long, and that they cannot, without mortal hurt, be shortened. Nothing less than shipwreck on a desert island in company with Froissart's "Chronicles" would give us leisure to peruse this glorious narrative, and it is useless to hope for such a happy combination of chances. We might indeed be wrecked,—that is always a possibility,—but the volume saved dripping from the deep would be "Soldiers of Fortune," or "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch."
It is at least curious that if people love books—as we are perpetually assured they do—they should need so much persuasion to read them. Societies are formed for mutual encouragement and support in this engaging but arduous pursuit. Optimistic counsellors cheer a shrinking public to its task by recommending minute quantities of intellectual nourishment to be taken twenty-four hours apart. They urge us to read something "solid" for fifteen minutes a day, until we get used to it, and they promise us that—mental invalids though we be—we can assimilate great masterpieces in doses so homœopathic that we need
