scholar, and after entering all his text books and recitations are in English.

The course is six years, the last two in application of what they learned in the first four. A portion of each year-taking the place of vacation with us—is also spent in the workshops making parts of machinery, models of engines, of looms, machinery for spinning and weaving, etc., etc. Many of their teachers are natives, though the studies are in English. It will be but a few years before they will be able to dispense with foreign instruction entirely.

We leave for home by the "City of Tokio," which will sail from Yokohama about the 27th of August. I shall be glad to be settled down at home.

Here,

I forgot to mention that students to enter the college must study English five years first, making a nine-year course. too, they have one or two native professors.

XVII.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA., Jan. 18, 1880.

I wrote you a hasty letter from Philadelphia, but do not know whether you received it. Our trip through the South has been so far without an incident to mar the pleasure of it. All the way from Washington the people of all classes and colors were at the stations to meet the train and to extend invitations for myself and party to stop and accept their hospitalities. The business boom has reached the South, and the people are beginning to feel much better contented in consequence. I am very much pleased with Florida. The winter climate is perfection and I am told by Northern men settled here that the summers are not near so hot here as in the North, though of longer continuance. This State has a great future before it. It has the capacity to raise all the sugar and semi-tropical fruits the whole country needs besides supplying vast amounts of timber, early vegetables, nice material for paper, rope, bagging, coarse matting, etc. It affords the best opening to be found in any country for young men of little means but full of energy, industry, and patience. The impetus given already will supply in a few years all the semitropical fruits required by the country. What is now wanted is the establishment of moderate sugar mills over the country to buy all the sugar cane small farmers will furnish. The State is

underlayed and has around it deposits of valuable fertilizers sufficient for many generations. If you do not join me in Cuba I hope you will come here to spend March and April. I do not doubt but you would receive much benefit from the visit.

I will sail from Cedar Keys for Havana on the 20th. The Secretary of the Navy has placed at Havana a vessel at my command. I think I shall make an excursion to Hayti, St. Domingo, Porto Rico and Jamaica, and swing around by Yucatan, so as to reach Vera Cruz about the 15th of February. When I return it will be by the way of Galveston and Denver. At the latter place and in Colorado generally I expect to stop until the weather is pleasant in Galena, say about the 10th of May. I shall be very much pleased to meet you in Havana and have you go on this trip to the West Indies, if you are sailor enough to enjoy the excursion.

XVIII.

HAVANA, CUBA, February 2d, 1880. Your letter of the 25th of January is just received. The same mail brings New York papers of the 29th, by which I see you were in that city at that time. Your letter directed to me in Washington City was received there, but I neglected to mention it. I see by the papers the same that you mention about ** * * * *. I predict that it will do him no good, and as far as it may affect me I care nothing about it. All that I want is that the government rule should remain in the hands of those who saved the Union until all the questions growing out of the war are forever settled. I would much rather any one of many I could mention should be President than that I should have it. On that subject I stand just as I told you in Chicago. I shall not gratify my enemies by declining what has not been offered. I am not a candidate for anything, and if the Chicago convention nominates a candidate that can be elected, it will gratify me, and the gratification will be greater if it should be some one other than myself. In confidence I will tell you I should feel sorry if it should be * * * * * * *. Blaine, I would like to see elected, but I fear the party could not elect him. He would create enthusiasm, but he would have opposition in his own. party that might lose him some Northern States that the Republishould carry.

cans

My reception here has been more than cordial by both officials and the people. The weather is sultry, just such as we run from at home in the dog days. If this winter is a sample, Florida is a much better winter resort.

Please present Mrs. Grant's and my best regards to Mrs. Washburne and your family, with the same to yourself. be pleased to hear from you in the City of Mexico.

XIX.

GALVESTON, Texas, March 25th, 1880.

Your letter of the 11th of February only reached Mexico by the mail but one before my departure. I was away from the City of Mexico at the time on an excursion to the Rio Del Monte Silver mines, and did not return until after the departure of the steamer bringing it. Yours of the 26th of February was taken by the steamer on which I returned. There was no opportunity of answering either, therefore earlier, or so that you could receive it earlier than by writing from here.

In regard to your suggestion that I should authorize some one to say that in no event would I consent to ever being a candidate after 1880, I think any statement from me would be misconstrued and would only serve as a handle for my enemies. Such a statement might well be made after the nomination if I am nominated in such a way as to accept. It is a matter of supreme indifference to me whether I am or not. There are many persons I would prefer should have the office to myself. I owe so much to the Union men of the country that if they think my chances are better for election than for other probable candidates in case I should decline, I cannot decline if the nomination is tendered without seeking on my part.

Mexico shows many signs of progress since I was there thirtytwo years ago. Railroads are pushing out slowly from the capital and with every advance greater prosperity and employment for the poor follow. I think it should be the policy of our government now to cultivate the strongest feelings of friendship. between the people of the two Republics. Soon we will have railroad connection between the two countries, and our people will begin to mix and become better acquainted, Mexico can, and will, raise all the tropical and semi-tropical products which we now buy from countries that take nothing from us in ex

change, except sterling exchange, and will take from us in return the products of our manufacturers. Americans are beginning now to work their mines. Soon they will be cultivating their sugar, coffee, and tobacco plantations, running their factories, doing their banking, etc. I go to San Antonio for a day or two, thence to New Orleans, and up the river to Memphis. I will probably run over to Hot Springs from the latter to absorb time until the weather in Galena gets pleasant. I do not care to arrive there before the first of May.

TEN YEARS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

BY EDMUND GOSSE.

THE trumpets and fifes of this almost too glorious summer are over at last, and we sink back into the dowdiness of the day after the feast. This, then, should not be an inappropriate moment for the man of letters to set his house in order, and ask himself what effect all the long-drawn popular triumph which culminated in June has had upon his profession, in what a state it found and left him in his essential capacity. It seems worth while to discover what the last ten years have brought about in English literature, where we are in fact, and what pace we have been making. It by no means follows that political success means intellectual prosperity, and it is notoriously difficult to grasp a situation which is unfolding at our very feet. Yet an occasional summary of symptoms, a closing of the shop for an hour to take stock, cannot but be a useful exercise, though the calculation be not final.

It is quite plain, by every analogy of literary history, that we must not expect the progress of intellectual events to be regular. There have always been bursts of genius, followed by pauses or drops into mediocrity, and in England at least these have been noticeable ever since the art of verse, lifted so high in the hands of Chaucer, fell so low in those of his immediate successors. We ought not to despair of the Republic because there is a hush among the voices, but we should read Matthew Arnold's The New Age once more, and learn its excellent lesson. When, however, we attempt to concentrate our attention on the literary developments of these last ten years in England, a more unusual phenomenon, I think, meets our notice than would be caused by the mere fluctuation of talent. As events develop from day to day, each exaggerated in apparent importance as it occurs, and