Not, as of old, within the squire's hall,

Hung round with arms and scriptural tapestry :
So pictured as to guilty minds appal,

But in the court-house of the sessionry
Behold them charged, and pondering their plea.

"Drunk and disorderly," or "vagrants vile
Without apparent means of living," says
A blue-coated official in stern style,

And then the bench such social wrongs appraise
At "half-a-crown or gaol for seven days.'

Thus, times and customs, men and manners change,
And so all institutions have their day

Like instruments of torture, out of range

Of memory, the stocks will pass away,

And with them those that 'neath yon tree decay.

The ducking stool is done with and the helm,
Contrivances ordained for scolding wives,
The pillory is banished from the realm

And corporal punishment no longer thrives,
Save through the cat, which now alone survives.

Each mode has served its turn, and played a part
For good or ill with man; but while the bane
Of drunkenness corrupts the nation's heart-
Discrediting our age-methinks the reign.

Of stocks, at least, were well revived again.*

C.

*NOTES. In the north of England it was formerly customary to degrade notorious drunkards by compelling them, when sufficiently sober, to perambulate the towns or villages where their offences occurred with the head pushed through an opening in the top of some empty barrel or cask, the bottom of which was knocked out to admit the body, and holes made in the sides for the arms to pass through. This contrivance was called the " Drunkard's Cloak."

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The ducking stool, or "cucking stoole," was devoted to the punishment and reformation of women of bad character, brawlers, shrews, and habitual scolds. It was more or less in use up to the end of the eighteenth century. A woman was publicly ducked or dipped at Chelmsford as late as the year 1801. The ducking stool consisted of a chair or seat affixed to one end of a horizontal beam, which was supported in the centre like a scale beam, by means of a revolving pivot and hinge on a strong upright post; the apparatus was usually a permanent erection beside some river or piece of water, and the unfortunate female doomed to be ducked was secured to the seat or stool, which was then swung over and deliberately dipped with its fair freight three times into the water, much to her terror and dis

composure.

The helm or brank partook of the nature of a bridle and gag combined, and was devised in such a manner that the mouth could be fixed wide open or closed. In the latter case the wearer could not open her mouth to speak without bringing her chin into contact with a sharp pin or stub fixed underneath, which was for the time an effectual restraint to her tongue. The brank was, I believe, chiefly constructed of light ironwork secured by a padlock behind. Women sentenced to wear this unpleasant head-gear were paraded in custody of the parish constable or beadle through the streets or highways as convicted termagants, brawlers, or perverse scolds.

The pillory originally was the punishment awarded to millers, bakers, and tradesmen guilty of theft, cheating, giving short weight, and fraudulent dealing. In later times, however, it had a much more extended use.

CULTURE.

Readers of Mallock's "New Republic" will recollect that it chiefly consists of imaginary conversations, of which "Culture" formed the principal topic. Very diverse were the ideas and characteristics of the different persons taking part in this discussion, and equally various were the opinions they seemed to entertain as to what constituted Culture; but, nevertheless, they appeared to agree that whatever it was it was a very desirable thing, whilst by many it was considered to afford a good substitute for Religion.

On the other hand, there exists amongst a certain class of thinkers of the broader and more Radical school a half-expressed suspicion of, if not even of animosity toward, that Culture to which a special claim is set up by certain classes of society. A suspicion of it, as tending to effeminacy, daintiness, and exclusiveness, and as inimical to the hardier virtues, and to that broad human sympathy on which they set so high a value.

There appears to me to be a foundation of truth in both these attitudes of thought.

It is evidently impossible to give a definition of Culture which would be accepted at all hands, where so great a diversity of opinion prevails; but it is possible to lay down some general principles, which will include a large proportion of most men's thoughts on the subject, and which will perhaps tend to make more definite in our own minds the nebular ideas which have heretofore floated through them, when the subject of Culture has been broached.

Etymologically considered, Culture means simply Cultivation applied to human nature, and expresses the result of such cultivation. It there

fore properly denotes development, evolution, the ripening of humanity in all its manifold powers and capacities. Principal Shairp, in his little book on "Culture and Religion in some of their Relations," says— "Culture proposes as its end the carrying of men's nature to its highest perfection, the developing to the full all the capacities of our humanity." This is Culture considered in its general aspect, and it represents an ideal so profound and comprehensive, that it is vain to seek for its full embodiment in any living character. Culture, as we know it, is necessarily partial; "no man ever swells to the full circle of the Infinite."

There has, however, risen up a special and more limited meaning to which the term is applied. True Culture, that is to say, Culture of man in all his parts, produces an indefinable grace and charm in the outward manner and bearing of those who possess it. This is the outcome of the man himself; the natural expression of a perfectly cultivated and balanced mind, whose judgment, taste, and affections are all thoroughly developed. The outward manifestations of this polish are capable of being imitated to a very large extent by those who do not possess the real qualities of which originally they were the signs. Hence, good manners, refinement, taste, finish-all the thousand-and-one graces which are possible in the highest degree only to him who has lived in cultivated society, and which are so beautiful when they are the outward sign of the "inward and spiritual grace"-these all come in time to be reduced to a code of conventional symbols of outward manner and expression, which can be learnt and adopted by a man who at heart is grossly uncultivated in any true and noble sense. They may be, and often are, veneer, gilding, and inasmuch as then they make the base metal look like gold, we are at first deceived, and on discovering the sham we revert with gladness to honest metal, even though of a coarser type-so be it, it does not lie to us. The tendency of those who are known as belonging to the so-called school of modern Culture-the praters about "sweetness and light "-is to a too limited and one-sided idea of what a broader view of Culture involves. It is evident that no man can be highly cultured, in any true sense, in all directions; the limitations of our nature prevent this. Admirable Crichtons are probably myths. The practical limitations of Culture impress themselves so strongly on the mind of every thinking man who is capable of forming the grand idea of universal Culture in the abstract, as to render him truly modest in his aims and hopes. Hence, we naturally limit the word in our idea specially to the cultivation of the highest in us. No doubt physical Culture, the cultivation of the bodily powers by the athlete, forms a part of a true notion of abstract general Culture, and it was a reaction from the neglect of this phase of Culture, which laid hold of Kingsley and his school, when some thirty years ago he introduced us, in his romances, to those marvellous examples of what has since become known as muscular Christianity. But high Culture is specially the Culture of the highest, and he who knows not what the highest is, shows thereby how utterly uncultivated he is. To be deficient in a sense of relative values, to underrate the immense relative importance of the

intellectual and moral interests of life, as compared with the outward proprieties of manner and deportment, exhibits a gross form of uncultured manhood. Yet, strange to say, this is most commonly found amongst the so-called cultured classes. They have learnt to set such store on the outward symbols of grace and refinement, that all enthusiasm for causes and principles, which kindles such earnestness in many natures as to render them careless of the mere outward proprieties, is offensive to them; undue absorption in the superficialities, the adornments, and the elegancies of life, tends not only to withdraw vital energy from life's graver objects, but also to warp and stunt the higher nature, and to dull the perception of what constitutes Culture in its larger objects. These often, whilst putting themselves forward as the special representatives of Culture, manifest a one-sidedness and pettiness of conception which betrays the poverty of their ideal of it, and condemns them as really uncultivated after all. They are too frivolous to be deeply in earnest about anything; they recoil from enthusiasm as inherently vulgar, no matter how grand its exciting cause. The passion for Truth, the lofty devotion of self to the common weal, the capability of rising above the small concerns of individual existence, to a self-dedication to the general-these are things quite left out of their notion of Culture, and the omission is fatal.

The true use of Culture is to produce large and rounded natures, the maximum of strength, and at the same time the maximum of beauty; but the advocates of the one-sided Culture of which I have been speaking, are apt to neglect the sinew and bone of our humanity, in order to clothe it in elegant costume. From this the common-sense of the less educated revolts.

In proportion as a thing is sacred or noble intrinsically, in that proportion is our revulsion of feeling, when we realise that we are not dealing with the thing itself, but only with its outward semblance, and that that for which it stood as a symbol is itself wanting. Hence, nothing excites so strong a feeling of disgust as hypocrisy in Religion.

Civilisation is in a sense the outcome of Culture, although it must precede the highest Culture. And as forms which once stood for much become stereotyped, they often survive that noble thing of which they were originally the symbol. Thus it not unfrequently happens, that in a high state of Civilisation there is very frequently left stranded a great deal of hollow pretension. More than one of the prophets of modern literature has made it his life-work to prick the hollow bubbles of false assumption with which modern life has thus become filled, and I am happy to believe that their teachings are beginning to bear some fruit. The strong persistent vein of sarcasm which runs through the works of Thackeray is chiefly directed against the shams and falsehoods of socalled Society; whilst in deeper and more earnest tones the voice of Carlyle has made itself heard revealing the hollowness of those foundations. upon which men are building their lives, and striving to rekindle in them some adequate appreciation of those great realities which they have forsaken in order to live a life of empty show.

Is it not this sense of hollowness in the claims of so-called respectability that drives some of the best, because the most truthful, natures into Bohemianism? Nay more, does not Bohemia itself become respectable when compared with that from which it is so often the re-action? None but the noblest natures indeed are strong enough to live in Bohemia unscathed, since ordinary mortals need the support and help which custom and habit and the countenance of their fellows afford them. But who would not rather live in Bohemia with Philip Firmin than be the compatriot of his father the doctor, and Talbot Twysden? No doubt it will be denied that these are in any sense representatives of Culture; and it is true that they are not so, yet they are but extreme illustrations of the tendency of modern Culture to pay an exaggerated attention to our outward acts with a view to gaining the approbation of others, studying to be in ourselves what we should most wish others to think us.

Whilst, however, calling attention to the defectiveness of what passes for Culture nowadays, let me in nowise be supposed to undervalue Culture itself. I would rather desire to enlarge our conception of its real significance. If we have to choose between vigour and earnestness on the one side and external polish on the other, by all means let us have the first. But I plead for a Culture which, while it realises the relative importance of the former, would add to it the grace of the latter. Do not let the fascination of the one lead us to lack appreciation of, and sympathy for, those who, not having the opportunities of attaining it, are yet full of the "Enthusiasm of Humanity." Let us not put the lesser before the greater, but having made sure of the greater, let our aim be to attain that ideal of a cultured gentleman, described by the Roman poet as "Homo factus ad unguem," "The man finished even to the finger nail." When one thus begins to realise the full meaning of the word Culture, perhaps the two things which most impress the mind with regard to it are the limited extent to which it is attainable in the short time allotted to man in this world, and the smallness of the number of those to whom even this limited Culture is possible. If we seek to attain the fullest Culture, we cannot hope to reach our goal in this life; indeed, we shall be able to get but a small way towards it, more especially as our ideal will ever develop as we progress.

To those of us, however, who believe, as the late Lord Lyttelton would have us do, when he wrote, "Let us think often of death, not as the end of life, but as an event in our life," this will be a matter of secondary importance. It is greatly to be feared that the failure to realise the truth of this noble sentiment, even when it is nominally professed, exerts an enormously deterrent influence on the efforts of multitudes, who at middle age give up every effort at improvement as being too late, and sink into an ignoble existence whose one thought and aim is that of selfish ease and enjoyment.

If, therefore, our Culture is to be of any benefit to the world, as well as a blessing to ourselves, it is of the utmost importance that we should not waste time by beginning at the wrong end.