To trust for happiness chiefly to work and books, ― to taste the sweet and leave the bitter untasted, — some may call such a scheme of life commonplace; but the most eventful lives are not the happiest - probably few authors have led happier lives than Anthony Trollope. One final word I am forced to say. Since this awful war broke out, I read him in a spirit of sadness. The England that he knew and loved and described with such pride is gone forever. It will, to the coming generation, seem almost as remote as the England of Elizabeth. The Church will go, the State will change, and the common people will come into their own. The old order of things among the privileged class, much pay for little work, will be reversed. It will be useless to look for entailed estates and a leisure class- - for all that made England a delightful retreat to us. If England is to continue great and powerful, as I earnestly hope and believe she is, England must be a better place for the poor and not so enervating for the rich, or both rich and poor are valiantly fighting her battles in vain. For the row that I prize is ponder, The bulged and the bruised octavos, The dear and the dumpp twelves. Austin Dobson. X TEMPLE BAR THEN AND NOW THE King of England is not a frequent visitor to the City of London, meaning by "the City" that square mile or so of old London whose political destinies are in the keeping of the Lord Mayor, of which the Bank of England is almost the exact centre, St. Paul's the highest ground, and Temple Bar the western boundary. It might be said that the King is the only man in England who has no business in the City. His duties are in the West End in Westminster; but to the City he goes on state occasions; and it so happened that several years ago I chanced to be in London on one of them. I had reached London only the night before, and I did not know that anything out of the ordinary was going on, until over my breakfast of bacon and eggs - and such bacon! I unfolded my "Times" and learned that their Majesties were that morning going in state to St. Paul's Cathedral to give thanks for their safe return from India. It was not known that they had been in any great peril in India; but royal progresses are, I suppose, always attended with a certain amount of danger. At any rate the King and Queen had reached home safely, and wanted to give thanks, according to historic precedent, in St. Paul's; and the ceremony was set for that very morning. Inquiring at the office of my hotel in Piccadilly, I learned that the Royal procession would pass the doors in something over an hour, and that the windows of a certain drawing-room were at my disposal. It would have been more comfortable to view the Royal party from a drawing-room of the Carlton; but what I wanted to see would take place at Temple Bar; so, my breakfast dispatched, I sallied forth to take up my position in the crowded street. It was in February -a dark, gloomy, typical London morning. The bunting and decorations, everywhere apparent, had suffered sadly from the previous night's rain and were flapping dismally in the cold, raw air; and the streets, though crowded, wore a look of hopeless dejection. I am never so happy as in London. I know it well, if a man can be said to know London well, and its streets are always interesting to me; but the Strand is not my favorite street. It has changed its character sadly in recent years. The Strand no longer suggests interesting shops and the best theatres, and I grieve to think of the ravages that time and Hall Caine have made in the Lyceum, which was once Irving's, where I saw him so often in his, and my, heyday. However, my way took me to the Strand, and, passing Charing Cross, I quoted to myself Dr. Johnson's famous remark: "Fleet Street has a very animated appearance; but the full tide of human existence is at Charing |