was

It is Captain Mahan's great merit to have shown clearly that Nelson far more than a fighting seaman. The great principle, that the offensive rôle was essential to the British Navy, dominated his actions. In 1795 he writes: "I have no doubt but that, if we can get close to the enemy, we shall defeat any plan of theirs; but we ought to have our ideas beyond mere defensive measures." He fully under stood that, in certain circumstances, the loss of a squadron would be justified if the enemy's project could thereby be thwarted. When awaiting the incursion of Bruix into the Mediterranean, by which the British fleet was placed in a position of great numerical inferiority, he thus writes to St. Vincent: "Your lordship may depend that the squadron under my command shall never fall into the hands of the enemy; and, before we are destroyed, I have little doubt but that the enemy will have their wings so clipped that they may be easily overtaken." No one ever more perfectly grasped the fact that risks must be taken in war; no one certainly was ever more willing to take risks for a sufficient object. Yet Nelson, when determined to fight, left nothing to chance, never neglected details, willingly accepted counsel, while never for a moment evading responsibility, and was particularly careful in imparting his views to his captains.

him constituted his good fortune and his greatness." One other quality is, however, essential to a great commander-the power of winning the love of his subordinates and so of obtaining their best services. This also Nelson possessed in a marked degree. Restive under incompetent superiors, he was always thoughtful of the welfare of his inferiors. The man who, just before Trafalgar, recalled the mail by signal because a petty officer of the Victory had omitted to post a letter to his wife, and who refused to give to his valued friend the command of a seventy-four because it would rob a lieutenant of coming honor-"No, Blackwood, it is these men's birthright, and they shall have it"-could count upon the loyal support which never failed him in the hour of battle.

Captain Mahan has given us incomparably the best life of Nelson that has yet appeared. No other writer could have paid so worthy a tribute to the greatest director of naval war—a tribute which gains in force because of its evident spontaneity. To the British nation the value of this book cannot be overrated. The principles which guided Nelson to victory are eternal; the qualities he displayed have now a far wider scope than in his day. For rapidity and certainty of movement favor the offensive, and, by conferring a vast increase of possibilities, distinctly enhance the importance of the personal factor. Nelson was the most brilliant exponent alike of a national policy and a national spirit. If we cling to the one and other, the unknown

keep alive the future can be

G. S. CLARKE.

From The Argosy.

THE FOURTH MISS GYURKOVICS.

(FROM THE HUNGARIAN.) Every year the Gyurkovics of Tamási put the proceeds of the tobacco factory in their pockets and came down to Pesth to combine a visit to their

brother the deputy with a little amusement.

Along the Corso in the mornings, on the ice in the afternoons, they were always en evidence, while every evening at theatres, balls or concerts they were to be seen enjoying themselves to the scrape of fiddles and the popping of champagne corks until the small hours. while, wherever they appeared a perfect stream of tips followed for coachmen, waiters, gipsy musicians and all sorts of hangers-on.

Then, too, they moved about in such an immense family party as reminded one of patriarchal times; all their young men were officers or government officials, or rising young lawyers, and had the reputation of being ready to flirt with anybody at any moment, though it was understood they were not marrying men. Whereas, on the other hand, it was well known that no eligible parti who came within flirting distance of one of their sisters could possibly escape.

Every year the Gyurkovics' parents brought a fresh daughter to Pesth and provided her with a husband. Nobody knew how many girls still remained at home, but it is certain that as soon as one was settled another appeared immediately to take her place. They were all charmingly pretty and coquettish; could dance seven Csardas running without feeling any fatigue, and could sit night after night at the supper table till the dawn began to creep in without showing any deterioration of their dazzling complexions.

To see one of them roll and light a cigarette-after a glance at her brother the deputy for permission - simply turned your head! No wonder if after a good lot of champagne, and the near proximity of a round white shoulder, an eligible partner began to murmur all sorts of ridiculous things, which were promptly clinched by the young lady's practical answer, "Please speak direct to mamma!"

It was thus that three of the Miss Gyurkovics had already found excellent husbands, and had settled down, report said, into the best of wives. When the shopkeepers in the Waitznergasse were set to work upon lace petti

coats, and embroidered table-linen, people nudged each other and wondered what dowry the girls had. The initiated smiled, for they guessed how Mamma Gyurkovics contrived those flounced petticoats and other smartnesses of the trousseau out of her own special industry of peach-liqueur, of which, nevertheless, she continued to send each to her married daughters a dozen bottles every autumn.

Two years ago the good lady brought her fourth daughter to Pesth. Ella was this one's name, and she was quite half a head taller and a good bit more coquettish than any of her sisters before her. The young men who were introduced to her swore that she was out and away the prettiest of all the Gyurkovics' girls, and that meant that she was the prettiest of all the girls who came to Pesth, be the others who they might! With astonishing ease Ella Gyurkovics took to the asphalt and parquet of town life, having all the experience of her three preceding sisters to help her. From the very first evening, in a five hours' sitting at supper at the Bristol, she made a conquest of the gipsy orchestra, and so enchanted the first violin that at all the concerts and restaurants nothing but her favorite airs were to be heard. As usual the Gyurkovics fever seized all the young men in the town, and to all appearance it lay completely in Ella's power to decide which of them should be conducted towards the inevitable crisis, to which all laid themselves open. Nevertheless everything went

awry.

It was a certain Andreas Gabor whom Ella encouraged most markedly, and, as her brother had occasion to point out later, her unexpected mismanagement of the affair ended in the Gyurkovics family having to return to their country home, after their fortnight was over, without having received the proposal which was evidently their due-a thing which had never happened to them before!

Andreas Gabor, with whom the fourth Miss Gyurkovics had really fallen in love, was an exceedingly eligible and well-behaved young lawyer, perhaps almost too correct in his behavior

to fall in with the usual plans of the country family.

A young man who set himself to check the waiter's bill while the supper Csardas was being danced, and who appeared to grow more and more circumspect the more champagne he took, might well arouse the suspicions of Mamma Gyurkovics.

"I believe that young Gabor is after money," she observed to her daughter. "Perhaps it would be as well if you gave him his congé, so that he does not manage to spoil your other chances."

But Ella was really in love, and was not at all inclined to let Andreas slip. Somehow she contrived that he seldom danced with any other girl, and was generally beside her out walking or on the ice. When she touched his champagne glass with her own before drinking, and he saw her brown eyes look straight into his (in spite of her mother's warning frown), the young man's head, cool as it was, began to buzz with strange fancies.

"How can one think of marrying into such a family unless one is a regular Rothschild? I don't know what they would expect; but―"

Gabor left this thought unfinished and picked up Ella's fan, which lay beside her.

"What a lovely fan! I should like to get one like it for my sister. Are they very expensive?"

"Oh, not at all! If you like I could order one for you-only eighty florins!" The young man bit his lip.

"Eighty florins!" he thought to himself; "just the third part of my month's salary!"

One of the young Gyurkovics was angrily finding fault with a waiter: he had ordered Monopol, and they had brought him Promontore Monopol.

"Do you take me for a cab-driver that you serve me with Hungarian champagne?" he demanded in a rage.

"No, no! I cannot marry into such an extravagant family as this," Andreas Gabor sighed to himself.

The fortnight was almost over, the Gyurkovics' money was almost finished, and it began to be time for them to pack and return home. Ella, who was as lovesick as any schoolgirl, did not

know how to face the approaching parting. She pinned all her hopes on the farewell supper-party, at which all the Gyurkovics were to be entertained by Gabor and his set; perhaps he meant to speak out on his last opportunity. He sat as usual at her side, and what with the thought of parting and the tenderness of Ella's manner, he came very nearly forgetting his prudent resolve of the previous week; it was a stupid action on Ella's part which recalled him to his right mind. The gipsys were playing Ella's favorite melody, and she called across Gabor to her brother the deputy.

"Milan, I want you to lend me three ten florins notes!"

"What for?"

"To give the gipsys."

"Nonsense! That's my affair!"

1

When she saw that he did not mean to give her the money she loosed from her arm a shining gold bangle, set with little brilliants, and tossed it into the plate which the gipsys had handed round. The deputy brother seemed annoyed at first, then he began to laugh, and redeemed the bracelet with thirty florins.

Andreas Gabor buttoned up his coat, "I should be a fool, merely fit for a strait waistcoat, if I offered myself in such a family!" thought he; and with that he turned to the lady on his other side, to whom he had only just been introduced, and whose name he had not caught, and began to make himself exceedingly agreeable.

And next day the Gyurkovics family. left Pesth for their country seat, Mamma Gyurkovics taking home with her the disappointing conviction that her fourth daughter was not the success that she had expected.

It was eight months later and already. mid-autumn. Andreas Gabor was spending some time in the country with his relations, for the quail-shooting, and suddenly he remembered that he was in the neighborhood of the Gyurkovics.

"I ought to go and call," he explained to his people. "I was always meeting them in the winter at Pesth."

It was arranged that they should go. shooting in the direction of the Gyurko

vics' house and drop Gabor to pay his visit; so it happened that he found himself one middleday, with a gun on his shoulder and a tired pointer at his heels, in front of the great old country house, just outside the village, which he guessed must be the Gyurkovics' home. "I hope I know them well enough to drop in and take a plate of soup without ceremony," he thought hungrily as he stepped across the courtyard. The house certainly showed no outward signs of magnificence, and testified in no wise to the æsthetic tastes of its inhabitants. In the great empty, sunshiny forecourt, some guinea-fowl were scratching up the sand; on the paling a lot of milk-cans and wooden tubs were stuck upside down to dry.

Not a living soul did Gabor encounter as he stepped softly into the corridor which ran along the front of the house. He did not dare penetrate farther in that direction, fearing to stumble upon one of the young ladies in négligé perhaps, and turned instead towards the laundry, under the big mulberry tree, where the week's washing was going forward and a whole swarm of maids were passing to and fro with baskets of linen, while the ironing-board stood in the shadow of the over-reaching thatch. The gentlemen's shirts, with stitched fronts, which required special attention and careful treatment, were sorted out and put ready for Miss Ella's iron. For here was Ella herself with a white handkerchief tied over her hair and her sleeves rolled up above the elbow, her cheeks pink and warm from the heat of the iron which from time to time she tested against them.

hem

As she caught sight of the approaching sportsman, and recognized who he was, she gave a cry and made a rush for the house, almost losing a slipper in her hurry to escape. Two or three others of the girls who were engaged with the family washing-and who were also the Miss Gyurkovics-followed their sister's example; only the genuine washerwomen stolidly stuck to their business.

Andreas Gabor went back to his relations' house, and in the course of conversation retailed this curious advenin pain an ad un se o

his lips; "What would you have?" he asked. "Mrs. Gyurkovics has such a lot of children that she is obliged to set them all to work. The sons who remain at home attend to the farm, the daughters manage the kitchen and dairy. They scrub, cook, iron, prepare the market produce, make all sorts of still-room confections

Andreas Gabor clasped his hands: "If you could only have seen them in Pesth!"

"Of course! because they spend down there what they earn here in a year's hard work. I suppose in town they pass for grandees-eh? They work the whole year in order to enjoy that fortnight in Pesth, and stint themselves in nothing as long as it lasts!"

Miss Ella Gyurkovics was not a little astonished to find that, in spite of the ironing episode, young Gabor repeated his visit to her mother's house early in the partridge-shooting season. Не found her in the forecourt as he apz proached overseeing some workmen, with a cloth covering her pretty hair from the dust. This time she did not attempt to escape from him, for she had given up the hope of impressing him with her grandeur; she made room for him beside her on a heap of empty sacks, and when he sat down she let the cover slide off her hair on to her shoulders. She spoke of all sorts of indifferent subjects. Then he suddenly interrupted.

"Do you remember, Ella, that last evening at Pesth, when we danced together? I did not think then that I should ever see you like this!"

The girl grew very red; then with a quick, natural impulse she turned and looked the young man full in the face.

"It matters very little. I did not please you particularly that evening¬ nor can I please you much now!"

"You are mistaken. Both then and now you pleased and please me very much indeed!"

"But better that evening in Pesth?" "On the contrary, much better here in Tamási!"

The girl shook her head doubtingly and looked down at her leather country. soled shoes just showing beyond her.

Ella seemed to weigh the proposal for a minute or two, then she answered, "Please speak direct to mamma!"

Andreas Gabor went to Mamma Gyurkovics straight away. Afterwards Mamma Gyurkovics said to her daughters: "I always knew that it was necessary to impress a man, but I had no idea that household work and all that sort of thing, would make such an impression on a man of the world like Gabor!"

A few months later Ella Gyurkovics' trousseau was on view in show-rooms of the Waitzner-gasse in Pesth, and every one was astonished at the elegance of the embroidered petticoats and the lace-trimmed tea-gowns. And the following carnival Mamma Gyurkovics brought her fifth daughter to town, who was even prettier than the four previous sisters.

G. B. STUART.

From The Cornhill Magazinc. PARIS IN JUNE, 1871.

It may be said without much fear of contradiction that no one now living can remember a period when the tension of interest in public affairs was comparable to that which existed in the spring of 1871. Events had been moving for some months past with a rapidity the like of which history did not record. We had seen the European centre of gravity shifted before our eyes; the first military power in the world, or what gave itself out for such, had collapsed like a house of cards, and flimsy cards at that. The nation which

seemed to have said, "I shall be a lady forever,” had learnt what was meant by desolation and loss of children, and famine and the sword, and appeared indeed to have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling. It seemed inconceivable that fortune could have any bitterer draught in store for France.

The war between Germany and France was over; the conquerors, in final token of their triumph, had shown themselves in the heart of the capital, and had settled into temporary occupation of the surrounding fortresses which had held them at bay for so many months. The storm seemed to have passed, and the time for taking stock of damages and projecting repairs to have arrived, when, after March was more than half passed, we were startled by a fresh roll of thunder, rising from the very quarter where the last rumblings had but just died down. Paris, ever the worst enemy of France, had broken loose once more. Maddened by the tortures of the long months of siege, its people—“fickle, impressionable, credulous, capable alike of every heroism and every crime”—had fallen an easy victim to men "who talked of plots against the republic, of heroism, of combats; flattering, at the same time, their material instincts, and blinding them with the two words 'treason' and 'misery.' The events of the next ten weeks will never be forgotten by any one who witnessed them, though it were only through the eyes of the daily papers. Victor Hugo has taught us to see in the Second Empire the expiation for the crime of the 18th Brumaire; and surely the worst deeds of the Terror underwent retribution in the squalid parodies of them perpetraced by the Commune of 1871. Many of the leaders contrived to save their own skins; it is amusing at this time, indeed, to look through the lists of condemnations and see how many were sentenced par contumace. There were a few estimable men among them, of whom some perished in the storm of brutal and indiscriminating vengeance with which the "party of order" disgraced their cause; while others have long since been merged in the bourgeoisie to which they once professed un