of York and Walcheren, whereof we
haven't--or mighty little--we feel in touch with both these heroes,
for they are modern. Both have columns, anyhow; and we can dwell upon
their triumph or defeat almost as if it wasn't history at all, but
something that really happened, without running any risk of being
accused of archaism or of deciphering musty tomes. And we can enjoy
our expedition all the same to the ruined keep in the level pastures,
where the long-horned black cattle stand and think and flap their
tails still, just as they did in the days when the basement dungeons,
now choked up, held real prisoners with real broken hearts.

But there is modern life, too, at St. Sennans--institutions that keep
abreast of the century. Half the previous century ago, when we went
there first, the Circulating Library consisted, so far as we can
recollect it, of a net containing bright leather balls, a collection
of wooden spades and wheelbarrows, a glass jar with powder-puffs,
another with tooth-brushes, a rocking-horse--rashly stocked in the
first heated impulse of an over-confident founder--a few other
trifles, and, most important of all, a book-case that supplied the
title-role to the performance. That book-case contained (we are
confident) _editiones principes_ of Mrs. Ratcliff, Sir Walter Scott,
Bulwer Lytton, Currer Bell ... well, even Fanny Burney, if you come
to that. There certainly was a copy of "Frankenstein," and fifty years
ago our flesh was so compliant as to creep during its perusal. It
wouldn't now.

But even fifty years ago there was never a volume that had not been
defaced out of all knowledge by crooked marks of the most inquisitive
interrogation, and straight marks of the most indignant astonishment,
by the reading-public in the shadows of the breakwaters. It really
read, that public did; and, what's more, it often tore out the
interesting bits to take away. I remember great exasperation when a
sudden veil was drawn over the future of two lovers just as the young
gentleman had flung himself into the arms of the young lady. An
unhallowed fiend had cut off the sequel with scissors and boned it!

That was done, or much of it, when the books were new, and the
railway-station was miles away; when the church wasn't new, but
old, which was better. It has been made new since, and has chairs
in it, and memorial windows by Stick and Co. In those days its
Sunday-folk were fisherfolk mostly, and a few local magnates or
p