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still to be done in the streets on the outskirts of the capital before each new dwelling is put up. The view from the town, across the Sound, of the snow-crowned Olympian mountains of the American coast is grand; while the large, and now American, island of San Juan makes a pleasant break in the programme. Unfortunately, however, no British Columbian can well look upon pine-clad San Juan without feeling a pang at heart, for its position is such as to enable a hostile Power to thoroughly rake the Georgian Sound. This is what submitting to arbitration has done for us in British North America, and now once again the delimitation of the boundaries of Alaska should be most carefully watched. But if the British Columbians are rightfully disgusted at the loss of San Juan, and mourn, moreover, the departure of the wealth of Alaska, they are still more sore with losing also all the territory south of the 49th degree of latitude, right down to the Columbia river, which river was formerly considered as the natural boundary between English and American soil. The British Columbians tell an amusing story, that its loss is all owing to some confounded naval officers, who went down there salmon-fishing, and found that the numerous salmon positively would not rise to a fly; and, indeed, no British Columbian salmon will to this day. But these gallant sportsmen came back in a rage, and reported that the country down there "wasn't worth a cuss. Everybody believed this, therefore no effort was made to retain it. This country, until lately known as Washington Territory, has recently become exalted into a new State, and can boast of excellent harbours on the inlet called Puget Sound, on which

now stand the flourishing cities of Tacoma and Seattle, whence excellent steamboats run to Victoria two or three times a-day. It is a trip, and a very beautiful one, of about eight hours from Tacoma, and six from Seattle. Of course, with the increasing prosperity of those two neighbouring American towns, Victoria will also increase, and yet more rapidly than they; especially as now, before long, a steam ferry will run across from Crescent City at the narrowest part of the Sound of San Juan de Fuca, a distance of only nine miles, and will convey with it the loaded trains wholesale. This will be on the principle of the enormous ferries near Portland, Oregon, and at Benicia, near San Francisco, California. This latter gigantic ferry carries four parallel lines of railroad, upon which can be transported no less than forty-nine engines and passenger-waggons at every trip. We ourselves crossed it with an enormous train.

The climate of Victoria is splendid, much like that of England, but better, being far more equable. Excellen' crops can be, and are, raised wherever the land is clear of trees. At Nanaimo, a town about seventy miles away, connected with Victoria by railroad, are excellent coal-mines, producing coal of a most remarkably good description, in the working of which several of the people now living in Victoria have become millionaires. And there is doubtless much more first-class coal only waiting to be found. A ready market for this splendid coal is to be had at San Francisco. There is indeed a chance for any man nowadays to become rich in Vancouver Island, for a twelvemonth's coal - prospecting licence can be procured for only $25 paid to the Government.

Vancouver Island grows plenty of fine oaks, and also for size some of the most magnificent pine-trees in the world; moreover, timber can be transported nearly everywhere by water. If, therefore, prospecting for coal does not strike the fancy, why not take out a timber licence for a thousand acres of forest-land near some convenient creek? Here, by paying only $10 a-year rent, and 15 cents for every tree cut down, a man may make a good business either by starting saw-mills or by floating the logs down the Sound to such place where he may choose, and thus make a fortune out of timber. Of good farm-land, plenty that is already cleared can be had at a fair price, while uncleared agricultural land is to be bought for about $5 an acre. Again, any person above the age of eighteen years can, free of charge, obtain what are known as "homestead rights" over a tract of land, situated within the railway belt, of 160 acres in extent. While these "homestead rights" do not actually at first convey the title to the land, they yet "entitle the recipient to take, occupy, and cultivate the land entered for, and hold the same, to the exclusion of any other person whomsoever." Under certain arrangements this land may eventually become the property of the occupier. It will thus be seen there is ample means, outside of speculation in land and houses, which, where everything is rising in value, is itself good business, for a man to make a living by using his hands and wits, and he has also an agreeable country to do it in. For the country is distinctly beautiful, and the peo

ple, who are the most thoroughly English of all our American colonists, are most hospitable; the ladies, too, are very handsome and friendly. Electric cars swiftly moving will convey you for only five cents all over Victoria, and for a little extra charge will convey the passenger several miles right away into the country beyond. They run now out to Esquimalt in twenty minutes. Electric light illuminates town and suburb everywhere alike. In addition to the capital bear, grouse, deer, duck, and pheasant shooting, and to the salmon-which can be caught in numbers in the harbour at Esquimalt with a spoon-bait, although they will not take in the rivers, or else can be pitched out with a pitchfork from any of the small streams there is also to be had in Vancouver Island some of the grandest trout-fishing imaginable, which is easily accessible from Victoria. It may therefore, I think, be fairly conceded that, whether to dwell there, or only to pay the islands a visit, any man going out to the city of Victoria, at any time of the year, is likely to enjoy what is known as a thoroughly good time. Indeed, a naval officer whom we know has recently written to us that "he hopes when he may die that his soul may go back to the island." And here, with my best wishes for its prosperity, will I say farewell to that beautiful gem of the British Crown, Vancouver Island, while wishing no better fortune for myself than at some time in the near future to be able to visit its hospitable shores again.

ANDREW HAGGARD.

LORD HOUGHTON.

WE wish Lord Houghton had been Boswellised by an independent double. We should not have cared for an autobiography, although that would have been interesting enough. No perfectly truthful autobiography has ever yet been written for Rousseau, although he is candid to an excess, mixed his colours to please his morbid fancies, and there can be no question that he lied shamelessly. Such a biography as we should have desired, should have been written from the outside, and yet introspectively, by a man who possessed or appreciated Houghton's gifts and fine qualities, but who could have identified himself sympathetically with the foibles and amiable weaknesses which helped to endear him to his friends. Mr Wemyss Reid has done his work well, but it was almost inevitable that we should be somewhat disappointed. Neither in character nor qualities, nor in his habits or many of his tastes, had he much in common with the subject of his memoir. For one thing, he is one of the most hardworking and earnest of men, and Houghton was an idler and dilettante. He has little leisure to indulge in the society in which Houghton shone and delighted. He has passed his life among his countrymen at home, and Houghton was a cosmopolitan. Moreover, he had made Lord Houghton's acquaintance comparatively recently, and has to rely for the earlier studies of his subject on correspondence, or on reminiscences contributed at second-hand.

That he should have done so well is the more creditable that he fully realised the difficulties which must have discouraged him. For a telling and lifelike portrait demanded not only long and intimate knowledge, but a rare lightness of touch. Lord Houghton, though his career had been in some respects a disappointment, remained much of a boy to the last. As no one could enjoy with fresher and keener zest, so he must have experienced periods of depressing reaction. He had the susceptible poetic temperament, and not a few of his early letters, written when his prospects were clouded by family embarrassments, are sad in the extreme. Delighting in paradox, he was a living paradox himself, as he had realised to his cost and sorrow. Thinking and feeling deeply on many subjects, as Mr Reid very truly remarks he never appeared to take life seriously, and doubtedly he created that impression on the men who might have gratified the dearest objects of his ambition. Peel in especial not only admired his abilities but had some respect for his judgment. He repeatedly consulted Milnes, and particularly on French and foreign politics. Yet repeatedly he passed him over for subordinate office in forming his Ministries, and seemingly as а matter of course, for he tendered neither explanations nor apologies. For if there was one place Milnes coveted more than another, and to which he could put forward reasonable pretensions, it was that of

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Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton. By T. Wemyss Reid. Cassell & Co., 1890.

Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Nor did he ever make a mark in the House of Commons, although he had taken high honours in the University "Union," and more than one of his speeches in Parliament had a certain succès d'estime. He sought consolations in society, and to some extent he found them; but naturally society never satisfied him. The triumphs that had pleased the brilliant young neophyte ceased to have a charm for him, when his acquaintance was more likely to confer distinction than to add to his own. Emphatically the man of many friends, he may be said to have known everybody. It was one of the weaknesses to which we alluded, that notoriety in any shape had an irresistible attraction for him, unless, indeed, it had been allied to vulgarity, which would have revolted his fastidious nature. Consequently, in his social relations he took a catholic and tolerant view of politics. He had made the acquaintance of Louis Napoleon at Gore House; he readily accepted the Emperor's hospitalities at the Tuileries, though, like his old college companion Kinglake, he disapproved of "the conspirators of the Elysée and their coup d'état; and he dined just as readily with Thiers when Thiers had risen to the Presidency on the collapse of the Empire. It should be added that when the Emperor was an exile, Houghton was still staunch in his friendship and ready with his services. Nor is there anything Mr Reid has brought out more forcibly than Lord Houghton's generous and unfailing sympathy with all who were desolate, unfortunate, or oppressed. Consistently paradoxical, his first impulse, when a third party intervened, was summarily and some

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VOL. CXLIX.-NO. DCCCCIV.

what cynically to reject a petition. His second thoughts and natural liberality would sway him rather towards the opposite extreme. We remember being commissioned to prefer a request in favour of the widow and orphans of a man who had really enjoyed an ample lifeincome. Lord Houghton made the obvious objection that the defunct should have insured for the benefit of his family; adding, "Would you consider it a deserving case if I were to leave my boy Robin a pauper?" He grumbled and protested again, but all the same, came down very handsomely.

He felt he had failed in public life, nor did he fully realise his ambitions in literature. He had

not the spur of necessity to compel him to systematic work; he had too many distractions-too many irons in the fire; and he had some of the flightiness of the poetical temperament, which shines in sparkles and flashes rather than with steady light. All he left behind him was a volume of 'Monographs,' contributions to the Quarterlies, the slighter periodicals, and the journals, with sundry volumes of graceful verses. It is characteristic of the man, who in a measure misused his talents, that the poetry by which he is most likely to be remembered are some popular songs set to agreeable melodies. How painfully disappointment weighed upon him at times, is

illustrated, as we have said already, in various passages in these volumes. Thus in a letter to his wife, where, apropos to the death of Lord Ashburton, he pathetically remarks that the Grange, where he had often had converse with Carlyle, "is gone from me and mine," he goes on: "I have much in common with him-mainly the failure in public life, which he bore with a dignity and manliness

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I have never assumed, but which he felt just as acutely." Perhaps what he had chiefly in his mind was that Under-Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs on which he had set his heart. Even as to that, he might possibly have been successful had he been a more diligent and systematic student. He had no capacity for drudgery, and, like Dr Johnson, he shrank from improving himself by conversational practice in the foreign languages, where he felt himself at a disadvantage. He was an excellent Italian scholar, but he had no pretensions to rival politicians like Lord Granville or Sir Charles Dilke in his knowledge of colloquial French; and he was even seriously embarrassed when he sat down to write a French note.

Fond as he was of all sorts of refined society, he was never so happy as in the company of congenial authors. He had an omnivorous appetite, though his tastes were capricious, and loved to be entertained rather than instructed. Genius or cleverness of any kind and in any style was always a recommendation. Not only the bright public rooms but the halls and corridors at Fryston were padded with book - shelves, and it was his pleasure to boast that all the more accessible volumes were eminently readable. He would take down two or three at random, by way of justifying the boast. In fact, though no bookworm, he seemed to estimate books almost instinctively, and to have the memory and perception of a heaven-born librarian. A letter from his old friend Aubrey de Vere in this biography, tells a story which we can firmly believe. He had dropped down, as his fashion was, somewhat unexpectedly on the De Veres' seat in West Ireland. While waiting

for supper he had made a dash round the library, glancing at the backs and titles of the books, and occasionally dipping into a volume. Next morning reference happened to be made to some little-known work, and the host knew not where to lay his hands upon it. Milnes remarked that he had seen it the evening before, and straightway sprang up and produced it. No man was a better authority on some book of the season, almost simultaneously with its appearance, especially when it was concerned with contemporary characters or social and political stories. He not only devoured it hurriedly himself, but he made it his business to collect and collate the opinions of men whose knowledge and judgment carried weight. We remember his lively interest in the first series of the 'Greville Memoirs,' which passed in review so many of the public notorieties he had known, and threw the lights of a general confidant and gossip on much that had been going on behind the scenes. When the Conservative Premier brought out 'Lothair,' selling the forthcoming novel for a sensational price, Houghton eagerly volunteered to review it for 'The Edinburgh.' None the less eagerly, that he had no great liking for Lord Beaconsfield, who had never taken Milnes altogether at his own valuation. Milnes had written, when the two men were together at Lord Ashburton's, "Disraeli was in his grand style and not very pleasant." Moreover, Disraeli had drawn him as Mr Vavasour. Now he had a fair opportunity of indulging his caustic humour and gratifying the old grudge by satirising the gorgeous tinsel and the "Arabian Nights" magnificence which arabesqued a novel of undeniable genius. When we

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