L. T. Moore is one of many literary Acteons who have mistaken Diana for Aphrodite.

L. C. You mean he is great dear; but he gets hold of the right end of the stick.

L. T. And he generally soils it.  But you know nothing about literature.  The age requires blood and Kipling gave it Condy’s Fluid (drinks barley water).  The age requires life, and Moore gave us a gallantee show from Montmartre (drinks barley water).  Even I require life.  To-morrow I am off to Aix.

L. C.—­les Bains?

L. T. No, la-Chapelle!

L. C. Oh, then we shall probably meet.  Thanks.  I can get on my own overcoat.  I shall probably be there myself in a few weeks.

ABBEY THOUGHTS.

Shall some memorial of Herbert Spencer be erected in the Abbey, or rather in what journalists love to call the ‘National Valhalla,’ the ’English Pantheon,’ or the ‘venerable edifice,’ where, as Macaulay says, the dust of the illustrious accusers, et cetera——?  The question was once agitated in a daily paper.  It seems that the Dean, when approached on the subject, acted like one of his predecessors in the case of Byron.  The Dean is in a very difficult position, because any decision of his must be severely criticised from one quarter or another.  The Abbey retains, I understand, some of its pre-Reformation privileges, and is not under the jurisdiction of Bishop or Archbishop.  Yet no one who has ever visited the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor on October 13th, the festival of his translation, can accuse the Abbey authorities of bigotry or narrow-mindedness.  Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he was, until superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of ’the Church of England by law established.’  A verger, with some colonial tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of regard for our feelings.  Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted towards us an attitude of respectful curiosity (not altogether unpleasant), which was in striking contrast to the methods of the continental Suisse routing out worshippers from a side chapel of a Catholic church in order to show Baedeker-ridden sightseers an altar-piece by Rotto Rotinelli.

Thoughts of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley irresistibly mingled with my devotions.  What had the poor fellows burnt for, after all?  Here we were ostentatiously ignoring English history and the adjacent Houses of Parliament; outraging the rubrics by ritual observations for which poor curates in the East End are often suspended, and before now have been imprisoned.  I could not help thinking that the Archbishop of Westminster would hardly care to return these hospitalities, by permitting, on August 24th, a memorial service for