Ir seems one of the penalties of greatness to be unable to escape from the prying eyes of interviewers and correspondents even in the retirement of the continent. The Daily News has recently presented the reading world with a puzzle, a feat of journalistic legerdemain, that almost defies detection. Given a private drawing-room, with, presumably, closed doors: present, among others, Mr. Gladstone, Lord and Lady Wolverton, M. Clemenceau and MI. Ribot; problem, to report verbatim conversation which took place. Yet this feat has been performed by the correspondent of our London namesake, and Punch of course is somewhat heavily humorous upon the subject. The Saturday devotes two closely-printed columns to it under the heading 'A Political Perpendicular.' But how was it done? "The Correspondent expressly vouches for first-hand acquaintance with the wonders he relate place at Lady Wolvei yn. 'There is not, we Presume, a reporter' ry at Lady Wolverton's weekly reception, ao that the Correspondent must be a person admi on the ordinary footing of ladies and gentlemen at such fur N joys one do interviewing ch circumstances? Mr. Bouncer, as is well known, had an exanimation-cost, furnished with many conveniences appropriate to its purpose. Is there a similar garment patented by any one for convenience of reporting conversation between guests in a lady's drawing-room? The reporter in the preface to The Betrothed" got under the table-cloth; but we do not suspect the Daily News's Correspondent of resorting to that extremity. Another legend tel of an energetic person who kept an open notebook in each pocket and scribbled a tdtons as he listened. But it is not usual to keep your hands in your pockets at either a political or an wsthetic tea; and the effect would be, to say the least, odd. It is therefore almost necessary to conclude that the Correspondent trusted, like Count Smorltork, to the receptivity and retentiveness of his memory; and this may po bly account for some statements whicl 8 otherwise not to be accounted for, except on_ the melancholy supposition that the Prime Minister in recovering hi health has entirely taken leave of After some rather ponderous witticisms about Congou and the Commune, or Sou-chang and Self-government, the sprightly writer proceeds
(Lord Hartington will be gind to hear), and a Tralnn is to be thoroughly decentralized state of things is to be produced which will make "the humblest Irishman realize that he inn governing agency, and that the gove mont is to be carried on for him and by hi That is exactly what we should have thought great many humble Irishmen have realized alrendy, The other iden, that government is to be carried on by and for the country, by any individual's action or for any dual's benefit, is the iden which the plain man might think most " ~essary to be driven into Irish heads, But, ax our Correspondent saya claow here (though indeed we know it), " Mr. Gladstone's mint ularly receptive. Ho some on this jon to have received almost too mach—certainly too much for the equanimity of some of his friends, They that the [n account of the Government i closed, and that th Trish must make the moat: of what they ha under the inspiriting intue Cémencenn, says that the din the Church and th rintion of the Innd-'They aay that "Iabours for it," and has it above all things at heart." By' teacups and town-councillors shall Ireland be saved.
An attractively-written review deals with 'Mr. Bayard Tuckerman's ' History of Eng-Prose Fiction.' The book cannot but even allowing for the glaring disproportion which di sand the reviewer is justified in the strictures ho passes upon the author for devoting ull pages to Aphra Behn while dismissing George Eliot in less than three, and Jane Austen in ton lines. Mr. Walter Besant is not even named, while Mrs, Oliphant and Mr. William Black, both of whom are unapproachable in their respective spheres, are patronisingly commended in the fowest possible words, for keeping up an interest in Scotland. 'The Spectator has an article on the 'Pains of Exile' as experienced by banished princes, pursuing a line of argument which reminds us of the acute remark of Mr. Rao in one of his recent books that much more sympathy is felt for rulers deprived of their thrones than for peoples that are enslaved. 'The bull of the Spectator thia week includes 'Literary Supplement' which swells the
reviews of several very noteworthy books, Among these i a translation of the Exsaya and Dialogues of Giacomo Leopardi, Mr. Coles's 'Summer 'Travelling in Ireland' a subject of unwavering interest—and Sir Thomas Brassey's book on the British Navy? The notice of Richard Wagner most likely to find favour with fervent Aisciplos, of the great master is that Truth, The writer is evidently a very fervent disciple himself, and touches upon the weak points of Wagter's character with a playful and delicate hand, There is much truth in this One what remember that in his own esti motion for at least forty years Richard Wag. ner had been the greatest figure in the musical worl since Beethoven, and that it took quite thirty years of hia life to convince the world of that fact which now for a week we have had thrust down our throats by every news: paper m the kingdom, Such a oan, with an imteuse consciouauers of power, meeting with tremendous neglect, and trampled upon, but never ed by penury, misfortune, and the bitterest pet ion and ridicule, naturally becomes an ogotiet, and is apt to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.