has spread rapidly; and in India alone at up without loss of time; whilst the details the present moment no fewer than three of any incident can be fully authenticated hundred and thirty newspapers, with a by the steamer calling at the scene of total circulation of more than one hundred action. This steamer plies between Memand ten thousand, are printed in the lan- phis and New Orleans, distributing the guages spoken in the different provinces. papers on its journeys, and collecting every A most curious paper is the official Chi- item of news current along the banks of nese paper, called King-Pan, which claims the Mississippi. Before the 67th Regito have been started as early as 911, and ment left England for British Burmah, to have appeared at irregular intervals till the officers spent a sum of money in pur1351, when it came out regularly every chasing a printing-press and types, with week. At the commencement of the pres- which they published a paper called Our ent century, it became a "daily," at the Chronicle, soon after they landed at Ranprice of two kehs about a halfpenny. goon. The editorial staff and composiBy a decree of the emperor, a short time tors were all connected with the regiment, back, it was ordered that three editions and the journal was regarded as a phewere to be printed every day - the first nomenon in the annals of the press. Anor morning edition, on yellow paper, is other military journal deserving mention devoted to commercial intelligence; the is, or was, the Cuartal Real, the official second or afternoon edition contains offi organ of the Carlists, published during cial and general news; and the third, on the war on the almost inaccessible sumred paper, is a summary of the two earlier mit of the Pena de la Plata. Though editions, with the addition of political and America is the land of big things, in social articles. The editorial duties are newspaper matters it can boast of posperformed by six members of the Scien- sessing the smallest paper in the world. tific Academy, who are appointed by gov. This diminutive journal is the Madoc ernment. The circulation is about four-Star, which very properly has for its mot teen thousand daily. One well-known to, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." American journal has even purchased a published weekly. Its dimensions are steamer and fitted it up as a regular float three inches and a half by three inches; ing newspaper office. The editors, sub- and it consists of four pages, the first editors, and journalists all live on board; being devoted to foreign news, the second and by this means, news which has been to mining notes, the last two to local picked up during the voyage can be set news.

It is

AN APPROACHING STAR.· One of the most | tions extended over five months this has some beautiful of all stars in the heavens is Arcturus, weight. Still it may be travelling in a mighty in the constellation Boötes. In January last orbit of many years' duration, the bending of the astronomer royal communicated to the which may in time be indicated by a retardaRoyal Astronomical Society a tabulated state- tion of the rate of approach, then by no perment of the results of the observations made ceptible movement either towards or away at Greenwich during 1883 in applying the from us, and this followed by a recession equal method of Dr. Huggins for measuring the ap- to its previous approach. If, on the other proach and recession of the so-called fixed hand, the four million five hundred thousand stars in direct line. Nearly two hundred of of miles per day continue, the star must bethese observations are thus recorded, twenty- come visibly brighter to posterity, in spite of one of which were devoted to Arcturus, and the enormous magnitude of cosmical distances. were made from March 30 to August 24. The Our eighty-one-ton guns drive forth their proresult shows that this brilliant scintillating star jectiles with a maximum velocity of fourteen is moving rapidly towards us with a velocity of hundred feet per second. Arcturus is apmore than fifty miles per second (the mean of proaching us with a speed that is two hundred the twenty-one observations is 50 78). This times greater than this. It thus moves over a amounts to about three thousand miles per distance equal to that between the earth and minute, one hundred and eighty thousand per the sun in twenty-one days. Our present dishour, four million three hundred and twenty tance from Arcturus is estimated at one milthousand miles per day. Will this approach lion six hundred and twenty-two thousand continue, or will the star presently appear sta- times this. Therefore, if the star continues to tionary and then recede? If the motion is approach us at the same rate as measured last orbital the latter will occur. There is, how-year, it will have completed the whole of its ever, nothing in the rates observed to indicate journey towards us in ninety-three thousand any such orbital motion, and as the observa- years. Gentleman's Magazine.

I. DAILY LIfe in a Modern MonasteRY, Nineteenth Century,

II. MITCHELHURST PLACE. Conclusion,

III. MARK PATTISON,

Macmillan's Magazine,

Macmillan's Magazine,

259

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From The Nineteenth Century.

conversation is ever allowed in the refecDAILY LIFE IN A MODERN MONASTERY. tory; but in a stone pulpit projecting IT is the 13th of February, 1884, the from the wall on the south side sits one hour between half past twelve and one of the brethren reading. He has finished P.M. Two lines of black-robed Benedic- the daily chapter of the sacred Scriptures, tine monks are seated at tables on either and taken up a copy of the Nineteenth side of a room about sixty feet long and Century. It is the number for January, twenty-four wide, high, with panelled ceil- 1884, and he proceeds to continue an ining, and plain-colored walls relieved by teresting article commenced a day or two two or three large portraits of ancient ago. It is headed "Daily Life in a Medabbots or priors. A wooden wainscot, iæval Monastery," and seems so said perhaps eight feet high, reminding one in the librarian, who suggested its being its design of the hall of Magdalen Col-read in public to be the work of a man lege, Oxford, runs all round this room, who knows more about the subject than and on two sides, the east and north, the generality of English writers. They nearly reaches the deep, sloping sills of have listened with much interest to the more than a dozen double-lighted windows very fair account of the arrangement of a filled with heraldic glass, in whose bril- monastery, and the general course of its liant maze of colors the adept may read daily routine. There has been some goodthe blazoned arms of many a noble fam- humored smiling at the pardonable blunily, the founders and benefactors of the ders the author has occasionally made in establishment. There, over the head of his estimation of the duties and motives the prior, who sits alone at a small table of action of monastic officers, and some on a raised daïs against the east wall, are nearer approach to laughter at such things the ancient devices and noble insignia of as the writer's "confession" that "the a Norfolk, a Bute, and a Ripon. There greatest of all delights to the thirteenthare the Highland red deer supporting the century monks was eating and drinking," baronial shield of Lovat, and next to it or his equally naïve statement that "there the "Lumen in Cœlo" of Leo XIII., side was one element of interest which added by side with the lions rampant of Mastai- great zest to conventual life, in the quarFerretti. Further down, on the north rels that were sure to arise." side, you may decipher the unmistakable Scottish arms of Buccleugh, Herries, and Gordon, but they are mixed up with the English Denbighs, Staffords, and Howards, and a host of others which perhaps it would require more than a diligent study of Burke to comprehend.

But suddenly a row of faces is turned up to the reader, eyes open a little wider than usual, and a curious smile appears on the lips of their owners as the following words fall upon their ears: "If desolation were to come upon our homes, where could we hide the stricken head and broken heart? To that question –

It is the refectory, and the monks are at dinner. That figure with a white-and-a morbid question if you will- I have blue check apron over his monastic habit, moving noiselessly about with jugs and dishes in his hands, is the cellarer not that it is the cellarer's special duty to wait at table, but this week it happens to be bis turn it was the sub-prior's the week before; and if you are curious to know what the fare is which he is placing before each on the clothless tables, it is salmon, caught by the novices the day previously in the magnificent loch at whose head the abbey stands. The monks are not vegetarians, but there is no meat to-day.

never found an answer. The answer was possible once, but it was in an age which has passed away." The monks look at each other, but they must not speak. The reader goes on very deliberately; a beautifully poetic outburst follows the last statement, and then comes this: "Let the dead bury their dead. Meanwhile the successors of the thirteenth-century monasteries are rising up around us, each after their kind; Pall Mall swarms with them, hardly less splendid than their progenitors, certainly not less luxurious. The meal proceeds in silence, for no Our modern monks look out at the win

dows of the Carlton and the Athenæum, | recreation cannot be commenced without with no suspicion that they are at all like a blessing from the prior. the monks of old. Nor are they."

66

"Oh! he has been reading the preface to Maitland's 'Dark Ages,'" says one: "I should almost fancy that Maitland's book inspired the whole article; at all events, Dr. Jessopp has a good deal of his tone and style."

"And a good deal of his painstaking love of the subject, too," adds another; "I wonder if he ever saw a modern monastery? Perhaps he has seen them abroad, but thinks there are none in England," suggests the reader, who has just come in, after finishing his own dinner.

"He seems a little at sea as to the real purpose of monastic life, at all events,' quietly remarks a third: this is the novicemaster, who evidently thinks himself an authority on such a subject; "but an outsider would have little chance of knowing much about that; he would just see the outside and nothing more." "Do

No, indeed!" thinks each one as he looks at the bare deal table before him, and the shaven faces and rough habits at each side;" no wonder they have no such suspicion. But what does it all mean?" To this question no answer can be given just now, for the brethren have scarcely recovered their equilibrium when the article and the meal together seem to have come to an end. The prior gives a signal by a tap upon the table; the reader rises and sings, "Tu autem, Domine, miserere nobis," to which all answer "Deo gratias," and standing before the tables join in the thanksgiving. Presently the precentor intones the psalm "Miserere mei, Deus," and all taking it up in alternate choirs, proceed two and two down the refectory, and through the east and south cloisters to the church. A roguish-looking raven who makes his habitat on the smooth turf- "Who is he?" asks the prior. plot that fills up the cloister garth, and you happen to know, Brother Martin? " who spends his many leisure moments in "No, father. I have some recollection diving after invisible worms, or hiding of a gentleman of that name taking a liv stray valuables in the holes, always shows ing in Norfolk, near where I used to be a very lively appreciation of this after-curate, but that's all. My rector and he dinner procession. I am afraid there is were acquaintances, I think." more of the carnal man about it than any. The Rev. Dr. Jessopp will kindly parthing else, for though at first he stands don the free use made of his name. well out in the centre, so as to command above conversation, which is not altoa view of each window that the procession gether imaginary, has been given with the passes, and hangs his head in a most twofold purpose of showing the present devout and reverent manner, as if in rapt writer's general feeling with regard to the attention, yet when the brethren return article in question, and of illustrating a be is generally found waiting anxiously at not unimportant portion of the "daily life the door, where his particular friend brings of a modern monastery." him a daily allowance saved from the remains of the meal.

In the church the office of None is said. It lasts something over ten minutes, and then the community find their way to the library, where they may, and must, meet together round the fire for a half hour's pleasant chat and "recreation." Their tongues are loosed now, and Dr. Jessopp will be discussed for a certainty. "What does he mean by saying that the Pall Mall club-houses are the successors of the thirteenth-century monasteries?” asks one, almost before the "Benedicite" is out of the sub-prior's mouth; for even

The

Without giving further details of this colloquy, it may suffice to add that a suggestion was made to the effect that some one should prevent the undisputed pretension of Pall Mall to the succession of monastic life, by putting forward the claim of the monasteries which still exist either in other countries or our own; and it was thought that the simplest way of doing so would be to describe the actual daily life of one of these monasteries in our own land. The present paper is the result.

To continue. We found the community at dinner, at what might seem to many a rather early hour; but when it is known