the simultaneous commencement of the three
respective cycles. This desirable epoch
turned out to be the year four thousand
seven hundred and thirteen before Christ.
To know with what year of the Julian Period
any given year corresponds, add its A.D. to,
or subtract its B.C. from, four thousand seven
hundred and thirteen. The current year is
therefore the year six thousand five hundred
and seventy-two of the Julian Period.
Scaliger's Cycle, as it ought to be called, is
capable of rendering great service, by
permitting the immediate verification of any
date which is indicated merely by its place
in each of the three periods which compose
the Julian Cycle. And besides, as it meets
with no interruption or break at the Christian
era, it serves to determine exactly the relative
positions of events which happened either
before or after the birth of Christ. Scaliger's
Cycle was adopted by Kepler.

   THIRD STATEMENT OF REVEREND
              ALFRED HOBLUSH.

IT is not improbable, on the whole, that
the all-wise dispensation which introduced the
gentler portion of our species to earth, had
perhaps, for its aim, the purification—by fire,
as it were, and bitter trials—of the nobler half;
so that, if man's life is to be a continual warfare
upon earth, the other sex is to be his
enemy in the field always combatant.

The gentleman who once remarked to Mr.
Miller that woman was an abbreviation of wo
to man, must have been a person of profound
wisdom; though, perhaps, possessed of but
feeble powers of humour, and unconsciously
uttering a great truth. That these are the
unpleasing instruments alluded to by the
poet, which gods are in the habit of turning
into whips for our correction; in short, that
the sex was a mistake from the beginning,—
a bitter solecism, a sad accident. These were
the reflections turned over and over again in
the mind of a wretched prisoner, into whose
soul the iron had entered. Clad in flame-
coloured san-benito, and grovelling in a dimly
lighted dungeon, he lay consumed by his own
reflections.

The prisoner into whose soul the cold metal
had entered, was the person known as the
Reverend Alfred Hoblush. The san-benito
was a rug of bright tints wrapped closely
about his lower limbs, and the dimly lighted
dungeon, a first-class compartment of a railway-
carriage, lined with the blue cloth of the
usual pattern, Dover bound.

I (it is the Reverend Alfred Hoblush who
now speaks) had received a shock in a late
transaction, which it will be long before I
shall get over.* It may be for years, and it
may be for ever, as it was in the instance of
the unlucky admirers of one Kathleen. I
had placed confidence in two parties who had
basely taken advantage of that honest trust. I
had laid bare my young heart unsuspectingly to
designing females. I was now journeying
into a foreign land to end my days; perhaps,
eventually, to join the strictest order of
brethren that could be found. I should, most
likely, have intense satisfaction in digging up a
small portion of my own place of interment
each day, with a neat garden-spade. The
stranger will read the simple description that
Brother Alfred lies below, and never think of
Hoblush whilome Curate of Saint Stylites.
Those intriguers! they alone should hear of
this early demise in the midst of some scene of
riotous festivity. It should dash the cup from
their lips and poison the flowing bowl. (By
the flowing bowl allusion is made to the
weak dilution of tea those spinsters
indulged in.)

* See page 113 of Volume the Eighteenth, and page
13 of the present volume.

There were two other prisoners in that
blue-cushioned dungeon. The elder was
seemingly a person advanced in years; at that
stage of life, when age begins to be honourable,
and human flesh an inconvenient burden.
When, too, indifference to personal appearance
is exemplified in open manifestation
of flannels about the head in presence of
a mixed company. During the whole of
that journey he made no sign; nor so much
as withdrew his face from his flannels
for a single instant, being given up in a
brutish manner to slumber. He came out of
Fogiedom, doubtless. His companion—who,
from a certain easy and familiar bearing
I suspected owed to him the blessing of
existence—was a youth of unprepossessing
appearance, gaunt and bony, with his throat, as
it appeared to me, unnecessarily exposed. He
was very restless and uneasy all the journey.
He sighed frequently; and once I surprised
him while looking intently at a sort of amulet
or locket which he took from a secret part
of his dress. I smiled a bitter smile. This
poor youth was labouring under some such
delusion as I had been awakened from. He
was on the edge of the fatal plate laid in
the sun and spread with sticky mixture, for
the attraction of foolish insects. I almost
laughed aloud as he took out a document,
and stared at it with idiotic longing.

From time to time he turned to me with
interest; doubtless yearning to unbosom himself
to one of his kind. A rich notion. Before
long we spoke: Was I going to Folkstone?
I was. Going to cross? I was.
Going on? Yes.

They—that is, he and the governor, here—
were for Sulphur-les-Bains. I started; it
was my destination also. There was
functionary derangement somewhere, and Doctor
Socrates Pillson, F.R.S., had bidden me drink
the waters, and read his book, too—the well-
known Canter through the Chalybeates.

The Byronic youth and I became friends
very soon. He was presently laying his heart
bare to me, and I had told him my sad
history. We mingled our tears to rich