adds a request, quite parenthetically, for the
recall to England of a young officer engaged on
foreign service, in whom she is extremely
interested.

Mrs. Goodrich, sempstress and clear- starcher
to the King, has involved herself, apparently, in
an elaborate web of discussion, and requires
the powers of the state to extricate her. The
momentous nature of her wrongs are thus
pointedly set forth: — " With regard to the
offence laid to my charge by Mrs. Maclure, the
lace-woman, of trying to remove her from her
place, your lordship will please to judge how
far it is in my power to turn out any of her
trade, when Mr. Brudend, ever since he was
Master of the Robes, has bought all, and only
sent me the things to make up. I am
informed, likewise, that Mrs. Smith says I
intended to take the washing from her.
How far this is in my power, your lordship
will easily judge." Mrs. Goodrich concludes
with eager entreaties for Lord Bute's
protection against these nefarious aspersions.

Such are a few of the examples which are
afforded by the correspondence of a Premier,
conducted a hundred years ago through the
medium of his colleague, the Postmaster-
General. That the amount of this
correspondence cannot have diminished, either in
extent or variety, under the overwhelming
advantages of the penny postage, since that
time, we may be very sure. Whether the
severe course of butter and honey, upon which
it appears that a Prime Minister is put by the
letter-writers of the nation, be not too great
a tax on any man's digestion, is a question
which we modestly suggest. A Minister, or
any other man, who, from his position, may
be supposed to possess more than average
acuteness and sagacity, might, perhaps, find a
flavour better suited to his palate in
unostentatious details, plain words, simple claims;
and, perhaps, he might digest these all the
better if divested of exaggerated compliments,
or hyperbolical protestations of respect and
veneration. But the Downing Street
suppliants, of Lord Bute's time, wrote after what
flourish their nature would. We can only
hope that the Downing Street suppliants of
this time show a better nature, and pour a
smaller quantity and a better sort of train-
oil on the altars of their Divinities.

A LESSON OF HOPE.

THE stars look'd forth in silent eloquence,
  Rife with the secrets of their native regions;
A language seal'd to man's imperfect sense,
  But known and spoken by angelic legions.

One walk'd abroad beneath their earnest eyes,
  Busied with thoughts that made his features darken;
And whilst he gave them voice without disguise,
  The watching spheres seem'd consciously to hearken.

He spoke of life in accents of despair;
  Arraign'd it as the teeming source of sorrow;
And, fascinated by the gloom of care,
  Saw not Hope pointing to a brighter morrow.

Haply his eye fell on those orbs of light,
  Sparkling above him in their placid beauty,
He gazed entranced, as by a spell of might,
  And learnt from them the lesson of his duty.

They taught him, with their calm and quiet glance,
  To take with patience what the Present yielded;
Trustfully looking into Time's advance
  To wrest from Fate the weapon she had wielded.

They bade him bear a stout and manful heart,
  For he had sympathy where they were shining;
Thousands were watching how he play'd his part;
  Smiled at his smiles, and wept when he was pining.

And thoughtfully he turn'd him to his home;
  Yet gleams of cheerfulness with thought were blended;
For he had learnt beneath the star-lit dome
  That toiling men by angels hands are tended.

THE ART OF CATCHING ELEPHANTS.

THE elephant is associated with our earliest
recollections of school-boyhood. Well do I
remember the huge black picture of the
unwieldy animal in Mavor's Spelling Book,
the letter-press describing the creature as
"not only the largest, but the strongest of all
quadrupeds," which is beyond all question;
and furthermore, that " in a state of nature,
it is neither fierce nor mischievous;" which is
the very reverse of fact, as hundreds of sugar
and coffee planters, as well as many a
traveller, could testify. In later years, I enjoyed
a peep at the sleepy-looking creature, cooped
up in a sort of magnified horse-stall, at the
Zoological Gardens, in the Regent's Park, and
well I remember wondering how so much,
sagacity and thoughtfulness could be
attributed to so apathetic and cumbrous an
animal.

The reader of Roman and Grecian history
may gather how Pyrrhus for a time mastered
the hardy veterans of Rome, by means of these
then little-known and terrible creatures; and
how Alexander found hundreds of them
opposed to him in the army of the Indian
monarch. Readers of more recent history may
learn how these animals formed a portion of
the vast armies of most of the Indian Nabobs,
with which the British forces came in contact.
But twelve short months ago, the elephant
graced the civic triumph of the newly-elected
Lord Mayor of London, to the unmitigated
astonishment and delight of thousands of little
boys and elderly females.

Much, however, as I had heard and read
of the elephant, I never properly appreciated
this animal, until I had been a dweller in
Eastern climes. During a long residence in
Ceylon, I was witness of such performances
by these huge creatures, that my feeling
towards them was raised from that of mere
wonder, to something more akin to respect
and admiration.