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best chance for giving currency to his opinions was that the Literary Executor should put his name on the title-page as the editor; but as Mr. Dickens never did this, and never contemplated doing this, possibly from a sense of incongruity, the work will probably not emerge from its comparative obscurity. The fact remains, which is full of interest, that Mr. Dickens revised all this large mass of papers, and that they took their present shape and form under his presiding care. The arrangement is interesting and good. Now and then there is even a gleam of humour which, we are quite sure, has suffered nothing at the editorial hands. Any one who compares Mr. Townshend's views with the more serious passages in Mr. Dickens's story will perceive that there was considerable affinity between the two.

We are sure that there was a still greater affinity in that path of practical goodness in which they both strenuously worked. Mr. Dickens says that Mr. Townshend was always his warmly attached and sympathetic friend, and enumerates the noble benefactions of his will. All those who knew the late Mr. Dickens speak of that large-hearted nature with the same generous appreciation which he accorded to his friend Mr. Townshend.

'BLACKWOOD' AND MR. DISRAELI.

Many years ago there appeared a book, now happily forgotten in a deserved and ignoble obscurity, entitled Disraeli: a Biography.' The author's name is known, but it need not be recalled, as no doubt he is now ashamed of a detestable performance. It was a bad book, written in the worst possible tone and spirit. The author had a spite at Mr. Disraeli; he greatly disliked his course of political action; he had a great deal of personal venom against him; he traduced his literary character by garbling and dovetailing passages after a method both ingenious and disingenuous. In fact, the biography was, as a book, precisely what

the recent review of Lothair' in Blackwood' is as an article.

In those days, comparatively high and palmy, of Blackwood,' Maga had nailed her colours to the Tory mast, and did not care to encourage mutiny in the crew. She formed her own opinion about the individual who wrote the 'Literary and Political Biography' of Mr. Disraeli. This she professed in language sufficiently pointed and emphatic. Indeed, her friends always much regretted that, with all her good qualities, she was apt to prove violent and coarse in language. We have been reading, as a literary curiosity, the 'Blackwood' review of Mr. Disraeli's assailant (March 1854), and we will make a selection of some of the choicer epithets of abuse bestowed upon that unhappy writer. They are as follows: 'Unhappy human reptile,' 'cold, selfish, and malignant," skulking creature,' 'cockatrice,' 'venal, selfish and unprincipled, Randall Leslie,' 'masked assassin,' 'cold toad,'' contemptible little snake,' 'blockhead,' 'scavenger,' 'whipper-snapper," 'jackdaw,' 'billy-goat,' with such other flowers of literature. The critic also makes the valuable general remark: No honourable or chivalrous opponent of Mr. Disraeli could read this tissue of malignity without experiencing a sensation of loathing.' Many of the honourable opponents of Mr. Disraeli have freely expressed this 'experience of loathing' with which the Blackwood review has affected them. For ourselves, we are not in the least desirous to pick out an epithet to fit the cap on the new assailant of Mr. Disraeli who has sprung up in the pages of Blackwood' itself. We are equally disgusted with scurrility whether employed in writing Mr. Disraeli up in 1854, or in writing him down in 1870. But it is instructive to see the kind of opinion which Blackwood,' in its best days, deliberately formed of any writer who deliberately laid himself out to injure Mr. Disraeli's literary and political fame.

ON THE COAST.

(A Young Lady's Letter.)

'OWARDS London and all that was in it

TOWAR

We turned thorough traitors, I fear;

But how could we resist for one minute

The weather that beckoned us here?
With quadrilling and flirting and gushing
The season was just at its prime ;-
All its pushing and crowding and crushing
Forgotten down here for a time.

Yes, forgotten that sweet rus in urbe
The Drive, with its likes and its loves:
And forgotten the Oaks and the Derby-
(I won quite a fortune in gloves!)
I can recollect little of Schneider,
Of Hervé or Mr. Bellew;

I can look as an utter outsider
On matters that interest you.

I could send you a sketch (so romantic!)
Of all that I say, do, and hear—
Of my perils upon the Atlantic,

And sweet little strolls on the pier.
Shall I put you to sleep by detailing
The glories of sun and of sea;-
Shall I own (entre nous, dear) that sailing
Seems better than waltzing to me?

There are beautiful places I walk to-
For walks, out of town, I adore:
There are very nice people to talk to,
And people to 'cut' by the score.
As the mornings are sultry and shiny
I rise-only fancy !-by nine,
To set out for a dip in the briny '—

(That slang, love, is Freddy's, not mine).

We have music in plenty to charm us,
From real street organs to bands;
And the bones and the banjo alarm us
Whenever we stray on the sands.
But here's Fred-he was always a worry--
We're bound for a sail, Fred and I;
So I'll finish my note in a hurry.
Adieu for the present. Good-bye.

HENRY S. LEIGH.

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Receiving

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The Rings

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