cately treated. Whereupon they are beginning to "sheer off" any book labelled by the inner critical faculty as "strong." This must be admitted as a most unfortunate fact for those who are bending all their energies upon the writing of "strong" books, and who are wasting their powers on discussing what they euphoniously term "delicate and burning subjects"; but it is a hopeful and blessed sign of increasing education and widening intellectual perception in the masses, who will soon by their sturdy common sense win a position which is not to be "frighted with false fire." Congratulating the proprietors of Great Thoughts on its thousandth number, the sapient Westminster Gazette lately chortled forth the following lines: "A career such as our contemporary has enjoyed, shows that the taste for good reading is wider than some would have us believe. We wish Great Thoughts continued success." O wise judge! O learned judge! The public taste for good reading is only questioned when writers whom Thou dislikest are read by the base million!
"Art," says a certain M.A., "if it be genuine and sincere, tends ever to the lofty and the beautiful. There is no rule of art more important than the sense of modesty. Vice grows not a little by immodesty of thought." True. And immodesty of thought fulfils its mission in the "strong" book, which alone succeeds in winning the applause of that "Exclusive Set of Degenerates" known as the E.S.D. under the Masonic Scriptural sign of Ishbosheth (laying particular emphasis on the syllable between the "Ish" and the "eth,") who manage to obtain temporary posts on the ever-
