culty in finding anything to write which shall
be at once new and true; and this chapter must therefore consist mainly
of extracts. As the sun of August brings out wasps, so the genial
influence of the Jubilee has produced an incredible abundance of fibs,
myths, and fables. They have for their subject the early days of our
Gracious Sovereign, and round that central theme they play with every
variety of picturesque inventiveness. Nor has invention alone been at
work. Research has been equally busy. Miss Wynn's description, admirable
in its simplicity, of the manner in which the girl queen received the
news of her accession was given to the world by Abraham Hayward in
_Diaries of a Lady of Quality_ a generation ago. Within the last month
it must have done duty a hundred times.

Scarcely less familiar is the more elaborate but still impressive
passage from _Sybil_, in which Lord Beaconsfield described the same
event. And yet, as far as my observation has gone, the citations from
this fine description have always stopped short just at the opening of
the most appropriate passage; my readers, at any rate, shall see it and
judge it for themselves. If there is one feature in the national life of
the last sixty years on which Englishmen may justly pride themselves it
is the amelioration of the social condition of the workers. Putting
aside all ecclesiastical revivals, all purely political changes, and all
appeals, however successful, to the horrible arbitrament of the sword,
it is Social Reform which has made the Queen's reign memorable and
glorious. The first incident of that reign was described in _Sybil_ not
only with vivid observation of the present, but with something of
prophetic insight into the future.

"In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien which
indicates rather the absorbing sense of august duty than an absence of
emotion, THE QUEEN announces her accession to the throne of her
ancestors, and her humble hope that Divine Providence will guard over
the fulfilment of her lofty trust. The prelates and captains and chief
men of her realm then advance to the throne, and, kneeling before her,
pledge their troth and take the sacred oaths of allegiance and
supremacy--allegiance to one who rules over the land that the great
Macedonian could not conquer, and over a continent of which Columbus
never dreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone.

"It is not of these that I would speak, but o