the influence he has had, personally and in a literary sense, is that goodness of intellect is able to exercise a power often denied to intellectual greatness. Contrast such a character as Hans Andersen with the stormy, wretched, brilliant Dean of St. Patrick's! Gauge the kind of influence which each has had upon men's minds; and mark what a suggestive difference there is between the serene life of the son of the Danish shoemaker, and the tortured existence of the man who fretted his life away because he could not be a bishop! It is an honor that Hans Andersen would have been happiest to cherish that his loss will chiefly be felt by the little children of the nations.

ONCE more we hear of socialist conspiracies in Russia, of the arrest of nobles implicated in subversive plots, of sad, compulsory exoduses to the bleak steppes of Siberia, and of the alarming growth of democratic ideas among the peasants of Muscovy and the banks of the Neva. It is said that every thing in this world has its complement; and, politically speaking, it seems to be true that where there is one extreme, there is always lurking its opposite. Here is the most rigid despotism on earth-a despotism which derives greater strength from the union of spiritual with temporal puissance in a single person; with an iron system of police ramifying throughout a vast empire; with an enormous army, which a single will may at any moment assign to police duty of the severest sort; spies and detectives, paid by government, in every hamlet; the law of punishment for offenses against "the state" startlingly brief, simple, and sudden. Yet socialism has crept in, despite the argus-eyed vigilance of St. Petersburg, and ideas of equality and fraternity are interchanged alike in the metropolitan palaces of haughty Muscovite nobles and in the distant hamlets of the Black Sea and the Ural. What makes the fact more alarming is the facility with which, after all, owing to the dead level of race and thought, any idea may spread among the Russian millions. "Amid the natives of Western Europe," says an English writer, "the variety of institutions, the diversity of ranks, the division of classes, the marked ascendency of individuals, either by birth, fortune, or talent, offer so many barriers to the rapid spread of any idea, movement, or impulse. But, if it were possible to raise the waters of the Baltic by some score of feet, they would flow without let or hinderance over the vast level plains which stretch from Poland to the Ural Mountains. In much the same way any religious or political movement, which could by any possibility be in

rapidity and uniformity which would never be obtained under the more complicated civilization of the Western World." There can be no doubt that the emancipation of the serfs has had not a little to do with the spread of socialism in Russia; and the trouble is that that act, like the abolition of slavery in the United States, is a thing impossible to revoke. The empire must take its consequences, or check them as it can. Perhaps its only remedy will be found in substituting a constitutional for a despotic rule. Such a policy has been able, in Austria, to take the sting out of Hungarian democracy and disaffection; one extreme having been abolished, the opposite extreme, which fed upon it, has seemingly died also. Singularly enough, the spirit of communism and the International, wellnigh extinct to all appearance in France, Spain, and Italy, finds refuge and comfort in the most rigidly gov erned and least intelligent population in Europe.

OUR Contributor who talks this week of "Possible Utopias" omits mention of one felicitous condition that is attainable by all of us. This is the Utopia of flowers. In country places there is, it is true, considerable flower-culture, although it by no means is developed to the extent that it might be; but in towns it is quite surprising to see this graceful means of adornment so much neglected as it is. Here and there we see a town-house lighted up and beautified (we venture to use this word despite Polonius) by blossoming plants on its sills and within its windows, but these instances are rare, and somewhat surprisingly so in view of the charming examples they set. Recently some of our hotels and restaurants have been most happily illustrating the possibilities that lie in this direction. The grass inclosure before Delmonico's on Fifth Avenue has been made truly a "thing of beauty;" at the Brunswick, the Fifth Avenue, and the Windsor Hotels, similar but less successful attempts have been made to give grace and beauty to their approaches. In view of the small inclosures or court-yards that stand before almost all our New York residences, it would be practicable to convert our streets into delightful parterres that would greatly distinguish our city. Imagine the whole length of Fifth Avenue a continuation of the charming effects in Delmonico's beautiful inclosure. It would really become by this superb transformation the most enchanting public avenue in the world. And nothing could be easier. The spaces are there inclosed and unused; it only needs the very small expense of setting out the plants, and the occasional attention of watering and

ly statues and splendid fountains - spend millions, indeed, in devices for ornamenting the city architecturally-and yet we should fail to add so much real beauty to the streets as could readily be done by the means of flowers at almost no expense at all. Those who leave the city for the summer should not for this reason be indifferent to our suggestion; there are weeks in the spring and in the autumn in which their clustering vases and flowering shrubs would give them pleasure; and surely they might, in all charity, be glad to know that the flowers left behind them (kept fresh and trim by the care of some neighboring florist) made the streets gay and the air sweet for those compelled to abide in the city under July and August suns. The taste for flower-culture is on the increase, we think; it would advance more rapidly if people were not discouraged often by the failure of their attempts, arising from the want of a little knowledge of the requirements of flowers. There are many handbooks on this subject published, and any florist would give a purchaser hints and instructions. The art is very far from being a difficult one to learn; it would be impossible to devise any recreation that would require so little outlay of study and care in proportion to the pleasure afforded by the result. Let us by all means have the flower Utopia, and with as little delay as possible.

How many weeks is it since the news of the appalling disaster to the Schiller reached us? It is not so long but that many of us remember a good deal of what was said and written on that occasion. We can recollect the fierce indignation of some of the journals at the recklessness with which steamers are pushed across the Atlantic with the apparent sole desire of making quick time. We can recall the bitter denunciation of the foolhardiness that risks a whole ship full of lives rather than wait for a fog to lift. There were many very good homilies written upon the subject on that occasion, and no one can question the wisdom of the utterances or the soundness of the advice so liberally offered to owners, commanders, and passengers. All we have to deplore is the readiness with which those who preached have forgotten their own text and sermon. Last week, for instance, it chanced that the Germanic, of the White Star Line, made the quickest passage from Liverpool to New York on record. Whereupon great was the applause of the feat, and derisive were the taunts leveled at all the competing lines. "The rivals of the White Star Line of steamers," exclaimed a reputable journal, which had been conspicuous in its sermons on the Schiller disaster, "must wake up, or they will find themselves

regarded much as an engine-driver regards an old stage-coach." Wake up! Never mind now about the Schiller, and the Atlantic, and the Ville du Havre. No matter for fogs, and icebergs, and winds, but wake up and don't be beaten! Our sermons a few weeks ago were written under a gloomy and pusillanimous state of mind; we were then absolutely thinking that the safety of passengers is the most important of all considerations. So contemptible a notion, we now see, is quite unworthy any whole-souled, spirited sailor. The real, plucky thing is to beat-to get in first or go to the bottom! "You rivals of the White Star Line," wake up and show your spirit! Crowd on more steam, spread more sail, push on through fog and through darkness, for "beating all competitors" is the whole duty of man when on the seas!

Literary.

ISS MULOCK has at length laid aside the disguise which for some time past has been getting very thin, and taken openly and avowedly to preaching. Her "Sermons out of Church" (New York: Harper & Brothers) read exactly like a collection of the moralities, comments, and "thoughts," with which her recent novels have been thickly interspersed; and we confess, for our part, that we prefer them in their present shape. True, the sermons retain a curiously distinct flavor of the novelist's art; but this does not detract in any way from their interest, and before he finishes the volume the reader will frankly concede that Miss Mulock has succeeded wonderfully well in catching the peculiar tricks of the pulpit-the calm assumption of disputed premises, the elaborate arguing in a circle, the propounding of hoary commonplaces with the air of giving utterance to newly-inspired wisdom. The effect, indeed, would be somewhat overpowering (or perhaps we should say consoling, since so many of the difficulties with which we are confronted in life are definitively settled for us) were it not that Miss Mulock herself suggests a method of evasion. She observes that "one of the most trying features of listening to sermons in church is that one cannot get up and contradict the preacher when we know he is talking nonsense," thereby intimating, as we take it, that with sermons out of church we can rise and contradict as often as we disagree.

We should weary the reader's patience were we to avail ourselves fully of this concession, for, suggestive as Miss Mulock's sermons are, full as they are of sound commonsense and worldly wisdom, there are a great many points in them which, to say the least, require further discussion. In her first sermon, for instance, on "What is Self-sacrifice?" (or, more properly, "The Sin of Selfsacrifice"), she shows that she has utterly failed to comprehend the Christian conception of self-sacrifice. Her interpretation of the limits and extent of the duty would agree in all respects with the strictly utilitarian

definition of " enlightened self-interest; " her version of the command to turn the left cheek when the right is smitten would be, "Don't offer the left cheek unless you are certain that you will not thereby stimulate the pride, selfishness, and brutality of the smiter, and that the amount of good done him will overbalance the harm done to yourself." It seems never to have entered her thoughts that in the Christian morality self-sacrifice (like most of the Christian virtues) is not a social virtue which most concerns us is the effect upon the but an individual one, and that the thing

person

who accepts it. The moment you demand a mathematical equivalent for it, an act loses the most indispensable element of Christian self-sacrifice. Minor misconceptions of this sort abound in all the sermons, but we pass on to another characteristic of Miss Mulock's preaching, and of much other preaching, in church as well as out. It is, or ought to be, a well-known fact that physiologists are still in doubt as to whether alcohol is a stimulant only, or a food as well as a stimulant; the weight of later opinion inclining, perhaps, to the latter view, though all are agreed that more careful investigation is required before any satisfactory conclusion can be reached. This dubious state of opinion, however, does not suit Miss Mulock at all. Out of the abundance of her physiological knowledge she settles the question offhand and finally, and declares it to be our peremptory duty "to bring up a child from babyhood in the firm faith that wine, beer, and spirits, are only medicines," and that "that which is most valuable as a medicine is poison when taken as food." This bit of dogmatism, moreover, is an entirely superfluous intrusion upon a really excellent sermon on the importance of caring for physical health and the best methods of doing so ("Our Often Infirmities"); and, in common with other specimens of the same sort, seems to come from a sturdy determination on the part of the author to believe that whatever in her opinion is right necessarily accords with the facts.

The other sermons are: "How to train up a Parent in the Way he should go," containing some wholesome doctrine concerning the duties which parents owe to children; "Benevolence—or Beneficence?" pointing out the evils of indiscriminate charity or almsgiving; "My Brother's Keeper," discussing (in a rather futile way, we think) the great servant-question; and "Gather up the Fragments," a treatise on the art of making the best of misfortunes and disappointments. It will be noticed that the subjects discussed are of a practical rather than a theological character; and, in fact, these "Sermons out of Church" belong to that comparatively modern species of literature which, whether it be presented as sermons, as essays, or as lectures, is of the utmost value, in that it applies the results of careful study and long experience to the solution of the every day problems of life. They are not the best example of it, but they may be read with profit, and not without pleasure.

UNDER the title of "Scripture Natural History," Messrs. Bradley, Garrettson & Co.

(Philadelphia) republish Rev. J. G W well-known work on "Bible Animals." work was published nearly ten years ago England, and an American edition was isst. a little later by Messrs. Scribner, Armstro & Co.; but it is good enough to pass through any number of editions, and we can fairly congratulate the public on an enterprise which promises to give it a wider circulation. The object of the book is, in general terms, to show what light zoology throws upon the Bible; and it contains a description of "the habits, structure, and uses of every living creature mentioned in the Scriptures, from the coral to the ape," at the same time explaining "all those passages in the Old and New Testaments in which reference is made to beast, bird, reptile, fish, or insect." Few natural historians have possessed wider general culture or greater enthusiasm for their special subjects than Mr. Wood, and, of all his numerous works, "Bible Animals" presents, probably, the most favorable example

of his powers. We can acquiesce in the publishers' preface to the extent of saying that the critic will find little in the book to condemn, that the common people will read it gladly, and that it is well worthy of a place in every house beside the sacred book which it honors and expounds.

The chief difference between the present and previous editions lies in the addition of an essay "On Evolution," by Dr. McCosh, hostile, but on the whole not unfair, and of an article on "Research and Travel in Bible Lands," by Rev. Daniel March, D. D., treating more particularly of the relation between recent archæological discoveries and Biblical history. The pertinency of these articles is not evident, but they rise above the level of ordinary padding, and will doubtless be read with interest.

The illustrations are a very valuable feature of the book, being numerous and for the most part excellent.

*

GUHL AND KONER'S "Life of the Greeks and Romans" is a work of very great value to students of ancient history. It does not touch upon the events, incidents, policies, and institutions, which ordinarily engage the attention of historians; but it reveals to us the daily or domestic life of the two great nations of antiquity, describing with extreme minuteness of detail and abundance of illustration their architecture, furniture, arts, dress, education, manners, habits, amusements, marriage and burial customs, industries, music, games, and religion. In reading it the vast distance in point of time which separates us from the Greeks and Romans seems to vanish, and we come to know their life almost as intimately and familiarly as we know contemporary life in England. The antique monuments furnish the principal sources from which Messrs. Guhl and Koner have drawn their information, and their work is a sort of summary of the results of modern archæological research in the field which

*The Life of the Greeks and Romans, described from Antique Monuments. By E. Guhl and W. Koner. Translated from the third German edition by F. Hueffer. With 543 Woodcuts. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

ey cover. Of course, the private life of any eople being so intimately associated with their public life, the book throws a great deal of light upon the history of Greece and Rome, supplying a natural background for many things which heretofore have seemed phenomenal and obscure. Herein lies its principal value, and for this reason it should find a place on the library-shelf along with Grote, Curtius, Mommsen, Gibbon, Merivale, and the rest.

The illustrations, of which there are more than five hundred, are finely engraved, and materially assist the reader in grasping the full meaning of the text.

WE suppose that Mr. George A. Baker's "Point-Lace and Diamonds (New York: F. B. Patterson) must be classified as vers de société, on the principle that, if not vers de société, they are nothing; yet his work scarcely complies in a single particular with Mr. Locker's definition of that dainty species of poetry. "Genuine vers de société," says Mr. Locker in the preface to his "Lyra Elegantiarum," ,” “should be short, elegant, refined, and fanciful, not seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful. The tone should not be pitched high; it should be idiomatic, and rather in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness; for, however trivial the subject-matter may be, indeed rather in proportion to its triviality, subordination to the rules of composition and perfection of execution should be strictly enforced." Now Mr. Baker's verse is neither elegant, refined, nor fanciful; its sentiment is not chastened or playful; the rhythm is seldom crisp or sparkling; and it would be difficult to find a poem in the collection which is marked by tasteful moderation or high finish. Just two items of Mr. Locker's requirements it may perhaps be said to satisfy: the tone is low enough to suit the most exacting taste in that regard, and the language is idiomatic to the point of slang. We are aware that Mr. Baker's efforts have received high praise from persons who ought to know better; but, with a keen relish for true vers de société, we have been unable to find a stanza in "Point-Lace and Diamonds" which is notably distinguished by refinement of fancy, delicacy of sentiment, or grace of composition.

THE second volume of Professor James Morgan Hart's "German Classics for American Students" (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons) contains Schiller's "Die Piccolomini," the first part of the great Wallenstein trilogy. Besides the text, which has been carefully collated, there is an elaborate introduction, with copious notes, and a map of Germany is added to assist the reader in following the geographical references. Professor Hart expresses the wish in his preface that the time may speedily arrive when the study of German, and also of French, shall be raised to a higher plane;" when "the acquisition of the two great languages of Continental Europe shall be regarded as of intrin

sic value, not as a mere appendage to Latin and Greek, or as the price to be paid for the ability to read text-books of chemistry and physiology." He may have the satisfaction of feeling certain that the industry and intelligence which he has bestowed upon the preparation of this series can hardly fail to contribute materially to the fulfillment of this wish-at least in the case of German.

MORE than two years ago Messrs. Appleton & Co. began preparing for the publication of a work in serial numbers, to be entitled "Picturesque Europe," which was designed to be a companion-issue to the famous "Picturesque America." Mr. Fenn, the most successful of the illustrators to the latter book, was sent abroad for the purpose; and he, in cooperation with other artists, has since that time been actively engaged in making sketches and drawings for the work. It was thought that the publication would have begun ere this; but the task is a heavy one, and it was found impossible to proceed as rapidly as was at first expected, and yet do entire justice to the enterprise. This delay has been unfairly taken advantage of by another house, which has gathered together a great number of old steel-plates, illustrating European places, and issued them in parts under a title that suggests that of the Messrs. Appleton's. Some of the canvassers of this work have, with great effrontery, declared to those whom they have approached that Appleton & Co. have abandoned their design, and that the work offered is substituted therefor, under which plausible but altogether false representation they have secured many subscribers. It is, therefore, necessary to inform the public that

66

Picturesque Europe" is in as rapid preparation as is consistent with the thorough excellence of the steel-plates and the wood-engravings, and that its publication will probably begin within a few months. We may add that no labor is or has been spared to render this publication not only trustworthy, but really the best pictorial delineation of European places that has ever been given to the world.

THE "Sketch" prefixed to the "Papers" of the late Charles Wentworth Dilke gives an interesting glimpse of the character of one who, as editor of the Athenæum, will always be connected with the history of English literature, and who was one of the best critics of the last generation. Mr. Dilke became sole owner of the Athenæum in 1830. "He was just turned forty, with his judgment matured, and his physical powers unimpaired. His official life in the Naval Pay-Office had made him an excellent financier, and methodically exact in all his arrangements and correspondence. He had the diversified tastes and sympathies which are essential to the hearty countenance in due proportion of the multifarious branches of knowledge to be discussed. He had a mind which could only be satisfied with scrupulous accuracy, and by his vigilance he enforced it upon all his contributors. He had unbounded industry, and a capacity for sustaining prolonged toil-a capacity tasked to the utmost by the circumstance that the journal did not pay when he took it in hand, and that, with comparatively slender resources, he had to effect by his personal exertions the improvements which converted it from a loss into a revenue. But rarer and more important than all was the judicial equity which he resolved should distinguish the criticisms of his journal. When he assumed the editorship he

made it a rule not to go into society lest his acquaintance with authors should hamper his independence, or embarrass him in the exercise of his editorial functions. He was to the last degree punctilious in not allowing any one to criticise a book who had the smallest motive to deviate from impartiality, being thoroughly resolved that the malice of envy and rivalry, the adulation of friendship, and the puffs of mercenaries, should never with his connivance find a vent in the Athenæum. A member of his staff, Mr. J. H. Reynolds, wished to review a particular work, and Mr. Dilke asked him whether he was not acquainted with author or bookseller. I, alas! know author and bookseller,' replied Mr. Reynolds, who sent back the work, that Mr. Dilke, as he said, pettishly, 'might consign it to some indepen

dent hand, according to his religious custom.' Every thing which could be construed into a favor was declined. He would not accept any book which an author sent to him personally, nor a duplicate copy sent to the office of the Athenæum, nor would he ask for a book which had not been sent, and was too important to be left unnoticed. Favor and independence are incompatible,' he wrote in 1842 to his Paris correspondent, who had obtained from French publishers some early sheets of new books for review. Mr. Dilke pointed out to him that, having accepted the advance-sheets, he could not condemn the works, and added the decisive comment, What, then, is the value of your criticism?' Integrity, courage, and firmness were never carried further by any editor."

THE Saturday Review finds in "Three Northern Love Stories, and Other Tales," translated from the Icelandic by Eirekr Magnússon and William Morris, a book which for once it can heartily praise: "Fresh and bracing as seabreezes, and bright and clear as the waters beneath them on a sunny day, are the lovestories of Gunnlaug the Worm-tongue' and 'Frithiof the Bold.' As we read them we are carried backward many a year and northward many a mile, and we become familiarly acquainted with the manner of life led of old by those wondrous Northmen, among whom sueh dauntless souls animated bodies so marvelous for strength and endurance." The "Last Leaves from the Journal of the Rev. Julian Charles Young" contains some hitherto unpublished letters from the Rev. Frederick W. Robertson. In one of them, he speaks of his own profession as follows: "It certainly is the most quarrelsome of all professions in the matter of a blue or green window, prevenient moonshine, or a bishop's nightoap, and the most cowardly when once it comes to a matter of right and wrong-of what they saw and what they did not see. Unless clergy, of the type I am alluding to, are forced to serve in the army for five years previous to ordination, to make them men, let alone' gentlemen, I think the Church, as an establishment, had better be snuffed out." . . . The usually calm Spectator fairly loses its temper over a recent novel entitled "The Wheel of Fortune." This is the way it begins a review of it: "On a careful estimate, we believe we have read five-sixths of this book-we have read it, and survive. But we did not do it all at once-it would have proved too much for us. It was only by taking it in small doses, and distributing the exertion over the best part of a week, that we managed to get well toward the end of the third volume. And there we stuck, the excitement rising to a pitch that threatened to be beyond our control. Perpetual amazement is not a pleasant frame of mind, constant blushing for the folly of our kind not a com

fortable sensation. Yet, throughout the nine hundred and sixty-odd pages or twenty-five thousand lines which we compute this book to consist of, these were about the only sensations that stirred us. It is three days since we left off reading, but the effect is still upon us, and we doubt seriously whether we shall ever have courage again to open a novel by a writer whose name is unknown to us. Three such books on end ought to produce softening of the brain in any one who tried to read them."

...

...

Mr. Anthony Trollope is writing a series of letters from the antipodes, which are printed simultaneously in different newspapers in the United Kingdom. . . . The title of Hepworth Dixon's new book is "White Contest: America in 1875."... Of the late Emperor Napoleon's "Vie de César," it is said that only one hundred and fifty copies were sold out of an edition of twenty-two thousand. The publishers brought a suit against the empress for one hundred and sixty-seven thousand francs damages, on the ground that the work was not finished owing to the emperor's death, but the suit was dismissed with costs. . . . Novels being few last week, the Athenæum filled a portion of its space with some brief hints on the art of novel-writing, from which we quote a paragraph: "While rules have been laid down in convenient hand-books for almost every art and every handicraft under the sun, and while ladies can get for a shilling books of directions for knitting and crochet which might furnish them with occupation for the rest of their lives, no guide-book has, as far as we know, yet been published, in a cheap form, to the popular amusement of novel - writing. We shall, therefore, be poaching on nobody's preserve in stating that the first rule of the craft is-select your characters from the class of people with which you associate. If you are a school-girl, write about school-girls, and not about duchesses; if you are a lady, do not describe blackguards." . . . The new edition

of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" is selling remarkably well in England. The publishers have already found it necessary to reprint the first volume. . . . Cardinal Silvestri has made a present to the municipality of Padua of Petrarch's house at Arquà. . . The Academy "has an opinion" of Mr. Joaquin Miller's novel, "First Families in the Sierras," which it expresses in the following concise way: "It bears a strong family likeness to The Luck of Roaring Camp,' but cannot be compared

with it in point of merit. The civilizing influence is here a woman, not a child, and the interest, instead of being concentrated, is a good deal frittered away. When one has once been clearly informed that, in order to be the noblest work of God, it is chiefly necessary to have a good growth of hair on one's chest, to divide one's time between gold-digging and drinking poisonous whiskey, and to indulge in oaths which would doubtless be blasphemous if they possessed the antecedent qualification of meaning-subsequent repetitions of the dogma lose much of their value. It is interesting to know that Mr. Miller thinks nothing of any man or woman who has not a large nose. But, from the elaborate manner in which he announces the opinion, it would seem that Rabelais, Erasmus, and Sterne, were strange to him."... The London Times thinks that there passes away with Dr. Thirwall the only mind that could survey all schools and forms of English religious thought with equal knowledge and justice, and that his memory will always survive as the most conspicuous proof that there is no true learning and no genuine piety which may not be harmoniously combined in the English Church.

AMONG recent purchases of foreign pict. nently intellectual man, and will remember

ures is Corot's "Dante and Virgil,"

the characteristic, shrewd, and kindly markings of his high-arched forehead, and the fine lines about his nose, mouth, and eyes. He has the face of a man tranquil through philosophical conviction, and taking an easy and humorous view of the events of life as they occur. Mr. Hunt thoroughly appreciates the capabilities for art of such a head. He makes the light strike sideways on the forehead, then graduate down the delicately - ridged

bought by Mr. Quincy A. Shaw, of Boston, by whom it has been presented to the Museum of Fine Arts in that city. This picture is one of the best known and most important works of Corot, and for many years it has had a great reputation in Europe. It was exhibited in Paris, in the Salon, in 1859. It is an upright oblong, eight or ten feet high, and represents the opening scene of the first canto of the "Inferno," showing Dante and Vir-cheeks, touching, as it descends, the elastic gil as they enter the wild wood, the silva silvaggia, that conducts to the infernal regions. At the feet of the two are the wolf, the leopard, and the lion, who meet them on their way, and over their heads tower lofty and thunderriven trees-" ghostly forms seen at noonday." A twilight mystery haunts the wood, and through the twisted boughs glimmers the light from the far-off region whence the poets have come. Like all other of Corot's works, it is not absolutely realistic. Its style is particularly adapted for a poetical rendering of one of the phases of Nature of which it is desired to make a strong impression on the mind of the beholder.

Unlike the delineations, so emphasized as to be impossibilities, in Doré's pictures of similar subjects, this really grand and noble landscape exhibits nothing incompatible with an absolute following of Nature, only it is the Nature we see in a gloomy twilight, with lofty trees and vague woodland reaches that appear in outline in the dimness and mist. Cobweb-like tangles of branches and their

foliage shut out the sky, and close in the way behind the wanderers, but present none of the fantastic forms of faces and lean hands with which Doré in similar subjects endeavors to strengthen a witch-like impression. These tangles are such as appear in reality, but the artist, with a true poetical instinct, has introduced them in this place to enhance the value of his main theme. Corot is a land

scape-painter, and it is Nature as seen by Dante and Virgil, and not the two poets themselves, or the symbolical animals that accompany them, that is presented prominently to the thought of the spectator. The living forms are gray and indistinct in the twilight, but it is the dreary sky, and still drearier woodland, which entrance our imagination, as the thought of them enchained Dante six hundred years ago.

We have many pictures by Corot in this country, both in public exhibitions and in To understand his works, private houses.

which are at once those of an artist and a poet, requires more than superficial sight or thought. To comprehend how truthful they are, an effort and a feeling are necessary, which educate the beholder while he is examining their beauties. On this account Mr. Shaw has rendered a signal benefit to art by giving to a public gallery the finest work of this master that has yet been brought to America.

WILLIAM M. HUNT has lately completed a half-length portrait of Rev. James Freeman

nostrils. He then makes it glance against eyelid and eyebrow, and shadow the mouth, and skim across the heavy, long beard. Lastly, he leaves it palest and weakest where it strikes upon and is lost against the stronglymodeled hands. Mr. Hunt has adopted in this picture such an arrangement of light and shadow as Rembrandt delighted in to bring out the peculiarities of face of his old burgomasters, picturesque from the markings rather than the form of their features. In the carrying out of this idea of light and shade, Mr. Hunt has been very happy, and this management of his subject is rather unusual with him, as he is accustomed to flat tints and equal values rather than to a strong focus of light and shade gradually losing its force.

But, while Mr. Hunt has most decidedly succeeded in getting a characteristic likeness of his sitter through this arrangement of light and shade, viewed as a painting, it seems to us that, living so long in this country without opportunity of toning his mind and eye by reference to the best models in art, the flesh tint and flesh quality of his pictures lose rather than gain in excellence, and that especially in this painting there is an impression of labor and lack of freshness which a man of Mr. Hunt's great natural power should never betray. Comparing this really artistic painting with the halflearned attempts of young Duveneck, now on exhibition and about which the press has said so much of late, the former work is decidedly a sufferer beside the crisp, fresh touches laid on so roughly by the young student of Munich. Literary men every

where have the advantage that they may always compare their writings with the highest standard; but this opportunity for the painter, which is even more necessary for him than it is for the author, can only be obtained at present by occasional visits to Europe. Of the necessity of such a standard, we may cite the example of one of our best artists, who brought home with him a most careful and elaborate copy which he had made of Titian's "Bella," and no offer has ever tempted him to part with it, since it is his chief means in America, he says, of keeping up the standard of his own work here. Mr. Hunt's late portraits show, we think, the absence of such standards, to which he can refer to note the failure or success of the new experiments and effects he introduces into his pictures. Much as we admire certain qualities in Mr. Hunt's paintings, we can but regret when we see them in any degree fall below his earlier work.

WHILE Goupil, Schaus, and our own public galleries, keep back until the autumn their newest and best paintings, Boston, which is in the path of summer tourists to mountain and sea-side, is now doing its best, so far as the display of pictures is concerned. Nearly everybody going to the White Mountains, Mount Desert, and the numerous resorts along the shores of New England, gives a day at least to seeing the sights in that city. As a consequence of the presence of so many guests, every thing is done to furnish variety at the places of public entertainment, and the Museum of Fine Arts at the Boston Athenæum, Doll and Richards's, Williams and Everett's, and Elliott's, are not in the background in this respect.

At Doll and Richards's, in addition to a multitude of fine paintings by Inness, Duveneck, and a magnificent French picture, are two very excellent specimens by the old American painter Copley, which have recently been picked up in Europe and brought back to this country. They are both portraits of American ladies-one a sketch in oils of a member of the artist's family, and the other a finished full-length. The sketch retains its color best, and is of a lady in a large hat, which, with her powdered hair and her lace kerchief pinned across her bosom, reminds the beholder, in its soft light and shade and mellow tones, of Rubens's "Chapeau de Paille," or some of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The other painting is thoroughly in Copley's own manner. Stiff brocade, elaborate lace, and a high headdress, form the costume of one of the stately dames of a hundred years ago. The color, got by glazes, has nearly faded from her face; and her arms, hands, and head, are hard and wooden in their modeling. But around this stately personage there lingers an air of high-bred elegance that makes this picture contrast strangely with a scene in an Oriental harem, with the Western-American faces of Duveneck's models, and with a couple of soft Italian heads by Babcock, which surround them in the picture-store. We said once before in the JOURNAL that Paul Veronese's picture in the Boston Athenæum seemed doubly a Veronese, from its remoteness in kind to its surroundings; and, judged in the same way, Copley's pictures hold their individuality even when surrounded by paintings whose standard is utterly unlike their own.

The

IN the JOURNAL of August 7th we gave the substance of a circular issued by the ArtStudents' League of this city, an association formed by the former students of the National Academy of Design, having for its object a higher development in art-studies. circular said further that the league was formed with the coöperation of Professor Wilmarth, and for the reason that the council of the Academy had abandoned the schools as heretofore existing, and had decided at its last regular meeting "not to reopen its department of schools till some time in December." The question of employing a professor was also decided negatively. Mr. Whittredge, president of the Academy, in a recent letter to the Evening Post, in reply to the circular, and in explanation of the action of the

council of the Academy, says in substance that the allegations are not only untrue, but | impossible under their regulations. The subject of employing a professor was not even mentioned, and had the question come before them it would not have received a dissenting voice. He says, further: "It may be proper to state that at the last meeting of the council it was recommended that the schools be opened this year on the 1st of November, instead of early in October, as heretofore; but any such late postponement as 'some time in December' was not thought of, and will not take place, and the school may open in October." Mr. Whittredge says that the ef fort to obtain money for the support of the largely-increased schools was not entirely successful, but enough was obtained to pay the salary of the professor and keep the schools intact, and to pay an installment on the small existing debt. He thinks altogether that the record of the schools is not unfavorable, and knows no reason, as yet, why Professor Wilmarth may not serve the Academy as heretofore.

It is apparent that the action of the students of the Academy in the formation of their league was hasty, and based upon a misapprehension of the facts; and this is, in a great measure, due to the somewhat uncertain position of the academic council, which recommended November 1st as the date for the opening of the schools, but left the matter in the hands of the new council, which takes office in August, but rarely finds a quorum for the transaction of business until November. If we have not been misinformed, it has always been the duty of the out-going council to provide for the fall opening of the schools and also the employment of a professor. Mr. Whittredge's letter of explanation will, we trust, settle this vexed question.

JAMES H. BEARD, N. A., whose pictures of dogs and other domestic animals are so well known, has just finished two paintings representing cat and dog life, which are decidedly spirited in their way. The latter subject is a rich interior, with a group of dogs seated on their haunches before the portrait of a boy. It is entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," and is intended to express the idea that the boy is dead, and his favorite dogs recognize their young master's features in the portrait. The sentiment of the subject is very cleverly expressed, and its motive is as apparent as if it were manifested by figures of men and women instead of those of the brute creation. There are three dogs in the main group, a black-and-tan, an Italian greyhound, and a King Charles spaniel; and their attitudes are full of spirit, and, although suggestive of quiet for the moment, yet the sparkle of their eyes indicates that a frolic would not be out of place after the season of mourning is over. There is a puppy sleeping upon a rug in the foreground, who is oblivious to present grief, and is introduced, the artist says, as babies sometimes are at funerals. They are too young to mourn the loss of a friend, and sleep or prattle, unconscious of the grief around them.

The pendant, "The Morning Call," shows

an old cat, surrounded by her kittens, receiving a visit from a very sedate-looking "old tom," or possibly a "widow," Mr. Beard says, who is giving the gossip of the day. The mother has a cozy cushion for her kittens, and is eagerly listening to her visitor's story, but the kittens appear shy, and have assumed various attitudes, so as to best hear the gossip, and at the same time to be in readiness to scamper at the first sign of danger. This picture, as well as its companion, shows the fine drawing and the excellent technical execution which are always so apparent in Mr. Beard's works.

WILLIAM HART continues his studio-work in spite of the hot weather. His latest-finished picture gives a midsummer-afternoon view on a meadow-brook, with a group of cows standing in the water in the shade of a great sycamore, or buttonball-tree, as it is popularly called, in the foreground. There is a fine perspective shown on the left, with groups of cows scattered here and there, and isolated trees, which form altogether a scene of rare pastoral quiet and beauty. The great force of the work, however, is in the foreground group of cows and surrounding objects, which are mostly in shadow; but there is a clearness about them which we have rarely seen excelled in landscape - pictures. The study of the mottled trunk and pale-green foliage of the old sycamore shows a closeness of observation which belongs to the figure-painter rather than to one of the landscape school, and the skill with which every detail of its peeling bark and tremulous foliage, as it is swayed by the summer wind, is given, is very suggestive of the scene in Nature. Mr. Hart has also given close attention to the painting of the cows, and the foreground group, especially, is made from his last summer studies. These animals are drawn of small size, and their hairy coats are finished with the care of miniature painting. In the handling of this work it appears as if the painter had made it his study to see how far a landscape and cattle picture can be carried in its finish without destroying its breadth. He has, as the result, given us a painting finished with all the care and elaboration of a miniature on ivory, and yet possessed of a feeling of great breadth and strength.

"THERE is no doubt at all," says the London Daily News, "that the interest in art is at present very great, and that it pervades every class. Perhaps the good effects of this interest and curiosity are rather to be found in domestic architecture and decoration than in painting. We may possibly look on this as rather a healthy sign of the future of English art, and as a token that the age of confused aims, and hasty, flashy execution, is passing by."... Three new rooms are to be opened in the Louvre-one devoted to French sculpture, the other two to engraved works, of which the Louvre contains a fine collection, but which have never been displayed, owing to want of proper arrangement. . . . It is now definitely settled that the Michael Angelo festival in Florence shall be held on September 14th, 15th, and 16th. . . . The Academy of Fine Arts at Vienna has announced that an exhibition will be opened on October 15, 1876, in the