VOLUMES OF E.W.O.T. (In preparation.)

By

Thomas Hardy. By W. L. COURTNEY.
George Meredith. BY WALTER JERROLD.
Bret Harte. By T. EDGAR PEMBERTON.
Richard Le Gallienne. By C. RANGer Gull
Arthur Wing Pinero. By HAMILTON FYFFE.
W. E. Henley, and the "NATIONAL OBSERVER"

Group. By George Gamble.

The Parnassian School in English

POETRY. (ANDREW LANG, EDMUND GOSSE and ROBERT
BRIDGES.) By Sir George Douglas.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

MONKSHOOD.

By G. F.

Realistic Writers of To-day. By JUSTIN

HANNAFORD.

The Wheel of Life. A Few Memories and Re

collections (de omnibus rebus). By CLEMENT SCOTT, Author of "Madonna Mia," "Poppyland," etc. With Portrait of the Author from the celebrated Painting by J. MORDECAI. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt lettered, gilt top, 25.

Weekly Sun (T. P. O'Connor) says:-A Book of the Week-"I have found this slight and unpretentious little volume bright, interesting reading. I have read nearly every line with pleasure."

Illustrated London News-"The story Mr Scott has to tell is full of varied interest, and is presented with warmth and buoyancy."

Punch-"What pleasant memories does not Clement Scott's little book, The Wheel of Life, revive! The writer's memory is good, his style easy, and above all, which is a great thing for reminiscences, chatty."

Referee.-GEORGE R. SIMS (Dagonet) says:—"Deeply interesting are these last memories and recollections of the last days of Bohemia.... I picked up 'The Wheel of Life at one in the morning, after a hard night's work, and flung myself, weary and worn, into an easy chair, to glance at it while I smoked my last pipe. As I read, all my weari ness departed, for I was young and light hearted once again, and the friends of my young manhood had come trooping back from the shadows to make a merry night of it once more in London town. And when I put the book down, having read it from cover to cover, it was 'past three o'clock and a windy morning.'"

And

"Robbin, a bobbin, the big-bellied Ben,
He ate more meat than threescore men ;
He eat a cow, he eat a calf,

He eat a butcher and a half;

He eat a church, he eat a steeple,

He eat the priest and all the people."

The other rhymes were

"There was an old woman went up in a basket Ninety-nine times as high as the moon, Where she was going I couldn't but ask it, For in her hand she carried a Brougham! Old woman, old woman, old woman, said I, Why are you going up so high?

To sweep the cobwebs off the sky,

But I'll be with you by-and-by."

"Old Mother Bunch, shall we visit the moon? Come, mount on your broom, I'll stride on the spoon;

Then hey to go, we shall be there soon!"

This rhyme was sung at the time in

derision to Earl Grey's and Lord Brougham's aerial, vapoury projects of setting the Church's house in order.

"Lord Grey," said the satire - monger, "provided the cupboards and larders for himself and relatives. He was a paradoxical 'old woman' who could never keep quiet."

"There was an old woman, and what do you think,

She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet, And yet this old woman could never keep quiet."

As a prototype of reform this old woman. was further caricatured as Madame Reform.

The going "up in a basket ninety-nine times as high as the moon" referred to Lord Grey's command to the English bishops to speedily set their house in order. The ascent was flighty was flighty enough, "ninety-nine times as high as the moon,

to sweep the cobwebs off the sky"-in other words, to set the Church, our cathedrals and bishops' palaces in order-and augured well; but this old woman journeyed not alone, in her hand she carried a broom (Brougham). It may have been a case of ultra-lunacy this journey of ninety-nine times as high as the moon, and "one cannot help thinking," said a writer of that period, "of the song, 'Long life to the Moon'; but this saying became common, If that time goes the coach, pray what time goes the basket?'"

The "Robbin, a bobbin, the big-bellied Ben" parody alluded to Dan O'Connell; the butcher and a half to the Northamptonshire man and his driver; eating "church and "steeple" meant Church cess.

O'Connell certainly did cut the Church measure about. In his curtailment he would not leave a room or a church for Irish Protestants to pray in.

"Little dog" refers to Lyttleton in the nursery rhyme, for when the under-trafficing came to light, Lord Grey, it is said, was so bewildered at his position that he doubted his own identity, and exclaimed

"If I be I, as I suppose I be,

Well, I've a 'Little dog,' and he 'll know me!"

FINIS

PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BEENDON AND SON,