Mr. Byrce delivered an interesting lecture last Saturday in All
Souls' College, Oxford, on the Dutch Republics in South Africa, which has, however, been very imperfectly re- ported. He spoke of the Orange Free State as one which had adopted a very rigid constitution, while the South African Republic (the Transvaal) had adopted a very elastic one. On the whole, the Orange Free State, which had kept a very homogenous population, and had not been disturbed by gold discoveries, might be called the Arcadia of South Africa. On the other hand, the Transvaal, which had passed through all kinds of crises, both financial and military, was very far indeed from an Arcadia. The gold discoveries had filled it with a large population of a kind quite alien to the Boer stock, and the Transvaal could no longer be said to possess either a homogeneous or a thin popnlation,—the Boers and the English element being very heterogeneous, and the latter
very considerable. Mr. Bryce said that the Boers found much greater satisfaction ia reading the Old Testament than in reading the New,—which we can well understand. But we must add that recently at least they have shown more reverence for the New than some of their British assailants.
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