said, "old people were set to run races last century for the diversion of the public? So the dean told me." "Dear! How I should have liked to see them!" cried Rica with her rippling "Lady Lewis hobbling and laughter. wheezing against Mr. Mott no, he drives his chair-against any of those other old persons- I imagine he or she would consider it an honor to hobble and wheeze against my lady; it would be better for the spectators than pigeon-shooting or polo.” "No, Miss Wyndham," said a frankfaced lad, coloring up with anger and shame, "we are bad enough, but we are not so beastly bad as that." "One would think there had been no sons and daughters in those days," said Pleasance, almost involuntarily raising her voice. "Except those who enjoyed the game and shared in the spoil," said Rica, nodding. I am sure I would have no objection that mamma, in course of time, should enter for a heat; but I know I should have to poke her on." 66 Child, you will catch cold sitting without your hat. What are you saying about me?” said Mrs. Wyndham from the window just behind, where she had caught her name and nothing else. I trust that it is something pleasant." "Never mind, mamma," said Rica carelessly; "I'll not put on my hat, and I'll not catch cold, like the Duchess of Marlborough, who would not put on a blister and would not die; and you must know there is a proverb that listeners never hear good of themselves.' Foolish child," said Mrs. Wyndham, smiling fondly on the folly. Pleasance got away from the flippant, hard irreverence of Rica Wyndham's pleasantry, and strolled over to where Mr. Mott sat, with his chair wheeled so that his body might be in the warmth of the sun, while his head was in the shade of a big yew, that had seen still more storms than the man had seen, but looked less old than he. He had the framework of a big man, massive in decay; while Lady Lewis had been under the middle height, and had shrunk with years. A dead calm, which had been unruffled since the troubled waters of his poor old soul closed in upon it, after the shock that had stricken him down already an old man, when Pleasance was a child - lay on the whole torpid figure, which was wrapped in a woman's shawl, and on the face, grey and gaunt with the white hair above it, drawn back from the eyes, under a skull-cap. How much of human life, its changes and lessons, could these grey-bearded lips, which had not been shaped to prattle old wives' tales as Lady Lewis prattledhave disclosed, but that they were sealed in a solemn repose that looked a type of the last great rest. But Mr. Mott was not utterly oblivious or incapable of communicating with others, as one of his daughters who came forward- Pleasance could not help thinking to show him off — told her. "He knows where he is, and what he has come for my lady's ninetieth birthday, and all that—except when he forgets at times, and looks round for his own garden and shrubs, or for his drawing-room screen," said well-meaning, fussy Miss Mott. Then she proceeded to enlarge to Pleasance on her father's wonderful age (which was his daughter's passport into higher society than they would otherwise have entered), and the powers that were left him. "Don't he look well for his ninetyeight?" said Miss Mott affectionately. "Becky and I assert he grows younger every day, and will be quite a youth when he sees his hundred, which the doctor says he has little doubt he will, unworried as he is so that we never feel able to be old," and Miss Mott shook the streamers of her girlish hat in a happy indemnity from age, on her father's account. "He is fine company with us at home, and can chat a little on old stories. He understands every word we say, for all his deafness, and can let us know what he wishes as well as ever- though he has not been able to carry on his business for quite twoand-twenty years, since our brother - our only brother Richard was drowned while bathing in the river, in the pool behind our garden, where he had bathed hundreds of times a terrible day, Miss Douglas, that none of us likes to recall, and my father has never mentioned it never. But we have a cousin -a good cousin — Thomas, who has done all the business for my father, and allows him his share, as is only just and right; but you know men will-you understand - and my father is able to help cousin Thomas with old information, if father is taken in the right way. Cousin Thomas is here to-day-for he manages everything for Lady Lewis, though she has so many nephews. She likes to keep matters in her own hand, which is best. She would take no denial that my father was to be - you here. I was terribly afraid lest anything should happen - rain or a bad night, and she should be-she likes her own understand - but as it has turned out, it is all right," and Miss Mott smiled benignly on Pleasance. At this moment the sun, which had come round the yew-tree, began to shine in Mr. Mott's untroubled face, and Pleasance, in the temporary absence of the other Miss Mott and of cousin Thomas, aided in wheeling round the chair an inch, so as to place its occupant again in the partial shelter of the yew. As Pleasance bent over the old man while his daughter was uttering voluble, incoherent thanks for the little assistance, his glazed, well-nigh fixed eyes, with their far-away look, startled Pleasance by glancing up, with speculation, in her face, and the voice, hoarse and frosty with death's fog in the throat, addressed her plainly enough, "You are my niece, Patience." 66 Upon my word he takes you for my cousin, Patience Steele !" cried Miss Mott, before Pleasance had time to answer; "and she is something of your figure, only not SO- you know. No, no, my dear father!" she screamed, "this is none of our relations; this is a stranger lady, who has done you the honor”. a tickling cough stopped Miss Mott's further explanation. "I am Pleasance, not Patience," said Pleasance, fancying that the old man looked at her, and trying to pitch her voice in a key that might reach his palsied ears. It did reach him, for he repeated "Pleasance," and stirred slightly in his chair. "Thank you, my dear madam," said Miss Mott, recovering herself. "Pleasance, it is a sweetly pretty name, and very uncommon. I don't think I ever heard it before." "Pleasance," growled the old lawyer, moving again with all the motion which his helplessness left him "Pleasance; what more?" "Oh, pray, don't think he means to be rude or inquisitive," cried Miss Mott, in discomfiture and vexation, shaking the youthfully crowned head on the end of the long thin neck deprecatingly, like a proud mother whose baby is not behaving so as to do it and her credit, "when, I have no doubt, like me, he never heard the name before." "Pleasance Douglas," said Pleasance. "Do you think I mind saying my own name ?" she added in an undertone, with some amused surprise. "I am happy to gratify your father." He But Mr. Mott was not gratified. tapped his great gaunt fingers on the front of his chair. “That's not it," he objected gruffly. "Pleasance Hatton it used to be," Pleasance amended her statement, a little puzzled at the effect which her Christian name produced on the dotage before her. "Ah! that's it," said Mr. Mott with a gusty sigh of relief, and subsided into silence. Pleasance was prevented from attending to any more of Miss Mott's excuses, by being summoned to the main business of the day—the sitting down of the ninety old men and women to the roast beef and plum-pudding. Lady Lewis's health, and thanks for her bounty, followed, drunk in glasses of good sherry, and proposed by the most fully qualified in his own and his neighbors' eyes, of the men of eighty. Lady Lewis answered for herself in a well-conned speech, in which she expressed her satisfaction at being spared to furnish this banquet, and her hope that she and every one of her special guests might live to see, and help her to keep, her hundredth birthday. -a hope which was hailed with loud applause. The less formal and more varied feast within-doors was held afterwards, with Mr. Mott, in his chair, seated next Lady Lewis. In the pauses of the entertainment her ladyship questioned Miss Mott narrowly whether the family had the baptismal register, that proved beyond mistake her father's ninety-eight years, or condoled with her upon his infirmities. Later there was the attempt at dancing among the young people, which Lady Lewis had boldly proposed; but she would not lead off herself not with her young. est collateral descendant; she said she had forgotten her steps; she was not Mrs. Piozzi, who had opened the ball at Bath when she was ninety or a hundredwhich was it, 'Lizabeth? At last, at the early hour fixed upon in consideration for the hostess, lest she should die of the very happiness of celebrating her birthday, and lest the few grains of sand left in her hourglass should be roughly shaken out by rejoicing, the company dispersed. Bridge House was left gradually to subside into its accustomed drowsy sobriety. ON THE SOUTH DOWNS. O'ER the sea-ramparts where I lie, Matched with the shifting sea's green waves, Shell-fragments in yon flinty case, This channelled slope wherein I restCurved softly, like a woman's breastThat crumbling ledge, that sea-worn base, To insight have revealed the power Which made these walls and doth devour. Fade we not also? Ah! too plain Those graves proclaim it, and too sure He feels it who hath seen Death's door Half-opened, nor can taste again That draught of happiness which erst Life stretched to his unconscious thirst. But who is oracle for Death? By whose clear witness are we taught The spirit that hath loved and thought Dies with the body's failing breath? The same false eye of sense which told How steadfast were the hills and old. Insight once more refutes the tale; And picture in the cosmic span Unproved, unprovable the creed, Moved by dim dreams to reach His eye, Or the sea breaking on a lonely shore, Is the pathetic minor but for earth, Must not all moods of life unfolded lie, From The Quarterly Review. THE ARCTIC REGIONS AND THE ESKIMO.* yet the Eskimo straggle over, if they do occupy and fill, vast regions, which, fortunately for them, are never likely to excite the cupidity of the Alexanders, Napoleons, and Frederick Williams, of this civilized and wicked world. no Some years ago our attention was attracted by the heading of an article in a periodical too much given to supply its readers with chaff rather than grain. It was entitled, "An Enquiry into the History of the Ancient Picts," a most interesting subject, to which we eagerly turned. What was our surprise, however, to find that the whole essay consisted of these words: "Who were the ancient Picts?" a literary production which might vie for brevity with that famous chapter in Pontoppidan's "History," "There are snakes in Iceland." As with the Picts and as with the snakes, so with the Eskimo; all that was known of their early history and origin might have been compressed into the narrow compass of an interrogative sentence. Fifty years ago, and, indeed, down to a much later period, the ethnological inquirer might have shouted, “Who are the Eskimo?" till he was hoarse, and yet received no answer. The little, in fact, that was known of them was derived from persons either too ignorant or too preoccupied to be able to ascertain the truth. Whaling captains and Arctic voyagers when they came in contact with the Innuit in their snow-houses, cared the one only for blubber, which they envied the Eskimo for consuming, the other only for open water and the North As is well known, this is a sceptical, fault-finding age, and so our readers must not be surprised if they find old forms and names overthrown in the very heading of our article. Our grandfathers talked of the "Esquimaux " and were content; just as our grandmothers when they sucked eggs extracted the yolk by an old and time-honored process. So far as regards these venerable women, a new generation has sprung up which will not allow them to pursue such a hand-to-mouth means of alimentation, but insists on a more scientific treatment of barn-door deposits. In the same way we are not suffered to write "Esquimaux" after the good old spelling, but are quite behind the age unless we adopt the form "Eskimo." Well, where no principle is involved, we are quite ready to comply with any change which will ensure us a quiet life, and so we are willing to follow the learned Dr. Rink in the orthography of the names of the tribes for which he has done so much, and to call these interesting members of the great human race no longer “Esquimaux,” but | "Eskimo." If there is any joking on so serious a subject as the nomenclature of a family so widely spread over the Arctic regions, we may add that the best of the joke is that the Eskimo do not speak of themselves by the name so commonly given them by foreigners, but simply and proudly as "Innuit," that is "the people," as though they were the only people on the face of the earth; a confidence all the more remarkable if we consider that iso-West Passage. "Whales," and "the lated tribes have been met with, numbering not a hundred individuals, who were convinced, until discovered by Arctic explorers, that they were the only members of their race that existed; so completely, while they kept the language spoken by the whole race, had the memory and tradition of a common origin with other Eskimo tribes died out among them. And Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, with a Sketch of their Habits, Religion, Language, and other Peculiarities. By DR. HENRY RINK, Director of the Royal Greenland Board of Trade. Translated from the Danish by the Author, and edited by Dr. Robert Brown; with numerous illustrations, drawn and engraved by Eskimo. London, 1875. way to Behring's Strait," were the only questions which these simple people were required to answer by their visitors, and if they sometimes afforded the whalers welcome information as to whales, the intelligence they could give to the Arctic explorers as to open water towards the north-west was meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The result of the contact between the civilized and uncivil ized races was in no wise useful to science. All we knew of the Eskimo from these sources was that they were most accomplished seal and whale hunters; that they delighted in blubber, and that when they |