These lines, however, represent pretty accurately about the worst that his subjects had to say of poor old "Ciuco," as the last of the grand dukes was irreverently and popularly called: "Ciuco," I am sorry to state, means "donkey." And it must be owned that the two lines I have quoted from Giusti's verses, with their untranslatable "lemme, lemme"—of which I have endeavored, with imperfect success, to give the meaning—present a very graphic picture of the man and the nature and characteristics of his government. Everything went "lemme, lemme," in the Sleepy Hollow of Tuscany in those days.

Used as he was to be laughed at, Leopold could occasionally be made sleepily half angry by impertinences which had something of a sting in them. Here is an amusing instance of that fact, and of the way in which things used to be done in Tuscany. Most of the Italian provinces—or larger cities, rather—- have been from time immemorial personated in the popular fancy by certain comic types, supposed to represent with more or less accuracy the special characteristics of each district. Venice, as all the world knows, has, and still more had, her "Pantaloon," Naples her "Pulcinello," etc. The specialties of the Florentine character are popularly supposed to be embodied in "Stenterello," who comes on the Florentine stage, in pieces written for the purpose, every Carnival, to the never-failing delight of the populace. Stenterello is an absurd figure with a curling pigtail, large cocked hat, and habiliments meant to represent those of a Tuscan citizen of some hundred years or so ago. He is a sort of shrewd fool, doing the most absurd things, lying through thick and thin with a sort of simple, self-confuting mendacity, yet contriving to cheat everybody, and always having, amid all his follies, a shrewd eye to his own interest. He talks with the broadest possible Florentine accent and idiom, and despite his cunning is continually getting more kicks than halfpence. Well, there was in those days a famous Stenterello, really a very clever fellow in his way, who for many years had been the delight of the Florentines every Carnival. But one year a rival theatre produced a new and rival Stenterello. Of course the old and established Stenterello could not stand this without using the license of the popular stage to overwhelm his rival with ridicule. "This sort of thing," said he, "will never do! How many Stenterelli are we to have? Two is the regular established number in Florence. There are I and my brother over there at the great house on the other side of the Arno: we are the Florentine Stenterelli by right divine, as is well known. Who is this pretender who comes to interfere with us?" etc. Now, this was a little too much, even for Florence. And a day or two afterward the old original Stenterello was ordered to go to prison. Nobody was ever arrested, as we should call it, or taken to prison. A man who for any cause was to suffer imprisonment used to be told to go to prison. Stenterello told the officer who announced his doom that it was out of the question that he should go just then: he had to appear on the boards that night. This was deemed to be a just impediment, and he was told to go next day. The next day was a "festa:" of course a sufficient reason for putting off everything. The day after, on presenting himself at the prison-door, the actor was told that the governor of the prison was out of Florence, and he must "call again" in a few days. When the governor returned, Stenterello was indisposed for a few days. When he got well the governor was indisposed, and when he got well there was another "festa;" and when at last the offending actor did apply to the prison official to be imprisoned, he was told there was no room for him. Long before that the higher authorities had totally forgotten all about the matter. That was the way things were done in Tuscany in the good old time.

The more serious faults with which Leopold II. was chargeable were due to the narrowness of his religious bigotry, and, in the difficult and trying circumstances of the latter years of his reign, the lack of the courage needed to enable him to be truthful and to keep faith with his people. When the frightened and fickle pope ran away from Rome, strong influences were brought to bear on the grand duke of Tuscany to induce him to refrain from following the example and to ally himself with Piedmont. His confessor of course took the opposite side, and strove with every weapon he could bring to bear on his Serene penitent to induce him to throw in his lot with the pope. At last the invisible world had to be appealed to. Saint Philomena, who had been a special object of the devotion of the grand ducal family, took to appearing to the confessor, and expressing her earnest hope that her devotee would not risk the salvation of a soul in which she took so tender an interest by refusing to follow the path marked out for him by the Holy Father. The saint became very importunate upon the subject, and each one of her celestial visitations was duly reported to the grand duke, and made the occasion of fresh exhortations on the part of the holy man who had been favored by them. The upshot is well known: Ciuco followed the advice of Saint Philomena and lost his dukedom.

Sometimes, however, this submission of his mind to his clergy was not altogether proof against a certain simple shrewdness, aided perhaps by an inclination to save money, to which he was said not to be insensible. Of course his grandfather, the enlightened and reforming Duke Leopold I., had not been at all in the good graces of the Church, and for a series of years Leopold II. had been in the habit of giving a sum of money for masses for the repose of the soul of his grandfather. But upon one occasion it happened that the archbishop of Lucca (a very special hierarchical big-wig, and the greatest ecclesiastical authority in those parts, being, by reason of some ancient and peculiar privileges, a greater man than even the archbishop of Florence), in the course of an argument with the grand duke, the object of which was to induce the latter to modify in some respects some of those anti-ecclesiastical measures by which the elder Leopold had made the prosperity of Tuscany, was so far carried away by his zeal as to declare that the author of the obnoxious constitutions which he wished altered had incurred eternal damnation by the enactment of them. The grand duke bent his head humbly before the archiepiscopal denunciation, and said nothing in reply. But when the time came round for the disbursement of the annual sum for masses for Leopold I., his pious grandson declared that it was useless to spend any more money for that purpose, for that the archbishop of Lucca had informed him that his unhappy predecessor's soul was in hell, and accordingly past help and past being prayed—or paid—for.

I remember an amusing instance of the same sort of simple shrewdness on the lookout for the main chance which was exemplified in the above anecdote showing itself in quite a different sphere. There was in those days living in Florence an Englishman bearing the name of Sloane. He had made a large fortune by the intelligent and well-ordered management of some copper-mines in the neighborhood of Volterra, which in his hands had turned out to be of exceptional and unexpected richness. He was a man who did much good with his money, and was considered a very valuable and important citizen of his adopted country. He was a Roman Catholic too, which made him all the more acceptable to the Florentines, and especially to the grand duke, with whom he was a great favorite. This Mr. Sloane had bought some years before the date of my anecdote the ancient Medicean villa of Careggi, with a considerable extent of land surrounding it. One day the grand duke paid him a visit at his villa of Careggi, and in the course of it proposed a walk up the slope of the Apennines through some fine woods that made a part of Mr. Sloane's property. They went together, enjoying the delightful walk through the woods over a dry and excellently well-made road, where everything betokened care and good tending, till all of a sudden, near the top of the hill they were climbing, they came to a place where the good road suddenly ended, and the path beyond was all bog and the wood utterly uncared for, so that their walk evidently had to come to an end there, and they would have to retrace their steps.

"Why, Sloane, how is this? This is not like your way of doing things. Why did you stop short in your good work?" said the grand duke, as they stood at the limit of the good road, looking out at the slough beyond them.

"In truth, Your Highness, I was sorry that the good road should break off here, but the circumstance is easily explained. Here ends the property of your humble servant, and there begins the property of Your Royal Highness," said Sloane with a low bow.

"Ha! Is it so? Well, then, I'll tell you what you shall do. You shall buy it, Sloane, and then you can finish your job," returned the grand duke.

It is very doubtful whether the Tuscans would have approved of the liberality of the grand duke's expenditure if he had manifested it, as his neighbor-sovereigns did, by expending his revenues on multitudes of show-soldiers. The Tuscan forces of those days were not exactly calculated for brilliant military display. They were about as likely to be called on to fight as the scullions in the grand ducal kitchen, and neither in number, appearance nor tenue were they such as would have obtained the approval of the lowest officer in the service of a more military-minded sovereign. However, such as they were, the grand duke used occasionally—generally on the recurrence of some great Church festival—to review his troops. On such occasions he was expected to say something to the men. Poor Ciuco's efforts in that line often produced effects more amusing to bystanders than impressive to the objects of his oratory. He was one day reviewing the troops who occupied barracks in the well-known "Fortezza di S. Giovanni," popularly called by the Florentines "Fortezza da basso"—the same in which the celebrated Filippo Strozzi, then the prisoner of the vindictive Cosmo de' Medici, was found dead one morning, leaving to the world the still unsolved historical problem whether he died by his own hand or by that of his jailer hired to do the murder. The scene in the gloomy old fortress with which we are at present concerned was of a less tragic nature. His Serene Highness began by exhorting his "brave army"—which, unlike that of Bombastes in the burlesque, certainly never "kicked up a row" of any kind—to be attentive to their religious duties. "It is particularly desirable that you should show an example to the citizens by your regular observance of the festivals of the Church; and—and—" (here His Highness shuffled his feet, and, hanging his head down, chanced to cast his eyes on the line of feet of the men drawn up before him) "and—and—always keep your shoes clean." And with that doubtless much-needed exhortation His Highness concluded his address.

The fact that Leopold was not regarded by his subjects with any bitterness of hatred—nay, that there was au fond a considerable feeling of affection for him—is shown by the circumstances of his deposition from the throne. A little timely concession would have saved Charles I.: a still less amount of concession would have preserved his throne to Leopold II. As regarded his own power, he had no objection to agree to all that was asked of him, but he could not make up his mind to go against the head of his house and the head of his religion. The last proposal made to him was to abdicate in favor of his son, whom, if allied with Piedmont, the Tuscans would have consented to accept as their sovereign. But the grand duke felt that this would in fact be doing in an indirect manner that which he had fully determined not to do; and he refused. And then came the end, and that memorable April morning (the 27th) when the present writer witnessed a revolution such as the world had not seen before, and such as, it may be feared, it is not likely soon to see again. Revolutions, we have over and over again been told, "cannot be made with rose-water." The Tuscan revolution may have "proved the rule by the exception," but it assuredly proved it in no other way. The revolution by which poor old Ciuco lost this throne was essentially a rose-water revolution. The history of that day, of the negotiations respecting the proposed abdication of the duke, of the conduct and bearing of the people, has already been told by the present writer, when he was fresh from witnessing the events, in a little volume published in 1859. He will not therefore repeat them now, but will conclude this paper with an account of the manner of the last grand duke's farewell to Florence which is not given in the volume spoken of.

It was at six o'clock in the evening that the carriages containing the grand duke and his family passed through the Porta San Gallo, from which proceeds the road to Bologna, and thence to Vienna. The main preoccupation of the people at that moment was to assure themselves by the evidence of their own senses that the duke and dukelings were really gone. An immense crowd of people assembled round the gate and lined the road immediately outside it. Along the living line thus formed the cortége of carriages proceeded at a slow pace. There was no fear of violence. The Tuscan revolution had cost no drop of blood—not so much as a bloody nose—to any human being thus far, and there was no danger whatever that any violence would be shown to the departing and totally unprotected prince. But there might have been danger that the populace would tarnish their hitherto blameless conduct by some manifestation of insult or exultation. There was not one word of the sort spoken in all the crowd, or indeed a word of any sort. The carriages, carrying away those who were never to see the banks of the Arno and fair Florence again, passed on in perfect—one might almost say in mournful—silence. Of course the masses of the crowd were soon passed, and the grand ducal heart, if it had beat a little quickly while his unguarded carriage was passing between the lines of those who declined to be any longer his subjects, resumed that "serenity" supposed to be the especial property of royal highnesses. But some half dozen carriages, containing a score or so of those whose positions had brought them into personal acquaintance with the sovereign, accompanied the royal cortége as far as the Tuscan frontier between the grand ducal state and the dominions of the Church. Arrived at that spot—it is on the top of a high, bleak ridge among the Apennines—there was a general alighting from the carriages for the mutual saying of the last words of farewell. Of course an immense amount of bowing, with backward steps according to true courtly fashion, went to the due uttering of these adieux on that spot of the high-road over the Apennines. Unfortunately, there chanced to be a heap of broken stones for the mending of the road which encroached a little on the roadway. And it so happened that His Imperial and Royal Highness, never very dexterous in the use of his limbs or an adept in the performance of such courtly gymnastics, backed in bowing on this unlucky heap of stones, and was tripped by it in such sort that the imperial and royal heels went into the air, and the grand duke made his last exit from Tuscany in a manner more original than dignified.

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

The local charities connected with the family history of great landowners in England form one of the most interesting classes of public relief. They date chiefly from ante-Reformation times, and often embody a hidden symbolism into which none save the antiquary now cares to inquire. It is a mistake to suppose that all the dying bequests of pious folk in the Middle Ages were devoted to the "Church" proper: the larger part certainly were, although the spirit that prompted even the making of such bequests was symbolical of the belief in the dispensing (rather than the appropriating) powers of churchmen: but many were also the sums left to be yearly spent in the relief of the poor and starving. Thus originated the alms-(or bede-) houses so frequently met with in the retired villages of England. Bede (from the German beten, to "pray") meant prayer, hinting at the pious duty of those benefiting by the founder's legacy to pray for his eternal welfare. When the Reformation, among many abuses, also obliterated many beautiful and poetical customs, the meaning of these "houses of prayer" was forgotten, and their chapels were often ruthlessly whitewashed. The material part of the foundation, however, still remained, and the bedesmen, twelve or thirteen (in commemoration of the number of the apostles, or the apostles and their Master), continued to be chosen by the clergyman of the parish and the lord of the manor. In other places, instead of this more costly mode of relief, a custom prevailed of distributing a "dole" at stated times to a large number of poor people, the number corresponding to the age of the giver: if alive, of course the number increased every year; if dead, it was fixed at the age at which he or she had died. Many of these local customs continue to this day: some have even been instituted lately, since the revived taste for medievalism has beautified and refined English homesteads and village churches. The queen, a faithful upholder of ancient national manners, has given the example by adhering to the time-honored custom called the Royal Maundy. This word is from mandatum, or commandment, and refers to the "new commandment" given by Christ to his apostles at the Last Supper. In Catholic countries it is still the custom for the sovereign to wash the feet of twelve poor men (his wife performing the same office for twelve poor and aged women) in public on the Thursday before Easter, and to serve them at table afterward: in Vienna this is done in a very solemn and public manner. The chosen ones are brought to the palace in court-coaches, and after the ceremony is over are carried home in the same way, loaded with presents of clothing, money, and all the dishes, spoons, forks, etc., used at their dinner. In England the same charity, or its equivalent, is dispensed, not by the sovereign in person, but by her chaplains and almoners, in the midst of beautiful formalities. The dignity with which the ceremony is performed is a striking evidence of the national character, and a contrast to the sometimes slovenly manner in which great public religious functions are got through abroad. The charities are distributed in the chapel of Whitehall, the palace made tragically famous by the disgrace of Wolsey and the death of King Charles I. Fifty-five old men, and as many women, the number corresponding to the age of the sovereign, were thus relieved last year. On an earlier occasion witnessed by the writer a procession consisting of a detachment of the yeomen of the guard, under the command of a sergeant-major (one of the yeomen carrying the royal alms on a gold salver of the reign of William and Mary), several chaplains, almoners, secretaries and a few national schoolchildren (allowed to take part in the ceremony as a signal reward for good behavior), left the Royal Almonry Office for the chapel of Whitehall. It was met at the door by the lord high almoner and the subdeans of the Chapel Royal, who joined the ranks and passed up to the altar. The surpliced boys of the Chapel Royal, and the clergy and gentlemen belonging officially to it, took their appointed places right and left, and the gold salver was deposited in front of the royal pew, generally tenanted by one or more members of the royal family. Evening prayer, slightly varied and adapted for the occasion, as custom has decreed for several centuries, was then gone through; the forty-first Psalm was chanted; and after the First Lesson an anthem by Goss was sung. Then followed the distribution of £1 15s. to each woman, and a pair of shoes and stockings to each man. The two next anthems were by Mendelssohn, and in the intervals woolen and linen clothes were first distributed to each man, and money-purses to each man and woman. The Second Lesson was then read, and the fourth and concluding anthem, by Greene, chanted, after which the usual Thanksgiving and Prayer of St. Chrysostom were read. The musical part of the service, being especially prominent, was correctly and artistically performed by skillful musicians (some of them composers), styled officially "gentlemen of the Chapel Royal:" the solo in the first anthem was sung by one of the boys.

In addition to this special ceremony, other Easter bounties, styled "Minor Bounty," "Discretionary Bounty," and the "Royal Gate Alms," were, according to old custom, distributed at the Almonry Office on Good Friday and Saturday, while Easter Monday and Tuesday were devoted to the distribution of other supplementary relief to old and infirm people previously chosen by the clergy of the various London parishes. The recipients included over a thousand persons.

Among the private local charities none is on so large a scale as the famous "Tichborne Dole." The idea we now attach to the word dole is ludicrously inappropriate in this case, where the gift is in the proportion of one gallon of the best wheaten flour to each adult and half a gallon to each child, and where the number of the recipients is generally between five and six hundred, including the inhabitants of two parishes. This custom is seven hundred years old, and was first instituted on the Tichborne estate by Dame Mabel, the wife of Sir Roger de Tichborne, knight, in the beginning of the twelfth century. The foundress was renowned for her piety and charity, and by her own people was looked upon as a saint. The family record says that she was so charitable to the poor that, not content to exercise that virtue all her lifetime, she instituted the "dole" as a perpetual memorial of her goodness, and entailed it to her posterity. It is distributed yearly on the 25th of March. A large oil-painting, now hanging in the dining-room of Tichborne House, and representing the distribution of the "dole," was painted in 1670, and is considered as one of the most valuable family relics. The costumes of the period are faithfully represented, most of the prominent figures are portraits, and the scene is laid within the courtyard of the old manor, with its sculptured gables and picturesque mullioned windows. The present house, roomy and comfortable as it is, is a plain, unpretending building, with no architectural features to recommend it, but the park and grounds are very beautiful, the old trees disposed in deep glades and avenues, and the situation altogether very picturesque. Since the famous trial has made everything bearing the name of Tichborne a target for curiosity, the occupants have been sadly annoyed, and access to the house was at last, in self-defence, denied to strangers who came simply as gaping sight-seers. The "dole" distribution, as we have said, takes place every year. Last spring it was attended with less show than usual, owing to the illness of the little boy who now represents the old name (the nephew of the lost Roger Tichborne), in consequence of which none of the ladies of the family were present. But despite the absence of the festal arrangements by which it is usually accompanied, the main business was the same as it has always been since Dame Mabel's time. About nine o'clock the fine old park became thronged with men, women and children, all carrying bags and baskets in which to stow away the "bounty." The distribution was made at the back of the house. The people gathered in groups, dressed in all sorts of plain, dilapidated country garments—old men in worn-out smock-frocks (a sight seldom seen even in conservative England), gaiters such as they wear at work in the fields, and slouched, unrecognizable hats that had evidently seen better times; others stood in their "Sunday clothes," stiff and uncomfortable as a laborer looks in that unusual and unartistic guise; some were old and toothless, yet upright and almost martial-looking; while some, again, had that pathetic look—sunken eyes, bent limbs and general air of having given in to the attacks of time and sorrow—which invariably speaks the same language and stirs the same sympathy all over the world. The women were in the majority, most of them hale and hearty, the wives and daughters of laborers who were too busy to come in person. Nine sacks, each containing fifty gallons of flour, were emptied by two sturdy miller's men into an immense tub. The family being an old Roman Catholic one, a religious ceremony was the prelude of the distribution. The domestic chaplain offered up a short prayer, and after invoking the blessing of Heaven on the gift, sprinkled the flour with holy water in the form of a cross. It was no uncommon thing for one person to carry away three or four gallons of flour: the largest award was in the case of a family consisting of man, wife and seven children, the wife carrying away with her five and a half gallons. Many of those whose names appeared as witnesses for the defence during the memorable trial were present—John Etheridge, the blacksmith, and Kennett, coachman to the dowager Lady Tichborne, among the number. The latter lives in a small freehold cottage, his own property, at Cheriton, the next parish to Tichborne. Persons of all denominations were relieved—Church people, Dissenters and Roman Catholics alike—without the slightest favoritism being shown to any.

The same kind of charity, though on a smaller scale, and by the custom of living patrons instead of the will of deceased ones, is dispensed at various times in the year through the whole country by both large and small landed proprietors.

The 11th of November (St. Martin's Day) is the one generally chosen for the distribution of winter clothing to the poor of the parish, and this in commemoration of the mediaeval legend of the holy Bishop Martin, who gave half his ample cloak to a shivering leper who begged of him in the street. Next night, says the legend, he saw in a dream Christ himself clothed in that cloak, and remembered the promise that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, ye have done it unto Me." The writer has often assisted at such distribution of warm clothing, both made and unmade. In every county squire's house there is a bi-or tri-weekly distribution of soup to the village poor, and in most two or three sets of fine bed-linen and soft baby-clothes, to be lent out on occasions requiring greater comforts than the poor and too often thriftless women of agricultural villages can afford. Private charity is all-reaching: the "hall" is the dispensary and the general ark of refuge for all county ills, moral, physical and pecuniary, and its help is never thought degrading, like that of the "parish." Most families pay a doctor and a nurse by the year to attend the poor free of expense, and an order from the doctor for jellies, soup or wine, as well as for the ordinary sorts of medicine, is always sure of being filled from the ample stores of the "housekeeper's room." If the city poor were half as well provided for as are the agricultural poor by their "lords of the manor," there would be far less destitution. Some affect to sneer at a system which savors of what they call "feudalism," and which, they wisely suggest, encourages pauperism, but warm-hearted and charitable people will probably disagree with these searchers after new methods, and will be glad to find in the ready sympathy of English landowners for their poor neighbors a ray of the old-fashioned unquestioning charity which distinguished biblical times.

B.M.

"Do not be alarmed," he writes, "at a letter which 'like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.' Such, I suspect, mine will be, though it ought to contain only thanks for the admirable ones you have sent to me on the late affairs of Tuscany. Yesterday Mr. Trollope gave them to me as your present. I then exprest a hope that he or you would undertake a history of Italian affairs from the Treaty of Campo Formio down to the present day. Indeed, I hope and trust that it may be continued a year or two farther, until the recovery of Rome from the most perfidious enemy she and Italy were ever opprest by. And this under the title of deliverer! Lay your two heads together, and let me have to boast that the best and truest of our historians were my personal friends. Southey and Napier were most intimately so. Hallam is a dull proser—no discovery or illustration, no profound thought, no vivid description, not even a harmonious period. Macaulay is a smart reviewer, indifferent to truth, a hanger-on of party. Lingard is more honest, and writes better. He does not tag together loose epigrams with a crooked pin. Now put the empty chairs of these people against the wall, and sit down to your table with a long piece of work before you. And now you must be tired, as I foretold you would be. So hail the farewell of your affectionate old friend,

"W. LANDOR."

Here is another, undated, but shown by the Bath postmark to have been written in 1857. The whole letter is strongly characteristic of the writer, as indeed was everything that Landor wrote, said or did, so thoroughly and in every sense of the word was he original; but, as in the preceding letter, the most interesting portion is that toward the end, where he gives some amusing indications of his peculiar political opinions and feelings. This letter also was written to the same correspondent:

"My dear friend: It is now three years since I have been in London, except in passing through it to the Crystal Palace, without dismounting." [How curiously the phrase indicates the habits of the writer's youth, when gentlemen's journeys were for the most part performed on horseback!] "At Sydenham I remained three weeks, almost; but the air of London always disagreed with me, added to which, the necessity of visiting was always intolerable to me, and I have lost many friends by refusing to undergo it. If Mr. Trollope should find a few days' leisure for Bath, I can promise him a hearty reception and a comfortable bedroom. Is it not singular that on your letter being brought to me I laid down for it Town and Country [a novel by Frances Trollope], which interests me as much on a second reading as on the first? To-morrow I must run—imagine a man of eighty-one running!—for the Athenaeum. I myself have not thrown away the pen, which sadly wants mending. They have published Scenes from the Shades, and Alfieri and Metastasio, and Codrus and Polio. These last three are in Fraser. If they bring a few pounds or shillings, the money will be given to Capera, a laboring man who has written some noble poetry." [The writer in question produced some very tolerable verses, remarkable as coming from a man in his position, but in our friend's enthusiastic language they become "noble poetry" directly he makes the man his protegé—a truly Landorian touch!] "I could have collected three hundred pounds for Kossuth from friends who wrote to me about it, and probably ten or a dozen times as much from others, for no man ever had so few friends or acquaintances as I have. Nearly all are dead, and I have no leisure or inclination for new ones. It gave me much pleasure to hear that the fine and pleasant Lord Normanby is in part recovered from his paralysis. I parted from him at Bath with few hopes. Never have I spent a winter in England so free from every kind of malady as this last. A disastrous war ends with a disgraceful peace. We are to have an illumination and ringing of bells. Sir Claude Scott and myself will not illuminate, but I have promised the ringers twenty shillings if they will muffle the bells. Rejoice! The best generals and best soldiers in the Crymea [sic] were Italians.

"W.S.L."

Landor had many queer crotchets about spelling, and always absolutely declined to follow any rule but his own. It seems to have been one of these crotchets to spell Crimea as he spells it in the above-quoted letter—on what grounds I do not pretend to be able to guess: With regard to the seemingly unpatriotic sentiment contained in the last lines, it must be remembered that the writer was addressing a person long resident in Italy, and eagerly anxious for the well-doing of the Italian troops in their struggle with the different despotisms which oppressed the Peninsula. The bribing the ringers to muffle the bells is a highly characteristic trait.

Of a third letter I will print only a part, because the remainder concerns the unfortunate affair which compelled the writer finally to leave England—the result, as is well known, of a trial for libel in which Landor was cast in heavy damages which were far beyond his diminished means to pay. He acted very wrongly, and still more imprudently, in attempting to expose what he honestly deemed misconduct of a nature that outraged all the generous feelings of his nature, by the publication of a very gross libel. The passages in the letter in question which refer to this business, then in the stage preceding his conviction, abundantly testify to the fact that the sentiments which had impelled him to act as he did were wholly and solely those of generous indignation at wrong done, in no-wise against himself, but against another, whom he deemed to be oppressed and unprotected. But I think, on the whole, that no good purpose would be served by raking up the matter afresh. And (for Landor in his wrath was at no time a Chrysostom) the letter bristles with assertions and accusations couched in language which might, for aught I know, make the publication of it a repetition of the offence for which he suffered. The other matters touched on are not uninteresting manifestations of opinion:

"My DEAR FRIEND," he writes: "Whether I am ill or well it is always with equal pleasure that I see the trace of your hand. Surely, I must have written to you since I sent the scenes of Anthony and Octavius. But I am too apt to believe that what I ought to have done I have done. You ask me what I think of the Neapolitan abominations." [The allusion is to some one or other of the many acts of grievous tyranny which were at that time perpetrated by the Neapolitan Bourbon government in its terrified attempts to protect itself against the rising indignation of the people.] "We countenance them. The despots are in Holy Alliance against constitutions." [Surely, Landor's old antagonism to former English governments led him into error and injustice when he accuses England of "countenancing" the tyrannies of the Neapolitan government. How much Gladstone's celebrated letter and English sentiment in all quarters contributed toward the overthrow of that tyranny was not then known as well as it is now.] "On the other side of this," he continues, "you will find a few verses I wrote on Agesiloa Milano, the finest and bravest patriot on record." [Agesilao Milano, whose name was just then in every mouth in Italy, was one of the numerous victims of Austrian severity, who had met his fate with admirable courage, and who willingly gave his life for his country. But there was nothing to distinguish him specially from hundreds of other Italians who in those evil days did as much, and nothing save chance to distinguish him from the tens of hundreds who were ready to do as much had the lot fallen to them. But the mention of this poor fellow in the letter is very specially Landorian. No superlatives were with him strong enough to express his sentiments on aught that immediately moved his feelings either of admiration or indignation.] "The concessions in Lombardy," he goes on, "are fabulous. Thieves and assassins are turned out of prison with quiet literary men and brave patriots.... With kindest regards to your circle, ever your affec.

"W. LANDOR."

The verses on Agesilao Milano announced as being "on the other side" are there preceded by two epigrams on the object of his indignation above alluded to, which I suppress for the same reason that I have suppressed that portion of the letter referring to the same subject. The verses on the young Italian patriot and martyr run as follows:

T.A.T.

Of course the registrar never came near his registry: his duties were discharged by three deputies. Not one penny, moreover, beyond what was absolutely necessary did he expend on the registry itself. Such a hole as it was! Cribbed, cabined and confined were the clerks who ran the reverend sinecurist's business in one of the most extraordinary rabbit-warrens, to use the epithet Bethell, Lord (Chancellor) Westbury, applied to it in the writer's hearing. In Great Knight Rider street—a name derived from the days of the Knights Templar—was a dingy passage-way leading into a yet dingier little court. Passing up a short flight of steps, you found yourself in a large room, with deep alcoves furnished with shelves, on which, above and on all sides, were ranged huge volumes with massive clasps. "What are all these books?" inquired a youthful visitor—"old Bibles?" "No, sir; they're testaments," was a waggish official's reply. They are, in fact, copies of wills. The originals are deemed too precious for exhibition except on special application, and the stranger who pays his shilling only sees a copy. Formerly, unless a searcher knew exactly when a will was proved, the process of finding it was very troublesome, because he had to search down indexes in Old English character arranged in order of date only; but now the registers have been put into alphabetical form.

The great change in Doctors' Commons took place in 1858, when the Probate Act came into operation. This was a very sweeping measure, which at a blow superseded the whole system of ecclesiastical courts, so far at least as wills were concerned. For them it substituted a Court of Probate, with jurisdiction over the whole of England. Attached to this court are about forty registries for wills. That in London is called the Principal Registry. A will must either be proved in the district in which a man dies or in the Principal Registry. The Principal Registry is a very large office, at the head of which are four registrars, who are also registrars of the Divorce Court, over which the judge of the Court of Probate presides, being styled "judge ordinary" of this latter. There are about forty registries scattered about the country, in most cases in places where formerly ecclesiastical courts existed for the proving of wills. The value of these registrarships ranges from three hundred to fifteen hundred pounds. They are all in the gift of the judge of the court, whose patronage is worth about sixty thousand pounds a year, and may be reckoned the best in England, inasmuch as he holds it continuously, whilst the lord chancellor and other political officers merely hold their patronage for the few years they may chance to continue in office. Moreover, the judge of the Court of Probate, not being a political officer, has no political pressure brought to bear upon him in the distribution of his patronage, and can dispense it precisely as he pleases. The registrars must, by the terms of the act of Parliament, be barristers, solicitors, or clerks who have served five years in the Principal Registry.

Doctors' Commons twenty years ago was a unique corner of the world. It lay so hid away that you might live for years in London, and be within a stone's throw of it, and yet never have its existence brought to your mind; and it had a life all its own. The ecclesiastical lawyers were called doctors and proctors, instead of barristers and attorneys; and although the former did not arrogate to themselves a higher rank socially and professionally than that of barrister, a proctor considered himself a great many cuts above an attorney, and indeed was, for the most part, the equal of the best class of attorneys. Proctors, it will be borne in mind, are sketched by Charles Dickens in the opening pages of David Copperfield, for Dora's papa, Mr. Spenlow, was in proctorial partnership with the reputably inexorable Jawkins. When the Probate Act came into force it was a frightful blow to the tribe of Spenlows. Not so much on account of the pecuniary loss. In that respect the blow was considerably tempered to the shorn lambs by a compensation all too liberal—for John Bull is unsurpassed as a respecter of vested interests—and the proctors were compensated on the basis of their incomes for the last five years, their returns proving in some instances curiously at variance with the amounts on which they had paid income-tax. But they regarded themselves as terrible losers in prestige and position by this rude invasion of the classic and aristocratic ground of the Doctores Commensales, and above all by being leveled down to the rank of attorneys. The clerks in the Prerogative Court—of which the registrars and head-clerks were all proctors, who, taking the cue from Chief Registrar Moore, executed their work by deputy, the deputies being clerks working long hours for small salaries—had kotooed to them with the most servile subserviency; but the Probate Office clerk was a government official, who could not be removed, even by the judge of the court, without the consent of the lord chancellor. What cared he, then, for Spenlow and Jawkins? "I am astonished, Mr. Spenlow," said a young clerk of the new régime, "that you should have made such a mistake!" Mr. Spenlow, in turn, was too much astonished to utter a word. Speechless with amazement and indignation, he left the "seat," as the different departments were called, to weep bitter tears in regret for the past in the solitude of his dingy sanctum in Bell Yard, leaving an emancipated clerk, who had served under the thraldom of the old régime, exclaiming, "Good Heavens! Only imagine any of us daring to use such language to a proctor two years ago!"

R.W.