is moreover not to be forgotten, that proposals were made to establish a drawing-master in the public schools and the universities.

To return and end with Strange's brother engravers, we have to notice that Woollett (1735-1785) founded his great fame by engraving Dick Wilson's celebrated 'Niobe' landscape, for a hundred pounds; and Boydell realised a large sum by selling the engravings at five shillings each. Holloway, born in 1748, engraved six of Raphael's Cartoons, and charged ten guineas for each of the prints. George the Third, who used to watch him at work at Windsor, was quite right in saying that, as he could not live three hundred years, he should never see the engravings completed. The task was not accomplished when Holloway died in 1827. Like Holloway, Sharpe (who engraved Brothers, the Prophet, believing in him as the man of God'), Strutt, scampish Sherwin (who engraved Mrs. Siddons as the Grecian Daughter, without any portrait to copy from), and Wilson Lowry, were only partly contemporary with Strange, having died in the present century. But of all the names we have mentioned, the most eminent is that of Robin, the Orkney lad, who fought at Culloden against George the Second and was knighted at St. James's by George the Third. The King forgot the Jacobite, and honoured Sir Robert Strange, the renowned engraver.

Sonnets.

I.

TO AN ORIGINAL THINKER.

How many thoughts are pictures to the mind.
Of him who thinks them, and sweet rhythm too,
While others in their form no beauty find,
Nor hear the harmony they breathe to you!
Yet be not therefore to yourself less true.
They think the best who think not with mankind,
Who hear what others hear not, and who view
Strange things to which all others' eyes are blind.
So let your course run in and out the stars,

And deeper dive than the deep-rolling sea;
If you can mark the time of your own bars
What matter who may follow, who may flee?
Think your own music, and, despite their jars,
Tune within tune let tune with tune agree.

II.

THE CLASSICS.

ONE hour with Homer in the laurelled grot,
Where that rapacious, Cyclops penned his sheep:

One hour with soft Anacreon in the spot

Where that pet dove rests on his lyre asleep: One hour with Moschus while the Muses weep, Because his best of poet-friends is not;

One hour with Maro when he plunges deep Into the shades, and learns each hero's lot! With these and Flaccus by the frothful sea

I lingered e'er my manhood's race begun; To these and Martial, Ovid, Juvenal-three Choice spirits-I return ere life be done. One hour in such society? Ah me!

How swift the sparkling sands thrice-turned will run!

J. C. EARLE.

Philip Leigh.

CHAPTER V.

CONSTANCE'S DÉBUT,

"I should prefer a woman that is agrecable in my own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent passion for her, or you have not the proper taste for her charms; and if you have such a passion for her, it is odds but it would be embittered with fears and jealousies.”— ADDISON.

EIGHT years had passed away since the Sunday on which I had met Constance and Philip in Kew Gardens.

One fine summer day, in the very height of the London season, Philip and I stood in Mrs. Brown's parlour before office hours in the morning, waiting to see Constance. She soon came into the room, and holding out both hands to Philip, exclaimed, "Oh, Philip, it is beautiful; thank you a thousand times."

Philip smiled at her eager face.

"I am glad it pleases you, Constance."

Indeed, indeed it does; you should see me in it; I was surprised at myself; what you will think I don't know."

Her vanity was too open and child-like to be offensive: we both laughed at her. Eight years had changed the lovely child into a lovely woman. It was not only in feature or colouring that the charm of her face lay, her expression and manner added much to her beauty. It was almost impossible to be angry with her; often when I have felt most vexed at her way of treating Philip-for she took all his kindness with a graciousness such as a queen might show to a vassal -she disarmed my anger by her looks. A certain sweet, frank expression, which seemed so evidently to spring from her heart, and which went directly to mine, blinded me; I forgot her faults, and saw only her surpassing beauty of face and, I tried to think, of mind also. Yes, she was very beautiful. Philip might well be proud of her; from the top coil of her goldly-brown hair to her shapely feet I could find no fault in her, and she carried herself like a deer, with the free wild grace of a creature that has never known curb nor rein.

I was thinking then of her beauty; it struck me anew nearly every time I met her. I had seen her always once a week, often more frequently, for years, yet I seldom saw her without a feeling of wonder and admiration; she was bewitchingly beautiful.

"Are you quite sure that nothing has been forgotten?" asked Philip. "Oh! the flowers; they will be sent to Lady Dunsmore's at five o'clock. Is there anything else, Constance ?"

"No, thank you, Philip," she said, with a slight hesitation, which Philip did not notice.

"You are not afraid of Lady Dunsmore? She is very kind." "Afraid of an old lady! I should never think of such a thing." "Don't you feel a little nervous, Conny ?" I asked teasingly. "Remember this is your first public appearance.'

"Nervous?" she answered promptly. "I never felt nervous in my life." "Then good-bye, Constance, until the evening. Is there anything else which you want or wish for ?"

"Nothing, thank you;" yet still she hesitated slightly.

Philip and I went on to the office. All the morning I was wondering between my work what it could be that Constance wished, yet failed to ask Philip, for. Finally I solved the puzzle-she had no ornaments to wear. Philip did not care for jewelry, and had never given her any among the gifts which he so often made her. So pleased was I at this unusual forbearance on Constance's part that I determined to supply her unspoken want. I said so to Philip as we walked up the Strand.

"I suppose she ought to have something," he said. "I never thought of it; she looks so well without ornaments. But let me get them, Ned; they will be a great expense to you."

"It is a whim of mine to buy them for her; I should like to." "Very well, let us go to Emmanuel's."

The same set struck us both: a set of Maltese silver, most beautifully chased in a pattern of roses and ferns; it seemed made to suit Constance's fair, young style and white dress. We had the ornaments carefully packed and sent to her at Lady Dunsmore's.

As Philip and I stood waiting in our sitting-room for the hansom which was to take us to Lady Dunsmore's, I was amused to see his unusual anxiety about his appearance; he stood some minutes before the glass, and re-arranged his tie so often, that at last I asked:

"Why are you so very anxious about your looks to-night?"

"Lord Lynmouth will be there," said Philip, with a smile at his vanity; "I have not seen him since that dismal time at Excombe, and, unlike Constance, I often feel nervous."

"How is it that you have never met him at Lady Dunsmore's? I thought they were good friends ?"

"So they are; but he never came to town but on business while Lady Lynmouth was ill; that was for some years, and since her death he has never cared to until now; he is only staying with his daughter, Lady Agnes Comyn, now. I do not expect he will ever use his London house again."

The hansom came and we started.

"How many sons has Lord Lynmouth?" I asked as we rattled on. "Two. The eldest, Viscount Leigh, is a good-for-nothing scamp, as bad as he can be; he is always about town. Lord Lynmouth has had great trouble with him. Elliot, the other son, is at Vienna with the Embassy. He is looked on as likely to be the heir, Leigh is so awfully wild."

"Who is the next heir after them ?"

Philip so seldom spoke of his relations that, having once started him on the topic, I wished to hear something about them.

"I am."

"I wonder if you will ever be an earl? How queer it would be, Phil."

"I? Oh, no; never."

There was a foreboding tone in his voice which I often, often remembered.

When next he spoke, the tone was gone.

"I wonder how Constance is getting on," he said. "I hope she does not feel strange or forlorn."

Philip need not have doubted of Constance's well-being. We found her seated close to Lady Dunsmore in the great drawing-room, turned into a concert-room for the evening; she was talking to an elderly gentleman. Philip looked at him, saying to me in an undertone, "That is Lord Lynmouth."

I saw a man older than I had expected, with grey hair and a rather sad face; very gentlemanly, very quiet, rather stern. As for Constance, she was right. Philip was delighted with her appearance; she looked her best.

We were rather late. The concert was about to begin, and we had taken the first vacant seats, when Lady Dunsmore turning round saw us, and beckoned us to come near her.

Lady Dunsmore was between sixty and seventy years old, or so I judged. She was a fine old lady, not very tall but erect, with deep-set dark eyes, and hair not yet white; a strong determined face she had, and I had heard from Philip that her face did not belie her character. In her husband's lifetime she had reigned supreme at Dunsmore; but his quiet temper was only inherited by one of his sons-the one who had died abroad. The elder son had revolted early from his mother's sway, had married a dissenting lady, and, to the horror of Lady Dunsmore, who thought well of the Church and very well of the world, gave up both of them at once; went to chapel, kept no house in town, and found his ambition, social and worldly, satisfied by the chairmanship at missionary meetings. Lady Dunsmore eschewed the society of both son and daughter-in-law. She had always been fond of Philip and kind to him; latterly she had been pleased to notice me.