Holiday Hours.

freely admit , is a great and remarkable British institution , and " sui generis >! in every respect , but surely we can do without it for a season . It was stout old Johnson , we think , who said , a hundred years and more ago , that in the desert one should not miss a . newspaper ; and we have heard of modern travellers who openly declared it was a blessed contrast to civilized life to find they were not compelled to read the most eloquent of leaders or

wade through the interminable nonsense of the irrepressible speakers in the " great talking bouse " at home . Whether , then , fate or fortune find us to-day at home or abroad , at Harrogate or Scarborough , down in a Welsh valley or mooning on the pleasant Cumberland hills , let us seek to extract from our holiday health , happiness , contentment , and comfort , and then we shall do very well . The wife of our

bosom , ever smiling and serene , will be pleasanter than ever . She won't iiow run up a dressmaker ' s bill , while Edith and Blanche and Tommie and Timmie and even the baby—the baby "par excellence "—will give us no trouble whatever , and will be so cheerful , so genial , aud so accommodating that when we return to Netting Hill or Tavistock Square , St . Mary Axe or Victoria Street , we shall delight to tell others our little adventures , and to

declare that " we never enjoyed ourselves so much , " and to say , with sonorous emphasis , " I recommend you , old boy , to go and get a holiday . " Well , the holidays of life are often , God knows , few enough for us , their blithe moments sparse and short . As we all grow old , and youth ' s glow recedes before the chill of advancing years , we all of us learn the stern and unpalatable truth that he alone is the wise manthe sagethe hilosopher

, , p who sets his heart ou nothing here , as disappointment mostl y meets us in the way to blight our hopes and break up the happiest homes . Let us , however , not be too morbid , but let us say , cheerily and joyously , " Heigh for our holiday hours 1 "

In Memoriam.

IN MEMORIAM .

THOUGH Mr . Tom Taylor was not , we believe , a member of our Order , he was so eminent a personality in the literary and art world that he seems to deserve a few passing words of kindly remembrance in the Masonic Magazine . For as Freemasons , we always admire merit in all branches aud forms of intellectual culture ; and certainly the name of Tom Taylor is well known to many of our readers . Not a few of them have probably enjoyed the happy little effusions of his fertile and sportive penwhether in Punch or elsewhere

, , while the more serious of his contributions , whether in artistic or dramatic literature , have been of such marked originality and "geist" that we think it would not be right for us to ignore altogether a fame so special aud acknowledged and services so greatly rendered for so long to the " Great Republic of Letters . " We have always heard so much both of his genial nature and kindly heart , as well as his many and undoubted talents , that we feel sure we shall

give pleasure to our readers in thus briefly ( as is only iu our power ) adverting to merits so many and a loss so severe . Like that assemblage which lately gathered mournfully yet lovingly round his grave , we are anxious to record our humble sense of his great loss to literature and art , to his family and friends , and at the same time to express an admiration of his brilliant qualities and his . genial tenderness of heart , life , and wit . 'We take from Mr . Thomas Hughes' article on "Tom Taylor" in Macmillan ' s Magazine the following light but touching tribute to his memory and his kiudly honest life !