the old order, is bondage now; and if even more women than men, standing in a position which should render them responsible, are wasting life and leisure on pursuits wholly selfish and trivial, it is that wealth has loosened the claims of former duties, before liberty has given authority to the new. It is thus clear that the continued refusal to women of their demands for a more active citizenship, is the denial to them of a sacred human right to perfect and harmonious development.

A great deal has been said, is still being said, about the alteration of the relations of the sexes which might be expected to result from any extension of the franchise in the manner demanded. I own I find it difficult to respond to these fears with becoming seriousness. If there be any one thing of which Nature is careful, she is careful of her types, and while that "likeness in unlikeness' subsists, which is at the base of physical attraction, there is little fear of sexual relations being either reversed or annulled. So long as the maternal function continues tenderly to fashion the hearts of women, so long as the voices of men retain their resonance, and until their bodies lose their superior power of action and endurance, and their capacity for food and sleep, so long will there be little doubt that the saying of our neighbors, "La barbe impose, will remain substantially correct. These quasi-material causes might be out of place in a system where abstract justice answered to a rigid logic, but in this world of incalculable movements, of checks and counterchecks, they present themselves as something more than the "windage" for which in all reasoning we are bound to allow. It would seem that the alarmists above mentioned are reckoning without that great primal force which binds together men and women, and for which the higher developments of reason are forever forging stronger if more spiritual links. I would bid them take courage in remembering the comparative stability of the operations of Nature, judged by the shortness of the days of man; in any case, to plant a quiet hope in the largeness of those grants of time demanded for the changes she is supposed to effect. men and women are finally either to

If

grow into a dull resemblance or become inimical to each other, it will not presumably happen until the planet which they jointly inhabit has advanced far upon the process of cooling down; a contingency too remote for adjustment in regard to it, to come within the province of statecraft.

I am loth to accept as truly meant on the part of the men even most opposed to liberal views on this matter, the inconsiderate dictum that the possession of equal rights by those who can never be gifted with equal strength, should be held to exclude them from all chivalrous service and manly observance. If certain of those who have been the pioneers of this movement have used the rough and ready methods of speech and action which are perhaps proper to the nature of the work they have had to do in its beginnings, it affords no argument that those who enter upon tranquil possession of the good for which these others fought, would need to abandon any graces or gentlenesses which belong let me say-to contented womanhood. But

"A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty." And, be it said, by the way, the poet who has best held the mirror to the nature he has left us to interpret for ourselves, has given us, in the play wherein these lines occur, a picture of the lying subservience resulting from acquiescence in despotism, which would furnish a keener sting than could be found in any words of mine, to some of the foregoing remarks.

Women are demanding a fair field wherein to labor, and they make no claim for favor so far; but life is not all made up of labor and sorrow, and even labor and sorrow do not exclude mutual help.

Let it never be said that the daughters of Albion have had to choose between justice and mercy; the alternative would be hard, but the election could not be long doubtful. The grace which one sex arrogates to itself the right of according to the other, while its exer. cise has in all time been partial and selfregarding, has become, in relation to the exigencies of modern female life, little better than a sop to Cerberus.

It

is justice, simple, and, as is now scarcely denied, obvious justice, which the femme sole of our modern society, and through her womanhood at large, in such a degree as natural laws render expedient, is seeking to secure.

There was a time when physical force ruled the world, when law was feeble, and only the strong hand could make itself respected. A woman then who had got no man to marry her was forced to seek the refuge of the cloister; married or immured, in either case she was externally cared for and protected, as was needful in her unfitness to barbarous conditions; and in either case she gave herself wholly and was swallowed up, whether of the Church or her liege lord, in return for shelter, suit, or service. It was an agreement, and when fulfilled according to the letter, it left no ground for complaint.

The laws which were made or redressed from time to time, were shaped in accordance with the demands of the ruling sex. That one of their chattels, which from the beginning has possessed a sad faculty of feeling, and was learning by degrees to think, was taken no heed of by the State, but left, with the rest of a man's personal property, entirely at his own discretion. And, perhaps, on the whole, the possession of an object, if it happen to be of value to the holder, may be taken as a fair guarantee for its receiving a reasonable amount of care. But now a day has come when, if the "seven women" of the prophet would not "take hold on one man," some of them must be resigned to belong only to themselves, and prepared to stand up and fight the battle of life alone. That they are to a certain extent handicapped by Nature in this struggle of opposing interests, is not, cannot be, denied; but no one, I think, will say that any plea for undue allowance is put forward on this account by the brave women who are already in the arena. On the contrary, their demand is only that the terms of conflict shall be something like equalized where that is possible; and this is precisely the justice that is denied them. The ratepaying, law-abiding, property-holding, professional, or working woman, is suffered to have no voice in the regulation of the taxes or the laws under which

she must live or die; and if she would influence them at all, must have recourse to the nearest man-possibly her butler, coachman, gardener, or the laborer in her fields-as the stalking-horse of her own unrecognized personality. It is no wonder if the moment has at length arrived when society, having outgrown the gross appetites which placed its physically weaker half in a state of dependent tutelage, women are showing themselves impatient of the persistence of limitations which, beneficial in their time and season, have now become as oppressive as they are unmeaning, and insulting to rational intelligence.

"There is a divinity which shapes our ends."

Had it so continued that every woman in these isles could have "dropped into the jaws" of some one man, and so 'ceased" as a social unit, it is highly probable that no word would have been heard among us of any further suffrage. But necessity has presented itself to the women of our generation with talons and beak more formidable than those of the eagle who drives the young one from the nest. They have not sought the shelterless strife with opposing prejudices and interests, but have been forced into it by the incontrovertible law which pushes the tribes of men over barren continents, and out upon stormy seas. It is Hunger, the mighty Maker, which is urging our women upon new paths, and driving them upon a way which they would not, to the fulfilment of a destiny which they know not. With this force behind them it is impossible that they should turn back, impossible that those before them should resist their impulsion. They have been crowded by their own numbers out of the penfold in which their activity was enclosed, and forced to seek the equivalent of their labor in an ever-widening sphere. In making the experiment of their fitness for untried work, they have had to face odium and abundant ridicule from those whose approval the hold dear. Their efforts to train themselves for higher and more remunerative labor have encountered the opposition of a jealously-guarded monopoly; and the claim for citizenship now formulated-though enforced independence has rendered it a right—may be met, seeing that it lacks the element

of material force which still enters largely into human affairs, on many sides with indifference, and on some with scorn. It would not be thus if there existed a threat behind it. Meetings of men of any class, upon the scale of the women's meetings which have lately assembled, would be held sufficiently representative of their mind and will to enforce respect for their demands. But the stream of tendency which sets in the way of women's advance is irresistible, and the vital rational principles incorporated in her claim could in the end win alone in the struggle with material resistance

"The soul of things is strong: A seedling's heaving heart has moved a stone."

The march of civilization is one sure, if slow, progression from the rule of the strongest to the equal right divine, and it will not stop short of its legitimate end. But with ends, as ends, we have nothing to do; our progress is step by step, our only guide the awakening conscience of humanity. It were vain to deny that seemingly moderate and wholly reasonable as is the demand now put forward, such exercise of reason would be a new and strange thing in the history of the already old world, and that some degree of faith in right is needed to enable men to commit themselves confidently to the unknown. We may

win much, we must lose something, by this as by every other change; but change is a law of life, and this one has long been gathering force to make itself obeyed. Neither men nor women can finally resist the momentum of circumstances, but women at least could be made to suffer unduly by the presence of prolonged opposition.

I will not deal to my countrymen such scant measure of the justice often invoked, as to doubt that there are generous souls among them with whom the appeal of reason and feeling gains more than it loses by the knowledge that it emanates from a region wherein the power to enforce it brutally has no ex

istence. It would only be entirely worthy of the men whose fathers have fought and died for liberty on many fields, to share the precious heirloom on the basis of moral right, with companions who could never wrest it from their unwilling grasp, or prizing it however truly, baptize it with their blood in contact with such opponents. The place of a people in the scale of human development is determined by the condition of its women; it would be a meet crown to a long career of freedom, if the country of which it is the chosen home, should be the first among the nations to yield that which no one of them in the end may be able to withhold.-Contemporary Review.

EVENTS, in the present time, follow one another with such rapidity, and the favorites of society pass in such constant succession over the stage, that the most startling occurrences are only regarded as nine days' wonders; and men who have even filled a prominent place are almost forgotten before a monument is erected to their memory. Under such circumstances it may prove an almost hopeless task to recall attention to the character of a man who held only a comparatively subordinate official position, and who has left no first-rate work behind him to illustrate the achievements of a singularly ready pen. Yet Mr.

Frank Buckland occupied so exceptional a position, and held it so long, that common justice requires that his memory should be preserved; and a short article on his doings, on his character, and even on the eccentricities which formed part of his character, may be welcome to hundreds of persons who knew and loved the man, and to thousands of other persons who did not know the man but loved his writings.

Francis Trevelyan Buckland was the eldest son of the Very Reverend William Buckland, the founder of the modern school of geology, the author of one of the best known of the Bridgewater

Treatises, and Dean of Westminster. His mother-Miss Morland before her inarriage-threw herself into the geolog ical researches which made her husband famous, and frequently proved a ready assistant to the Dean. His father was probably one of the most popular lecturers ever known at Oxford. With the zeal of an enthusiast, he never confined his teachings to the lecture-room, but frequently organized parties to scour the neighbor hood of the university, and explained the geology of the district standing on the very stones on which he was commenting. He had the rare art of throwing interest into the most abstruse sub jects; and stories are still told of him, to illustrate his ready wit, which would enliven any article. In 1826, when his eldest son was born, he had already acquired a considerable reputation; and he chose as sponsors for his boy two men who both filled some position in the world-Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, and Sir Walter Trevelyan, the apostle of temperance. The boy owed his two names, Francis Trevelyan, to his two godfathers. But these names are probably unfamiliar to the majority of the people who were afterwards acquainted with him; the future naturalist almost always signed himself, and friends and strangers always spoke of him as, Frank Buckland.

Dr. Buckland is said to have expected his son's birth with as much impatience as Mr. Shandy awaited the arrival of Tristram. When the nurse told him that the child was a boy he declared that he should go at once and plant a birch, for he was determined that his son should be well brought up. The declaration proved a prophecy. Young Buckland was educated by his uncle, Dr. Buckland, of Laleham, the friend and kinsman of Dr. Arnold, but a most severe and even brutal pedagogue. He was subsequently sent to Winchester, and in due course passed on to Christ Church. At school he certainly received his share of chastisement, and within a year or two of his death he showed some of his friends scars on his hand which he said were his uncle's doing. He was probably a trying pupil to an impatient schoolmaster; yet he contrived to acquire a large share of classical knowledge.

He had whole passages of Vir

gil at his fingers' ends. He used to say, when he could not understand an act of parliament, that he always turned it into Latin; and within a fortnight of his death he was discussing a passage of a Greek play with one of the accomplished medical men who attended him, interesting himself about the different pronunciation of ancient and modern Greek, and the merits of Greek accentuation. Mathematics were not supposed to form a necessary part of a boy's education forty years ago, and it may be doubted whether even his dread of his uncle's ferule or the discipline at Winchester could have induced him to make any progress in the study. To the end of his life he always regarded it as a providential circumstance that nature had given him eight fingers and two thumbs, as the arrangement had enabled him to count as far as ten. When he was engaged on long inspections which involved the expenditure of a good deal of money, he always carried it in small paper parcels each containing ten sovereigns; and, though he was fond of quoting the figures which his secretary prepared for him in his reports, those who knew him best doubted whether they expressed any clear meaning to him. He liked, for instance, to state the number of eggs which various kinds of fish produced, but he never rounded off the calculations which his secretary made to enable him to do so. at the end of a sum was, in his eyes, of equal importance to the figure, which represented millions, at the beginning of it.

The unit

Of Mr. Buckland's Christ Church days many good stories are told. Almost every one has heard of the bear which he kept at his rooms, of its misdemeanors, and of its rustication. Less familiar, perhaps, is the story of his first journey by the Great Western. The dons, alarmed at the possible consequences of a railway to London, would not allow Brunel to bring the line nearer than Didcot. Dean Buckland in vain protested against the folly of this decision, and the line was kept out of harm's way at Didcot. But, the very day on which it was opened, Mr. Frank Buckland, with one or two other undergraduates, drove over to Didcot, travelled up to London, and returned in time to

It was probably no easy task to select a profession for a young man who had already distinguished himself by an eccentric love for animals, which had in duced him to keep a bear at Oxford and a vulture at the Deanery at Westminster. At his father's wish, Mr. Buckland decided on entering the medical profession. To qualify himself for his duties, he studied in Germany, at Paris, and at St. George's Hospital. While he was at Paris the cholera was raging, and the patients who died of it in the hospital were allotted to the Anatomical School. Mr. Buckland, however, had the stoutest of nerves and the strongest of constitutions, and never contracted any illness during the year of sickness.

He return

ed to London and soon afterward became house-surgeon at St. George's. He used to say that the cases which were brought into the accident ward grouped themselves into classes according to the hours of the day. The suicides came at an early hour of the morning; the scaffold accidents next, since a scaffold, if it gave way at all, gave way early in the day; the street accidents afterwards, and so on. At St. George's he collected a fund of good stories, with which he used to amuse his friends to the last days of his life. One of the best of them told, as he never minded his stories telling, against himself. An old woman came to the hospital with a cough, which she declared nothing would alleviate except some sweet, luscious mixture which another out-patient, a friend of hers, had received. The old woman was given a bottle full of the mixture, and returned again and again for more, though her cough got little better. At last Mr. Buckland's suspicions were aroused, and he desired that his patient should be watched. She was watched, and was found outside Chelsea Hospital selling the mixture in halfpenny tarts.

In 1854, while he was still engaged at

St. George's, he was offered and accepted the post of assistant surgeon in the 2d Life Guards. Perhaps no army surgeon ever enjoyed so much popularity among his brother-officers. The friends whom he made during his nine years with the regiment remained his friends. to the day of his death; and whenever any of them happened to meet him, Mr. Buckland had an endless store of anecdotes of his old Life Guards days. The nine years during which he served with the regiment were probably the happiest of his life. He left it on the surgeoncy falling vacant, and on finding that the rules of the service necessitated his own supercession by the transfer from another regiment of another surgeon. But during the nine years through which he had served his name had become famous. His contributions to the Field newspaper and his Curiosities of Natural History" had made natural history popular in thousands of households; and the exertions which he had already commenced in the cause of fish-culture had marked him as a man with an idea. Thus he left the army a known man, and during the next few years relied on his pen. Unfortunately he was unable to continue contributing to the paper which he had been instrumental in originating. Differences arose between himself and the conductors of the Field, and Mr. Buckland, separating himself from his fellow-laborers, founded Land and Water. It is not too much to say that the latter periodical was indebted to his pen for its existence and reputation.

He

A new sphere was, in the meanwhile, preparing for Mr. Buckland's energies. In 1861 Parliament had sanctioned the appointment of two Inspectors of Fisheries for England and Wales. One of these gentlemen, Mr. Eden, retired in broken health in 1867, and Mr. Buckland was chosen as his successor. had hardly been appointed when his colleague, Mr. Ffennell, died; and another gentleman had to be chosen for the second inspectorship. The old traditions of the office were thus snapped at the period of Mr. Buckland's appointment, and the new inspectors, without the assistance of an experienced colleague, had to map out their own policy. This is not the place to describe the policy which