le to lay before us. They picture to
us a quietly-ordered, rather serious home, pretty constantly frequented,
however, by company, as one would expect from the many interests and
associations of its busy-minded master. He seems to have been in the
habit of treating his wife, in private, to solid readings in history,
politics and theology. One morning breakfast is followed by some
chapters of Thucydides, the next by part of one of Abernethy's sermons,
another day "Lord Shelburne read to us a paper concerning the Stamp Act
in America;" while on a fourth occasion Lady Shelburne, after dining at
the French ambassador's and going to a couple of gossipy assemblies
afterward, comes home to her lord, who very appropriately reads to her
"a sermon out of Barrow against judging others--a very necessary lesson
delivered in very persuasive and pleasing terms." More of Lord
Shelburne's private life we shall no doubt learn in the second volume of
his biography, in which we are promised "a picture of the society of
which Bowood [Lord Shelburne's country-seat in Wiltshire] was the centre
during the latter part of the century." Here, for the present, we
conclude by registering once more our cordial appreciation of the
service that is rendered to history by the publication of such
biographies of leading men as that treated of in this paper. Documentary
evidence carefully collected, besides correcting the hasty and generally
biased assertions of irresponsible contemporary chroniclers, forms the
only trustworthy foundation for the judgment of the impartial historian.

W. D. R.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] _Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, afterward First Marquess of
Lansdowne, with Extracts from his Papers and Correspondence._ By Lord
EDMOND FITZMAURICE. Vol. 1., 1737-66. Macmillan & Co., London and New
York, 1875.

[D] Brigadier-general Mostyn.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

SOCIETY IN PARIS.

If there is one point in social matters wherein Philadelphia shines
pre-eminent, it is in the matter of entertainments, whether private or
public. A lavish and generous hospitality rules our actions whenever we
bid a guest to our board. Emphatically, it is to our board. If that
hospitality has a flaw, it is to be found in the fact that we make the
eating and drinking part of our festivities of far too much importance.
Terrapin and Roederer take the place of dress and of diamonds. Our
cooks, and not our mantuamakers, are set in a flutter at the rum