the elements for which do not at present look promising. The abolition of the Malt tax (so-called) is now an exploded piece of jugglery, and next spring it will be anything but thanks and compliments which the Prime Minister will have to listen to upon that subject from the representatives of British agriculture. As we have already said, it is a perfectly natural and laudable ambition on the part of Mr. Gladstone to seek for fresh laurels in his favourite field of finance. But

the "abolition of the Malt tax" is not the first or only lesson which the public has received as to the essentially juggling character of some of the expedients by which the present Prime Minister sometimes seeks fame or popularity.

To Scotland this question is one of really vast importance; happily, also, it is a question well understood. Half a century ago the Government proposed a change in the currency of Scotland far less sweeping and injurious than this; and the reply which Scotland made on that occasion forms a part of Scottish history. It is a memorable incident in the life of Sir Walter Scott that, when the Prime Minister of that time proposed to abolish the "small" or £1 bank-notes of Scotland, the great novelist patriot as he was to the backbone-laid aside his splendid work of historic romance, and, with admirable business talent, set himself to oppose the scheme of the Ministry in a series of the most famous political Letters, which roused all Scotland to the peremptory rejection of the threatened Ministerial interference with the banking system of which Scotland was proud,

and which had been the main factor in her industrial progress and national prosperity. The Letters of Malachi Malagrowther' are now little read, yet it is hardly an exaggeration to say that almost every

Scottish farmer or shopkeeper has some knowledge of that old controversy between Scotland and the Government upon the bank-note question, and understands how much his country owes to its grand old banks of issue.

It is needless to say that to deprive our banks of their note-issues is to rob them of no small portion of their profits (profits which cost the public nothing), and must thereby curtail their resources, by means of which they have hitherto dealt so liberally with the public. As already said, the Scotch banks (unlike those of England) do not seek to divide all their profits among their shareholders, but, in accordance with their old patriotic or public-spirited traditions, they give back, or directly share with the public, no small portion of those trade-gains, notably, in the high interest which they pay to depositors, and in establishing branches and supplying ready banking accommodation in poor localities. In Sir Walter Scott's time, it was only the small or £1 notes that the Government wished to abolish: now the case is much worse, for the Gladstonian intention is to abolish bank-notes altogether. Hence every word that Sir Walter Scott wrote in the 'Letters of Malachi Malagrowther' is of still more force at present:

"It is" (said he) "by the profit arising upon issuing their small notes the beneficial advances which custom has now rendered nearly indispensable to the carrying on business of almost any kind in Scotland. Above all, without that profit, the bankers could not, as hitherto, continue to allow a rateable interest on money deposited in their hands."

that the bankers are enabled to make

This statement is too obviously true to be questioned; and it will be a sorry day for Scotland if ever the English practice, which practi

cally allows no interest to depositors of the poorer class, becomes established north of the Tweed and Solway.

Sir Walter Scott had a thorough knowledge of Scottish life among all classes, and, speaking of the branch banks, he said:

"The branches of the Scottish banks, maintained at convenient and centrical points in the north of Scotland, furnish all the remote and numerous stations where the fisheries are carried on with small notes and silver for payment of the actual fishers' labour, and in return accept the bills of the fishcurers upon the consigners. This they do at a moderate profit; on which principle alone, private industry and enterprise and capital can be made conducive to the public good. The notes

thus circulated in the most distant parts of Scotland return, indeed, in process of time, to the banks which is sued them; but the course of their return is slow and circuitous, so that the interest accruing on them during their absence [in circulation] amply reimburses the capitalist for the trouble and risk which attend the supply."

He then speaks of the fisheries, the manufacture of kelp, and other small trades, carried on in the poor Highland districts, "supporting thousands of men with their families, who must otherwise emigrate or starve," and which trades are entirely dependent upon advances made by the banks in their own notes, "at a reasonable profit to themselves, and with the utmost advantage to Scotland and its productive resources." Yet now, added Sir Walter, "the whole existing state of credit in Scotland is to be altered from top to bottom, and Ministers are silent on any remedy which such a state of things would imperiously require." It must be added that, if Scotland, having prospered under her old and present régime, is not so poor as she was fifty-five years ago, when Scott

wrote, the requirements for banking accommodation have become vastly larger, more numerous and diversified.

In these Letters Sir Walter Scott spoke indignantly and sarcastically of "the sake of uniformity" which too largely influenced the Government, and which was the main, and only sustainable, argument for interfering with the Scotch banking system. He quotes the old Scotch proverb that "each country has its ain lauch," and asks why England should seek to take from Scotland a system which our nation prefers, and which has been proved admirable and unsurpassable by the experience of many generations. Further, he said, using an argument even more cogent now than then: "I must say, it seems strange that, under a liberal system, of which freedom of trade is the very soul, we (the Scottish nation) should be loaded with severe restrictions upon our own national choice, instead of being left at liberty to adopt that representative of value which best suits our own convenience!"

We might quote further, and also argue further, against the now threatened abolition of bank-notes in Scotland (and indeed throughout the whole kingdom); but remembering our prefatory remarks as to the obstinacy and self-opinionativeness of the present Prime Minister, our reliance after all must be chiefly placed upon the action of the Scottish representatives in Parliament. On the previous occasion, Lords Lauderdale, Stair, Athole, and other Scottish peers exerted themselves strenuously-and, as it proved, successfully in resistance to the Ministerial project for abolishing the £1 notes of the Scottish banks: is it not more imperative now to resist a Ministerial project which seeks to abolish our bank-notes altogether? Nos numerus sumus,

THE career of an actor, notwithstanding all that has been said in its favour, can scarcely be considered a lofty career. It is fine indeed to "interpret," as it is called, the finest poetry to the multitude, and recommend to them by all the arts of the stage, by life and movement, and the expression of the living countenance and the sound of the living voice, sentiments and noble thoughts which, without these, might have remained too high for the crowd; and there is no more delightful or inspiring recreation than that of witnessing a fine tragedy or even comedy of the higher type. But when all is said, and fully allowing that the stage may be made, and is made from time to time, by exceptional persons, an entirely honourable and artistic profession, it yet remains true that in the majority of cases it is a difficult and dangerous one, and not likely to call forth the best part of human character. The forced intimacy of a number of people, perhaps in no way really congenial to each other the common dependence upon the public favour, which can scarcely exist without raising a hundred petty jealousies the atmosphere of fiction in which they move and have their being-the contact into which men and women are necessarily brought, permitting, nay enforcing, a familiarity which is never in favour of good morals, all these things are sadly derogatory to the position of the ordinary actor. But at the same time, they make the picture of the dramatic life, wherever we obtain a glimpse of it, amusing beyond that of almost any other trade. The green-room is a stage not less lively, not less entertain

ing, than the actual scene; and the sight of so many highly individual personages, all extremely apt to give full vent to their passions and sentiments, alternating between the tragic and the commonplace, the imaginary life of courts and camps, and that of the untidiest poor lodgings, is always piquant and sometimes touching. The charm of being "behind the scenes" is one which fascinates almost everybody. We make use of the phrase as expressing the highest experiences of life; but when we take it merely au pied de la lettre, it is still something wonderfully amusing, attractive, piquing the curiosity, and satisfying the inquisitiveness of our nature. Perhaps it is because it is their trade to feign that no class reveals itself so freely, or carries its peccadilloes so frankly on the surface; so that, in short, it is "as good as a play" to peep over some lively spectator's shoulder and see how the first gentleman scowls at his competitor, and the ingénue weeps with rage to have a speech abstracted from her rôle, or to hear the serious heroine applauded more. warmly than herself. This amusing study, however, contributes, we fear, rather to form a cynical than a sympathetic habit of thought: the frequenters of the coulisses are seldom charitable judges. They are apt to attribute the worst motives, and to laugh at all pretences of special virtue.

At the same time, there is always a certain charm in the artless exhibition of human nature, to which, the moment he has ended the representation perhaps of some lofty and rare type, the actor so readily lends himself. He takes off the usual disguises

which we wear before men when he doffs his stage-costume, and is not only himself with all the piquancy of a sudden contrast, but himself without restraint or decorum, performing in public, with often noisy simplicity, those eccentricities which men in general carefully reserve for the edification of their families. He scolds and weeps, and makes love and quarrels in our presence, without the slightest sense of unfitness. At all times the humours of a strolling troop have been more amusing than anything they acted. A highly correct and gentlemanly memoir, like that of Macready-or such a record as that which Mrs. Fanny Kemble has lately given to the world, where the stage forms little more than a background to the life of a more than ordinarily accomplished woman— has little of this frank and easy existence; but even such writers as these afford some illustrations of our meaning, in the glimpses they give us of the rank and file of the profession, if not in any experiences of their own.

Carlo Goldoni was not an actor but a dramatist, but his life was spent in the theatre-and his autobiography is full of the freaks of the profession, and the humour of its representations. An Italiannay, a Venetian, the most light and gaiety-loving type of the modern Italian-and a genuine representative of the eighteenth century, his book is crowded throughout with lively figures and constant movement-with adventure and airy passion, keen and short-lived, -with scrapes of every kind, and lucky escapes, and clever inventions. To be an autobiographist at all, a man must possess a certain amount of confidence in himself and in the interest of the worldsomething of the quality which we call vanity, which has, however, as many varieties as any other quality

of which the mind is capable. Goldoni's vanity is never offensive. It is not braggart like that of Benvenuto, the fierce Florentine, who was a man of a more primitive age, nor smug and consequential like that of the correct and self-applausive Gibbon, who belongs to the same century. The complacence of his record is perfectly genial and simple. The story of the numerous attempts he made to establish himself in life, and the errors and accidents which balked him in his education and in his profession, until need and inclination combined made a way for him into the trade which he had hankered after all along, is quite impartial and honest, extenuating none of the youthful faults which so often stopped his progress. His motive for writing his

memoirs is the usual desire which a man who has not proved a prophet in his own country, entertains to set himself right with posterity. There is no author, good or bad, he says, who has not his life printed before his works; and how should such portraits, made at a distance, resemble the originals? If they are drawn by a friendly hand, praise modifies the facts; if by an friendly writer criticism is apt to become satire.

un

"My life is not an interesting one. But in time to come it may happen that in the corner of an old library a collection of my works may be found, and some curious reader may perhaps then desire to know who was this singular man who set before him the project of reforming the theatre of his country, and who placed on the stage a hundred and fifty comedies in verse and prose, full of character and plot, and in his lifetime saw eighteen editions of these plays issued from the press. No doubt it will be said: This man must have been rich: why did he leave his country? Ah! it is well that posterity should know that in France alone Goldoni found rest, tranquillity, and well-being.

"This is the compendium of my life,