their strongest, he made a principal object in
one of the most poetical pictures that has ever
been painted, of a little ignoble tug-boat. The
old Temeraire was the Old Ship of acknowledged
picturesqueness; it loses nothing by its
near contact with the steam-tug, by which it is
towed into port. This great man showed the
same liberal desire to move, in his still more
recent work, called "Rain, Steam, and Speed," in
which he takes a train in movement as the
subject of his picture, and shows us what a fine
subject it is.

And doubtless as affording proof of the wider
extent of man's dominion, and as showing how
even such immaterial things as time and space
obey it—we may look on steam and electricity
as agents whose exercise is to be combined with
the highest poetic elements. The night-train
tearing its way across the earth's surface is
really, when one thinks of what its work is—how
it furthers those great ends of commerce which
help to bind the nations together—how it brings
to the sick man the face which he must see
before he dies—how it bears away from home and
love the youngster who has his fortune to make,
or brings him back, a man, to his reward—when
one thinks of such things as these, that sudden
gust of light and fire and speed becomes
something more than a thing of wheels, and valves,
and pistons, and train-oil. And to think that
human beings are found who will trust
themselves to the mercies of that fiery monster!
What "hearts of oak and girt with threefold
brass" would ancient Flaccus, who thought it
so courageous to venture on ship-board, have
ascribed to the travellers by the night
express!

Has it ever happened to the reader to ask a
question by means of that essentially modern
invention the electric telegraph, and to be
opposite to the instrument itself when the answer
arrives? It is not often that one is thus brought
into immediate contact with the actual agency
by which the information we seek reaches us.
Now, with life or death hanging in the scale, or
even with some less vital, but still important,
interest at stake, how tremendous the suspense
would be as word by word—nay, letter by letter
—that little quivering needle revealed the truth.
There is no more harrowing situation than this
possible. From the moment when the little
signal is given which announces that the oracle
is going to speak, the very instrument itself
seems to hold the secret, so that you might long
to tear the news from out of it and know the
best or the worst more swiftly than it can be
told by that timid and hesitating tongue. Across
half a continent, and underneath the sea, the
news has travelled at maddest speed; no wonder
that it should be faltering and breathless, here
at its journey's end.

And so we have said " good-by" to the old
Picturesque, and with tears in our eyes, as we
parted with memories most precious to us, have
yet managed so to master our prejudices that we
have been able to say a word of welcome to the
Poetry of the new age, though it comes to us
in rather an ungainly shape, and trampling to
pieces the things that we have delighted in for
half a lifetime. In this rapidly moving age it
is a positive duty to go forward in matters of
taste as in things of more importance. You may,
and you probably must, continue to love your
old friends best, but that is no excuse for looking
grudgingly on the new acquaintances who are
to supply the vacant places of the dead. These
new comers have their fine qualities as the
others had, and it behoves you, if you would be
a true man, to acknowledge those qualities, and
to do them justice to the very utmost of your
power.

SERVANTS IN PERSIA.

MY right-hand man and prime counsellor in
all things, next to my English servant Harry,
is Mehemet Beg, one of the Gholaums, or
government messengers of her Majesty's mission
at Tehran. He is a fine fellow, and has passed
his life on horseback. He accompanied poor
Conolly and Stoddart on their ill-fated journey
to Bokhara, and we are the best friends in the
world.

He is said to be past sixty years of age, but
he looks scarcely thirty. He has a rich bronzed
complexion, fine dark bright eyes, a good nose
and mouth, and a wonderful beard. He is as
active as an acrobat, and as brave as a lion.
Very fierce when crossed, and very ready with his
stick at all times. In manners he is a curious
mixture of the soldier and old woman. He is
cruel, kind, rough, tender; his heart is at once
that of a conqueror and of a child. I love him—
am angry with him. He bores and he pleases
me by turns. He is officious in the wrong place,
and in the right place. He is never sulky; but
he has a way of his own in doing things, and is
not to be turned aside from his way. Other
people say he is troublesome. He is proud of
his office, and considers his functions of the
utmost importance to the welfare of the world at
large. Whenever we travel and rest for a day, he
appears sublime in silks and shawls and bravery;
so that it would be quite impossible to ask him to
do anything but smoke out of my gold pipe:
which he does with much zest and condescension,
flattering me adroitly and sententiously between
every puff. He takes as much care of me as a
grandmother, and in about the same sort of
way. He doses me at all hours of the day with
sweet tea, and pipes—of which he is himself very
fond; and he has me rubbed down and
shampooed as much as himself, every evening, to take
off the stiffness of the day's ride, though I do
not want my joints pulled and twisted and
cracked, and my muscles kneaded back into
elasticity, as much as he does. My mind seems
also under his charge as well as my personal
safety. He gossips to me eternally, and tells
me all sorts of fibs to put me in a good
humour.

And here, I must leave Mehemet Beg to take