The minister, I fear, would have to answer that our ancestors were barbarous enough, not only to destroy the Roman cities, and temples, and basilicas, and statues, but the Roman baths likewise; and then retired, each man to his own freehold in the country, to live a life not much more cleanly or more graceful than that of the swine which were his favourite food.  But he would have a right to plead, as an excuse, that not only in England, but throughout the whole of the conquered Latin empire, the Latin priesthood, who, in some respects, were—­to their honour—­the representatives of Roman civilisation and the protectors of its remnants, were the determined enemies of its cleanliness; that they looked on personal dirt—­like the old hermits of the Thebaid—­as a sign of sanctity; and discouraged—­as they are said to do still in some of the Romance countries of Europe—­the use of the bath, as not only luxurious, but also indecent.

At which answer, it seems to me, another sneer might curl the lip of the august shade, as he said to himself—­“This, at least, I did not expect, when I made Christianity the state religion of my empire.  But you, good barbarian, look clean enough.  You do not look on dirt as a sign of sanctity?”

“On the contrary, sire, the upper classes of our empire boast of being the cleanliest—­perhaps the only perfectly cleanly—­people in the world:  except, of course, the savages of the South Seas.  And dirt is so far from being a thing which we admire, that our scientific men—­than whom the world has never seen wiser—­have proved to us, for a whole generation past, that dirt is the fertile cause of disease and drunkenness, misery and recklessness.”

“And, therefore,” replies the shade, ere he disappears, “of discontent and revolution; followed by a tyranny endured, as in Rome and many another place, by men once free; because tyranny will at least do for them what they are too lazy, and cowardly, and greedy to do for themselves.  Farewell, and prosper; as you seem likely to prosper, on the whole.  But if you wish me to consider you a civilised nation:  let me hear that you have brought a great river from the depths of the earth, be they a thousand fathoms deep, or from your nearest mountains, be they five hundred miles away; and have washed out London’s dirt—­and your own shame.  Till then, abstain from judging too harshly a Constantine, or even a Caracalla; for they, whatever were their sins, built baths, and kept their people clean.  But do your gymnasia—­your schools and universities, teach your youth nought about all this?”

THRIFT.  A LECTURE DELIVERED AT WINCHESTER, MARCH 17, 1869.

Ladies,—­I have chosen for the title of this lecture a practical and prosaic word, because I intend the lecture itself to be as practical and prosaic as I can make it, without becoming altogether dull.

The question of the better or worse education of women is one far too important for vague sentiment, wild aspirations, or Utopian dreams.