he, or any other, was the greatest actor that ever lived, sounds very arbitrary. That an actor was the first of his own time is a thing susceptible of proof by evidence; but how it can be proved that he excelled performers of another time beside whom he never appeared, and who were never seen by audiences who had enjoyed his presentations of characters, passes comprehension. It is a received axiom with some writers, and accepted by a vast number of believers, that Garrick was the greatest of the actors who have walked the English boards. But how compare Garrick with Macready or with Irving? It is hardly possible that a critic who has seen Irving can have seen Garrick. How, then, is a comparison to be made? This we know - viz., that Garrick's generation be-Rosciused him, extolled him, and enjoyed his talents in a degree to which we find no parallel in foregoing or succeeding generations. This, however, simply proves that Garrick's contemporaries were more devoted to the drama than men of older time or than men of this day. Say that Garrick's career was run at a period when the minds of instructed men and capable critics were directed to the achievements of actors more intently than at any other time, and you will find few to differ from you; but this is very different from demonstrating that he was never equalled on the English stage. He improved, no doubt, the style of acting-was, as Goldsmith said, "natural, simple, affecting" and so he won the hearts and admiration of all who witnessed his playing; yet others may have done the same who had not the good fortune to be so worthily judged, or to possess so many friends able to sound effectively the speaking-trump of fame. I think it is rather characteristic of us English, that in extolling our favorites we are prone to draw upon the credit of other times as well as of our own. It is not very long ago since some fanatical sycophant of a minister who is not at the present moment very triumphant far or near, hailed him as "the greatest statesman of this or of any age." than it should. The United States of America have at last become alive to the truth that it is not just, or creditable, or wise to allow their cities and territories to be used as rendezvous for bands of assas sins who contrive the wickedest and most destructive crimes against the inhabitants of Great Britain and their property, or as workshops for the construction of diaboli. cal engines for effecting those crimes. Impunity for these assassins lasted so long in America that we regarded the suppression of the contrivances at their source as hopeless; and even now, when America feels scandalized, we do not think ourselves much nearer relief from these practices. But it is a great deal, in such cases, to have public recognition of the criminality of these nefarious plotters. Even to rouse opinion against them will impede and discourage them greatly; and opinion once aroused, the discouragement will probably be followed up to the extent of legislation and legal action. When we blame the Americans for the indifference with which they have so long regarded the infamous doings, we must remember that many of them sawin the explosions and murders only a wild sort of justice. They were altogether disposed to think us unjust and oppres sive, and the complaints which the Irish raised against us seemed to them well. founded. Add to this that we have been, some of us, unwise enough to admit that there is justice in these complaints, and we can scarcely wonder that, after this plea of guilty, partial though it might be, they should not be eaten up with zeal to balk the Irishmen of their vengeance. There are many signs at last that they are perceiving the truth as to these matters. They have examined a little into the meaning of Irish wrongs, and not found them so grievous as they were supposed to be; they have also comprehended the morbid condition which led to self-accusation, and been rather amused at our penitential humor. Coincidently almost with their waking up to a perception of the true state of the case, they have been startled. by a cracker or two going off at their own doors, as may naturally be the case where lawless men and explosive agents are As to the administration of the "states-allowed to be collected. When one con. "whom I mentioned just now, while so many are deploring the miseries and dangers which in so many quarters he has brought upon us, I will point to one little streak of light in international affairs, which perhaps, amid our innumerable anxieties, has created less satisfaction VOL. L. 2571 man AMERICA AND DYNAMITE. LIVING AGE. siders how difficult, if not impossible, it is to keep a cork firm over Irish energy after it has been raised to a murderous temperature, the wonder grows that the cities and towns of America were oftener scenes of murders and demoli tions, which, intended for the Old World, not boiled over, or went off at half cock, be- | effects on our conspirators. I only trust fore they left the New. The little mur- that when any of them come to be hanged, derous incidents at and near Mr. O'Don- the finishers of the law will be able to ovan Rossa's office have, however, sup- turn them off, and will really make a finplied proofs that the volcanic action may ish. It is too scandalous that, in this prove dangerous even in the cradle of mechanical age, an abandoned scoundrel vengeance; and one may hope to hear should escape from "edge of penny cord " shortly that the gangs and their arsenals because the drop on which he was perched have been hunted out and dispersed. would not answer to the hangman's ef forts. We think the Americans were very inconsiderate and very callous, not to say very spiteful, in allowing Rossa and his villanous gang to go on so long unchecked and even unreproved. We can see plainly enough what ought to be done when we are in danger ourselves. But how did we act when the French made against us exactly the same kind of com plaint that we have since been making against the Americans? Gangs of miscreants were endeavoring to assassinate the French emperor and to create anarchy in France. They dared not hatch their plots and devise their murders on the other side of the Channel, so they came to England to plot and prepare. Louis Napoleon knew this, and remonstrated with our government. Lord Palmerston, then prime minister, saw that our hospitality was being abused, and that we were lend ing ourselves as a convenience to the agents of crime and confusion. He accordingly introduced into the House of Commons a bill making the practices of these desperadoes penal- - a very moderate, reasonable bill, such as we should much like the Americans to enact on our behalf now. But our Commons had no patience at all with the proposal - they being in this instance not the objects but the shelter of the criminals. They grandly threw out the bill, and along with it they turned out Lord Palmerston. That way of dealing with such a proposal seemed to them at that time the right, honorable, and truly English one. We see things differently when our own withers are wrung. It was not, however, against the Americans that we sinned; and they, fortunately, are now likely to act towards us in a spirit more liberal than formerly. There is also a little improvement in our mode of dealing with these wholesale destroyers at home. There seems to be a growing conviction that the "cat" may be justly and beneficially applied to the backs of these dynamitard villains; and our lawyers have discovered that we may, without fresh legislation, make many of the explosions capital offences. One or two hangings and one or two floggings may be expected to produce very deterrent PENALTIES AND ASSIZE GOSSIP; WITH A LOOK AT THE CLOCK. THOUGH, as I have said, the wisdom seems to be perceived among us of sentencing workers in dynamite to the lash and to the cord, yet it is certain that we are a long way from adopting death or flogging as a punishment for ordinary offences. Indeed we have well-nigh restricted legal punishment to imprisonment of some kind. Now it seems likely that before very long serious difficulties may be interposed between the law's victims and their imprisonment. A case has recently occurred wherein a first-class misdemeanant has had a considerable portion of his confinement remitted, on the plea that the punishment was injuring his health. Probably it was. Confinement, in most cases, does not improve condition; the popular belief is, that it was never intended to do so. And up to this time most of us have been under the impression that a prisoner must take his chance of the effect on his health of expiating his offence, for expiated it must be. Without passing any reflection on what has occurred (for I am not acquainted with the representations which moved the secretary of state to pity), I feel certain that "Twill be recorded for a precedent, and that prisoners will naturally be very quick to put forward certificates that their health is being destroyed, in order to escape part of their sentences. It is to be presumed that favor will not in this matter be shown to any individual or to any class of culprits - therefore that tickets of debility or disease will be just as much sought after as tickets-ofleave. When I first began to think of this matter, it appeared to me to be purely and entirely an innovation; but upon consideration, I find that remission on the ground of low physical condition has in past time been allowed, though not in reference to the punishment of imprisonment. When, in the military services of older days, a PENALTIES AND ASSIZE GOSSIP A LOOK AT THE CLOCK. 355 man was sentenced to corporal punish- | much within the period that I can recolment, the doctor always watched the in- lect. I remember to have seen a man fliction of the "cat," and could stop the whipped in the market-place. I have seen chastisement if he found that it was ex- a man in the stocks. I have seen and ceeding the sufferer's physical power of heard a man condemned to death for endurance. The same rule which held in sheep-stealing, and remember one to have these cases viz., that a sentence which been hanged for robbery on the highway, was not intended to result in death or per- and another for stealing a horse and commanent injury should not be carried out mitting sundry other thefts. Scarlett and to the extent of producing either of those Wilde in court are two figures whom I results may be applied not unreason- can recall with tolerable distinctness. ably to cases of imprisonment. But then The generation before mine remembered arises the question, How are transgress- Erskine, and some of my friends of that ors who cannot endure imprisonment generation had a good deal to say about without a serious breakdown of constitu- him. I will repeat one anecdote. Erstion to be punished at all? We shall kine (I presume, after he had held, or either have to let them escape their pen- while he was holding, office) was brought alties on the ground of delicacy, or to down to a country assize town to plead in invent a new punishment, the infliction of some important case. Either there had which will not be confined to able-bodied, been some uncertainty until the last about vigorous prisoners. A great number of his being able to attend, or there had been our criminals are, it is to be suspected, some mismanagement, so that accommo. not physically strong. Of course we must dation was not early secured for him. not for a moment think of letting them all The place had but a limited quantity of loose on society, and allowing them to disposable rooms; the earlier comers got commit crime with impunity. Yet, on the possession of all these; and when the other hand, what is to be done with them? eminent counsel arrived, not a chamber Shall we have sanatory retreats with could he procure at alla chamber for pleasaunces attached, sheets of water for hire, that is; but he did find where to lay boating, and horses and carriages for en his head, and more than that too. For a joying the air? Three months in such clergyman, who was head master of the seclusion would make an agreeable and grammar school, was quite shocked to salutary change from the treadmill; and hear of Erskine being so hardly put to it. if this relaxation were resorted to once a So he invited him into his own house, and year, or perhaps oftener, offenders of any placed two or three of the best rooms at degree of delicacy might with such aid his disposal. The business lasted only a contrive to serve out their time. Or shall very few days, when Erskine, on depart we look for some grief that shall be ing, told his host that he hardly knew sharper for the moment, but of shorter how adequately to thank him for his atduration? A rogue who should be pro- tention, and that he should be very happy nounced incapable of enduring twelve if he ever found he had an opportunity of months' imprisonment with hard labor, returning the favor. "You will have that, might be strong enough to stand a few sir, before long, without doubt," answered hours in the pillory or to be branded. the schoolmaster. "You are quite sure One hardly likes to pursue this train of to become lord chancellor, and, by the thought farther, until opinion shall have time you are so I shall be very glad to ripened somewhat; but it really looks as give up teaching and to settle down in a if, modern penal inventions proving inap- living." Erskine was afraid there was no plicable, we were to be driven back upon such glory in store for him as his entersome of the tender mercies of the Middle tainer anticipated, but he repeated his Ages. Levity apart, we shall have to de- offer of service whatever station he might vise speedily punishments which can with occupy. When he became chancellor the certainty be inflicted. Those which there clergyman got his living. Whether Ersis a fair chance of evading on the plea of kine gave it without reminder, or whether failing health, genuine or pretended, will the parson had to ask for it, I cannot realtogether lose their deterrent effect; for member, but certainly the chancellor paid every knave will think himself clever honestly and well for having been taken enough to get the length of the doctor's in and done for in his need. foot, and so run the chance of anything which does not promise to be more severe than "quod." The law's inflictions have altered very Up to a little before my day there was always an assize ball; and the ceremonies observed in bringing the judges into town were, within my recollection, exceedingly well with small numbers as with mouthfilling ones, and the tale which hangs thereby will be as impressive in units as in dozens. When it was necessary to alter the reckoning of years, those who understood the matter submitted to inconvenience with a good grace, and kept Epiphany on what would have been Christmas day, because there had been really an error in the old style. But there is no error in reckoning the twelve hours twice in the astronomical day; and all I have to say is, that—well, I can't say all that is in my heart just now, for if I do I shall inevitably miss my train. quaint. I have an account of them some- | We can see how the world wags quite as where, and may possibly give it to Maga's readers on another occasion. I have not left myself space for it in the present paper; but I will mention, before I forget it again, the resistance to serving the office of high sheriff which was persistently and successfully offered for many years by an eccentric old squire. He cared little for the honor and glory of the shrievalty, and objected most earnestly to the trouble and expense, for he would have had to buy a state carriage, set up a troop of retainers, and I know not what besides. On the other hand, there was a fine of, as I think, £500 for not serving the office, if once nominated to it. The problem therefore, for the old character, was to avoid serving the office, and avoid paying the fine. This he solved very effectually by giving notice to the officers who named the magnates from whom the sheriff would be selected, that if made sheriff he would serve. "But as sure as you live," he added, "I'll go with a wain and oxen to meet the judges, and my people shall come in smock-frocks, with forks in their hands." Everybody was convinced that he would do as he threatened; they did not dare to commit the honor of the county to such hands; and he went down to the grave a very old man, without having been ever troubled to execute the office of chief magistrate. And now, by a glance at the clock, I learn that I must give over my musings, and betake myself elsewhere. By the way, is it now a decreed method that we are to change the small hours of our af ternoons into teens and twenties? If so, who is to bring about the alteration, and for whose benefit is it to be done? I quite fail to perceive what gain there can be in marking the dial with XVI.'s and XXIV.'s, or in talking of twenty-one o'clock, to compensate for the wrench which our habits will suffer in renaming the afternoon and evening hours. We shall be spared the trouble of writing A.M. and P.M. when we specify the time of day, and we shall avoid the confusion which might possibly arise from omission to insert these abbreviations; in return, we shall have a cumbersome method of notation. Surely the old style has not been found so inconvenient that a new one is imperatively called for! For my part, I have run through a large number of years without ever coming to thirteen o'clock, and I could be well content to live out my span without being ever taught by proud science to stray to that numerator of time. From Blackwood's Magazine. FORTUNE'S WHEEL. "Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown, With that wild wheel we go not up or down; For man is man, and master of his fate." CHAPTER I. -Enid. A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. FIRST-class travellers are rare in the month of June on the western and wilder section of the great West of Scotland Railway. The season of tourists is not yet; and sportsmen seldom begin to strag gle northwards before the second week of August. Through three-fourths of the year the company must rely for dividends or debenture interest on its goods traffic - carrying cattle and sheep, herring barrels, and wire fencing, with miscellaneous trifles of the kind. As for Auchnadarroch station, which is situated at the head of Strathoran, the station-master, metaphorically as well as physically, is one of the biggest men in the north country. Dressed in a deal of brief authority, he has the satisfaction of patronizing the country-folks who travel by the trains; he is toadied in the summer by innocent Cockneys, helplessly eager for direction and advice; and he may simultaneously indulge his indolence and fussiness by managing to make an infinite ado about nothing. Save a lonely shooting-lodge or two, a couple of manses, and the resi dence of Glenconan, there is nothing in the shape of a gentleman's house within a radius of some score of miles; and although the MacTavish Arms and posting establishment stands within a short gunshot of the station, in those opening days of June it has barely taken down its shutters. So it was all the stranger that, one bright afternoon in June, the station should be the scene of unwonted excitement. The platform, usually left to be cleansed by the rains and winds, was swept and garnished; the porter had taken his hands out of the pockets of his corduroys; the station-master was standing at attention, and in close conversation with an elderly Highlander in homespuns; while the smoke of the train was visible in the middle distance, as it came sobbing and puffing up the stiff incline. The cause of the excitement might be explained by a carriage that had pulled up on the shingle sweep before the pine-built porch of the little booking-office. It was a wagonette of teak, with a pair of smart chestnut cobs-one and the other strong, low, and serviceable; while the well-set-up driver had a certain style about him that savored rather of the Parks and Piccadilly than of Ross-shire. “And as I was saying to you, Mr. Ferguson," drawled the Highlander in homespun, "this will be a great day for Glenconan." "I do not doubt it, Mr. Ross I do not doubt it," replied the other, motioning away with an affable wave of the arm the tender of the Highlander's snuff-mull. He was excited, and could not help showing it, though he prided himself on the serenity of his deportment. "We do what we can; but man's powers are limited, and we must have resident proprietors if we are to develop the local traffic." Donald Ross rumpled up his shaggy eyebrows. He was a fine specimen of the elderly hillman as tall as the stationmaster, and far more muscular. Hardlooking and weather-beaten, he seemed to have worked away, in a long life among the hills, all superabundant flesh from his bone and sinew. Though his Saxon was serviceable, like the cobs, he was not strong in it; he failed to catch the meaning of the station-master, and he struck back into his own line of thought. "Ay, more resident gentlemen, as you were saying, will be a great thing; and it will be a great thing for Glenconan when we have one of the Glenconans' among us again. I'm thinking he will be turning Corryvreckan and Glengoy into deer; and 'deed these shepherd-men are just one of the plagues of Egypt that the minister would be speaking about the former Sabbath-day." Meanwhile the train was approaching, and at last it drew up at the platform. Three gentlemen got out of a first-class carriage. The station-master received them cap in hand, with an obsequiousness significant of the solemnity of the occa sion. As for Donald, he slightly lifted his deer-stalker bonnet, and pulled shyly at a grizzled forelock; but his grey eyes gleamed with such a soft satisfaction as you may see in a friendly collie gratified by the home-coming of his master. The foremost of the three, who naturally took the lead, was a hale veteran of about sixty or somewhat more, cast very much in the manly mould of the keeper. His dress was almost as rough, though carefully put on; but there was no possibility of mistaking him for anything but a gentleman: and if his face was beaming with excitement and good-humor, he was nevertheless the sort of man you would have been sorry to quarrel with. There was energy of purpose in the features, that were high and even harsh, as in the flash of the keen grey eyes; with a touch of sarcastic resolution about the corners of the firm mouth. His companions, who kept themselves modestly in the background, were boys in comparison. One of them might have come of age a year or two before; the other was some halfdozen years his senior. The elderly gentleman acknowledged the salutation of the station-master with a nod, and a quick look that seemed to read the man through and dispose of him. But his greeting to Donald was cordiality itself as he held out the muscular hand, which the other evidently had expected. "And so you're here, are you, Mr. Ross, instead of upon Funachan; and this is the way you've been looking after the deer in my absence." Donald grinned a width of welcome like the breaking of a blaze of sunshine after a thunderstorm over the waters of the neighboring Lochconan. "And 'deed it was very little of the deer that I was thinking of to-day, Glenconan, - though I might possibly have been speaking of them to the station-master here," he added conscientiously. "And it's a pity but there was your piper to give you your welcome; but Peter has been palsied since the Martinmas before lastand short in the wind, moreover. And how have you been keeping, sir; and how was Miss Grace?" "Exceedingly well, and all the better for the thought of coming home. I can answer for myself, and I can answer for her too. As for Miss Grace, you will see |