The Perpetual Motion of To-day.

ROM the time when Hamlet uttered the memorable line"Look here, upon this picture, and on this," and thus set in opposition the past and the present, there has been a tendency to dwell on contrasts. In this paper it may not be uninteresting to contrast (in a not too serious mood) an experiment that was attempted in the past, with some accomplishments that have become epidemic in the present day. Hence my subject-"The Perpetual Motion of To-day."

He would be a too confident, not to say crazy, man who would persuade himself, in this scientific age, that perpetual motion. was a physical possibility. Yet many talented scientists of old, who were devoted to original research, tried to convince themselves that it would be discovered if they perpetually persevered. So they looked about for a suitable motive-machine, and fixed on the clock, which could be made to work a day, a week, a year without winding, and if the motive force for self-winding could be supplied, they hoped to make it work for ever. But the old clock-unlike Tithonus, who asked for immortality-had only to show them its worn hands and wrinkled face to make reply

"For ever-never. Never-for ever!"

Thus the comparatively brief life was the death blow to the experiment.

I have a great admiration for an old grandfather's clock, partly because it is a protest against idleness (which perpetual motion would seem to encourage), but more particularly because one has come down to me as an heirloom from my grandfather, and has become an ornament of the most ancient type. I have an especial liking for its quaint mechanism and antique oak case, its brazen face and melodious bell, the stately swing of the pendulum, the stationary dial plate that no longer records the date, and the heavy leaden weight that has, nightly, to be drawn up the clocktower, and as regularly descends to the shades below. I can bear with a few of its ailments-a slight stammering as it calls out the hour, and an occasional bronchial attack, very excusable after east winds. Indeed these slight infirmities only increase my sympathy, which is, I take it, another form of affection.

Having failed with the clock, our ancestors turned their heads to the pump-that useful adjunct to the back yard. They thought

very little scientific skill was wanted to make the pump self-working. Could it not be kept going by the weight of the water it had itself raised? A spring of water had the secret of running night and day, year in, year out. Why not invent a perpetual spring pump on the same lines? "O, sweet simplicity of days gone by!"

The stupid old pump was not to be drawn; it was headstrong, stolid, and immovable; but withal was quite content to fill the cup that cheers, to every applicant, for a mere shake of the handle. It had been very circumspect for ages; it had acquired a reputation for uprightness of character, and cool devotion to duty; and still prided itself as a model of constancy, uninfluenced by the temptations of this changeful world. True it had occasional misgivings about its future state, and on one or two occasions had consulted specialists, known as plumbers, who questioned its survival beyond a few more centuries.

But, although the idea of perpetual motion was abandoned long ago, and in this nineteenth century is known to be as fruitless as a search for the philosopher's stone, are we not aiming at motion that approaches perpetuity? The other day I read of a train of one hundred and fifty tons that was drawn by one of Webb's compound locomotives the "Ionic"-running from London to Carlisle, a distance of three hundred miles, without stopping. Then another train, in what was called "The Railway Race to Scotland," which ran from Euston to Aberdeen-five hundred and forty miles— in five hundred and thirty-eight minutes. This sounds like motion too perpetual for those who suffer from weak nerves.

Or take the present bicycle rage, from the boy on the boneshaker to the full-fledged scorcher trying to break record. Living in a quiet neighbourhood, where looking through the window would be considered commonplace, this well-kept road appears to be a sort of Rotton Row for cyclists, who are constantly practising on their steel hobby horses. Take two specimens. The young lady aspirant trying to mount the wingless Pegasus, encountering all the excitements of aerial flight; her successes and failures, hopes and fears; or, when she believes she is fairly seated, the nervous grip of the handles, the uncertainty of the revolving pedals, the erratic wriggle, the expansion of the wings, the resignment to fate, and the dénouement-the fairy falls. What would our fore-mothers have thought of such violent exercise? Or, again, what shall I say of the scorcher, who rides for speed and not for pleasure, and whose figure on the bicycle ill resembles human kind? Can one forbear the likeness to a monkey "astride a twig"? Or perhaps, after all, the crouching rider is only fulfilling the curse of the Serpent, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat."

Another of the perpetual movements of to-day is golf, in its two phases of golf playing and golf talk. Let me "approach" this subject cautiously, for its members say the world is divided into two classes only-golfers and scoffers. I am not a player because —“ 'Tis better far never to do what, if you do, you mar." Some say it is a selfish game, most trying to the temper; but, on the authority of Lord Wellwood-"Golf affords a field of observation for the philosopher and the student of human nature." A philosopher would indeed be devoid of observation if he did not admit that it creates a desire to excel, to endure, and to restrain; that it brings out the good qualities of nerve and self-control; and that the mental discipline a player acquires is concentration of thought and precision of action, all of which qualities are distinctly commendable; but the rage for the game, in season and out, entitles it to be considered as one of the perpetual movements of the day, for there are only two conditions of the weather when the golfer cannot " despatch the globe "-snow and fog. Then he changes the scene, but not the game, for in-doors, on the dining-room carpet, he practises that elegant movement known as the "preliminary waggle," and the more skilful stroke in which every golfer tries to excel-the "St. Andrew's swing.

The second phase is that he incessantly talks of the game. No two dour golfers ever meet anywhere, under any circumstances, without discussing it in the minutest detail, at interminable length. And listen to the mysterious language. You hear of such strange creations as caddies, bunkers, and greens-baffies, mashies, cleeks, niblicks, and brassies; or such singular performances as slogging, putting out, sneaking up a shot with a cleek, holing a mashy, and laying the brassy shot dead.

To the initiated what can be more explicit than the instructions on the links?—“ Be up,' "Slow back,' "Knuckle over the ball," and "Keep your eye glued to the ball." Or what more humorous to the scoffer than the "preliminary waggle," the "dormy on bogey," the "pigtail swing," the "foozle with the brassy," and (the instructions before moving off your position) to pause for a moment like a "pointing" dog? Can you wonder after all this that the warning note to young and old alike is that "playing through the green" is trying to the nerves, and "putting accomplishment trying to the temper? However, let us think of the game in the light of one whose appreciation led him to write thus tersely—

"Driving is an Art,

Approaching is a Science,
Putting is an Inspiration."

an

Still golf has one advantage over cycling-it is said to be a suitable recreation for all ages between eight and eighty. This range

should include every member of our Literary Society, so that if the loyal and antique game of rounders should lose its interest, we may hope that its place may be taken by the royal and ancient game of golf; and that at one of the next tea-parties at Warwick or Kenilworth, the members may be seen, in peaceful rivalry, "teeing on the greens."

J. GILL.

66

Voltaire.

OLTAIRE'S character in the eyes of most people is decidedly bad. The first man we meet will probably describe him as a trifler, a mocker, a scoffer, a revolutionary iconoclast. If the man should happen to be an orthodox religionist he will most likely go further and look upon Voltaire as an actual incarnation of the principle of evil, a mocking spirit from the outer darkness, permitted for a time, for reasons inscrutable, to inflict his personality on the world to divert men's souls from all that is good. Dr. Johnson, in speaking to Boswell about Rousseau, said, Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations." Boswell asked, "Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?" The Doctor replied "Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them." It is unquestionable that Voltaire did and said much to call forth this general obloquy; but it must be conceded that he was one of the most extraordinary men of letters of his time, an author of unbounded versatility, of matchless clearness, wit, and pungency, a miracle of productiveness, and, above all, a foremost champion of free thought in politics and religion. In this last sense he was an absolute source of light and strength, an emancipator of men by the largeness and breadth of the freedom which he proclaimed, and the exponent of the rising spirit of his time.

For about a century before Voltaire, France had experienced a curious and almost contradictory process of development. the one hand the influence of the nation as a great European power had largely and continuously increased, while on the other hand the condition of the French people had become more and more intolerable. The great Cardinal Richelieu had used his matchless powers to exalt the crown of France at all costs, to tread down all human rights, whether of individuals, bodies of men, or nations. He nominated his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, who, with Italian subtlety, though less of lordly strength, continued this policy. Six months after Richelieu's death, Louis XIII. also died, and Louis XIV., as a little child of five years old, succeeded to the throne which he was to occupy for the extraordinary period of seventy-two years. During his minority, some jarring elements, which had been kept down by the strong hand of Richelieu, began to manifest themselves, and a struggle was waged as to the royal