar influences which affect human character by his new book on Rousseau; but Rousseau is not the prophet of the developments of these days. The originality and simplicity to which we aspire are those of more advanced civilisation; Rousseau's simplicity and originality were of a pseudo-savage type.

SIR JOHN ELLESMERE, in the new work of " Friends in Council," tells a capital story. Some girls at a school examination were asked the meaning of scandal. The reply of an eager pupil, whose family had evidently suffered from the bitter tongue of envy, hatred, and malice, was—“Nobody does nothing, and everybody goes on telling of it everywhere."

THIS same book contains many clever sayings, which bring to mind all the charms of the original volumes. Here are some examples, taken almost at random :

Dismal people are the only people sedulously to be avoided, unless they have transcendent notions of cookery.

One of the errors of the age is deification of work for the mere sake of working.

Show me the man who employs his leisure well, and I will tell you who will go to heaven.

I am thankful that I am not a philosopher. If I were, I should be ashamed of the sayings of a great many of my brother philosophers.

The last observation was made on the statement of Aristotle that "man alone presents the phenomenon of heart-beating, because he alone is moved by hope and expectation of what is coming." Aristotle could never have had a bird in his hand, as Milverton very properly remarks.

THE Social condition of Africa is one of the most astounding facts of these days. That stupendous lump of fertile earth, teeming with almost ungathered riches, never did lie out of arms' reach of the civilised or civilising races, early or late. Never in traditional or written history was it a country out of sight of men or exceptionally difficult of access. It did not wait, like America, for Columbus and Cortez, Vespucci and Pizarro; it was not concealed by five thousand miles of ocean like Australia. It lay stretched out during all the ages of history under the eyes of Arabians and Syrians, of Greeks and Romans, but discoverers and adventurers did little more than nibble at the fringes of it and pass on, or pitch their dwellings on its shores and hug the waters of the Mediterranean. The masters of the world, whose home was the insignificant strip of soil which darts into the sea from the southern shore of Europe, harassed the continent whereof their country formed so very small a part, spending their best energies and treasures in moving northward, away from under the rays of the sun; but they gave no heed to the interior of the, to them, immeasurable and unknown world of Africa. That neglect of a fair field of conquest a couple of thousand years ago is not very easy to be accounted for, but how much forwarder are we than the early civilisers and first masters of the world? When we glance at the unlettered map of Africa, and remember the unexplored wastes of Australia and the wide uncultivated lands of America, the conviction rushes upon us that after all the human race is only just beginning to set up in business for itself. Let us sit at the feet of Livingstone when he comes back to us after having for seven years seen none of

this mere inchoate civilisation of ours; let us watch the footsteps of Sir Bartle Frere, seeking to prevent our brethren on that continent from preying on one another like beasts of the forest. From them we may learn that the task of civilising the world is nearly all before us.

THOMAS BEWICK.

THE following correspondence will interest the admirers of Bewick, and at the same time will most completely serve the purpose of the writers :

TO JOSEPH HATTON, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE "GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE." Dear Sir, I take the liberty of enclosing for your perusal some notes from the daughter of Bewick the wood engraver, to see if you can in any way aid in contradicting the false assertions made in your magazine in the first instance, then in the Times, and from thence copied into various other papers and booksellers' catalogues, a cutting from which I enclose. I thought from your position as editor, and also being well acquainted with press matters, you would be the most likely person to aid in such an undertaking, and also on account of your connection with our county. I myself am anxious that the nation should possess the whole of Thomas Bewick's woodcuts for the purpose of publishing a national edition of his works for the use of our schools of art here and in every Englishspeaking country. If we are as a people to develop an art peculiarly our own it can only take place by the promotion of a knowledge of the principles of the founders of it more widely amongst our students of art; and according to what I have read Bewick is one of them. Yours respectfully,

15, Sunderland Street, Sunderland, March 16, 1873.

TO THOMAS DIXON, ESQ.

THOMAS DIXON.

Sir, I thank you for the trouble you have taken in regard to the utterly false and annoying statements so persistently placed before the public that the late William Bewick, of Darlington, was a "nephew," a " cousin," and now a "son" of Thomas Bewick, wood engraver, my revered father. All the connections of this person are, of course, perfectly aware that he was not in the remotest degree related to my father. My brother, Robert Elliot Bewick, the only son of my father, Thomas Bewick, died unmarried, and was interred in the family burying place at Ovingham, August, 1849. I am, Sir, Your most obedient, J. BEWICK.

Gateshead, December 31, 1872. The paragraph in the Gentleman's Magazine stated that William Bewick, the historical painter, of Haughton House, near Darlington, was the son of Bewick. This information was no doubt given to me on excellent authority, erroneous as it undoubtedly turns out to be. The statement in the Times to which my correspondent refers is quoted as follows in the book catalogue of Reeves and Turner :

Bewick's (W., artist) Life and Letters, edited by Thomas Landseer, A.R.A., portrait, 2 vols., post 8vo, 1871.-William Bewick was a son of the celebrated

Thomas Bewick, the wood engraver. He became a pupil of Haydn, in whose diary his name frequently occurs. "Mr. Landseer seems to have had a pious pleasure in editing this biography and these letters of his old friend. We should be wanting in our duty were we not to thank him for furnishing us with such interesting memorials of a man who did good work in his generation, but about whom little is known."-Times.

The circumstance altogether is a striking illustration of the persistency with which a matter once put forth as history lives and grows.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

MAY, 1873.

CLYTIE.

A NOVEL OF MODERN LIfe.

BY JOSEPH HATTON.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN ALLIANCE AGAINST FATE.

Row do you do, Mr. Waller ?" said Tom, putting out his hand in a tired and languid way. "I am sorry you have been waiting so long."

"Don't mention it," said the old man.

not expect me, so you cannot help my having to wait, sir."

"Be seated, Mr. Waller," said Tom.

But Mr. Waller went to the door and shut it.

"Would you mind my closing the window?"

"You did

"No, certainly not," said Tom, almost too tired to feel or to express any surprise at the singular conduct and manner of his visitor.

"I have something important to say to you, Mr. Mayfield-something that I don't wish anybody else to hear."

Tom intimated acquiescence by laying down his gown, taking a seat, and preparing to listen.

"First let us have a light, Mr. Waller-eh?"

"As you please, sir; it is getting dark."

Tom rang the bell, and a servant brought in his lamp ready trimmed and lighted. The first gleam of it fell upon Clytie.

The old man pointed to the bust with a trembling finger.
VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

L L