that once, when at the very head of his profession, he was taken in before a Master in Chancery, an office since abolished, and found himself pitted against a little snip of an attorney's clerk, scarce higher than the table, who, nothing daunted, and by the aid of authorities he cited from a bundle of books as big as himself, succeeded in worsting Knight Bruce, whom he persisted in calling over and over again "my learned friend." Mr. Bruce treated the imp with that courtesy which is always an opponent's due, but he never went before the Masters any more.

The Archangel has not escaped the reproach often brought against affable persons of being a bit of a bore, and though this is to speak unbecomingly, it must be owned that the reader is glad whenever Adam plucks up heart of grace and gets in a word edgeways. Mr. Bagehot has complained of Milton's angels. He says they are silly. But this is, I think, to intellectualise too much. There are some classes who are fairly exempted from all obligation to be intelligent, and these airy messengers are surely amongst that number. The retinue of a prince or of a bride justify their choice if they are well-looking and group nicely.

But these objections do not touch the main issue. Here is the story of the loss of Eden, told enchantingly, musically, and in the grand style. "Who," says M. Scherer, in a passage quoted by Mr. Arnold, 66 can read the eleventh and twelfth books without yawning? People, of course, are free to yawn when they please, provided they put their hands to their mouths; but in answer to this insulting question, one is glad to be able to remember how

Coleridge has singled out Adam's vision of future events contained in these books as especially deserving of attention. But to read them is to repel the charge.

There was no need for Mr. Arnold, of all men, to express dissatisfaction with Milton

Words which no ear ever to hear in heaven Expected; least of all from thee, ingrate, In place thyself so high above thy peers. The first thing for people to be taught is to enjoy great things greatly. The spots on the sun may be an interesting study, but anyhow the sun is not all spots. Indeed, sometimes in the early year, when he breaks forth afresh,

And winter, slumbering in the open air,

Wears on her smiling face a dream of spring,

we are apt to forget that he has any spots at all, and, as he shines, are perhaps reminded of the blind poet sitting in his darkness, in this prosaic city of ours, swinging his leg over the arm of his chair, and dictating the lines

Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine.
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me-from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off; and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and razed,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

So much the rather, Thou, Celestial Light,

Shine inwards, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Coleridge added a note to his beautiful poem

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The Nightingale, lest he should be supposed capable of speaking with levity of a single line in Milton. The note was hardly necessary, but one loves the spirit that prompted him to make it. Sainte-Beuve remarks: Parler des poètes est toujours une chose bien délicate, et surtout quand on l'a été un peu soi-même." But though it does not matter what the little poets do, great ones should never pass one another without a royal salute.

ROGER NORTH'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

T

1894

HE Cambridge wit who some vast amount of years ago sang of Bohn's publications, "so useful to the student of Latin and Greek," hit with unerring precision the main characteristic of those very numerous volumes. Utility was the badge of all that tribe, save, indeed, of those woeful" Extra Volumes " which are as much out of place amongst their grave brethren as John Knox at a ballet. There was something in the binding of Messrs. Bohn's books which was austere, and even forbidding; their excellence, their authority, could not be denied by even a youthful desperado, but reading them always wore the stern aspect of duty. The binding had undoubtedly a good deal to do with this. It has now been discarded by Messrs. George Bell and Sons, the present proprietors, in favour of brighter colours. The difference thus effected is enormous. The old binding is kept in stock because, so we are told, "it is endeared to many book-lovers by association." The piety of Messrs. Bell has misled them. No book-lover, we feel certain, ever held one of Messrs. Bohn's publications in his hands except to read it.

A valuable addition has lately been made to the "Standard Library" by the publication-in three bright and cheerful volumes-of Roger North's well-known Lives of the Norths, and also—and this

practically for the first time-of Roger North's Autobiography, a book unknown to Macaulay, and which he would have read with fierce interest, bludgeon in hand, having no love for the family.

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Dr. Jessopp, who edits the volumes with his accustomed skill, mentions in the Preface how the manuscript of the Autobiography belonged to the late Mr. Crossley, of Manchester, and was sold after the death of that bibliophile, in 1883, and years later printed for private circulation. It now comes before the general public. It is not long, and deserves attention. The style is gritty and the story far from exciting, but the book is interesting, particularly for lawyers, a deserving class of readers for whose special entertainment small care is usually taken.

Roger North was born at Tostock, in Suffolk, in 1653-the youngest of his brothers. Never was man more of a younger brother than he. This book of his might be called The Autobiography of a Younger Brother. The elder brother was, of course, Francis, afterwards Lord Guilford, a wellhated man, both in his own day and after it, but who at all events looked well after Roger, who was some sixteen years his junior.

In 1669 Roger North was admitted a student of the Middle Temple, Francis being then a Bencher of that learned society. Roger had chambers on the west side of Middle Temple Lane, and 10 wherewith to furnish them and buy a gown, and other necessaries. He says it was not enough, but that he managed to make it serve. His excellent mother, though she had some ten children and a difficult husband, produced £30, with which he