Stephens's life, I will, however, venture. Brought up in a period when past beliefs and superstitions were placed upon their trial, it is not to be wondered at that he found himself incapable of adopting the ecclesiastical career to which he had been dedicated from his birth. In his Memoirs of the life and works of Turgot, Dupont (de Nemours) says that it was impossible to him to pass through life wearing on his face a mask [of priesthood]. The outset of his career has been held prophetic of its entire duration. His only pre-occupation was to submit all things to the test of reason, and he refused submission to the intellectual repression of the Church, not through hatred of her, but through his passion for reason and knowledge. After his retirement, fatal in a sense to France, from the conduct of affairs, he interfered once, in a characteristic spirit of generosity and insight, urging on his successors that, when war with England was imminent through the support given by France to the revolting American colonies, Captain Cook and his vessel should be declared exempt from injury and capture. After dealing with the services of Cook to knowledge and science, Turgot speaks of his being now on his return from his third voyage for the purpose of exploring the coasts, islands, and seas north of Japan and of California. He urges, accordingly, that Cook's expedition having only for its purpose the enlargement of man's knowledge of the world he inhabits, it would "well accord with the king's magnanimity that the success of the expedition should not be compromised by the hazards of war." In the case of a rupture, which was then imminent, between France and England, it would be well that instructions should be issued to all the officers of the royal navy, and to all owners of privateers, "to abstain from hostility towards him and his ship, to allow him freely to continue his navigation, and to treat him in every respect as it is customary to treat the officers and vessels of nations neutral and friendly." It is pleasant to think that this suggestion of a minister, suffering, in disgrace, and finally banished from power, was favourably received and carried into effect. Are we in this country capable of like generosity? I hope so; but am not so sure as I should like to be. The whole recalls the period when war between France and England was fierce and cruel, but loyal and chivalrous, and when our own Sidney, also a Turgot and a L'Hôpital, could write of "that sweet enemy France." SYLVANUS URBAN. WITH LARGER ANGLE, INCREASED FIELD AND IMPROVED DEFINITION. 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THE MACINTYRE'S BARANTA. BY LOUIS W. MONTAGNON. HE men who guard their country's honour from an arm-chair were nobly mad: was not Russia thundering at the gates of India; and where the . . . gazetteer was Penjdeh? In these circumstances the Daily Herald had to keep up its reputation; so the chief sent for Macintyre, and the two men took counsel. "What we want," said the little man to the big one, "is definite information about the Pamir country; whether there is any serious movement along the Russo-Chinese frontier; the truth about the Askabad railway and Merv. When can you start?” Macintyre threw back his head and settled his shoulders. "To-morrow morning, sir; as soon as I can get my letters of credit and my papers." And so, on a sweltering June day, Macintyre landed from the steamer Irtish at the slovenly wooden stage, just below the ferry at Semipalatinsk, having made the journey from London without a hitch, in less than a month. Then his troubles began. His avowed purpose was to shoot argali in the Ala Tau; but the Russian governor, Colonel Borisovitch, either doubted his errand, or else was minded to make him pay for his whistle; at any rate everything went tangled. Never were horses so hard to come by; there were a few wretched Kirghiz brutes, but as for Turcoman steeds there was not one to be had VOL. CCLXXX. NO. 1985 GG for love or money. Then came a hitch about papers; the official mail from Tobolsk was unaccountably delayed, and so on and so on. The governor, of course, was disgustingly polite, and Macintyre, not to be outdone, kept as cheery as though he had no desire in the world except to be bandied about from secretary to clerk, and to be the patient prey of fleas and mosquitos. A week passed. Macintyre had done nothing but procure a guide. He was a treasure, no doubt, for he appeared to know every route and almost every village between Semipalatinsk and Ak Tepe. Beauty was not his strong point; his face was like the top crust of a square loaf, with two oblique slits for eyes, and a nose set in the hollow in the middle; but he could ride and fight and be true to his salt, for Yermak was a Kara Kirghiz. The week grew to a month, and the town became unbearable. The long straight streets of houses gleaming white in the pitiless sun; the strings of vicious camels with their filthy drivers; the awful sight of relays of prisoners with pasty faces and eyes wolfish for liberty denied; the horrible effluvium which steamed from their unwashed bodies and their loathsome rags; above all, the stink of the prisons-these things made life a ghastly nightmare. Food was a secondary consideration, but a very real one. Macintyre lived upon successive dishes of mutton, varied only by an occasional relief of fish ; while he grew to loathe the sight of cranberries, and his gorge rose at the sour rye bread. Of course he had not attempted to do more than send an occasional telegram to Fleet Street, and these of the most non-committal character. Nevertheless, he seemed as bright as if editors were unknown. He visited the markets, and chaffered with the merchants, who, in return, kept his tongue limber to the Turki, and gave him valuable hints about the country and his intended route. His tall spare figure, clad in a light grey suit of Afghan cloth, and crowned by a pith helmet, as he swung along the streets with that long, tireless tramp of his, grew to be as well known in Semipalatinsk as the obraz of St. Nicholas outside the church, and looked as cool, no matter how hot and dusty everybody else might be. At last, one day, when the noontide sun was blazing his fiercest; when the dust was in everything-eyes, ears, and teeth; when the reek from the river and the fœtid smell of the prisons had driven everybody else to the shelter of the houses and loose-limbed sleep— Macintyre, looking as if he had just come out of a frigidarium, without a wrinkle on his lean, brown face, though the ghost of a |