succession of novels remarkable for their pure tone, for their high literary finish, and for their genial satire of social folly, Mr. McCarthy suddenly surprised even his most intimate and therefore most expectant friends by producing a "History of Our Own Times," which has achieved a success that for rapidity and extent it would be difficult to parallel in the same class of literature. The member for Longford is too recent an acquisition to the House for a conclusive verdict to be passed upon his chances. He has spoken twice or thrice, always briefly and to the point, and with a grace of diction and ease of manner which some members who have grown grey in the service of the State still lack. He has one faculty which infallibly tells upon any popular assembly, and is peculiarly acceptable with a cultured audience like that which meets at Westminster. He has read as much as Mr. Cowen, remembers even more, and is singularly quick at seeing points of congruity between current topics and things which have been said or done or fancied in times past. Nothing wins applause in the House of Commons more readily than an apt illustration or a happy quotation. Mr. McCarthy has already indicated his ability in these directions, and may be safely counted upon some day to win a sudden and permanent success.

These gentlemen have in one form or another seriously worked in the field of journalism and literature. But to a singularly large number of members the limits of the House of Commons have been too narrow for their philanthropic or patriotic impulse to make the world better by the circulation of their thoughts. In reviewing the present House the distinction rather lies with the man who has not published than with the man who has. The recurrence of the long autumn recess suggests to a large number of legislators, wearied with the labour of the session, the recreative delights of travel. What has strongly moved them they regard as likely to create an equal impression on the public. Hence they write books, and there are not wanting publishers to publish them. Thus Mr. Kavanagh has told the story of the "Cruise of the Eva;" Sir J. H. Kennaway visits the States towards the close of the war, and writes a book "On Sherman's Track;" and Mr. E. J. Reed, just home from a visit to Japan, is now engaged upon a work describing his experiences. Mr. Reed has some claims to be considered individually as a man of letters. He began to make his mark as a public man while editor of a scientific magazine, and is still editor of a quarterly review dealing specially with naval science. In addition to this he has written various works on naval matters, and his contributions to the correspondence columns of the Times are voluminous and interesting. Captain Bedford Pim has drawn a glowing picture of "The Gate of the

Pacific; "Sir Edward Watkin has described "A Trip to the United States and Canada;" Sir Henry Wolff, long before he went out as British Commissioner to Eastern Roumelia, had visited and written about "The Residence of Napoleon at Elba ;" Mr. Baxter, like Ulysses, has travelled much, and has given his impressions of what he has seen in a succession of books; Sir George Campbell has just published a work, the result of an autumn visit to the United States; he has also written a good deal on the Eastern Question. Mr. Baillie Cochrane has described "The Morea;" Sir Charles Dilke has written a standard work on "Greater Britain ;" whilst Mr. Ellis Eyton, the late member for the Flint district, discovering the remote island of Man, detailed his experiences with as much minuteness and nearly as much freshness as Sir George Nares managed to put into his account of the voyage to the Polar Sea.

There were historians and biographers in the House before Mr. Justin McCarthy entered it. Mr. Evelyn Ashley has written an invaluable "Life of Palmerston." Mr. Forsyth has produced a “Life of Cicero," in addition to a "History of Trial by Jury." Colonel Jervis has written a "History of Corfu and the Ionian Islands." Long ago Mr. Roebuck wrote a History of the Whig Ministry of 1830." Mr. Trevelyan, having made some fame as a man of letters by the "Competition Wallah," has established it on a firmer basis by his Life of his uncle, Lord Macaulay. Mr. Massey has written a "History of England under George III."

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Poets are not numerous amongst hon. members. Lord John Manners has ostensibly eschewed poetry, though there is a wellknown couplet owning his authorship which is likely to last (though for quite other reasons than those intended) as long as the English language. In the mean time we have Mr. H. B. Sheridan, who faintly owns a little volume of verse called "St. Lawrence Well and other poems." Mr. T. C. Baring has tried his hand at a rhymed translation of lyrics of Horace, and Mr. Alderman Cotton distinguished the year of his mayoralty by publishing a volume of poems.

On questions of special study Mr. George Anderson has published pamphlets on the currency and the wages question. Mr. Lowthian Bell has discussed, with the advantage of personal experience, the chemical phenomena of iron smelting. Sir George Bowyer, that great constitutional lawyer, has emulated his late learned friend, Julius Cæsar, in the production of " Commentaries." Mr. David Chadwick has discussed "Poor Rates and the Principle of Rating." Mr. Charley, the learned Recorder of London, has produced "Treatises on the Judicature Act," which are as interesting and as full of information as his speeches in the House on similar questions. Sir

George Eliot has speculated "On the Duration of our Coal Supply." Mr. Fielden has proved his versatility by writing on the diverse questions of the " Repeal of the Malt Tax" and "Union of Church and State." Mr. Goschen has elaborated a "Theory of Foreign Exchanges." Mr. John Holms is a well-known critic of army administration. Mr. J. G. Hubbard has endeavoured to preserve for all time the gist of many speeches delivered to not very full Houses on the income tax and the currency questions. Sir U. Kay-Shuttleworth has enlightened the world on "The First Principles of Modern Chemistry." Mr. John Locke has produced a "Treatise on the Game Laws." Lord Robert Montague, before he was moved to write on the Eastern Question, had settled all moot points connected with naval architecture; and Mr. O'Donnell has exhibited some "Features in Political Economy." Mr. Adam has given utterance to thoughts on "The Policy of Retaliation," which have nothing to do with the prospect of paying the Conservatives off in the next election, but deal with a question of trade policy. Mr. Bourke has discoursed on "Parliamentary Precedents," probably including those of worrying an Under Foreign Secretary with inconvenient and incessant questions. Mr. Henry Richard has written a "Memoir of Joseph Sturge." Before questions of finance and general government of the world bad engrossed Mr. Rylands, he had produced two little works, one on "The Pulpit and the People," and the other on "The Mission of the Church." Mr. McCullagh Torrens has on several occasions shown evidence of his belief that if he had not been an able though somewhat lugubrious Parliamentary orator he would have been a great writer. From time to time, generally at intervals of twelve months, there appear notices in the papers to the effect that "Mr. McCullagh Torrens, M.P., is engaged upon" a book of memoirs-usually Lord Melbourne's. In the mean time he has actually written the life of Shiel and that of Sir James Graham, and has now in the press a couple of volumes of personal sketches of Wellesley and O'Connell, which will presently appear under the taking title "Pro-Consul and Tribune."

For obvious reasons the comparative success or non-success of these gentlemen cannot be said to affect the general question herein raised, as to whether men who have distinguished themselves in literature, and who have subsequently obtained seats in the House, have equalled the expectations based on their established reputation. We have never had the opportunity of studying the question by such lights as Dickens and Thackeray. They, judging for themselves, and doubtless wisely, always turned a deaf ear to proposals that they should enter Parliament. Lord Macaulay perhaps

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maintained his personal position when he took his seat in the House. At least, his speeches excited a gratifying amount of attention, and they were in the main successful. But it is straining the use of language to call them speeches. They were really carefully prepared essays, and Macaulay, having a magnificent memory, was able to recite them without a hitch. Macaulay's own opinion was, I believe, that the House of Commons is no place for a man of letters. Incidentally he supplies some examples of failure in a passage in one of his letters, where he is discussing that peculiar quality of the House of Commons-its way of picking out a particular man and saying we will listen to him"-which can only be felt and may not be fully described. "It is a place," he writes, "in which I would not promise success to any man. I have great doubts even about Jeffrey. It is the most peculiar audience in the world. I should say that a man's being a good writer, a good orator at the Bar, a good mob orator, or a good orator in debating clubs, was rather a reason for expecting him to fail than for expecting him to succeed in the House of Commons. A place where Walpole succeeded and Addison failed-where Dundas succeeded and Burke failed-where Peel now succeeds and where Mackintosh fails-where Erskine and Scarlett were dinner bells-where Lawrence and Jekyll, the two wittiest men, or nearly so, of their time, were thought bores-is surely a very strange place."

What the House was in Macaulay's time it, in this respect, remains still. Its judgment of a man's fitness is based on unwritten and often inscrutable laws. The fact that it rejects overtures for its favour supplies no proof that the person snubbed is not learned or loveable, wise or worthy. But that a man should be an acceptable speaker in the House of Commons is one of the highest honours open to competitors, for its bestowal is absolutely unpurchaseable. Neither wealth, nor rank, nor place, nor power influences the verdict; and a marquis, a millionaire, or a minister may find. himself and his speech politely left to the company of empty benches, whilst the House fills with an eager and applausive throng to hear a man who sometimes incidentally mentions that he once worked in a mine, who never went to college and but briefly to school, who talks a tongue unknown in drawing-rooms, and whose income is measured by the annual allowance subscribed by the fellow-workmen who did honour to him, to themselves, and to the House of Commons by electing him a member of Parliament.

THE MEMBER FOR THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS,

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SOME AUSTRALIAN CAPITALS.

A

USTRALIANS complain, good-naturedly enough without doubt, but with unimpeachable reason, that their country is little understood in Great Britain. To this day I receive, in Queensland, letters and newspapers addressed "Brisbane, South Australia;" and if the officials of the General Post Offices in the Australasian Colonies published the misdirections passing through their hands in the course of any one mail delivery during the year, both amazing and amusing would be the revelation of geographical ignorance on the part of home friends. A wealthy Australian, in the average stay-at-home Briton's mind, must be a man who has roughed it at some gold-diggings. The haziest notions exist as to what is a squatter. That he has had something to do with squatting pursuits is pretty clear on the face of it; but where he squats, how he squats, what he squats are insurmountable problems.

But at the present time Australians are looking forward to their long-deferred hopes of a better understanding bearing fruit, though, the while, they indulge in a sly laugh, as they reflect that it should be due more to a successful sculler, and victorious cricketing team, than to the thousands of works which have been written to prove that Victoria is far apart from Queensland, and that Ballarat and Bathurst have no immediate connection with each other, or with New Zealand. Let, however, the change proceed from what cause. it may, it is welcome. The Paris Exhibition of 1878 had something to do with it, for the representatives of the respective Colonies there evidently endeavoured to enlighten England, as well as Continental Europe, through their sections. Indeed, one gentleman inserted in an official communication, the laconic and curious admission:-" I am working the press all I can ;" and his friends smiled, and told each other that he was a very smart man.

And now the Exhibition fever has extended to the antipodes. Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane have each decided upon an International show. The fact at once indicates the degree of independence one Colony exercises towards the rest, and suggests the obvious question, "Would it not have been better if these Colonies, separated often