hamist. He was a bad and unnatural son | large a subject to be entered on at the end of an alma mater, which has assuredly of a paper already too long; and perhaps inspired very different sentiments from I may find an opportunity of returning to those expressed by him in more than it on another occasion.

ninety-nine per cent. of her children. Sydney Smith's son writes, as cited by Mr. Adams at p. 158 of his interesting volume entitled "Wykehamica," "My father suffered many years of misery there, years of misery and positive starvation. There never was enough provided even of the coarsest food." Mr. Adams gives some very good reasons for thinking that the causes of the misery complained of were to be found in a subjective rather than an objective consideration of the future radical canon's boyhood; and he knows far too much of the real truth of the matter to accept statements which would seem to be the outcome of experience gathered at some academy for young gentlemen, where the victualling trade overrode the profession of a pedagogue. But he is far from perceiving, or at least from stating, the full absurdity of the complaints made. Mr. Adams was a commoner, which may have caused him to be ignorant on the matter; but Sydney Smith was in college. Mr. Adams demurs to the statement that "not enough of the coarsest food was provided," and remarks that the college was under the administration of Dr. Goddard, the then hostiarius, who was an extremely liberalminded man.

From All The Year Round. THACKERAY'S BRIGHTON.

THE popular impression that George. the Fourth was the founder of Brighton is not strictly correct; for before the days of the gay prince the town had acquired a considerable reputation as a health resort, with its recognized season, its chalybeate springs, its bathing-machines, and its fashionable physicians. But, though not the founder, Prince George may fairly be regarded as the discoverer of Brighton; for there can be no doubt that the extraor dinary rapidity with which the little Sussex bathing-resort blossomed forth into the queen of watering-places, was due much more to the presence of royalty than to the skill of the local physicians; more to the artificial beauties of the Pavilion than to the natural attractions of the barren cliff. Hence George the Fourth may claim to be the patron, if not the patron saint, of Brighton.

Specially associated, then, as the town is with George the Fourth, it is only natural that it should be a conspicuous feature in the dramas of the great novelist who has made a special study of the Georgian period; and it is no doubt to this

miliarity with, and affection for, the place, that we owe the various little Brighton scenes which are to be found in the works of Thackeray.

It is very strange that Mr. Adams should not know that the hostiarius had no more to do with the administration of the col-association, combined with a personal falege than the first man met in the street; and that his liberality or illiberality could in no wise influence in any slightest degree the provision of food for the scholars. The quantity of that food was in strict and accurate accordance with the provisions of the statutes. The quality in my day was excellent, that of the mutton, indeed, much better than is to be easily met with in these days since science has taught the graziers to kill their meat at two years old. And if it was not good in Sydney Smith's day, it was the fault of the "prefect of tub," who must have been a boy of very nearly his own standing, since Smith became prefect of hall.

It is impossible for any reader of Thackeray to spend many hours in Brighton without having some passage from his writings recalled to mind. At every turn we recognize some scene which his graphic pen has depicted, or some locality haunted by his characters. Thackeray himself speaks of George the Fourth as the inventor of Brighton; but we need not be too captious about this phrase. We may take it in its original sense; or we may look upon the prince as the second founder of the town; but, at any rate, let us give the prince his due, and feel grateful to him, as Thackeray says we ought to feel, "for inventing Brighton."

It has been alleged against Brighton that it is too modern a town to have any antiquarian objects of interest. But, at any rate, it may claim exemption from the

always looks brisk, gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin's jacket; for Brighton, which used to be seven hours distant from London at the time of our story; which is now only a hundred minutes off; and which may approach who knows how much nearer, unless Joinville comes and untimely bombards it."

imputation of being nouveau riche; for it essentially belongs to a period fast receding into the distant past; and something of the pathetic interest belonging to more ancient towns is suggested by the sight of certain localities, once the very centre of fashionable life, but now almost deserted, or haunted only by the ghosts of bygone visitors such as the Countess of As we walk along the cliff between the Kew, Colonel Newcome, and Miss Craw-"beautiful prospect of bow windows ley. The Pavilion might this year have (still conspicuous among the more imposcelebrated its centenary; the Chain Pier ing frontages of modern times) and the has seen two generations pass away; and the Ship Inn traces its existence back into the distance of the seventeenth century. Even since the publication of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair the early numbers of which were written at the Ship-a generation has passed away; and during this time the population has doubled, new districts have sprung up, and new localities have become centres of fashion. But amid the changes which lapse of time and the fickleness of fashion have brought about, the characteristic features of the place remain unchanged, and the visitor of to-day cannot fail to be struck by the vivid touches of such a description as the following:

"That beautiful prospect of bow windows on one side and the blue sea on the other which Brighton affords to the traveller! Sometimes it is towards the ocean smiling with countless dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred bathingmachines kissing the skirt of his blue garment-that the Londoner looks enraptured; sometimes, on the contrary, a lover of human nature rather than of prospects of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that he turns, and that swarm of human life that they exhibit. From one issue the notes of a piano, which a young lady in ringlets practises six hours daily, to the delight of the fellow-lodgers; at another, lovely Polly, the nursemaid, may be seen dandling Master Omnium in her arms, whilst Jacob, his papa, is beheld eating prawns and devouring the Times for breakfast at the window below. Yonder are the Misses Leery, who are looking out for the young officers of the Heavies, who are pretty sure to be pacing the cliff; or again, it is a City man, with a nautical turn, and a telescope the size of a sixpounder, who has his instrument pointed seawards, so as to command every pleasure-boat, herring-boat, or bathing-machine that comes to, or quits, the shore. But have we any leisure for a description of Brighton? for Brighton, a clean Naples with genteel lazzaroni; for Brighton, that

blue sea (still "smiling with countless dimples, and speckled with white sails "), there rise irresistibly before the mind's eye some of the old-world characters whom Thackeray has associated with the brisk, gay, gaudy scene before us. Lounging along the cliff, we may see, in imagi nation, three young men of the period of good King George- -a large young dandy, six feet high; a good-looking young officer, with a jaunty air and enormous black whiskers; and a fat, flabby gentleman, more military in attire than his military companions, with clanking bootspurs, and frock-coat ornamented with frogs, knobs, black buttons, and meandering embroidery. "What shall we do, boys, till the ladies return?" asks the most splendid of these bucks. Then follows a discussion of the respective attractions of a game at billiards, the inspection of some new horses that Snaffles has just bought at Lewes fair, or the consumption of ices at Dutton's; till at length the last resource of wateringplace loungers occurs to them, and off they march to the coach-office to see what new arrivals the Lightning coach may bring. Perhaps no introduction is necessary; but, for form's sake, let us present the trio by name: Captain Rawdon Crawley, Guardsman and gambler, but chiefly notable as the husband of Mrs. Becky Crawley, née Sharp; Captain George Osborne, who is spending his brief honeymoon at the Ship with the gentle Amelia; and Joseph Sedley, who, when not too much occupied with the care of his liver, acts as collector at Boggley Wollah. From the coach steps down another familiar figure, Major Dobbin, bringing the thrilling news that the troops are under marching orders for Belgium- and Waterloo.

Within a few stones' throw of the Ship were the lodgings of the wealthy Miss Crawley. Here, under the careful attentions of the avaricious, managing, domineering Mrs. Bute, the dear invalid was brought almost to death's door-so low, in fact, that, as her maid pathetically expressed it, "She have no spirit left in her;

she haven't called me a fool these three of your breakfast. Breakfast - meal in weeks." Here the old lady is visited London almost unknown, greedily deby her odious, hypocritical, successful voured in Brighton! In yon vessels now nephew, Mr. Pitt Crawley; by the gentle nearing the shore, the sleepless mariner Lady Jane Sheepshanks; and by that for- has ventured forth to seize the delicate midable philanthropist, the Countess of whiting, the greedy and foolish mackerel, Southdown, who visits the invalid, armed and the homely sole. Hark to the twangwith tracts, and benevolently determined ing horn! It is the early coach going out to provide for her physical and spiritual to London. Your eye follows it, and rests welfare, by removing her from the care of on the pinnacles built by the beloved that dangerous and ignorant practitioner, George. See the worn-out London roué Mr. Creamer, and by bringing her under pacing the pier, inhaling the sea-air, and the pious ministrations of that awakening casting furtive glances under the bonnets man, the Rev. Bartholomew Irons. Here, of the pretty girls who trot here before too, we are introduced to that interesting lessons! Mark the bilious lawyer, esyouth, Jim Crawley, the loutish Oxford caped for the day from Pump Court, and undergraduate, who, as his father boasted, sniffing the fresh breezes before he goes had had the advantages of a university back to breakfast, and the bag full of briefs education, and had been plucked only at the Albion! See that pretty string twice. Sent as ambassador to keep on of prattling schoolgirls, from the chubbygood terms with his aunt and her seventy cheeked, flaxen-headed, little maiden just thousand pounds, this young gentleman toddling by the side of the second teacher, arrives by coach, with his favorite bull- to the arch damsel of fifteen, giggling and dog, Towzer, in company with the Tut- conscious of her beauty, whom Miss Grifbury Pet, who is travelling to Brighton to fin, the stern head-governess, awfully reengage in the prize-ring with the Rotting- proves! See Tompkins, with a telescope dean Fibber. and marine jacket; young Nathan and young Abrams, already bedizened in jew. ellery, and rivalling the sun in Oriental splendor; yonder poor invalid crawling along in her chair; yonder jolly fat lady examining the Brighton pebbles (I actually once saw a lady buy one), and her children wondering at the sticking-plaister portraits with gold hair, and gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots, miracles of art and cheap at seven and sixpence."

Another of the localities haunted by Thackeray's characters the Chain Pier has suffered sad reverses from the fickleness of fashion. Formerly a wonder of engineering skill-Faraday, by the way, mentions it as the one thing worth seeing in Brighton it now has its rivals at every watering-place of note, and is completely overshadowed by its more fashionable neighbor, the West Pier. But one almost fancies one sees the gay scene, and feels the fresh breezes as one reads Thackeray's vivid description:

"The Chain Pier, as every one knows, runs intrepidly into the sea, which sometimes, in fine weather, bathes its feet with laughing wavelets, and anon, on stormy days, dashes over its sides with roaring foam. Here, for the sum of twopence, you can go out to sea and pace this vast deck without need of a steward with a basin. You can watch the sun setting in splendor over Worthing, or illuminating with its rising the ups and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen with his family inveigled into the shallops of the mercenary native mariner, and fancy that the motion cannot be pleasant; and how the hirer of the boat, otium et oppidi laudans rura sui, haply sighs for ease, and prefers Richmond or Hampstead. You behold a hundred bathing-machines put to sea. Along the rippled sands - stay, are they rippled sands or shingly beach? the prawn-boy seeks the delicious material

This is the scene of Philip Firmin's rencontre with his fiancée Agnes, and her new lover. Proceeding down "the steps, under which the waves shimmer greenly, and into quite a quiet corner just over the water, whence you may command a most beautiful view of the sea, the shore, the Marine Parade, and the Albion Hotel," he finds his faithless Agnes and her favored suitor deeply engaged in conversation, the subject of which was nothing less romantic than pug-dogs.

Even Brighton is not always bright and gay, and those who have encountered a "brave north-easter " there, will appreciate Thackeray's allusion to "that fine, cutting, east wind, which blows so liberally along the Brighton cliffs."

Was it the influence of this cutting east wind, or the boredom of some inconvenient acquaintance, that inspired Thackeray to speak so feelingly of the one fault in Brighton? "It is too near London ... Was ever such a tohu-bohu of people as assembled there? You can't be tranquil

if you will. Organs pipe and scream with- | first night; and Mrs. Cribb, who "still out cease at your windows. Your name went cutting pounds and pounds of meat is put down in the papers when you arrive; off the lodgers' jints; " and Mr. Gawler, "Hark! What stirs there in the thicket | Then a grating, groaning, agonized thing,

RUSSIAN COAL. - Large deposits of coal are being worked in the country of the Don Cossacks, the quality being very varied, as both anthracite and soft coal occur. Two years ago the stock remaining at the pit mouths was estimated at about one hundred and sixty thousand tons; during 1885 the total output reached as much as eight hundred thousand tons, the whole of which was used or exported before the beginning of 1886. At Donetz, the number of miners employed is about sixty-five hundred, whilst work is found on the pit banks