have not the slightest objection to the whole Bench adopting cycling as a means of exercise, enjoyment, and locomotion.

Cycling is essentially a cheerful exercise, and the Bishops have much to try them. Why, then, should they be precluded from an easy and pleasant way of throwing off their worries? A Bishop troubled by a rash vicar who is determined to fight his parish to the death over the question of restoring the rood-loft and giant crucifix might find on his bicycle a solution which would never occur to him on foot. It is absurd to say that there is anything so essentially undignified in the bicycle that no man can ride it and maintain the moral elevation required in the dignitaries of the Church. Why should it be more undignified to ride a bicycle than to ride an old grey horse? We have no anarchical notions about dignity, and do not wish to contend that there are no pastimes or actions which are undignified. For example, we should extremely dislike to see a Bishop on a merry-go-round, and should probably leave the show-field at once, and even though we knew that he was there from the purest motives, and was challenging sea-sickness with the hope of elevating the amusements of the masses, and of proving to them that a man may take even boisterous pleasures innocently and without the factitious aids of strong liquor and profane language. But a bicycle is, we contend, perfectly different from a merry-go-round, and may be ridden by the most exalted person without loss of dignity. It is merely because the bicycle is a new invention that to ride it is looked upon as capable of injuring a man's dignity.

We have no doubt that when the first horses were tamed and ridden primitive society was convulsed by the question whether the priests who polished the fetishstone ought to be allowed to ride, and whether they would not become ridiculous, and so socially disconsidered, if they did so. One can hear the talk across the ages. 'It would be all right if the horse kept quiet, but suppose somebody was to frighten him and he kicked, and the crowd saw daylight between the priest and his mount and chaffed? What would then have become of the dignity which ought to attach to the holders of a sacred, &c., &c., &c. ?' Depend upon it, the Bishops will not be lowered in dignity, even if they adopt the cycle. Their dignity, in truth, depends upon themselves. Dignity in the last resort is based upon moderation, upon calmness of manner, upon good sense and good feeling, and not on the adoption of any special kind of locomotion. If a man is dignified by nature, riding a bicycle in moderation will not deprive him of his dignity. If all cyclists were obliged to 'scorch,' and 'shout' and ' swear' at people who did not get out of their way, then no doubt it would be better for Bishops not to ride. But since a man may cycle, and do none of these things, we see no reason why the Bench should not take advantage of their gaiters, and ride a cycle for health, pleasure, convenience, and economy.

EVERY BOY IN HIS HUMOUR

I

THE IDEAL BOY AND THE REAL

THERE is something truly pathetic in the thought of the kind-hearted and scientifically minded naturalist who writes books about country pastimes for boys.

We say pathetic advisedly. It is always pathetic when an ideal creature is compared with the real, to find that the real is either as totally different as the Polar regions from the Tropics, or else looks like a malignant caricature the distorted and burlesque points of resemblance making the contrast all the more cruel. The writers on boyish pastimes may in their hearts consider the boy as a being occasionally capable of passion and error; but as a rule he appears in their books as a person 'ever delicately marching' through a whole series of arts and crafts with the utmost moderation and dexterity. He never takes more than one egg out of the nest for fear that the bird will desert. He puts his hand in so neatly, and climbs the tree so skilfully, that not a twig is displaced, and the mother-bird watching from the neighbouring hawthorn, is rather pleased than otherwise by his visit. When he is coming down, he does not peel the lichen and moss off the bark in hand

fuls by the agonised pressure of his waistcoat against the trunk-a swift and dusty descent; nor does the band of his breeches catch in a small bough till it breaks with the weight. Instead, he comes down hand over hand, 'always making sure of a firm hold with the leading foot before the foot behind is displaced.' On aquatic expeditions, the boy of the book is no less of a marvel in the sober security of his behaviour. If he wants to

cross a stream, he does not trample heavily backwards and forwards three or four times in the muddiest and broadest place. He springs lightly from stone to stone without noise. If he wants to tickle trout, he steals on tip-toe to the bank, and without first heaving in a dozen or so of large stones so as to give the maximum of splash.

Again, the book-boy does not forget to tuck up his sleeves to the elbow. When the book-boy makes a trap for birds it falls when it is wanted to fall, and if he keeps as what are called 'minor pets,' two badgers, an owl, a lark, half a dozen rabbits, and an eel, he tends them with all the method and zeal of the Royal Zoological Society's servants. Their cages are never dirty; they are never left without water; they never know what it is to be crammed two days in the week in succession, and starved for the other five; and they are never teased to make a holiday pass more agreeably. The book-boy is simply incapable of saying to a friend, 'Will you give me your pistol if I let you stir up the old owl with a stick; you don't know what a wax the old beast 'll get into?' The book-boy is, in fact, as we have suggested, a mixture of the sympathetic naturalist and the accomplished artisan. He turns from studying the habits of the kestrel or the grayling to the construction

of a patent rabbit-hutch or a temporary rat-cage. 'A few simple directions'-directions which read like the integral calculus to the grown man-are nothing in his sight, and with the greatest possible ease he can first draw you a section of a 'rabbit-hole and bolt-hole,' and then proceed to catch the rabbit and teach it to dine out of, and not off, his hand. Such is the boy as he appears from the books on boyish sports.

Alas, non sic notus Achilles! The boys we have known have been very different. They have been anything but kind-hearted naturalists. Their hearts may have been in the right place, and probably were, but the abstract desire not to disturb the old bird has not prevented them from clutching at the side of the nest in their descent. They keep minor pets, but it is difficult to know which offers the more appalling prospect for the pet, neglect or attention. Again, the real boy is anything but a deft mechanic. As far as we have observed, he is more of a surgeon; at least, the matter which is subdued to his art is generally the flesh of himself and his companions. The real boy may set about making a cage for a badger, but he generally desists before even the bars are shaped, because the bandages on fingers and thumbs have made the further manipulation of chisel, axe, saw, and plane difficultnay, impossible. In fact, the badger-cage, 'from a few simple hints,' generally ends in an inverted packing-case, on which are piled large stones because of the exceeding strength and ingenuity of badgers in the matter of getting out. Again the real boy, the boy that we remember thirty years ago, and the boy we see to-day, show little or none of the instincts of the true fisher