the old leaven of cousinly ill-feeling, the jealousy which embitters the Pole against his Russian congener, is still rampant.  Uncle Sam actively dislikes John Bull and dispraises England.  An Anglo-American who has lived years amongst us and in private intimacy must, when he returns home, speak disparagingly of the old country unless he can afford the expensive luxury of telling unpopular truths and of affronting Demos, the hydra-headed.

But there are even now signs of better things in the Great Republic.  Mr. James R. Lowell, an authority (if there be any) upon the subject of Democracy, after displaying its fine points and favourable aspects in his addresses to English audiences, has at length had the uncommon courage to discuss family affairs, and to teach Boston and New York what “weaknesses and perils there may be in the practical working of a system never before set in motion under such favourable circumstances, nor on so grand a scale.”  He is emboldened to say firmly and aloud, despite the storming of false and hollow self-praise, that American civilisation, so strong on the material side, is sadly wanting on the other, and still lacks much to make it morally acceptable or satisfactory.  And we have some truths concerning that Fool’s Paradise, the glorification of the “average man.”  Every citizen of the world must wish full success to the “Independents” (in politics) who sit at the feet of so wise and patriotic a teacher.

And here I feel myself bound to offer some explanation concerning

          The Household Edition of the Arabian Nights.

lest any subscriber charge me, after contracting not to issue or to allow the issue of a cheaper form, with the sharp practice which may be styled

     To keep the word of promise to our ear
     And break it to our hope.

Hardly had my third volume of “The Nights” (proper) been issued to my patrons when a benevolent subscriber, whose name I am bound to conceal, apprised me that he had personal and precise information concerning a project to pirate the production.  England and Anglo-America, be it observed, are the only self-styled civilised countries in the world where an author’s brain-work is not held to be his private property:  his book is simply no book unless published and entered, after a cost of seven presentation copies, at “Stationers’ Hall”—­its only aegis.  France, Italy and Austria treat such volumes as private MSS.:  here any dishonest house may reproduce them in replica without the slightest regard to the writer’s rightful rights.  In my case this act of robbery was proposed by a German publisher domiciled in London, supported by a Frenchman equally industrious, who practises in Paris, and of whose sharp doings in money-matters not a few Englishmen have had ample reason bitterly to complain.  This par nobile agreed to print in partnership an issue of handier form and easier price than my edition, and their plan if carried out would