found him starving in London. He had been a soldier and a poet with a neat turn for neat turn for epigram: what he was doing in London does not appear. He and Dempster walked through the city till the dinner hour, but nothing would induce him to accept the big man's jovial invitation; rather he insisted on sharing with him his own poor bread and beans. Nor would he take money as a loan, which he knew he could not repay, though he did accept a small gift. "And now," says Dempster, "I hear he is dead of starvation." Sad enough we turn gladly to a delightful ghost story of one Saint Emilian, who was buried at Faenza, and his forgotten grave contumeliously covered with hay. This he resented by rising up and boxing the ears of any persons who might engage in conversation over his head, until the mutual recrimination thence arising led to the discovery and proper adornment of his tomb, from which in future issued not buffets but perfumes of Araby.

He gives, too, most horrible and quite unrepeatable details of the murder of Cardinal Beaton by Norman Leslie and of the death of the homicide, which do not seem to be recorded elsewhere, but which are terribly consonant with the desire for "picturesqueness of dramatic revenge

was as well inclined to believe a lie as any man in his time" (which he was, wherever Scotland was concerned). Scotland, he assured the University of BolognaScotland, the possessor of a line of kings unbroken for 2000

years Scotland had conquered Rome and civilised Europe by teaching it the Civil Law. Even for the Caledonian midge, as we have seen, when boiled, he had a good word.

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We take our leave of the big man with regret. A big man he was, alike in body, in temper, and in learning. And as to his exaggerated patriotism, is it not a pleasure in these anæmic days to member a man whose opinions were those of our grandfathers' famous toast: "Our Country! In her dealings with foreign powers may she ever be in the right! but, right or wrong, our Country!" Had Johnson lived in the days of Dempster, Dempster would have abused him when alive for an Englishman, and canonised him as a Scot after death.

A. T. S. GOODRICK.

As I review the earlier years of my life in London, I wish to keep silence about all matters of a specially confidential nature, and at the same time to avoid loading these pages with mere gossip and trivial details. I am the only survivor of those who had knowledge of the graver matters to which I allude; and while the disclosure of them now would lend sensational interest to my story, it would serve no useful public purpose. Apart from these, indeed, incidents abounded which might, with a little dressing up, afford material for a novel. I was in a position, moreover, to know all that was worth knowing in the sphere of ordinary Police work at Scotland Yard. For Sir Richard Mayne had placed the detective department at my disposal; and as I soon gained the confidence and good will of the officers, they not only helped me loyally in my inquiries respecting political crime, but spoke to me without reserve about their "cases " and all ordinary Police business. All this, however, is ancient history, and the years in question shall be dismissed with no more notice than

is necessary to preserve the sequence of my narrative.

At that time I had no intention of abandoning the profession of my choice, and it was not till ten years later that I entered the Civil Service. My immediate objective was admission to the English Bar. For though a sceptic both by temperament and training, I have long held a firm belief in the capacity of Irish agitators to impose upon English statesmen — a belief that is shared by all Irishmen, not excepting the agitators themselves, and, as I anticipated the evils which agitation has in fact brought upon Ireland, I wished to be free of the Law Courts at Westminster as well as in Dublin.

I may here say once for all that, though called to the English Bar, I never engaged in Court practice in England. For every time I tried to break free from Government work something occurred to make me postpone the crisis. Mr Liddell's friendship had much to do with it. He had a magnetic influence over me; and he always urged me to remain at Whitehall, assuring me again and again

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that I was "certain to get something good." When the change of Government curred in December 1869 I seriously contemplated going back to Ireland. Not on the score of party politics-for I have never been a party man, -but because, as I have already said, my friendly relations with my official chiefs weighed much with me, and on that account I feared change of masters. "I don't know how you feel, but I'm devilish miserable," was Liddell's greeting to me the day the change took place. But it is not the wicked only who are disquieted in vain. For the change of masters served only to bring me new friends. And as regards the political element involved, I cannot but contrast the change of December 1868 with that of December 1905, for Mr Bruce at once announced that he was satisfied that everything approved by Mr Hardy must be right, and all was to go on as usual in the Office.

Not that he was a weak man. He was in fact one of the best Home Secretaries of my time-a man of judgment and discretion, a thorough gentleman, a good lawyer, and a pleasing speaker. But on the staff of two of the leading newspapers there were certain Government officials who, for some reason or other, were his enemies. One of them was a Metropolitan Police magistrate, and the other was still more closely connected with Scotland Yard; and the persistent

malignity of these journalists conveyed to the public a wholly false impression of Mr Bruce's administration of the Home Office. He was prejudiced also by appointing as his Private Secretary a man who, though clever and amiable, was wanting in tact and common-sense.

The absurd Fenian scare which followed "the Clerkenwell explosion" naturally led to a revival of Fenian activity. Ricard Burke, who instigated that outrage, was succeeded by Michael Davitt as "arms agent" to the conspirators, and, unlike most of their paid officials, he served them honestly and well. So much so, indeed, that during the year 1869 the illicit introduction of arms into Ireland became a matter of anxiety to the Irish Government. And such is the fatuity of Government methods and ways, that this very time was chosen by the War Office to sell off stores of discarded rifles. The Fenians were thus enabled to purchase at "knock-out" prices better arms than had ever been carried by British troops in actual warfare; and quantities of these were smuggled into Ireland for the use of the rebels. We were aware of what was doing; but there is a great difference between getting information and obtaining evidence for a treason - felony prosecution, and it was not till February 1870 that Davitt and his partner in the business fell into our clutches.

Davitt's life story is not without interest. When he was but twelve years of age

an accident in a Lancashire cotton-mill cost him the loss of one of his arms. Being thus unfitted for manual labour, he sank to the level of hawking newspapers for a stationer in a small Lancashire town. And it was while thus engaged that he was drawn into the meshes of Fenianism. At the time of his conviction, therefore, he was personally of no account whatever. But his good conduct as a prisoner, and his evident desire to use any opportunities allowed him of selfimprovement, attracted the

notice of Mr William Fagan, the Visiting Director, who encouraged and helped him in many ways. His influence with the convict was all the greater because he was a fellowcountryman of his and a coreligionist. And as the result the Davitt of the Land League was a very different man from the ignorant lout who was sent to penal servitude in 1870. As so many hard things are said about the discipline of convict prisons, it deserves to be recorded that it was in a convict prison that Davitt acquired his fitness for the part he afterwards played as Parnell's ally in the Irish land war, and he freely acknowledged this upon occasions.

The year 1870 was marked by a good deal of activity in revolutionary circles. And the break up of the French Secret Service Department, on the fall of the Empire, brought me much useful and interesting information. For several of the secret agents of the Sureté

came to London, and some of them applied to me for employment. Among them was one of the most remarkable men I have ever met in this sort of work. Maxwell was the nom de guerre I gave him. His physique, and notably his head, might have gained him a living as an artist's model. He spoke many languages, and his experiences as a revolutionist, and afterwards as a Police agent, would have made a thrilling story.

Some of the matters he disclosed to me have an historic

interest. Count d'Orsay was supposed to have died of spinedisease and a carbuncle in the back. As a matter of fact the carbuncle was a euphemism for a bullet aimed at the Emperor as they were walking together in the gardens of the Elysée. The facts were carefully suppressed, but Maxwell was in the secret. I received confirmation of this afterwards from the Chef de la Sureté in Paris. The matter had a peculiar interest for me, as my father was Lady Harriet d'Orsay's lawyer, and the Count valued his friendship. Among his gifts to him, now in my possession, was a tortoise-shell and gold snuff-box bearing an exquisite miniature of Louis XVI.

one of the buttresses of the bridge a carpet-bag was found on the morning of the 9th October of that year, containing certain mutilated fragments of a human body. The evidence given at the inquest made it clear that a foul and brutal murder had been committed, but no clue could be discovered to the identity of either the victim or the assassins. Maxwell gave me the facts in full detail. And inquiries made through the Foreign Office and Scotland Yard brought confirmation of all the main points of his story.

The victim was an Italian Police agent who had been sent to London on a special mission. Posing as a revolutionist, he put up at a house in Cranbourne Street, Soho, frequented by Italians of that class. Revolutionists are proverbially suspicious of one another, and a glaring indiscretion cost the man his life. He not only preserved a letter of instructions about his work, but carried it in his pocket; and this letter his companions got hold of by searching his clothes when he was asleep. As he mounted the stairs the next night in company with some of his fellow - lodgers, he received a blow on blow on the head that stunned him, and his body was dragged to the basement. There he recovered consciousness, but a brief struggle was quickly ended by the use of the assassins' knives. They proceeded to cut up the body, and several nights were spent in

efforts to get rid of the remains by burning them. This, however, proved a tedious and irksome task, and it was decided to jettison the rest of the corpse in the river.

One of Maxwell's last visits to me was marked by a dramatic incident which illustrates what secret service work at times involves. The time had come when I could no longer make use of him, and I wrote to tell him so. He called by appointment at my private house, and seated in my diningroom he deliberately announced his intention of committing suicide. For if only he were out of the way, he said, he could rely on friends to help his wife and daughter. At the same time he asked me to accept some valuable papers in return for my kindness to him. "You are going to kill yourself, leaving your wife and daughter to charity in a strange land?" I asked. He assented with imperturbable calmness. "Then," said I, "I'll write you down a coward and a scoundrel." at me like a wounded tiger. His fingers twitched convulsively, and he seemed about to grip me by the throat. I was standing on the hearthrug with my hands behind my back, and, without moving a muscle, I looked him steadily in the face. Presently all the passion died out of him, and falling back into his seat he utterly broke down. I left the room for some ten minutes, and on my return I handed him the papers he had brought me, and

He sprang