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boys I talked to in this neighborhood knew the bird as the "golden christian wrennie"-a rather pretty variant.

But the golden christian wrennie is not the wren-not the Cornish wren; for there is a proper Cornish wren. even as there is a S. Kilda wren, and as there is a native wren, or local race or Troglodytes parvulus in every county, and every village and farmhouse and wood and coppice and hedge in the United Kingdom. He is a home-keeping little bird, and when you find him, summer or winter, in town or country, you know that he is a native, that his family is a very old one in that part and was settled there before the advent of blue-eyed man and the dawn of a Bronze Age.

He is universal and that gives one the idea that he is very evenly distributed; but I had no sooner set foot in this "westest" part of all England than I found the wren more common than in any other part of the country known to me, and this greatly pleased me because of my love of him. Indeed it was the prevalence of the wren which made the West Cornwall bird life seem very much to me, despite the fact that the best species have been extirpated or driven away and that no peregrine or chough or hoopoe, or other distinguished feathered stranger, can return to these shores and not be instantly massacred by the sportsmen, ornithologists and private collectors. But the common little wren is admired and respected by every one, even by the philistines. It is not that he seeks to ingratiate himself with us like the robin; he is the very opposite of that friendly little creature, and indeed I like him as much for his independence as for his other sterling qualities. You may feed the birds every day in cold weather and have them gather in crowds to gobble up your scraps, but you will not find the wren among them. He doesn't want of your charity, and

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can get his own living in all seasons and in all places, rough or smooth, as you will find if you walk round the coast from S. Ives to Land's End or to Mounts' Bay. Not a furze clump, nor stone hedge, nor farm building, nor old ruined tin mine, nor rocky headland, but has its wren, and go where you will in this half-desert silent place you hear at intervals his sharp strident note; but not to welcome you. heavy footsteps have disturbed and brought him out of his hiding-place to look at you and vehemently express his astonishment and disapproval. And having done so he vanishes back into seclusion and dismisses the fact of your existence from his busy practical little mind. He is at home, but not to you. 'Tis the only home he knows and he likes it very well, finding his food and roosting by night and rearing his young just in that place, with fox and adder and other deadly creatures for only neighbors. Such a mite of a bird with such small round feeble wings and no more blood in him than would serve to wet a weasel's whistle! Best of all it is to see him among the rude granite rocks of a headland, living in the roar of the sea: when the wind falls or a gleam of winter sunshine visits earth you will find him at a merry game of hide and seek with his mate among the crags, pausing from time to time in his chase to pour out that swift piercing lyric which you will hear a thousand times and never without surprise at its power and brilliance.

In these waste stony places, where the wren is common, another small feathered creature was with me just as often-the anxious, irresolute meadow pipit, or titlark, who is the very opposite in character to the brisk, vigorous, positive little brown bird whose mind is made up and who does everything straight off. Nevertheless he gave me almost as much pleasure,

only it was a somewhat different feel- he makes; he flings himself up as it ing-a pleasure of a pensive kind with were before your footsteps out of the something of mystery in it. He did brown heath and pale tall grasses and not sing, even on those bright days or old dead bracken, and goes off as if hours in January which caused such blown away by the wind and resilent ones as the corn bunting and turns to you as if blown back, and pied wagtail to break out in melody. hovers and goes to this side, then to The bell-like tinkling strain he utters that, now close to you, a little sombre when soaring up and dropping to earth bird, and now in appearance a mere is for summer only: it is that faint dead leaf or feather whirled away by fairy-like aerial music which you hear the blast. During this uncertain flight on wide moors and commons and and when, at intervals, he drops on to lonely hillsides. In winter he has a rock close by, he continues to emit no language but that one sharp sor- the sharp sorrowful note, and if you rowful little call, or complaint, the listen it infects your mind with its most anxious sound uttered by any lit- sadness and mystery. You can even tle bird in these islands. It is a sound imagine that the wind-blown feaththat suits the place, and when the ered mite is not what it seems, a pipit, wind blows hard, bringing the noise of but a spirit of the place in the shape of the waves to your ears, and the salt a mournful little bird-a spirit that spray; when all the sky is one gray cannot go away, or die, or ever forget cloud, and driving mists sweep over the unhappy things it witnessed in a the earth at intervals blurring the out- pain of pity and terror long ages gone, line of the hills, that thin but penetra- when an ancient people, or a fugitive tive little sad call seems more appro- remnant, gathered at this desolate end priate than ever and in tune with Na- of all the land; so old a tragedy that ture and the mind. The movements, it was forgotten on the earth and all too, of the unhappy little creature who had part in it turned to dust thouhave their share in the impression sands of years ago. The Saturday Review.

W. H. Hudson.

THE RETIREMENT OF LORD CROMER.

As to some men who have accomplished notable work, and enjoyed a high reputation amongst their contemporaries, it may be permissible to doubt whether their fame will be enduring. When a record is scrutinized by posterity it sometimes appears that the doer of great things has been aided by accident, has blundered into the right path, or profited without acknowledgment by other men's labors. No such uncertainty can be felt about Lord Cromer. Modern Egypt is of his making. He took up the task when the Valley of the Nile lay in the anarchy left by the Arabi rebellion and

but partially controlled by the unacknowledged, half-tentative British occupation. He guided the feeble and hesitating steps of Tewfik, and sat calmly, waiting for the chance that seemed never to be coming, when the Soudan was abandoned to barbarism. During the vacillations and ignominious rushes, first forwards and then backwards, that resulted in Gordon's hopeless adventure and tragic end, the imperturbable administrator bided his time. Neither Turkish intrigue nor Nationalist agitation could shake him in the saddle, and he defeated the dexterous and persistent diplomacy of

France by his unrivalled capacity for sitting tight. As he impressed civilized adversaries by quiet doggedness. so he puzzled tricky Orientals by his absence of guile. He was a man, they found, who could not be deceivedsubtler than the subtlest amongst them-yet he never employed the arts in which he was their master.

His coolness of judgment and tenacity of purpose were shown first when he gave young Abbas Pasha the schooling which he required, and firmly made him understand the conditions on which he was retained on the throne. His courage and adroitness were displayed, to those who stood behind the scenes, first in the Fashoda crisis, when the very life-blood of Egypt was threatened at its source by an adventurous French captain, and again last year, when Turkey attempted to establish itself in the Sinaitic peninsula and threaten the lost province on its flank. Once again we stood on the verge of war with a great military Power, but the crisis was passed almost before the peril had been realized. Whether he was dealing with Lord Rosebery, Lord Salisbury, or Sir Edward Grey, he always inspired absolute confidence in his Chief, and thus the Foreign Secretary was enabled to bear down the opposition of hesitating or recalcitrant members of the Cabinet. "This is Lord Cromer's advice"-the Minister who could use these words had carried his point. And the singular influence which he wielded over his countrymen, without distinction of Party, was acknowledged by foreign statesmen. Step by step he induced the Powers who claim some interest, near or remote, in Egypt to stand aside and let him carry out his plans for the reorganization of order and industry in Lower Egypt and for the recovery of the Soudan. was a remarkable and continuous feat in unpretentious diplomacy—a triumph

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of character over cleverness.

His last Report, published not a fortnight ago, explains his scheme for modifying the worst features of the Capitulations system. We may hope that his successor, Sir Eldon Gorst, an able son of an able father, and trained for sixteen years under Lord Cromer's eye, may be able to complete the work of his great Chief. He has had experience in that country second only to that of the retiring diplomat himself, and he may doubtless be trusted to continue his policy. But whether he is the best man that could have been chosen to cope with the rising tide of Nationalism remains to be seen. It cannot be ignored that beneath the calm which appears upon the Egyptian surface there lurks a danger against which Lord Cromer, in his valedictory despatch, has warned the Government to be prepared.

Nor is it fair to ignore the acknowledgment paid by the retiring administrator to the present Government. It is clear that the only reason for his retirement is the one assigned. We all hope that his health may soon be restored, and that he will spend many happy years in the literary studies to which he has devoted some of the leisure snatched from labors enormous in the sheer amount of work accomplished and exhausting because the sense of responsibility could never be shaken off. True, that he was well served, because he had the gift of choosing good men and training them to their task. But in the troublous and uncertain crises through which he guided his chosen people, success and safety often depended on his personal prestige. It has been said that Egypt is the Nile and the Nile is Egypt. For nearly a quarter of a century Lord Cromer has been Egypt and Egypt has been Lord Cromer. There are no honors or rewards, if he cares for either, which would be excessive for the be

nevolent despot who has now withdrawn into private life. It is one of the interesting anomalies of our time that the man who has exercised for so many years an authority more absolute than Tsar, Kaiser, or Mikado, held no higher function than that of ConsulThe Outlook.

General in a land over which we have not even asserted a Protectorate. True Englishman as he was, a typical maker of Empire, Lord Cromer cared nothing for the name so long as he had firm hold of the substance.

AHE

THE CHANGELESSNESS OF CHARACTER.

We hear a good deal nowadays about changes in character, about dual personality, the mental results of accident and illness, and of moral metamorphoses of all kinds. No doubt many of these phenomena cannot be denied. On the other hand, they are of such rare occurrence that the discussion of them is more or less academic. The most permanent element in life is, af ter all, the element of character. Indeed, it is the only thing upon which, among the changes and chances of life, we can count at all:

The earth (great mother of us all), That only seems unmoved and permanent,

And unto Mutability not thrall,

Yet is she changed in part and eke in generall.

In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, men and women do not change, except outwardly. The man we knew ten years ago and know now is the man we shall know ten years hence if we are both alive. He may make a fortune or he may lose one. He may succeed or he may fail. His wealth or his poverty may take him into a new society or into new surroundings, it may give him a new manner, but it will not make him a new man. We may send him away because he is a scamp to somewhere where scampishness does not obtrusively show. But men are not made saints by climate or by the absence of

civilized restraints; neither are they made sinners, though their natural tendencies sometimes find fuller scope in a freer world. A man may grow stronger or feebler in health as the years go by, he must grow older, he may grow wiser, but in character he is most unlikely to change. We do not deny that the experience of life has some effect upon the proportions of character. Circumstances may develop a man's will at the expense of his judgment, or his power of discrimination to the detriment of his power of decision. Trouble may sharpen his sympathies or luck increase a natural buoyancy. But these changes are, so to speak, functional; they are not organic. There are always possibilities) of improvement and deterioration, but these take place almost always along strictly prescribed lines, and tend to accentuate rather than to obliterate the natural characteristics. The impulsive man will not become cautious, or the cautious man rash, though education may do something to make both of them more reasonable. It looks sometimes as though there were not tears enough in the world to quench the hopes of the naturally hopeful, or happiness enough to inspirit those who are naturally depressed. After each separate satisfaction the discontented man "falls back," as Dr. Johnson said, "into the habit of wishing," and after each rebuff of fortune the cheerful fellow resumes his habit of thankfulness.

The only thing which seems really to modify character is a serious change of conviction, and even that change, unless assisted by religious emotion, has seldom any very marked effect. While they are still young, men often entirely alter their political opinions, but as a rule they turn to those views which best befit their character, having received the discarded set at second hand and without serious consideration from their parents. The man who was early taught that the world exists to supply a certain section of society with comfort, amusement, and an outlet for their energies, and to consider the good of the many only so far as is expedient in the interests of the few, and who attained to years of discretion before he questioned his creed, may become-in accordance with his character-a philanthropist and a democrat. On the other hand, a man who at twenty, or even at twenty-five, believed that all questions, both moral and social, could be settled by counting heads, may become-again in accordance with his character-a firm believer in the government of the wise. The effects of upbringing last longer with some than with others. We can well imagine that the experience of a war might turn a youth at the University from a peace-at-any-price Little Englander into a Jingo Imperialist. The same war upon another under-graduate might have an exactly opposite effect. Their characters would not be changed, but a great event would have brought each man to himself, and forced him to shake off his inherited prejudices, or should we say pre-judgments? Nevertheless, the exception exists. A man who at the height of his powers deliberately changes his mind goes through a terrible mental ordeal, one which leaves its mark upon every part of his being; but, as a rule, the change owes little to circumstances. Sudden reve

lations and sudden disillusionments do occur, and then, as it were, the continuity of character is broken, and we do not know for good or evil what will happen next; but those common joys and sorrows to which flesh is heir have no such revolutionary effect. Sometimes when our friends have had some great blow or some great stroke of fortune we feel almost afraid to see them. We have a vague fear that they will be different; but almost always we say to ourselves, as we think over the dreaded moment, that they were "just like themselves."

If we discuss women as apart from men, it is almost more true of them than of their husbands and brothers that they are as they were made. How often does a frivolous woman become serious, or a hard one kind, or vice versâ? Did any one ever know a candid woman who became deceitful, or a schemer who became simple? If we know her only slightly, we may mistake the light heart of youth for frivolity, or a discontented spirit for a thoughtful disposition, or take tact for subtlety or subtlety for tact; and so we may think as the years go on that a radical change has taken place in her character. But ask her family or her intimate friends. They have fallen into no such error. Again, among women opinions may be said to be almost invariably the outcome of character, always admitting that those who have, as Pope said, "no character at all" are yet as a rule well supplied with ready-made opinions. The woman who thinks will always think the same. Not that women are less charitable than men. The best women are far more so. Perhaps no man is as well able as some women to hold absolutely to a given view while appreciating fully the mind and the motives of some one who holds the direct opposite. There are cases where a woman's want of logic assists her

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