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branches, they each constitute but a division, a section, of the High Court of Justice. Sir Alexander Cockburn is the last of the Lord Chief Justices of England, and is already spoken of by the London papers as the "late Lord Chief-Justice." He is now more elaborately but less augustly termed "the President of the .Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice." In similar manner, the other presiding judges have come to be chairmen of judicial committees, detailed to a particular place for special duties.

This revolutionary change, strange to say, has been effected without any strenuous opposition from any high legal quarter. Sir Alexander Cockburn has consented to be legislated out of his historic dignity without a murmur; and Tories as well as Liberals have acquiesced in the sudden metamorphosis. We hear of no protest from the gentlemen of the gown-albeit the legal profession in England is as obstinately conservative of old traditions, and as interested in opposing any change in the old order of things, as the Bench of Bishops itself. The change, however, is unquestionably one for the better. Not only are the several courts dissolved into one, but the powers of all are acquired by each. The Queen's Bench Division will have equity powers added to those of common

law;

the Chancery Division will apply common law as well as equity. Thus the suitor, to whatever division he resorts for redress, will be able to obtain complete justice in a single trial. It has long been a matter of complaint that, in many cases, a person had to go to chancery for an injunction, and to the common-law courts for compensation; that not seldom a suitor seeking justice would be forced to the expense of proceeding first in one court and then in another. It is, therefore, no nominal reform which unites in each tribunal all the powers requisite to develop all the rights and wrongs of a case, and to send the suitor from its doors satisfied that full justice has been done.

ONE by one our great men pass away. In little more than a decade, so large a number of those conspicuous by their public posi

tion or their high abilities have been marshaled into the ranks of departed spirits, that authority, party leadership, and political guidance, have passed in this brief period into almost wholly different hands. Lincoln, Seward, Chase, Sumner, Stevens, Johnson, Wilson, is a list that includes nearly all the political leaders identified with the antislavery movement. The victory had been but little more than won ere the great captains laid down their bâtons. Some few who were conspicuous in forming public opinion still survive, but those who really fought out the bat

tle, those whose leadership achieved the victory, are all dead. The last of the group, who is just deceased, reflects honor upon our country, not so much by his political convictions as by his political integrity; and he illustrates the soundness of the political theory that permits the humblest citizen to aspire to the highest office by proving that one from the ranks may acquire place without the sacrifice of honor, may be ambitious for himself, and yet be faithful to the principles he has embraced, may, even from the shoemaker's bench, carry into politics personal dignity and highbreeding. HENRY WILSON will be remembered mainly because of his connection with the antislavery struggle. He is not identified with other public measures; he did not exhibit a knowledge of statecraft; nor did he display conspicuous gifts as an orator or a writer. His virtues were many; his rise from his lowly birth remarkable. If his talents were not of a brilliant order, he showed great persistency, marvelous industry, and a practical talent for leadership.

THE future historian of these times may be induced to cite, as a striking instance of the "commercial spirit of the age," the invention and sale of spurious university degrees. It has long been customary in Italy, and perhaps in other countries, to sell titles of nobility; but it has been reserved to some American speculators to create phantom colleges and dispose of degrees supposed to proceed from them for a matter of five dollars. The honors so easily acquired do not, to be sure, entitle the purchaser to the peculiar privileges which, as we are informed, are enjoyed by the Oxford Masters of Arts, who, in virtue of that dignity, are permitted to smoke in the high-street, to drive a dog-cart without the written sanction of a provost, to dine at the Mitre, and to vote in convocation. Yet, while the mass of people are still inclined to respect the scholastic initials of honor, and to take them as testimonials of capacity and character in practical matters of life, it is well that some effort should be made to confine them to a bona-fide source. A real master of arts has, and

should have, a better chance in procuring

the headship of a school, than one who cannot show that credential of a full and liberal

education; so, too, a doctor of medicine, who has won his certificate by long and successful study, has a right to be preferred to one who cannot call himself "doctor" by reason of not having won it. But if every quack is able to procure this outward symbol of proficiency by a small money payment, and thus impose upon the public by an arrant imposture, it is time that the law should interpose, and punish the practice as it does all other forms of swindling.

W

Literary.

HATEVER his subject, any thing that

Mr. W. R. Greg may have to say is always worth listening to, and, indeed, is very likely to force itself upon the attention. Few contemporary writers upon political and social topics have his breadth of culture and comprehensiveness of knowledge, and none wield a more incisive and vigorous pen. He does not always convince, and his peculiarly uncompromising and aggressive style is very likely to awaken a sentiment of antagonism in those who do not entirely agree with him; but we may pick up any fragment of his writ ings with the absolute certainty of finding something that will set one to thinking. As Swinburne says of John Ford, you cannot merely shake hands with Mr. Greg or tip him a nod and pass on; if you encounter him at all, it is not easy to escape, and before parting he is very likely to shake one out of any little self-complacent intellectual jugglery in which he may have been indulging. No book with which we are acquainted is better adapted than his "Enigmas of Life" to compel the reader to examine into the basis of his social, political, and religious creeds. As we have said, we may not always accept his argu ments, but it is absolutely impossible to ig nore them.

His latest work, "Rocks Ahead," * is of less general interest than the one just men tioned, inasmuch as it deals with matters of an almost exclusively local character; but, though addressed particularly to the author's countrymen, it is worth the attention of all who are interested in the study of scientific politics. For the problems which present themselves for solution in England to-day are, with slightly-changed conditions, the problems which sooner or later must confront nearly every civilized nation of the world; and the "solidarity of mankind" is suffi ciently true to render the experience of one great nation full of valuable lessons for all

others.

The object which Mr. Greg had in view in taking upon himself the unpopular role of Cassandra was to signalize "three especial dangers hanging over the future of England -three rocks ahead' on which the dignity and well-being of the country and the happi ness of its citizens may not improbably be wrecked." These three national dangers are: 1. The political supremacy of the lower class. England; 3. The divorce of the intelligence es; 2. The approaching industrial decline of of the country from its religion. None of these has as yet fully developed itself; but all are potential, and the first has already had its path cleared of nearly all logical obsta cles. The Reform Bill of 1867 effected a "transformation in the political constitution of these islands so complete and thorough that few revolutions in modern times have been more sweeping," the essence of the revolution consisting in this, that it takes the command of the representation out of the hands of the propertied classes, and puts

*Rocks Ahead; or, the Warnings of Cassandra. By W. R. Greg. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

it into the hands of the wage-receiving classes-transfers the electoral supremacy from capital to labor. When household suffrage has been extended to the counties, as it soon will be, there will be five million poor electors against two million well-to-do electors; and each vote of one class counts for just as much as each vote of the other. "It is idle," says Mr. Greg, "to argue that the working-classes will not pull together, nor the poor be thus in a mass arrayed against the rich-probably not yet; possibly not as a rule; almost certainly not except on class questions of a social character. But sometimes they will, and at any time they may; and the broad, indisputable fact remains that the lower class of voters are far the most numerous; are, or may be, preponderant in the proportion of five to two or five to three; and that, in consequence, when they are all registered, and whenever they choose to draw together, they will be despotic at the poll, and have the command of the representation in the House of Commons. And the House of Commons, as we all know, is all but omnipotent." The special danger which menaces England from this state of things lies in the probability that the non-propertied or wage-receiving classes will use their electoral power to achieve those objects which they have most at heart. "Now, what are the objects which the wage-receiving classes have notoriously and inevitably most at heartmust have most at heart-cannot for a moment be blamed for having most at heart? Clearly, higher wages, shorter hours, more power of dictating conditions of work, and less strictness in the interpretation of contracts; and all these things more or less directly through the instrumentality of legislation. They wish for two other things besides -relief from all taxation which in any way increases the cost of living, and increase in those sorts of public expenditure which create a demand for their labor." The inevitable result of such legislation would be to enhance the cost of production, thus placing British industry at a disadvantage with that of other countries where similar interferences are not permitted, and ultimately destroying that commercial supremacy upon which the national prosperity, and probably the national existence, depend.

facturing and become an agricultural community. Now the population of England is already much larger than agriculture alone would support, and is increasing at a rapid rate; and, unless the crisis be sagaciously prepared for long beforehand, it will bring such distress and suffering as have rarely been witnessed in modern times.

The third or religious "rock" is of a dif ferent nature, but may readily combine with the other two to produce a national catastrophe. "I allege," says Mr. Greg, "that in England the highest intelligence of the nation is not only not in harmony with the nation's creed, but is distinctly at issue with it; does not accept it; largely, indeed, repudiates it in the distinctest manner, or, for peace and prudence' sake, discountenances it by silence, even where it does not demur to it in words." Now, sooner or later the thinkers of a people must inoculate and inter-penetrate that people with their thought; and when skepticism has extended to the lower classes, Christianity will have lost its police influence, and the poor of this world will no longer be content to trust to a future life for righting the wrongs and inequalities of this. On the contrary, he will soon reach the conviction that "if he is to rest, to be happy, to enjoy his fair share of the sunshine and the warmth of life, he must do it now, at without a day's delay;" and with this there will come 66 a fierce resentment at the flagrant inequalities around him, the comparative (often positive) wretchedness in which he has hitherto remained, and the fables which he has been told to pacify him-till he will hate as well as envy those above him, and learn to regard their spoliation as an act of righteous restitution."

once,

of his poems he seems to be arguing instead of singing; yet the thought is illumined by imagination, and its expression is nearly always musical. "The Bird and the Bell," which he places first, and which is, on the whole, the best piece in the volume, is evidently the kind of poetry in which he feels most at home. It touches upon religion and politics, denounces the Roman Catholic Church, wishes Italy God-speed in her strug. gle for freedom (the poem was written before the "War of Liberation "), and prophesies the final triumph of the spirit of progress. The amount of feeling with which parts of it are imbued would seem to belie what we have just said of Mr. Cranch's most characteristic verse; but the feeling is the fervent indignation of a thinker at the wrongs which have forced themselves upon his contemplation. So many of the allusions are to events which have already lost their interest, and so many of the prophecies have been either fulfilled or rendered impossible of fulfillment, that the poem has lost something of its first freshness; but, as the author says, "the thoughts and principles here embodied can never cease to interest all who care for liberty of thought and speech," while the verse will always retain much of its original charm. The tone is, on the whole, remarkably even and well sustained, but now and then a stanza rises above the general level and lodges itself in the memory. Here is an example:

"The music of the soul can ne'er be mute.

What though the brazen clang of antique form
Stop for a hundred years the angel's lute,
The angel smiles, and when the deafening storm
Has pealed along the ages, with the warm

Touch the immortals own, he sings again, Clearer and sweeter, like the sunshine after rain."

There are nearly a hundred poems in the collection, presenting specimens of nearly all the familiar measures, and exhibiting considerable mastery of the art of versification. Most of them are short, few being more than three or four pages long, and they were ap

Such are the "rocks" which Mr. Greg signalizes to his countrymen; and it cannot be denied that the outlook which he offers them is a gloomy onc. True, he is no mere prophet of evil, but believes that the worst dangers may be averted by dealing with them wisely and in time. It is evident, how-parently thrown off at varying intervals durever, that he has more faith in the reality of the dangers than in the probability of there being wisdom enough to cope with them; and, while he points out the antidote, he bas little hope that the patient will realize his position until the poison has done its work upon his system.

In a somewhat lengthy preface, Mr. Greg plays havoc with one or two of his "critics and objectors;" and the appendix contains an article in which Americans may have the pleasure of contemplating themselves in the rôle of political Helot.

Closely connected with the preceding is the second or economic "rock"- the approaching industrial decline of England. This decline Mr. Greg regards as wholly inevitable, the sole question being as to how long it may be postponed, though any legislation increasing the cost of labor or diminishing its productiveness would greatly precipitate its advent. The reason why such a decline is inevitable is that the cheap coal which, combined with cheap labor, has made England the workshop of the world, must in time be exhausted, or at least drawn upon to such an extent that it will no longer be cheap as compared with that of other countries. Ominous indications of the near approach of this period are already visible, and its sure result will be that England will cease to manufacture for the rest of the world, even if she find it profitable to continue to manufacture for herself-will, in fact, cease to be a manu- ! & Co.

MR. CRANCH would hardly claim for himself a very high place in the choir of poets; yet his poems are evidently the expression of a mind sensitive to all forms of beauty, whether in the natural or moral world, catholic in its sympathies, keen of insight, reflective, and apt to seek satisfaction rather in ratiocinative processes than in moods and feeling. His verse, indeed, is the offspring of thought rather than emotion, and in many

The Bird and the Bell, with other Poems. By Christopher Pearse Cranch. Boston: J. R. Osgood

ing a period extending from 1848 to the present time-the last ten years being the most prolific. There are war-poems, breathing a loftier and more generous spirit than most of the verse having that origin; there are the usual vers d'occasion, of which the ode to Margaret Fuller Ossoli, the poem on "Music," and the one on "Michael Angelo Buonarotti," are exceptionally good; there are sonnets a species of verse to which Mr. Cranch does not take very readily; and there is a fine classical fragment, "Iapis," suggested by a passage from Virgil, which would seem to point very distinctly to the appropriate work of the future translator of the "Eneid." Of course, we can do no more in going through such a list than mention a few that are specially worth notice. Among these, the poems descriptive of Nature are perhaps the most pleasing. "The Changing Year," "The Evening Primrose," "December," and "October," are full of observation and sympathy; "The Bobolinks" and "Bird Language" are as nearly humorous as Mr. Cranch ever becomes, and are genuine, spontaneous singing; and "Shelling Peas" is a pastoral in the style of Lowell's "Courtin'." "By

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THE method of M. Taine in philosophizing on art, literature, or national character, is already familiar even to those who have not made a study of the works of this brilliant and fascinating writer. Given, the antecedents of a people, and its national character is an effect as easily deducible as any other natural phenomenon whose causes are known; and given, national character with its circumstances or surroundings-its milieu-and the art or literature of any period is a purely natural and therefore inevitable outcome. In fact, the most magnificent and apparently abnormal achievements of human genius are in reality subject to laws as fixed and unalterable as any in the domain of physics. Of course, in dealing with these phenomena as presented in any past epoch, their laws or philosophy are to be sought in history; and hence M. Taine's lectures on the philosophy of art can be much more accurately described as historical disquisitions than as art - criticism. His latest work, for example, "The Philosophy of Art in Italy" (New York: Henry Holt & Co.), touches scarcely at all upon matters pertaining distinctively and exclusively to art, while it gives an exceedingly graphic and vivid picture of Italy at the epoch of the

-

Renaissance that "glorious epoch which comprises, along with the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the first thirty or forty years of the sixteenth," and within whose narrow limits the most accomplished artists flourished-Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, Giorgione, Titian, Sebastian del Piombo, and Correggio. The history, indeed, is viewed throughout from the stand-point of art; but the reader finds himself invited, not to consider abstract principles, but to survey the wide field of Italian politics, religion, culture, and manners.

According to M. Taine's theory, the first factor which demands our attention in the milieu of the Renaissance is the race of men among whom it arose : "In its kingdom, which is that of form, this race is sovereign; the spirit of other races, compared to it, is coarse and brutal; it alone has discovered and manifested the natural order of ideas and images." The second factor is the comparative intelligence and refinement of Italy at that period. While, throughout the rest of Europe," the régime is still feudal, and men, like powerful savage brutes, think of but little besides eating, drinking, and physical activity, . . . Italy, on the contrary, is almost a modern country." Literature flourishes and is honored, and the arts of refined society are cultivated to a point probably Dever since attained. At the same time, this culture had not, as in our day, become overculture; the brain was not oppressed with ideas to the exclusion of images. "To make the arts of design flourish demands a soil which is not uncultivated, but, at the same time, which is not over-cultivated. . . . To have grand, simple forms fixed on canvas by the hand of a Titian or a Raphael, requires a natural production of these in the minds of the men around them; and to have them naturally produced in men's minds it is necessary that images be not smothered nor mutilated by ideas." There must also be picturesque surroundings to life, and a genuine and general love of picturesqueness; and both these were marked characteristics of the Italians at the period under notice. But in order that the art of the Renaissance should attain its preeminence it was necessary that the artists should select the human form for the principal subject of their picturesque talent; and that they should do this was the inevitable effect of a period in which physical prowess was essential to safety and physical beauty the most assured passport to fa

vor.

Wherever they turned, "healthy, powerful, energetic figures, which subsequent ages have only been able to find or to copy traditionally," met their eyes; and to reproduce these was the surest way to satisfy the art-instincts of the people. To sum up:

"A picturesque state of mind-that is to say, midway between pure ideas and pure images-energetic characters and passionate habits suited to giving a knowledge of and taste for beautiful physical forms, constitute the temporary circumstances which, added to the innate aptitudes of the race, produced in Italy the great and perfect painting of the human form. . . . It is not, as with us, a school production, an occupation of the critics, a pastime for the curious, an amateur's mania, an arti

ficial plant cultivated at great cost, withering in spite of the compost heaped about it, foreign to the soil and painfully supported in an atmosphere made for maintaining the sciences, literatures, manufactures, policemen, and dresscoats; it forms a portion of a whole; the cit ies which cover their town - halls and their churches with painted figures, gather around it countless tableaux vivants more transient but more imposing; it is only a summary of these. The men of this day are amateurs of painting, not for an hour, for a single moment in their life, but throughout their life, in their religious ceremonies, in their national festivities, in their public receptions, in their avocations, and in their amusements."

Never was the temperature requisite for the growth of the arts of design so favorable; never have a similar moment and similar surroundings been seen. "Analogous cus

toms, but of their kind a little less perfect, produced, in establishing itself in Spain, in Flanders, and even in France, an analogous art, although altered or perverted by the original dispositions of the races among which it was transplanted; and we may come to this conclusion with certainty, that, to bring a similar art afresh on the world's stage, there must be a lapse of centuries, which will first establish here a similar milieu."

The book is published in two styles-by itself in a small volume, and together with "Art in Greece" and "Art in the Nether lands," as the second series of "Lectures on Art" in the uniform library edition of Taine's works.

DICKENS was never a very severe critic of his own work, and it is probable that any of his writings which he was willing to let drop into oblivion were scarcely worth the preservation.

This inference is certainly

true of the "Sketches of Young Ladies, Young Gentlemen, and Young Couples," an American edition of which is now for the first time published (New York: E. J. Hale & Son). The origin of the sketches is thus narrated in the editor's "Advertisement:" "The first series, 'Sketches of Young Ladies,' was written by a young collegian urder the nom de plume of 'Quiz,' and issued in a small volume shortly before its author's death. The great favor with which it was received, led the publishers-by whom ' Pickwick,' just then completed, had been issued in monthly numbers-to prevail upon Mr. Dickens to supplement it with two additional volumes, one devoted to 'Young Gentlemen' and the other to 'Young Couples.'" It will be seen from this that their chronological position is contemporaneous with "Oliver Twist," and between "Pickwick " and "Nich olas Nickleby"-the period when Dickens was doing some of his best work; but it is also evident that they are mere hack-work, the pattern of which had been cut out by another hand, and to which the author declined to put his name. They have a certain interest, of course, as the production of 1 great author; but they show simply that, even after "Pickwick" had made him fa mous, Dickens was ready to put his hand to any thing that would turn him an honest penny. Here and there in the volume, it is true, there are happy touches, but, on the

whole, they display surprisingly little trace of that rollicking humor and keen portrayal of character which are so conspicuous in the somewhat similar "Sketches by Boz." Perhaps the best thing in the volume are the illustrations by "Phiz." These are much nearer the average level of Browne's work than are the sketches to that of Dickens.

INTEREST has been excited by the discovery of a remarkable coincidence between the wellknown passage in Byron's "Childe Harold," beginning

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll; Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain," and certain stanzas in an "Ode to the Sea," by Chênedollé, a French poet, which are as follows:

"Dread ocean, burst upon me with thy shores,

Fling wide thy waters when the storms bear sway;

Thy bosom opens to a thousand prores,

Yet fleets with idle daring breast thy spray,
Ripple with arrow's track thy closing plain,
And graze the surface of thy deep domain.

"Man dares not tread thy liquid way,

Thou spurn'st that despot of a day,
Tossed like a snow-flake on the spray,
From storm-gulfs to the skies;
He breathes and reigns on solid land;
And ruins mark his tyrant hand;
Thou bidst him in that circle stand-
Thy reign his rage defies.

"Or, should he force his passage there,
Thou risest, mocking his despair;
The shipwreck humbles all his pride;
He sinks within the darksome tide-

The surge's vast unfathomed gloom
His catacomb-

Without a name, without a tomb.

The banks are kingdoms, where the shrine, the throne,

The pomp of human things are changed and past.

The people, they are phantoms, they are flown,

Time has avenged thee on their strength at last.
Thy billows idly rest on Sidon's shore,
And her bold pilots wound thy pride no more.

Rome, Athens, Carthage! what are they?
Spoiled heritage, successive prey;
New nations force their onward way,

And grasp disputed reign;
Thou changest not, thy waters pour
The same wild waves against the shore,
Where Liberty had breathed before,
And Slavery hugs his chain.

"States bow; Time's sceptre presses still
On Apennine's subsiding hill;
No trace of Time is left on thee,
Uuchanging sea.

Created thus, and still to be.
"Sea! of Almightiness itself the immense

And glorious mirror! how thy azure face
Renews the heavens in their magnificence !

What awful grandeur rounds thy heaving space! Two worlds thy surge, eternal warring, sweeps, And God's throne rests on thy majestic deeps!" Chênedolle's ode may be found in Longfellow's "Poetry of Europe," from which the above translation is derived. Some doubt exists as to who was the plagiarist in this case, if any plagiarism there is. The fourth canto of "Childe Harold," in which Byron's famous lines to the sea appear, was published in 1818; Chênedollé was born in 1769. In 1807 he produced "The Genius of Man," a poem greatly admired; in 1820 he published a collection of his early odes, with some new ones. It is uncertain when the ode from which the extract above is given first appeared.

MR.

The Arts.

R. AVERY has lately returned from his usual summer trip to Europe, and has brought home with him several dozen fine works, collected from the French Salon of the last season, from England, Munich, Berlin, and Belgium. A very pleasant and instructive hour can be spent at his charming rooms (No. 88 Fifth Avenue) looking at the paintings, and hearing his intelligent analyses of their qualities. Fortuny is represented by three or four sketches, and one elaborate painting; Blaise Desgoffe by two, one of which is from the Salon of this year. There are also an excellent Zamacoïs, two George H. Boughtons, a Jules Breton, a Delort, two or three charming paintings by Charnay, a young artist who has won great credit lately in France; a Schreyer, and a Gabriel Max. Knaus, whose works rarely find their way across the ocean, so greedily are they sought for abroad, is represented by a crayon-sketch of an old man. Mr. Avery has also a charming Diaz. A fine specimen by Merle of a girl of the middle ages can also be seen here, besides a Boldini, and paintings by other well-known artists.

Among the more interesting of these pictures, where all are good, is the warm-hued painting by Gabriel Max. Munich is now taking such a prominent place in the art-world, and combines so much of the peculiar excellence of French study with the rich color of the Roman-Spanish school, and the elaborate detail of outline that has been the distinction of the German method, besides the Belgian specialty of chiaro-oscuro, that an artist of talent who paints in Munich subject to all these influences is sure to do very satisfactory work. The picture of Max to which we refer is one that, painted in France, would have been simply a costume-picture, while in Rome it might have been a bit of fine color; but in Munich it combines both qualities with a charming and delicate sentiment, and a delightful variety of texture in the various divisions of the picture; and all these are united under a melodious general light and shadow. The scene is an ordinary one of a blond lady in a velvet mantle, edged with gray fur, and with an olive-colored dress, standing in a room curtained with old tapestry, and bending over a carved oaken chair to contemplate a lute with a broken string, on the end of which a wreath of evergreen has been thrown; and by it, on the table, lies a pale-white rose. The empty chair, as well as the other incidents in the picture, suggests a death, but this fact is so little prominent as not to disturb the aesthetic conditions of the picture as a composition, while yet affording a sentiment sufficiently marked to give an apparent reason why the picture should have been made. As a painting, it is full of fine tones of olive-color, which hue plays over the half-drawn figures in the rich tapestry of the wall, dim with distance, and partially lighted by a golden filtering of yellow sunlight. The olive shade becomes greenish on a magnificent table-covering of heavy velvet-velvet which is as unmistakably such

as the gray fur around the lady's mantle is furry, or the pale hair and the tender flesh of the throat are like to their own kina. Max is still a young man, but his pictures have long been highly esteemed in Europe for their excellence in the respects we have mentioned, and also because each of them is possessed of marked peculiarity of its own. One of these pictures, as different as possible from "The Broken Lute," represents a young blind girl sitting at the entrance to the Catacombs, just within the portals. She holds in her hand a lamp, with its lighted taper, and a group of these lamps are beside her. To every stranger who enters she presents a lighted lamp, that when he descends into the mystic chambers of the dead he may find his way. At her feet are branches of palms to strew upon the graves, and around her, in the dimly-lighted chamber, are the distinctive features of these peculiar structures. Another picture that attracted great attention abroad is of Juliet when she lies in her trance on the morning in which her marriage should have been. A heaviness and pallor, almost of death, is in her form crushing back the pillows, and a pall-like gloom hovers in the misty darkness of the velvet draperies of her dim chamber, forming a great contrast to which is the view through her lattice window of the gay crowd drawn together for the wedding that might never be.

The American art-loving public are familiar with certain well-known foreign names, but to possess any adequate idea of the development of modern painting abroad, it is desirable to observe talent as it develops under different conditions and in various countries. Within a few years the relative importance of French art has undoubtedly changed, and Americans should no longer be content to number in their list of painters abroad only the students of the French school. Fortuny is well known here, and he is one of a very few who dispute with Gérôme, Merle, Bouguereau, and Meissonier, a preëminence which he in turn is likely to share with the Munich painters and with Belgian artists. Mr. Avery has been uncommonly successful in bringing out with him perhaps the most excellent Fortuny that has been seen in New York. It is often said by art-people unfamiliar with his best pictures, that Fortuny tells as much in his etchings as he can ever tell in paint. Some of the sketches, and certainly the few of his pictures that have been brought to New York, would give this impression. Subtile and interesting lines are very prominent in these etchings, but subtile and intricate tones of paint suitable to go with these lines do not usually appear. Mr. Avery has a little and very elaborate painting of two old men dressed in the French costume of a

hundred and fifty years ago. Both are in satin coats, one pink and the other white, and in powdered wigs. The men themselves, it is needless to say, are full of life and expression, but their dresses are something excellent. A pink rose, with its petals crushed, its inner lining turned out to the light, and its outer leaves faded and purple or dried, could scarcely exhibit a greater range of lovely colors than this pink-satin

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coat stretched upon the portly form of the old French courtier. The pockets, too, of this wonderful coat are elaborate and crisp in touch, and as strangely beautiful as are the tight sleeves or the high color of the pink garment. Green embroidery, rich and varied as the leaves of a rose-bush, around these pockets, vary in color with bits of yellowgreen rose buds and the brownish stalk. The old, red-faced, wrinkled wearer of this fairy garment is by no means himself a rose, but he is a most amusing contrast to one. We wish that this picture by Fortuny might be exhibited in some more public place, that the lovers of this master might have the opportunity to learn that his marvelous grace of line is by no means combined with a dull and coarse use of the tints of the palette.

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MR. JULIAN SCOTT has lately completed two cabinet pictures: one of which is an army scene, representing officers in their tent reading dispatches; the other depicts the duel between Burr and Hamilton. The Reading of Dispatches" shows a group of four men. The senior officer is sitting with his legs resting on a brass-clamped armytrunk, and in his hands is spread out a large sheet of paper, while numerous letters are scattered about him on the floor. Half in shadow at his side a youth, with a bugle in his hand, is listening to the news, and the two other members of the party are close to him in front. The figure of the senior officer is very excellent in its easy attitude, and is better in this respect than in any picture of Mr. Scott's that we remember. The accessories of his dress, too, are painted with very careful elaboration, and the order on his breast and the epaulets on his shoulders are made out with great care. The composition and grouping of the picture are good, and its color is rich and mellow-toned. The picture which represents the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton is on a larger canvas than the first, and shows in the gray light an opening in the woods. Pale grass, that looks dank beneath the dark trees, fades off into a sickly distance. In the foreground is the figure of Burr, accompanied by the surgeon, and a few rods behind this pair Hamilton is indistinctly seen lying on the grass, with Pendleton, his second, near him. Burr is a portrait, but the faces of the men in the distance are too vague to appear. This painting is valuable as showing an historical event of importance, but scarcely so much interest attaches to it as to the "Reading of the Dispatches," with which class of scenes Mr. Scott's army experience made him personally familiar. Each of Mr. Scott's new pictures shows a precision and force superior to his former productions, and in the army-scene the composition stamps the artist as well developed in that most difficult branch of art.

CHARLES H. MILLER'S latest picture gives a view of " A Long Island Mill-Pond," drawn at mid-day, and in the summer-time. Like all of Mr. Miller's pictures of Long Island scenery, this subject has no picturesque features, but depends for its success solely upon its simplicity and truthful treatment as a

study from Nature. The old mill - pond spreads out in the foreground, fringed with willows and other shrubbery which thrive in marshy places, and its surface dotted with lily-pads and clumps of cats'-tails. The sky is flecked with transparent cloud-cumuli, and is in quiet harmony with the landscape which it shadows. There is an entire absence of the sensational in the delineation of this scene, and for this reason it is worthy of the highest commendation. Many artists, instead of resting satisfied with a subject so quiet and so poetical withal, would have introduced a boat with figures, or some other disturbing element, for the sake of obtaining the applause of the multitude; but, fortunately, Mr. Miller is not one of that class. He is satisfied with Nature as he finds it, and few lovers of art will deny that he is not, in feeling and sentiment, fully in accord with its most poetical phases. This work is noticeable as an example of perspective drawing, as its purity of tone and exquisite mastery of the details of local color and atmosphere make it a lasting expression of the beautiful.

"AN importa t technical work," says the Academy, "entitled 'Einfache Möbel im Charakter der Renaissance' (Simple Furniture in the Style of the Renaissance'), is being brought out in parts in Germany under the superintendence of the Austrian Minister for Trade. It has been prepared by Professor Joseph Storck, and offers valuable help to teachers in art and industrial schools, as well as practical instruction to cabinet-makers and those engaged in the decoration and furnishing of our modern dwellings. The first number is devoted to the furniture of the dining-room, with its dining-table, seats, and buffets. The examples given are not merely of articles only suited for palaces, as is so often the case in works of this sort, but are generally simple pieces of furniture, suitable for moderate-sized houses, that might easily be obtained by any person desirous of furnishing his house according to the principles of Renaissance art."

THE women artists of London have organized a series of meetings designed for mutual improvement, where a qualified painter is to offer criticisms. "It is proposed," says the Athenæum, "that pictures which are in progress for exhibition, by female painters, should be brought together, and their qualities, shortcomings, and, we presume, merits, pointed out, and advice for the remedying of errors proffered to the artists. It seems a capital idea to offer these facilities to tyros, who can hardly be expected to see their own mistakes until it is too late. Advanced artists may be thankful for candid criticism."

THE London Athenæum, upon the reappearance of Mr. Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, at the Princess's Theatre, gives this actor very high praise. It says: "No representation of the class during ten years has stirred equally an English audience. Yet none of the means to which the modern actor resorts is employed. There is no preposterous attire to win a laugh, no extravagance of gesture, no noise, no rant, no effort. Every thing moves as easily and as noiselessly as machinery, and the required effect is produced. It is a source of saddening reflection that we have scarcely a second instance of the kind to advance. Highly creditable performances are seen upon our stage, some of which have long held possession of

it. In no other case, however, in which lasting popularity is won, and a one-part piece has run for years, can the actor escape the charge of pandering to the tastes of the less educated portion of his audience, or venturing upon ground outside the domain of art."

From Abroad.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

November 9, 1875.

BY order of the Minister of Public Instrue

tion, the directors of the different public libraries of Paris have recently published anthentic statements of the books, manuscripts, etc., contained in each. We learn, therefore, that the Bibliothèque Nationale heads the list with 1,700,000 printed volumes, 80,000 manuscripts, 1,000,000 prints, maps, and engravings, and 120,000 medals. The Library of the Arsenal, which is under the charge of M. de Bornier, the author of "La Fille de Roland," contains 200,000 volumes and 8,000 manuscripts. The Mazarin Library numbers 200,000 volumes, 4,000 manuscripts, and 80 models, executed in relief, and representing the Pelasgie menuments of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. The Ste.-Geneviève Library possesses 160,000 printed works and 350,000 manuscripts. The Library of the Sorbonne contains 80,000 volumes, and that of the Medical School 35,000, Total, 2,375,000 printed volumes, 442,000 manuscripts, and 1,120,000 prints, medals, etc.

There is talk of organizing an exhibition in Paris, which would be of great interest to book-collectors; namely, one of rare books and artistic bindings. It is to be hoped that the project will not be suffered to end in talk, as the exhibition would be a very curious and instructive one in many respects. The Journal Officiel consecrated lately an interesting article to book-binding, considered in its artistic aspects. The writer says: "The history of book-binding has never yet been writ

ten.

The art took its birth in the middle ages, as did so many others by which we profit to-day, in the cloisters of the monastie orders. Each monastery possessed a ball called the scriptorium, wherein the copyists and binders worked. These last were already real artists, and called to their aid the art of the lapidary and the goldsmith. One of them, named Herman, followed William the Conqueror to England, and became Bishop of Salisbury. Among the celebrated bindings of that epoch, we may cite a Greek copy the Evangelists, given to the Basilica of Monza by Theodelinde, Queen of the Lombards, with a covering formed of two plates of gold enriched with colored stones and antique cameos; and above all the Livre d'Heures,' written in letters of gold upon purple-hued parchment, and bound in red velvet, which was presented by Charlemagne to the city of Toulouse. This marvel belonged to the Library of the Louvre, and was destroyed in the conflagration of that edifice under the Com

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