Majesty's service three doors down the passage--sinks by comparison into
cursory brevity.

No administrative reform will be able to bring even the official mind of
these days into the grave inch-an-hour conscientiousness with which a
confidential correspondent of a century ago related the growth of
apples, the manufacture of jams, the appearance of flirtations, and
other such-like things. All the ordinary incidents of an easy life were
made the most of; a party was epistolary capital, a race a mine of
wealth. So deeply sentimental was this intercourse that it was much
argued whether the affections were created for the sake of ink, or ink
for the sake of the affections. Thus it continued for many years, and
the fruits thereof are written in the volumes of family papers, which
daily appear, are prized as "materials for the historian," and
consigned, as the case may be, to posterity or oblivion. All this has
now passed away. Mr. Rowland Hill is entitled to the credit, not only of
introducing stamps, but also of destroying letters.


THE TRAGEDY
[Sidenote: _Ingoldsby_]

Quæque ipse miserrima vidi.--_Virgil_

Catherine of Cleves was a Lady of rank,
She had lands and fine houses, and cash in the bank;
She had jewels and rings, And a thousand smart things;
Was lovely and young, With a rather sharp tongue,
And she wedded a Noble of high degree
With the star of the order of _St. Esprit_;