when British policy was in question. In France the speech of M. Hanotaux to the Chamber of Deputies, in reply to that of the Chancellor, spread discouragement in the ranks of the Colonial party, whose mission it is to foment the Egyptian agitation, because it referred not to the rights of France in Egypt but to the rights of Europe. In the majority of the French press the declarations of M. Hanotaux were severely criticised, and growing impatience of the Egyptian question is clearly evident. In one newspaper we read:

"The English act and disregard our vain protestations. They know that these will never be followed by action, and that the Government will never exceed, in regard to Egypt, the limit of platonic talk.

"One thing is certain, that the English will never leave Egypt of

No. DOCCCLXXIX.

I

THERE is a point in life which, having reached, we have no longer any objection to call ourselves old. On the table-land up to-shall say sixty-the level lasts long with some people, less long with others, age is allowed either with conscious magnanimity or slightly uneasy mirth, a laugh at the wrong side of the mouth, according to the forcible popular description. "Getting quite an old fellow" we admit with a certain kindly ridicule of ourselves, if we are still strong and well. But as the years go on the position changes, and one gets less and less to object to the role of Methuselah. There begins to arise a forlorn gratification in speaking of one's self as old. At first, perhaps, a faint hope of being contradicted is in the speaker's tone; but he soon gets over that, and almost with a touch of pleasure, often quite happily, at the last with a sense that

VOL. CLXI.NO. DCCCCLXXIX.

VOL. CLXI.

it is a distinction, allows the once appalling fact that he is an old

man.

If ever old age could be in fashion, it would be now, when all our thoughts are concentrated on the celebration of a great life, which has already passed the limits traced for mankind the threescore and ten to which, whatever other things may be doubted in Scripture, we all adhere with a touching unanimity. If there was a new order instituted, not of Victoria but of THE QUEEN, to distinguish those who had marched behind her Majesty over the snows of seventy years, it would be quite a popular thing, and would help the young people to cultivate a quality in which, I fear, they do not now (if they ever did) excel-that respect for white hairs, which is so seemly on their part. The Queen's example should bring the Seventies into fashion. 2 T

The Greatest Lady in the land has made it evident that they neither dull the faculties nor chill the heart, and that life may burn with as warm an ardour in feeling, in interest, in sympathy, on those frost-bound summits as in the softest of the valleys below. Nay, might we not say more? the valleys care for themselves, for their cultivation, their vine and their figtree, and the prosperity of their flocks and herds. But on the mountain-tops there is no harvest to be gathered: all further achievement is impossible, the point is reached at which human endeavour stands still. Feeling, Interest, Sympathy: these are not things that affect a man for himself. We say feeling for, interest in, sympathy with-the welfare of others is suggested in every word. I do not know how other people may feel, but it seems to me that the sight of an old Queen, to whom all the world would agree in according every ease, every comfort, that are within the reach of man, yet upon whom at the same time all the world calls clamorous for a look, for a word, a personal attention-setting forth in her triumph through the dingy streets of the Borough, that the last of her people may not miss the great spectacle, the pageant of the ending century, is such a thing as brings the water to one's eyes. Were it Beauty and Youth and Hope which set out on that progress, how much less, by dint of being so much more, would it not be! But the great Monarch who goes forth in weariness and painfulness, with many an ache of memory and many a pang of loss, with her white hair and care-lined face, in profound humility of greatness to visit the poorest and the meanest, is such a spectacle as never was seen before.

The history of the sixty years which have passed since the Princess Victoria ascended the throne of these realms is one as full of questions, controversies, changes, almost revolutions, as any age ever was. The frame of Europe has been shaken once and again to its foundations, great countries have changed their constitutions, their boundaries, almost their character, even their names, in the strain and stress of movement; not to speak of the changes made by science, by knowledge, by colonial development, by the growth of new worlds, and the dismemberment of the old. When Sir Walter Scott wrote the words 'Tis Sixty years since at the head of his first great romance, it was no doubt his opinion that his country could not in the nature of things see any other such complete alteration in manners and customs as that which he recorded. A land one portion of which was occupied by the primitive tribal rule, and where whole communities of men obeyed the will of a petty chieftain, even when in opposition to all the laws of the country, was indeed a wonder to the sober and law-abiding nation which had gradually broken the clans to pieces, and set up its tribunals, its peaceful magistrates, and steadfast order within the farthest rocks of its dominion. We have made no such inherent and fundamental change. Yet I wonder whether Sir Walter, if he could communicate his opinion, would not marvel over the state of affairs now, as he did over the changes which had taken place then, feeling, along with some sober satisfaction, no small amount of regret? He would not have loved a world in which all distinctions tend to grow less and less, where the Scot differs but little

from the Englishman, and much picturesque circumstance has been swept ruthlessly away. He would have been deafened by the clamour, hurried off his feet by the speed. Many of our expedients for smoothing life, which also vulgarise it, would have been odious to him; and what such an observer would think of all our glory of railways and telegraphs, who can say? He saw the clans out, not without approval: would he see the old parish schools out, which were the making of Scotland in modern times, with equal satisfaction Probably he would think the difference greater in our, than in his, sixty years.

It is curious and whimsical that, in looking back over this long stretch of life, it is an incident of the minutest kind which comes to the mind of the writer, very small, very unimportant, yet not uninstructive in respect to the differences which have come over the world during these sixty years. This rude little frontispiece to the survey represents the first journey of a little pilgrim who since then has tramped many a weary mile over hill and dale. The Queen was at that time about ascending the throne, and the little traveller must have been six years old, on the edge of conscious recollection, not very well aware what had happened to him before that first conscious act in his career. He was going from Edinburgh to Glasgow, a journey which I believe is now made in about an hour. The journey was by canal-boat, and the lamps were still lit along the long line of Princes Street, a gold thread, as he said, in the dark of the wintry morning, when he was carried along to the embarkation. I do not know how many hours were occupied by the journey, but it was a long, long day to the con

:

sciousness of the little traveller, full of the sensation of movement, the half-dreamy half-exciting mixture of change and of monotony which make up a child's idea of a journey and it was dark again with scattered wind-blown lights about the quay when he arrived. How well he remembered all his life the transition from the earlier part of the voyage, which must have been accomplished in a bad boat, cold, without means of getting warm, muddy with passengers, dark and dismal, to the better conveyance at the end. Does any one remember what it was to have cold feet at six years old? The sensation of discomfort becomes a state, a period in life, the Ice age, if you like, never ending, rolling on for slow hours which might as well have been centuries. He feels them now, though 'tis sixty years since. But at Falkirk (I think) the party changed into another boat, which was lively with green and red paint, and in which a warm stove was alight, throwing in comparison a genial atmosphere around. The Ice age was over, the sudden paradise of the fire lighted up a new period. Warmth stole into the little blue toes, curling into life again, and growing pink in front of that genial glow. To warm his soul as well as his body there were also those lines of paint,-none of your drab tints, but primitive glories of blazing red, and green scarcely less warm, which the young hero could trace with his finger in a blessedness beyond speech. There was also a table covered with newspapers. Do not suppose that there were picture papers in those days: a Penny Magazine with a print of a steam engine was the highest effort of the periodical press. But the journey all the same ended in triumph and happiness, all the