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few striking examples, what I mean. I say it is only by great self-restraint that I turn from the instances which rush to my mind, to show what an amount of tyranny can be exercised over the world by a few men of the same name, resolved to club their respective abilities, and make their mark upon their time by a united effort.

I must, however, leave to my reader the task of supplying these illustrations, consoling myself with the thought that there is no difficulty in the matter.

From what I said, it will be seen that I claim no originality for the idea that suggested our Society. All I insist upon is, that we gave a form and a shape and an organisation to a practice which we saw sufficiently prevalent in the world to be regarded as a sort of human instinct, and that we reduced to rules and precepts what had hitherto been left to the capricious tastes and wayward humours of the multitude.

We were mutually appreciative because the world was so; but we perceived that just as organisation enables charity to be more effective than the well-meant but ill-directed efforts of benevolent individuals, we formed ourselves into a regular society, and studied the principles which might make our institution influential. Now, amongst the numerous advantages of this system, there is one which cannot be over-estimated. As no efforts of the most agile and active individual will enable him to paint himself all over, his friend, however, can do this for him; and so with regard to eulogistic appreciation. What a happiness it is to think that the great brush of affection is swabbing away at us, priming, tinting, and varnishing, where by no possibility could we contribute a touch of colour!

It would be a breach of that confidence which was the first principle of our union were I to tell what signal success attended our organ

isation; what men we pushed into high places; how we got this man his deanery, and that man his wife. In fact, it was enough for any one of us to enter the public service to insure a passage for the rest. The small boy that was sent in through the window-pane could always unlock the hall door. No sooner did a vacancy occur anywhere, at home or in the colonies, than we knew the man to fill it, and we soon showed the world what an insult and an outrage would be committed on the interests of the nation if any other man were to be preferred to our man.

Of all the confiding creatures the world ever saw, there is nothing like the Public. There is one condition, however, that they positively require-insistance. They don't ask to be convinced, but they will have insistance. Hence it is that Moses, and Morrison, and Louis Napoleon are in such prime favour. The Sydenham trousers and the blessings of Napoleonism are daily placarded, and at length duly accepted. Now, mutual appreciation satisfies this condition. The most enthusiastic believer in his own excellence might possibly one day grow a little weary of selfpraise; his friends, however, or some of them at least, would never tire.

Last of all there are many things, many little traits of our amiability, our gentleness, our sensibility, and suchlike, that we might shrink from insisting on ourselves, and which we can leave to our friends with a perfect trustfulness. But why do I go on to establish what is selfevident? Is it not mutual appreciation has made the Whigs?—is it not Grey's admiration has exalted Elliot, and Elliot's pound-brush has coloured Grey? What but mutual appreciation has made Scotsmen a club wherever they meet, be it in the Antipodes? and what but the want of it leaves Irishmen to the reproach of that sarcasm that said, "You will always find one Paddy

to put another on the spit, and a third to roast him."

Our society, I am sorry to say, died out with the original members: a few of us, myself amongst the number, were so busy helping others up the ladder that we necessarily remained at the foot of it. And yet even there as I sit now, I look up with a feeling of pride to the governors of colonies and chiefjustices who were once on a time fellow-members with myself of this pleasant union, and who in their high estate, I believe, are in no wise forgetful of what they owe to "mutual appreciation." I must now explain how this reminiscence came up to my mind, and by what accident I recurred to a theme which had not for years presented itself before me. I have before me as I write-I pledge myself that this is no fiction-a document addressed to an individual of station and consideration, and headed thus: "Program of the Statutes of a Society for the Foundation of a Knightly Order, to be called the Minerva."

"The undersigned, profoundly penetrated with the conviction that emulation and distinction are the most impulsive springs of human action, have combined to form a society by which they constitute themselves founders of a knightly order, to be called 'the Minerva,' destined to stimulate emulation, and reward by suitable decorations the most distinguished individuals in the several walks of science, art, commerce, agriculture, &c. &c.

"Each founder to pay 1000 francs.

"Founders not to exceed 200, or be less than 50.

"Five hundred francs to be paid on joining, 500 more on initiation. "The members to elect the grand

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the grand-master, and receive 2000 francs a-year; to be also treasurer on giving security.

"No honour to be conferred without the concurrence of half the council.

"The Italian prime-minister pro tem, to be allowed to propose candidates for decoration; also inspectors of schools.

"Any one who, after the full number of the 200 founders shall have been completed, shall join the Society, paying a sum over 1000 francs, shall receive such class of the order as the council deem proper.

"There shall be five grades of the order :-knights grand cross; grand commanders; commanders; knights officers; and knights.

"The orders to be conferred only by the council.

"The highest grade to be limited to sovereign persons of royal lineage, lofty functionaries, or great benefactors of mankind.

"The second grade shall be the founders or initiators of the order. The inferior grades shall be conferred on such member as, being of the Society, shall have contributed to the moral or material welfare of their country. The cross shall be gold, on which enamel, bearing on one side of the centre the words, Order of Minerva,' and on the other, To Genius.'

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"Its ribbon shall be a ribbed moiré silk, grass green, with white edges.

Persons desiring to associate themselves with this project are to address the officiating Grand Master." Here follow the name and address, with the additional information that the distinguished fount of honour is also" Presidente dell' Instituto Filotechnico Nazioniale Italiano, Florence," and that he is answerable for all moneys subscribed till the Society be fully constituted. The law of demand and supply is unquestionably as applicable to the social as to the economical condition of the world,

and however we may feel surprised as we run our eyes along the columns of a newspaper, and see what strange appliances are announced there, what extraordinary wants are paraded there, we may rest assured that these are addressed, not to individuals, but to very considerable classes of mankind.

Such an association as this, of which I have just given the prospectus, could never have had existence if there were not people to whom its advantages were a temptation. That there are men who would greatly like to be decorated with the smallest order of the smallest prince in Europe, and who would feel the ribbon of some obscure sovereign a blazon of nobility, is unquestionably true. Some of these decorations are very fine and showy, and their size is not unfrequently in the inverse ratio of the realm of the sovereign who conferred them; and to an unpractised eye "The Frog and Buckler" of Bratenstadt is little inferior in splendour to the insignia of the Golden Fleece. That it requires therefore some practice and some insight into these things to distinguish between the decoration of some petty Lord of Sauerkrautstein and the order of a real monarch, is as true as that it demands attention to discriminate between a hairdresser's promise to pay ten thousand pounds if he does not trim your whiskers to perfection, and a bank post bill of real value; but there still are a great many people perfectly happy when they arrive at mock distinction, and thoroughly satisfied that their nobility should be German as well as their spoons.

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So far from decrying this taste, or those who indulge it, I am disposed to think we ought to like to see people of such unquestionable simplicity, whose desires are humble, and whose ambitions so lowly. If humility be the basis of all the virtues, what shall we say of him who can be made happy by being made a Marquis of Monaco

or a Count of Lucca? The well from which they derive their honour may be the smallest and shallowest little spring that ever bubbled, but it is still a legitimate fountain; but what shall we say for those who are satisfied to decorate each other, who aspire to a limited-liability knighthood-or rather institute a lottery for nobility, with no blanks

the least lucky ticket - holder being eligible for the cross of a Cavaliere?

I pass by the unparalleled impudence of the proposal to offer the honorary presidency to Victor Emmanuel! It was, however, a cruel moment to launch this insult at the King. Was it not enough that he should be dared by Garibaldi and denounced by Louis Napoleon, but that he should be exposed to the shameless effrontery of a set of swindling speculators trading on the snobbery of mankind?

One thing is quite clear: such an association as this would never have been formed had not the world contained a class to whose tastes it could appeal The President of the National Philotechnical Institute-whatever that may mean

had not evolved this conception out of any inner consciousness, but elaborated it after a considerable experience of mankind. He had mixed much with such people as Cook's excursionists and gentlemen from the United States-the latter of whom, with all their Republicanism, have a thorough appreciation of titular distinction, and heartily love a ribbon at the button-hole.

The immense reverence for rank in England naturally enough makes Bull, on his travels, very eager to pick up a distinction which would entitle him to a higher regard amongst his own. He knows well how he has felt in presence of a Lord, and he would like to give his neighbours "a taste of his quality" as a Count. The astute projector of the Universal Title and Decoration Society must, I feel certain, have

dined much at certain tables d'hôte frequented by Anglo-Saxons. It was to meet the wants of our countrymen especially, this scheme was devised. This peerage was created as much for our palates as that port we are so fond of, and which, despite its adulterations, we continue to imbibe. That it will find customers I have no doubt. The ingenious President of the

Philotechnic has studied us to much advantage; nor was it without a touch of humour that he suggested the colour of the ribbon should be green. Grass green was indeed the appropriate tint for the knightly decoration of this order, the invention of which it is not easy to say whether it is a more cutting sarcasm or a more consummate swindle of the age we live in.

GROWING OLD.

1 suspect it takes some time to arrive at the conviction, but I have come to it at last, that there are few things so disagreeable in life as growing old. Now, although, as I have said, the knowledge and acceptance of the fact be the growth of years, yet somehow the real acknowledgment to one's self always comes with a shock.

You bear a certain stiffness in your back sinews, and a general grogginess about your ankle-joints for years. You take to soft hairbrushes, and avoid draughts, and eschew acid wines, by a process so smooth and frictionless as not to be recognised. You exchange your flippant mare, with a tendency to shy and a general skittishness, for a stout cob of fourteen hands, an easy mover, and quiet to mount. You accept your dinner invitations with a more discriminating regard for the cook than the company; but you do all these things so gradually as to be imperceptible. It is only when you have overheard a cabman speak of you as the "old gent what gave his two bob," or when a very fresh young lady asks what sort of dances were in vogue when you were young, that suddenly a new light breaks on you, and an indescribable sense of terror shoots through you at the thought that you have really rounded the "Tattenham" corner of existence, and have begun the "run home." Not that, even then, you fully realise all the horrors of

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VOL. CII.-NO. DCXXVI.

the situation. Much is ascribed to the ignorance of the critics; but you go home, certainly, with that puzzled sense that there is a problem to be settled, a doubt to be resolved, which, until that moment, had never given you even a passing uneasiness. It is like something the parson has said in the sermon, so startling and so novel that you cannot rid yourself of it, but keep on asking yourself, Is this a fact? has he an undoubted authority for telling us this?

Struggle how you may, from that day forward you are an altered man. Of course you make no admissions to the world at large of changed sentiments. The law of England declares no man is bound to criminate himself, and you go about as jauntily-perhaps even a little more jauntily-as of yore; just as a merchant with an approaching bankruptcy turns out in the Park with a more showy equipage. But in the solitude of your own dressing-room you own that the trial is over, the verdict is given, and all that remains is to entreat the court to suspend judgment. "A long day, my lord-a long day." A pitiful cry it is, sad enough to utter, and sadder to listen to.

Now, from all that I have just said, my reader will perhaps imagine that I am croning a dirge over the past, and sitting with deep crape over my heart to mourn my departed teeth and my lost hair,

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the difficulties of uneven ground, and a tendency to deafness. Not a bit of it. I bear all these nobly and heroically. I can even jest to myself over my own infirmities, and laughingly recall a time when I sprang into my saddle, and mounted the stairs four steps at a time.

What I really rebel at-what, do what I may, I cannot reconcile myself to-is, being drafted into the veteran battalion, where there are nothing but old fellows-being condemned to serve with these tremulous old pensioners, who are only brigaded when the sun is strong and the weather genial. It is not in reality old age I dread; it is the old people. I remember an old school fellow who once had served as a cadet in the Austrian service telling me that though the discipline was severe, and the penalties merciless, he was not so much afraid of either as of his comrades. It was the association with them that he felt to be impossible. Now it is thus that I regard my comrades. Tiresome people one meets of every age-dull people, dreary people, people who re-tell their stories and grow merry over the stalest and saddest of jokes. But to live amongst such, undiluted by anything fresh or buoyant or lighthearted-anything unsuspectful, or credulous, or wildly imaginative or fanciful-would be, to my thinking, about as good fun as to pass one's life over Colenso's Arithmetic.

As I grow older I want the quali ties which association with younger natures can give me. I want their enthusiasm. I want their unmitigated faith in all things. I want that racy enjoyment of the present which excludes every idea of tomorrow; and just as my physical existence requires more of stimulant to repair the waste and wear of years, my mental needs that exhilarating agency which young minds yield, and yield so plenteous

ly. And why, I would ask, when my case calls for brandy, am I put off with barley-water? Why, when I want wit and repartee and laughter, pleasant banter and bright fancy, why am I to be fed with reminiscences half a century old, retailed by people who are only interesting to the insurance office where they are insured?

You say at once, This is not a fair character of the old people. They are pleasantly chatty, full of wise experiences and sage maxims of the world, and so on; and I reply, Have you never, on coming home after dining with the One hundred and fifth, asked yourself if any. thing could possibly be pleasanter than to be sure every day to be summoned to as good a dinner with as pleasant a company? If instead of guest, however, you become one of them, what a change comes over your judgment! How flat you find the Major! What a bore is Jones! What a puppy Robinson! Such is precisely what I feel about these veterans I now serve with. I liked them all well enough before I was one of them. Indeed, I have often preferred them to livelier company; but there is all the difference, whether one is invited to the mess or is one of the regiment.

Another difficulty too. I have grown old so imperceptibly to myself, so to say, without even suspecting it, that I cannot for the life of me make out what younger men mean by a certain small homage they render me-a certain little deference, that excludes difference of opinion; and I often wonder, are they poking fun at me? Not that I have much to complain of in this way, nor, indeed, have I heard my contemporaries deplore the tendency; but now and then such instances do occur, and startle me considerably.

The cruelest part of all, however, is the treatment one meets from women. The coy reserve, the half-cautious prudery, the guarded

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