beautiful, while he had the most harrowing appeals from his deserted wife and children in his pocket, and was meditating swindling and bigamy in his head. He and the poet Coleridge appear to have had some knowledge of each other in some curious and unexplained way, perhaps through some west country connection. The criminal dreaded to meet Coleridge, and Coleridge always spoke of him with undisguised horror. The heroine became unheroically fat, and marrying a farmer, settled down somewhere near Carlisle.

.

Crummock Water seemed tranquil enough after the rains, but it was adjudged unsafe to cross it, as being liable, in such unsettled weather, to sudden dangerous gusts. The road round, that seemed so long, was in reality very arduous, occupying four hours. People must make up their minds not to hunt waterfalls in their season unless they can stand a full amount of exposure and fatigue. Ladies who attempt it are apt to sit down on stones in the most imbecile way, and declare, with some truth, that they cannot go a step farther. One of them, under such circumstances, feebly said that she should like to sit there until the moon should rise,' being in utter uncertainty of its time of rising. Scale Force is certainly exceedingly well worth seeing. It has some sort of shadowy resemblance to a canon of Colorado. The water comes down in a sheer single leap, as if through the

shaft of a mine. Black perpendicular crags of syenite rise on either side, slimy and dripping with water, while shrubs and trees project from the deep crevices and clefts.

What, after all, is the peculiar charm, the solemn fascination of a noble waterfall? How would you analyse that emotion which it rarely, if ever, fails to awaken ? It is not alone the hue, the glitter, the spray, the volume, the roar, the height, the depth, the glory. I think we may proceed beyond this class of sensations. The waterfall, beyond all inorganic matter, is a thing of life. It is a living form with a sense of strength and undeviating force. In its constant movement and whirl, it has its analogies with human life. This is heightened by the loneliness and awe with which it is almost uniformly invested. There is something, too, in the vehement stream as it bounds over the ledge, which reminds us of human destiny, as we, too, shoot the rapids of life.'

Unfrequented British Islands.

I

HAVE always had a passion for deserted and inaccessible islands. I like them very much, and

in my time I have travelled to several of them. I rather enjoy the idea of a desolate island. I quite envy one friend who has resided on Ascension Island, and was perfectly satiated with turtle; and another who has visited Tristan d'Acunha; and another who has been at Norfolk Island, once a Purgatorio and now a Paradise. I have never been quite able to sympathise with Juan Fernandez or Robinson Crusoe. According to Defoe's account, his life was a prolonged picnic. Whenever he wanted anything, there was always a ship opportunely wrecked, with enough poultry and live stock, cutlery and furniture, biscuits and strong waters, to set up a family of moderate desires for a lifetime. I should be sorry to be in a ship near the mouth of the Orinoco if Mr. R. Crusoe was in want of anything good. The gentleman of morose disposition, who considered that conversation was the bane of society, might pass his time very

happily in what the Irishman called 'a dissolute island.' I remember how the islands impressed old Johnson when he went out to the Hebrides. He would repeat the lines

'Every island is a prison

Closely guarded by the sea.'

I don't think Sir Walter ever succeeded better than when he laid the scene of the Pirate on an island. Only the other day we all heard the affecting story of the island in the Outer Hebrides, which was left long unvisited, and very nearly approached starvation point before the people were relieved. That certainly is not a pleasant side of the case.

That guide, philosopher, and friend of my early youth, Mr. Maunder, who issued so many literary treasures, informed me in early life that the islands of the British Empire were five thousand in number. With every possible respect for Maunder, I really do not think that there can be so many at the present you call an island.

time. It all depends on what You may raise or depress the number below Mr. Maunder's statements. When you are at the Lizard, or what you imagine to be the southernmost part of England, you see an inaccessible rock before you, which some people provokingly call an island, and they provokingly tell you that you must go to that island before you can say that you have been at the most southerly point of England. A writer in the

Saturday Review once said that the Scilly Islands consisted of about thirty-seven inhabited islands. The inhabited islets are only five; but if you call the big rocks of that fantastic archipelago by the name of islands their number will be about a hundred and fifty. The late Mr. Smith of Tresco had a very good idea of making an island comfortable for his friends, and also uncomfortable for his people.

If he did not like a family, he thought nothing of deporting them all, bag and baggage, across the water to the mainland. He treated them as if they were unspeakable Turks.' But the Abbey itself was very delicious, and the island resembled Calypso's, with the groves, the orange and lemon trees, and the lake with those stately swans who took a placid journey of forty miles of salt water from Tresco to Penzance.

I know some charming islands. There are some which just make up a gentleman's estate; some which just make up a farmer's holding. I was particularly pleased with Caldy Island. It is about three miles from Tenby, to which it acts as a kind of natural breakwater. I was of opinion that a man could live very comfortably there. But although the distance from the mainland is so short, you might be beating about for hours and hours before you effect a landing. I took a look at Hayling Island, off Hampshire, the other day. You can hardly call it an island when you run into it by railway. Watering-places now