give you a moment's peace. Halloa!" he continued, as a brawny athlete
sauntered into the room, "how's the boat going, BULLEN? Not very well,
eh? Well, remember I'm ready to lend you a hand, and pull you through
when things get desperate." The smile with which this offer was
received had no effect upon my companion. He took it rather as a
tribute to the subtle humour which, as he believed, lay lurking in his
simplest utterances. "Always make 'em laugh," he observed, with pride.
"It keeps up the spirits of these poor devils of rowing-men; and old
BULLEN knows I'm all there when I'm wanted." But I had heard enough,
and departed from him, feeling as though a steam-roller had passed
over my moral nature, and flattened out my self-respect.

Then there was CHEPSTOWE, the poet. I am old enough to remember him;
and it pleases me sometimes to call back to my mind this paltry and
forgotten little literary _Bombastes_. As I write, I have before
me some of the reviews that greeted his boisterous invasion of the
regions of song. "Mr. CHEPSTOWE," said one, "has struck a note which
is destined to vibrate so long as the English language is spoken in
civilised lands. He is no ordinary rhymester, struggling feebly in the
bonds of convention. With a bold and masterful on-rush, he cleaves his
way unhesitatingly to the very heart of things, tears it out, and lays
it, palpitating and bleeding, before the eyes of humanity. We have
only space for a few lines from the magnificent _Ode to Actuality_:--

"'Prone in the caverns of the vasty deep
I lay,
And slept not, though I seemed to sleep.
The day
Pierced not with sullen eyes of pallid scorn
The dark,