to whom the sentiment of duty and doing the right for right's sake are not sufficient to keep in the straight line and out of the crooked ones.

Was it a sentimental grievance or a positive personal wrong when the curfew toll'd the knell of parting day? Looking at it practically, we can scarcely say it was the latter. The Gurths and Wambas of the time were not much given to midnight study, and light was bad and dear for the people who could not afford the flaming torches and fiery cressets used by Baron and Abbot. They only ran the risk of setting fire to their huts; and it was better for every one concerned that they should lie down with the lamb and rise with the lark than do like their descendants-begin to live when the bats and owls come out, and prefer gas to sunshine. We have the same kind of thing on board ship, where "all lights out" is as much part of the routine of life as the captain's making the time and the setting of the night watch. Here it is not felt as a sentimental grievance at all, though it is sometimes a personal inconvenience; but under the Norman rule in England it was the former, not the latter, and in this strength conquered.

Should we call it a sentimental grievance, or a positive wrong, when the Jews were, or are, shut up in their own quarters at a certain hour of the evening, obliged to wear distinctive garments which ticket them as of the House of Israel, that same house being in a manner in ruins thereabouts, and offering neither shelter for the indwellers nor cause for the spectators to rejoice in its stately grandeur? It does them no harm to have the gate of their Ghetto closed at a certain hour. They have finished their business transactions with the Gentiles for that day, and they do not in the least desire to have any social relations with them. Where laws are equal and equitable, to be a Jew entails no kind of personal suffering on man or woman; and as a race they are faithful and loyal, proud of their nationality, and clinging to their ancient lineage with a love so earnest as to be pathetic. Still, the most loyal adherent in the world would rather not be assigned a special place, if that special place means social inferiority. Though no one wants to go outside the gate, all would rather the gate was left open; and if conquerors like to wear a badge, the conquered do not. The Mohammedan's green turban, the Brahmin's sacred caste marks, score honours to them, as do our stars and garters and ribbons to us; but the Jews' gabardine, yellow slippers, and distinctive caftan are as our "punishment pack," or the striped stockings of American convicts-symbols which hurt the self-esteem of those submitted to them; consequently sentimental grievances which a humane, an enlightened, a thoroughly civilised policy would abolish.

Pace the sterner school of political economists, the drier kind of materialistic reasoners, this is what it comes to: the more we are humane, enlightened, civilised, the more weight we give to the feelings as well as the rights of others, and the more fully we recognise the complex nature of man. Free trade in beef and beer, a good roof over one's head, and a good coat to one's back, are the primaries for a successful existence; but

they are not the totalities; else a convict would have a more enviable existence than many a struggling labourer who does not know where to-morrow's bread is to come from, whose dilapidated roof lets in the rain, and whose ragged smock does not keep out the sun. The superior condition of the labourer is only in the sentiment of the thing, material and personal advantages being all on the side of the convict, whose roof is undeniably watertight, whose rations are sufficient to the turn of the scale, and whose canvas suit has neither rents nor threadbare patches for his discomfort. For after all what is liberty but too often the power of committing folly, not to speak of sin, and doing ourselves personal damage? We might be thankful to be kept from such a questionable good; and if we measured things by their material value only, we might accept the dish of lentils as the best blessing for a hungry man, and a by no means bad bargain to make for a sentimental advantage. As we cannot fight under two flags at once, nor hold with the hare while we run with the hounds, we cannot despise sentimental grievances and respect sentimental goods. If we throw the feelings overboard on the one side, it is illogical to twist them as the sign under which we sail on the other; but there is no one who will dare to maintain this doctrine, and to refer all human life to the senses only. The pig trough has, to be sure, its votaries, scarcely its advocates; but, unless we fall back on the old delusion of finality and the absolute, we can scarcely draw a line sufficiently defined for practical purposes to say "This is a sentimental good we must cherish, that a sentimental grievance we may despise," with no more misgiving as to our boundary than we have when we stand by the side of a fence and look into our neighbour's field from our own. Sentimental grievances have a right to be heard when they take voice and complain; to be considered; and to be removed if their removal does not inflict a positive wrong on others. They belong to the nature of man; and as all things human demand the care of all men, on that ground alone they ought to be respectfully considered, and tenderly dealt with. Homo homini aut deus aut lupus. Can we hesitate as to which is the better character to take? or by what means it is best acted?

E. L. L.

3

had been much about the world, and had learned the toleration which comes by experience; whose opinions were worth hearing on almost every subject; who had read a great deal, and thought a little, and was as much superior to the ordinary young man of society in mind and judgment as he was in wealth. That this kind of man often fails to captivate a foolish girl, when her partner in a valse, brainless, beardless, and penniless, succeeds without any trouble in doing so, is one of those mysteries of nature which nobody can penetrate, but which happens too often to be doubted. Even in this particular, however, Mr. Incledon had his advantages. He was not one of those who, either by contempt for the occupations of youth or by the gravity natural to maturer years, allow themselves to be pushed aside from the lighter part of life-he still danced, though not with the absolute devotion of twenty, and retained his place on the side of youth, not permitting himself to be shelved. More than once, indeed, the young officers from the garrison near, and the young scions of the county families, had looked on with puzzled noncomprehension, when they found themselves altogether distanced in effect and popularity by a mature personage whom they would gladly have called an old fogie had they dared. These young gentlemen of course consoled their vanity by railing against