are necessarily not sufficiently self-contained, that they pose for effect, and plume their own feelings for the applause of their "second selves." Of such notions these letters are a refutation. The rose blooms and sheds its leaves, and the rose-leaves, garnered in some old-world porcelain, enshrine the savor of summer noons and sunny hours when all has passed away, and barren winter binds the scene. Such treasured rose-leaves are these letters. Round the bowl a good and great man has painted his own portrait. And just as in the great Florentine gallery we watch those ancient masters self-interpreted on the walls of the portrait-chamber, so here Thackeray looks down upon us, and in an era of maudlin gush, hard respectability, and wavering agnosticism bids us to be of good cheer. In his own words: - And bow before the Awful will, And bear it with an honest heart. Who misses or who wins the prize Go lose or conquer as you can; But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman. WALTER SICHEL. THE quarter from whence the following lucubration is addressed cannot fail to give it weight with the judicious reader whose interest has been aroused by the arguments in support of Lord Verulam's pretentions to the authorship of "Hamlet." I regret that I can offer no further evidence of the writer's credentials to consideration than such as may be supplied by her own ingenious and intelligent process of ratiocinative inference; but in literary culture and in logical precision it will be apparent that her contribution to the controversial literature of the day is worthy of the comparison which she is not afraid to challenge - is worthy to be set beside the most learned and the most luminous exposition of the so-called Baconian theory. A. C. SWINBURNE, Hanwell: Nov. 29, 1887. "The revelations respecting Shakespeare which were made in the columns of the Daily Telegraph have attracted great attention and caused no little sensation here." With these impressive and memorable words the Paris correspondent of the journal above named opens the way for a fresh flood of correspondence on a subject in which no Englishman or Englishwoman now resident in any asylum so-called - for so-called lunatics or idiots can fail to take a keen and sympathetic interest. The lamented Delia Bacon, however, to whom we are indebted for the apocalyptic rectification of our errors with regard to the authorship of "Hamlet" and "Othello," might have rejoiced to know before she went to Heaven in a straitwaistcoat - that her mantle had fallen or was to fall on the shoulders of a younger prophetess. If the authority of Celia Hobbes - whose hand traces these lines, and whose brain has excogitated the theory now in process of exposition - should be considered insufficient, the Daily Telegraph, at all events, will scarcely refuse the tribute of attentive consideration to the verdict of Professor Polycarp Conolly, of Bethlemopolis, U. I. S. (United Irish States), South Polynesia. The leisure of lynesia. over twenty years passed in a padded cell and in investigation of intellectual problems has sufficed - indeed, it has more than sufficed to confirm the professor in his original conviction that "Miss Hobbes" (I am permitted - and privileged - to quote his own striking words) "had made it impossible any longer to boycott the question - and that to assert the contrary of so self-evident a truth was to stand grovelling in the quicksands of a petrified conservatism." The evidence that the late Mr. Darwin was the real author of the poems attributed to Lord Tennyson needs not the corroboration of any cryptogram; but if it did, Miss Lesbia Hume, of Earlswood, has authorized me to say that she would be prepared to supply any amount of evidence to that effect. The first book which brought Mr. Darwin's name before the public was his record of a voyage on board the Beagle. In a comparatively recent poem, written under the assumed name of Tennyson, he referred to the singular manner in which a sleeping dog of that species "plies his function of the woodland." In an earlier poem, "The Princess," the evidence derivable from allusion to proper names - that of the real author and that of the pretender - is no rine," less obvious and no less conclusive than | "scirrhous roots and tendons," of "foulthat which depends on the words "hang fleshed agaric in the holt," of "the fruit hog," "bacon," "shake," and "spear." of the spindle-tree" (Euonymus EuropæThe princess asks if the prince has noth- us), of "sparkles in the stone Avantuing to occupy his time - "quoit, tennis, ball-no games?" The prince hears a voice crying to him, " Follow, follow, thou shalt win." Here we find half the name of Darwin - the latter half and twothirds of the name of Tennyson - the first and the second third - at once associated, contrasted, and harmonized for those who can read the simplest of cryptograms. The well-known fact that Bacon's "Essays" were written by Lord Coke, the "Novum Organum" by Robert Greene, and the "New Atlantis" by Tom Nash (assisted by his friend Gabriel Harvey), might surely have given pause to the Baconite assailants of Shakespeare. On the other hand, we have to consider the no less well-known fact that the poems issued under the name of William Wordsworth were actually written by the Duke of Wellington, who was naturally anxious to conceal the authorship and to parade the sentiments of a poem in which, with characteristic self-complacency and self-conceit, he had attempted to depict himself under the highly idealized likeness of the Happy Warrior. Nor can we reasonably pretend to overlook or to ignore the mass of evidence that the works hitherto at tributed to Sir Walter Scott must really be assigned to a more eminent bearer of the same surname - to Lord Chancellor Eldon; whose brother, Lord Stowell, chose in like manner (and for obvious reasons) to disguise his authorship of "Don Juan" and "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" by hiring a notoriously needy and disreputable young peer to father those productions of his erratic genius. The parallel case now before us [But here, we regret to say, the language of Miss Hobbes becomes to put it mildly - contumelious. We are compelled to pass over a paragraph in which the name of Tennyson is handled after the same fashion as is the name of Shakespeare by her transatlantic precursors or associates in the art or the task of a literary detective.] Not all the caution displayed by Mr. Darwin in the practice of a studious selfeffacement could suffice to prevent what an Irish lady correspondent of my own, Miss Cynthia Berkeley, now of Colney Hatch, has very aptly described as "the occasional slipping off of the motley mask from hoof and tail." When we read of Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, Amygdaloid and trachyte, we feel, in the expressive words of the same lady, that "the borrowed plumes of peacock poetry have fallen from the inner kernel of the scientific lecturer's pulpit." But if any more special evidence of Darwin's authorship should be required, it will be found in the various references to a creature of whose works and ways the great naturalist has given so copious and so curious an account. "Crown thyself, worm" - could that apostrophe have issued from any other lips than those which expounded to us the place and the importance of worms in the scheme of nature? Or can it be necessary to cite in further proof of this the well-known passage in "Maud" beginning with what we may call the pre-Darwinian line, "A monstrous eft was of old the lord and master of earth "? But the final evidence is to be sought in a poem published long before its author became famous, under his own name, as the exponent of natural selection, of the survival of the fittest, and of the origin of species. The celebrated lines which describe Nature as "so careful of the type, so careless of the single life," and those which follow and reject that theory, are equally conclusive as to the authorship of these and all other verses in which the same hand has recorded the result of the same experience - "that of fifty seeds she often brings but one to bear." But as the Earl of Essex observed in his political comedy, "Love's Labor's Lost". "Satis quod sufficit." The question whether Shakespeare or Bacon was the author of "Hamlet" is now, I trust, not more decisively settled than the question whether "Maud" was written by its nominal author or by the author of "The Origin of Species." Feeling deeply the truth of these last words, I have accepted the office of laying before the reader the theory maintained by the unfortunate lady who has entrusted me with the charge of her manuscript. A. C. S. From The Scotsman. ATMOSPHERIC CURIOSITIES. MUCH of the superstition of the dwellers in mountainous lands has been traditionally fostered by unexplained natural phenomena. To them the supernatural and the awe-inspiring have a strange and powerful fascination. The mountain hunters of past centuries have seen unaccountable and terrible forms in the mountain mists, and legends have carried the phenomena from the plainly natural to the weirdly superhuman. Professor Tyndall on one occasion, while travelling in the Alps, observed the shadow of his body projected at night-time on a mist by a lamp behind him, and a luminous circle surrounding the shadow. An enthusiastic traveller, Mr. J. A. Fleming, has for years been endeavoring to realize this phenomenon without the aid of a lamp. At last, on the summit of one of the Welsh hills, he and a friend succeeded. A gentle breeze thinned away the mists in front of the sun, and a burst of sunshine illumined the hilltops. Along the valley the wind drove masses of thin mist, and on this they saw, to their surprise, the shadow of the summit of the hill on which they stood and their own sharply marked shadows projecting on it in giant shape. Surrounding these figures they observed two complete circular rainbows, quite concentric, the centre being the shadow of their heads. During all this time the sun was shining brightly on their backs. And in the Coolin Hills, in Skye, two Dundee gentlemen observed their shadows thrown against the precipitous side of a deep corry two hundred feet distant. Here are some other instances of the appearances of this phenomenon, as vouched for by authentic and trustworthy authorities. In the Sierra de Nevada, in Spain, Mr. Marr, of the Geodetic Survey, was one day confronted by a monster figure of a man standing in mid-air before him, upon the top of a clearly defined mountain-peak, with the mist of the valley for a resting-place. Around it were two circles of rainbow light and color; on its head was a glorious halo, and from its body shot rays of color. He was indescribably startled, and he threw up his arms at the sight of the awe-striking apparition of gigantic stature. Immediately on this movement the awful spectre of darkness threw out its arms and approached him. When the sun's brightness was obscured the shadow melted away. Mr. Whymper, in his "Ascent of the Matterhorn," mentions an instance in which the rainbow colors assumed the shape of crosses instead of circles. This effect occurring, as it did, soon after a fatal accident in the Alps, filled the minds of the guides with superstitious horror. To Mr. G. R. Gilbert, of Washington, a distinguished physicist, the phenomenon was also presented, when he was on the plateau of Table Cliff, in Utah (two miles above sea-level.) The air was moist, and scattering clouds hugged the valley. Standing before sunset on the edge of the cliff, he saw his own shadow distinctly outlined on the cloud, apparently about fifty feet from him. About the head was a bright halo, with a diameter several times greater than the head. Outside the halo there appeared two concentric circles with brilliant rainbow colors. M. Lecoq has also witnessed the phenomenon. In March last, at half past seven o'clock in the morning, he was riding on horseback up the slope of the deep ravine at the bottom of the mountains of the Puy-de-Dome. The wall was almost perpendicular; the valley which he was just crossing was filled with a very dense and cold mist which covered the trees with hoarfrost. All on a sudden he escaped from the mist and found himself again in the full blue sky. The ravine was filled with the vapor, resembling the surface of a lake. He was approaching the footpath of the road, when the shadows of the horse and himself were projected on the surface of the mist. These shadows were surrounded by a luminous circle presenting all the colors of the rainbow; the violet being inside and the red outside. All the colors were very vivid. The shadows were separated from the corona by a circle of yellowish hue, and the whole effect was most wonderful. But the phenomena observed at Adam's Peak, in Ceylon, eclipse all that have been seen of this nature in the whole world. Many travellers have given an account of the remarkable peculiarities, and the Honorable Ralph Abercromby, in his enthusiasm for meteorological research, went there with two scientific friends to witness the strange appearance. This mountain rises in an abrupt cone a thousand feet above the chain and seven thousand three hundred and fifty-two feet above sea-level. It lies near an elbow in the main range, while a gorge runs up from the north-east just to the west of it. When, then, the north-east monsoon blows morning mist up the valley, light wreaths of condensed vapor pass to the west of the peak and catch the shadows at sunrise. The party reached the summit on the night of the 21st of February, 1886, amid rain, mist, and wind. Early next morning the foreglow began to brighten the under-surface of the stratus cloud with orange; patches of white mist filled the hollows; and some times masses of mist, coming from the valley, enveloped them with condensed vapor. At 6.30 A.M the sun peeped through a chink in the clouds, and they saw the pointed shadow of the peak lying on the misty land. Soon a complete prismatic circle of about eight degrees diameter, with the red outside, formed round the summit of the peak as a centre. The meteorologist, knowing that with this bow there ought to be spectral figures, waved his arms about, and immediately found giant shadowy arms moving in the centre of the rainbow. Two dark rays shot upwards and outwards on either side of the centre, and appeared to be nearly in a prolongation of the lines of the slope of the peak below. Three times within a quarter of an hour this appearance was repeated as mist drove up in proper quantities, and fitful glimpses of the sun gave sufficient light to throw a shadow and form a circular rainbow. In every case the shadow and bow were seen in front of land and never against the sky. When the sun rose pretty high the characteristic peculiarity of the shadow was beautifully observed. As a thin wreath of condensed vapor came up the valley at a proper height a resplendent bow formed round the shadow, while both seemed to stand up majestically in front of the observers, and then the shadow fell down on to the land and the bow vanished as the mist passed on. About an hour later the sun again shone out, but much higher and stronger than before, and then they saw a brighter and sharper shadow of the peak, this time encircled by a double bow; and their own spectral arms were again visible. been assumed as a foregone conclusion that, with the nations so angry and so well prepared, the firing of a shot would bring them all into the field, that the whole Continent would take sides, and that no power, except possibly England, could escape being drawn into the circle of active operations. Austria and Russia, it has been said, might begin the quarrel, but Germany must chime in, France would then seize her opportunity, and Italy also, and the whole mainland of Europe would be one scene of devastation. It is most probable, as we show below, that this assumption is correct, but a belief is beginning to spread that the theory on which it is based has been accepted a little too readily. Nothing is more surprising in the present situation than the apparent tranquillity of the French. That restless people, it was supposed, were not only anxious for war, if an ally could be secured, and ready for war, but prepared, if necessary, to provoke a war. It is this contingency which Prince Bismarck has always calculated on, and against this contingency that he has for years past-ever since 1875-been engaged in organizing the League of Peace. It was the desire of France for revenge which it was imagined, and, indeed, affirmed by great courts, kept all Europe in turmoil and apprehension. The dreaded crisis has, however, occurred. Russia and Austria, armed to the teeth, are menacing one another; every capital is full of rumors; and of all countries in the world, France is the most placid. There is no sign of a mobilization of the French army. The French Chamber does not discuss war. The ruling persons of France are not endeavoring either to excite or to pacify the French people. Even the excitable French journalists are comparatively moderate, and discuss the chances as if their own future were not vitally concerned. The president gives no sign of disturb ance whatever, and so far as is ascertained, the contractors, who in perturbed times swarm round the military department like flies round meat, are not unusually occupied. It is whispered that France is not ready, and will not fight; but will, if war breaks out, only watch to see on which side her immediate interests lie. It is possible, though only possible, that this is true. It has long been suspected that the reluctance of France to make war was deeper than is generally admitted. The peasants fear war, and if guaranteed against invasion, which they dread, from an impression that all men must seek to possess France, would rather let any op men in business hate "excessive risks,” that France may be quiet at an unexpected moment, and that if she is quiet, the terrible war anticipated may be both localized and long. A great destruction of trained men in Galicia, without much permanent result, would be a frightful incident in European history, but its effect upon civilization would be temporary, and be far less than that of a European war. Even if Germany joins in, still, if France does not move, the war will concern only the powers interested, and will not bring the whole world within its destructive range. There will, for instance, to begin with, be scarcely any maritime war at all, and there is no reason why industry outside Austria and Russia should be seriously disturbed. It is a most improbable issue of the crisis, but still it is a possible one; its possibility would account for an otherwise inexplicable circumstance, the quiescence of France amidst a general tumult; and it deserves to be considered at least as that off-chance which so often in national, as in personal, affairs upsets all calculations. portunity pass than encounter the hard- | terms no French statesmen would be able ships and loss of life a great war would to resist. Nevertheless, it must be reinvolve. The directing classes, though membered in all calculations, that Frenchmore prepared, are dependent on the peasants' vote; and the Parisians, though eager for revenge, are distracted about one of the difficulties of modern democracies. Those republican leaders whom they trust are afraid of a great war not on account of its risks or hardships, but because they know that if France is successful, the generals will govern, and not the republic; and that if France is defeated, the people will attribute defeat to the form of government, and try monarchy in its stead. Lastly, the army, though anxious for war, knows its conditions better than the people do; is aware of the absence of a chief to whom it can entrust the general direction of an immense campaign, and is disquieted by the non-readiness of the repeating rifle, and its necessary ammunition. There is a disposition, therefore, to wait and see whether Germany will be drawn in. France does not want either to aggrandize or to punish Austria, and does not at heart care much about the fate of Russia, provided she is not destroyed. What she cares for is, to revenge herself on Germany, and to give a sharp lesson to Italy and Spain, and to secure for herself a military leadership in the world, and she cannot hope for this unless Germany is seriously entangled in the East. She will therefore wait, and not hurry herself, and possibly pick up great advantages without all the risks of war. It is this decision, well understood though not discussed, which, it is said, keeps France so tranquil, and makes the most excitable race in Europe, during what appears to outsiders a most critical point in its history, appear as little concerned as if their country were surrounded by the sea. From The Manchester Guardian. ICE-BOATING IN THE GULF OF FINLAND. [FROM A CORRESPONDENT.] HALF an hour's drive in one of the little sledges or sanee which in winter throng the streets of St. Petersburg brings us to the Russian Yacht Club on Yelaghin Island, from whence we are to start. We at once proceed to the pavilion to prepare for our expedition. The costume consists of kneeThe calculation of those who accept boots lined with felt, a fur-lined coat or this theory and it is said to be a favorite shooba, leather gloves with one compartone with leading Germans is probably ment for the thumb and another for the erroneous. They are relying too much on fingers drawn over a pair of woollen ones Frenchmen's habit of calculation, which of a similar shape, and a fur cap well gives way readily in excited times, and pulled down over the ears. Having thus they notice too little the immense danger arrayed ourselves we proceed to the quay in which France would stand if the Russo- and inspect our craft. An ice-boat, or Austrian war turned out merely an ex- booya, consists of a triangular raft, of hausting and indecisive campaign, and if which the base forms the bows and the Prince Bismarck, therefore, were left free apex of the triangle the stern. At each of to settle accounts with his old enemy once the three corners is a short skate, of which for all. If Russia were successful, too, the rear one, fitted with steering gear, Germany would be engaged, and French forms the rudder. A short bowsprit and hopes would rise too high for continued mast, with lug-sail, complete the rigging; abstinence; while if Russia were beaten, a jib is sometimes though rarely used. her reluctance to form a French alliance We have to commence the day's work would disappear, and she would offer with the somewhat arduous task of push |