Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

Walter Savage Lander , now hi his eighty-seventh year , has yet vigour of mind to write Imaginary Conversations like the following : — "MILTON . —After the sweet I am prepared for the bitter , which often happens in life , and it is only children who take the bitter first . "MARVEL . —Now * for it . You were not a very young man when

you wrote how " Sweetest Shakspere , Fancy ' s child , Warbled his native wood notes wild . " "After acknowledging the prettiness of tho verses , I deny the propriety of the application . No poet was ever less a warbler of ' wood notes wild . ' In his earliest poem be was elaborate , aud not exempt from stiff conceits—the fault of the ago , as exemplified by

Spenser . " MILTON . —In his later , he takes wing over the world , beyond human sight , but heard above the clouds . " MARVEL . —His Muse , to be in the fashion of the day , wore a starcht ruff about her neck . You have fringed Jonson's " learned sock . " I never bad patience to go through , or to speak more properly , to undergo his tragedies . In coarse comedy he succeeds better , but comedy ought never to he coarse . Indelicate as was

Aristophanes , there was an easy motion and an unaffected grace in every step he took . Plautus came far behind , ancl Terence not quite up to Plautus . Be not angry with me if Moliere is my delight . "MILTON . —He has written since I was a reader , and there is nobody in the house who can pronounce Erench intelligibly . My nephew reads Latin to me , and he reminded me one day that Sir Philip Sydney tried his hand at turning our English into Latin hexameters . Some of the Germans have done likewise . English ancl German hexameters sound as a heavy cart sounds bouncing over hnnldprs . "

And in this way does the literary veteran of eighty-six years recall the departed great ones of the earth , and put into their mouths sentences such as themselves would have uttered . The officials at tbe British Museum seem determined to embroil themselves in quarrels , instead of devoting themselves to the duties of their respective offices . We are continually having complaint

of the Museum not being what it ought to he for the money which it costs the country , and its well-paid servants are , now-a-days minding everybody else ' s business but their own . Not long ago , we had them branding the venerable Shaksperian labourer , Bro . John Payne Collier , as a base fabricator of the documents which he has discovered ; and now we have Dr . Gray , in a most

intemperate letter , attacking tbe veracity of M . du Chaillu , the African traveller , and insinuating that he has never visited the countries he names in his book , but has purchased his skins of animals , & c ., at the trading stations on the coast . "I hope that neither in my book nor in my lectures , " says the traveller in reply , "I have pretended to he infallible as a naturalist , artist , or traveller , yet I maintain that I have discovered in Equatorial Africa the new mammals and birds given as such in the list at the end of my

volume . All of these were described in the published proceedings in two of the most scientific societies in America ( with which Mr . Gray ought to be acquainted ) , some of the birds as far back as 1855 , and I defy him to produce specimens existing in any European museum before that time . My map , at which he sneers , is a mere sketch map , it is true , but it was carefully prepared from

observations made on the spot with the compass , ancl I will vouch for its general accuracy . My illustrations prepared , not in this country , as he asserts , but in America , were taken either from my own rough sketches or from the actual objects , with the exception of four or five out of a total of seventy-four . " And he asks , " Would it not have been more fair of Mr . Gray , before giving

vent to insinuations that I hacl never visited the countries which I describe , nor collected in those countries my natural history specimens , to bave applied to my friends at Corisco ancl on the Gaboon , whose names are mentioned in my book ! Mr . Gray pretends to be in communication with the missionaries and traders in those parts , and , therefore , this course would have been the more obvious , as he would have saved himself from the imputation of uttering mere calumnies . "

Correspondence.

CORRESPONDENCE .

The Editor is not responsible / or the opinions expressed , by Correspondents . THE HIGH GEADES . . 0 THE EDITOR OT TIIE EREEMASONS MAGAZINE AND MASONIC MIItROI .. DEAR SIR AND BROTHER , —If Bro . Peter will refer to the volume of the MAGAZINE for 1855 , he will there find two excellent papers by the Eev . Bro . "Wood , on Continental

Freemasonry , which may interest him . They will , however , I am afraid , be distasteful to him , showing as they do the prominence there given to the High Crudes . Bro . Peter is not , apparently , very charitably disposed towards those differing in opinion from himself . 1 beg however to express may entire accordance with him in the propriety of our Grand Lodge refusing ( as he is pleased to say )

to acknowledge the higher degrees of Freemasonry , which , in comparison of antiquity , & c , are as the mysteries of India , Egypt , and Greece to those of Christianity , nevertheless , some of them are , from internal evidence , & c , in all probability several centuries old than those of the Craft , in their present or entirely speculative form . Hnder the designation " high degrees" I do not include the Eoyal Order of Knights Templar , and must leave some more capable brother to enlighten your correspondent as

to the utility of this Order , and the Christian degrees of Masonry . I cannot refrain , however , from saying that , had the rival candidates for the French Grand Mastership been members of one of them , what he so much and rightly deplores must have been all but impossible . It has always ( as an old P . M . and no less as a K . T . ) been a subject of as much regret to me as to Bro . Peter , to

see rulers ancl brethren of the Tenvple in England treating and blazoning forth that Order as a genuine Masomo degree . The day of actual combat with the infidel is happily gone , and the laws and degrees of Freemasonry have superseded the statutes of St . Bernard and the rule of St . Augustine ; but the Order , chiefly composed of the elite of society ( Masonic or civil ) , and constituted a distinct Christian

confraternity , need not wish to deck themselves in borrowed plumes ;" , their light is rather that of the mid-day sun than the reflected light of the moon . Even the necessity of drawing the whole of its members from the Graft has been doubted by many . It has , I think , never been the case in France , and only within the last four or five years , entirely in Scotland . I remain , yours fraternally , P . M ., P . Z ., & c .

In Memoriam—In Futuro.

IN MEMORIAM—IN FUTURO .

You could ne ' er have known true love , Maud , Or ever felt the fears That strewed an early path in life With daily , hopeless tears ; Have never felt the jealousy—¦ The doubting , aching care , That felt your love was insecure If from you anywhere .

I worried you with anxious doubts , Instinctive—now too true ; I lived but to be only loved , Ancl that by only you , Who tore the roses from my heart , The garland from my brow ; And ruthless left the stabbing thorns In wounds that bleed e ' en now

Cocpiettish- —false—you left nie Eor a newer , showier swain And the love so garnered up for years Was strewed away again . And are you happier now than then , When far beyond the sea , Yoii vowed that all your happiest hours Where those you passed with me ?

But those clays have long passed by , Maud ; Your grey hairs tint the brown ; The love light in those , glorious eyes Quite sorrowful has grown . And yet with all the past to gain , Such love have I for thee , Come back in poverty or pain , Iu aught but shame to me .