in 1839; yet, unlike the author, it still lives.  He is, in fact, the supreme example of the posthumous serial writer.  I have no information about Mr. DEBRETT and Mr. BURKE, but the style and substance of their work are relatively so flimsy that one is justified, I think, in neglecting them.  In any case their public is a limited one.  So, of course, is Mr. BRADSHAW’S; but it is better than theirs.  Mr. DEBRETT’S book we read idly in an idle hour; when we read Mr. BRADSHAW’S it is because we feel that we simply must; and that perhaps is the surest test of genius.

It is no wonder that in some circles Mr. BRADSHAW holds a position comparable only to the position of HOMER.  I once knew an elderly clergyman who knew the whole of Mr. BRADSHAW’S book by heart.  He could tell you without hesitation the time of any train from anywhere to anywhere else.  He looked forward each month to the new number, as other people look forward to the new numbers of magazines.  When it came he skimmed eagerly through its pages and noted with a fierce excitement that they had taken off the 5.30 from Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend.  He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays Only or a Saturdays Excepted.

This is the exact truth, and I gathered that he was not unique.  It seems that there is a Bradshaw cult; there may even be a Bradshaw club, where they meet at intervals for Bradshaw dinners, after which a paper is read on “Changes I have made, with some Observations on Salisbury.”  I suppose some of them have first editions, and talk about them very proudly; and they have hot academic discussions on the best way to get from Barnham Junction to Cardiff without going through Bristol.  Then they drink the toast of “The Master” and go home in omnibuses.  My friend was a schoolmaster and took a small class of boys in Bradshaw; he said they knew as much about it as he did.  I call that corrupting the young.

But apart from this little band of admirers I am afraid that the book does suffer from neglect.  Who is there, for example, who has read the “Directions” on page 1, where we are actually shown the method of reading tentatively suggested by the author himself?  The ordinary reader, coming across a certain kind of thin line, lightly dismisses it as a misprint or a restaurant car on Fridays.  If he had read the Preface he would know that it meant a SHUNT.  He would know that a SHUNT means that passengers are enabled to continue their journey by changing into the next train.  Whether he would know what that means I do not know.  The best authorities suppose it to be a poetical way of saying that you have to change—­what is called an euphemism.