First A. B., after a moment of painful doubt.-Hang the custom, and bother the maidens, I'll risk it!'

(Stalks off in his new-fangled cloak, while his conservative friend consoles himself with a meal of raw acorns, and reflects on the degeneracy of modern times. But the next time he went to a gathering of his tribe, one frosty day in December, he found that wolf skins had become the fashion!)

Paper Knife.-Is Mrs. Grundy of use? Yes; for her teachings are not very clever, nor always very kind, but till better can be put in their place, they are often a substitute for principle, and an anticipation of experience. The old story of Rachel's training is precisely to the point. Using too much gesture in recitation the girl's hands were tied, till her excitement broke the bonds. You may be free, because now you must!' were in effect her teacher's words. The same in life-conventionalities are restaints on social awkwardness, only to be cast off when there must be freedom, then the inner zeal breaks out into superbly natural expression. Conventionalities should be consciously known before it is safe to cast them off. They are the symbols of certain social hindrances to bad manners and morals on which it is not expedient for every one to reason afresh, nor do they profess more than to ease the friction of everyday life. Hence, whilst not mistaking Conventionality for her superiors, the average mortal will do well to remain within her tutelage in default of wider experience; and also it is clear that she has a power of advance, and that even the average mortal may advance with her from day to day.

Lucciola. We define conventionality as the unwritten law of good society, formulated gradually, varying with degrees of social progress, but accepted by common consent, as helping to regulate the minor morals which escape larger codes. Every corporate body has conventionalisms and would fall to pieces without them. Our answer to the question is an affirmative absolute. We cannot lay down general rules for exceptional cases, each must be met and dealt with on its own merits. It is usually urged on the negative side, that good will be left undone, and evil often flourish, from a cowardly fear of Mrs. Grundy's tongue. This is part of the cry of our time, that woman is to be enfranchised from some fancied slaving of the past-that she has been too long treated as a cypher. So she is to life's great reckoning as the cypher to arithmetic-one without whom the sum cannot possibly be worked. But her value depends on her place at man's right hand; alone, or on the wrong side of the integer, she is valueless. Mr. Ruskin has brought out the principles of convention in Art in a way that should equally help us in common life. 'You can't,' he says, 'have noble Art without conventionalism. What is beautiful in the wild woods will not necessarily be so on the temple-walls, unless the artist knows how to conventionalise; you do not fetter or enslave by bringing beauty

into obedience to law.' Among natural objects he instances vineleaves, and gives in one of his exquisite drawings from Venice an example of what he terms, 'vine-leaves in service.' He marks the decadence of art, when in the Renaissance the individual will was suffered to turn the perfect freedom of noble service into the unchartered freedom of license and excess. The very spirit of artistic creation died out, as men forgot the principle of artistic obedience. Will not Mr. Ruskin's teaching apply to all unwritten laws of taste and fitness which check individual will? Granted that conventionality must exist, is the would-be law-breaker the best judge of its utility? The Apostle who, of all others, taught the 'woman-cypher' of Christendom to attain her full value on the right side of the integer, asks us not to let our good be evil spoken of-to give none offence in anything that the ministry be not blamed. Conventionality must be the rule, its defiance the very rare exception, in a woman's life. Mrs. Grundy may be a tiresome old lady, but we have a fellow-feeling for the class. If even a dumb ass might rebuke the madness of a prophet, may not she (or we) rank with Balaam's ass in warning people off a dangerous road? We claim no more for Mrs. Grundy.

Pellegrina.-Custom, or what has been the usual conduct under given circumstances; conventionality, or the social agreements of the civilisation of the period, should certainly influence the life of woman, and of man also, in any wholesome society; and so far as Mrs. Grundy expresses the public opinion of such a society, she also is entitled to respect.

But this influence (a term I prefer to rule as less liable to be misunderstood) is subject to various limitations.

Custom and conventionality are the expressions of civilisation at the point at which we stand, and are always altering. Society is a living corporate body, and change, either of growth or decay, is always active in it. What is usual, and agreed upon is, in healthy society, becoming enlarged towards a broader life, which expands unusual excellence into the general custom, and that in time into a better form

'Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'

Persons who live keenly, who have strong characters, though they may instinctively avoid collision with rules, are often outgrowing them and influencing others in the same direction, and thus society progresses and customs differ in each generation. But real originality is a positive quality, inferring strength in great matters; and is not shown in a meaningless defiance of rules, which is rather the mark of a childish or a dull character.

Again, Nice customs curtsey to great kings.' No custom is more important than its origin. They must yield to great emergencies also.

Further, the qu'en dira t'on should be an influence, but must never be a tyrant, and should not be too eagerly listened for. Also we should avoid yielding to unreasonable customs-it is with 'fools' that

'Custom more than reason rules:

And where Reason should be law,
Fashion-Customs, slight as straw,
Stronger chains on them impose,
Bonds more binding far than those,
Tyrants since the world began
Laid upon their fellow-man.'

Spermologos.-Mrs. Grundy is a useful censor in things indifferent, but no further. She is quite competent to decide what things a woman can do without making herself conspicuous, and as long as there is no right or wrong in the actual habit, the duties of meekness and modesty require that remark should not be courted one way or the other. But the instant the indifferent is passed, we must go to a higher tribunal than Mrs. Grundy, or she will either lead us into evil, or paralyse us for good.

On the other hand, Mrs. Grundy, i.e. public opinion, does, when wholesome and healthy, actually prevent the commission of many sins, which would otherwise leave a stain and a blot. Being a creature of breath, whom we all have a share in forming, she is utterly unreliable, and no substitute for principle; but still her existence (?), when she is of a right kind, often saves the inexperienced from evils they are not able to understand, even when guided by Religion. But when Religion and Mrs. Grundy clash, she becomes that world to which we may not be conformed.

REMARKS.

29. Mollusk: Perseus did not die at Pella, which was the capital of his own kingdom, but at Alba Fucensis, a strong place on the shore of Lake Fucinus, in the country of the Marsi. Midge: the captive king of Macedon did not ride in his royal chariot at the Triumph of Æmilius Paullus; he walked behind it. Marius, Edelweiss, Budgerigar, Repullulat: the number of bulls sacrificed on that occasion was not twenty, but a hundred and twenty. Portia : Paullus could not have sailed up the Oricum,' because it was not a river, but a town in Epirus. A timely reference to the map would save many blunders.

30. In 132 B.C. the Roman Provinces were nine in number: Sicilia (B.C. 241), Sardinia and Corsica (B.C. 235), Gallia Cisalpina, called the Province of Ariminum (B.c. 220), Hispania Citerior, and Hispania Ulterior (B.c. 197), Illyricum, Macedonia, Achaia, Africa (B.c. 146). Atropos remarks, that though Attalus III., King of Pergamus, had bequeathed his dominions to Rome in 133 B.C., yet they were not formed into the Province of Asia' until after the defeat of the usurper Aristonicus, son of Eumenes, about B.c. 126. Elpis omits Gallia Cisalpina; Horatius omits Illyricum, Achaia, and Africa; Charissa omits Macedonia; Clotho, Africa; Marius omits Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, Gallia Cisalpina, and Illyricum.

31. Water-wagtail alone mentions the distinction between public and private slaves; the former (servi publici) being employed in the care of the temples, and enjoying more independence and better treatment than those belonging to private individuals.

32. Novus Homo, a new man,' was · a term denoting the first member of a plebeian family who obtained a curule magistracy. His descendants were nobiles, or 'men known,' and possessed the right of keeping and displaying a waxen bust of their deceased ancestor, whose forefathers were ignobiles, men not known.' He himself, the founder of an honourable house belonging to the official nobility of Rome, was neither ignobilis nor nobilis, but novus homo; and his social status was termed novitas. The explanations of these terms given by Emu, Fieldfare, Midge, Repullulat, Carlo, Tortoise, White Cat, Neæra, are all more or less incorrect.

33. Deryn: the three political parties in Rome (B.c. 133-129) were the aristocratic, the democratic, and the moderate; headed, respectively, by Scipio Nasica, Tiberius Gracchus, and Scipio Emilianus. Stanzerl omits Gracchus. Budgerigar thinks Nasica was a democrat. Clotho: Scipio Emilianus is supposed to have been murdered, not by one of the aristocratic party, but by the demagogue Carbo, out of revenge for his Conservative speech in the Senate.

34. Carlotta mistakes the Calpurnian Law (B.c. 149), which decreed