His shrieking mother grasps the iron wheel
Of the inexorable car: she spurns
The fierce rebukes, or menace of the throng,
To catch the last glimpse of her darling boy.
'Ah! spare my son; shed mine own blood instead:
My life may satisfy your vengeful gods!'"
Exclaims the hapless matron, but in vain.
THE THREE COURSES OF ACHILLES.
Mr. Gladstone's fondness for Homer is well known, and he was doubtless one of the first to read the Laureate's lines in the Nineteenth Century, called "Achilles Over the Trench." This Trojan hero will now be dearer than ever to the Premier, for the Laureate's lines show him to be a man strangely after the "People's William's" own heart. Thus, it is matter of public notoriety that Mr. Gladstone thinks thrice before he makes his mind up to any great matter, and he is famed for his historic "three courses." How curious, then, to find that Achilles, too, has what may be termed a "triologic" bent of mind! Evidently it was not till he had thought thrice that he remained sulking in his tent. And when he came out and fought, we find, from Alfred Tennyson, that—