live."

To lie and die were almost all he had to do. A hic non jacet is upon his tomb. The inscription required the addition of a non to mark the change that had fallen upon him, and distinguish death from life.

Dick's lies were the perfection of lies. They were not tremendous thumpers, save when the occasion called for something in the enormous style, when he would fling you out a fine spanker off-hand, big enough to frighten Munchausen into a fit of truth, and make Pinto stare in his coffin.

But generally he kept to the Every-day style; it was good level lying, save, as we have said, when a regular crammer was wanted. This was when he was provoked to a flight by some aggravated truth that could not otherwise be topped. And this brings us to an anecdote. It was summer weather, and a swimming-feat was boasted of by a companion. Unluckily there was a witness present, who vouched for the authenticity of the story. Dick hated the maxim of magna est veritas, and never would allow an authentic anecdote to prevail. He was born prior to the date of the new school, and knew fiction to be stronger than truth. When a lover of accuracy plunged into the Serpentine, he took an imaginative leap into the German Ocean, if duly provoked, as he happened to be on this occasion. So he began.

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Very good, at least not so bad." (Dick begrudged the least scrap of praise to an authenticated fact.) "Not so very bad it must be admitted. You remind me of an odd incident that dates as far back as the time when, according to the old almanack, George III. was king.' I was living by the sea-coast then, and went down to the beach to bathe. Not a soul was in sight; nothing visible but land, water, and sky. I was accustomed to

go about half a mile out, but the sea was delicious, I was in good spirits, and on I went, buoyant as an ocean bird. Now and then I checked my course to sport about a bit, and dally with the wanton waves until I could almost fancy myself a sort of thinking fish. Then I struck out again, heedless of the distance from the beach, until it occurred to me it might be time to turn back. Just then, as I was about to set my face towards the shore, what do you think happened?

"The blue sky looked suddenly gray, the sparkles upon the water were extinguished, and I heard a noise behind me. It startled me, and instead of turning to the beach, I struck out. With every movement of my limbs I breasted the billows, and went rapidly forward; but still I heard the same noise following me. Again I struck out, and another mile was accomplished without producing a symptom of fatigue; but the noise was still audible, and the object that occasioned it could not be very distant. I thought it rather strange, but struck out once more; and now the noise seemed nearer. It was a puffing, splashing sound, evidently produced by the effort of something pursuing me. A grampus or two fighting could never make that queer noise,

"A feeling of wonder now seized me, soon succeeded by a feeling of alarm. Bolder swimming still was necessary, and exerting all my strength, I dashed through another mile or so of water at a few strokes, for I was really terrified. Still onward and onward, close to me, rushed the splashing Mystery, it seemed almost at my heels. I heard it breathing deeply, then blowing like the four winds at once, then dashing aside the waters, with the ease and rapidity of a tiger breaking through the jungle. It could be nothing less than a shark. I almost felt him nibbling at my lower

extremities, and joyfully would I have given one leg to save my life. Swimming could alone save that, and once more I struck out with superhuman energy.

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'By this time I was some miles from the beach. I seemed carried away into the great deep, and the green waves looked considerably bluer. I was alone on the wide, wide sea;' no, not alone, for my dread pursuer, whatever it might be, was by this time a still closer companion, puffing, tumbling, and splashing continually, as though there were an insurrection among the porpoises. You think it was a steamer, but it wasn't. Steamers were rather scarce in those days, and I had hardly heard of them. I once or twice fancied it might be a seventy-four giving me chase, or old Neptune out upon a lark.

"No, it was something living; not one shark certainly, nor a half-dozen. It seemed at last nothing short of a young whale. Snorting and blowing and splashing up the foaming water incessantly, it advanced in my wake. It was as close to me, as an unpleasant postscript is to a letter.

"All was over with me; the fear, as I struck out my extremities behind, that I should never be able to draw them back again, deprived me of the due command of my limbs, and I could swim no further. I resolved to be seized head foremost. Accordingly, with one desperate plunge downwards, one toppling movement in the water, I turned and faced the Sea-Mystery, prepared to meet any monster of the deep that a horrible destiny might set against me. And now, right before me, as close as I am to you at this moment, I beheld, what do you think?"

[And here Dick paused, for up to this moment he had not the slightest idea of the form in which his climax was to come, never premeditating a catastrophe.]

"It was-Lord-Byron! as I'm a wicked sinner!"

Poor Dick Whisk ! This was one of his holiday lies. His Every-day Lying would fill libraries. His peculiar glory consisted in the wish never to be believed. The man who "lies like truth," forgets that he must necessarily tell truth like lies; now, Dick's fictions were not so dangerous, but to himself they had the same result. Had he solemnly asserted that Cæsar invaded Britain, or that Wellington won at Waterloo, nobody would have believed him.

THE MAN OF HIGH NOTIONS.

Ir there be any vitality in the Wit's nice man, who is a person with nasty ideas, we have a companion for him in the Man of High Notions, who is a person of low performance. He spends the first half of his life in trying to act up to these high notions, and the other half in rearing them higher and higher still, so as to ensure to himself an excellent excuse for never more attempting in deeds to attain so sublime and increasing an altitude.

We have known several men of very high notions; known them at various stages of existence, and in several orders of society; but they were alike at all hours and in all places. The man is a wonderfully variegated and versatile animal, individually; but there is always a strong settled family likeness running throughout the tribe, and each has his relative peculiarity; although what is high to one might not seem so high to another.

His character breaks out in everything he says and

does. If a work of benevolence be on foot, and a guinea a-piece be put down, the Man of High Notions may be known by an admirable promptitude in buttoning his pockets, and muttering something about sending a cheque on Coutts for fifty. You cannot get him to promise less. He insists on giving that, if anything.

It is very true (there are drawbacks to every excellence) that this lofty aim not only overshoots the mark sometimes, but wholly deters people of lower views from making any attempt to hit it. Thus the too much comes to nothing. There was an example of this disastrous tendency, of the high notion to knock little people down, last week, in our neighbourhood. A small matter, so often a momentous one, of mere shelter and sustenance, was required to be suddenly accomplished for a helpless widow and her pining child, whose story was a piteous one. There is a Man of High Notions in the district, and the tale moved him. The affair presented no difficulty: the good work was well nigh done, indeed, but he would take it up. He had some notions of his own, he said. He saw the project from a high point of view. He was for effecting something at once upon a grand scale. He drew the whole business into his hands, called people together (whose speeches seemed long to the famishing widow), nominated a committee, whose comfortable sittings might appear protracted to wanderers without a roof over their heads; and, after great delay, proposed the erection of a row of almshouses.

:

Every hint about the shelter of a single room and the scarcity of daily bread was indignantly, scornfully rejected it was pitiful, disgraceful. A handsome row of almshouses! he was for that! with flower-beds and a grotto behind, and a fountain in front. A Samaritan whom he knew, bred an architect, had given him a