a

to

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye he was unsuccessful. lior a while he never

As the perfumed tincture of the rose. got out of the last thousand of the ten or But when Titania speaks of “killing can- twelve thousand candidates who aspired kers in the musk-rose buds," or the poet

as he aspired. sings in the “Sonnets” that “ loathsome Time went on, however, and by the help canker lives in sweetest bud,” the refer- of the most untiring assiduity he began ence is to a parasitic worm.

towards the middle of his life to be reSince the days when Montgomery cham-garded as a promising student. If he pioned the cause of the lily, the ranks of continued to progress in the same ratio, that fair flower in our own country have there was yet some likelihood that ere been strengthened by a vast reinforcement he was fifty he might meet with his re from foreign climes. The giant lily (Lili-ward. um giganteum or cordifolium) is as hardy

Seng was the more stimulated to peras the hemlock, and soars to the height of severe inasmuch as he was not at ease in eight or ten feet under favorable circum. his home circie. His father was dead. stances; the Isabella lily (L. testaceum), of His mother was blind, and of an unamiable hybrid origin, almost equals it in stature, disposition. Indeed, she was more than and is distinguished from all others by its upamiable; by some aberration of heart delicate apricot hue; while of Lilium she began to scoff at her son, and upauratum, the gold-rayed lily of Japan, the braid him for his deficiency of intellect. most gorgeous plant that will endure our She also behaved very badly indeed to her trying climate, it is worth recording that daughter-in-law, the student's wife. the variety platyphyllum is by far the

Herein Seng appears to have shown finest and the most permanent, coming up

some indiscretion. He married a girl year after year in the same spot, whereas with enchanting teeth and eyes, but next the other varieties generally perish in the to no brains. This was a manifest consecond or third season.

travention of the natural law which impels Gardeners love to prose about their pur: intellectual man a mere doll of a girl for a

a duli man to seek a clever wife, and an suit; 'tis such a seductive hobby, and ambles along so easily that it were easy

helpmate. It would have mattered the strain the reader's patience; so only one

less - - even if it had not been a positive other point in the decoration of grounds convenience -- had not Madame Seng (as will be here alluded to. Statuary is sel- we will call the old lady, Seng's moiber) dom used in the decoration of gardens now,

become much incapacitated by her bliodyet of all places where it can be seen to

As it was, she desired a daughteradvantage it is there. It gives a feeling of in-law whom she could rely upon to do repose which is an indispensable quality everything connected with the house, in garden scenery, and in return receives from buying rice to dusting the domestic tranquil attention, which can seldom be effigies, as well as to be infinitely patient bestowed on it in public places. With and long-suffering under the abuse and trees, flowers, fair statues, greensward, even blows which she loved to bestow and song of birds, what pleasant resting- upon subordinates. places the pilgrims of life may make for

Seng's wife, however, was not such a themselves!

girl. She suited Seng, and Seng suited HERBERT MAXWELL.

her, because he was at all times fairly civil towards her. She took the greatest pos. sible care of her teeth, and daily washed her eyes with a celebrated perfumed water warranted to preserve their brightness.

For the rest, she was content so she From The Cornhill Magazine. could avoid her mother-in-law's voice and THE CANDIDATE.

the cane with which latterly, in her old SENG was forty-five years of age, and age, the blind woman was often wont to one of the most painstaking students of pursue her. Vain was it for Seng, in re. his time of life to be found in Peking. sponse to his mother's complaints, to dole

For the past thirty years he had regu- forth moral maxims for his wife's imlarly entered his name in the great civil provement. The copy-book phrases were service examinations which take place excellently spoken, but they fell on unferthroughout the empire. Hard indeed had tile soil. And, moreover, when Seng he striven to qualify himself for the honor perceived through his spectacles how of official employment. But he was, alas, snow-white were his spouse's pretty teeth, by nature rather dull, and year after year and with what an attractive lustre her eyes

ness,

after year went by, with failure ever in their | ods of profit and loss. At the time of the train. The thought of his mother, and great examination he backs candidates in the possibility that she was still working a series, even as the Italian with a spare mischief for him, often depressed him im- half-franc backs the numbers his superstimeasurably. But he struggled on bravely, tion and the latest popular dream-book and at length made really substantial urge him to favor with his suffrages. progress in the lists. A compassionate mandarin employed him in the mean time as a sort of fifth-rate clerk. The wage was ridiculous, but Seng and his wife made it suffice. They trusted to the future to recompense them.

This brings us to Seng's forty-sixth year, which found him in Peking, and a hot favorite for the honors of the examination that was impending. The mandarin in whose service he was had entrusted him with a commission of some delicacy. He was to bribe a superior as astutely as possible for a certain purpose. It was by no means a task to our friend's taste, but he sighed and fulfilled it, so skilfully indeed that he gained the regard of the sinner; and then he turned himself to his slips and moral exercises with the zeal and sprightliness of a boy.

"It shall be this year or never," he said to himself. He said it also to his tutor, who had great confidence in him, and who did not scruple, over innumerable cups of tea, to whisper it abroad that Piseng was as sure of a place this year as man could be.

And so it happened that, as the fame of Seng's indefatigable industry and more than usually strenuous efforts at his studies became noised abroad in the parlors of professors and the back streets of Peking, the public began to fancy him as a winning card.

Great, then, was the run upon the series in which the name of Piseng appeared.

Word of this was of course soon brought to our friend, who abode with his wife in a small house in a mean part of the city.

"They shall not be disappointed," said Seng, with ill-concealed elation. "There are virtues of different kinds, but of these the pre-eminent ones are as follows

All day long he gave himself over to his labors. His wife was as anxious as he was. For the time she thought less about her lovely, almond-shaped eyes and white teeth than about the issue of the dreaded examination. Indeed the result of this seemed to her almost of more consequence than the flat-browed little boy babe which she bore upon her lap, and which had signalized the past year by coming into the world to bless her.

It was absurd that they should starve as underlings in a mandarin's household when Seng had the ability at length to become, may be, a mandarin himself.

Now Piseng was our friend's full name, but for brevity's sake he was generally known by the ordinary name of Seng. In the schools, however, he was of course entered in full, and the prefix "Pi" gave People took to stopping Seng in the him a certain distinction which the multi-streets, and paying him wonderful complitude of other candidates with names as common as our Smith, Brown, Robinson, Jones, etc., by no means enjoyed.

As the time came on for the great examinations to begin, the influx of students into the imperial city made a perceptible difference in the population of the streets. It also caused proportionate excitement among the students themselves, their kindred, and the various proprietors of the lotteries, who were now to reap their annual harvest of cash and taels from the speculative inhabitants of the city. And this is one of the many odd features of life in the far East, as contrasted with life among ourselves.

In the south of Europe the lotteries are concerned with inanimate numbers. You invest your money on these in a series, and thus you lose it—much more often than not. With us horse-racing seems on a par with the lotteries. But the exalted Chinaman is not content with such meth

ments. They also implored him, of his infinite courtesy, to oblige them by succeeding as a candidate. They were interested in his success or failure to the extent of an indefinite number of taels.

This was of course exceedingly pleasant from one point of view. It was the kind of thing that could not fail to encourage a sanguine student. But, on the other hand, though at first Seng took it as a high honor, and would blush when his virtues and application were so elaborately extolled to his face, by and by he began to feel that there was a responsibility about his position which affected his nerves.

It is dreadful, my peacock eye," he said to his wife one day when he felt very tenderly towards her, "it is dreadful to understand that upon my own unaided achievements depends the happiness or the disappointment of so many of my fellow-creatures."

"But why need it be? Is it not their

а

a

examinations before him. Then there in regard to its treatment of his religious was his child, so pink and white, and views. On the one hand these attacks likely to have a large appetite.

seemed to call for a rejoinder, and on the I will receive the ten thousand taels,” other to forbid it. It was futile to reason said Seng, “and having them, I will quit with critics * who demanded of me an in. Pekiog at once. It shall suffice for me spired as well as circumstantial knowledge henceforward that I pursue the three hap- of the life I had been called upon to depict, pinesses of long life, wealth, and a family and were prepared to decline my unsupof sons. My constitution, though im-ported authority for any one of its facts; paired, may yet suffice for the first and who had framed for themselves a scheme last of these desirable ends. As for the of what that life must be, and measured wealth, your esteemed consideration and not only my competence but my sincerity my own self-sacrifice in the present matter as a biographer by the degree in which I may serve as a stepping-stone to it. I carried it out. I could only appeal from have said."

the unreason and the uncharitableness of " Most discreet Piseng," was the other's the one class of judges to the more symreply, and after a few more words he with pathetic justice of another; and the predrew, promising that the money should be dominating kindness with which my work sent that same night.

had been received rendered such an appeal In effect it was sent, and received, and superfluous. From the point of view of the following morning, instead of sitting my own interest it seemed best that I down to a tiresome desk, our friend, with should remain silent. his wife and child, and the money in port- But my critics were not the only class able form, set out for Canton, where he with which I was concerned. They had proposed to begin a new life devoted to awakened me to the probable existence of commerce instead of official honor. large groups of men and women whose

This desertion of literature for com- faith in Mr. Browning was bound up with merce was a sad drop in the world for our his supposed allegiance to the literal forms poor friend. As a student of the charac- of Christianity, and had been wounded by ter, and a disciple of the great Confucius my exposition of its error ; and I felt with and Mencius, he was an aristocrat of the deep regret that, in wounding that faith, I Flowery Land, though poor as a harbor had rendered myself responsible, not only coolie or a chair porter. But in taking to to those who held it, but to him whose trade he degraded himself below the un-memory it enshrined. It occurred to me lettered worker in the fields. The worst that the irritation which my statements of it was that he ascribed this perversion had aroused was due in part to their of his better nature, not to his own un brevity, in part also to their impersonal righteous and lazy instincts, but to his character; and that if I had made them at mother's untiring and discontented spirit. more length, and with more effort to ex

He proposed, however, to assuage the plain and justify them, they might have ghost's malignancy by paying a nice little carried more weight, and caused less pain sum to one of the most learned doctors of in the proceeding. It seemed still possiFeng-Shin (or ghost lore) in the country. ble to rectify the mistake, and at a great If it were necessary to move the old lady's sacrifice of personal inclination I deterbones, even that also should be done, mined to do so. I sketched out the conthough the cost might be great.

tents of an article which set forth in more It need hardly be added that the backers detail what I understood to be Mr. Brownof the Piseng series in the examinations ing's faith, the reason he had given me were exceedingly wroth with Seng. But for so understanding it, the positive and they had no redress.

negative evidence in my favor to be dis. covered in the works. But meanwhile these very conclusions had been in the main endorsed by two important represen

tatives of the Church press; and since From The Contemporary Review.

then a critique of the “ Life and Letters THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF ROBERT in the London Quarterly Review has in. BROWNING