that no centuries can make trivial or trite. As the flower of the field, so he flourisheth,' and 'in the evening it is cut down and withereth.' Only the lush rhythm of the scythe falls on the listening ear. There seem to reach us the breath of hawthorn blossom and the sweetness of new-mown grass: and the most beautiful of all possible worlds remains for ever young, for ever kind, for ever sad. MARY R. L. BRYCE. GARDEN FANCIES. (Printed by kind permission of Messrs. Novello, Ewer, & Co.) II. LOVE HAS COME AND LOVE HAS GONE. (No. 74 of Novello's Two-part Songs.") LOVE has come and Love has gone From the garden sunny, Maidens sit and sigh alone, (Love has come and Love has gone) Love is light as thistledown Wilt thou love me, dear, to-day (Wilt thou love me, dear, to-day?) Love is sweet as honey! ETHEL M. BOYCE WE. BY US. WHEN Catherine Morland returned home from her unfortunate visit to Northanger Abbey, and showed symptoms of discontent and low spirits, her careful mother went upstairs to look for a volume of The Mirror, which contained a letter of good advice to young ladies upset by visits to what Catherine's great-granddaughters would call 'smart' people, but whom Mrs. Morland described as 'great acquaintance.' I think this valuable work, which I never had the privilege of seeing, must have been among the first publications intended especially for the improvement of our sex; though, looking back into that 'last' century, which will so soon cease to be the last, we shall find that many papers in Addison's Spectator were addressed entirely to the women of the day. We may remark, in passing, that they went to the root of social problems with a plain-spoken energy which our most advanced contemporaries might envy. In a library to which, as a young girl, I had access, there was a deluding volume called The Velvet Cushion. It ought to have been a story, but it was sermons, preached, I suppose, on a velvet cushion; and bound up with it were Letters to Young Females, by Mrs. Chapone, which gave good advice of the kind likely to be approved in the boarding-schools of the day. My governess, in early days, possessed a small volume called The Lady's Companion, which looked like a case for implements of needlework, but was really a book containing riddles, poems, recipes, and short tales-supposed to be appropriate to the feminine mind. No doubt many other such dainty little works existed, bound in blue and red watered silk, and treasured by their fortunate owners; but our needs, and the satisfaction of them, have developed considerably since such small provision was found sufficient. The first advertisement put forth, when this magazine began its long career, was addressed to 'the maidens and damsels of England.' It may therefore be interesting to give some account in these pages of the periodicals specially addressed to women, often conducted by them, and presumably meeting their requirements, to notice how they differ from each other, and what points they have in common. There now lie before me specimen copies of thirty monthlies and weeklies, addressed to women, young women, WOMAN, ladies, young ladies, girls, gentlewomen, and young gentlewomen; and, indeed, unless some enterprising publisher borrows an idea from Mr. Collins, and starts a magazine called The Elegant Female, I do not see the possibility of a new variety. My specimens include very few of those managed by ladies for the benefit of working-girls, none that are merely fashion-books. and no serial stories, issued weekly, of which there are a great many of the cheaper sort. Among the thirty are some which start with the idea of the fashion-book, but supplement it with literary matter. These often announce themselves under some pretty Christian name— Myra, Sylvia, or the like. Others, in which the serial story forms the starting-point, add to their literary bill of fare one or more pages of good advice on dress and household management. Very, very few of the magazines intended to appeal to our sex omit to notice the fashions of the day. This must be consoling to those critics who are afraid of our becoming too intellectual. The advice on this important topic is adapted to the needs both of light and heavy purses, and while one magazine describes Worth's last masterpiece for the society débutante, another gives careful directions how to wash and retrim last year's one new frock for the one garden-party to which its owner is likely to be invited, or tells us how, without spending too much of our hard-earned little all, we may yet attain to a correct and becoming hat for the next Bank holiday. There are magazines which condescend, though with some apparent reluctance, to tell us how to give our eyelashes a golden tinge, or what wash is most harmless for the complexion, while others remark sternly that no cosmetic equals fresh air and soap and water. On the whole, even in the most frivolous of our contemporaries, the advice is probably less silly than those who ask for it; and though some may doubt whether knowing how to dress on board a yacht, at a county ball, or if com manded to a royal concert, comes under the head of useful knowledge, for those whose wildest hopes would be fulfilled by a trip on a penny steamer, a Christmas party, or a Choral Society's performance, still, as Mrs. Whitney remarks, there is a great deal in being a girl, and perhaps the solidarity of girlhood is helped by such information. But why-oh, why-do all these publications, pledged to describe woman as she should be, fail to depict woman as she is? What a splendid new departure it would be if next year's cloaks and ball-gowns could be shown off in the fashion-sheets on dames and damsels of less abnormal stature! How much disappointment would be saved when we come to put the garments on to our own more or less normal figures! As it is, a study of the fashion-plates on various levels of society raises the reflection that it is as well that, presumedly, they are difficult to follow. How dreadful it would be if pretty girls succeeded in looking like their models! We are all, we women, whether with a big W or a small, very anxious for good advice on all conceivable subjects—from the way to do our hair, to the way to manage our Bible classes; from the right mode of shaking hands, to the right understanding of Browning. I do not perceive this thirst for information in journals which appeal, in the first instance, to a masculine public. It does not seem as if such universal knowledge and such unimpeachable wisdom were required of their editors. Joking apart, the office of mother-confessor is evidently played by the managers of many a woman's magazine, no doubt often to the help, support, and almost salvation of struggling young creatures with perplexities which don't perplex their parents, and difficulties which their companions don't find difficult. The correspondence column cannot, if it would, betray them; and, judging from the specimens given, the advice on matters of conduct and etiquette is mostly sensible, and adapted to the level of those who ask for it. In many cases, especially where the readers are young, a personal tie is evidently formed between them and the editor, and she gains a kind of reputation and inspires an enthusiasm quite other than that which may belong to her literary position. We put our hearts into our work in more than one sense. Competitions of all kinds-puzzles and acrostics, prizes for doing everything, from sewing to sonnets-are found almost without an exception in women's periodicals, each one having more or less characteristic lines in this respect. The tales and novels which run through our papers vary, of course enormously, in scope, object, tone, and taste. But, as a rule, we like a moral. Vegetarianism may be the counsel of perfection recommended, or temperance, or truth at all costs; but some purpose there generally is. And the more 'advanced' we become, the more purposeful apparently we like to have our fiction. Many of these magazines have a definitely religious object, and many others show much religious feeling, and take the highest tone on the subject. The quality differs considerably, but the quantity is certainly reassuring. Of definite religious teaching there is less than some of us may perhaps think desirable. Of anti-religious teaching I have found none. There are a great many verses in our magazines, and, I think, nearly as much poetry as we find in-other publications. I am loth to give currency to the cruel reproach, so often cast at us, of lack of humour; but I am bound to say that, as a rule, I don't find our papers very funny. That is, of course, because the comic side of life is so well done for us elsewhere. And flashes here and there we find of cultivated wit among the records of philanthropic and educational efforts. It seems as if the hardest workers laughed the most, after all. It would be difficult, and, in a contemporary, scarcely becoming, to characterise all these publications, but some few remarks in detail may be interesting and instructive. There is a legend that a young lady in a dull village was wont to read The Queen through weekly from beginning to end, including the advertisements. She had nothing to do, and she pictured herself in all the costumes, imagined herself the possessor of all the kittens, puppies, and canaries offered for sale, and tried to set up all the fancy-work therein described. She never found The Queen too big; but it is a most liberal shilling's worth, and indeed stands at the head of a set of elevated and transfigured fashion-books, intended for more or less intellectual, cultivated, and artistic people. The Lady, The Lady's Pictorial, and The Gentlewoman answer to much the same description, each having individual merits. The Lady is perhaps especially good at competitions. There is a Young Gentlewoman and a Young Lady, but not, as far as I know, a Princess. Close on the heels of these great ones come hosts of Ladies' Treasuries, Journals, and Companions in infinite gradation. It is, perhaps, instructive for those who manage magazines 'with a purpose,' in which the supply must |