the soil is rich beyond comparison; the plains of the interior grow corn, rice, maize, barley, potatoes, beans, bananas; the hot parts of the country yield cocoa, vanilla, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and indigo; the forests are filled with the grandest and choicest timber; the fruit-trees include the orange, citron, lemon, apple, peach, quince, pomegranate, and pineapple ; the flora of the country is exquisitely beautiful and varied; and the coast is full of silver and gold. Here is a land for the emigrant! Here is an oasis in the general desert! When I first read M. Peralta's pamphlet, the thought occurred to me for a moment of turning my back on St. John's-gate, and secking that glorious country where, "in the month of April, when the rains have re-invigorated the earth, the Haciendas present the most enchanting spectacle. The immense plantations discover regular rows of coffee plants, a metre distant from each other, sheltered from the wind and protected from the sun by banana trees, which rise over them; and the spectator, overcome by the delicious perfumes which escape from the flowers of snowy whiteness, recalling the blossom of the orange, allows his senses to wander with delight over this paradise of verdure embosomed in pearls." My French informant says it is certain that were European colonists to establish themselves in the country, their knowledge of scientific cultivation would lead to the most splendid results. "Let them go!" he exclaims; "Costa Rica has its doors wide open to receive them." The claims of my friends who look for the Gentleman's every month enable me to resist the tempting invitation; but I commend this land "flowing with milk and honey" to overcrowded London; to the agriculturist, the miner, the adventurer; but more especially to the tiller of the soil, who, in addition to unequalled opportunities of profitable labour, would find there those precious personal advantages which only Englishmen thoroughly understand and appreciate.

THERE are a few educational facts in M. Peralta's pamphlet which will interest educationists and School Boards. In Costa Rica, he says, primary instruction is gratuitous (obligatory from seven to fourteen), and paid for by the State. The next advance on the road to knowledge is also paid for by the State. The superior instruction is given at San José, the capital of the republic, the secondary instruction in the chief towns of the provinces ; the primary instruction everywhere. Mrs. Crawshay, Miss Wallington, And many other lady trends of education will be glad to learn that every town and village has its school for girls, and the attendance of thirty pupola ix suchcient for the district to claim the right of a resident teacher. There be a normal college for teachers at San José. The Costa Ricans are Catholic &, but they have always resisted the admission of Jesuits. Full libworry negeamed to the pudbe exercise of all denominations. Among the cay be Vzgxue a Protectan church and two masonic halls. I advise A. Nomosies 7x09 09 go out and tell us the history of Costa Rica. The alqoca qaly a ten cele points for his graphic pen. Meanwhile, let the London N. Nad Bakarrão Net mom this forem example, and have no Preitya Spektryst Phac côte du dia di pupper children.

MR. ROBERT FAIRFIELD, a gentleman evidently much interested in the drama, in a letter the other day addressed to the Birmingham Morning News, complains of the inadequate manner in which plays and stage performances are frequently noticed in the newspapers. I am not going just now to throw myself into the controversy, but I would like to know whether Mr. Fairfield and those who think with him have thoroughly well considered the point when they contend that the great fault is that the critics have no "fixed canons of judgment." I have quoted his own expression, and I find him insisting upon the same idea when he deplores "the absolute want of any fixed principles in criticising dramatic productions." This view of current dramatic criticism and its defects will be recognised as that of a very large number of educated and intelligent people; but without plunging deeply into an inquiry which would be a better subject for a long and elaborate article than for an evanescent passage of "Table Talk," I am tempted to challenge that opinion. It has often occurred to me to suspect that in literature, in music, in art, and in the drama, canons of criticism have much mischief to answer for. Those who are most addicted to these fixed rules of judgment are usually guilty of the fatal fault of condemning all real novelty, of setting a veto upon originality, and of making thorny the path of genius. All rules are arbitrary, and they are liable to be unjust. I agree with those who are dissatisfied with the tenour of a great deal of current criticism and of much that is miscalled criticism; but I am inclined to think that we must look in quite another direction for the remedy. The province of the critic wants better defining. There are very few cases indeed in which a writer should presume to "pass judgment" on a work-taking these words in their strict meaning. A critique that does not overstep its legitimate purpose should be capable of being resolved into this formula :-" I like this work in this respect, and I dislike it in that, for the following reasons it pleases me here, and it offends me there, because my experience, my feelings, my instincts prompt me thus or thus ." Such criticism furnishes the reader with the materials for becoming acquainted with the real qualities of the work, whether they are merits or defects. It enables one to take into account the competence, the culture, the sensibility and refinement or the lack of these qualities—in the critic, and thus to estimate the value of what he says. These are but half considered suggestions on a great subject, which I will not pursue further here.

Is it the fact, can it be the fact, that the leaders of the Conservative party have taken another gentleman of the press into their service? It looks impossible. And yet the Birmingham Gazette announces in all the eloquence of "bourgeois" that it is publishing "a series of special letters, two or three times a week," upon the politics and club gossip of the day, and that these letters are "written by gentlemen resident in London, 'and closely connected with the leaders of the Conservative party, and contain special information relative to political movements."

Hitherto the leaders of the Conservative party have done little or nothing but flout the press, and the late Lord Derby killed the Press, the cleverest paper ever set up in the interest of Conservatism, by a sneer. But perhaps the publication of these "Letters" marks a turn in the tide. When Edmund Kean was once railing against the press and its criticism to Mrs. Garrick, the old lady opened her eyes in astonishment. "The newspapers, my dear! why do you trouble yourself about the newspapers? Why don't you write your own criticisms? David always did." And this apparently is what the leaders of the Conservative party mean to do in future. Is it an act of condescension or what? And who is the Minister of the Press Bureau of the Carlton?

If any one thinks that the influence of the press in matters, of "high politics" is on the wane in this country, let him call to mind the part which the leading articles in the Times have played in the negotiations upon the Treaty of Washington. The nation has never quite known its own mind upon the difficult points as they have arisen, until it has digested the morning editorial. Public opinion has been led mainly by the leading journal. Of course we all knew from the first that we would not pay the Indirect Damages; but until the "Thunderer" spoke, the representative Englishman was satisfied with the assurance that those claims were excluded by the Treaty. Government and the English Commissioners were clear that those claims had no chance within the terms

of the Treaty and the protocols. Lord Granville's arguments to that effect have been unanswered, unanswerable, and overwhelming. Therefore, but for the newspapers, and especially the Times, England would have been very well pleased if our Minister for Foreign Affairs had addressed Mr. Fish in some such terms as these: "Those Indirect Claims are not provided for in the Treaty; you may go to the arbitrators with them if you like, but we give you notice beforehand that if the Court award Indirect Damages we will not pay them." The onus of withdrawing from the Treaty would then have been thrown upon the American Government. I do not say that this is the course which ought to have been adopted; but I am satisfied that my fellow countrymen would have been content that such an ultimatum should go forth from Downing Street, were it not for the refinements of the gentlemen who write the leading articles.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

AUGUST, 1872.

STRANGER THAN FICTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE TALLANTS OF BARTON," "THE VALLEY OF POPPIES," &c.

CHAPTER XII I.

A BOY'S WOOING.

T is a good thing to give vent to your feelings in ink. The relief thus afforded to a heart overcharged either with love or rage is immense. But it is a mistake to post the result of your lucubrations. Write love letters, write angry letters-and burn them. This is worldly wisdom. It was not, however, for common reasons that Jacob tore up a dozen letters which he had written to Lucy Cantrill. He could not sufficiently express his feelings, his pen refused to interpret his thoughts, even the Muses failed to assist him; he copied Tom Moore's amorous lines, "I love but thee," and burnt them because he was too proud to send second-hand verses to the girl who had enslaved him. At last he made up his mind, like a man, to tell Lucy he loved her, and when he saw her he only blushed, like a woman. It was about a week after he had first spoken to Lucy that he stole away from Cartown to spend his half holiday in a pilgrimage to the shrine of the factory angel.

"This is a surprise," said Lucy, as she opened the cottage door in response to Jacob's knock.

She wore a

The factory angel looked more charming than ever. lilac print dress and a black ribbon round her full fair neck. She was a blonde of the healthy kind. You could see the blood in her cheeks. She was not white, like some blondes, but red and VOL. IX., N.S. 1872.

K

white, the red a blushing rosy red that became vermilion when it reached her lips, which were pouting cherry lips. She stood firmly upon her feet and carried her head proudly after the manner of a race-horse.

Jacob thought there was a little sarcasm in her reception of him. "We are glad to see you," said the old woman promptly, as if she thought so too.

"Thank you," said Jacob.

"Pray sit down," said the old woman; "how is Dorothy?"

"She is very well," said Jacob.

"That's right; it would be a sad job if somebody didn't keep well," the old woman replied.

"How is Mr. Cantrill?" asked Jacob.

"About the same-no worse, and no better," said the old woman, "and he's getting cross, particular as this is the season when he ought to be out; gamekeeping as a business is at its best when things have to be shot."

"Yes," said Jacob.

"Lucy, my child, draw Mr. Martyn some beer after his walk," said the old woman.

"No, thank you," said Jacob, feeling that it was a degradation for Lucy to wait upon him.

"Oh, yes," said Lucy, "certainly."

Lucy tripped into the pantry, and poured out the beer for Jacob with the grace of a goddess.

Then they talked about Cartown, about Middleton, about the weather, about Mr. Cantrill's illness, about the arduous duties of a gamekeeper, and about a hundred other subjects. Lucy said very little, but she looked her best, and in order that she might do this successfully, she left the room twice to examine herself in her little glass and see that her hair kept its becoming folds. A fashionable lady would have done the same, with the addition of a little fresh rouge upon her cheeks, a general powdering, and a touch or two of the eyebrows.

Jacob was very shy and nervous. Lucy, I fear, did not compassionate him just then. She was enjoying her triumph over him. Though he was only a schoolboy, he was not an unworthy conquest. He was a manly looking fellow, and a blonde generally likes a dark lover. Jacob was dark enough, goodness knows; he might have had gipsy blood in his veins for that matter.

"The wood is very pretty to-day," said Jacob, summoning to his aid all the courage he could command.