and the English waiter. The Frenchman is a little abrupt sometimes, but he is never wanting in the essentials of politeness. He respects your position, but he also respects his own; he has as much right to be a waiter as you have to be a customer. So that he obeys orders with alacrity there is nothing more required of him. The English waiter is twice as respectful; if he considers you an important person he will fawn and cringe to any extent, and take a tender interest in your slightest requirements. But he looks to fees in proportion, and if disappointed-well, our illustrative friend the "bear with a sore head" is a placid and urbane being in comparison. The Frenchman is profoundly grateful for two or three sous.

Observe, too, the terms upon which families are with their servants. There are good and bad domestics in France as elsewhere; but unless special causes intervene there is far more personal sympathy between servants of both sexes and their masters and mistresses among the French than among ourselves. The result is traceable to causes already noticed-self-respect on either side, with mutual respect between the two, and good manners, which command good tempers, and keep off quarrels. When there is a domestic battle it is at least fought upon equal ground; there is no withering contempt on the one side and vulgar insults on the other; the storm may rage with great fury for a time, but it does not damage, and the calm of reconciliation comes without leaving any necessary bitterness in the air.

In public places where people of different classes crowd together you see nothing in France, as you usually do in England, of the dislike to use no stronger term-borne by the ill-dressed towards the well-dressed people-adopting the most obvious distinction. There may be political ill feeling-manifested pretty strongly-but there is nothing of the social spite which occasionally leads an English mob to pelt everybody in carriages or in good clothes.

I have cited France as the natural country for comparison-being, as she is, the oldest enemy and the newest friend of England; but other examples might be drawn from other nations, with the conclusion, I am afraid, that "low society" in this country is lower than it is among most of our neighbours. This, however, must be said for ourselves that while the "rough" element has increased, is increasing, and must be diminished, the manners of respectable people of humbler ranks have undergone considerable improvement of late years, and are becoming sensibly emolliated, under the influences of the ingenuous arts, and more and more removed from their former ferocity. And the same faults, be it remembered, belong to the best society, with the difference that they are tempered by training and education. There is a notable characteristic of the reserve of "high society"

that it shrinks with most dread, not from "low society," but from an enemy which is more formidable because it is more near. I mean "high-low society;" and by this term I mean, not middle-class society, but the army of pretenders to social elevation whose hordes harass the rear and the flanks of fashion and storm the strongholds of political life. These are not the people from whom the ranks of the great world (so frequently, as we have seen, through the medium of seats in Parliament) are principally recruited. The majority of the latter arrive at a certain degree of wealth or importance, and assume their position almost as a matter of course. But of the agitators, a few, of course, succeed here and there. When they do succeed there is no help for it: they must be tolerated. But the approaches of the body generally are watched with a jealous eye, and every guard is placed against any possible opening. If they are nobodies who can be treated with contempt they are punctually so treated, and soon get tired of the game. But it frequently happens that they are people who can be made useful or may prove mischievous, and they take rank among the greatest bores of all-the bores to whom you must be civil. As a general rule the political aspirants are social aspirants also, on account of their wives and daughters, and I need not say how the pushing process is performed from the several quarters-how Government and Opposition, through their electioneering agents, are pestered for support, "interviewed," and drawn into correspondence on the smallest pretence; how lady patronesses and lady leaders generally are flattered and fawned upon, courted with unnecessary cards, and compelled into conversation in public places, all for the sake of an occasional appearance in the great world, as preliminary to a permanent footing therein. Even the end of the season brings no escape, for electioneering goes on in the recess, and there is no favourite resort abroad which is sacred from social aspirants. The "high-lows," in fact, are the pests of society, and the cause of an amount of political demoralisation which it would be difficult to calculate. For actual M.P.'s, as well as aspirants, are frequently susceptible to social influences, and division lists tell strange tales to those behind the scenes. An American candidate for parliamentary honours is said to have concluded an address to the electors by saying " These, gentlemen, are my deliberate convictions, but if they do not meet with your approval they can be changed." It would be only honest if some high-lows said as much to a Minister.

SIDNEY L. BLANCHARD.

CRISPUS.

A POETIC ROMANCE.

PART III.

ET us away to softer scenes that grace
The acts of love. Who has not found a face
To cherish by the day and by the night?

Who has not fallen a victim to the light
Of beauty's eyes? and dreamt of them, and stored
Together all fond words for his adored?

It should be so and is, and who can give
His soul to love has learnt betimes to live.
Hast ever seen betrothed couple walk
In close embrace, and overheard them talk
And never loved? Or seen their meeting lips
Take nectar and ambrosia in warm sips
And never loved? or hast thou ever seen
A group of laughing damsels on a green.
And never loved? Hast ever strayed
With gentle friends, or ever prayed,

And never loved? In bed hast ever sighed,
And watched the moon, and lingered open-eyed,
And never loved? No, no, it cannot be.
We all have loved, therefore your sympathy
For one who worshipped at Venus' shrine
Shall for a little time be linked with mine.

In that same wood where in a deadly swound
The luckless Crispus, bleeding, sank to ground
A cottage crusted with the rime of age
Stood 'neath a covering of foliage

So thickly-clustered that the boughs could rest.
Their heads upon the bushes' pillowy breast,
And suck the honeyed breath of eglantine,
Or shade the amorous linnets drinking wine
From petalled goblets hung on juicy stems,
Besprinkled with minutest shiny gems,

From whence the butterfly at morning brings
The pearly powdering to dust his wings
Before he goes a wooing in the glade.
The velvet verdure a full umbrage made,
And kept the quiet dwelling place unseen
By graceless wayfarers, and formed a screen.
To hold aloof the scorching noonday blaze.

It were a pity that on healthy days
Of summertime a lover should be wed
To sickness and be forced to lie abed.
Inside the shaded cot, with eyes half closed,
On smoothest couch lay one who gently dozed.
He slept a little, then would wake again

To smile and doze once more: he felt no pain,
There was no agony, no touch of strife

In his wan face; he seemed too pale for life;

Yet this was rosy health to what had been

Long days before when his deep wound was green-
For it was Crispus; he had cheated death,
And ev'ry morning breathed with stronger breath.
Beside him watched the maid who ran away
In dread from Delon ere the deadly fray.
She guarded him in sleep, and when awake
She was beside his couch to cheer or make
His pillow softer still; so she had caught
Her soul in him : her heart with his had grown,
For in his nature she had found her own.
When he was sad no comfort did she know,
When he was glad she felt the joy also.

She shared his health, she pined when he was ill,
If he grew cold of hope she felt the chill.

Sure I shall fail in telling of a maid

So beautiful, and I am half afraid
To venture more in telling of the sight,
Or of the tender feelings of delight
That stole enchantingly into his mind,
And to his own misfortunes made him blind.
He'd read of maidens in romantic books
All gentleness, of beauteous make and looks
Divinely sweet, and who were deemed too fair
To live on earth and breathe the common air

With uncouth mortals, and he had read
Of maids too pure for any man to wed.
But beauties of the fancy cannot vie
With beauties nature gives unto the eye;
For who can maidens find, in prose or rhyme,

To match a real maiden in her prime :
One who can charm to ecstasy and burn
With passion for the wooer in return?

And Crispus gained in health and sober blood:
He rose betimes and wandered in the wood,
Bathing his forehead in the shaded wind,
With health at heart and love upon his mind,
Thinking upon the chances of his days,
The villain Delon, and the happy ways

That he had come to through the door of death ;
That he had saved the daughter of the man
That split his flesh, that, faint and wan,

He had been cared for: and, strange the end,
His enemy was fatherlike and friend.
That he had been as is a younger brother,
That neither knew in deed or name the other;
That he had saved a maid from canker breath,
That she had saved him from the touch of death;
That ev'ry coming morrow saw him grow
Deep in new life and in new love also.

Thinking upon his innermost desire,

He lifted up his eyes, and saw the sire
Of her he loved: they met, and at the meeting
Joined in a mutual warm-hearted greeting.
It were too long a story to relate

Long friendly speeches of a long debate

On the strange present, and the stranger past.
They were as friends. Occasion came at last
For each to know the story of each other.
Crispus confessed him to his elder brother:
"Know I am not the beggar youth I look ;
These poor habiliments from choice I took,
For I have been at Court, and seen the shine
Upon the palace-walls of Constantine.
We two have sat together drinking wine