entlest, amiable, civil little creature that ever came out f an egg-in their assumed characters of grandmother nd granddaughter-this assumption going so far that Madame de Choiseul is shown presenting Madame du Deffand with a doll!

For the credit of masculine nature, though perhaps t were more fair to say 'Horatian' nature, it is doubtless 1 good thing that only half of this strange correspondence has survived. But by a truly extraordinary chance we lo possess one letter, written quite early in their acquaintance, which gives a clear and an odious idea of how he regarded her feeling for him, or rather her expression of that feeling. This letter, copied by the 'Cabinet Noir,' to whom we owe its survival, is dated May 25, 1766.

'Est-ce que vos lamentations, Madame, ne doivent jamais finir? Vous me faites bien repentir de ma franchise; il valait mieux m'en tenir au commerce simple; pourquoi vous ai-je avoué mon amitié? C'était pour vous contenter, non pas pour augmenter vos ennuis. Des soupçons, des inquiétudes perpétuelles !-Vraiment, si l'amitié a tous les ennuis de l'amour sans en avoir les plaisirs, je ne vois rien qui invite à en tâter. Au lieu de me la montrer sous sa meilleure face, vous me la présentez dans tout son ténébreux. Je renonce à l'amitié si elle n'enfante que de l'amertume. Vous vous moquez des lettres d'Héloïse, et votre correspondance devient cent fois plus larmoyante. "Reprends ton Paris; je n'aime pas ma mie, o gué." Oui, je l'aimerais assez au gai, mais très peu au triste. Oui, oui, m'amie, si vous voulez que notre commerce dure, montez-le sur un ton moins tragique; ne soyez pas comme la comtesse de Suze, qui se répandait en élégies pour un objet bien ridicule. Suis-je fait pour être le héros d'un roman épistolaire? et comment est-il possible, Madame, qu'avec autant d'esprit que vous en avez, vous donniez dans un style qui révolte votre Pylade, car vous ne voulez pas que je me prenne pour un Orondate! Parlez-moi en femme raisonnable, ou je copierai les réponses aux Lettres Portugaises.'

Cut to the quick she answered:

'Je ne sais pas si les Anglais sont durs et féroces, mais je sais qu'ils sont avantageux et insolents. Des témoignages d'amitié, de l'empressement, du désir de les revoir, de l'ennui, de la tristesse, du regret de leur séparation-ils prennent tout cela pour une passion effrénée; ils en sont fatigués, importunés, et

le déclarent avec si peu de ménagement qu'on croit être surpris en flagrant délit; on rougit, on est honteux et confus, et l'on tirerait cent canons contre ceux qui ont une telle insolence.'

But if in these two letters we see Walpole at his worst and Madame du Deffand at her most dignified best, it is only fair to say that the letter, which she wrote on the very day of Walpole's departure from Paris after his second stay there, shows what he sometimes had to endure. A painful scene indeed must have taken place between them, and one which to a man of his fastidious and reasonable temperament must have been peculiarly trying and absurd before she could have brought herself to write: Que de lâcheté, de faiblesse et de ridicule je vous ai laissé voir! Je m'étais bien promis le contraire; mais, mais ...' But in reality the great difference between them was that, whereas he was ageing, and already beginning to suffer acutely from various physical infirmities, she—in this far more fortunate in spite of her blindness-had retained not only 'l'âge que l'on paraît,' but 'l'âge que l'on se sent avoir.'

There were accalmies in this singular relationship. The end of August 1769 found Walpole again in Paris. Some quality in her friendship, which her letters lacked, had the power of moving him when they were together; and during his visit to Paris in August 1769 Walpole strikes for the first time a note of real affection and kindness. My dear old woman,' he writes to John Chute, 'is in better health than when I left her, and her spirits so increase that I told her she will go mad with age. When they ask her how old she is, she answers: “J'ai soixante et mille ans." But this kindly mood did not last, and though there were weeks, sometimes months, when she stifled and trampled on the feelings that possessed her, there are many, too many, evidences that she was always offering a love which he rejected, now with fretful uneasiness, now with brutal decision, according to his passing mood and to the last bit of gossip he had heard as to the doings of the iniquitous Cabinet Noir.'

Just as some fat is necessary for the health of every human body, so some vanity, even if only a little, is necessary for mental well-being. Unfortunately for herself, Madame du Deffand was without any vanity. She

saw those about her, especially in relation to herself, with desolating clearness. She was never able to deceive herself for a moment, as most of us habitually do, with regard to the quality of the love bestowed on her. Walpole so far acknowledged the claim her affection for him gave her, that four times, in spite of gout and kindred infirmities of age, he journeyed to Paris to see her. But they did not meet at all for the last five years of her life, and there is something acutely sad-what the French call déchirant-in the opening of one of the very last letters Walpole ever received from her: 'Le proverbe dit, "Qui bien aime bien châtie." Ah! que de preuves je reçois de votre amitié! Je n'ouvre pas une de vos lettres que je n'y trouve quelques réprimandes. La dernière a été longue et peu méritée.' And yet, at last, something like response, or at least something like gratitude, awakes in his heart, the heart which was not so much withered as ignorant that there could be blossoming, for within a few days of the end he writes to Thomas Walpole, then in Paris: My dear old friend's last letter shocked me as much as possible; it was a kind of taking leave of me, when I had no notion of her being ill.... Should she be capable of hearing it, when you receive this, I entreat you to tell her-but I do not know how to express how much I love her and how much I feel.' This letter-this message-arrived too late, and one can but hope that Madame du Deffand, wandering about as a newcomer in the Elysian Fields, with the glorious, celestial gift of sight restored to her, was given the privilege of doing what we feel sure she must often have longed to do of reading extracts from Walpole's intimate letters to his other familiars. He was kinder, far kinder, to her in death than he had been in life. And then, if never before, the two might have said, the one to the other:

'Ne pleure pas, toi que j'aimais:

Ce qui n'est plus ne fut jamais.' . . . 'Laisse couler ma douleur sombre: Une ombre peut pleurer une ombre.'

MARIE BELLOC-LOWNDES.

Art. 12-THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN LONDON.

It is generally understood that the Royal Commission a University Education in London, which has been sitting for four years under the Chairmanship of Lord Haldane, is about to issue its final Report. The secret of the conclusions at which the Commissioners have arrived has been well kept, but, whatever those conclusions may be, the publication of the Report will unquestionably mark a new stage in the history of the evolution of the metropolitan university. Whether that stage is to be the beginning of another controversy, and is to lead only to the adoption of some piecemeal reforms, accepted out of weariness of an apparently interminable dispute, and generally admitted to form merely the basis of a halfhearted truce; or whether it will prove to be the longdesired solution of the problem of the constitution of the University of London, will depend very largely on the amount of popular approval which the Report receives.

The problem, however, is not and cannot be made simple, and public opinion cannot be usefully exerted if it is based on an assumed but unreal absence of complexity. Something more is wanted than a blind adhesion to party ideals. The question at issue must be approached from the point of view of the educational statesman trying to lay foundations broad and deep; not that of the mere politician anxious only to produce a showy exterior, which he hopes will last his time and which will, at all events, last till it collapses. Least of all will general opinion be useful if it is based on false analogies with Oxford and Cambridge on the one hand, or with the modern provincial universities on the other. It may therefore be useful, before the Report is issued, before great principles are obscured by controversy over details, to state shortly the main points which have to be decided and the matters to which attention should be principally directed. Few will be able to read the Report with an expert knowledge of the problems to be solved and of the difficulties to be encountered. Fewer still will be ready to wade through the 15,223 questions and answers which have already been reported in the published evidence.

Thus many, to whom university education in London is an interest, though perhaps only a secondary interest, may possibly be aided in forming their opinions by a brief outline of the primary problems with which the Commission has to deal.

With this object in view it is unnecessary to discuss at length the early history of the University. Suffice it to say that down to the end of the last century it had been, since its foundation in 1836, an 'examining university' only. It was actually prohibited from teaching. At first, indeed, the examinations were limited to candidates from colleges which were empowered to grant certificates of attendance, so that collegiate instruction was required, although it was not given by the University; but in 1858 the degrees were thrown open to all comers, and were given on the results of examination only. This type of university originated in and is peculiar to England, except in so far as it has been copied in some of our dependencies. Scotland has never adopted it. Ireland adopted and, after trial, abandoned it. Its opponents urge that it is based on the negation of the principle and hopes which led to the original establishment of universities. The desire to sit at the feet of great teachers filled the older universities with students in the Middle Ages; the desire to secure the presence of the best teachers in their midst led to the establishment of universities in our modern centres of population; but the examining university, prevented from teaching, had nothing to do with the actual work of education, and indeed claimed only to provide such impartial tests of the results of that work as examinations can supply. Thus it may be said that the University could do nothing to help education; it could, at the best, only detect the work of good and cast discredit on that of bad teachers.

On the other hand, it may be urged by the supporters of 'examining universities' that they meet the wants of a class for whom the large multiplication of teaching universities does not altogether provide. The impecunious lad who has developed late, and thus failed to secure any of the numerous scholarships which enable so many of poorer students to enter a university, may and often does manage, at a later stage, to reach a relatively high standard of knowledge. To him the attainment of a

the