gment of iron, were found where they had been laid by his repentant
kinsmen. He had bravely asserted the rights of the individual conscience
against the dictates of Society; he had lived, and loved, and died, not
in vain. Last April I plucked a rose beside his cave, and laid it with
another that had blossomed at the door of the last house which covered
the homeless head of SHELLEY.

The prophecies of Why-Why have been partially fulfilled. Brothers, if
they happen to be on speaking terms, may certainly speak to their
sisters, though we are still, alas, forbidden to marry the sisters of our
deceased wives. Wives _may_ see their husbands, though in Society, they
rarely avail themselves of the privilege. Young ladies are still
forbidden to call young men at large by their Christian names; but this
tribal law, and survival of the classificatory system, is rapidly losing
its force. Burials in the savage manner to which Why-Why objected, will
soon, doubtless, be permitted to conscientious Nonconformists in the
graveyards of the Church of England. The teeth of boys are still knocked
out at public and private schools, but the ceremony is neither formal nor
universal. Our advance in liberty is due to an army of forgotten Radical
martyrs of whom we know less than we do of Mr. Bradlaugh.

A DUCHESS'S SECRET.

When I was poor, and honest, and a novelist, I little thought that I
should ever be rich, and something not very unlike a Duke; and, as to
honesty, but an indifferent character. I have had greatness thrust on
me. I am, like Simpcox in the dramatis personae of "Henry IV.," "an
impostor;" and yet I scarcely know how I could have escaped this
deplorable (though lucrative) position. "Love is a great master," says
the "Mort d'Arthur," and I perhaps may claim sympathy and pity as a
victim of love. The following unaffected lines (in which only names and
dates are disguised) contain all the apology I can offer to a censorious
world.

Two or three years ago I was dependent on literature for my daily bread.
I was a regular man-of-all-work. Having the advantage of knowing a clerk
in the Foreign Office who went into society (he had been my pupil at the
university), I picked up a good deal of scandalous gossip, which I
published in the Pimlico Postboy, a journal of fashion. I was also
engaged as sporting prophet to the Tipster, and was not less successful
than my contemporaries as a vaticinator of future events. A