by those who have the strength of mind to follow them as being exceedingly merry and complacent; but the less ponderous illuminati, to whom feebler souls turn instinctively for guidance, are shining just now with a severe and chastened light. When on pleasure bent they are as frugal as Mrs. Gilpin, but they sup sorrow with a long spoon, utterly regardless of their own or their readers' digestions. Germany still rings with Heine's discordant laughter, and France, rich in the poets of decadence, offers us Les Fleurs du Mal to wear upon our bosoms. England listens, sighing, while Carlyle's denunciations linger like muttering thunder in the air; or while Mr. Ruskin, "the most inspired of the modern prophets," vindicates his oracular spirit by crying,
"Woe! woe! O earth! Apollo, O Apollo!"
with the monotonous persistency of Cassandra. Mr. Mallock, proud to kneel at Mr. Ruskin's feet as "an intellectual debtor to a public teacher," binds us in his turn within the fine meshes of his exhaustless subtleties, until we grow light-headed rather than light-hearted
