was made the main object. But it would not have been creditable had not the Queen made her farms profitable; and it was in the quick recognition of the necessity for making a change, and relying more on stockbreeding, that she again led the way among agriculturists. The Prince Consort was the actual tenant. Her Majesty, on his death, took over the land, like any farmer's widow, but caused the main attention of her servants to be directed to the rearing of pedigree cattle. Her herds of shorthorns, Herefords and Devons soon became famous. During the last eighteen years they have been among the most steady prize-winners for all-round excellence of the herds of England; and in the show season of last spring and summer they beat all previous records, the shorthorns winning forty-eight first prizes and twenty-two championships, and the Herefords twenty-eight first prizes and seven championships; the Devons won twenty-six first prizes.

The Royal Agricultural Society was founded in 1839. In 1840 the Queen became patron of the Society, and in little more than a year after his marriage the Prince Consort became a Governor. It was noticed that he was in the yard at York at six o'clock in the morning to see the animals without interruption.

The foresight which so early diverted the Royal farms mainly to the business of breeding pedigree cattle is remarkable. But the slowness with which discoveries are adopted in practical stock-breeding must not be taken as evidence that farmers are stupid. Until the last few years there has never been enough scientific evidence to show that the systems now generally adopted were right, though there has been abundant practical evidence that they are not far wrong. But from the days of Mr. R. Bakewell to the experiments in cross-breeding carried

out by Professor Ewart more than a century and a half elapsed, during which enormous progress was made in improving all our domestic animals; but the results were gained experimentally, not from any exact knowledge. It was in 1726 that Mr. Bakewell, a great stock-owner, first concluded that the methods of the day were wrong. It was the custom to try to improve a breed of cattle or sheep by crossing it with another breed, under the idea that something new and improved would result. It has now been shown conclusively by Mr. Ewart that, whether good or not, the result of crosses can never be counted upon. There is no uniform "reaction." The progeny may be like this or that parent, or totally unlike either; and though something good may perhaps result, the general tendency of the crosses is to "throw back" to some remote "unimproved" ancestor. This was shown, in a most interesting way, by the colts of hybrids between zebras and ponies. The colts were striped, but with the pattern of a more archaic type of zebra than their real parent. Bakewell, who knew nothing of this, threw up the current notion of crossing as hopeless, and devoted himself to picking out the best of each kind or family, and breeding from them. often "in and in" when necessary, and founded various much-improved breeds of cattle and sheep. The results of this method were true to type; given the right parents, they could be counted upon to produce like offspring.

Wars and troubles did not extinguish, but checked the results of this discovery. After the great war, and before the Queen's accession, the breeders of shorthorns once more began to work on the same lines. The logical result of Bakewell's discovery was that the members of each breed of cattle ought to be registered in books, so that the future improvers or owners might

know exactly what the properties of each were. Cattle and sheep were no longer mere counters. Each had certain gifts of body or milking powers, wool, or flesh, or constitution, which if known to be hereditary in them could be employed and reckoned upon to improve or alter the progeny. It was at first considered unnecessary to set down the qualities of each breed or family, for these were generally known. But as good stock multiplied, and shows were started all over England, the particular merits of each were embodied in the show awards. But before the accession of the late Queen there were only two such registers existing. One was that of thoroughbred horses; the other, first begun in 1822, the "Shorthorn Herd Book." From the point of view of the history of domestic animals, the whole of the reign has been devoted to the enumeration of all our best animals in these practical books of reference for the use of the propagators of this form of national wealth. It was the only means by which they could know what they were doing; and the work has gone on at great expense and with ungrudging industry. The Americans and others have followed our example, and the result is that there are sometimes more thousands of some particular English breed registered on that side of the Atlantic than on this. The American herd book of Suffolk cattle alone contains more than six thousand names. The late Queen gave the utmost practical encouragement to the great task of making a vast series of animal "Debretts" by making use of the results to produce from her own farms some of the finest animals yet bred in England. The last occasion on which she actually expressed her wishes on the subject of her own cattle, with a view to the future maintenance of the stock, was only last April. One of the latest and most val

ued progeny of the Royal farms was a certain beautiful bull, called "Royal Duke," perhaps the most perfect specimen of male domestic cattle ever seen. It had won almost every possible prize in last year's shows, and her Majesty had more than once been to see it before it was sent off to win cups and medals. This is not a time when fancy prices are given for cattle; for the progress made during the reign has been such that animals of first-class pedigree and form are scattered broadcast over England. But the intelligent foreigner wanted this bull, and offered 1,500 guineas for it. The Queen, "by special intervention" caused the offer to be declined, considering that if the animal was worth this to foreigners, it was worth as much to her own country. During the long years of the reign nearly every distinct breed of cattle, horses, and later of sheep, and even swine, had its catalogue of true-born animal citizens. There is the "Shire Horse Stud Book," the "Clydesdale Stud Book," the "Suffolk Stud Book," the "Polo Pony Stud Book," and many others. Centres for producing each breed are formed in different counties, and the books give accurate information of where to find others needed to strengthen, amend, or alter the local stock. Thus the owners can choose their fancy, with regard to locality. Where soil or climate favors a particular breed, it is generally the one selected. But an owner may be breeding Jerseys in Staffordshire, or Clydesdales in Yorkshire, or Suffolks in Kent, and always knows where to look for more, and the precise qualities of each of the . other colonies. There is an increase of every kind of pure-bred domestic animal all over England, from Hereford cattle to pigs and fowls, sporting dogs and fancy pigeons. The gain to the national wealth is enormous. England is a reservoir from which expensive stock is purchased for the farms of the

world. All classes from the highest to the humblest, are becoming interested in the business. The Queen receives the homage of sincere imitation, from the Peer who breeds shire horses by The Spectator

the score to the small tradesman who gets £100 for a prize rabbit to go to Chicago or the ladies who now "run" farms and Jersey herds with credit and success.

The morning-room is comfortable, but so are not its occupants-only two -of whom the one has within the last five minutes sprung a mine upon the other. It must have been inside this small time-limit since the clock on the narrow eighteenth-century mantelpiece had struck the half-hour, while the footmen were carrying in the last lamp and dropping the last curtain.

The sea of faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing

roar,

Retreating to the breath

Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

The appearance of a novel by Rhoda Broughton, written in her first and sprightliest manner, naturally brings up the large question of "the domestic novel;" for Miss Broughton, admired by Mr. Andrew Lang, and disdained by Mr. Swinburne in a withering chance phrase, is, perhaps, the typical novelist of our domesticity. Endowed with wit, sentiment and a discerning eye for some aspects of character, she has during thirty and three years given a modest and refined pleasure, not only to the petites âmes conjugales, but also to the great intellects philosophic, scientific, and economic, which

in hours of slippered ease graciously "unbend" themselves over a novel. It is significant, and probably no mere accident, that the opening lines of "Foes in Law" (Macmillan) should contain references to morning-rooms, mantelpieces, footmen, lamps, and curtains -the whole constituting a background for the fragrant cup and a proposal of marriage. "Instead of a cup of tea he has asked her for herself." And "he" is a curate, and "she" is named Lettice. All these things conspire. If Miss Broughton had purposely tried to embody the characteristics of her school in a single scene, she could not have bettered the first ten pages of "Foes in Law"-that novel which, without harming him, might divert an archdea. con; which is at this very moment being read by the mothers of the conquerors of the world; and which will doubtless be read by the conquerors too, when they come home.

Since most of the fiction of Balzac, Turgenev, Thackeray, Tolstoi, Meredith, d'Annunzio, Hardy and Zola is domestic, it may properly be asked what sinister or satiric import attaches to the term "domestic novel?" The answer lies in the fact that the adjective applies, not to the themes of this particular class of novel, but to its public. The domestic novel is so called because it is written for, not because it is written about, domesticity. At the same time, since it may

have wit, and even humor, and may be concerned with the affairs of adult people, it is not to be confused with the "story for girls." It is part of the artistic furniture of the home, like the ballad on the piano and the watercolor on the wall. It is admitted because it respects that "sanctity of the English home" which some other things for instance, the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill-are said to "invade." Dean Farrar once wrote a book whose sub-title is "The World of School." There is "a world of home," which preserves its qualities only by ignoring every other world. The English world of home is one of the most perfectly organized microcosms on this planet, not excepting the Indian purdah. The product of centuries of culture, it is regarded. uot too absurdly, as the fairest flower of Christian civilization. It exists chiefly, of course, for women, but it could never have been what it is had not men bound themselves to respect the code which they made for it. It is the fountain of refinement and of consolation, the nursery of affection. It has the peculiar faculty of nourishing itself, for it implicitly denies the existence of anything beyond its doorstep, save the Constitution, a bishop, a rector, the seaside, Switzerland and the respectful poor. And its exclusiveness is equalled by its dogmatism. In the home there are no doubts, no uncertainties, no "open questions." The code, surpassing even that of Napoleon, provides for all contingencies. This is right: that is wrong-always has been, always will be. This is nice: that is not nice-always has been, always will be. The earth may spin like a fretful midge amid problems, philosophers may tremble with profound hesitations, partisans may fight till the arenas are littered with senseless mortality; but the home, wrapt in the discreet calm of its vast conserv

atism, remains ever stable, a refuge and a seclusion for those who will accept its standards and agree not to create a disturbance.

It is for this wonderful institution, sublime in its self-reliance, living like a besieged city round which "ignorant armies clash by night," that the domestic novel has been brought into being. It arose naturally and inevitably upon demand, and it conforms to the conditions imposed upon it as precisely as a good child. The domestic novel was born in the home, and it has never been past the porch. When its time comes it will expire of neglect in the attic. There is the home and there is the world, and sometimes on very stormy days the domestic novel goes to the window and looks out, and brings back to the fireside a mild report of the embattled sky; but that is dangerous; it is better to put a log on the fire and talk serenely of the tranquil microcosm. Therefore the domestic novel is usually occupied with domesticity, and in a domestic way-a way which avoids trouble by taking everything for granted. Can there be aught more delightful than the home? And can one imagine a more desirable home than the first-class country house, where virtue, elegance and wealth have combined to produce an environment and a piece of machinery of ideal perfection? This is why the domestic novelist makes a parade of footmen and the apparatus of luxurious comfort: not so much from snobbery as because such things are the symbols of an ideal. "A good home"-what aspirations, narrow but intense, are in that phrase! Happily, even in the home, one is human, or the domestic novelist would be unable to extract his sedate dramas from that haunt of quietude. It is notorious, indeed, that the smaller the community and the more completely it is self-contained, the deeper will be its preoccupation with its own

trifling affairs. Hence the domestic novelist is likely never to be short of material. Miss Rhoda Broughton, in "Foes in Law," treats domestically of the warfare between a squire's sister and his wife, two women of opposite temperaments. No larger interest is involved, nothing but the friction of these twain in the spacious apartments of a fine country-house. Conceive the deliberate act of sitting down to compose a whole book about the tracasseries of sisters-in-law! Yet here the book is, written out in full; and clever, too, adroit, amusing, and so far, but

no

further-realistic. Housekeeping, pet dogs, private theatricals, benevo lent societies, visits, and a convenient final legacy of thirty thousand pounds: such are the materials of "Foes in Law," in which the tragedy of passion never rises higher than a misunderstanding, nor the ecstasy of it exceeds "domestic bliss."

The significant fact is, not that a witty and talented author should have selected themes like that of "Foes in Law," well assured that she would thereby give pleasure to an educated and refined public-Balzac did the same-but that she should have found success in treating them so trivially, with so absolute a detachment from the struggling world, with such a convinced air that here, concealed in this frothy mixture of jealousies and afternoon tea, was the essence of life, the

The Academy.

one thing worthy to be talked about. Matthew Arnold, in his most human poem cried:

The sea of faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

But

There is no but in the domestic novel, nor even the but sense, the vague, troubled apprehension of buts. The sea of faith, despite Matthew Arnold and all other would-be disturbers of an ancient peace, is still and glassy as that in which the infant characters paddle once a year.

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

which for Matthew Arnold drowned every other noise, is not heard, nor the breath

Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Naked shingles of the world, indeed! At the first-class country-house, when the footmen by a united effort have dropped the last curtain, and instead of a cup of tea the curate has asked her for herself, there are no naked shingles of the world; only a lawn and a well-behaved moon.