escapes, and by way of the Delectable Mountains, after encountering Mr. Great-Heart and Mr. Facing-both-Ways, he at last reaches the Celestial City. The very names have a charm of their own. The book is a masterpiece.

Often these books are much more to me than books. They are alive; they are people; they are my own familiar friends. I sit on the grass by the riverside while Izaak Walton attends to his fishing, and at the same time instructs me in his gentle art.

O Sir [says he, as a trout leaps at his artificial fly], doubt not that angling is an art. Is it not an art to deceive a trout that is more sharpsighted than any hawk, and more watchful and timorous than yon highmettled merlin is bold? Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so, I mean with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice; but he that hopes to be a good angler must not only bring an inquiring, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself.

And so beguiling the time, he initiates me imperceptibly into the mystery of the 'compleat angler' and the otter-hunter, the while he invites my attention to all the beauties of Nature, the woods and the groves, the water-lilies and the lady-smocks. Then there come along a handsome milkmaid and her mother, both singing like nightingales. Izaak presents them with a fish that he has caught, and begs them to sing the song again. Marry, God requite you!' says the matron. 'What song was it, I pray?' 'It is a song,' replies Izaak, 'that your daughter sings the first part, and you sing the answer to it.' Aye, and you shall, God willing, hear them both, and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come, Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentleman with a merry heart, and I'll sing the second, when you have done.' Fare thee well, Izaak, who art so 'free and pleasant and civilly merry.'

From Goldsmith's charming volumes there steps out the simple-hearted, beloved Dr. Primrose, vicar of Wakefield, with his amiable family. They accept me as an old friend, and invite me to sit with them on the garden seat overshadowed by the hawthorn and honeysuckle hedge, to drink tea and enjoy the extensive landscape in the calm of the evening. In the preparation for tea in this homely garden there is no small show of bustle and ceremony. During the meal the two little ones read to us, and the girls sing to the guitar. The simple meal completed, while Olivia and Sophia form a little concert, their father and mother stroll down the sloping field, that was embellished with bluebells and centaury, to talk of their children with rapture, and enjoy the breeze that wafted both health and harmony.' It is all a living exemplification of 'home, sweet home.' One Michaelmas Eve nothing would satisfy the family but I must accompany them

to burn nuts and play tricks at neighbour Flamborough's. In an exciting game of hunt-the-slipper

the eldest daughter was hemmed in, and thumped about, all blowsed in spirits, and bawling for fair play, with a voice that might deafen a balladsinger, when, confusion on confusion, who should enter the room but our two great acquaintances, Lady Blarney and Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs! Description would but beggar this new mortification. 'Death!' ejaculated the vicar, for once allowing his annoyance to get the better of him, 'to be seen by ladies of such high breeding in such vulgar attitudes ! '

These good people are always so open and natural. I watch their faces when Moses Primrose comes back from the fair, very pleased with himself for having sold his father's colt for 31. 5s. 2d., little realising that the pleasant-spoken gentleman who had persuaded him to lay out this money in a gross of green spectacles with silver rims and shagreen cases was nothing but a prowling sharper. I see his mother's face grow white and then flush red as her temper rises. A fig for the silver rims!' cried she in a passion; 'I dare say they won't sell for above half the money at the rate of broken silver, five shillings an ounce.' But the dear old vicar is a philosopher. You need have no uneasiness,' he said, 'about selling the rims, for I perceive that they are only copper varnished over.'

In the course of the summer the Flamboroughs had their pictures painted by a limner who travelled the country. The Primrose family were not to be outdone; so they engaged the artist to paint them all together in one large historical piece. The painter did not spare his colours, for which Mistress Primrose gave him great encomiums. They were all perfectly satisfied with the performance, until an unfortunate circumstance, which had not occurred till the picture was finished, struck them with dismay. It was so very large that they had no place in the house to fix it. The picture therefore, instead of gratifying their vanity, as they hoped, leaned in a most mortifying manner against the kitchen wall, much too large to be got through any of the doors, and the jest of all the neighbours.

It was in his serious troubles that I recognised the nobility, fortitude and true Christian resignation of the vicar's character. It was not for me to intrude on their privacy when he rescued his erring daughter Olivia from her terrible situation. But on his narrating the story to me my whole heart went out to him:

When I knew the voice of my poor, ruined child I flew to her rescue, and I caught the dear, forlorn wretch in my arms. Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, my treasure, to your poor old father's bosom. There is yet one in the world that will never forsake thee; though thou hadst ten thousand crimes to answer for, he will forgive them all.'

But women have a much stronger sense of female error than men. 'Ah, madam!' cried her mother when Dr. Primrose brought her to her home, this is but a poor place you come to after so much finery. My daughter Sophy and I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept company only with people of distinction!' But in the end the old lady's bark proved worse than her bite. I will not say good-bye to these entertaining and truly lovable people. At the most it is au revoir. This is not a book; it is a tableau vivant, a living life.

Sterne's Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, if it appeared now for the first time, would create a furore. The reviewers would hail it as the book of the day. Entirely unusual and original, it is one of those volumes that it is impossible to put down till one has finished, and then one sighs for more. Yorick has a series of the simplest little adventures. They are ever so harmless and innocent, but the way in which they are told is so enticing and insinuating that they are all of them brimful of interest. What a man to travel through France and Italy with ! He opens his soul to us as he goes along. Let him speak a while for himself:

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing that he can fairly lay his hands on. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ''tis all barren.'

La Fleur [a French servant] went the whole tour of France and Italy with me. He was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and notwithstanding his talents of drumbeating and spatterdash-making, which though very good in themselves, happened to be of no great service to me, yet I was hourly recompensed by the festivity of his temper; it supplied all defects.

I have been in love with one lady or another all my life; and I hope I shall go on till I die, being firmly persuaded that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.

I confess I do hate all cold conceptions as I do the puny ideas which engender them.

་

So taking down the name of the Hôtel de Modène, where I lodged, I walked forth without any determination where to go :-' I shall consider of that,' said I, ' as I walk along.' I think there is a fatality in it; I seldom go to the place I set out for.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary.

May everyone read with as great zest and joy as I have experienced in the reading thereof Yorick's adventures with the old Franciscan monk, the purchase of the post-chaise with a

lady's assistance, the clever beggars, the dead as L—, the passport at Versailles, the femme de ch grisette, and many others. The National Galle delightful picture of Yorick and the grisette.

La Fleur is a cross between Mark Tapley and Madame de L learns from him that his maste the letter which Madame had done him the honourhas done me the honour,' said Madame de LLa Fleur, to send a billet in return?' Yorick ha Fleur, trembling for his master's honour, retrieves 'O qu'-oui!' said he; so, laying down his hat up and taking hold of the flap of his right-side pocke hand, he began to search for the letter with hi contrariwise Diable !'-then sought every p by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob- Pest Fleur emptied them upon the floor, pulled out a a handkerchief, comb, a whip-lash, a night-cap ; peep into his hat-' Quelle étourderie !'-He had upon the table in the auberge; he would run for it with it in three minutes. How through La Fleu tality the letter came to be written, and what wer is a story in itself. Truly a delightful book!

(To be continued.)

A BIRD STUDENT'S DIFFICULTIES

THERE are ornithologists and ornithologists. One school maintains that the methodical study and consequent knowledge of birds, with all that relates to them,' as Newton defined ornithology, means their scientific classification on anatomical or other grounds and little else; another school, considered by the first as mere field-workers and bird-watchers, believes that observation of habits is of more importance than examination of structure. Between the two extreme views is the outlook of a large number of naturalists who feel that the two ideas are really one, that they are inseparable, or, in other words, that the functions of structural variation cannot be comprehended without knowledge of the living bird, nor the living bird be studied without some realisation of its affinities. There are others again who claim to be ornithologists but who do not understand, and in some cases do not wish to understand, the outlook of any of the three groups.

Nomenclature commands the attention of some of these; in their study they become bookworms rather than scientists. This bookworm group has yet another branch, for there are ornithologists whose sole claim to the title is that they collect books about birds; avian bibliophiles would best describe them. The aviculturist may claim to be an ornithologist, and not infrequently his contention is just, but when the cage-bird show is described as the exhibition of an ornithological society the true lover of birds feels that somewhere something is wrong.

The keen bird protector may or may not be an ornithologist, for, unfortunately, bird protection-a most desirable aim and pursuit-is frequently marred by sentimental and hysterical lack of balance. The fact is that birds have many, very many, admirers in all walks of life, and some want to learn all about them, whilst others are content if they can merely enjoy their music and beauty. In one and all, the desire is hardly disinterested; we cannot get away from the fact that, whatever our motive for study or observation, the birds give us pleasure.

Birds, that is wild birds, stand in a different category from other animals, for they are given legal protection for their own sakes. Game laws, certainly, protect some birds and mammals,