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relations in ignorance of his presence. Again, he has no business to listen, if, though the talkers do not know him, he knows them. In either of these cases there is a personal relation established between him and the talkers, and it would be a betrayal of the courtesies of life to take advantage of the fact that the talkers had forgotten his presence. It is only It is only when a man can feel that the people to whose words he is listening are total strangers whom he has never seen before, and whom he will never see again-who are, in fact, as far as he is concerned, mere shadows on the screen-that the delights of accidental conversation can be freely indulged in. Fortunately, these are the conditions which usually prevail in public conveyances in London. "Come like shadows, so depart," is the rule of the knife-board. As a concrete example of the manner in which the line must be drawn between assisting at a comedy of real life and mere eavesdropping, we may give the experiences of an inveterate practiser of the art of listening. The person in question had taken possession of a new house a day earlier than he intended. Strolling round his garden he heard behind the fence the voices of two countrymen: "When do the folks come in?" 66 To-morrow." "What sort be they?" Here it was obvious that to listen further would be to act a very dishonorable part; and accordingly the householder in question had nothing to do but to sigh as a lover of accidental conversations, and depart like a man of honor. When, how ever, he found himself sketching under one side of a high hedge, while a couple of unknown hedgers were trimming on the other, he could listen with a perfectly easy conscience. What he heard on the occasion in question was well worth hearing. So they did take the hemlock and boiled it, and gave it to the 'oman; and the 'oman died." "Did er, now!" Was it some new tale of rustic poisoning that was being related, or some ancient fable, old perhaps as the Odyssey, which was being re-dished by one of the hedgers for the other's benefit? Who shall say? The sketcher heard no more. Not be cause he was seen, or because the men were called away, but simply because there then occurred one of those longdrawn pauses which are so remarkable a feature of real country talk. The inter

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val remained unfilled, and whether it was Mary, the mason's daughter, or somebody in those " very old ancient times you've heard tell on,' "who drank the hemlock, remained and remains a mystery. Some people would, no doubt, be disappointed at anything so incomplete as this. These will prefer the scenes of genteel comedy one gets in a first-class railway-carriage. The present writer has no hesitation in saying that the very best piece of acting for vivacity, naturalness, and good taste that he has ever witnessed, he saw as a corner seat spectator on the London and South-Western. The dramatis persona were an elderly but handsome and wellbred man of the world, anxious to amuse himself by a flirtation, but even more anxious not to commit himself, and a clever and exceedingly good-looking old young lady of about nine and twenty. A better acted or more finished little comedy it is impossible to imagine. Every point was taken up and given its proper value, and not a gesture or a tone was overdone. But, it may be said, this must be an imaginary case, people never talk before a stranger. Not, perhaps, if you look aggressive. If, however, you retire behind your paper and make it quite clear that you have no sort of intention of trying to join in the conversation, and are, in fact, a person of no account, they will be pretty sure to take you at your word, and treat you as part of the carriage furniture. In order to assume this carriage-furniture status, however, it is imperative not to speak. Do not say, "May I move this bag?" "Allow me, "May I open this window a little ?" Such phrases at once break the spell, and put out the actors. The only way to secure a good representation is to sit like a log, and either look out of the window or into your newspaper. In third-class carriages such precautions are, however, hardly necessary. The poorer classes are accustomed to publicity, and perform in public without any sense of uneasiness. The most thrilling scene will sometimes take place with five on each side. It was once the good fortune of the present writer to be in a thirdclass Underground carriage, when a respectably dressed woman and a man, who can best be described by saying that he looked like what is described in the servants' advertisement columns as a "thorough indoor," got in. The woman's first

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words were as good as any ever invented by novelist or playwright to open a sensational story" He never knew till the day he followed her to the grave that she wasn't his mother." Then followed a very exciting but very tangled conversational web, from which one could dimly gather that somebody was keeping somebody else-apparently the "thorough indoor"-out of a great deal of money, and that there was a great deal of oppression and knavery going on, again apparently against the thorough indoor," who sat all the time deeply interested, as well he might be, and asking an occasional and usually irrelevant question. Above everything, the "thorough indoor" was to see a third person before he was seen by the other side, and " put it to him." There was just a chance that he might do right, but a still stronger one that it would all be no good. At this melancholy conclusion the train stopped, the respectable woman in black got out, followed by the "thorough indoor," and and the scene "closed in," leaving the spectators with an intense, but unfortunately unassuagable, thirst for more light. Told barely, the story sounds comic, but at the time the earnestness of the speakers left no doubt that it was a real tragedy they were discussing, one of those "strange things" of English middle-class life which Mr. Wilkie Collins loved to dissect.

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Occasionally, the people who train themselves to listen in railway-carriages will do more than merely witness"little comedies" enacted before their eyes, or see odd characteristics exhibited. If they are lucky, they may hear some really good yarn" spun, as poor people spin them to each other. Try to get a laboring-man to tell you a story, and he will make it as colorless and bald as an affidavit. Hear him, however, in the ale-house, among his own people, and it is a very different story. The present writer once heard an

old peasant in a third-class carriage begin to give a friend a chapter of autobiographical reminiscences which was worth going a hundred miles to hear. "Yes," he began, or rather went on, "And I can mind seeing four men hung in a very rustic manner. It was back in the rick burnings. I was a lad; but they were hung just opposite our door for a warning. They was tried in Wells, and they brought 'em down to the country where I was, in a wagon, sitting on their own coffins, and every village they passed through they tolled the bells. They was to be hung opposite their own cottages. They put up a gallows with four ropes, and they stood one of these big wagons boarded over, underneath, and when they had fastened the men up, they put in the horses and drew the wagon away from under their feet. Law bless you, they kicked there for more nor half an hour, and their polls was drawn out half a foot, and all as red as fire. It was just against where we lived, and I saw 'em hanging there till it was dark. They'd set the ricks on fire, you see. There used to be a lot of it, and they wanted to stop it and to make these I am speaking of a warning." Whether this hideous "rustic manner" of hanging was ever really pursued we do not know, but certainly the old man spoke as if he were speaking the truth; and when he turned to give an account of the bull-baiting on Mendip, and how the young chaps used to run in and catch hold of the rope, and then run out again before the bull could get at them, it was clear that he was not romancing, for such displays of village cruelty and prowess have often been described. But, true or false, accidental conversations certainly form no small part for many people of the charm of town life. They are not better than the woods and fields, but they are a considerable compensation.-Specta

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY IN THE FIFTIES.

BY MRS. ANDREW CROSSE.

Germans would probably seek to explain this condition of mind, as due to the intermittance of objective, in distinction to the continuity of subjective trains of The thought; but these are hard words, and

THE experimental philosopher, as a rule, is blessed with a love of fun and humor, and possesses perhaps in a higher degree than his brethren of the pen, a happy facility for mental relaxation.

Charles the Fifth, among his other legacies to his son, had left him instructions to distrust France and to preserve the English alliance. The passionate Catholics assured him that the way to keep EngBut Elizaland was to restore the faith. beth was still sovereign, and Catholic conspiracies so far had only brought their leaders to the scaffold. Mary Stuart was a true believer, but she was herself half a French woman, and Guise's father had defeated Philip's father at Metz, and Guise and Mary masters of France and England both was a perilous possibility. Philip did not assent; he did not refuse. He thanked Santa Cruz for his zeal, but said that he must still wait a little and watch. His waiting did not serve to clear his way. Elizabeth discovered what had been designed for her, and as a return Sir Francis Drake sacked St. Domingo and CarthaMore than that, she had sent open gena, help to his insurgent provinces, and had taken charge, with the consent of the Hollanders, of Flushing and Brill. Santa Cruz could not but admire the daring of Drake and the genius of the English Queen. They were acting while his own He tried again to inaster was asleep. rouse him. The Queen, he said, had made herself a name in the world. She had enriched her own subjects out of Spanish spoil. In a single month they had taken a million and a half of ducats. Defensive war was always a failure. Once France more the opportunity was his own. was paralyzed, and Elizabeth, though strong abroad, was weak at home, through the disaffection of the Catholics. To delay longer would be to see England grow into a power which he would be unable to deal with. Spain would decline, and would lose in mere money more than four

times the cost of war.

*

This time, Philip listened more seriously. Before, he had been invited to act with the Duke of Guise, and Guise was to have the spoils. Now, at any rate, He the operation was to be his own. bade Sana Cruz send him a plan of operations and a calculation in detail of the ships and stores which would be required. He made him Lord High Admiral, commissioned him to collect squadrons at

Navio Cesareo Fernández Duro, tomo i. p.

Santa Cruz to Philip the Second,

261. 13, 1586.

January

Cadiz and Lisbon, take them to sea, and
act against the English as he saw occa-
sion. He would probably have been al
lowed his way to do what he pleased in
the following year but for a new compli
cation, which threw Philip again into per-
plexity. The object of any enterprise led
by Santa Cruz would have been the exe-
cution of the Bull of Pope Pius, the de-
thronement of Elizabeth, and the trans-
ference of the crown to Mary Stuart, who,
if placed on the throne by Spanish arms
alone, might be relied on to be true to
Wearied out with
Spanish interests.
Mary's perpetual plots, Elizabeth, when
Santa Cruz's preparations were far ad-
vanced, sent her to the scaffold, and the
blow of the axe which ended her discon-
certed every arrangement which had been
There was no longer a Catholic
made.
successor in England to whom the crown
could go on Elizabeth's deposition, and it
was useless to send an army to conquer
the country till some purpose could be
formed for disposing of it afterward.
Philip had been called King of England
once.

He was of the blood of the House
of Lancaster. He thought, naturally, that
if he was to do the work, the prize ought
Unfortunately, the rest
to be his own.
of the world claimed a voice in the mat-
ter. France would certainly be hostile.
The English Catholics were divided. The
Pope himself, when consulted, refused
his assent. As Pope Sextus the Fifth, he

was bound to desire the reduction of a

rebellious island; as an Italian prince, he
had no wish to see another wealthy king-
dom added to the enormous empire of
Spain.

Mary Stuart's son was natural
heir. He was a Protestant, but gratitude
might convert him. At any rate, Philip
should not take Elizabeth's place. Sextus
was to have given a million crowns to the
cost of the armament; he did not directly
withdraw his promise, but he haggled
with the Spanish Ambassador at the Holy
See.

He affected to doubt the possibility
of Philip's success, and even his personal
sincerity. He declined to advance a ducat
till a Spanish army was actually on Eng-
lish soil. The Duke of Parma, who was

to cross from Flanders and conduct the
campaign in England itself, was diffident,
if not unwilling; and Philip had to feel
that even the successful occupation of
London might prove the beginning of
greater troubles. He had been driven

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forward himself against his inclination. The chief movers in the enterprise, these who had fed the fire of religious animosity through Europe, and prevented a rational arrangement between the Spanish and English nations, were the Society of Jesus, those members of it especially who had been bred at Oxford in the Anglican Church, and hated it with the frenzy of renegades. From them came the endless conspiracies which Spain was forced to countenance, and the consequent severities of the English Government, which they shrieked in Philip's ears; and Philip, half a bigot and half a cautious statesman, wavered between two policies till fate decided for him. Both on Philip's part and on Elizabeth's part there was a desire for peace if peace could be had. Philip was weary of the long struggle in the Low Countries, which threatened to be endless if Elizabeth supported it. Elizabeth herself wished to be left in quiet, relieved of the necessity of supporting insurgent Protestants and hanging traitorous priests. An arrangement was possible, based on principles of general toleration.

The Pope was right in not wholly trusting Philip. The Spanish King was willing to agree that England should remain Protestant if England wished it, provided the Catholics were allowed the free exercise of their own religion, and provided Elizabeth would call in her privateers, surrender to him the towns which she held in Holland, and abandon her alliance with the Dutch States. Elizabeth was perfectly ready to tolerate Catholic worship if the Catholics would cease their plots against her and Spain would cease to encourage them. It was true that Flushing and Brill had been trusted to her charge by the States, and that if she withdrew her garrison she was bound in honor to replace them in the States' hands. But she regarded the revolt of the Low Countries as only justified by the atrocities of the Blood Council and the Inquisition. If she could secure for the Dutch Confederation the same toleration which she was willing herself to concede to the English Catholics, she might feel her honor to be acquitted sufficiently if she gave up to Philip towns which really were his own. Here only, so far as the two sovereigns were concerned, the difficulty lay. Philip held himself bound by duty to allow no liberty of religion among his own sub

jects. But if peace was made the Spanish garrisons were to be withdrawn from the Low Countries; the Executive Government would be left in the hands of the States themselves, who could be as tolerant practically as they pleased. On these terms it was certain that a general pacification was possible. The Duke of Parma strongly advised it. Philip himself wished for it. Half Elizabeth's Council recommended it, and she herself wished for it.

Unless Catholics and Protestants intended to fight till one or other was exterminated, they must come to some such terms at last; and if at last, why not at once? With this purpose a conference was being held at Ostend between Elizabeth's and Parma's commissioners. The terms were rational. The principal parties, it is now possible to see-even Philip himself-were sincere about it. How long the terms of such a peace would have lasted, with the theological furnace at such a heat, may be fairly questioned. Bigotry and freedom of thought had two centuries of battle still before them till it could be seen which was to prevail, but an arrangement might then have been come to at Ostend, in the winter of 1587-8, which would have lasted Philip's and Elizabeth's lifetime, could either party have trusted the other. In both countries there was a fighting party and a peace party. In England it was said that the negotiations were a fraud, designed only to induce Elizabeth to relax her preparations for defence. In Spain it was urged that the larger and more menacing the force which could be collected, the more inclined Elizabeth would be to listen to reason; while Elizabeth had to show on her part that frightened she was not, and that if Philip preferred war she had no objection. The bolder her bearing, the more likely she would be to secure fair terms for the Hollanders.

The preparations at Cadiz and Lisbon were no secret. All Europe was talking of the enormous armament which Spain was preparing, and which Santa Cruz was to convoy to the English Channel. Both the Tagus and Cadiz Harbor were reported to be crowded with ships, though as yet unprovided with crews for them. With some misgivings, but in one of her bolder moments, the Queen in the spring of 1587 allowed Drake to take a flying squadron with him down the Spanish coast.

She

hung about his neck a second in command to limit his movements; but Drake took his own way, leaving his vice-admiral to go home and complain. He sailed into Cadiz Harbor, burned eighteen galleons which were lying there, and, remaining leisurely till he had finished his work, sailed away to repeat the operation at Lisbon. It might have been done with the same ease. The English squadron lay at the mouth of the river within sight of Santa Cruz, and the great admiral had to sit still and fume, unable to go out and meet him por falta de gente—for want of sailors to man his galleons. Drake might have gone in and burned them all, and would have done it had not Elizabeth felt that he had accomplished enough and that the negotiations would be broken off if he worked more destruction. He had singed the King's beard, as be called it; and the King, though patient of affronts, was moved to a passing emotion. Seamen and soldiers were hurried down to the Tagas. Orders were sent to the Admiral to pat to sea at once and ease the English of the shore. But Philip, too, on his side was afraid of Santa Cruz's too great audacity. He, too, did not wish for a collision which might make peace impossible. Another order followed. The feet was to stay where it was and continue its preparations. It was to wait till the rext spring, when the enterprise should be undertaken in earnest if the peace conference at Ostend shoald fail in Ending a condinsion.

This the winter drove through. Pesce was really impossible, however sincerely the high contracting parties might themseres desire it. Fatlle opinion in Spain ould have compelled Philip to leave the Lubemor of Tenseira in command of the expedition. Santa Cruz would have sailed in March for the Engish Channel, sup ported by cfters whom he had himself inned; and, a though the Armada might * bare filled, history would have had smother the to tell of its exploits and its fate. But a valle coldness had grown p between the King and the Admiral. FR ke many men of small minds rused into great positions had supreme ecoflence in his own powers of manage He chose to relate everything.

even when out and gone to its work. He
had settled perhaps in his own mind that,
since he could not himself be King of
England, the happiest result for himself
would be to leave Elizabeth were she was,
reduced to the condition of his vassal,
which she would become if she consented
to his terms; and the presence of an over-
powering fleet in the Channel, a moderate
but not too excessive use of force, an
avoidance of extreme and violent meas-
ures, which would make the strife inter-
necine and make an arrangement impossi-
ble, he conceived it likely would bring
Elizabeth to her knees. For such a pur-
pose Santa Cruz was not the most promis-
ing instrument; he required some one of
more malleable material who would obey
his own instructions, and would not be
led either by his own ambition or the en-
thusiasm and daring of his officers into
desperate adventures. It was probably,
therefore, rather to his relief than regret
that in February, when the Armada was
almost ready to sail, the old Admiral died
at Lisbon. He was seventy-three years
old. He had seen fifty years of service.
Spanish tradition, mourning at the fatal
consequence, said afterward that he had
been broken-hearted at the King's hesita-
tion. Anxiety for the honor of his coun-
try might have worn out a younger man.
He went, and with him went the only
chance of a successful issue of the expe-
dition. He was proad of his country,
which he saw that Philip was degrading.
The invasion of England had been his
dream for years, and he had correspond-
ents of his own in England and Ireland.
He was the allest seaman that Spain pos-
sessed, and had studied long the prob-
lems with which he would have had to
deal. Doubtless he had left men behind
among those who had served under him
who could have taken his place, and bare
done almost as well. But Philip had de-
termised that, since the experiment was
to be made, he would kimself oortrol it
from his room in the Escarial, and in his
eloise of Santa Cruz's successor be showed
that naval capacity and patriotic enthosi-
as were the last qualities for which be
was locking.

Den Alèrra de Gurman, Pake of Medina Sidonia, was the richest peer in Spain. to the diet and day habits of every sit. He was to thingeight years old, and and sold on board. He interled to his experience as a potle man was limited direct and the action of the Armais to his fallure to defend Cadir against

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