to pile up the sacrifice on the stone, whereon fresh wreaths are laid.
'For, it may be, if still we sing,
And tend the Shrine,
Some Deity on wandering wing
May there incline;
And, finding all in order meet,
Stay while we worship at her feet.'
The temper, then, in which we are called to view the Departmental Ditties is made quite clear by their author. But he goes even further, and, in a 'general summary,' gives us the very text of his jesting discourses. 'The artless songs I sing,' he remarks,
'Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning,
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore.'
And vers de société on Anglo-Indian 'official sinning,' in the hands of Mr. Kipling, mean for the most part, as was to be expected, more or less discreet variations on the ever-fertile subject of adultery. At the same time, in the forty-nine poems which make up the book, it is gratifying to note that this subject does not hold quite the same proportion that it did in the volume of tales wherein he 'illustrated' the 'social feature,' and gave five 'illustrations' (it may
