So deep into our nature has this form of snobbishness sunk that in those districts even in which the property built upon does not belong to any aristocratic family it is necessary to treat it as though it did. Clarendon Roads, Norfolk Terraces, and Colville Gardens, constitute respectable addresses, and such multiply. If a man who is not connected with our landed aristocracy gives his name to a place in which fashionable influences do not obtain, · he is still an owner of property. In this case we get names

like Child's Court or Fullwood's Rents. We may well show our belief in the imputation of Napoleon, by taking constant pains to deny it.

I

WISH we could have a species of street census, and learn at this moment what amount of tribute has been paid in our street nomenclature to departed greatness. Have we many Chaucer Streets or Raleigh Streets? Have the beautiful and musical names of Marvell, Suckling, Marlowe, Sylvester, Drayton been assigned to many squares or terraces? Is there out of London a Verulam Street or Row, or is there any reference to the great Lord Chancellor, or to Dryden, Swift, Goldsmith, or any honour of our literature? In France the names of celebrities are constantly assigned to strects in the towns which gave them birth. Nor does homage rest here. Béranger was born in Paris, but he assigns his name to the most conspicuous boulevard in Tours. Nantes names an important street after Crébillon, and one after Piron, both of whom were born in Dijon; another after Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss ; a fourth after Boileau, who is believed to have been, like Béranger, a Parisian. La Rochelle names a street after Réaumur, the naturalist, whose memory is preserved in the thermometer of 80 degrees. Réaumur was, however, a native of La Rochelle. That Orleans should celebrate Joan of Arc, and Avignon Petrarch, was to be expected. Marseilles preserves in a street the name of Pierre Puget, the sculptor; while Nîmes, with a certain sense of fitness and of its own historical importance, names its older streets after Roman emperors in whose possession it once was, those bordering on the ramparts after military commanders, and those in the vicinity of the theatres after the more celebrated dramatists of France. I do not urge a similar course in London. Still, the neighbourhood of Drury Lane and Covent Garden might adopt some name such as Congreve or Sheridan, in place of the Wellington Streets, Henrietta Streets, and Catherine Streets, which show our complete poverty of invention.

I

SHOULD like to join in a protest that has already been made by one or two well-known writers and bibliophiles, against a practice that has recently sprung into existence. Since new pleasures cannot be obtained, new hobbies seem to replace them. One of the latest of new hobbies is collecting book-plates. Now, against this in itself there is little to be said. When, however, to obtain his plate, the collector strips it from the cover of a volume, he is as complete a Vandal as those so-called collectors who, half a century ago, robbed the most priceless works in English literature of their title-pages and plates for the purpose of illustrating Granger's

Biographical History," or some similar work. To take the bookplates out of books is an absolute destruction of property. Gladly do I announce my intention to join the league already formed of those who will not purchase a book that has been treated in such fashion.

A

S a supplement to the information contained in Mr. Proctor's essay upon "The Fifteen Puzzle" in the Gentleman's Magazine for January last, I may mention that the combination of the same number known as the 34 puzzle, worked with the same figures, is at least as old as the present century. In the Amusements philologiques, ou Variétés en tous genres, of G. (abriel) P. (eignot), Philomneste, R. A. V. Paris, 1808-a curious and, in its way, unique collection of whimsicalities-there is given what the author calls a "magic square, the numbers of which from 1 to 16 are arranged so that they furnish the number thirty-four when added up horizontally, perpendicularly, or diagonally." The arrangement is as follows:

It will be seen, in addition to the different methods of reckoning mentioned by Peignot, that the four numbers in the corners amount likewise to 34, and that most combinations lead to the same result. I know that it has been shown, by means of a clever skit, that the 15 puzzle dates back to the time of Albert Dürer. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that it is even older. General faith in the cabalistic power of numbers prevailed through the dark ages.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S

M

JUNE 1881.

MAGAZINE.

THE COMET OF A SEASON.

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P.

CHAPTER XVI.

66 ALL FANCY-SICK SHE IS."

ONTANA got into Lady Vanessa's carriage. He was to

have luncheon with her and her husband that day. Lady Vanessa chaffed him saucily and even rudely about the old man who had claimed him as a son. She had little idea of the mischief she was doing. Any chance that there might have been of Montana's returning to a sense of honour and duty was lost on that drive to Lady Vanessa's house. Montana began to hate the sprightly lady in his heart, but to hate her with a strange blending of admiration, and even with a throb of passion that was not hate. There was something so new to him in the sensation of being thus chaffed and laughed at by a handsome woman, that it gave a strange turn to his thoughts, and opened a new spring of excitement in his chill and lonely career; chill in the midst of all outer excitement and inner emotion, lonely amongst incessant crowds. He felt curious longings to be revenged on the sprightly lady, and knew for the first time the bitter-sweet sensation that comes to a man when he is angry with a woman and yet is forced to admire her.

He went home that night in doubting mood, unusual to him. He began to feel that his way was slipping from beneath him, or at least that he himself was slipping away from the path he had marked out. He found that there were emotions which could disturb him still, and which had nothing to do with his own career and public VOL. CCL. NO. 1806.

TT

work. He had believed himself absolutely unimpassioned, master of all his emotions, capable of controlling not only every look, but every thought, and already he found himself distracted from the straight path by the strange and, as it seemed, almost fatal admiration he felt for Geraldine Rowan. And now for his further confusion came the cross-light of a new sensation far inferior in intensity and very different in colour, but strong enough to perplex and dazzle for the moment- -a flame of petulant emotion towards a pretty, saucy, young, aristocratic woman; a fear of her, and a longing to obtain some sort of mastery over her.

Montana began to think it would be well for him to set about his great scheme, to put it in motion, and make a grand triumphal departure from London with the close of the season, carrying Geraldine Rowan with him as his wife and as the companion of his expedition, his associate in the foundation of the sublime colony beyond the seas, out of which a new world and a new life for the old world were gradually to arise.

Did Montana really believe in this scheme? That, we suppose, no one can ever know. It is not likely—at least, from what was afterwards discovered, it does not seem likely that he had ever thought the matter deliberately over, or had done more than allow the idea to grow upon him from day to day. He believed very thoroughly in himself, and believed that anything he started must come to a success. He had worked himself into a Napoleonic faith in his star, and in heaven's special protection of him. This faith may have been born of sheer vanity, or of prolonged mental strain almost approaching to a condition of intellectual derangement, but at all events it supplied him with any quality of earnestness which he could be said to have possessed. Whatever the strength of his faith, either in his project or himself, it does not appear that at this time he was making any preparation to carry his great scheme into effect. He listened to people's suggestions concerning it, and answered all manner of inquiries and letters. He gave everyone to understand that the scheme was growing into active movement day by day, and that he had all its details under his own eyes and in his own hands; but nobody was ever admitted to genuine confidence with him, nor did he tell anybody what his preparations were. was merely at present enjoying his success in his own fashion. He had found a career, and this was its zenith and its consummation. His strongest ambition all his life through had been to play to one great audience, that of London; to fashionable, aristocratic, wealthy London in the stalls and boxes, and artisan, hard-handed, poor

living London in the galleries. Now he had reached the height of his hopes. With one hand he grasped the west end and with the other the east. His vanity ought to have been almost satisfied. If he was capable of deliberately thinking over a difficulty or a crisis of any kind, we might assume that he went calmly and fully into counsel with himself, reviewed his position, and set his plans out before him to look at them. We might assume that, having done this, he had come to the conclusion that the zenith of his London career had in any case been reached; that even if nothing out of the common had arisen, his object now must be to avoid the risk of a descent or an anti-climax ; and that the incident in the church had hastened the necessity for bringing the London episode to a conclusion. On the other hand, anything like a hasty departure from London would only give the appearance of probability to the most improbable storyMontana had now really worked himself into a mood to regard Mr. Varlowe's story as monstrously improbable-and make people lose faith in him. The conclusion to which Montana came was that he must stay in London to the close of the season and then depart. But it is not likely that this conclusion came by virtue of any slow and careful process of thought. It came to Montana by instinct, as most of his conclusions did. That was his way. He had no thought of a resolution one moment, and it was a fixed resolve the next. It pleased and comforted him to think that these instinctive and somewhat feminine conclusions were special revelations-the voices of oracles speaking within his breast and guiding him aright.

The little incident in the Church of Free Souls did seem likely to have a certain influence over public opinion. It got about in all manner of more or less distorted versions. In no case did it amount to anything much more than the fact that there had been a scene in the church when Montana spoke there, and that some old man, whom nobody knew, had professed to recognise Montana as his son, and that Montana had disclaimed him. There was not much in that, perhaps, and very few people went into the question seriously enough to ask themselves whether the old man was sane or insane, or whether there was the slightest foundation for the idea he had taken up. Still, the incident was of a certain importance. It called sharp attention to the fact that there was some mystery about Montana's career which might not be a great and superb thing after all. The stream might, if traced back to its source, be found to arise in a commonplace little well in a stable-yard, instead of a dark and sacred spring among the solemn trees of some historic and haunted grove. The story set curiosity and inquiry going in that direction, and that in