public journals are judicial reports of evidence given in the courts in substantiation of charges against other public men-charges first made in the newspapers. Turning again to other columns and to a separate class of cases the eye is arrested by reports of "scenes in court," and some man who has for years held high position in the government of his State, or perhaps of the Republic, is condemned to the felon's cell, whence probably we shall by and bye hear of his escaping or attempting to escape, the narrative being rounded off with plainly uttered accusations of criminal connivance on the part of Chief Constable This or Deputy Governor That. Only the other day it was announced that the President had nominated the Attorney-General for succession to the high office of Chief Justice. Immediately a responsible newspaper brought forward an indictment alleging on the part of the Attorney-General a grossly dishonest perversion of his office, and the President has been obliged to withhold confirmation of the appointment till the Chief Justice elect has cleared himself from a charge in which at least primâ facie evidence has been adduced. This is a single instance, taken at random, because it is of the latest date, and may be most briefly told. What does the phenomenon mean? Perhaps, America being so large, these defalcations on the part of individuals, fearfully long as the series may appear to our insular ideas, may have but a scarcely perceptible effect on the aggregate morality of the nation, even as when Odin brought down his hammer with thunderbolt force on the face of the sleeping giant Skrymir that massive individual merely rubbed his cheek and said, "Did a leaf fall?" But I confess that, when I picture to myself the storm that would have been raised in our teapot of a nation if, when Sir John Coleridge was nominated for the Lord Chief Justiceship, the Daily News had published a statement branding the honourable and learned gentleman with gross dishonesty committed in the discharge of his office as Attorney-General, I rather rejoice in our comparative littleness.

THOUGH there is a good deal of evidence against me, I am never able wholly to convince myself that the reflecting portion of my fellow countrymen are really indifferent, even for a period, to those speculative, and as some people call them, metaphysical problems which have engaged the highest thought of many of the greatest intellects of almost all ages; and so it occurred to me during the past month that I would like to present my readers with some authoritative summmary and lucid exposition of the present position of the question, "What is Instinct?" The men most competent, however,

to give the latest word on the subject and the latest word to-day would be very different indeed from that which would have been proffered only a few years ago-are, I find, too deeply engaged in special scientific and speculative pursuits to come to my aid.

fain, therefore, to let the subject rest for awhile, but in the meantime I will ask those of my readers who take delight in these inquiries, but are not in the way of watching the progress of them very closely, to turn over in their minds at quiet moments two or three of the salient aspects of the problem, and to consider especially what relation the views of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Spalding, and some others bear to the main doctrines of that "Essay on the Human Understanding" which has been for so long the very foundation of the psychological creed of most of our philosophers. I am not going for one moment to open up this great question here, but simply to state the newest theory-that instinct undoubtedly exists as a distinct, strong, and widely extended form of animal sensibility, not to be for a moment confounded with other mental phenomena; and that it is first acquired, very gradually, in the animal struggle for existence, and then transmitted as an hereditary influence. The new-fledged chicken is struck with intense and overwhelming terror at the cry of the hawk, because through countless ages experience has driven it into the very lite-blood of the genus to which the chicken belongs, to be alarmed-not at first definitely knowing why-at the call of the bird of prey. Whether the theory be accepted or rejected, it is an intensely interesting subject of study, and to the philosopher the very pretty question arises as to the difference which would be allowed to subsist between this form of half-blind, inherited knowledge and the innate ideas the existence or possibility of which John Locke so ably combated.

THE frequent recurrence in late years of the trials of notorious criminals in the United States has served a good purpose by placing in a strong light what no American will quarrel with me for calling the absurdity of the Transatlantic jury system. According to the law, no man may serve upon a jury who is not able, when challenged, to declare that he has "formed no opinion" upon the case which he is about to try, and that he "has no bias" either in favour of the prosecution or the defence. The latter requirement, except inasmuch as it offers an easy opening for the escape of men undesirous of serving on juries, is neither objectionable nor unreasonable. But how is it to be expected in a case like that of Tweed, for example, and in a country where, not to put too fine a point upon it, the leading journals.

do not lack decision or persistence in their endeavours to form public opinion upon the merits of cases sub judice, that any man of ordinary intelligence is to be discovered with his mind in the state of blankness which the law demands in a juror? The answer to the question is to be found in the fact that for a whole day, save one hour, the Court of Oyer and Terminer at New York was exclusively engaged in the preliminary business of endeavouring to obtain a jury to try the chief rascal of the Ring, and that when it rose at nightfall not a single juryman had been empanelled. On the following day three persons were permitted to pass the challenges for what are technically called "principal cause" and "for favour"; but though admitted to take their seats in the box, they were not sworn, as there yet remained to counsel on either side the privilege of "peremptorily challenging "—that is, of absolutely objecting to the presence of certain jurors, who would thereupon be discharged, the whole process being gone over again with the proffered substitutes. Apart from the delay which necessarily occurs under a system like this, it is obvious that, in the United States, service upon a jury is practically a matter of individual convenience. It would require only that a man whom the service would not suit should inform his mind touching the circumstances of the case he is summoned to try, and should arrive at an opinion upon its merits, and the simple statement that he has done so would relieve him from the duty of entering the box. Our own jury system is not, the eligible ratepayer knows, absolutely free from grounds of attack. But when indictments are framed, and the judge is on the bench, and the jury list is in the hands of the clerk of arraigns, we are at least able to make a beginning, and it is at that point when the New York Court of Oyer and Terminer frequently encounters a very serious difficulty.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

MARCH, 1874.

OLYMPIA.

BY R. E. FRANCILLON, AUTHOR OF "EARL'S DENE," "PEARL AND EMERALD," "ZELDA'S FORTUNE," &c.

PART I.-CLOTHO.
BOOK I.

CHAPTER VI.

Itt is merrye walking in fayre forèst

To hear the small birde's songe.

-Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.

HETHER the heavens had completed their season of mourning for the death of old Master Fletcher, or whether the skies were but following their ordinary

caprices, the hour of seven next morning displayed the charming and fragrant smile of summer sunshine after rain. The first stranger rose, a little wearily, to find himself, even at that hour, the latest riser in Gressford St. Mary. He dressed quickly, but precisely ; opened a knapsack, and took therefrom a sketching block and a box of water-colours. With these under his arm, and with a letter in his hand, he went down-stairs to the inn door, where the stale smell of last night's tobacco contended with the savour of fried bacon and the breath of waking wall-flowers. The clatter of pots and plates mingled with the hum of early bees and with the chatter of birds, who had already picked up their worms. Against the door-post, whereon P. PIGOT was now, in white paint, written for J. JoyCE, under the portrait of the Earl of Wendale in the character of the Conqueror of Poitiers, lounged the heavy form of Major Sullivan, VOL. XII. N.S., 1874.

S

smoking an enormous cigar, and not a whit cleaner than the night before. His valise might contain the Cross of San Fernando, but, to judge from results, did not seem large enough to hold a nail-brush or comb. He wore his famous top-coat and his vague military cap, both of which, in the morning light, fully bore out their owner's boast that they must have served him for at least forty years.

Confound the fellow!" thought the first stranger.

'Why if here isn't me little owld schoolmasther-as fresh as a daisy! The hoighth of the mornin' to ye! Then it's a painter y' are? If I didn't know it, now, by the cut of ye! I know all of 'm-all them artists. Ye should see Mejor Soollivan, of Castle Soollivan, in th' uniform o' th' foreign laygion in th' service o' Quane Isabella of Spene, painted all in oil by the great O'Brine, Merrion Square, o' the Rile Oirish Academy. Ye know'm? 'Twere exhibited in Dublin, and engreeved for the Castle."

"Good morning, Major Sullivan. I"

"Ye want to catch the first glame, now? I've a mind to go with ye, and I would, too, but there's a bit o' steek down on the kitchen fire. So you're one o' them R.A.'s? I know'm. Ye've dropped a letter, sir-allow me. What! you're a friend o' me Lord Wendle? and you sittin' there last night as if the butther wouldn't melt in ye?" "I may have occasion to write to Lord Wendale without being as intimate as you are. As you so politely take an interest in my correspondence

"Indade and I didn't, then. I saw'm just with the tip o' me oye." "Of course, therefore, I have not failed to tell him of your disappointment that he is not at Beckfield, and that otherwise you would have called."

"Murder!-have ye, then? And ye're going to post'm?" "That is what I usually do with my letters."

"Well, ye see, Mr.- -I didn't quite catch the name

He waited for a moment, but the stranger grew slightly deaf again. "Ye see, me dear sir, I'll save ye the trouble. I'm going to the post meself with a letter to me friend the Commander-in-Chafe, and it'll be a pleasure I'll have to post yours with me own. Ye'll be in a tearin' hurry, now, after the first glame? I'll just bolt me steek, an' then the day's me own."

"Thank you, Major Sullivan, but I have a fancy for posting my own letters. I don't trust the eyes of—of village postmistresses, and shall get this sent on from Beckfield."

The Major looked hungrily at the letter, but only said—

"Ye may be right, sir; I always post me own, anyhow. But I'd