DECEMBER 285 



light upon an example. Now, however (1900), my 

 scepticism is dispelled. Oaks bearing living mistletoe 

 are growing at Stoulton in Worcestershire, and Eastnor 

 Park in Herefordshire. Other instances are reported 

 from Sherwood Forest, Richmond Park, and Windsor 

 Forest, but I have not been able to ascertain whether 

 these remain at the present day. 



LXVIII 



Mine if it be not straining the possessive pronoun 

 to apply it to a collection of which I am a M Book 

 joint owner with thirty and odd millions of shelves, 

 other taxpayers ; mine although the title to use and 

 consult these books may be reckoned precarious, 

 depending on the popularis aura which has wafted 

 my name hitherto to the top of the poll in successive 

 elections. For, although the owners be legion, the 

 warning ' For Members only ' renders the readers in 

 our library at the House of Commons a company 

 numerically select, if somewhat transitory. 



There is, however, little of an ephemeral character in 

 some fifty thousand volumes which people its walls. 

 It is perhaps unique among libraries which profess to 

 be general, in the proportion which fiction bears to 

 other subjects. Gentle Sidney's turgid sentimentality 

 may be studied in his Arcadia; among Goldsmith's 

 graver works, The Vicar of Wakefield offers an ever- 

 verdant oasis ; but I have not yet discovered any later 

 prose romance ; there is no Fielding, no Scott ; we do 



