demolish the other. All the other characters
yet developed in the book suffered more
or less from the horrible punishment administered
by the lady; but Twemlow, the special
object of her attention, suffered the most severely
of all. The inoffensive little gentleman being
likewise made the instrument of inflicting such
acute mental torture on all who should attempt to
unravel the complicated mysteries of his identity,
as to render consequent insanity probable.
Witness the following introduction of Mr. Twemlow
to the French reader: "II y a dans le quartier
Saint-James, où quand il ne sort pas, il est
remisé au-dessus d'une écurie de Duke-street,
un meuble de salle à manger, meuble innocent,
chaussé de larges sonhirs de castor" (the
underlined being a rather free translation of the
word castors in the English text), "pour qui les
Veneering sont un sujet d'inquiétude perpetuelle.
Cousin germain de lord Snigsworth, ce
meuble inoffensif, qu'on appelle Twemlow,
représente dans maintes familles la table à manger
a l'état normal.

"Mister et Missis Veneering, par exemple,
organisant un diner, prennent Twemlow pour
base, et lui mettent des rallonges, c'est-à-dire
lui ajoutent des convives. Parfois la table se
compose de Twemlow et de six personnes;
parfois on la tire jusqu'aux dernières limites du
possible, et Twemlow a vingt rallonges.

"Dans ces grandes occasions, Mister et Missis
Veneering, placés au milieu de la table, se font
vis-à-vis à distance de Twemlow; car plus celui-
ci est déployé, plus il est loin du centre et
se rapproche du buffet ou des rideaux de la
fenêtre."

Is it surprising, after this magnificent heap
of nonsense, in which common sense, good
language, the merest elementary principles of
grammar, are most grossly outraged, that the
subject of it should become thenceforth an
object of general fear and execration? The
very stops themselves seem to have gone mad,
and to be, like so many ill-disposed policemen
off duty, taking a little relaxation by joining in
a public disturbance on their own account.
Twemlow and the table, the table and Twemlow,
commas, colons, and semi-colons inextricably
mixed up together, in stark staring raving madness.

Were it not for the total absence of any
vestige of the comic element, and divers other
reasons, social and political, the recent alliance,
and so forth, one might suppose that the author
of this extraordinary specimen of literary
reproduction had been bribed by our enemies to
travesty our author, and with him the manners
and customs of his nation comprehensively.
She leads her countrymen to suppose that the
English "garb of woe" is the colour of pea-
soup, by representing Boffin, Boffin in deep
mourning for his master, as wearing a paletot
purée de pois? (This is the translation of a pea-
jacket.) And a little further on, the lady
changes the dissolving view of beads on
Podsnap's forehead into a row of indiscreet buttons
on his abdomen! If she really considered them
so indiscreet, why did she not (being, as translatress,
mistress of the situation) dispose of
the indiscreet buttons on other parts of his
person—on his gaiters, for instance? But the
word bouton, signifying either a button or a
pimple, according to circumstances—there being
but one and the same term in French for the
two objects—we shudder to think that she may
have had a darker meaning still, and, by this
ambiguous interpretation, may have intended
to authorise maliciously-disposed foreigners to
believe that we English adopt for occasions of
social festivity and others the light costume of
the Red Skins: which fact could alone render
such a detail possible.

Once more, take a specimen of Twemlow
shrouded in more impenetrable mystery than
ever. "La première foi que Twemlow à
rencontré Veneering, c'était au club, où ledit
Veneering ne counaissait personne, excepté
l'individu qui le présentait. Cet individu lui-même
ne connaissait le nouveau membre que depuis
deux jours et paraissait être son ami le plus
intime. Une rouelle de veau, scélératement
accomodée par le cuisinier du club, cimenta leur union
séance tenante."

Are the two last original lines high praise of
the English art of cooking, or the contrary?
They contain a most positive affirmation that
the cooks of the London clubs have a particular
manner of dressing fillets of veal, which dish,
partaken of by individuals desirous of uniting in
the bonds of friendship, immediately cements the
said bonds then and there and for evermore!

Is it wonderful, when such astounding
incompetency as that of this translatress can find
its way into a Parisian newspaper conducted
with intelligence and enterprise, that we in
England sometimes hear intelligent Frenchmen—at
the disadvantage of not being able to judge for
themselves in the original, and therefore left at
the mercy of those who profess to make them
acquainted with English literature—denounce
Shakespeare as a viilanous hypochondriac,
revelling in bloodshed and all descriptions of
crime, and emphatically declaring the creations
of Byron to be all bosh! on the ground that
the last-named poet had a cloven foot, and the
weakness to desire to hide it? Handed over to
such intolerable translators, what benefit are they
likely to derive from the reading of Hamlet or
Childe Harold?

THE PARISH ORGAN.

IN what a gentleman of the vestry is
accustomed to call "formal" days, the great and
glorious institutions of local self-government
were the parish beadle, the parish pump, the
parish pound, and the parish engine. It has
been reserved for us favoured moderns, who live
in the latter half of the nineteenth century, to
witness the rise and growth of another and more
glorious institution—not even dreamt of in
"formal" days—the parish organ.

All the great and important parishes in London