tions is to leave the impression that it may be made supporting. Various sources of public self-revenue have been indicated, which, however, we need not enter upon here. and considerate policy towards the native races; the careful prosecution of the educational and religious aims of the missions; a rigorous exclusion of "fire-water" and unscrupulous speculators; a judicious fostering of native industries, and the gradual addition of others adapted to the land and the people,will combine to make New Guinea, if not an immediate object for large employment of British capital, at any rate a possession of considerable actual value and much promise. If gold is discovered in paying quantities, of course the prospect will widen consider New Guinea has been annexed mainly for political purposes. The interesting point now is whether it is likely to be of commercial value in the future. From what has been said, it will be seen that there are good reasons for believing that the commercial potentiality is by no means unimportant, although the exaggerated expectations which have been entertained in Australia may not be realized. A wise | ably. W. H. E. LECKY. In a THE HISTORY OF THE UMBRELLA. In the close of the century umbrellas had passed Queen Anne's time it is mentioned both by into general use. Swift and Gay as employed by women, but up to the middle of the eighteenth century it ap- HEART DISEASE IN THE FRENCH ARMY. pears never to have been used in England by It has been observed in the French army that men, though Wolfe, the future conqueror of diseases of the heart are very common. Quebec, wrote from Paris, in 1752, describing recent study of this subject, certain military it as in general use in that city, and wonder- doctors show that they arise from the fatiguing ing that so convenient a practice had not yet duties imposed on recruits at an age when, penetrated to England. Hanway, the famous traveller and philanthropist, who returned to generally, the development of the body is not England in 1750, is said to have been the first in advance of it or behind it. In the latter in harmony with that of the heart, being either Englishman who carried an umbrella; and a Scotch footman, named John MacDonald, former, insufficiency (the more common occur case, there is hypertrophy of growth; in the who had travelled with his master in France rence). An instance is given in which a regi and Spain, mentions in his curious autobiog- ment in garrison in the west, in 1880, had on raphy that he brought one to London in 1778, an average twelve to fifteen men per thousand and persisted in carrying it in wet weather, invalided annually (the normal figure for the though a jeering crowd followed him, crying, French army), of which number two or three "Frenchman, why don't you get a coach? In about three months, he says, the annoy- to the regiment who had very faulty notions had hypertrophy of the heart. A colonel came ance almost ceased, and gradually a few foreigners and then some Englishmen followed could stand. By September, 1883, the numas to the amount of drill and fatigue the men his example. Defoe had described an umber of heart invalids had risen steadily to brella as one of the contrivances of Robinson twenty-two out of forty-five (ie., about one in Crusoe, and umbrellas were in consequence two). at one time called "Robinsons." They were long looked on as a sign of extreme effeminacy, and they multiplied very slowly. Dr. Jamieson, in 1782, is said to have been the first person who used one at Glasgow; and Southey's mother, who was born in 1752, was accustomed to say that she remembered the time when any one would have been hooted who carried one in the streets of Bristol. A single coarse cotton one was often kept in a coffee-house to be lent out to customers, or in a private house to be taken out with the carriage and held over the heads of ladies as they got in or out; but for many years those who used umbrellas in the streets were exposed to the insults of the mob, and to the persistent and very natural animosity of the hackney coachmen, who bespattered them with mud and lashed them furiously with their whips. But the manifest convenience of the new fashion secured its ultimate triumph, and before Leslie's Illustrated Paper. An IMPROVISED AMBULANCE TRAINS. The French railway companies have received notice that when the long-talked-of mobilization of an army corps is effected, they will be called upon to provide ambulance trains. experiment with such a train was recently made in Paris. The train was designed for carrying one hundred and fifty wounded from París to Havre. It consisted of twenty-five carriages; three in the middle for the surgeons, nurses, and for the kitchen; ten in front and ten behind for the wounded; and two wagons, one at each end of the train, for provisions. The carriages for the wounded were luggage-trucks, in each of which eight beds were placed, four on each side. The experiment was, on the whole, satisfactory, the chief complaints being of want of ventila tion and of the roughness of the brakes. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. "You called me a bad penny That wouldn't be sent away; And I've taken the king's shilling- Oh! merry, merry piped the thrushes up in the cherry-tree, But dumb she sat on the doorstep, and out through the gate went he. Scent of hay and summer; Noise of fife and drummer; The hay will be carried presently, and the cherries gathered all, And the corn stand yellow in the shocks, and the leaves begin to fall. Perhaps some evening after, With no more song of thrush, And clink of the milking-pail. A list of names aloud; And wish one summer morning were all to do again. Macmillan's Magazine. MAY PROBYN. DESIDERIUM. Is this the same heaven that I gaze upon? It seems the sun hath emptied the whole sky, Leaving the beauteous world so silently, Without farewell, with all its glory flown. The balm of the melodious breezes blown From the pure hills, and thro' the evening dew The shining of the sad, seraphic blue, These linger with me yet, linger alone. Is there no light but what heaven keeps so far? Is it in vain, unhappy heart, to mourn? Peace, peace. Night comes, and brings her lonely star, Lonely as I, but not as I forlorn, So tranquil even in its bright unrest, Passionless Hesper in the perfect west. Academy. R. L. BINYON. From Blackwood's Magazine. HANNAH MORE. LEICESTER SQUARE in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-four, and Leicester Square during this Jubilee year of our gracious lady Queen Victoria's reign, are, it need scarcely be said, two very distinct and different places. The Leicester Square of to-day can hardly, even at a pinch, be termed an aristocratic resort or coveted place of abode. It has fallen somewhat low in its fortunes, is shady in its associations, and is apt to be looked askance upon by the prosperous and fortunate. But the little square, a hundred years ago, was a pleasant spot, and a modish part of the town; held up its head with the best, and feared neither the light of the sun nor of the moon. It was not only a locality where fortune and fashion might not fear to meet, it was more, it was absolutely a nucleus to attract beauty, youth, and rank, where the finest ladies and gentlemen of the period were fain to jostle and overrun each other, and in whose direction gallants braided and perfumed, and fair ones powdered and patched, might have been seen strutting and rustling and simpering, morning, noon, and night. For these and such as these, however, it must be owned that all the attractions of the place were confined to one red-brick mansion, in and out of which they tripped unceasingly, eager not only to display their charms within, but to have them there reproduced, ready to be handed down to admiring and envious posterity; and it was in front of the portals of this modest dwelling, with its quaintly formal rows of small-paned windows, and its broad, arched doorway, that there stood in the year above mentioned a youthful, palpitating figure, simply but elegantly clad, whose glowing cheek, restless movements, and eager demand for admittance, betrayed her to be on the very tiptoe of excitement and anticipation. It was not, however, to take her place in front of the easel that the little maiden had come to visit the great portraitpainter. Another and a widely different aspiration filled her soul; and so porten tous did its near realization appear that her tremulous fingers could scarce evoke a response from the massive knocker overhead, any more than could her quavering accents from the sober serving-man within; while once she was admitted to the panelled hall, and was being escorted up the oaken stair, the moment seemed to the eyes of fancy and enthusiasm invested with a halo lifting it above the realms of reality. Do not smile at her it was a great moment. Awaiting his visitor, there stood one of the most gifted men of the age; and within a chamber hard by, a still more widely famous potentate remained, to whom the little rustic was presently conducted, and could she believe her ears? -presented in terms to make any vain young head ring again. There, in short, Sir Joshua Reynolds laid the foundation stone of a friendship between Hannah More and Samuel Johnson. There are few but will sympathize with the emotions of the youthful Hannah on the occasion. Reared in obscurity, but all aglow with genius, and panting for distinction in the world of thought and letters, what must not such an interview and such a welcome have seemed to portend? Hitherto it had been the highest ambition of her heart to behold, and, if befriended by fate, to hearken to these two worldknown celebrities from some safe and secure hiding-place in the dim background; and for this she had, she owned, entertained some sort of shadowy hope on arriving within the charmed circle of the metropolis some ten days previously, but little had she then dreamed of being so greeted face to face, and, instead of being permitted simply to worship from afar, of finding herself the object of their paternal admiration and regard. ampled gallantry, he paid Sir Joshua's | a learned education, with a view to his tak guest the unexpected and from him very ing holy orders, but his early expectareal compliment of accosting her with one of her own verses. Could any courtly beau of the period have behaved more prettily? tions had been defeated by the failure of a lawsuit, and he had been fain to accept the mastership of a foundation school in Gloucestershire, where he had married the daughter of a neighboring farmer, a young woman of plain education, but endowed like himself with a vigorous intellect, who Nor was the interview long in being followed up by another, little less pregnant and interesting. The very next day a call at Johnson's own house is thus re-appears to have bestowed much care and corded by Hannah's soberer but scarce less enthusiastic elder sister, who on that occasion accompanied her. Can you picture to yourself [wrote she to the home circle whom the two had left behind, on this their first rapturous flight into the great world] can you picture to yourself the beating of our hearts? Abyssinia's Johnson! Dictionary's Johnson! Rambler's, Idler's, and Irene's Johnson! Miss Reynolds, who went with us, told him of our exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said she was "a silly thing." When our visit was over, he called for his hat (as it rained) to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas himself could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. The great man had not been in the parlor when the ladies had been shown in, upon seeing which, Miss Hannah, in spirits to be mischievous, had seated herself in the huge armchair by the fireplace, hoping, she had averred, to catch therefrom some ray of his genius. The flattery had been served up hot by her companions, on which the doctor had laughed heartily, and informed her it was a chair on which he never sat! Johnson afterwards spoke in such a fashion of the youthful aspirant, as procured her an immediate entry into that society where his word was law; and once launched, we can well believe she needed no supporting arms. Hannah More was still a young woman, and also remarkably young for her years, when we thus behold her on the threshold of her fame. Let us take a brief retrospective glance over her preceding life during childhood and girlhood. Respectable as was her parentage, it by no means entitled her to any position in society at any rate, in the society she courted. Her father had indeed received pains on the culture and regulation of her numerous children. This inestimable advantage was by one, at least, to be turned to speedy and lasting account. Hannah, the fourth out of five daughters, was born in 1745, and early began to show dawnings of that bright genius which was afterwards to distinguish her. Between the ages of three and four the little girl contrived to teach herself to read, or at least to advance so far on this path to Parnassus as completely to amaze her parents, who were just beginning to contemplate the idea of the alphabet; and this she achieved solely by listening to the instructions imparted to her elders. Before she was four, her repetition of the catechism struck mute the respected clergyman of the parish, to whom it seemed but the day before that he had received her at the font. And so on. Next began the restless craving for knowledge inseparable from such a nature. To satisfy this, the father, albeit a foe to female pedantry, was fain, from dearth of other sources, to ransack his own memory and brain for tales of ancient heroes, Greek and Roman, and would recite to his small auditor whom we can picture listening with sage and severe attention their speeches and orations; first, we are told, in the original, to gratify her ear with the sound, and afterwards in English, that she might pay heed to the sense. Further, he would, after this fashion, dwell upon the parallels and wise sayings of Plutarch; and these recollections, says her biographer, "made Hannah often afterwards remark that the conversation of a wise parent constitutes one of the very best parts of education." Jacob More had, however, as we have said, no love for over-much learning in a woman; and, in fact, the progress made |