much care, only be it clearly understood, I waive my claim entirely, having had quite enough of her in the last.

"It was not until the year 1853 that my fortunes began to change-then the Russ and the Turk began to war-then the black eagle crossed the Danube, and led its legions into the principalities of the Mussulmans. Then did the masses growl angrily, and the British press wax wondrous valiant, and tried-and succeeded in a measure-to persuade the all-controlling public opinion that a war of expediency was one of principle. Public opinion believed it, and of course the troops were sent out. Truly was the late Lord Melbourne right when he held that the minority had always the best of the argument; for which reason he-like a wise and prudent man-always stuck closely to the majority, which he told me one day he did on these grounds, viz., that the knowledge requisite for governing a nation being very small, and a little knowledge being a very dangerous thing, he deemed it more prudent to join that side which was without any at all.

"Then was it that I became elevated to the post of 'our own Correspondent' to a third-rate

newspaper,

and was

commissioned into the east to report progress of the accidents of the war. Our

compact was, that I should go hitherward and thitherward, and in advertisement parlance 'make myself generally useful.' Men on the press are men always above the press, they have to write down to the liberal, radical, evangelical class, whose opinions being the opinion of the many, rule the Parliament and the Throne. The public' governs the press-not the press the public. The public is what Locke would call, had he ever heard of it, a complex idea, the components of which are false and crude ideas, scraps and facts of all kinds gleaned from debating societies and lecture rooms, miscellaneous readings of all the newspapers and three half-penny magazines, whose object, of course, is to get a sale, in order to do which, they must please the vulgar taste, and inform it just so much as it will allow itself to be informed and a spice of the lowest form of religion, or rather of irreligion proper. And such is the potency of this phalanx, that the leading paper of the world pays it adoration—a paper above a bribe, but bowing down to the innumerable five-pences of the many.

"All this had nothing to do with me. I was very well satisfied to serve for the pay I received, and although it was said that one or two of our own Correspondents' had been killed already by

our Turkish friends, yet the offer was at that time too good to be refused; besides, there is very little difference between being killed by your friends abroad or being starved by them at home.

"I should, however, tell you, that previous to these events my father died, leaving me a lot of ploughs and harrows, and dear old Dobbin, whom I had known and loved so long. But no sooner was he dead-that is my father-than I sold off the whole, including poor old faithful Dobbin, without the slightest remorse, fired with the idea of seeing London and all its wonders.

"I was shot dead one day by a Cossack whilst riding about in order to pick up news, and since I have thrown off the mortal coil have troubled myself very little about matters mundane; you are the first mortal I have seen since I have arrived here."

CHAPTER IV.

"I tread on air, and sink not."-CAIN.

FOR a long time after this, he led the

way, wandering onwards in a silent and pre-occupied manner. I suppose we must have continued our course many hours; and it was evident we had ascended to a great height. The prospect seemed to become more flat and continuous, with very little of the rotundity of a mountain; the view stretched away on all sides into extreme distance, and an air of wildness hung all around on the dim horizon. I began to give credence to the old belief that the summit of this mountain extended far beyond the clouds into another region wholly unknown. The air, too, grew more ethereal, and I became convinced that we were verging towards the bounderies of the empyrean. I heard vague sounds of voices, and at times distant shouts of laughter, with an indistinct buzz as of many people.

I shall never forget the terror of that moment,

for until then I never knew that I had left earth. It was now clear that I had arrived upon the confines of the other world. Never than at that moment was I more indebted to that wonderful provision of nature by which, when the passions are over-wrought, and the mind greatly excited, a kindly stupefaction creeps over all the senses. Men will jest on the scaffold, and talk trifles on the brink of destruction.

I made one more futile attempt at what Locke calls "right reason," although I did not exactly know at the time what it was: but afterwards, upon perusing that sound and lively volume, called an Essay upon the Human Understanding, which "had grown under his hands to a greater bulk" than he had ever anticipated, and which every body except Charles Lamb pronounces a most valuable and excellent dissertation-I say that after boring through a few dozen chapters about complex ideas and fixed principles, and after involving myself in as obscure a web of parentheses as I am now weaving-I afterwards came to the conclusion that the following remonstrance was an attempt after right reason:

"My dear friend," I said, "if you entertain the slightest regard for me or the Craven hounds, I pray you to tell me the meaning of all this.