this, to our ideas, rough, repulsive and unfeminine occupation, is described. There may be such 'plough-women,' just as there are in Lancashire female drudges who crawl on all fours in coal galleries, and here in Toronto girls old enough to know better, who infest dissecting rooms and attend anatomical demonstrations. But we hold the unsexed woman, in any and all of these cases, at least no fit subject for poetry.

Some of us cherish the hope that, in the course of human progress, the conditions of woman's work, whether as servant or factory girl, will be so much altered that all shall hold equal social standing with their mistresses, that then, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, the young lady of the household and the young lady who condescends to preside in the kitchen, shall play duetts at the same grand-piano. But this, like all great changes, must happen by slow process of evolution, to which, as in all cases, a liberal allowance of hundreds of thousands of years is essential. Change does not come by catastrophe, as the older geologists vainly said, and what change can be more catastrophic than to introduce into cultivated society, and a first class marriage, with full approbation of the fortunate bridegroom's relatives, a coarse, strapping wench with rough red arms, legs like a ploughboy,' and shoes like a horse?

The poetical form into which 'Dorothy' is thrown does not make up for the failure of the heroine to interest us. There are some good passages and smooth lines,but the general effect of the the alternate hexameter and pentameter seems to us infinitely more monotonous, heavy in its movement, and unsuited to our language than even the hexameter alone. Still to those who can follow the flow of the poem, the story will be interesting; it is told with some narrative and poetic power, and we hope that when the author comes before the public again, it will be with a heroine less like a ploughman, and in a metre less like a clog-dance.

Thomas Carlyle. A History of the First Forty Years of His Life, 1795-1835. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M. A., with portrait and illustrations. Two vols. in one. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882.

We are persuaded that this delightful

book will prove the most valuable biography since Boswell's opus magnum. Unlike Boswell, Mr. Froude has studiously kept himself out of view. His part of the book is indeed admirably done, it gives a connecting framework to the letters of Carlyle and his friends, which, with many precious extracts from Carlyle's diary, tell the story for themselves. As in our beloved Boswell, there is abundant causerie, chitchat and anecdote, with vivid portraiture of men and women, great and small, and the central figure of each biography is prejudiced, impatient of contradiction and impediment, earnest, pious, and generous hearted, he yet forms judgments very often which true from one point of view, require large allowance and supplement.

We are mistaken if the letters in these volumes do not very greatly increase the world's estimate of Thomas Carlyle. Those to all the members of his own family show the largest-hearted affection; they tell, in simple, unstudied form, with now and then a flash of the spirit inseparable from all that Carlyle wrote, the story of that great and noble, yet humble life.

Carlyle has been assailed on two points on which much light is thrown in Mr. Froude's work: his treatment of his wife, and his religious views. As to the first the outcry has come to a great extent from the shrieking sisterhood' and their sympathizers, who feel aggrieved at the keen sarcasm with which the Seer of Chelsea treated their

claims to suffrage. Carlyle did not knowingly neglect his wife, whom he loved, as few men love, from the beginning to the end of their married life. Her ill health from the solitary life at Craigenputtoch was the result of inevitable circumstances. How many a labourer's wife, how many a poor clerk's wife, has to bear more solitude, infinitely more hard work, her health suffering in consequence? And would Carlyle's wife have chosen to have her husband at her apron strings, or toiling on the farm, to the world's loss of all that he has given it? There is much weak and puling sentimentality in this cry about Carlyle's neglect:' it has been able to make use of what perhaps had better not have been made public, the morbid self-accusations after his wife's death of Carlyle himself. On the other point, Carlyle's religion, a most satisfactory

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account is given in these volumes. A firm believer in God, in Providence, in prayer, and human responsibility, venerating the true spirit of Christianity and the Bible, Carlyle rejected what only the out-worn theory of verbal inspiration requires any one to believe, and the priestly and ecclesiastical reaction, the spectral nightmares of Puseyism,' were of course abhorrent to his soul. No better book than this can be recommended, of all that have come under our notice of late years, for the earnest and thoughtful study of man and woman.

An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, arranged on an Historical Basis, by the Rev. WALTER SKEAT, M.A., Professor of AngloSaxon in the University of Cambridge. London and New York: Macmillan & Co; Toronto: Willing & William

son.

As an aid of the highest character to the scientific study of English Etymology, the student of the language will find no work so valuable as this new 'Etymological Dictionary' of Prof. Skeat, of Cambridge. In a late number we made the announcement that a cheap popular edition of the work, which has just been completed, had appeared. This is now before us, and as a work of reference on the history of the language, and an exhaustive treatise on the derivation of the words composing our English tongue, there is no book we should with more insistence urge our readers to supply themselves with than this erudite lexicon of Prof. Skeat. With the modesty of a true scholar its author offers his work as a preliminary and provisional textbook in a field which the great work projected by the English Philological Society may be expected more amply and authoritatively to occupy. But his work, we feel confident, will serve more than a tentative purpose, for its author has a world-wide reputation as a Comparative Philologist, and his lexicon is the fruit of so many years of learned and laborious toil that neither is likely to be seriously displaced by projects that may subsequently appear of a more ambitious character. However this may be, the present value of Prof. Skeat's work can scarcely be over-estimated, for it brings before the student a greater store of learning in regard to the origin, history, and development of the language than

is anywhere else accessible, and that at a price which has an infinitesimal relation to the years of labour spent upon it. The work, it is proper to say, is not a pronouncing or even a defining lexicon, save, in regard to the latter, as it is necessary to identify the word and show its parts of speech. The dictionary is essentially an Etymological one, and, though mainly illustrative of the English language, yet the author, by pursu ing the comparative method of inquiry and exhibiting the relation of English to cognate tongues, has thrown a flood of light upon Latin and Greek, as well as upon the more important related words in the various Scandinavian and Teutonic languages. The author's explanations of the difficulties he met with in the investigation of his subject will be interesting to many students of the lexicon. The most of these seem to have arisen from what Prof. Skeat speaks of as the outrageous carelessness of early writers in spelling Anglo-Saxon, and from the fancifulness and guess-work of modern sciolists in attempting to trace the origin and derivation of words. The disregard of the vowel sounds and the principles of phonetics, it is shown, have been a fruitful cause of these blunders on the part of pre-scientific Etymologists. Prof. Skeat's scholarship and his marvellous industry save him, of course, from the mistakes which these lexicographers fell into; and no feature will be more marked in a study of this author's lexicon than the pains he has taken to verify his quotations and to test accuracy whenever he cites old forms or foreign words from which any English word is derived or with which it is connected. The labour he has given to this hunting up and verifying the earliest form and use, in chronological periods, of every word under review in the volume, will strike every one who examines it; and the work should therefore prove a helpful and interesting study to every enthusiastic student of philology. sides the contents of the lexicon proper, the compiler has added many appendices of great value, such as those that contain lists of Aryan roots, of soundshiftings, of homonyms, of doublets, prefixes, suffixes, etc. But we cannot at present take up more space with an account of this exceedingly valuable work of Prof. Skeat. It should, however, be in the library of every student of the language.

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I wish to communicate a good story of the late Lord Lynedoch. The old man loved a good Scotch evening, and used to get his parish minister to sit up with him drinking toddy. One Saturday night they sat till very late. The clergyman, thinking of his next day's labours, attempted several times to depart but was always restrained by the importunities of Lord Lynedoch and his repeated Anither glass, and then-minister,' spoken with the good old accent. Next day the minister grimly set the great hour-glass of the pulpit conspicuously before him, while His Lordship, without noticing, went off to sleep and woke at the usual time for departure; what was his surprise, however, when the preacher with an almost imperceptible twinkle under his brows said gravely and slowly, at the same time turning the hour-glass upside down: Anither glass, and then my laird.'— W. D. L.

First boy in the class stand up, 'What is the emblem of England, Ireland, and Scotland? 'The Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle, sir.' Correct. Second boy stand

up-'Who would fight for the Rose?' 'An Englishman, sir.' Correct. Third boy,stand up- Who would fight for the Shamrock?' 'An Irishman, sir.' Correct. Next boy- Who would fight for the Thistle?' Bouldie M'Craw's Cuddie, sir.'

Scene-A tailor's shop. Customer: 'Mun, George, ye've made this waistcoat o' mine far ower wide.' Tailor: 'Weel, Tammas, efter the dinner I saw ye tak' tither day I thocht ye wud sin require it a'.'

Another poet comes forward and says, 'And I hear the hiss of a scorching kiss.' Some evening her father will come in, and the poet will hear the click of a scorching kick, but he will fail to record the fact in verse.

A woman accidentally went to church with two bonnets on her head-one stuck inside the other-and the other women in the congregation almost died of envy. They thought it was a new kind of bonnet, and too sweet for anything.

There is a tradition in Dunlop parish, in Ayrshire, that one morning long ago, in the gray dawn, a man of the name of Brown was walking over Dunlop Hill when he was surprised to see the deil in the form of a headless horse galloping round him. Instantly he fell on his knees and prayed fervently, when Nick, uttering an unearthly nicher,' which made the ground tremble, vanished in a flaucht o' fire.'

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A Highlandman residing in Glasgow was called upon by an acquaintance who had been a short time in England, and who had returned to Glasgow in search of employment. The Highlander referred to gave his old friend a warm welcome, and in order to show how willing he was to give him sleeping accommodation said-'Yes, Mr. Macpherson, I wid poot mysel' far more aboot for you than

wid for any of my own relashiuns; and mind you this (he added), I'm just one of those men who wid poot mysel' aboot for no mortal man whateffer!"

'Are you dry, Pat?' was a question asked under the broiling sun in the Royal Show Yard at Derby last month:

are ye dry?' 'Dry's not the word shake me, and ye'll see the dust comin' out o' me mouth.'

Conversation is a serious thing with some people. One of this kind on board a train was asked a very simple question by a fellow-passenger. She made a deprecating gesture, and replied, 'Excuse me, sir, but I am only going to the next station, and it's not worth while to begin a conversation.'

A GOOD SUBSTITUTE.-Scene-Church door--Antient(to enquiring parishioner): 'Wis't the beadle ye were waitin' to see?' Enquiring Parishioneer: 'Aye, it wis jist him I wanted.' Antient : Man, he's away for his holidays the noo, but the minister has promised to dae his wark for him the time he's aff.'

'Mother,' said a fair-haired urchin, 'I don't want to go to Sunday-school; I want to go fishin'. 'But the fish won't bite on Sunday, my son. They're good, and go to their Sunday-School.' Well,' responded the probable future president, I'll risk it anyway; may be there's some that's like me.'

An old gentleman, finding a couple of his nieces fencing with broomsticks, said, 'Come come, my dears, that kind of accomplishment will not help you to get husbands.' 'I know it, uncle,' responded one of the girls as she gave a lunge; but it will help us to keep our husbands in order when we have 'em.'

Some years ago a clergymen, walking in the churchyard at Alloway, remarked to the grave-digger, who was in the act of making a grave Yours is an unpleasant avocation; no doubt your heart is often sore when you are engaged in it.' The sexton looked up and pawkily replied, 'Ou, ay, sir, it's unco sair wark, and wee pay.'

Let us do our duty in our shop or in our kitchen, the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in the great army which achieves the welfare of the world.

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A young man recently called at little domicile in Vicksburg. A small boy and a big yellow dog were snuggled on the doorstep, and the young man asked, 'Will the dog bite?' Well,' said the boy, 'it's owin to certain things ef he do or not. Ef yer want to colleck sewing-machine money, he's fierce as a tiger, but ef yer got anything to give us, he's harmless as a kitten-ain't yer, Towser?'

An important divine was preaching a sermon of scraps to a congregation of country people. At the end of each paragraph an old man in the audience would quietly remark, 'That's Boston, or that's Rutherford, or that's Doddridge, or that's Baxter,' as the case might be. At last the minister lost his patience, and cried, Tak' the fule body out! 'Ay, that's his ain i the hinner en' ony way,' said the old man, and withdrew.

A worthy curate in a country town recently welcomed home a younger sister, who was to act as his housekeeper. She had come fresh from the polite society of a genteel watering-place. Her first meal in his house was of the cup that cheers but not inebriates.' The good man proceeded, as usual, to say the simple 'grace before meat,' and was startled, if not edified, by his sister's remark: Don't do that any more, John ; it's not fashionable at tea-time.'

Some years ago, when a new railroad was opening in the Highlands, a Highlander heard of it, and bought a ticket for the first excursion. The train was about half the distance when a collision took place, and poor Donald was thrown unceremoniously into an adjacent park. After recovering his senses he made the best of his way home, when the neighbours asked him how he liked his drive. Oh,' replied Donald, 'I liked it fine but they have an awfu' nasty quick way in puttin' ane oot.'

A person once asked John Prentice, the grave-digger, if he considered himself at liberty to pray for his daily bread. 'Dear sake, sir,' he answered, the Lord's prayer tells us that, ye ken.' Ay, but,' said the querist, 'do you think you can do that consistently with the command which enjoins us to wish no evil to our neighbours?' 'Dear sake, sirs,' cried John, rather puzzled, 'ye ken folk maun be buried!" This was quite natural, and very conclusive.