put down. For the little Irishman had plenty | the oúykpious, the comparison between the of fire in him. And though a free-spoken and humorists thus sketched, will not be a diffifree-living man, who utterly despised hum- cult one. We have indicated the features bug, and especially that species of humbug which is known as cant, the Father was too good a gentleman to tolerate the violation of any of the essential decorums of life. For a year or two before and after the Revolution of 1848 Mahony wrote capital letters from Rome to the Daily News. He resided again in England for some time, but spent the last years of his life in Paris, where he acted as correspondent to the Globe. He occupied chambers in the Rue des Moulins; dropped into Galignani's reading-room and the Messenger office in the mornings; wrote at home in the afternoons; and dined in the Palais-Royal, or elsewhere. The loneliness and celibacy of his life developed a certain oddity which always belonged to him. His dress was curiously negligent. He looked up at you with his keen blue eyes, over his spectacles, turning his head on one side, like some strange old bird; told an anecdote, or growled out a sarcasm, or quoted Horace, with a voice still retaining a flavour of the Cork brogue; then, making no salutation of any kind, and sticking his hands in his coat-pockets, he shot off, and his dapper little black figure disappeared round the corner. There was a half-cynical indifference to life, and even to literature, about the old Father in his last years; but, as the evening wore on, a strange little well of sentiment would bubble up in his talk, and remind you that he was the author of the Bells of Shandon,' as well as of endless epigrams. To a friend who dined with him in Paris last August, and who happened to speak of the splendour of the Madeleine, he said, 'Yes; our Lord promised that she should be remembered wherever His gospel was preached; and she has the finest church in the finest city of the world.' And when they parted, the little Father, with a half-humorous, halfmelancholy smile, said, You'll be doing me some day!' The prediction was verified; for he did not live many months afterwards. He breathed his last in the Rue des Moulins, attended by a sister, who had come over to see him, and by his friend, the Abbè Rogerson; and was interred, amidst many marks of public respect, in his native city, beneath the Shandon spire, and within the hearing of — The bells of Shandon, The pleasant waters of the river Lee.' The task of executing what Plutarch calls which they had in common, and we have glanced at the national differences between them, already. That their influence acted in much the same direction is perhaps the first thing to be remarked. They had all a kindness for the men of the past, and for the old models of thought and literature, and they all exposed and ridiculed the fleeting fashionable tastes of the hour. They were none of them mere γελωτοποιοι, laughter-makers, like the wags of the comic periodicals, but were capable of serious discussion, and of high-class work, such as translations and criticisms of the acknowledged masterpieces of the world. Aytoun's translations from the German are much esteemed by German scholars; and Prout rendered two or three of Horace's Odes better than any contemporary. They had all a vein of poetry, and like the best satirists, could see the beautiful as well as the humorous side of life. But they all entered into the humorous side of it with a hearty gusto, with a certain abandon which distinguishes their satire from the cold, sceptical, and sneering sort, as well as from the frivolity and thinness of the satire of fashionable novels. In solidity of brains and of reading, Peacock, we suspect, was the first man of the triad. He has most invention of the three. His English is clearer, purer, and of more sustained vigour, and his wit has more of the classical symmetry, finish, and condensation than that of the others. In fertility of fanciful epigram and illustration, in habitual liveliness, in diversity of reading and knowledge, the travelled Irish Jesuit bears away the palm. The Scot's gift for humour is as undeniable as that of either; but he has far more heavy pages than either, and less elasticity, brilliance, and fecundity of mind. His scholarship, also, was inferior to that of both, and his style, while less vivacious than Prout's, was less elegant than Peacock's. On the other hand, his Lays' seized a particular view of his country's history, and presented it with an impressiveness which had more actual effect on his contemporaries than anything that either Prout or Peacock achieved. It would be ungracious, however, to push this special part of the comparison too far. Our object is rather to recommend all three of these brilliant writers to readers still unacquainted with them, not only as humorists doing honour to their generation, but as instructive types of the varieties of genius existing in these islands. Thoughts such as these, with hallowed power, St. James' Chronicle. THE TUNNEL. OUT of the tunnel at last, I think! But chose the black heart of it hid from the sun. So all this time I have had no peep Of the pure bright sea and the flocks abroad, Nor sunlight, nor starlight, save some few gleams Through shafts in the darkness let down by God: Nor sweet air's murmur, nor any rain, Then to think, as the barren black darkness you reap, That the hill-tops above with God's morning are red, Or the pale moon is gathering her stars like sheep Into fair safe folds of the heavens overhead! Came a whisper, "Still shines thy guiding star: Came a shriek, "This too shall avail thee not, But a moment -a change! for the black grew to grey; The grey slowly quickened till light dawned plain. Earth has seemed purer, though far less gay, J. R. - Spectator. into the garden before he knew what the terrific change was which had come over everything, or had time to realise his own sensations. It was such a moment as is very sweet in a cottage-garden. They had all been watering the flowers in the moment of relief after Percival's departure, and the fragrance of the grateful soil was mounting up among the other perfumes of the hour. Hugh and Nelly were still sprinkling a last shower upon the roses, and in the distance in the field upon which the garden opened were to be seen two figures wandering slow WILFRED was so stunned by the information thus suddenly given him, that he had but a confused consciousness of the explanations which followed. He was aware that it was all made clear to him, and that he uttered the usual words of assent and conviction; but in his mind he was too profoundly moved, too completely shaken and unsettled to be aware of anything but the fact thus strangely communicated. It did not occur to him for a moment that it was not a fact. He saw no improbability, noth-ly over the grass, Winnie, whom Aunt ing unnatural in it. He was too young to think that anything was unlikely because it was extraordinary, or to doubt what was affirmed with so much confidence. But, in the meantime, the news was so startling, that it upset his mental balance and made him incapable of understanding the details. Hugh was not the eldest son. It was he who was the eldest son. This at the moment was all that his mind was capable of taking in. He stayed by Percival as long as he remained, and had the air of devouring everything the other said; and he went with him to the railway station when he went away. Percival, for his part, having once made the plunge, showed no disinclination to explain everything, but for his own credit told his story most fully, and with many particulars undreamt of when the incident took place. But he might have spared his pains so far as Will was concerned. He was aware of the one great fact stated to him to begin with, but of nothing more. The last words which Percival said as he took leave of his young companion at the railway were, however, caught by Wilfrid's half-stupified ears. They were these: "I will stay in Carlisle for some days. You can hear where I am from Askell, and perhaps we may be of use to each other." This, beyond the startling and extraordinary piece of news which had shaken him like a sudden earthquake, was all Percival had said so far as Will was aware. "That fellow is no more the eldest son than I am the property is yours;' and I will stay in Carlisle for some days - perhaps we may be of use to each other." The one expression caught on to the other in his mind, which was utterly confused and stunned for the first time in his life. He turned them over and over as he walked home alone, or rather they turned over and over in his memory, as if possessed of a distinct life; and so it happened that he had got home again and opened the gate and stumbled Agatha had coaxed out to breathe the fresh air after her self-imprisonment, and Miss Seton herself, with a shawl over her head. And the twilight was growing insensibly dimmer and dimmer, and the dew falling, and the young moon sailing aloft. When Mary came across the lawn, her long dress sweeping with a soft rustle over the grass, a sudden horror seized Wilfrid. It took him all his force of mind and will to keep his face to her and await her coming. His face was not the treacherous kind of face which betrays everything; but still there was in it a look of pre-occupation which Mary could not fail to see. Is he gone?" she said, as she came up. "You are sure he is gone, Will? It was kind of you to be civil to him; but I am almost afraid you were interested in him too." "Would it be wrong to be interested in him?" said Will. "I don't like him," said Mary, simply; and then she added, after a pause, "I have no confidence in him. I should be sorry to see any of my boys attracted by the society of such a man." And it was at this moment that his new knowledge rushed upon Wilfrid's mind and embittered it; any of her boys of whom he was the youngest and least important; and yet she must know what his real position was, and that he ought to be the chief of all. "I don't care a straw for him," said Will, hastily; "but he knows a great many things, and I was interested in his talk." "What was he saying to you?" said Mrs. Ochterlony. He looked into her face, and he saw that there was uneasiness in it, just as she looking at him saw signs of a change which he was himself unaware of; and in his impetuosity he was very near saying it all out and betraying himself. But then his uncertainty of all the details stood him in good stead. "He was saying lots of things," said Will. "I am sure I can't tell you all that he was saying. If I were Hugh I would not let Nelly make a mess of herself with those roses. I am going in-doors.” 66 "A lovely evening like this is better than the best book in the world," said Mary. Stay with me, and talk to me, Will. You see I am the only one who is left alone." "I don't care about lovely evenings," said Will; "I think you should all come in. It is getting dreadful cold. And as for being alone, I don't see how that can be, when they are all there. Good-night, mother. I think I shall go to bed." Why should you go to bed so early?" said Mary; but he was already gone, and did not hear her. And as he went, he turned right round and looked at Hugh and Nelly, who were still together. When Mrs. Ochterlony remarked that look, she was at once troubled and comforted. She thought her boy was jealous of the way in which his brother engrossed the young visitor, and she was sorry, but yet knew that it was not very serious while, at the same time, it was a comfort to her to attribute his preoccupation to anything but Percival's conversation. So she lingered about the lawn a little, and looked wistfully at the soft twilight country, and the wistful moon. She was the only one who was alone. The two young creatures were together, and they were happy; and poor Winnie, though she was far from happy, was buoyed up by the absorbing passion and hostility which had to-day reached one of its climaxes, and had Aunt Agatha for her slave, ready to receive all the burning outburst of grievance and misery. This fiery passion which absorbed her whole being was almost as good as being happy, and gave her mind full occupation. But as for Mary, she was by herself, and all was twilight with her: and the desertion of her boy gave her a little chill at her heart. So she, too, went in presently, and had the lamp lighted, and sat alone in the room which was bright and yet dim-with a clear circle of light round the table, yet shadowy as all the corners are of a summer evening, when there is no fire to aid the lamp. But she did not find her son there. His discontent had gone further than to be content with a book, as she had expected; and he had really disappeared for the night. "I can't have you take possession of Nelly like this," she said to Hugh, when, after a long interval they came in. "We all want a share of her. Poor Will has gone to bed quite discontented. You must not keep her all to yourself." "Oh! is he jealous?" said Hugh, laugh ing; and there was no more said about it; for Will's jealousy in this respect was not a thing to alarm anybody much. But Will had not gone to bed. He was seated in his room at the table, leaning his head upon both his hands, and staring into the flame of his candle. He was trying to put what he had heard into some sort of shape. That Hugh, who was down-stairs so triumphant and successful, was, after all, a mere impostor; that it was he himself, whom nobody paid any particular attention to, who was the real heir; that his instinct had not deceived him, but from his birth he had been ill-used and oppressed. These thoughts went all circling through his mind as the moths circled round his light, taking now a larger, and now a shorter flight. This strange sense that he had been right all along was, for the moment, the first feeling in his mind. He had been disinherited and thrust aside, but still he had felt all along that it was he who was the natural heir; and there was a satisfaction in having it thus proved and established. This was the first distir ct reflection he was conscious of amid the whirl of thoughts; and then came the intoxicating sense that he could now enter upon his true position and be able to arrange everybody's future wisely and generously, without any regard for mere proprieties, or for the younger brother's two thousand pounds. Strange to say, in the midst of this whirlwind of egotistical feeling, Will rushed all at once into imaginations that were not selfish, glorious schemes of what he would do for everybody. He was not ungenerous, nor unkind, but only it was a necessity with him that generosity and kindness should come from and not to himself. All this passed through the boy's mind before it ever occurred to him what might be the consequences to others of his extraordinary discovery, or what effect it must have upon his mother, and the character of the family. He was self-absorbed, and it did not occur to him in that light. Even when he did come to think of it, he did it in the calmest way. No doubt his mother would be annoyed; but she deserved to be annoyed she who had so long kept him out of his rights; and, after all, it would still be one of her sons who would have Earlston. And as for Hugh, Wilfrid had the most generous intentions towards him. There was, indeed, nothing that he was not ready to do for his brothers. As soon as he believed that all was to be his, he felt himself the steward of the family. And then his mind glanced back upon the Psyche and the Venus, and upon Earlston, which might | Major Percival's evident entire indifference be made into a fitter shrine for these fair creations. These ideas filled him like wine, and went to his head, and made him dizzy; and all the time he was as unconscious of the moral harm, and domestic treachery, as if he had been one of the lower animals; and no scruple of any description, and no doubt of what it was right and necessary to do, had so much as entered into his primitive and savage mind. We call his mind savage and primitive because it was at this moment entirely free from those complications of feeling and dreadful conflict of what is desirable, and what is right, which belong to the civilized and cultivated mind. Perhaps Will's affections were not naturally strong: but, at all events, he gave in to this temptation as a man might have given in to it in the depths of Africa, where the "good old rule" and "simple plan" still exist and reign; and where everybody takes what he has strength to take, and he keeps who can. This was the real state of the case in Wilfrid's mind. It had been supposed to be Hugh's right, and he had been obliged to give in; now it was his right, and Hugh would have to make up his mind to it. What else was there to say? So far as Will could see, the revolution would be alike certain and instantaneous. It no more occurred to him to doubt the immediate effect of the new fact than to doubt its truth. Perhaps it was his very egotism, as well as his youth and inexperience, which made him so credulous. It had been wonder enough to him how anybody could leave him in an inferior position, even while he was only the youngest; to think of anybody resisting his rights, now that he had rights, was incredible. to the question whether anything it suited him to do was right or wrong, had had their due effect on Will. He did not see what call he had to sacrifice himself for others. No doubt, he would be sorry for the others, but after all it was his own life he had to take care of, and his own rights that he had to assert. But he mused and knitted his brows over it as he had never done before in his life. Throughout it will be seen that he regarded the business in a very sober, matter-of-fact way- not in the imaginative way which leads you to enter into other people's position, and analyze their possible feelings. As for himself, he who had been so jealous of his mother's visitors, and watched over her so keenly, did not feel somehow that horror which might have been expected at the revelation that she was not the spotless woman he thought her. Perhaps it was the importance of the revelation to himself— perhaps it was a secret disbelief in any guilt of hers, perhaps it was only the stunned condition in which the announcement left him. At all events, he was neither horrified at the thought, nor profoundly impressed by the consciousness that to prove his own rights, would be to take away everything from her, and to shut her up from all intercourse with the honourable and pure. When the morning roused him to a sense of the difficulties as well as the advantages of his discovery, the only thing he could think of was to seek advice and direction from Percival, who was so experienced a man of the world. But it was not so easy to do this without betraying his motive. The only practicable expedient was that of escorting Nelly home; which was not a privilege he was anxious Yet when the morning came, and the for of itself; for though he was jealous that sober daylight brightened upon his dreams, she had been taken away from him, he Will, notwithstanding all his confidence, be- shrank instinctively from her company in gan to see the complication of circum- his present state of mind. Yet it was the stances. How was he to announce his dis-only thing that could be done. covery to his mother? How was he to When the party met at the breakfastacquaint Hugh with the change in their mutual destinies? What seemed so easy and simple to him the night before, became difficult and complicated now. He began to have a vague sense that they would resist, that Mrs. Ochterlony would fight for her honour, and Hugh for his inheritance, and that in claiming his own rights, he would have to rob his mother of her good name and put a stigma ineffaceable upon his brother. This idea startled him, and took away his breath; but it did not make him falter; Uncle Penrose's suggestion about buying up him and his beggarly estate, and table, there were three of them who were ill at ease. Winnie made her appearance in a state of headache, pale and haggard as on the day of her arrival; and Aunt Agatha was pale too, and could not keep her eyes from dwelling with a too tender affectionateness upon her suffering child. And as for Will, the colour of his young face was indescribable, for youth and health still contended in it with those emotions which contract the skin and empty the veins. But on the other hand, there were Hugh and Nelly handsome and happy, with hearts full of charity to everybody, and |