with his judgment. It is a painting of the Italian school-by the celebrated Guydo, the greatest painter in the world, the chief of the Old Masters, as they are called I take it, because they were up to a thing or two beyond most of us—in possession of secrets now lost to the bulk of mankind. Let me tell you, gentlemen, I have seen a great many pictures by the Old Masters, and they are not all up to this mark—some of them are darker than you might like, and not family subjects. But here is a Guydo—the frame alone is worth pounds-which any lady might be proud to hang up a suitable thing for what we call a refectory in a charitable institution, if any gentleman of the Corporation wished to show his munificence. Turn it a little, sir? yes. Joseph, turn it a little towards Mr Ladislaw Mr Ladislaw, having been abroad, understands the merit of these things, you observe.

Ladislaw.-Five pounds.

Mr Trumbull.-Ah! Mr Ladislaw! the frame alone is worth that. Ladies and gentlemen, for the credit of the town! Suppose it should be discovered hereafter that a gem of art has been amongst us in this town, and nobody in Middlemarch awake to it. Five guineas -five seven-six-five ten. Still, ladies, still! It is a gem, and 'Full many a gem,' as the poet says, has been allowed to go at a nominal price because the public knew no better, because it was offered in circles where there was-I was going to say a low feeling, but no-Six pounds-six guineas-a Guydo of the first order going at six guineas—it is an insult to religion, ladies; it touches us all as Christians, gentlemen, that a subject like this should go at such a low figure-six pounds ten-seven

Mr Trumbull.-Now, gentlemen, you who are con noissures, you are going to have a treat. Here is an engraving of the Duke of Wellington surrounded by his staff on the field of Waterloo; and notwithstanding recent events which have, as it were, enveloped our great hero in a cloud, I will be bold to say—for a man in my line must not be blown about by political winds-that a finer subject-of the modern order, belonging to our own time and epoch-the understanding of man could hardly conceive: angels might, perhaps, but not men, sirs, not men.

Mr Powderell.-Who painted it?

Mr Trumbull.—It is a proof before the letter, Mr Powderell-the painter is not known. Mr Powderell.—I'll bid a pound!

If I had not taken that turn when I was a lad, I might have got into some stupid draught-horse work or other, and lived always in blinkers. I should never have been happy in any profession that did not call forth the highest intellectual strain, and yet keep me in good warm contact with my neighbours. There is nothing like the medical profession for that: one can have the exclusive scientific life that touches the distance and befriend the old fogies in the parish too.

Trawley would have it, the medical profession was an inevitable system of humbug. I said, the fault was in the men-men who truckle to lies and folly. Instead of preaching against humbug outside the walls, it might be better to set up a disinfecting apparatus within.

The fittest man for a particular post is not always the best fellow or the most agreeable. Sometimes, if you wanted to get a reform, your only way would be to pension off the good fellows whom everybody is fond of, and put them out of the question.

—0—

There must be a systole and diastole in all inquiry. A man's mind must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and the horizon of an object-glass.

What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true, and the thing we find it easier to believe is grossly false.

The most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except one's self.

It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men's dispositions.

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(To Mrs Lydgate.)—Haven't you ambition to want your husband to be something better than a Middlemarch doctor? I shall make you learn my favourite bit from an old poet

'Why should our pride make such a stir to be
And be forgot? What good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write

Worthy the reading and the world's delight?'

What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,—and to write out myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet.

Mrs Lydgate.-Do you know, Tertius, I often wish you had not been a medical man.

Lydgate.-Nay, Rosy, don't say that. That is like saying you wish you had married another man.

Mrs Lydgate.-Not at all; you are clever enough for anything: you might easily have been something else. And your cousins at Quallingham all think that you have sunk below them in your choice of a profession.

Lydgate.-The cousins at Quallingham may go to the devil! It was like their impudence if they said anything of the sort to you.

Mrs Lydgate. Still, I do not think it is a nice profession, dear.

Lydgate. It is the grandest profession in the world, Rosamond. And to say that you love me without loving the medical man in me, is like saying that you like eating a peach but don't like its flavour. Don't say it again, dear, it pains me.

They say fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit.-Mrs Farebrother.

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Mrs Farebrother.—I say, keep hold of a few plain truths, and make everything square with them. When I was young, Mr Lydgate, there never was any question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism, and that was enough; we learned our creed and our duty. Every respectable Church person had the same opinions. But now, if you speak out of the Prayerbook itself, you are liable to be contradicted.

Lydgate. That makes rather a pleasant time of it for those who like to maintain their own point.

Mr Farebrother.-But my mother always gives way. Mrs Farebrother.-No, no, Camden, you must not lead Mr Lydgate into a mistake about me. I shall never show that disrespect to my parents, to give up what they taught me. Any one may see what comes of turning. If you change once, why not twenty times? Lydgate.-A man might see good arguments for changing once, and not see them for changing again. If you go

Mrs Farebrother.-Excuse me there. upon arguments, they are never wanting, when a man has no constancy of mind. My father never changed, and he preached plain moral sermons without arguments, and was a good man-few better. When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery-book. That's my opinion, and I think anybody's stomach will bear me out.

Mr Farebrother.—About the dinner certainly, mother.

Mrs Farebrother.—It is the same thing, the dinner or the man. I am nearly seventy, Mr Lydgate, and I go upon experience. I am not likely to follow new lights, though there are plenty of them here as elsewhere. I say, they came in with the mixed stuffs that will neither wash nor wear. It was not so in my youth: a Churchman was a Churchman, and a clergyman, you might be pretty sure, was a gentleman, if nothing else. But now he may be no better than a Dissenter.

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What's Bulstrode ?-he's got no land hereabout tha