lish writing; and let those be afterward taught more in the Latin language who are to continue learning and be promoted to a higher rank. When I remember how the knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England, and yet many could read English writing, I began, among other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin "Pastoralis," and in English" Shepherd's Book," sometimes word by word and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learnt it from Plegmund, my archbishop, and Asser, my bishop, and Grimbold, my mass-priest, and John, my mass-priest. And when I had learnt it as I could best understand it, and as I could most clearly interpret it, I translated it into English; and I will send a copy to every bishropic in my kingdom; and on each there is a clasp worth fifty mancus. And I command, in God's name, that no man take the clasp from the book or the book from the minister; it is uncertain how long there may be such learned bishops as now, thanks be to God, there are nearly everywhere; therefore I wish them always to remain in their place, unless the bishop wish to take them with him, or they be lent out anywhere, or any one make a copy from them. FROM "A SORROWFUL FYTTE.” (From "Boethius.") WORLDLINESS brought me here Foolishly blind, Riches have wrought me here Sadness of mind; When I rely on them, Lo! they depart,- Rend they my heart. Say joy belongs to me Ever as then? Why did ye lyingly Think such a thing, Seeing how flyingly Wealth may take wing? CHARLES GRANT BLAIRFINDIE ALLEN. ALLEN, CHARLES GRANT BLAIRFINDIE, commonly known as Grant Allen, who has also written under the nom de plume both of Cecil Power and J. Arbuthnot Wilson, a British scientific writer and novelist, was born February 24, 1848, on Wolfe Island, opposite Kingston, Canada, where his father was the incumbent of the Anglican Church. He graduated at Oxford in 1871. In 1873 he was appointed Professor of Logic and Philosophy at Queen's College, Spanish Town, Jamaica, and from 1874 until 1877 was its principal. He then returned to England, where he has since lived. Among his scientific writings are: "Physiological Ethics" (1877); "The Color Sense" (1879); "The Evolutionist at Large." (1881); "Colin Clout's Calendar" (1882); and "Force and Energy" (1888). Among his most popular novels are: "In All Shades" (1886) and "This Mortal Coil" (1888). His most recent publications are: "What's Bred in the Bone" (Boston, 1891), a prize story, for which he received £1000; "Dumaresq's Daughter" (1891); "The Duchess of Powysland" (1891); "Blood Royal" (1893); "Dr. Palliser's Patient; "The Attis of Catullus;" "Science in Arcady;" "The Story of the Plants;" "The Woman Who Did;""British Barbarians" (1895); and "A Hill-top Novel" (1896). He has also contributed a series of papers, "Post-prandial Philosophy," to the "Westmin ster Gazette." In 1897 he published "The Evolution of the Idea of God." SAVED FROM THE QUICKSANDS. (From "Kalee's Shrine.") MEANWHILE, where were Harry Bickersteth and Alan Tennant? Up the river in the "Indian Princess" they had had an easy voyage, lazily paddling for the first hour or two. The mud banks of the Thore, ugly as they seem at first sight, have nevertheless a singular and unwonted interest of their own; the interest derived from pure weirdness, and melancholy, and loneliness a strange contrast to the bustling life and gayety of the bright little watering place whose church tower rises con spicuously visible over the dikes beyond them. On the vast soft ooze flats, solemn gulls stalk soberly, upheld by their broad, web feet from sinking, while among the numberless torrents, caused by the ebbing tide, tall, long-legged herons stand with arched necks and eager eyes, keenly intent on the quick pursuit of the elusive elves in the stream below. The grass wrack waves dark in the current underneath, and the pretty sea lavender purples the muddy islets in the side channels with its scentless bloom. Altogether a strange, quaint, desolate spot, that Thore estuary, bounded on either side by marshy saltings, where long-horned black cattle wander unrestrained, and high embankments keep out the encroaching sea at floods and spring tides. Not a house or a cottage lies anywhere in sight. Miles upon miles of slush in the inundated channels give place beyond to miles upon miles of drained and reclaimed marsh land by the uninhabited saltings in the rear. They had paddled their way quietly and noiselessly among the flats and islets for a couple of hours, carefully noting the marks of the wary wild-fowl on either side, and talking in low tones together about that perennial topic of living interest to all past or present generations of Oxford men, the dear old 'Varsity. Alan still held a fellowship at Oriel, and Harry was an undergraduate of Queen's: so the two found plenty of matter to converse about in common, comparing notes as to the deeds of daring in bearding the proctors, feats of prowess in town and gown rows, the fatal obsequiousness of the Oxford tradesman, and the inevitable, final evolutionary avatar of that mild being under a new and terrible form as the persistent dun, to the end of their tether. Such memories are sweet when sufficiently remote; and the Oxford man who does not love to talk them over with the rising spirits of a younger generation deserves never to have drunk Archdeacon at Merton or to have smoked Bacon's best Manilas beneath the hospitable rafters of Christ Church common room. At last, in turning up a side streamlet, on the southern bank, Thorborough, as everybody knows, lies to the northward, they passed an islet of the usual soft Thore slime, on whose tiny summit grew a big bunch of that particular local East Anglian wild flower, which Olga had said she would like to paint, on the day of Sir Donald Mackinnon's picnic. "I say, Bickersteth," Alan suggested lightly, as they passed close beneath it, "don't you think we could manage to pick a |