"You see," continued Sir Peter, with the same melancholy seriousness, "it was impossible to present myself before Mrs. Rowley in the state I was in."

"Well, if you had, my dear sir, she would only have been flattered. I almost regret you didn't come as you were; but that can't be helped. She desires me to say she hopes to see you at the same hour to-morrow."

Sir Peter brightened up. This more than compensated him for the ruin of his velveteens.

"You will have a great deal to tell her," added Paul; "she loves to be complimented on her speculations and her practical talents. All women like praise, as you know, and Mrs. Rowley is a thorough woman for that.'

"Thank you for the hint," said Sir Peter. "I'll not forget it. Oh, though the mine was dirty, and I spoiled my clothes, I saw it all; went through every chamber; nothing escaped me. Why it must pay enormously!"

"You may say so," said Paul; "but when you see the lady herself, you will forget everything else. Remember, one o'clock to-morrow," and Mr. Pickford went away, leaving the little man full of hope and in high spirits, though he sighed heavily every time he looked at his velveteens.

He was punctual as the sun at the Meadows the next day; and as his morning suit was spoiled, he appeared in full evening costume, with a black coat and a wonderful spread of white waistcoat, in which he looked like a turbot standing on his tail. As to the vein of conversation which Sir Peter adopted to charm his hostess, according to Mr. Pickford's cruel suggestion, we leave the reader to imagine it. Mr. Pickford was every moment expecting to hear Mrs. Rowley complimented on her experiment with the Cotswolds and Southdowns. Suffice it to say that the lunch of that day was a severe trial to the Rowleys. Sir Peter, however, went away so enchanted with his reception, that he almost hugged Mr. Pickford as he departed, and begged the honour of his company to dinner at the inn the following day; an invitation which Paul, after a moment's reflection, accepted, suspecting there was something in the wind which Sir Peter had not yet disclosed.

The dinner came off. The host was at first reserved, and rather silent; but it was evidently the silence of a man who was bursting with some great conception. Paul ate his dinner, drank his wine, and waited. As soon, however, as the cloth was removed, Sir Peter, while filling Paul's glass, commenced the conversation as follows:"Ah, but you are a lucky man, Mr. Pickford, with the opportunities you have."

"Who, I?" said Paul; "with the widow you mean?"

"To be sure I do."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Pickford, "she would be a likely woman to think of me!"

"I don't see why not-a handsome thing in your favour."

young man like

you-every

Paul laughed again, but it was only that he saw in a moment what his little host was driving at.

In the first place,

"No, no, Sir Peter, I'm not the happy man. I'm too young. If ever Mrs. Rowley marries again, it will be a steady elderly gentleman-not under fifty, I should say. That's about your age, Sir Peter, eh ?"

"Just turned fifty-two," said Sir Peter.

"But, besides," continued Mr. Pickford, "you don't suppose a sharp woman of the world like her would think of a partner without either a landed estate or a good round sum in the funds? If I had the good luck to be a moneyed man of fifty-two I might have some chance. She is very well disposed to marry, I have good reason to believe."

"A woman like her has only to choose," said Sir Peter, who was mentally engaged in putting together all the qualifications stated by Paul, and comparing them with a standard he had in his own mind. Paul knew what was going on there as well as he did himself.

"And there's another thing, Sir Peter. I know no more of business than a fool. In fact, she despises me ever since she discovered one day that I knew nothing of tare and tret."

"And you don't-is it possible? Nobody knows all about that better than I do."

"I took care to tell her the interest you took in her system of book-keeping, and you must have seen yourself how gratified she was by your descent into the mines. That was the best hit

made."

you ever

Sir Peter pushed the wine towards his guest, and seemed again in his former difficulty of finding words; but at last they came.

"You said I made a hit, Mr. Pickford, didn't you? May I ask what you mean precisely by that ?"

"Why, that you hit her fancy, of course; and I know what I would do next, if I was fortunate enough to have your mature age, handsome fortune, business-like habits, and another thing that I have not mentioned yet-your title, Sir Peter."

"My title! you really think the title would be of use ?"

"To be sure it will; there's nothing like a handle to one's name to win a woman.'

"And what would you do, as you were just saying?"

Why, having made a hit, I would follow it up."

"But how, how? that's the question. I don't see my way. suppose it's because I lived so long in Australia."

"Did you never hear the phrase, 'a bold stroke for a wife?" " "Lay siege to her at once?"

I

"No, no; no, no! take her by storm! Up, guards, and at her!” “Up, guards, and at her!" repeated Sir Peter, slapping the table with ardour; "I'll do it! I'll visit her to-morrow, and make my declaration."

"That won't do," said Paul, who was not going to expose Mrs. Rowley to a second visitation even worse than the first, "that's not the way; declare on paper-write her a letter."

"A letter, you think, a letter; but then you see, Mr. Pickford, the misfortune is, I never wrote a letter in all my life except on business."

"So much the better; write her the plain downright letter of a man of business, a few words, coming slap to the point."

"A letter of business? I see; plain and downright! slap to the point!"

"Exactly. If she says yes, you are the luckiest man in England; if she says no-but that's a case not to be put."

Mr. Pickford had by this time had enough of his host, and perhaps too much of his wine; so he bade him good night, and left him to compose his declaration, which he was prudent enough to postpone to the cool of the morning.

Of the two business-like letters which passed on this occasion, both slap to the point, unfortunately only Mrs. Rowley's has been preserved.

"DEAR SIR PETER CHEESY,

"A great many thanks for your straightforward and flattering letter. I am highly gratified to find that you approve of my enterprises, and consider my little speculations judicious; but as to the partnership which you are so good as to propose, much as it gratifies my vanity, I am obliged to decline it in the frank downright way of which you have set me so good an example. Wishing you a safe journey back to London,

"I remain, dear Sir Peter,

"Yours sincerely,

"FATIMA ROWLEY."

But the widow was not at all pleased with this business altogether, and she was probably not more gracious to Mr. Pickford after it, as he left the cottage in a few days.

MARMION SAVAGE,

CRITICAL NOTICE.

PROFESSOR MAURICE'S LECTURES ON SOCIAL MORALITY. Macmillan & Co. THOSE who desire to learn what kind of ethical doctrine Professor Maurice is delivering from his Cambridge Chair may learn from this volume that he has very distinct views, which could not well be characterised as those of any existing school. How far he may be following in the same direction with his excellent predecessor, Mr. Grote, I do not exactly know; but his method is certainly a very different one from that which gave birth to Dr. Whewell's clumsy artificial system, which so many Cambridge students have had to try to digest. Mr. Maurice's elementary principles seem to me to be thoroughly simple and real, and to have much that must commend them to moralists of all the great schools.

By virtues Professor Maurice understands the states or qualities of mind which answer to certain relations. He continually repeats the word ooc as suggesting the matter with which the moralist has to deal. That is, he does not take either outward acts or a code of rules as constituting the basis of morality. The relations which demand and breed the qualities or manners are those existing amongst human beings. The first relation discussed as producing the most rudimentary morality is that of parents and children. The second, logically and in point of time the earlier, but from the moralist's point of view better treated as the second, is that of husbands and wives. The third is that of brothers and sisters. The fourth that of masters and servants. Wherever human beings have existed these relations have been matters of fact; and each of them has from the very first brought out a corresponding attitude or quality of mind. Where there are parents and children, there are authority and obedience. The life of parents and children, in proportion as it is better and happier, shows what the right authority and the right obedience are. The virtue of the conjugal relation Mr. Maurice describes as mutual trust. To the relation of brothers and sisters he finds a very marked os corresponding, which he illustrates as the mind of consanguinity. The principle of service is developed through the relation of master and servant, true service requiring the master to serve and respect the servant, as well as the servant the master. These principles or qualities constitute domestic morality-the morality of society so long and so far as it remains in the patriarchal state.

For Professor Maurice appeals throughout to history as supplying the materials and evidence of his ethical system. Mr. Maine (whom Oxford is to be congratulated on having borrowed as a Professor from Cambridge) is largely quoted as having shown the antecedent origin in the patriarchal state of the customs which afterwards were more or less adopted into laws. The Family was followed by the Nation, some throes generally accompanying the new birth. In the nation, neighbourhood, contiguity of place, is the bond, and it is one which unites as individuals those who were otherwise unconnected. With the nation property comes into being, and law defining rights, and the bond of a common language, and political government, and war for the preservation of the national distinctness. Mr. Maurice shows how all the positive and actual characteristics of a nation have brought out peculiar forms of moral life, and

how, as the nation grows and is secured, these are developed. The sections on domestic and national morality are followed by a course of lectures on universal morality. And the origin of this Mr. Maurice places at a definite epoch in the history of the world. Nations perished in that triumph of the Roman Empire which may be dated at the battle of Actium. At the same time the proclamation of a Universal Family went forth. The principle or constitution of the Universal Family had to fight a life-and-death battle with a Universal Empire-a dominion which crushes nations under an irresponsible master. The Universal Family fostered a new growth of nations, and can only be realised hereafter in a brotherhood of free and distinct nations. The lectures on universal morality become lectures on history, treating in an extremely rapid manner of the course of events from the establishment of the Roman Empire to the present time, and indicating how the thoughts of men as to their vocation and duties have been affected by the various phases of European history.

These chapters put a sometimes painful strain upon the reader's attention, and they illustrate the principal cause which has led to the complaint of Mr. Maurice's writings being difficult to understand. His English is singularly simple, vigorous, and accurate; his sentences run only too swiftly. But he expects his readers to know more than most of them can know. He assumes them to be perfectly familiar with all history, with all philosophy, with all literature. Lectures on history, though fascinating, are always rather trying, because, in order to appreciate their generalisations, the reader ought to have a great quantity of facts at his fingers' ends. Mr. Maurice's paragraphs are closepacked, allusive, very rapid; we are required to keep up with a rush of sentences, each one of which might be the text of a history. I take an example almost casually. How many readers are there who can read what follows, with a comfortable feeling of appreciating what is said ?

"When the little Augustus disappeared from the stage, and the temporary anarchy gave place to the sway of the Ostrogoths, there was the dawn of a national life for Italy; there was no longer any Roman monarch who could dream of contesting with Constantinople for universal empire. The Popes might sometimes turn to the Empire for protection against heretical neighbours; quite as often the emperors and their ecclesiastical dependants were the heretics whom they confronted with their own decrees. Justinian's victories might be welcomed by them for a while. But the Lombards came -perhaps by Greek invitation. The Bishops of Rome knew not whether they or the Exarchs of Ravenna were least to be trusted. In the utter desolation of Rome Gregory I. showed himself the true father of it. He realised the might of that name. He had faith to expect that a European family would gather around it. His popedom was the inauguration of such a family.” (Pp. 317, 18.)

There is nothing but history here; but in the same lecture-to give only one other illustration-Mr. Maurice supposes his readers, as he does throughout the volume, to be thoroughly at home in one of the least read and most unreadable of great writers, M. Comte.

Is this too flattering estimate of his readers' knowledge a fault? That does not follow. What we most of us complain of is, in fact, an embarras de richesses. We are embarrassed, but by wealth of thought and allusions. Readers who have been recently studying, or who remember well, medieval history, or the "Politique Positive," or "Les Misérables," will not require more than the hints given. But we cannot have everything. A writer who pours out hints for the well-informed cannot be easy for the unlearned to read. I am sure that if due