rewards our generous enthusiasm for its multiple causes by calling us "Sans-patrie," "Jews," and "Traitors from Frankfort," subsidised by a mythical syndicate, like the Czar, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Italy, and the Pope of Rome. Needs must we fret and fume, grow irritable and ill, perhaps long to hear the tocsin ring for another St. Bartholomew's, if we are on one side,—that of the large, unenlightened, and foolish majority; yearn to people the Devil's hole with sundry scoundrels we have come to hate if on the other side, that of the elect and liberal minority, with a passion of hatred no public men in our own country have ever inspired. What is the meaning of it? Is there some subtle magnetism in the air of Paris which makes us see French rascals as so different from other rascals, French tragedy as more poignant and intense than any other? I know I could cheerfully get through the remainder of my days in Spain or Italy without giving a thought to either government or caring a straw whether Sagasta or Crispi were in or out of office. I never see much difference between the gentlemen who in turn manage the affairs of England; in fact, I never have the ghost of an idea who is at the head of each department, and could not for the life of me distinguish between Mr. Codlin and Mr. Short. Not so in this brilliant, variable, light-headed, light-hearted, graceless, and
