when he wrote "The Christian Vagabond," which he contributed some time since to my pages. It is an earnest and worthy performance, and I am glad to receive the work in book form, nicely printed and embellished with characteristic illustrations by the author himself. "The Christian Vagabond" strikes the key-note of the best and holiest impulses of the human heart.

DR. SHEA, of New York, has been engaged for a considerable time in an investigation of the names of the States, in their origin and significance. He has set forth the result in an "Historical Record," from which I gather some very curious information. Some of our educationists will do well to revise their books on geography from these new facts. Alabama is from the name of the tribe originally written Alibamon by the French. The late Rev. Mr. Byington, an accomplished Choctaw scholar, sustained the earlier French by making the Alibamons to be Choctaws, and he ridiculed the translation, Here we rest; or, the land of rest. Mississippi is not Choctaw or Natchez at all. The name first reached the French missionaries and voyageurs through the northern Algonquin tribes, and is clearly intelligible in their languages. Missi or Michi means great; sipi, river; so that it simply means great river, a derivation supported by the Greek. The Ottawa was called Kichisipi, a great river; and Colonel Pichlynn, a very intelligent Shawnee, when asked by the late Buckingham Smith the meaning of Chesapeake, at once said Kichi-sipik-place of the great water. Arkansas is written in early French documents Alkansas, so that the French word are certainly did not enter it, and such compounds are not in the style of the French. Alkansas or Arkansas was the name given by the Algonquins tribe to the nation calling themselves Quappas. Kentucky is by Algonquin scholars interpreted like Connecticut-the long river. Ohio is not a Shawnee word, or a word in any Algonquin dialect. It is pure Iroquois, like Ontario, and means, in Iroquois, beautiful river. Michigan is Michi, great; and gami, lake, in Algonquin, and is given in an early French Illinois dictionary. As earliest given it is Michigami. Illinois is not a compound of Indian and French, but a Canadian-French attempt to express the word Illiniwek, which in Algonquin is a verbal form, "We are men." The wek gradually got written ois, pronounced way, or nearly so. We say Illy-noy; but the French said Illeen-way, and the Indians Illeen-week. Wisconsin arises from a misprint; all the early French documents have Quisconsing, or Misconsing, and this seems to come from Miscosi

it is red. Wishcons may mean a small beaver lodge. Missouri is a name first given in Marquette's journal, and evidently Algonquin. In an Illinois dictionary the meaning given is Canoe. In Baraga's dictionary, for It is muddy, he gives ajishkiwika, but no word like Missouri. Iowa is written at first Aiouès, and was applied to a tribe of Indians, and would seem to be simply Ajawa-across, beyond, as if to say the tribe beyond the river. With this we may compare the term Hebrews, so called from having crossed over into another country, from the Euphrates. Texas was a name applied to a confederacy, and is said by Morfi, in his "Manuscript History of Texas," to mean Friends.

THERE is no data upon which to form a reliable account of the origin of billiards. Dr. Johnson gives reasons for believing that the game had its birth in England. Todd argues that billiards originated in France. Strutt, who is an excellent authority on "Sports and Pastimes," believes billiards to be merely the game of paille-maille transferred from the ground to the table, and concerning which "Cavendish" gave an illustration in the first volume of my "entirely new series." Billiards superseded shovel-board. In 1674 a billiard table had six pockets. The bed of the table was made of oak, and the cushions were stuffed with "fine flax or cotton." Maces, not cues, were used, made of some weighty wood and tipped with ivory. The peculiarity of the game consisted in the use of a small arch of ivory, called the "port" (placed where the pyramid spot now stands), and of an ivory peg or "king," placed at the opposite end of the table. Two balls were used, and the game played was the whitewinning game (single pool), five up by day-light, three by candle-light. Beyond the "lives" scores were counted appertaining to passing the port or to touching the king. "French billiards," which was essentially single pool, was next introduced. "Carambole," the precursor of billiards as now played in England, was the next advance in the game.

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Curiously enough, the French have of late years entirely discarded pockets, playing only cannons and what was formerly the French game is now called the English game." Up to 1810 the development of the game was very slow; soon after this date the introduction of cueplaying, leathern tips and chalk, side-strokes, and improvements in tables caused quite a revolution in the science of billiards. A man named Bentley, proprietor of a billiard room at Bath, discovered the side-stroke; and May, a billiard table keeper, first popularised the spot. When Cook became the champion player of England he eclipsed all previous scores, making breaks of 417 (137 spots), 447

(138 spots), 512 (167 spots, a cannon intervening), 531, and 752 (220 spots, two all-round breaks intervening). Next to Cook, Joseph Bennett has made the largest break on record-viz., 510 off the balls, including 149 consecutive spots. At present Cook is champion, and for some time to come there is every reason to believe that the holder of the cup will be found in either Cook, Bennett, or Roberts, jun., who are the three leading players of billiards. I gather these interesting notes from a new book on billiards, by Joseph Bennett, edited by "Cavendish," and published by De la Rue and Co. This work, for the first time it seems to me, reduces the game to a complete and comprehensive system. "Cavendish" has shown a remarkable capacity in other directions for harmonising and working out general principles; with the aid of a finished player, he has brought his theory of a systematic treatise to a practical issue. The new billiard book must become a necessary companion to those who study the game scientifically.

WHO shall write the Life of Lord Lytton, as that of Dickens is being written by his friend John Forster? I cannot think of any man who has lived in the midst of us down to these last days whose biography would make so varied and so intensely interesting a story of high literary and political life during the last half century. Dickens was always a lion among men of letters; Thackeray was a constant attendant at clubs, and haunted the studios of artists; but the author of "The Caxtons," "The Lady of Lyons," and "King. Arthur"-the poet, the pamphleteer, the novelist, the Whig politician, the Tory statesman, the peer: the man who from the beginning of his career was behind the scenes in every phase of public life-political, literary, dramatic, artistic, diplomatic, aristocratic, Bohemian, or whatever else during a period covering the life of two or three generations, must have left behind him the materials of a biographical work hardly less attractive than his most successful book or his most famous play. His letters, his memoranda, his rough literary sketches, his diary, if he has left one, the materials of autobiography whereof we shall most likely hear very soonwill make one of the most popular books of the next ten years. And what if it should contain private revelations ? There are domestic passages in the biography of Dickens which the world is expecting shortly to hear narrated. A mystery as yet unrevealed hangs over the home experience of Thackeray. Already the contemporaries of the author of "Pelham" have been shown a little way

behind the scenes of his married life. Will anything more be told ; will misconceptions be removed; will the story as it stands be confirmed; or will not a word be added to the imperfect picture? But first we are all looking for the posthumous novel, "Opinions of Kenelm Chillingley," which happily received the author's own finishing touches before he died. In that he was able to set his seal to the last of his numerous works he was so much more fortunate than Thackeray, Dickens, or Macaulay. The novel must be great to add to his fame. When will England produce another to perform highclass work in so many and such varied fields of intellectual activity?

FEW more interesting controversies, both in a literary and an historical point of view, have ever arisen than the discussion which has recently been carried on respecting the authenticity and genuineness of the Swiss legend in which the archery feats of William Tell are described. The object of this brief note is not to attempt to settle the dispute, but merely to state that the story has penetrated the Arctic circle. In the metrical traditions of Lapland and Russian Karelia all the leading particulars in the life of the Swiss hero are closely reproducedunless, indeed, the story be of Northern origin. In Lapland literature it is varied, so that the son is the active, and the father the passive, personage in the tale. The latter has been taken captive by a band of Finn marauders. The former-a boy twelve years of agethreatens the party with his bow from a position of safety on the other side of a lake. The captors, dreading his skill, promise the father's liberty on a condition similar to that related in the Swiss legend. "Raise one hand and sink the other, for the water will attract the arrow," is the father's advice. The apple is duly cloven, and the father released. The incident of the jump from the boat is also recited; and the northern locality specified as distinctly as the Lucerne of Swiss history. The legend in this form was discovered about thirty years ago by Mathias Alexander Castren, a native of Finland. In the Finnish and Lappish metrical writings he also discovered the leading particulars of the adventure of Ulysses with the Cyclops. From what original source—says a reviewer of Castren's work-or through what channels these traditions have travelled, it is probably vain to inquire or dispute: the triumph of courage over numbers, of policy over brute force, has its charm for the rudest nations, and from Jack the Giant Killer to William Tell the key-note of the strain is ever the same.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

MARCH, 1873

CLYTIE.

A NOVEL OF MODERN LIFE.

BY JOSEPH HATTON.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE BRINK.

WO men loved her. One was rich; the other poor. Her whole life was influenced by an accident, a mistake, a misunderstanding, a calumny. They who loved her most were her detractors. Sometimes our best friends are the first to be deceived by appearances which belie us. Tom Mayfield gave her the name of Clytie even before he had spoken to her; she was so round and dimply, and had such wavy hair, and such brown tender eyes, and was altogether so much like the popular statuette of the goddess who was changed into a sunflower for very love. Tom Mayfield was a student in Dunelm University, and he saw Clytie first at a boat-race on the Wear. She was accompanied by her grandfather, the organist of St. Bride's, with whom Tom speedily made friends, that he might have facilities for wooing this belle of the cathedral city.

Tom had already a rival before he had the right to regard any man as his opponent. Love's shadows of doubt and fear had fallen upon him before his sun of hope could even be said to have risen. Tom was poor. Philip Ransford was rich. Tom was a palefaced student, and burnt the midnight oil over hard tasks that were his battles for wealth and fame. Philip Ransford was a big, VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

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