fleshed his maiden graver. He had, it is true, burlesqued the countenances of his neighbours and acquaintances, but his first public venture as a satirist was a rude engraving which was sold for a shilling-it would sell for something more now-of 'The South Sea Bubble, an Allegory; W. Hogarth, inv. et sculp., 1721.' Hogarth was just three-and-twenty then: perchance he had made an unlucky venture in the stock, and in this way took his revenge. There

is nothing much in the engraving, save-and the exception is a considerable one-the evidence of a keen eye for the salient points of a popular or fashionable folly. At any rate there is a wide distance between it and the 'South Sea Bubble' before us.

Mr. Ward, when he sent this picture to the Royal Academy, quoted the last four lines printed above from the Grand Elixir,' and no doubt looked farther into the literature of the period. But he drew his inspiration primarily from a passage in Lord Mahon's history, where, describing the scene in Change Alley, he says (vol. ii. p.

The crowds were so great within doors that tables with clerks were set in the streets. In this motley throng were blended all ranks, all professions, and all parties-Churchmen and Dissenters, Whigs and Tories, country gentlemen and brokers. An eager strife of tongues prevailed in this second Babel; new reports, new subscriptions, new transfers, flew from mouth to mouth; and the voice of ladies (for even many ladies had turned gamblers) rose loud and incessant, above the general din.'

The scene thus spiritedly described, Mr. Ward faithfully embodied. To all the characters mentioned by the historian, the painter has given a visible existence. And it is pleasant to note that the historian was fully sensible of the compliment paid to him by the painter. The picture was exhibited in 1847. In a volume of the history published subsequently, Lord Mahon has a passage in which, speaking of the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, he says, with evident reference to

this picture: There the historian may acknowledge his own descriptions far exceeded;' and he adds to it a note expressive of his warm appreciation of the genius and success with which one passage of this history ("A Scene in Change Alley in 1720") has been illustrated by Mr. E. M. Ward.' (Vol. vi. p. 327.) More graceful testimony to the fidelity of his realization of a remarkable scene, historical painter could not desire. It would be idle to weaken its effect by corroborative remarks, and for criticism this is neither the place nor the season.

From this picture our artist has taken as his central figure the lady who occupies the most conspicuous position in the original. She is hardly one we can sympathize with, as we do with the Duchess of Leslie's picture. She is of high rank, we see that, by her superb air, by the chariot she has just quitted, by the tall footman who, with his goldheaded stick, struts at her heels. She is handsome, perfectly wellbred, has a delicate hand, a placid countenance. But there is something on that smooth face which tells that her past is not altogether a pleasant page to dwell on; that her future is not likely to be. Has she gambled at basset before she came here to gamble in stock? She is a young widow, you see; her stately footman is in full mourning; she has not put off her weeds,' and the likeness of her husband hangs conspicuously on her breast. Before long, it may be-has not the painter suggested as much?-it will share the fate of the diamond-set miniature which another fair lady is pledging to the cunning Jew broker in his pawnshop, improvised there on the left for the benefit of unsuccessful speculators. But just now madam has her eyes directed furtively towards that gaudy fop in the laced coat beside her, not attracted assuredly by his person so much as by the news he is reading aloud from the prospectus in his hand, and expatiating upon with superabundant gesticulation, of ‘A New Company, Capital One Million, for a Perpetual Motion.' She ponders the chances of the scheme, and

T is the morning so long wished

IT

for by boating men-the morning of Saturday the 12th of April. It is the day of the University boat race, 'the Great Event' of the boating year.

The sky is bright, and blue as steel over the Thames, but keenly cold, for the acid north north-east' is blowing, to the horror of rheumatic old admirals at Chelsea and invalids in general, especially of those living near the river, where the water seems always to serve as a sort of hone on which to sharpen the edge of the wind.

Hundreds of old University men have risen this very daybreak and looked anxiously with half-shaved faces at the gilt arrow vanes on the stable roof, or crept down stairs in dressing-gowns to peer at the barometer in the hall or the billiard-room, and from that chilly but favourable augury have taken comfort. In many a stable court, too, the grooms and coachmen have been long since out with their heads in the air sniffing the wind and predicting a fine but cold day for 'master and the young ladies.'

The Oxford and Cambridge men who will pull to-day for the blue riband' of the Thames have been long in training, living the life of gladiators, with a regimen and hours rigorously enforced by stern taskmasters. They have long shunned delight, and 'lived laborious days,' and all for the prize that is to be won this very afternoon. They have been rising daily at seven, running two miles before breakfast, avoiding smoking, feeding on simple fare, taking gruel for supper, and going to bed nightly for weeks soon after ten. have borne like heroes the palling monotony of food and the customary mental depression; but they are now at last changed to India-rubber men, untiring, unwindable, stanch as bulldogs, hopeful, elastic, vigor

ous.

They

From their adolescence strong men, they are now become duodecimo Samsons.

They have learnt to work together; to become, as it were, a small phalanx or nation; to allow for each other's faults; and to good-humouredly club together each other's excellencies in rowing without envy, brag, or over-confidence. They are at this moment prepared to bear either victory or defeat without presumption and without despondency. In fact, they are brave young Englishmen, carrying healthy minds in healthy bodies.

To-day is to prove all that these sixteen English athletes have learned in the long pull from Oxford to Nuneham, and the hard pull from Cambridge to Bottisham. The experiences gained on the Isis and the Cam must now or never bear fruit. Those clear, marked, quiet thirty strokes a minute must to-day be quickened to thirty-nine or forty.

The grip of the water,' the fall of the backs,' and 'the finish of the strokes' must be simultaneous, Oxford! There must be tiger dash and race-horse speed, I tell you, but no careless haste, Cambridge, or all will be lost by such want of harmony, by such carelessness.

They tell me that a murderer who has been in an agony of feverish suspense during his trial grows calm and often sleeps well when he knows that he is irrevocably to be hung, so terrible to the human mind is suspense. And hence it is, perhaps, that though every day's practice on the new water has shown an increase of speed, our University boating men are glad that the day has at last come for the final contest. They have grown tired of being photographed, of betting, and of the isolated loafing' river-side public-house life in general. They are weary of looking generally in a blind, speculative way into the future, and, like soldiers under fire, long for the hand-to-hand battle.