Though he enjoyed a joke, he was supremely anxious that whatever he said should be true. The very accuracy and retentiveness of his memory had probably been assisted by this constant anxiety for truth. And in his later years, when it was not quite so ready and alert as formerly, it was curious to observe the working of his mind, intent to gather up again any fading recollections, and not permitting you to assist him, but recalling his thoughts, and regaining any lost clue himself. For some time past,' proceeds Dr. Hawkins, he had rather lain on his chair than sat upon it, and on this occasion, in order to support himself, he grasped one arm of the chair with his right hand; with his left, stretched over the other arm, touching or clasping mine. He said emphatically that he was "ready." On my observing that a very long life had been assigned him with very little illness and many sources of happiness,-"Yes," he said, he was deeply grateful. "Sir, I believe everything is ordered for the best. Do not you believe that, sir?" ' Later in the day, Dr. Cotton, Provost of Worcester, visited him: You are come, sir,' said the President, to one that is going.' He conversed cheerfully with Dr. Acland next morning (Wednesday); regretted that the new Museum was to be placed in the parks; and remarked, 'We are said to have the air in the parks from the Highlands of Scotland. I do not know whether this is correct, sir; I think the hills in Westmoreland must intervene; but I have not inquired into the fact.' To his physician: 'I will do what you desire, sir; take anything you please; but I know that it is useless. I shall go to-morrow.' He went to his bed reluctantly on that same night (Wednesday, 20th) for the last time. He used to sleep in the Founder's chamber,'—' King Charles's room,' as he himself called it, an ancient apartment over the College gateway, in which no less than seven royal personages have been entertained. On Friday he was clearly sinking; but at 2.30 P.M. he spoke a little, and was quite sensible. He expressed a wish to see Dr. Ogilvie,-who, as he knew, had his unsigned will in his keeping,- to-morrow ;' a to-morrow he was destined never to see. It was plain to Dr. Jackson, who attended him, that the time for transacting business of any kind was past. The President' (he wrote to Dr. Bliss) is as ill as he can be to be alive.' In the evening, when Esther Druce, his faithful old servant, was standing at the foot of his bed,- Now, Esther, I seem better.' He crossed his hands and closed his eyes. She heard him repeat the Lord's Prayer softly to himself. Presently she proposed to give him some port wine, as the doctor had recommended. He drank it; feebly took her hand, thanked her for all her attention to him, and and remarked that he had been a great deal of trouble;' adding that he had made some provision for her. His leg occasioned him pain. 'Let me make you a little more comfortable,' said the poor woman, intending to change the dressing. Don't trouble yourself,' he replied. Those were the last words he spoke. Folding his arms across his breast, he became silent. It was his Nunc dimittis. He heaved two short sighs and all was over. . . . ‘I have just seen him,' wrote Dr. Jackson. "He lay perfectly placid, with his arms crossed just one over the other, as if asleep. May my end be like his, at a much less advanced age!' 'It has been decided' (wrote his nephew to Dr. Bliss on the 24th), ' in consequence of the strong desire expressed on the subject by members of the College, to bury my dear uncle within the walls. We have had much difficulty in coming to this decision; for, as you may be aware, he gave precise directions for his burial at Theale. We have done so only on the ground that in matters relating to himself (the taking his portrait, for instance) he has uniformly given way to the wishes of the Society he presided over; and it is reasonable to suppose that if any representation of the feeling of the College in this respect could have been made to him during his life, he would have conceded the point.' In the beautiful chapel of the Society over which he presided for sixty-three years, Dr. Routh was accordingly buried on the Friday after his decease; being followed to the grave by a vast concourse of persons, including the principal members of the University, the fellows and demies of his own college, and a troop of friends. The funeral cortége filled two sides of the cloisters. It was the most touching and impressive scene, I think, that I ever witnessed,' wrote one of the fellows a few days after. But the weather was intensely cold,—the wind blowing strong and bitter from the north-east, as Bodley's librarian remarked in a letter to a friend. Not a note of the organ was heard; the whole body of the choir chanting the Psalms without music. The open grave was immediately in front of the altar; and on the coffin was recorded the rare circumstance that its occupant was in his hundredth year. 'He sleeps before the altar, where the shade He loved will guard his slumbers night and day; And tuneful voices o'er him, like a dirge, Will float for everlasting. Fitting close For such a life! His twelve long sunny hours Bright to the edge of darkness: then the calm ART. ART. II.-1. Reports issued by the Schools' Enquiry Commission on the Education of Girls. 2. Journal of the Women's Educational Union. Edited by Miss Shirreff and George C. T. Bartley. 3. The Education of American Girls. Edited by Anna C. Brackett. 1874. 4. Five Hundred Employments adapted to Women, with the average Rate of Pay in each. By Miss Virginia Penny. Philadelphia. 5. Literary and Social Judgments. By W. R. Greg. 1868. 6. The Woman's Gazette, or News about Work. Conducted by L. M. H. N her Letters to her Daughter,' Lady Mary Wortley Montague introduces 6 various travels seen but two sorts of people, and those very like one another—I mean men and women-who always have been and will be the same.' Whatever the ambiguity of this sentence, there is no mistake as to what so clear-headed a woman, who despatched commonplaces and sophistries with a touch, really meant; not that men and women are very like one another all over the world, but that the two sorts' in one country resemble the two sorts' in another-a fact which few women have had more opportunity of verifying. She might even have added that whatever the progress and changes in social habitswhatever the occasional interchange of parts in the drama of life, from circumstances past control-the two sorts' would remain distinct to the end of the chapter, and would not be men and women at all if they did not. Under these circumstances there is something tragi-comic in the pains many a worthy writer has taken to prove that men are masculine and women feminine, and that it is for their mutual interest to continue so; while the fact, that these works have been aimed chiefly at the claims of the weaker vessels, would lead to the inference that they are the party most eager to break the appointed bounds. Accordingly the central and special point round which the arguments of these writers revolve is, that woman should fulfil her mission :' in other words, that Nature having intended every Joan to have her John, she should seek and find her true happiness in a delightful round of domestic duties, exactly fitted to her capacity and strength, and never above either, all directed to John's especial comfort, and to that of the usual conjugal contingencies. The curious part of the argument is that, while it is always taken for granted that there is not only a husband in the case, but a pattern one, one, whom it will be her privilege to love, honour, and obey, it is as invariably forgotten that there is nothing in this world she is more eager to do. Far from needing pressure or persuasion, the poor lady is as ready to welcome that mirror of manly perfections who is to complete her being, as a duck is to take to the water. It is astonishing how these writers would simplify matters. Their conception of the relative positions of the two sorts' would seem to be that of a great corporate body, divided into two equal portions-the men on the one side, the women on the other-whence a succession of couples emerge and pair off in regular turns. This is a pretty picture for an Arcadian 'cotillon. The mind's eye can see them meeting, giving hands, and gaily careering down the middle; but it is not a picture for the canvas of real life. Such methodical arrangements, stript of all their gilding, would require men and women to return to that primitive form of society where to be marriageable is to marry. But there is no such thing as a state of nature for civilized man: the utmost development he is capable of is his only proper nature. A highly artificial condition of society' is a phrase apt to inspire an unpleasant impression, as of something which has deviated from sound, simple, and normal habits; but it is only the questionable adjective which is misleading: the thing itself is what every country capable of progress must covet; for it means nothing less than that in proportion as the conditions of life become more difficult and complex, they should be met by more ingenuity, more culture, more forethought, prudence, duty, and self-sacrifice. It is this complex state which interferes with what we fancy the natural relations of life, but which really raises them into a far more pure and ennobling sphere-which compels parents to part with their sons for their good to distant lands, never perhaps to see them again -which drives men to live where women of their own station cannot join them—which forces husbands to make their homes in climates where their wives sicken and their children cannot exist, and to continue at their posts so that these loved ones may exist elsewhere. There is no demoralisation or disorganization in this. It is rather a transposition of elements; a rooting up in one place to take root in another; a disintegration which stirs and fertilizes, to enrich and to bind again-all fulfilling the original mandate to replenish the earth and subdue it. But in this jostle and dispersion of social parts there is no doubt that the individual suffers though the race advances, and that 'the weakest is left to lament.' According to the 'Population Returns' of 1851, as quoted by Mr. Greg, there were in England and Wales at that time no less than than 1,248,000 women single, between the ages of 20 and 40. Reckoning for the numbers who in England marry after 20, this total would be considerably diminished; but, even so, it is believed that the permanent number of unmarried women may be accepted as about three-quarters of a million. Nor is the fact, that the estimate was made twenty-seven years ago, likely to have reduced the amount, but rather the reverse. This discloses what must be called a strange social phenomenon, suggestive of desolate positions and bitter needs, which has to be viewed under two aspects. Woman is the helpmeet for man, but man is the support hitherto deemed necessary for woman. Both aspects, in the tremendous extent of their present non-fulfilment, are matters of the gravest and of equal importance; but we have now only to do with the last. Assuming that the majority of these three-quarters of a million women are independent in circumstances, or so placed—especially in the lower ranks-as to support themselves, there still remains a body of single helplessness, living on shifts, alms, votes, and institutions, fit for no work, and eager to take any, of which society at every turn is made aware. There are other ties, it is true, and of a sacred nature, between men and women; but the fact is too evident, that what there is no husband to supply is but imperfectly supplemented by father or brother. It is a forlorn sight to see maidens withering on the stalk;' but it is a piteous one to see them starving on it. Poor ladies-for of such this class is principally made up-may truly say 'all things are against us,' for the parents who are bound to protect and provide are too often both the primary and ultimate cause of the misery of their daughters. Misfortunes are, it is true, sometimes of a kind which cannot be foreseen, or prevented; but the breakdown of all power and resources for meeting them can be prevented. False indulgence and false authority are the rocks on which thousands of these poor souls are wrecked. In some homes-and there are too many of them-young women, in the sense of thinking or acting for themselves, may be said never to come of age. They are lapped in a luxury which the stoppage of one heart or one bank suddenly brings to an end; and they are kept in leading-strings or go-carts which prevent their realizing the intention of their own limbs. The incapacity of some parents to perceive when their daughters have come to years of discretion-the jealousy to retain their authority over women more fitted by age to lead them-is a feature peculiar to English life. French mothers have, as M. Mohl used to express it, a férocité which dictates the choice in marriage both to son and daughter, and keeps their authority over both, even when married; but they do not turn their daughters out, single and dowerless, into the |