quickened by sympathy and fed with delicate emotions. The Dauphin in the Temple, the Princes in the Tower, Marie Antoinette on the guillotine, and Jeanne d'Arc at the stake, these are the scenes which have burned their way into many a youthful heart, and the force of such early impressions can never be utterly destroyed. A recent essayist, deeply imbued with this good principle, has assured us that the little maiden who, ninety years ago, surprised her mother in tears, "because the wicked people had cut off the French queen's head," received from that impression the very highest kind of education. But this is object-teaching carried to its extremest limit, and even in these days, when training is recognized to be of such vital importance, one feels that the death of a queen is a high price to pay for a little girl's instruction. It might perhaps suffice to let her live more freely in the past, and cultivate her emotions after a less costly and realistic fashion.
On the other hand, Mr. Edgar Saltus, who is nothing if not melancholy, would fain persuade us that the "gift of tears," which Swinburne prized so highly and Mrs. Browning
