clergyman, who announced that he himself had been for some months a professional Variety Singer, attached to more than one Music-hall, and that, having studied the life de près, he knew all its temptations, and was therefore qualified to speak from experience as to the best means of elevating those who pursued it. The details of his story, as they fell from the mouth of the reverend speaker, were highly spiced. His hearers were amused, interested, and stirred; and, when a daily newspaper gave a headlined account of the speech, with a portrait of the speaker, the professional fortune of the Adulated Clergyman (for it was he) was assured.

Shortly afterwards his biography appeared in a series published in a weekly periodical under the title of Unconventional Clerics, and he himself wrote a touching letter on "The Plague Spots of Nova Zembla," in which an eloquent appeal was made for subscriptions on behalf of the inhabitants of that chill and neglected region. Ladies now began to say to one another: "Have you heard Mr. So-and-So preach? Really, not? Oh, you should. He's so wonderful, so convincing, so unlike all others. You must come with me next Sunday," and thus gradually he gathered round him in his remote church a band of faithful women, drawn from the West End by the fame of his unconventional eloquence. A not too fastidious critic might, perhaps, have been startled by a note of vulgarity in his references to sacred events, as well as by the tone of easy and intimate familiarity with which he spoke of those whose names are generally mentioned with bated breath, and printed with capital letters; but the most refined women seemed to find in all this an additional fascination. His sermons dealt in language which was at the same time plain and highly-coloured. He denounced his congregation roundly as the meanest of sinners. To the women he was particularly merciless. He tore to rags their little vesture of self-respect, shattered their nerves with emotional appeals, harrowed all their feelings, and belaboured them so violently with prophecies of wrath, that they left church, after shedding gallons of tears and emptying their expiatory purses into the subscription-plate, in a state of pale but pious pulp. In the drawing-rooms, however, to which he afterwards resorted, his manner changed. His voice became soft; he poured oil into the wounds he had inflicted. "How are you to-day?" he would say, in his caressing way. "Is the neuralgia any better? And the dulness of spirits? has meditation prevailed over it? Ah me! it is the lot of the good to suffer, and silence, perhaps, were best." Whereupon he is treated as a Father Confessor of domestic troubles, and persuades young married women that their husbands misunderstand them.

It is unnecessary to add that his subscription-lists flourished, his bazaars prospered, his missions and retreats overflowed with feminine money, and his Church was overloaded with floral tributes. The brutal tribe of men, however, sneered at him, and perversely suspected his motives; nor were they reconciled to him when they saw him relieving the gloom of a generally (so it was understood) ascetic existence by dining at a smart restaurant with a galaxy of devoted women, whom he proposed to conduct in person to a theatre. Such, then, is, or was, the Adulated Clergyman. It is unnecessary to pursue his career further. Perhaps he quarrelled with his Bishop, and unfrocked himself; possibly he found himself in a Court of Law, where an unsympathetic jury recorded a painful verdict against him.

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

My faithful "Co." says he has been reading the latest novel by "JOHN STRANGE WYNTER," called, The Other Man's Wife, as the French would observe, "without pleasure." As a rule he rather enjoys the works of the Author of Bootle's Baby, and other stories of a semi-ladylike semi-military character; but the newest tale is one too many for him. The "man" is a mixture of snob and cad,—say "a snad,"—the "other man" a combination of coward and bully, the "wife" a worthy mate to both of them. The plot shows traces of hasty construction, otherwise it is difficult to account for the "man's" intense astonishment at inheriting a title from his cousin, and the farfetched clearing up of a sensational West-End murder. My "Co." fancies that the peerage given to the "man," and the vendetta of the Polish Countess, both introduced rather late in Vol. II., must have been after-thoughts. However, the end of the story is both novel and entertaining. The feeble, fickle heroine is made to marry, as her second husband, the man who (as an accessory after the fact) has been the murderer of her first! And the best of the joke is—she does not know it! My "Co." has also been much amused by a brightly-written Novel, in one volume, called A Bride from the Bush. Mr. E. W. HORNUNG evidently knows his subject well, and has caught the exact tone, or rather nasal twang of our Australian cousins. My "Co." says that "the Bride" is a particularly pleasant young person, thanks to her youth, good heart, and beauty. However, it is questionable—taking her as a sample—whether her "people" would "pan out" quite so satisfactorily. On the whole it would seem that Australians who have "made their pile" by buying and selling land are better at a distance—say as Aborigines!

It is also the opinion of my faithful "Co." that the Clarendon Press series of Rulers of India, has never contained a better volume than the Life of Mayo, a work recently contributed by the Editor, Sir WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER. Admirably written, the book gives in the pleasantest form imaginable, a most eventful chapter in the History of Hindostan. But more, the pages have a pathetic personal interest, as the subject of the memoir was for many years misunderstood, and consequently, misrepresented. Even the London Charivari was unfair to the great Earl, but as Sir WILLIAM hastens to say, "at his death stood first in its generous acknowledgment of his real dessert, as it had led the dropping fire of raillery three years before." The author has, by publishing this most welcome addition to a capitally edited series, added yet another item to the long list of services he has rendered to our Empire in the distant East.

Since Miss FLORENCE WARDEN'S House on the Marsh, says the Baron, I have not read a more exciting tale than the same authoress's Pretty Miss Smith. It should be swallowed right off at a sitting, for if your interest in it is allowed to cool during an interval, you may find it a little difficult to get up the steam to the high-pressure point necessary for the real enjoyment of a sensational story.

THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

SILENT SHAKSPEARE.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,

The great success that has attended the production of L'Enfant Prodigue at the Prince of Wales's Theatre has encouraged me to make a suggestion in the cause of English Art. Why not SHAKSPEARE in dumb show? The Bard himself introduced it in "The Play Scene." Allow me to suggest it thus:—

SCENE—A more remote part of the Platform in Elsinore Castle. Enter GHOST; then HAMLET.

Hamlet (in dumb show). "Where wilt thou lead me? Speak!" (In dumb show.) "I'll go no further."

Ghost, by kissing his hand towards the horizon, shows that his hour is almost come, when he is bound to render himself to sulphurous and tormenting flames. The latter part of his description is composed of his shrinking about the stage, as if suffering from intense heat.

Hamlet buries his face in his hands, and sobs pitifully, expressing "Alas, poor Ghost!"

Ghost repudiates compassion by turning up his nose, and throwing forward his hands; and then, by pointing from his mouth to his ear, demands HAMLET'S serious attention.

Hamlet touches his own