arious themes, and comprise quite a pretty
little poem, written when he was eleven, on Tintern Abbey. But perhaps
the most remarkable circumstance of all is that this youthful prodigy
lived to amply fulfill the promise of his youth, and proved as
sagacious and moderate in the use of knowledge as he was marvelous
in his powers of acquiring it. There is a remarkable tribute to these
powers in John Stuart Mill's _Autobiography_, where he says: "The
speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly
every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since bishop of
St. David's, then a chancery barrister, unknown except by a high
reputation for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union. His speech
was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered ten sentences I
set him down as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never
since heard any one whom I placed above him."

FREAKS OF KLEPTOMANIA.

A few months ago England, more especially the part thereof contiguous
to royal Windsor, was thrown into consternation by the report that
a box had been discovered, sunk just below water-mark in the Thames,
attached by a string to a tree, and containing a number of keys, which
were believed to belong to doors leading to the royal jewel-coffers.
The nine days' wonder which this intelligence, naturally enough,
produced, has since had a curious explanation. They were not keys of
the royal apartments at all, but Eton keys, the fruits of the
kleptic propensities of an unfortunate Eton boy, who--like a very
distinguished and noble member of Mr. Disraeli's cabinet, who is said
even now not to be able to resist the temptation offered at cabinet
councils by "Dizzy's" green kid gloves--had already paid the penalty
for similar offences by being sent away. A most extraordinary
instance of this propensity occurred a few years ago at a very wealthy
nobleman's house in the north of England. During a visit there
a lady's diamonds disappeared. There was great and general
consternation, and the detective police were summoned from London. The
jewels were subsequently discovered in a closet attached to the noble
host's dressing-room.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Round my House: Notes of Rural Life in France in Peace and War. By
Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

The time has at last come when Englishmen and Americans seem disposed
to study the character of the French people with some care and to
ju