passed into history. When Lord Fiddlededee
was appointed minister at Timbuctoo, an
angry politician asked indignantly what were
his antecedents? "Oh," replied a wit, who
has furnished half the good sayings of the
day, "You had better ask what are his
relatives?"

Are you, therefore, a cousin of the great
Duke of Thunderbolt? Do you belong to
the eccentric family of the Blazes? Are
you the thick-headed brother of a thick-headed
peer? Are you his importunate
cousin? Are you the son of the confidential
steward of his first wife's half-brother, who
is paralytic, and has twenty thousand pounds
a-year? Have you got a friend with a
borough in his pocket, and who does not
want anything himself? If so, nothing
in the world is easier than to get you
a place. If not, go about your business.

If you wish to see patronage in another
point of view, I can oblige you. It is not
long since that a certain very useful post
was suppressed at the request of the Austrian
Government. The official to whom it had
been given was dismissed with a pension of
one thousand pounds a year. He was quite a
young man; and—what is rather rare in the
subordinate ranks of the public service—a
remarkably able one: yet there he was, in
the prime of life, to receive one thousand
pounds a year from an easy-going public for
doing nothing to the end of his days. He
was capable of filling almost any official
situation in our civil service; but it was
easier to give pensions than to find vacancies,
and the Government of the day wanted
every place which fell in, for its own supporters.
Well, it was not long after the
bestowal of this snug pension that the
friends of our young gentleman returned to
power. They of course lost no time in
providing for him afresh; but he keeps his
pension still, and if he have good luck, in
these days of retrenchment and economy,
he may perhaps be suppressed again, and
may get another pension when his friends
go out.

I would have the lists of candidates for
all public offices submitted to Parliament.
The ministers of the several departments may
have the advantage of recommending this
man or that man; but let his appointment
be in all cases ratified, at least by the tacit
consent of Parliament; so that if there should
be any well-grounded objection to the appointment
of any particular man it may be
heard beforehand. Most ministers would be
ashamed to recommend a Fiddlededee or a
Tweedledum if the thing were not done
snugly in the dark.

At present, Fiddlededee and Tweedledum
are the great staple English sample. And
many a foreigner have I seen—albeit he may
have been the subject of an arbitrary government—
open his amused eyes in wonder
at the extraordinary Island which delights
so much to honour Fiddlededees and Tweedledums,
and can find no worthier representatives.

A LEAF FROM THE PARISH
REGISTER.

I HAD once a long search to make among
the register-books of Chorley Parish. It
extended over many years, and kept me
poring, day after day, over the musty pages
in the old vestry-room. Abraham Stedman,
the clerk—whom we all know very well in
Chorley—kept me company the whole time;
and in one of my mid-day pauses, when we
were sharing some bread-and-cheese and beer
over the vestry fire, he told me the following
passage in his life:—

I have lived in the parish, said he, going
on now seventy years. When I think of
past times, my present friends in the place
seem strangers to me. Our old acquaintances
die off one by one, and new ones come into
their places so gradually, that we scarcely
miss them; but one day we look round, and
find that the world has passed into strange
hands.

[At this point Abraham Stedman paused
and looked at the vestry fire for a few
moments; I was silent, waiting for him to
proceed.]

The story I am going to tell you is
wonderful enough, though there are no
ghosts in it. I do not believe in ghosts. If
any man ought to have seen ghosts, I ought;
for, I may say, without any offence to my
kind friends of to-day, that all my truest and
oldest friends are gone to the ghost-land; and
I am sure they would pay me a visit if they
could. Besides, I never feared to walk about
an old house in the dark at midnight, or to
go at that silent time through the church-yard
where most of my friends lie, or even
into the church if I had occasion.

On Christmas Eve—I cannot say exactly
how many years ago it is now, but it was
not very long after I was made clerk—the
rector (that was poor Mr. Godby) told me he
was in a little perplexity about the sexton's
being ill; seeing that there would be no one
to ring the bells. Now I always made a
point of sitting up with the sexton on that
night, and taking a hand at the bells; for I
could ring them pretty well, and it seemed to
me only a little kindness, proper to the
season, to offer to keep him company in such
a lonely place. He was a much older man
than I was, and I knew he was glad of my
society. We used to have a little fire up in
the belfry, and make toast and posset an
hour or two after midnight. But this time
the sexton was ill, and I promised the rector
at once that I would ring the bells; and so
it was agreed that I should.

I used to offer my company to the old