experience from the young soldier, glimpses into Richter’s special fields, and a contribution or two from the Mississippi Valley, from me.  In the talk that followed the dinner Mr. Bryce showed himself at home in German as much as in English, but what surprised me most was his puzzling curiosity about minutiae of our own politics.  Why did the Mayor of Oshkosh on such and such dates veto the propositions of the aldermen as to the gas supply?  And why did the supervisors of Pike County, Missouri, pass such and such ordinances as regards the keeping of dogs?  These, or similar questions were fired at me rapidly, uttered with a keen attention as to my reply.  I was quite confused and lame on what was supposedly my own ground.  How queer, I thought, was the interest and the knowledge of this stranger.  But in a few months I felt better. The American Commonwealth appeared, revealing Bryce as a man who had set foot in almost our every State and Territory, and who had an intimacy with America such as no American even possessed.

I am speaking here of historians, but may appropriately give a little space to an account of that wonderful acre or two of ground at Westminster, where for so many centuries the history of the English-speaking race has been to such an extent focused.

In looking up Young Sir Henry Vane, it seemed fitting to have some knowledge of Parliament, and I welcomed the chance when, on the 19th of August, 1886, Parliament convened.  It was a time of agitation.  At the election just previous the Liberals, with Gladstone at the head of the Cabinet, had undergone defeat and the Conservatives had come in with Lord Randolph Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer.  The first night was sure to be full of turmoil and excitement.  Through Mr. Bryce’s good offices I had a seat in the Strangers’ Gallery.  The student of history must always tread the precincts of Westminster with awe.  There attached to the Abbey is the Chapter House.  The central column divides overhead into the groins that form the arched ceiling, the stones at its base still bearing a stain from the rubbing elbows of mediaeval legislators, the floor worn by their hurrying feet, for from the time of Edward I. the Chapter House remained for centuries the legislative meeting-place.  The old St. Stephen’s Chapel to which Parliament at length removed was burned some eighty years since, but Westminster Hall, its attachment—­the great hall of William Rufus, escaped and the new buildings of Parliament stand on the site of its former home.  The present House of Commons occupies the ground of the old Chapel and in size and arrangement differs little from it.  The Hall is small.  The seven hundred members seated on the benches which slope up from the centre, crowd the floor space, while the galleries for the press at one end, for strangers at the other, and for the use of the Lords and the Diplomatic corps at the sides give only meagre accommodation.  I passed into the building at nightfall, getting soul-stirring