so momentous that I should care to claim it as my own; mine it was none the less. Clearly Radicalism, which becomes every now and then epidemic, can by no chance become epizoötic. A horse or a dog could no more be taught Radicalism than alcoholism.

Since epizoötic' means something that affects all living creatures, from men to polypi, it is manifestly inapplicable to a malady affecting only horses. Why horse disease' is not a good enough phrase, I cannot conceive; but if the Times must be Greek, allow me to suggest ephippic.' It would do the average journalist much good to read Mr. Barnes's Early England.' Why use altitude,' 'latitude,' 'longitude,' when 'height and 'breadth' and 'length' are ready to hand? Why 'astronomy' instead of 'starlore,' or 'statics' instead of 'weightlore,' or decimate' for tithe,' or 'estuary' for 'frith,' or glossary' for wordbook,' or ' convivial party for mirth mote'? When the clever gentlemen who fulfil Horace's oft-cited line:

6

'Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,

appear in our journals they puzzle one with their magniloquence. The Times hath a wellknown correspondent who styles himself ‘Historicus; this must mean either that he is an historic character or a master of history ; which? Again, there is Indophilus,' who, I suppose, means us to understand that he is a lover of India. Had he been quick at Greek, he would have written Philindus.' 'Indophilus means a man whom Indians love. Greek was logic as well as music. The two ought to be entirely inseparable.

Dec. 5.

Sir Henry Holland's pleasant letter in reference to the late Mrs. Somerville, who in her ninety-third year could read a treatise on Quaternions (the highest department of modern algebra), who translated Laplace's great work, yet who was not above the enjoyment of music and art, and could mend old lace to perfection, might be a lesson to those noisy women-folk who set up for an equality with man, yet get plucked in their examination when they attempt such rivalry.

At

Edinburgh, where Mrs. Somerville won a mathematical prize in her girlhood, the enthusiastic Miss Jex 'Blake has just lost her examination. The contrast is perfect. The ladies who are wildly agitating for social independence are not of the same class as those who do useful work in their time. One cannot imagine Miss Edgeworth or Miss Austen, Mrs. Hemans or Miss Landon, Mrs. Browning or Mrs. Somerville, joining in this shriek for freedom from male control. Women of stable minds and high desires have no sympathy with the chaotic charivari of the hysteric sisterhood.

Women there are who say the world is slow
To recognise their scientific power;
Wherefore they fill with heat the flying hour
And let the beauty of their sweet life go
Like water through a child's frail fingers. So
Might the tree murmur not to be a tower,
Might envy of the strong storm vex the shower
That wakes sweet blossoms and makes brooklets flow.
The lady whom I love has no such thought:

No stolid strength of mind shall make her weak,
No folly sink her in the sad abyss

Where these same scientific souls are caught.
She knows a kiss befits a lovely cheek,
Ay, and that rosy lips were made to kiss.
VOL. I.

13

1 and my sweetheart spelt together;
Our ages were together ten :
How sad to waste the sweet spring weather
In the old Dame's fusty den!
White lilac, fragrant, graceful, cool,
Tapped at the window of the school;
Alas, too well our doom we knew-
There was a tremulous birch-tree too.

I and my sweetheart dwell together:
Many tens are our ages now:
Vanished is youth's gay violet weather,

Stays the old Dame's frowning brow.
Dame Nature keeps the eternal school,
And grows keen twigs to flog the fool;
But looks away, with pardoning eye,
When we play truant, my love and I.

Jan. 2.*

THE toiling agony of modern life produces many evil effects, which might to some extent be modified. One of these is that many ladies of gentle birth are compelled to make their own living without any special preparation for that fated task. Merchants break; men in professions die suddenly at the commencement of their career; inheritors of independent property are led to ruin by plausible speculations, designed to benefit only their promotors and liquidators. What are the daughters of such pauper sires to do? Boys, even though imperfectly educated, may usually open with their swords that oyster the world; but where is room for the girl of nurture delicate, yet culture incomplete? She may attempt to be a governess, but will find the competition hard with the trained governesses now readily found.

What else is there? Failing as a teacher, she perhaps advertises for employment in

*This was written before 'lady-helps' were instituted. -F. C.