Alas for our poor feeble humanity! - two hours later Mr Irascible, finding no prize-card on his boxes, denounces Mr T. as an ignorant humbug, or knows for a fact that he is in vile collusion with the principal winners of the day, - reminding me, in his swift transition from praise to condemnation, from love to hate, of a ludicrous Oxford scene.

Tom Perrin kept livery-stables, and in those stables the stoutest of wheelers and the liveliest of leaders for our tandems and fours-in-hand. Unhappily for Tom, all driving in externa was strictly forbidden, and he came, in consequence, to frequent collisions with our potent, grave, and reverend Dons. Upon the occasion to which I refer he had been summoned to appear before the Vice-Chancellor, Doctor MacBride, then Principal of Magdalen Hall; and as the offtnce was flagrant, and his previous convictions were numerous, he was specially anxious to obtain an acquittal. He presented himself in deep mourning, and wore the expression of a simple, modest citizen, who really didn't know what a tandem was. He placed a pile of ancient tomes by his side (Greek Lexicons for the most part, and Latin Dictionaries lent to him by the undergraduates), and consulted them from time to time, during his trial, upon difficult points of law. He bowed to the court at intervals with a most profound respect, and he addressed the Doctor as "My Lord Judge," "Your Grace," and "Venerable Sir." But when the verdict was given, and the defendant heavily fined, I never saw anything in dissolving views so marvellous as Tom Perrin. He set his hat jauntily on the side of his head; he shut his Lexicons with a bang, and, confronting his judge with a look of scorn and disgust, he said - "MacBride, if this be law, hequity, or justice, I'm - ," well, let us say, something which happens to a brook when its waters are arrested by a temporary barrier constructed across the stream.

So does our irascible exhibitor now glare around him with "the dragon eyes of angered Eleanor." He would like a revival of those days when "a judge was not sacred from violence. Any one might interrupt him, might accuse him of iniquity and corruption in the most reproachful terms, and, throwing down his gauntlet, might challenge him to defend his integrity in the field; nor could he without infamy refuse to accept his defiance, or decline to enter the lists against such an adversary."* That is to say, he would like to interrupt, to accuse, to reproach, and perhaps to challenge, but certainly not to fight, for these passionate folk are invariably cowards. They dare not attack with anything but words; unless they possess an overwhelming power, like that suburban, pot-house, betting Eleven, who once upon a time persuaded Jimmy Dean to act as umpire at one of their boosy matches, and ran him home six miles across country with furious execrations and threats to London, because he gave a decision adverse to their interest at a critical period of the game.

At one time you will see the Irascible Exhibitor standing by his Roses, and revealing his wrongs to any who will hear; occasionally making a deep impression upon elderly ladies, and almost persuading very young reporters to chronicle his woes in print; but oftener failing to evoke sympathy, you will find him with a countenance, like Displeasure in the 'Fairy Queen,' "lompish and full sullein," aloof, solitary - like some morose old pike swimming slowly about in a backwater, while all the other fishes are leaping in the sunlit stream.

* Robertson's ' History of Charles V.,' vol. i.

Finally, he discovers some malcontent like himself - un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire - and they go off together to the darkest corner of the most dismal room of their inn, to enjoy their woes, and to defy their fellow-creatures, over a succession of "2-bran-dies and cold".

I know only of one other species of exhibitor discreditable to the genus, Hie Covetous Exhibitor, whose avarice has slain his honour. His motto is Money.

"Si possis recte, si non quocunque modo Money".

He cares nothing for the Rose itself, sees no beauty, and smells no perfume, only for the prizes it may win. Truie aims plus bran que Rose, and will go through any amount of dirtiness to get his nose to the swill. On the eve of a show he will beg or will buy the Roses of his neighbours. He will show several flowers of the same Rose, attaching the different names of those varieties which have some resemblance to each other. He knows how to conceal an eye, and to fix a petal in its place by gum. He will add foliage, whenever he dare. He, too, likes a few words with the judges before they make their awards. He never saw them in such wonderful health; in fact, their youthful appearance is almost comic. They will find the Roses rough and coarse (which means that his own are undersized); or there is a sad want of substance in the blooms this morning (which means that his are over-blown).

In accordance with the old and true proverb, his dishonesty does not thrive. He steals several paces in front of his brother archers, but for one arrow hitting the gold, he misses, breaks, or loses fifty. I remember some years ago, just as we had commenced our survey as judges at one of the provincial shows, an exhibitor reappeared, hot and out of breath, and "begged pardon, but he had left a knife among his Roses." He had a magnificent Rose in his coat, and, "from information which I had received," I thought it my duty to watch his movements without appearing to do so. He left the tent with a much smaller flower in his button-hole, and I went immediately to his box. There was the illustrious stranger, resplendent, but with a fatal beauty. The cunning one had hoist himself with his own petard, for he had forgotten another bloom of the same Rose, already in his 24, and I at once wrote "Disqualified for duplicates " upon his exhibition card. Keen must have been the shaft which he had himself feathered from that borrowed plume, but keener far to feel (for it was a fact patent to all) that if he had not made the addition, he must have won the premier prize.