"A COULD never abide carnation : 'twas a colour he never liked," was poor Dame Quickly's testimony to the fancies of Sir John Falstaff. How the aversion had been contracted by the fat knight, unless it were by continual contemplation of Bardolph's nose, does not appear. But as the assertion was

made by one who knew him well, we must suppose it was correct; and if our own explanation of it is right, of which there can be little doubt, it is only another instance of that power which the symbolism of colour has been found to exercise over the human race from time immemorial. The flaming hues which made the nose of his faithful servitor so conspicuous an object in society were suggestive of uncomfortable and even alarming considerations. And the flea who had made good his footing on that interesting feature completed the association. Sir John raved. Whether Bardolph removed the insect, or the attendants removed Bardolph, we are left to conjecture. But whatever be the ultimate theory by which the criticism of the future I will account for the emotions of the patient, there can be very little doubt that he had quite as good reason for indulging them as the majority of mankind have for peculiarities of a similar nature; and the extent to which these should be recognized and deferred to by society is no uninteresting inquiry. We remember what has been said about offending the weaker brethren, and the precept, if inapplicable to Falstaff, is not equally so to Oxford undergraduates. It is, we say, a most important question to what length this doctrine shall be carried, and when a man is and when he is not bound to refrain from doing things which, per

fectly innocent, nay salutary, in themselves, are a rock of offence to other people. Apart from the question of intoxication, has a man any moral right to drink his nose to such a pitch of redness as to make it an offensive, perhaps a terrifying, object? We are told, in the Spectator, of a gentleman who resolved to discard the fashionable wig of the period, and to substitute for it a linen nightcap, the result of which was that a commission of lunacy was taken out against him: and Dr. Johnson, commenting on the story, dismissed it with the commonsense remark, "Why, sir, to be sure the nightcap was best abstractedly; but relatively the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him." Just so: and the question is what and how much are we to give up to prevent the boys from running after us or hooting after us, as the case may be and ought not they sometimes, as well as ourselves, to be compelled to desist from their caprices? for there is a vast number of people in the world who remain boys in intellect to the end of their days, and are quite as ready to shout at a linen nightcap or a red tie as the London boys in Queen Anne's reign, or the Oxford boys in Queen Victoria's.

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"nothing certainly can be said against them, much, on the contrary, for them, on logical grounds: but people have got into the habit of abusing them; they irritate particular classes; and for this reason, and for this reason only, they must be abolished." Now, upon this principle, it is perfectly clear that the "man in the red tie" on a recent occasion ought to have torn it from his throat the moment it provoked a roar. The red tie was as much an annoyance to the majority as Bardolph's nose was to Falstaff. It reminded them of terrible contingencies; and, indeed, the symbolism of it was much more strongly marked than it is in numerous other things which are persecuted for analogous reasons. We should have preferred, certainly, a different method of treatment. Bardolph naturally suggests Pistol; and we should have rejoiced to see the qualms of the Oxford Gallery receive the same sponse as the qualms of the fastidious "Ancient:" "I beseech you heartily, at my desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this tie." But then this drastic treatment would have been wholly opposed to "the spirit of modern legislation,"-that, we believe, is the phrase. These are no days for party-badges, or offensive distinctions. Pistol had a perfect right to take exception to the leek in the Welshman's cap. As a representative of the majority, the large majority, of the king's subjects, he had a right to demand its removal. Was he to have his head broken. and the leek thrust down his throat for this natural and laudable request? Certainly not. Fluellen, had he committed the same assault in modern London, would have been informed by some worthy magistrate that he had no right to carry anything about him calculated to provoke a breach of the peace; and would probably have been sent to jail without the alternative of a fine; while a flaming leader would have appeared in the Times next morning, showing that the conduct of this officer was an additional reason for insisting on the abolition of Purchase.

This excessive tenderness for sensitive organizations is, as we have said, a feature of the present day. Let us illustrate our meaning a little further: a great deal has been written and spoken recently on the subject of pigeon-shooting. We are not certainly among those who admire this amusement as conducted at Hurlingham and Shepherd's Bush; but still less do we admire the reasons for discontinuing it which are so frequently addressed to its devotees. To those who think it cruel, ignoble, or demoralizing, we have nothing to say. Those who see in it a mere piece of aristocratic wantonness, may perhaps be mistaken; but at least they suppose themselves to be in possession of a valid objection to it. objection to it. But there are numbers of people who think it neither; who believe both forms of accusation to be equally groundless; and who see in it. no greater waste of time or symptom of effeminacy than a thousand other things. which are tolerated without a murmur. But people have got to talk about it. They have got to see in it some special symbol of aristocratic luxury and degeneracy, which they do not see in other things. This is quite illogical and quite absurd, say the critics in question, but the gallery must be listened to. The Times and the gallery—

"Dii nos terrent et Jupiter hostis."

And therefore it had better be abandoned. How does it lie in the mouth of such reasoners as these to object to the Oxford undergraduates? Take, again, something more serious; take property. A certain number of people choose to say, We object to the accumulation of land; it jars upon us. We don't want any of it ourselves; we are rich enough without it. But large landowners are disagreeable to us. ought not to be required to give a reason; it is a purely sentimental grievance. But we should feel more comfortable without them; and, being the majority, we have a right to hoot them out of the kingdom. kingdom. Now, to those who object to large estates on practical grounds, because they are bad economically or

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class of critics we have in view: so far from being injurious, the system of large estates can be shown to be highly beneficial; all experience and all logic is in favour of them; but what can you do? People are beginning to talk against them. Nothing can stand in these days against which people talk; large estates are fast becoming red ties; and therefore they ought to be abolished.

There is no exaggeration in the above. People are to be met with more and more often every day who will declare in one breath that this or that institution has every virtue under heaven, and in the next that it cannot be maintained because people who, it is confessed, know nothing at all about it have been taught to declaim against it. But let the thing be good or bad intrinsically, our argument is the same. We would rather, for the sake of the national character, see the most degrading pastime or most vicious land tenure perpetuated, than surrendered to such cowardly considerations as these.

Again, we have been told by a great authority on the subject, no less a one, indeed, than the late Mr. Thackeray, that there are people in the world who don't like gentlemen: not for Jack Cade's reason not for the revolutionary reason: not because they are monopolists or tyrants or libertines; but for reasons which we must call purely subjective ones, which the objects of their dislike would themselves be unable to comprehend. The feeling is to some extent reciprocal: for, as Mr. Thackeray says, the man who is not a gentleman gives offence to the man who is by little things, of which the former is in his turn totally unconscious. But there is a great difference in the intensity of the feelings so created. In the one case it is usually good taste only which suffers; in the other it is personal dignity. The one offence disgusts like an unpleasant smell or disagreeable flavour; the other excites hatred. But, whatever the annoyance sometimes given by underbred people, nobody has as yet proposed

to abolish them. Gentlemen, on the other hand, are very far from enjoying the same enviable security. The class of people whom, according to Mr. Thackeray, they offend without knowing it, and whose feeling towards them is not disgust, but hatred, is daily on the increase. And it is easy to see what may happen in time. Oh! people will say, we like gentlemen: they have done the State some service; there is a good deal in what people urge about their talents for government, and the greatness of England when they governed her. In society they are very nice, and their standard of refinement is a high one. But what are you to do? They give offence to certain classes. No doubt it may seem hard that a man should not be allowed to be a gentleman, if he likes. But this argument has always been urged against all popular changes. It was thought very hard that a man was not allowed to wear a red tie if he liked, but he had to take it off. It was thought very hard that he was not allowed to vote openly if he liked, but he had to vote in secret. Red ties and open voting gave offence to certain classes. There was no help for it. Gentlemen can expect no exemption from this now acknowledged law; they must be abo lished. If we are asked how, we reply, in memorable words, Wait till we are called in. But the thing could be done. It is painful to reflect on the possible extinction of the species. But the vulgar have got their "vril staff,"1 and we cannot thwart them without the risk of being reduced to ashes.

What may be called religious red ties bring out this particular species of peacemakers in great force. Anything for a quiet life. Give it up: the thing is indifferent in itself: people may be fools to be offended at it, but you would be a greater fool not to humour their folly, and secure your own comfort. This is their well-known talk. is something in the tone of mind which prompts such an argument as this, in our eyes, little less than detestable.

1 Vide "The Coming Race."

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