flies
weekly during the remainder of winter for two Italian frogs."

The situation in Ireland remains unchanged, and suggests the following
historical division of eras. (1) Pagan era; (2) Christian era; (3) De
Valera.

_March, 1918_.

Once again the month of the War-God has been true to its name. March,
opening in suspense, with the Kaiser and his Chancellor still talking of
peace, has closed in a crisis of acute anxiety for the Allies. The expected
has happened; the long-advertised German attack has been delivered in the
West, and the war of movement has begun.

Breaking through the Fifth British Army, in five days the Germans have
advanced twenty-five miles, to within artillery range of Amiens and the
main lateral railway behind the British lines. Bapaume and Peronne have
fallen. The Americans have entered the war in the firing line. It is the
beginning of the end, the supreme test of the soul of the nation:

The little things of which we lately chattered--
The dearth of taxis or the dawn of Spring;
Themes we discussed as though they really mattered,
Like rationed meat or raiders on the wing;--

How thin it seems to-day, this vacant prattle,
Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West,
Voice of the great arbitrament of battle
That puts our temper to the final test.

Thither our eyes are turned, our hearts are straining,
Where those we love, whose courage laughs at fear,
Amid the storm of steel around them raining,
Go to their death for all we hold most dear.

New-born of this supremest hour of trial,
In quiet confidence shall be our strength,
Fixed on a faith that will not take denial
Nor doubt that we have found our soul at length.

O England, staunch of nerve and strong of sinew,
Best when you face the odds and stand at bay;
Now show a watching world what stuff is in you!
Now make your soldiers proud of you to-day!

Of our soldiers we at home cannot be too proud, from Field-Marshal to
officer's servant. As one of Mr. Punch's correspondents at the front
writes: "Dawn to me hereafter will not be personified as a rosy-fingered
damsel or a lovely swift-footed deity, but as a sturdy little man in khaki,
crimson-eared with cold, heralded and escorted by frozen wafts of outer
air, bearing in one knobby fist a pair of boots, and in the other a tin mug
of black and smoking tea." As for the charities and courtesies of war, as
interpreted by our s