circulars, “Working-Men’s College Magazines,” etc.  There was a coal fire in a grate, [Mem. Hot-air furnaces hardly known in England,] a plain suite of book-shelves on one or more sides of the room, and a suite of narrow tables for readers running across.  There were, perhaps, a dozen young men sitting there to read.  This is virtually a club-room for the College, and serves just the same purpose that the reading-room of the Christian Union or the Christian Association does with us, but that they take no newspapers. [Mem. 2d.  If you are in England, you say, “They take in none.”  In America, the newspapers take in the subscribers.]

I told Mr. Shorter that I wanted to learn about the practical working of the College.  He informed me very pleasantly of all that I inquired about.  It proved that they published a monthly magazine, “The Working-Men’s College Magazine,” which was devoted to their interests.  The subscription is a trifle, and I took the volume for the year.  It proved, again, that I could become a member of the College by paying half-a-crown; so I paid, was admitted to the privilege of the reading-room, and sat down to read up, from the Magazine, as to the working of the College.  It appeared, that, after my initiation, I might join any class, though it were not at the beginning of the term.  So I boldly proposed to Mr. Shorter that I would join Mr. Ruskin’s class.  To tell the whole truth, I thought the experiment would be well worth making, if I only gained by it a single personal interview with the Oxford graduate, though I was doubtful about the quality of my impromptu skies.

  “Says Paddy, ’There’s few play
  This music,—­can you play?’—­
  Says I, ‘I don’t know, for I never did try.’”

I could at least have said this to the distinguished critic, if I found that his class was more advanced than I. But it proved that their session was within quarter of an hour of its end,—­and with some lingering remains of native modesty, I waited for another occasion,—­a morrow which never came,—­before putting myself under Mr. Ruskin’s volunteer tuition.  But I tell the story to illustrate what might have been.  Had I been legitimately a working-man in London, whatever the character of my work, I had a right to that privilege.

The Library proved to be one of those miscellaneous collections, such as all new establishments have, so long as they rely on the books which are given to them.  I took down a volume of the “Reports of the Social Association,”—­an institution which they have in England now, for the double purpose of giving an additional chance to philanthropists to talk, and of saving the world from the Devil by drainage, statistics, statutes, and machinery generally.  But I looked over the edge of the book a good deal to see who drifted in and out.  As different classes finished their work, one and another member came in,—­and a few lingered to read.  The aspect of activity