children once or twice after, always in Scowler's company; but we did not dare to give each other any marks of recognition.

That night they would sleep among | little men! poor mother sitting by the strangers. The little beds at home vacant little beds! We saw the were vacant, and poor mother might go and look at them. Well, tears flow, and friends part, and mothers pray every night all over the world. I dare say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the vast shattered walls, and quaint gables; and the Neckar running its bright course through that charming scene of peace and beauty; and ate our dinner, and drank our wine with relish. The poor mother would eat but little Abendessen that night; and, as for the children that first night at school-hard bed, hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing, and jarring you with their hateful merriment -as for the first night at a strange school, we most of us remember what that is. And the first is not the worst, my boys, there's the rub. But each man has his share of troubles, and, I suppose, you must have yours.

From Baden we went to Basle, and thence to Lucerne, and so over the St. Gothard into Italy. From Milan we went to Venice; and now comes the singular part of my story. In Venice there is a little court of which I forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice. Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a straitwaistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the botthe of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), whom should I light upon but one of my little Heidelberg

I have said how handsomely they were dressed as long as they were with their mother. When I saw the boy at Venice, who perfectly recog nized me, his only garb was a wretched yellow cotton gown. His little feet, on which I had admired the little shiny boots, were without shoe or stocking. He looked at me, ran to an old hag of a woman, who seized his hand; and with her he disappeared down one of the thronged lanes of the city.

From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden boys! Baden and, I dare say, saw Madame dé Schlangenbad and Madame de la Cruchecassee, and Count Punter, and honest Captain Blackball. And whom should we see in the evening, but our two little boys, walking on each side of a fierce, yellow-faced, bearded man! We wanted to renew our acquaintance with them, and they were coming forward quite pleased to greet us. But the father pulled back one of the little men by his paletot, gave a grim scowl, and walked away. can see the children now looking rather frightened away from us and up into the father's face, or the cruel uncle's which was he? I think he was the father. So this was the end of them. Not school, as I at first had imagined. The mother was gone, who had given them the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender-tender cares; and they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante. Ah! this is worse than school. Poor

From Venice we went to Trieste (the Vienna railway at that time was only opened as far as Laybach, and the magnificent Semmering Pass was not quite completed). At a station between Laybach and Graetz, one of my companions alighted for refreshment, and came back to the carriage, saying:

"There's that horrible man from Baden, with the two little boys."

Of course, we had talked about the appearance of the little boy at Venice, and his strange altered garb.

gance and parvenu vanity! Our titles | is nought; and Honor is humbug; are respectable, but theirs absurd. and Gentlemanhood is an extinct Mr. Jones, of London, a Chancellor's folly; and Ambition is madness; and son, and a tailor's grandson, is justly desire of distinction is criminal vaniHonorable, and entitled to be Lord ty; and glory is bosh; and fair fame Jones at his noble father's decease: is idleness; and nothing is truc but but Mr. Brown, the senator from two and two; and the color of all the New York, is a silly upstart for tack- world is drab; and all men are equal; ing Honorable to his name, and our and one man is as tall as another; sturdy British good sense laughs at and one man is as good as another him. Who has not laughed (I have - and a great dale betther, as the Irish myself) at Honorable Nahum Dodge, philosopher said. Honorable Zeno Scudder, Honorable Hiram Boake, and the rest? A score of such queer names and titles I have smiled at in America. And, mutato nomine? I meet a born idiot, who is a peer and born legislator. This drivelling noodle and his descendants through life are your natural superiors and mine-your and my children's superiors. I read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court: I see a gold-stick waddling backwards before Majesty in a procession, and if we laugh, don't you suppose the Americans laugh too?

Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like, are folly. Yes, Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a good man, and no one laughs at him or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o'clock. But who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting day, and Lady Bobus, at Margate, eating shrimps in a donkey-chaise? Yes, knighthood is absurd: and chivalry an idiotic superstition: and Sir Walter Manny was a zany: and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon a day of battle, was a madman and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the head of his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy mountebank, who had been a tavern-waiter, and was puffed up with absurd vanity about his dress and legs. And the men of the French line at Fontenoy, who told Messieurs de la Garde to fire first, were smirking French dancing-masters; and the Black Prince, waiting upon his royal prisoner, was acting an inane masquerade: and Chivalry

:

Is this so? Titles and badges of honor are vanity; and in the American Revolution you have his Excellency General Washington sending back, and with proper spirit sending back, a letter in which he is not addressed as Excellency and General. Titles are abolished; and the American Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them. You have the French soldier cheered and happy in his dying agony, and kissing with frantic joy the chief's hand who lays the little cross on the bleeding bosom. At home you have the Dukes and Earls jobbing and intriguing for the Garter; the Military Knights grumbling at the Civil Knights of the Bath; the little ribbon eager for the collar; the soldiers and seamen from India and the Crimea marching in procession before the Queen, and receiving from her hands the cross bearing her royal name. And, remember, there are not only the cross wearers, but all the fathers and friends; all the women who have prayed for their absent heroes; Harry's wife, and Tom's mother, and Jack's daughter, and Frank's sweetheart, each of whom wears in her heart of hearts afterwards the badge which son, father, lover, has won by his merit; each of whom is made happy and proud, and is bound to the country by that little bit of ribbon.

It

I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third, that, at his accession, the King had a mind to establish an order for literary men. was to have been called the Order of Minerva- I suppose with an Owl for a badge. The knights were to have

and Quee

chy, and R, and S, and T, mère et fils, and very likely U, O gentle reader, for who has not written his novel now-awho has not a claim to the star and straw-colored ribbon? - and who shall have the biggest and largest? Fancy the struggle! Fancy the squabble! Fancy the distribution of prizes! Who shall decide on them? Shall

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worn a star of sixteen points, and a | Pardoe, and Paul Pry -
yellow ribbon; and good old Samuel
Johnson was talked of as President,
or Grand Cross, or Grand Owl, of
the society. Now about such an order | days
as this there certainly may be doubts.
Consider the claimants, the difficulty
of settling their claims, the rows and
squabbles amongst the candidates,
and the subsequent decision of pos-
terity! Dr. Beattie would have ranked
as first poet, and twenty years after
the sublime Mr. Hayley would, no
doubt, have claimed the Grand Cross.
Mr. Gibbon would not have been
eligible, on account of his dangerous
freethinking opinions; and her sex,
as well as her republican sentiments,
might have interfered with the knight-
hood of the immortal Mrs. Catherine
Macaulay. How Goldsmith would
have paraded the ribbon at Madame
Cornelys's, or the Academy dinner!
How Peter Pindar would have railed
at it! Fifty years later, the noble
Scott would have worn the Grand
Cross and deserved it; but Gifford
would have had it; and Byron, and
Shelley, and Hazlitt, and Hunt would
have been without it; and had Keats
been proposed as officer, how the
Tory prints would have yelled with
rage and scorn! Had the star of
Minerva lasted to our present time-
but I pause, not because the idea is
dazzling, but too awful. Fancy the
claimants, and the row about their
precedence? Which philosopher shall
have the grand cordon? - which the
collar? which the little scrap no
bigger than a butter-cup? Of the
historians-A, say, -and C, and
F, and G, and S, and T,-which
shall be Companion and which Grand
Owl? Of the poets, who wears, or
claims, the largest and brightest star?
Of the novelists, there is A, and B,
and CD; and E (star of first magni-
tude, newly discovered), and F (a
magazine of wit), and fair G, and H,
and I, and brave old J, and charming
K, and L, and M, and N, and O
(fair twinklers), and I am puzzled be-
tween three P's-Peacock, Miss

it be the sovereign? shall it be the
Minister for the time being? and has
Lord Palmerston made a deep study
of novels? In this matter the late
Ministry,* to be sure, was better qual-
ified; but even then, grumblers who
had not got their canary cordons,
would have hinted at professional
jealousies entering the Cabinet; and,
the ribbons being awarded, Jack
would have scowled at his because
Dick had a broader one; Ned been
indignant because Bob's was as large:
Tom would have thrust his into the
drawer, and scorn to wear it at all.
No no: the so-called literary world
was well rid of Minerva and her
yellow ribbon. The great poets
would have been indifferent, the little
poets jealous, the funny inen furious,
the philosophers satirical, the histo-
rians supercilious, and, finally, the
jobs without end. Say, ingenuity
and cleverness are to be rewarded by
State tokens and prizes—and take
for granted the Order of Minerva is
established - who shall have it? A
great philosopher? no doubt we cor-
dially salute him G. C. M. A great
historian ? G. C. M. of course. A
great engineer? G. C. M.
A great
poet? received with acclamation G.
C. M. A great painter? oh! certain-
ly, G. C. M. If a great painter, why
not a great novelist ? Well, pass, great
novelist, G. C. M. But if a poetic, a
pictorial, a story-telling or music-
composing artist, why not a singing
artist? Why not a basso-profondo ?
Why not a primo tenore?
And if a
singer, why should not a ballet-dancer

* That of Lord Derby, in 1859, which included Mr. Disraeli and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.

come bounding on the stage with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of a row of decorated fiddlers? A chemist puts in his claim for having invented a new color; an apothecary for a new pill; the cook for a new sauce; the tailor for a new cut of trousers. We have brought the star of Minerva down from the breast to the pantaloons. Stars and garters! can we go any farther; or shall we give the shoemaker the yellow ribbon of the order for his shoe-tie ?

of figure ever so stout, thin, stumpy, homely, indulging in looking-glass reflections with that hideous ribbon and cross called V. C. on his coat, would he not be proud? and his family, would not they be prouder ? For your noblemen there is the famous old blue garter and star, and welcome. If I were a marquis — if I had thirty-forty thousand a year (settle the sum, my dear Alnaschar, according to your liking), I should consider myself entitled to my seat in Parliament and to my garter. The garter belongs to the Ornamental Classes. Have you seen the new magnificent Pavo Spicifer at the Zoological Gardens, and do you grudge him his jewelled coronet and the azure splendor of his waistcoat ? I like my Lord Mayor to have a gilt coach; my magnificent monarch to be surrounded by magnificent nobles: I huzzah respectfully when they pass in procession. It is good for Mr. Briefless (50 Pump Court, fourth floor) that there should be a Lord Chancellor with a gold robe and fifteen thousand a year. It is good for a poor curate that there should be splendid bishops at Fulham and Lambeth: their Lordships were poor curates once, and have won, so to speak, their ribbon. Is a man who puts into a lottery to be sulky because he does not win the twenty thousand pounds prize? Am I to fall into a rage, and bully my family when I come home, after going to see Chatsworth or Windsor, because we have only two little drawing rooms? Welcome to your garter, my Lord, and shame upon him qui mal y pense!

When I began this present Roundabout excursion, I think I had not quite made up my mind whether we would have an Order of all the Talents or not: perhaps I rather had a hankering for a rich ribbon and gorgeous star, in which my family might like to see me at parties in my best waistcoat. But then the door opens, and there come in, and by the same right too, Sir Alexis Soyer! Sir Alessandro Tamburini! Sir Agostino Velluti! Sir Antonio Paganini (violinist)! Sir Sandy McGuffog (piper to the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh)! Sir Alcide Flicflac (premier danseur of H. M. Theatre)! Sir Harley Quin and Sir Joseph Grimaldi (from Covent Garden)! They have all the yellow ribbon. They are all honorable, and clever, and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through the rooms, make a bow to the lady of the house, give a nod to Sir George Thrum, who is leading the orchestra, and go and get some champagne and seltzer-water from Sir Richard Gunter, who is presiding at the buffet. A national decoration might be well and good: a token awarded by the country to all its bene-merentibus: but most gentlemen with Minerva stars would, I think, be inclined to wear very wide breast- In a voyage to America, some nine collars to their coats. Suppose your-years since, on the seventh or eighth self, brother penman, decorated with this ribbon, and looking in the glass, would you not laugh? Would not wife and daughters laugh at that canary-colored emblem?

But suppose a man, old or young,

So I arrive in my roundabout way near the point towards which I have been trotting ever since we set out.

day out from Liverpool, Captain L- came to dinner at eight bells as usual, talked a little to the persons right and left of him, and helped the soup with his accustomed politeness. Then he went on deck, and was back

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