HAYDN.

In setting the Ten Commandments to music, Haydn, the composer, with grim humour, stole a melody for the eighth.

FORTITUDE AND PIETY.

'After the robbers' (who had plundered and stripped him) were gone, I sat for some time looking around me with amazement and terror. Whichever way I turned, nothing appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a vast wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone, surrounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. All these circumstances crowded at once upon my recollection, and I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and perish. The influence of religion, however, aided and supported me. I reflected that no human prudence or foresight could possibly have averted my present sufferings. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land, yet I was still under the protecting eye of that Providence who has condescended to call Himself the stranger's friend.

'At this moment, painful as my reflections were,

the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation, for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves and capsula, without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this remote part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after His own image? Surely not. Reflections like these would not allow me to despair. I started up, and, disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forwards, assured that relief was at hand.' Mungo Park (1771-1805).

And he was not disappointed, for shortly afterwards he reached a village where he found shelter and succour.

HUMAN LIFE.

'This earthy load

Of Death called life, which us from Life doth sever.'

Speaking of Philistinism, Mr. Matthew Arnold says: "We have not the expression in English; perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I imagine, they did not talk of solecisms, and here, at the very head-quarters of Goliath,

nobody talks of Philistinism. It means a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the children of light-the would-be remodellers of the old traditional European order, the invokers of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern Spirit in every sphere where it is applicable. Regarding themselves, with the robust selfconfidence natural to reformers, as a chosen people, as children of the light, they regarded the Philistines as humdrum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light, stupid and oppressive; but, at the same time, very strong. The born lover of ideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel, in this country, that the sky over his head is of brass or iron.'

It has often struck us that Philistines are a nuisance, but our dissatisfaction and discouragement goes deeper than Philistinism. We complain that we have been pitched-forked on a planet for which morally and physically we are altogether unsuited, where our existence is a long drawn-out malady, for which there is no certain cure but churchyard mould. Yes, you have only to walk into the street, and you will observe that this consuming care and incurable melancholy is written on every face you meet. We do what we can, we cling to our illusions, we try to forget our disappointments and to dissemble our miseries, and what is the comfort held out to us? We are assured that it is quite an illusion, that we are not miser

able, we are happy, and ought to be so, that we have been placed on this earth for a wise purpose, by a Power which takes a personal interest in our wellbeing, that whatever misery and crime there are, are mysteries, and mysteries we cannot fathom, but that all is working for our ultimate welfare; that the free will accorded to us 'is a kind of natural sovereignty over ourselves, to govern ourselves ;' in fine, that the worth of our life is to be measured by its activity in the path of duty; that the measure of its worth is not the joy or misery found in the world, but in the satisfaction that follows free and right activity. All this sounds comforting, and, indeed, we would fain believe it; and sometimes, when the wind is not in the east, we do believe it:

'Ah, yes, when all is thought and said,

The heart still overrules the head;
Still what we hope we must believe,
And what is given us receive.

'Must still believe, for still we hope
That in a world of larger scope
What here is faithfully begun,

Will be completed, not undone.'

And so we continue to look, and look wistfully to that other possible illusion, that shadowy land of promise, that far-away country-the Arcadia of the blest, where there will be no worry, no abominable damps, and fogs, and sudden changes of atmosphere, and no bores, and perhaps no Philistines; and where, at any rate, the

Bohemian and the Philistine will lie down peaceably together, and the lamb will not necessarily lie down inside the lion.

'Now, alas, the poor sprite is

Imprisoned for some fault of his
In a body like a grave—

From you he only dares to crave
For his service and his sorrow
A smile to-day.'

PHILISTINES AND BOHEMIANS.

Pope said of Dryden that he was not a genteel man,—he was intimate with none but poetical men ;' and it is recorded that Prior, after spending the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, before he went to bed, would go off and smoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale with a common soldier and his wife in Long Acre. This is given as a proof of his propensity for sordid converse; however, before we condemn Prior, we ought to know something of the scope of the soldier's social gifts.

I was sitting at the Travellers' with an old acquaintance, and I chanced to say that the Athenæum, next door, was an excellent club, the best club in London,' and I noticed my friend looked inquiringly-surprised; so I backed my assertion with, 'Yes, you meet such interesting people there; walk in at 5 o'clock, of any afternoon, and if you want information on Politics