is subject: first, the British
Government has signally neglected its duties in this field through a
period of about ninety years, and apparently is not aware of any
responsibility attaching in such a case to those who wield the functions
of supreme power. Hyder Ali, the tiger, and his more ferocious son
Tippoo, practised, in the face of all India, the atrocities of Virgil's
Mezentius upon their British captives. These men filled the stage of
martial history, through nearly forty years of the eighteenth century,
with the tortures of the most gallant soldiers on earth, and were never
questioned or threatened upon the subject. In this nineteenth century,
again, we have seen a Spanish queen and her uncle sharing between them
the infamy of putting to death (unjudged and unaccused) British soldiers
on the idlest of pretences. Was it then in the power of the British
Government to have made a vigorous and effectual intercession? It was;
and in various ways they have the same power over the Chinese sovereign
(still more over his agents) at present. The other thing which occurs to
say is this: that, if we do _not_ interfere, some morning we shall
probably all be convulsed with unavailing wrath at a repetition of Mr
Stead's tragic end, on a larger scale, and exemplified in persons of
more distinguished position.

Finally, it would have remained to notice the vast approaching
revolution for the total East that will be quickened by this war, and
will be ratified by the broad access to the Orient, soon to be laid open
on one plan or other. Then will Christendom first begin to _act_
commensurately on the East: Asia will begin to rise from her ancient
prostration, and, without exaggeration, the beginnings of a new earth
and new heavens will dawn.

SHAKSPERE'S TEXT.--SUETONIUS UNRAVELLED.

_To the Editor of 'Titan'._

Dear Sir,--A year or two ago,[7] I received as a present from a
distinguished and literary family in Boston (United States), a small
pamphlet (twin sister of that published by Mr Payne Collier) on the text
of Shakspere. Somewhere in the United States, as here in England, some
unknown critic, at some unknown time, had, from some unknown source,
collected and recorded on the margin of one amongst the Folio reprints
of Shakspere by Heminge & Condell, such new readings as either his own
sagacity had summarily prompted, or calm reflection had recommended, or
possibly local tradition in some instances, and histrion