kiss which is said to have haunted him ever after? The Scottish Universities are not equally fruitful in memorials, for the collegiates' buildings, as in Germany, were reserved for the professors, and not for the carrying out of the medieval college system. Yet, though Glasgow University has passed away to a new and finer site, one regrets those old grounds where Waverley's duel with his false cousin was interrupted by Rob Roy, and where the red-gowned students used to flit at earliest dawn through the lamp-lit courts. When I pass by the buildings of the University of Edinburgh, I recall the case of Dugald Stewart and the literary society that once really made Edinburgh a modern Athens.

Then there is that old-fashioned parsonage at Bemerton, with its grounds sloping down the river, where Master George Herbert lived, whom Mr. Leighton has painted as a fisherman on what authority I am not aware, except the tempting contiguity to the stream. Herbert had been Public Orator at Cambridge, and had aspired to be Secretary of State, for he had great friends, and, in especial, he knew Lord Bacon, whose new philosophy he had probably helped to latinise. My own notion is, that

in this sweet retreat, within hearing of the Salisbury chimes, he simply starved himself to death. For Herbert translated the work of Carnaro, the Venetian, who lived on a minute quantity of food, which was

1

weighed out daily, and Herbert probably not only expounded the method, but practised it, which was unsuitable both to our climate and his own constitution. Going into the new church, I saw sundry books, 'presented by George Herbert,' a son of the late Lord Herbert of Lea, and brother to our new young author, the Earl of Pembroke. The old tiny church is not used, but is too precious to be pulled down, herein resembling that equally tiny church of Bonchurch, with its recollections of such men as Sterling and Adams. A very similar set of associations cluster around Hursley. What a beautiful, calm, idyllic life is that portrayed by Miss Yonge of Keble! We seem to go into the woodlands and the pastures, and then to pass into the silent companionship of the library, and except that the ecclesiastical skies are troubled, or some villager threatens to go wrong, there seems hardly a crumpled rose - leaf to disturb that lettered and serene existence. Such a life is possible for very few men, is good for very few.

Some of us

would not enjoy it, most of us would be incapable of enjoying it. It is only through a deal of hard fighting that we can attain to anything like that peace. Once I went down to Stoke Pogis to realise the 'Elegy.' It was the evening hour; the owl, the ivy, the nearer and distant sounds were all there, as Grey described them. There has been some controversy as to the village churchyard, but I think a visit to Stoke Pogis

would almost serve to settle the question. Once I investigated Horton very carefully, induced to do so by Mr. Mosson's noble work. In the Home Park, at Windsor, Herne's oak is blown down and its remains converted into souvenirs, but I satisfied myself at Datchet of the spot where Falstaff was nearly smothered, of the scene where Rochester describes the second Charles fishing, and of the islet where Savile brought Izaak Walton to fish, and doubtless showed him his superb edition of St. Chrysostom. In the Forest you

recall the youthful muse of Pope; and if you beat about suburban scenery, go to Chiswick, to Binfield. Indeed if you will take a boat from Richmond Bridge to where Teddington Rock severs the sweet from the brackish tidal water, you will pass through lovely scenery, crowded with literary associations. All the brilliant company in London come down to look at Mr. Pope's Grotto, except my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who has quarrelled with him and stands. aloof; and Johnson visits Owen Cambridge close to the bridge; and a stately company sweep up the avenue of my Lord Dysart's house at Ham; and Thomson skips heated into his boat to catch that fatal cold; and Horace Walpole takes the water from Strawberry Hill to see his much-loved Miss Burnies in their own mimic little castle near the Duke of Buccleuch's villa. Lower down the river, where you go to see our great aquatic races, think not only of

the brilliant festivities of those gardens, but of that plain chamber in the Duke of Devonshire's villa, where two great Premiers, Fox and Canning, breathed their last.

I have not exhausted them, but I do not claim much for my souvenirs. Probably many of my readers have much more ample. Only I may insist that the habit of having such souvenirs is not unuseful. It gives a zest to the visiting of famous localities if we are able to associate them with literary memories. It helps to take away from authorship its unreal, abstract character; the human interest is heightened; we grow into permanent companionship with great men as we track them in their haunts and resting-places, in their downsitting and uprising. Amid all that is transitory and uncertain, we see the eternal forms of nature amid which they moved. It is much to study great works in a spirit of genuine criticism; more, perhaps, to study them in a spirit of genuine sympathy. And, after all, though criticism may destroy sympathy, sympathy is always helpful, almost essential, to a sound and healthy criticism.

On Certain tendencies in Literature

and Politics.

EVEN

amid the constant discussion which men and books and opinions receive, we are sometimes liable to overlook the main current and drift of the

tendencies which they disclose. We look upon matters in the light of journalism rather than history; we are concerned with phenomena rather than with the law; we watch each breaking wave of circumstance rather than measure the ebbing and receding tide. Watching the rate of progress and the conflict of opinions, I ask myself: 'What does it all amount to ? How will these contemporary days appear as history? What are the real forces at work in society, and in what direction are these forces moving? What is the moral, or what are the leading morals of the pretty, dressed-up stories of modern life?' If I cannot advance any grand theory, I can at least register my observation, which is as much as most true Peripatetics have ever been able to do.

Without being an alarmist, it is curious to note