Jubilee Ode had just such another false note, introduced in the same way by a rhyme :

'Never be broken, long as I shall reign,

The solemn covenant 'twixt them and me
To keep this kingdom, moated by the main,
Loyal yet free.

It is obvious that a kingdom, in the sense in which it can be loyal, cannot be moated.

20th. The everlasting antinomy between squire and parson has been illustrated lately on the grand scale between our diocesan officials and leading laymen. The clerical faction have been of the mind of Dean Donne, who sang:

'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love;

and the laity have no less dissembled their natural affection. We of the laity undoubtedly began it, by refusing to join the Clergy Sustentation Fund. That fund started as a Jubilee fund, and then turned round and announced itself as a subscription-list; in other words, after we have braced ourselves to give 100l. or so in honour of Her Majesty, we are to be asked to make this an annual subscription. It is the policy of the horse-leech. No, we say, we will invest our donations, and make, if you please, a sort of subscription-list that way; which will further be good finance, for if we subscribed 100l. every year for ten years, at the end of that time the money would be gone altogether, but by investing even one 100l. there is 21. 108. to be given away every year, and the 1007. is there safe and sound all the time. And, after all, the clergy of our own diocese are comparatively well off, and charity begins at home. The other row was begun by the Diocesan Conference, which very coolly proposed to make the diocese the area of association for Voluntary Schools. Why it should not be I have not the faintest idea; nor have any of us, so far as I have discovered. But we have a fighting Lord-Lieutenant, who has given the word for the county against the diocese, and so the county it must be. It will be so convenient, you know,' says Tom, 'to have a County Organisation; so that when the County Council takes over the schools- 'But I thought you all

protested against Sir John Gorst's Bill last year,' I said. In the meantime, however, it seems the County Council has taken up education with enthusiasm. I have even heard of a proposal to come to the aid of agriculture by giving lessons in haymaking

during the winter months, shavings being supplied for the

purpose.

23rd. Bob is anxious to collect something that no one else collects, and I have suggested 'dictionaries.' It will last him a year, cost only a trifle, and give him a good deal of amusement into the bargain. Cotgrave will enlarge his vocabulary of slang. I should like to have known Cotgrave; his conversation must have been highly nervous and picturesque. Open the book anywhere. Take, for instance, his explanation of niais. A neastling; hence, a youngling, novice, cunnie, ninnie, fop, noddie, cockney, dotterell, peagoose; a simple, witlesse, and unexperienced gull.' What a man to quarrel with! I wonder what Mrs. Cotgrave was like! Under so tame a word as journée you find an entry like this: Journée des Esperons. The battell of Spurres, woon in the year 1513 by the English upon the French, possessed with a sudden feare, and preferring one paire of heeles before two paire of hands.' That in a French-English dictionary! And history is not the only subject in which he shows himself proficient. This is what he has to say s. v. Haricot: Mutton sod with little turneps, some wine, and tosts of bread crumbled among; 'tis also made otherwise, of small peeces of mutton first a little sodden then fried in seam, with sliced onions, and lastly boiled in beefe broath with Parsley, Isop, and Sage: And in another fashion, of livers boyled in a pipkin with sliced onions and lard, verjuice, red wine, and vineger, and served up with tosts, small spices, and (sometimes) chopped hearbs.' Perhaps the most racy of all are his versions of French proverbs. For vogue la gallere he gives: 'Let the world wag, slide, goe how it will; let goe, a God's name: not a pin matter whether we sinke or swimme.' Occasionally he offers a metrical version.

Then there is Bullokar, who, as befits a Doctor of Physick, devotes himself chiefly to scientific terms, as science was then understood; that is to say, he gives elaborate descriptions of the Phenix and Scolopendra, &c., and of such famous trees as the Sethim, which never rotteth,' from which the Ark was made. Cockeram is even more interesting, for he supplies not only easy words for hard, but hard words for easy; so that a would-be gallant like Sir Andrew Aguecheek could garnish his speech with picked phrases. Thus, for 'to vex' is given perasperate; for 'to spurn,' apolactise; for to 'put off your hat,' vail your bonnet. Occasionally our gallant might be misled, as when he is told

that the fine word for 'false witness' is pseudo-martyr. Then there are Palsgrave and Minsheu, whose 'Guide into Tongues contains the first known list of subscribers, and a very interesting list it is. And from the Stuarts one can go back to the Promptorium Parvulorum, Catholicon Anglicum, &c., or on to Johnson and his successors.

Bob also asks for a motto for his book-plate. I have suggested Optimi Consiliarii Mortui, as appropriate to a collector of old books. It might not be amiss either for the bulk of new books as well.

30th. We have had Lord Mayors who quoted Latin, and Lord Mayors who talked French; now comes a Lord Mayor who lectures upon English. You should not say Where do you come from?' 'Where are you going to?' his lordship is reported as urging upon the boys of the City of London School. Such phrases are a misuse of your magnificent English. Above all, you should never say It's awfully jolly. What is awful is not jolly, and that which is jolly is never awful.' The that which of the last sentence looks like a desperate effort of the Lord Mayor to bring himself up to his own magnificent standard of seventeenth-century idiom. But do people in the City really talk Old English, or is it confined to the Mansion House? There is an alderman approaching the chair for whose prelections on history I wait with an awful joy,' if the Lord Mayor will allow the expression. For the alderman's history, like the Lord Mayor's English, is seventeenth century, as the following veracious anecdote will show. He was exhibiting to a gentleman some famous pictures in the Hall of his Company, portraits of George I. and his consort, which had been mysteriously lost, and which he by good luck had found in a bric-a-brac shop. 'But how,' said my friend, could such treasures a royal gift-have been taken so slight care of?' 'Ah,' said the alderman, 'I have a theory about that, and I give it you for what it is worth: I think they must have disappeared in the confusion caused by the Great Fire!'

1 'And snatch a fearful joy.'-Gray.

IN KEDAR'S TENTS.1

BY HENRY SETON MERRIMAN,

6

AUTHOR OF THE SOWERS,' WITH EDGED TOOLS,' ETC.

CHAPTER XXV.

SWORDCRAFT.

'Rien n'est plus courageux qu'un cœur patient, rien n'est plus sûr de soi qu'un esprit doux.'

THE General set down his glass, and a queer light came into his eyes, usually so smiling and pleasant.

'Ah! Then you are right, my friend. Tell us your story as quickly as possible.'

'It appears,' said Concha, 'that there has been in progress for many months a plot to assassinate the Queen-Regent and to seize the person of the little Queen, expelling her from Spain, and bringing in, not Don Carlos, who is a spent firework, but a Republic-a more dangerous firework, that usually bursts in the hands of those that light it. This plot has been finally put into shape by a letter

He paused, tapped on the table with his bony fingers, and glanced at Estella.

'A letter which has been going the round of all the malcontents in the Peninsula. Each faction-leader, to show that he has read it and agrees to obey its commands, initials the letter. It has then been returned to an intermediary, who sends it to the nextnever by post, because the post is watched-always by hand, and usually by the hand of a person innocent of its contents.'

'Yes,' murmured the General absently, and there was a queer little smile on Estella's lips.

'To think,' cried Concha, with a sudden fire less surprising in Spain than in England, 'to think that we have all seen it-have touched it! Name of a saint! I had it under my hand in the hotel at Algeciras, and I left it on the table. And now it has

1 Copyright 1897 by Dodd, Mead and Co., in the United States of America,

been the round, and all the initials are placed upon it, and it is for to-morrow night.'

'Where have you learnt this?' asked the General in a voice that made Estella look at him. She had never seen him as his enemies had seen him, and even they confessed that he was always visible enough in action. Perhaps there was another man behind the personality of this deprecating, pleasant-spoken little sybarite -a man who only appeared (O rara avis !) when he was wanted. 'No matter,' replied Concha, in a voice as hard and sharp. 'No; after all, it is of no matter, so long as your information is reliable.'

'You may stake your life on that,' said Concha, and remembered the words ever after.

'It has been decided to make this journey from Seville to Madrid the opportunity of assassinating the Queen-Regent.'

'It will not be the first time they have tried,' put in the General.

'No. But this time they will succeed, and it is to be hereto-morrow night-in Toledo. After the Queen-Regent's death, and in the confusion that will supervene, the little Queen will disappear, and then upon the rubbish-heap will spring up the mushrooms as they did in France; and this rubbish-heap, like the other, will foul the whole of Europe.'

He shook his head pessimistically till the long wispy grey hair waved from side to side, and his left hand, resting on the wrist-bone on the table, made an indescribable gesture that showed a fœtid air tainted by darksome growths.

There was a silence in the room broken by no outside sound but the chink of champed bits as the horses stood in their traces below. Indeed, the city of Toledo seemed strangely still this evening, and the very air had a sense of waiting in it. The priest sat and looked at his lifelong friend, his furrowed face the incarnation of cynical hopelessness. What is, is worst,' he seemed to say. His yellow wise old eyes watched the quick face with the air of one who, having posed an insoluble problem, awaits with a sarcastic humour the admission of failure.

General Vincente, who had just finished his wine, wiped his moustache delicately with his table-napkin. He was thinking quickly, systematically, as men learn to think under fire. Perhaps, indeed, he had the thought half matured in his mind, As the greatest general the world has seen confessed that he