The poor fellows must have some compensation.

* * * * *

THE TEST OF FRIENDSHIP.

["C.K.S.,” in The Sphere, describing his numerous visits to GEORGE MEREDITH at Box Hill, tells us that in no real sense can he claim to have been an intimate friend; “but then,” he adds, “I always make the test of intimate friendship when people call one another by their Christian names.”]

  The use of Christian names, says “C.K.S.” 
    Is intimacy’s truest test; but “George,”
  When he was down at Dorking, (as you guess)
    Stuck quite inextricably in his gorge;
  And to the end he never got beyond
  The Mister, though a faithful friend and fond.

  How sad to think this barrier was never
    Demolished, broken down and swept away,
  But still remained to sunder and to sever
    Two of the choicest spirits of our day! 
  For MEREDITH, though radiant, genial, kind,
  On this one point showed an inclement mind.

  The case was simplified in days of eld;
    HOMER, for instance, had no Christian name,
  And an Athenian bookman, if impelled
    To visit him at Chios, when he came
  Across the blind old poet and beach-comber,
  Addressed him probably tout court as HOMER.

  PYTHAGORAS was never Jack or Jim—­
    Names all unknown in ages pre-Socratic;
  And SHORTER could not have accosted him
    By sobriquets endearing or ecstatic;
  It would have certainly provoked a scene,
  For instance, to have hailed him as “Old bean.”

  Then at the “Mermaid,” had he been invited
    As an illustrious brother of the quill,
  Would “C.K.S.,” I wonder, have delighted
    To honour WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE as “Old Bill,”
  And in the small uproarious hours A.M. 
  Have been in turn acclaimed as “Bully CLEM”?

  Perchance; who knows?  The mystery is sealed;
    Hypothesis, though plausible, is vain;
  What might have been can never be revealed,
    But one momentous fact at least is plain: 
  We know from an authoritative quarter
  That MEREDITH was never “George” to SHORTER.

* * * * *

THE TWOPENNY EGG.

The daily press informs us that we are “in sight of the twopenny egg.”  On making inquiries we learn that this phenomenon will be invisible at Greenwich, but may be viewed from the North of Scotland, a region happily less inaccessible than many to which scientific expeditions have in the past been made.  At the time of writing opinions differ as to the best point for observation, but it is probable that the island of Foula, in the Shetland group, will be chosen.

* * * * *

    “Masters and men are visibly strained by the crisis.  They all
    know that they are sitting on a volcano.  The prelude is all
    icy suspicion.”—­Mr. JAMES DOUGLAS in “The Star".