it. So it is with Mount Olympus. Should a stranger make

his way thither at dull noonday, or during the sleepy hours of
the silent afternoon, he would find no acknowledged temple

of power and beauty, no fitting fane for the great Thunderer,
no proud facades and pillared roofs to support the dignity of

this greatest of earthly potentates. To the outward and
uninitiated eye, Mount Olympus is a somewhat humble spot,

undistinguished, unadorned--nay, almost mean. It stands
alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the densest throng

of men, but partaking neither of the noise nor the crowd; a
small secluded, dreary spot, tenanted, one would say, by quite

unambitious people at the easiest rents. 'Is this Mount
Olympus?' asks the unbelieving stranger. 'Is it from these

small, dark, dingy buildings that those infallible laws proceed
which cabinets are called upon to obey; by which bishops are

to be guided, lords and commons controlled, judges instructed
in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval tactics, and

orange-women in the management of their barrows?' 'Yes,
my friend--from these walls. From here issue the only known

infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies.
This little court is the Vatican of England. Here reigns a

pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated--ay, and much stranger
too--self-believing!--a pope whom, if you cannot obey him,

I would advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope
hitherto afraid of no Luther; a pope who manages his own

inquisition, who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful
inquisitor of Spain ever dreamt of doing--one who can

excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the
pale of men's charity; make you odious to your dearest friends,

and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger!'
Oh heavens! and this is Mount Olympus!

It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that The Jupiter is
never wrong. With what endless care, with what unsparing

labour, do we not strive to get together for our great national
council the men most fitting to compose it. And how we fail!

Parliament is always wrong: look at The Jupiter, and see how
futile are their meetings, how vain their council, how needless

all their trouble! With what pride do we regard our chief
ministers, the great servants of state, the oligarchs of the nation

on whose wisdom we lean, to whom we look for guidance in
our difficulties! But what are they to the writers of The Jupiter?

They hold council together and with anxious thought painfully
elaborate their country's good; but when all is done, The

Jupiter declares that all is naught. Why should we look to
Lord John Russell--why should we regard Palmerston and

Gladstone, when Tom Towers without a struggle can put us
right? Look at our generals, what faults they make; at our

admirals, how inactive they are. What money, honesty, and
science can do, is done; and yet how badly are our troops

brought together, fed, conveyed, clothed, armed, and managed.
The most excellent of our good men do their best to

man our ships, with the assistance of all possible external
appliances; but in vain. All, all is wrong--alas! alas! Tom

Towers, and he alone, knows all about it. Why, oh why, ye
earthly ministers, why have ye not followed more closely this

heaven-sent messenger that is among us?
Were it not well for us in our ignorance that we confided

all things to The Jupiter? Would it not be wise in us to abandon
useless talking, idle thinking, and profitless labour? Away

with majorities in the House of Commons, with verdicts from
judicial bench given after much delay, with doubtful laws, and

the fallible attempts of humanity! Does not The Jupiter, coming
forth daily with fifty thousand impressions full of unerring

decision on every mortal subject, set all matters sufficiently
at rest? Is not Tom Towers here, able to guide us and willing?

Yes indeed, able and willing to guide all men in all things,
so long as he is obeyed as autocrat should be obeyed--with

undoubting submission: only let not ungrateful ministers seek
other colleagues than those whom Tom Towers may approve;

let church and state, law and physic, commerce and agriculture,
the arts of war, and the arts of peace, all listen and obey,

and all will be made perfect. Has not Tom Towers an all-seeing
eye? From the diggings of Australia to those of California,

right round the habitable globe, does he not know, watch,
and chronicle the doings of everyone? From a bishopric in

New Zealand to an unfortunatedirector of a North-west
passage, is he not the only fit judge of capability?

From the sewers of London to the Central Railway of India--
from the palaces of St Petersburg to the cabins of Connaught,

nothing can escape him. Britons have but to read, to obey,
and be blessed. None but the fools doubt the wisdom of The

Jupiter; none but the mad dispute its facts.
No established religion has ever been without its unbelievers,

even in the country where it is the most firmly fixed; no creed
has been without scoffers; no church has so prospered as to

free itself entirely from dissent. There are those who doubt
The Jupiter! They live and breathe the upper air, walking

here unscathed, though scorned--men, born of British mothers
and nursed on English milk, who scruple not to say that Mount

Olympus has its price, that Tom Towers can be bought for gold!
Such is Mount Olympus, the mouthpiece of all the wisdom

of this great country. It may probably be said that no place
in this 19th century is more worthy of notice. No treasury

mandate armed with the signatures of all the government has
half the power of one of those broad sheets, which fly forth

from hence so abundantly, armed with no signature at all.
Some great man, some mighty peer--we'll say a noble duke

--retires to rest feared and honoured by all his countrymen--
fearless himself; if not a good man, at any rate a mighty man

--too mighty to care much what men may say about his want
of virtue. He rises in the morning degraded, mean, and

miserable; an object of men's scorn, anxious only to retire as
quickly as may be to some German obscurity, some unseen

Italian privacy, or indeed, anywhere out of sight. What has
made this awful change? what has so afflicted him? An

article has appeared in The Jupiter; some fifty lines of a narrow
column have destroyed all his grace's equanimity, and banished

him for ever from the world. No man knows who wrote
the bitter words; the clubs talk confusedly of the matter,

whispering to each other this and that name; while Tom
Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned

close against the east wind, as though he were a mortal
man, and not a god dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus.

It was not to Mount Olympus that our friend Bold betook
himself. He had before now wandered round that lonely spot,

thinking how grand a thing it was to write articles for The
Jupiter; considering within himself whether by any stretch of

the powers within him he could ever come to such distinction;
wondering how Tom Towers would take any little humble

offering of his talents; calculating that Tom Towers himself
must have once had a beginning, have once doubted as to his

own success. Towers could not have been born a writer in The
Jupiter. With such ideas, half ambitious and half awe-struck,

had Bold regarded the silent-looking workshop of the gods;
but he had never yet by word or sign attempted to influence

the slightest word of his unerring friend. On such a course
was he now intent; and not without much inward palpitation

did he betake himself to the quiet abode of wisdom, where
Tom Towers was to be found o' mornings inhaling ambrosia

and sipping nectar in the shape of toast and tea.
Not far removed from Mount Olympus, but somewhat

nearer to the blessed regions of the West, is the most favoured
abode of Themis. Washed by the rich tide which now passes

from the towers of Caesar to Barry's halls of eloquence; and
again back, with new offerings of a city's tribute, from the