Flos Mercatorum, ay, the fish-monger, Walworth,

He whose nets of silk drew the silver from the tide,
He who saved the king when the king was but a prentice,—
Lord Mayor of London, with his sword at his side!

Honour was his oyster, ay, and with his sword he opened it!
After him the pageant of his great craft came,-
Drawn by horses of the sea, in mighty opal oyster-shells,
Rode the white sea-witches, with their tails of silver flame;

Curling in the shells for a banquet on Olympus,

Little breasts of rounded pearl and mouths of ruby wine, Tails of molten silver in the crimson of the cressets Flashing now to gold and now to green sea-shine.

Grim black Aldgate like a deep green sea-cave

Burned with magic changes of the Deep whence all begins,— Milk-white arms, and the trumpets of Arion,

Floating opal tendrils and rainbow-coloured fins.

Burned with magic changes, his blood and all the pageantry;
Burned with deep sea-changes, the wonder in her eyes;
Flos Mercatorum! 'Twas the rose-mary of Paphos,
Reddening all the City for the prentice and his prize!

All the book of London, the pages of adventure,

Passed before the prentice on that vigil of St John: Then the chapmen shook their reins,—“ We'll ride behind the revelry, Round again to Cornhill! Up, and follow on!"

Riding on his pack-horse, above the shouting multitude,

There she turned and smiled at him, and thanked him for his grace : "Let me down by Red Rose Lane," and, like a wave of twilight While she spoke, her shadowy hair-touched his tingling face.

When they came to Red Rose Lane, beneath the blossomed ale-poles, Light along his arm she lay, a moment, leaping down:

Then she waved "farewell" to him, and down the Lane he watched her Flitting through the darkness in her gay green gown.

All along the Cheape, as he rode among the chapmen,
Round by Black Friars, to the Two-Necked Swan
Coloured like the sunset, prentices and maidens
Danced for red roses on the vigil of St John.

Over them were jewelled lamps in great black galleries,
Garlanded with beauty, and burning all the night;
All the doors were shadowy with orpin and St John's wort,
Long fennel, green birch, and lilies of delight.

"He should have slept here at the Mermaid Inn,"
Said Heywood as the chanter paused for breath.
"What? Has our Mermaid sung so long?" cried Ben.
"Her beams are black enough. There was an Inn,"
Said Tom, "that bore the name; and through its heart
There flowed the right old purple. I like to think
It was the same, where Lydgate took his ease
After his hood was stolen; and Gower, perchance;
And, though he loved the Tabard for a-while,
I like to think the Father of us all,

The old Adam of English minstrelsy caroused
Here in the Mermaid Tavern. Ay, who knows?
Perhaps Dan Chaucer, with his kind shrewd face
Fresh as an apple o'er his fur-fringed gown,
One plump hand sporting with his golden chain,
Looked out from that old casement o'er the sign,
And saw the pageant, and the shaggy nags,
With Whittington, and his green-gowned maid, go by.
"O, very like," said Clopton, "for the bells
Left not a head indoors that night." He drank
A draught of malmsey-and thus renewed his tale:-

III.

"Flos Mercatorum," mourned the bell of All Hallowes,
"There was he an orphan, O, a little lad alone,
Rubbing down the great white horses for a supper!"
"Ay," boomed the Bow Bell, "his hands were his own!"

Where did he sleep? On a plump white wool-pack,
Open to the moon on that vigil of St John,

Sheltered from the dew, where the black-timbered gallery
Frowned above the yard of the Two-Necked Swan.

Early in the morning, clanged the bell of St Martin's,
Early in the morning, with a groat in his hand,
Mournfully he parted with the jolly-hearted chapmen,
Shouldered his bundle and walked into the Strand;

Walked into the Strand, and back again to West Cheape,
Staring at the wizardry of every painted sign,
Dazed with the steeples and the rich heraldic cornices
Drinking in the colours of the Cheape like wine.

All about the booths now, the parti-coloured prentices
Fluted like a flock of birds along a summer lane,
Green linnets, red caps, and gay gold-finches,—

What d'ye lack, and what d'ye lack, and what d'ye lack again?

"Buy my dainty doublets, cut on double taffetas,

Buy my Paris thread," they cried, and caught him by the hand. "Laces for your Heart's-Delight, and lawns to make her love you, Cambric for her wimple, O, the finest in the land."

London was mighty when her marchaunts loved their merchandise,
Bales of Eastern magic that empurpled wharf and quay:
London was mighty when her booths were a dream-market,
Loaded with the colours of the sunset and the sea.

There, in all their glory, with the Virgin on their bannerols,
Glory out of Genoa, the Mercers might be seen,
Walking to their Company of Marchaunt Adventurers ;—
Gallantly they jetted it in scarlet and in green.

There, in all the glory of the lordly Linen Armourers,
Walked the Marchaunt Taylors with the Pilgrim of their trade,
Fresh from adventuring in Italy and Flanders,

Flos Mercatorum, for a green-gowned maid.

London was a City when the Poulters ruled the Poultry!

Rosaries of prayer were hung in Paternoster Row,

Gutter Lane was Guthrun's, then; and, bright with painted missal

books,

Ave Mary Corner, sirs, was fairer than ye know.

Ah, but he was hungry, foot-sore, weary,

Knocking at the doors of the armourers that day!

What d'ye lack? they asked of him; but no man lacked a prentice: When he told them what he lacked, they frowned and turned away.

Hard was his bed that night, beneath a cruel archway,

Down among the hulks, with his heart growing cold!
London is a rare town, but O, the streets of London,
Red though their flints be, they are not red with gold.

Down among the hulks, as he used at his bedside

-Jesters of England, this was very long ago!Knelt he, with clasped hands, praying to our Father, Simply as a little child . . . England, even so!

England was a nation when her hearts were great and simple!
Hath she yet forgotten? Are the great days done?

Yet will I remember, yet will I remember

How he knelt him in the dark, her little younger son!

England was mighty when her hearts were great and simple,
When the Might that made a man was greater than his own :
Knights on the Narrow Way had little need of subtlety:

So he knelt him in the dark, a child before the Throne!

Pale in the dawn, ere he marched on his adventure,

Starving for a crust, did he kneel a-while again,

Then, upon the fourth night, he cried, O, like a wounded bird,
Let me die, if die I must, in Red Rose Lane.

Like a little wounded bird he trailed through the darkness, Laid him on a door-step, and then-O, like a breath Pitifully blowing out his life's little rush-light,

Came a gush of blackness, a swoon, deep as death.

Then he heard a rough voice! Then he saw a lanthorn!
Then he saw a bearded face, and blindly wondered whose:
Then a marchaunt's portly legs, with great Rose-Windows,
Bigger than St Paul's, he thought, embroidered on his shoes.

"Alice!" roared the voice, and then, O like a lilied angel,
Leaning from the lighted door a fair face afraid,
Leaning over Red Rose Lane, O, leaning out of Paradise,
Drooped the sudden glory of his green-gowned maid!

(To be continued.)

THE FRENCH ELECTORAL REFORM.

JUST before the summer re- him his seat in Parliament, it cess the French Chamber, by 339 votes against 217, adopted the Electoral Reform Bill. It abolishes the system of small district voting and institutes a method of consulting universal suffrage, by which the political minorities in the country will obtain a fairer proportion of seats in the Chamber. It is Scrutin de Liste, with Proportional Representation in a modified form, which still leaves certain advantages to the majority. Though their victory is incomplete, the proportionalists are satisfied, because it is now almost certain the new mode of consulting universal suffrage will be applied at the next General Elections in May 1914, and because the principle of allotting the seats in the Chamber in proportion to the number of electors going to the poll is definitely accepted. Indeed on the morrow of the vote M. Dansette, Deputy for Lille, writing in the Éclair,' qualified the adoption of the Bill as 'perhaps the most considerable event of our political history since the establishment of universal suffrage." That appreThat appreciation may be less exaggerated than most people imagine. To understand the advisability, not to say the absolute necessity, to substitute a different mode of election for the small distriot voting which makes every Deputy desirous of securing re-election the humble servant of the men who procured

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will suffice to remember how the present situation arose. Since the foundation of the Third French Republic, on only one occasion, the General Elections of 1877, after Marshal MacMahon's coup d'état, did fifty per cent of the electors go to the poll! From that time till to-day the proportion of abstainers has gone on increasing at every successive consultation of Universal Suffrage. The electors belonging to the political minorities, and especially those of the aristocratic and upper bourgeois classes, seeing the number of their representatives in Parliament decrease, lost heart. Their argument was, "What is the use of going to the poll? Our votes will inevitably be swamped by those of the advanced Republican and Socialist workmen." But the injustice of the Scrutin d'Arrondissement, by which a man polling, say, 50,000 votes is elected, while the opposition, which may have given 49,999 votes to its candidate, is left entirely unrepresented, became so flagrant that it was not astonishing means should be sought to remedy it. Having before them the example of Belgium, where the proportional representation in the Chambers of all the political parties in the country had, since 1900, been secured by the Hondt method, and given satisfactory results, it was natural