could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the float sink, for so high was the wind that we had to talk in short roars, and the boisterous air made us stagger, totter, and almost collide. It was some relief to find that I had to leave the fascinating one-eyed pool and the stinging hail for a Church Parade in honour of Queen Victoria. After a sort of mongrel devotion a glib gentleman exhorted us, and proposed to canonize our Civic Mother without any preliminaries. Somebody had apparently told him of Selden's plaint that the Turks leave Hell pains vague and Heavenly pleasures very definite, whereas we do the reverse. To correct our errors upon this point he proceeded to depict the delights which awaited us, the moment we have done with breath and circulation. It reminded me of Mr. Vincent Bernard Philpot's Intimation of Immortality, which deserves to be better known than it is especially among the clergy. "Brethren, Heaven will reverse most of our moral ideas."

If only I knew languages

I'd preach in six or seven,
And tell the merry sinners that

It is not dull in Heaven.

The Ten Commandments breathe their last
When once you pass the Portals;
I'm certain that the beastly things
Are only meant for Mortals.

The girls are young, the wine is old,
The ale is brown and nappy,
Digestion does not trouble you
You guzzle and are happy.

The baker bakes for very love,
The butcher butchers freely,
The cook will, gratis, cook for you
Potatoes always mealy.

You pocket just what fancy seeks,
No sprinting from the Peelers!
The fibs Imagination tells

Fear no mundane revealers.

The banks delight in overdrafts,

The tailors never press on you.

No rents or ripples ever spoil

The varying breeks or dress on you.

The things our sages here decry
As folly, vice and devilry,

Are just the things they like, above,
To smarten up the revelry.

No Mrs. Grundy at the feast

Is present and a stopper;
The stories saintlets love to hear
Are witty but improper.

You have no duties to yourself,

Your family or nation;

E

No Holy Orders check, nor those
Men call Affiliation.

For years I've lived most soberly
Sad, rusticate, a parson;
But there, I'll take my exercise
In Burglary and Arson.

Though here I live as tolerant
As higher Mathematics,
Yet there I'll gather devil-dogs
And Tally ho Schismatics.

V.B.P.

The roach fisher, for we must not quite forget him, will do well to remember that the unexpected happens-particularly in angling. Who would think that mustard, pepper, ginger, or assaftoida would fascinate the palate of roaches? Yet it appears to do so, on the same principle that harmless and even benevolent invalids always like drinks with startling names, such as the corpse reviver, point blank and fixed bayonets of modern times, or the Huff cap, Stride wide and Merry-do-down of our more humorous sires. Certainly strong flavours do not deter the roach. He might be tried with the condiments in the water, which mitigate him when out of it, say with Yorkshire relish, vinegar, catsup, chutney, or

:

pepsalia but these ideas are mere suggestions for the judicious reader. Most roachers have some favourite bait of their own, for this fish has a meek willingness to oblige, if only he is disposed to traffic at all. There is something pathetic too, in this also. Perhaps his cringing suavity is just because he recognises that he has been long shut out from pageants and royal banquets. When Charles V visited England (1522) the Lord Mayor of London was told to assign him two fishmongers to supply him with "pikes, tenches, bremes, caluer, salmon and such oder deyntes of the fresshe water "and diverse gentlemen had letters bidding them to supply these with "carpis, trowttes, rosting eles and such other deyntes as they have in their ponds and fresche rivers." Even then there was no heavy call for our friend. Nay, two years before, though pyke, sturgeon, and bremes figure in the "III principall Messes on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Pyke and Sturgeon in the VI and the XXX other Messes," roach was even then nowhere to be found at Court. He had to be content with mere churchmen. And yet in winter he is better than a bream anyday: only do not eat him in summer and, unless "compelled by hunger

and request of friends," keep clear of him at any time if he comes from ponds, stagnant waters and fenny pools. If needs must, then disguise him with onions or garlic, have him made into rissoles with curious herbs, but do not face him in his nude simplicity. That is an idea which dates before the revival of learning, before the Wars of the Roses.

But let us not scorn the Roach for all this. He has higher certificates than royal menus can give him, for St. Francis and his first brethren adopted him at Portiuncula. There they caught him, with what baits we know not, and they offered him yearly in tribute to the lordly Benedictine house, who granted to them their little mean plot. These gentlemen in return gave to the Blessed Francis a vessel of oil.*

Could any fish, after those of Gennesaret itself, receive a higher honour ? honour? And do

they still bite well at Portiuncula, as in 1211? Or do they sulk for their saint?

* See Speculum perfectionis 55.