together to win this game. But above all, they and their ponies were hard, and by long training their muscles and wrists were able to command their sticks, which were lighter than ours, with cigar-shaped ends, which to my mind is far the best shape, though it may occasionally lift a ball. And not only by their ponies, but by their command of their sticks also, they were able to hit the ball as and how they wished, and by their excellent drill pass it one to the other as the occasions required. No, you may say what you like, they outrode and outplayed us, and it is a lesson that I know is much taken to heart by our own polo world.

I am told that the Americans fully realise the advantage of being near the ground with a light stick (which should have a little bit of spring in it), and that they intend in the future, as far as they are able, to reduce, and not increase, the height of their ponies in consequence. There is no reason why we should not try to do the same. I do not say that we shall have better players than we have to-day, for many are of the best, but we shall have more of them, and the best men will be able to play better.

Unfortunately it is a very delicate question how to rectify the present condition of the game in this respect, even if it should be desired to do so, for the present game and the present height of ponies are now all so firmly and widely

established, and the different interests involved are so many and powerful, that it would be next door to impossible to do so, except by a general consensus of opinion, and by slow degrees. Personally, I think it is a pity this great game has come to be played on such very high ponies, and I most sincerely hope that the powers that be will not only do their utmost to prevent the height of ponies from being increased, but that the players in their own interest will also endeavour to get it down to and keep it at a real 14.2, which it is not at present, and which is quite high enough, if it is not too high. In fact 14 hands, as I have advocated for many years, makes a better game, for 14 hands can carry any weight required, can gallop quite fast enough, and being closer to the ground, admits of superior play.

I have always thought that the increase in the height of ponies has been due to a desire for weight rather than for speed, and to the idea that if your pony was a little bit larger and heavier than your adversary's, you were able to jostle and ride him off easier; and so everybody strove to get a pony a bit bigger than his neighbour, and from laxity of measurement the height kept on gradually increasing. It certainly was so in India. But whatever the standard height in the measurement, you are bound to get differences in pace and weight in

OBSCURORUM VIRORUM.'

IF we look at the records of the past, we are struck by nothing so forcibly as by the uniformity of human life. One age differs from another in style and costume, in wit and wisdom, in virtue and courage. Moral standards shift and sway. Genius comes and goes as it chooses. But life has been lived with the same purposes and in accordance with the same rules from the beginning of time. There has probably never been a century in which the art of advertisement has not flourished. He who has had something to sell has always desired to find a buyer. He has displayed his wares where best he might catch the public eye. He has used his friends as agents of distribution. He has implored his clients to spread abroad the excellent worth of his commodities. Those whom the voice of interested persons failed to reach were attracted, no doubt, by words inscribed upon walls and scaffoldings. With the introduction of periodical literature a new and a better way was discovered. If the journals made known to their readers the enterprises of

SATIRE-'EPISTOLÆ

art and commerce, these enterprises, in exchange, did their best to support the journalists in affluence. At the outset of the eighteenth century, advertisement, as we know it to-day, was perfectly understood, and 'The Spectator' of Steele and Addison made its appeal to the public, and filled its coffers by precisely the same methods which our modern newspapers have made familiar. 'The Spectator' was, in the slang of these days, a good "medium." It might, we imagine, charge a high rate, because it fell into the proper hands. It was to be seen in the coffee-houses; it lay upon my lady's table; it was read by those who set the fashion and guided the taste of the town. As an arbiter of letters and the drama it was supreme, and it is hardly fanciful to suppose that its word of commendation might help to fill a theatre, or to sell an edition. If, then, we wish to reconstruct the social life of Queen Anne's reign, we cannot do better than study the advertisements of 'The Spectator,' which have served Mr Lawrence Lewis1 for an entertain