novels of amazing adventure and intricate complications; what outlines of theories for political, social, and moral reform ! Here would be proof of the extent that stubborn managers and incapable publishers interpose between the lights of genius and the public. A museum of ideas in literature ought to be devised, if only to show the wealth of thought and invention that hapless circumstances keep from coming to brilliant fruition. WE quoted recently in our "Miscellanea a paragraph from the Sanitary Record, an English journal, in which it was urged that every one should make of his breakfast a hearty meal, instead of the light repast so common in Europe, and so frequently advocated here by writers upon sanitary matters. The view taken by the Record is supported by Dr. King Chambers, who has been publishing in England a series of practical essays upon meals and meal-times. His first homily is devoted to this question of breakfasts. Dr. Chambers appreciates to the full that pithy question which was put by a clergyman to one of his brethren, who was contemplating whether he should accept a bishopric, "My dear brother, do you digest?" If Dr. Chambers does not go the length of believing that success in love, feats of statesmanship, the triumph of sects, and victories in battle, are in no small degree the results of a good digestion, be at least thinks that this is a greatly-underrated element of daily life. He tells us that food is most easily digested early in the day; ergo, he insists that people should not only take a substantial breakfast, but that its substance should be food which is at once the most necessary for health and "the most troublesome for the stomach to cope with." He exclaims loudly against any artificial stimulants before breakfast, and even decries a cup of cold water, either before or after. Naturally follows the advice to "rest awhile " after breakfast, thus reversing the old dietary maxim. In a word, he tells us that we must lay in our most solid stock of nutriment when our digestive organs are most vigorous, and that in the evening, when brain and body are weary, we should be tender of them and not load the stomach with new and exhausting labors. All this seems good and wise advice, and Dr. Chambers is to be heartily thanked for entering so minutely into the practical philosophy of "little things," and for going so far as to indicate exactly what we should begin the day by doing in order to have that good digestion which foreruns success. WE are not aware that the Italian Senate is a notably disorderly body, as legislative assemblies go, yet a novel element of har mony has just been introduced into it by the royal will. The composer of "Ernani" and "Il Trovatore," in short, has been created a senator for life, and has taken his seat among the generals, diplomats, and nobles, who compose that august conclave. It is probably the first time in history that eminence in the art of music has been recognized by the award of political honors. It is true that in England Jules Benedict and Michael Costa have been dubbed Knights of the Bath; while in recent times it has become customary, especially with the smaller German potentates, to scatter orders and decorations freely among actors and musicians. The late Ira Aldridge, for instance, the negro tragedian whom Edmund Kean picked up as a boy in Baltimore, and taught to be a very meritorious Othello, was a Bavarian baron; and his broad breast was covered with a host of stars which delighted royalty had lavished on him here and there. We have always observed that wizards, ventriloquists, and necromancers, are especially favored-if we can believe their own vauntings and the jewels they display-with this sort of distinction. But Verdi's creation as a Senator of Italy is the first solid dignity of a politi cal character which actor or composer has received. Neither Germany nor Italy, indeed, the two nations which have been most fruitful in musical authorship, has been very generous to the great music - writers. Even Mozart died poor, and Beethoven had a terrible life of it from first to last; Haydn never escaped an existence of virtual dependence upon a patron; Händel had to go to England, and Rossini and Meyerbeer to Paris, to reap the adequate rewards of their genius. It is pretty hard to discern any congruity between musical skill and legisla tive ability; yet there is something pleasing to the fancy in the idea of Verdi sitting among the political sages of melodious Italy. Music constitutes so much of the life and happiness of Italians of every rank and condition, it is so much a part and parcel of the national genius, that, as far as the sentiment of the thing goes, there is a sort of poetical justice in Verdi's senatorial honors. Correspondence. TENNESSEE, To the Editor of Appletons' Journal. DEAR SIR: Will you kindly permit me the use of your columns to say a few words about your quotation from the Athenæum in the JOURNAL of the 27th instant, on the question as to whether it is correct to say rather a droll remark or a rather droll remark? It will be readily conceded, by all who have devoted attention to linguistic studies, that the logic of a sentence is one thing, the syntax quite another. Thus, He was powerful, and At his touch crowns crumbled, have the same general meaning; but the peculiar affinities of the words in one of these sentences could hardly be illustrated by the other. Such a periphrasis as that given by the Athenæum's correspondent, "One would sooner say that that is a droll remark than that it is not a droll remark," may undoubtedly exhibit the logical force of rather; but manifestly it cannot show the grammatical process through which this force is obtained, because the syntactical collocations are entirely altered. We might as well hope to explain the function of perfectly in He is perfectly truthful, by It is perfectly well known that he is truthful. Allowing that rather logically affects the whole predicate is a droll remark, the theory of syntax requires that every word in a sentence should adhere especially to some other word-except in certain licensed figures. It is necessary, then, to find some word to which rather belongs more intimately than to any other. This word cannot be either is or remarkand, of course, it cannot be a. It cannot be is, because it is admitted that this is something; it cannot be remark, because it is admitted that this is a remark; and these admissions are obviously unmodified and unmodifiable. Is, being a simple copula, is nothing but a symbol, and is no more capable of modification than the sign of equality in algebra. A thing either is something or is not; there are no means between these extremes. Besides, is, being neuter, can be joined only to an adjective, under any circumstances; in the periphrasis, say is a transitive verb, and admits the adverb. When is denotes actual existence, as God is, of course, it takes the adverb; but to claim this use for is in the sentence before us, would be to reject is as a copula altogether. It is admitted that this is a remark of some sort; the question is, what sort? There is only one word left in the predicate for rather to adhere to, and that is droll; therefore rather must modify the meaning of this, which it obviously does. The remark is not absolutely droll, but so near to it that, if we were confined, in describing it, to the expressions droll and not droll, we would rather take the former. From what has been said it is clear that the word rather must modify droll, whether we say rather a droll or a rather droll, the idea to be expressed being the same in both forms. We now come to discuss the difference of position. We may state at the outset that both constructions are sound, though usage seems to prefer the first form. The correspondent of the Athenæum, if he is a classical scholar, must know that change in position by no means produces change in grammatical connection, and that this is particularly true where the article is involved. In English, as a rule, adverbial modifiers precede their adjectives, and the article, if used, goes just before the combination, the substantive bringing up the rear, as He is a very good man, I am wretchedly tired. But there is one class of sentences in which the general law is for the most part violated-sentences of comparison and degree. Thus, while we may say without difference, syntactical or logical,. He is truly a good man, or He is a truly good man; The wisest man that ever 1 saw, or The wisest man that I ever saw; we usually say So fair a maid, As fair a maid, How fair a maid, Such a fair maid, Many a maid; and rather, being a comparative word, follows this usage. Yet the particularly close connection of rather with the word it modifies is so explicitly shown in some languages where the idea is conveyed by the comparative degree of the modified adjective, that it is not difficult to account for the preference some have for the form-a rather droll remark. The syntax, we have already said, is unaltered. Perhaps the best example of the statement that change of position does not necessitate change of regimen, is to be seen in the word only. This word, despite the attempts of purists to clip its wings, still ranges at large over the whole sentence, occupying almost all positions at will, retaining the same syntactical regimen. It must be admitted, however, that in a language deprived of inflectional aids, as the English is, much change of position is precarious. I have been so lengthy in this communication because the Athenæum is regarded as high authority in literary matters, and its mistakes must not be passed over. I hope I have said enough to show the futility of linguistic criticism, unless conducted on a scientific basis; and if what I have said is truistic, I trust that I have presented it in rather a new light, or a rather new light, as you may choose. Yours respectfully, CASKIE HARRISON. Literary. HE "Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher "* is disappointing. It would seem impossible that an intelligent person whose life extended over the long period from 1770 to 1858, and who passed a large portion of that life in relations more or less intimate with such people as Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, Wordsworth, Southey, Campbell, Hartley Coleridge, Crabbe, Allan Cunningham, Lord Brougham, Lord John Russell, Sir Thomas Erskine, Dr. Arnold, Mazzini, Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Aikin, Harriet Martineau, and many other celebrities of the past and present generations, should not have something of interest to tell us; and yet substantially the whole of the "Autobiography" is taken up with details of familylife, and records of personal experience, which are of the faintest possible interest to the general public. It is evidently the work of a woman in whom the affections were very much stronger than the intellect, whose recollections and sympathies ran in a singularly narrow circle, and to whom the birth of a child, the marriage of a son, or the death of an aunt, were matters of vastly greater importance, even after an interval of many years, than the character or achievements of the greatest among her contemporaries. Almost the only interest outside her own family-life which seems really to have moved her, was politics; and it is in the index which it affords of the difference of political feeling between our own and the previous generation that the book is chiefly valuable. In our day of political pococurantism, it is scarcely possible to realize a state of things in which to be a Liberal in Edinburgh was to be suspected not only of Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. With Letters and other Family Memorials. Edited by the Survivor of her Family. Boston: Roberts Brothcrs, 1876. intellectual obliquity, but of moral turpitude and infamous practices; and yet nothing can be plainer than that Mrs. Fletcher and her husband suffered a persecution, none the less real because it did not take the form of personal violence, for sentiments which the most rigid of English Conservatives would not at present hesitate to avow. Of the gradual amelioration of this political fanaticism, the "Autobiography" affords curious evidence; and it is hardly too much to say that Mrs. Fletcher herself was largely instrumental in bringing it about in Edinburgh, which had hitherto been its hot-bed. In one of the numerous letters which the volume contains, Mrs. Fletcher is described as having "a most extensive acquaintance with literary persons," and her conversation as "a stream of lively anecdote continually flowing." Of this latter quality, as we have already said, the “ Autobiography" itself shows singularly little. In very few instances is any thing told of persons outside her own family, beyond the circumstance of meeting them; and the following is the one solitary anecdote which the book contains, and this is not wholly new: "The latter part of the year 1802 was interesting to us in a public way, by the commencement of the Edinburgh Review. We were fortunate enough to be acquainted more or less intimately with several of the earlier contributors, Mr. (now Lord) Brougham, Mr. Jeffrey, Dr. John Thomson, Mr. John Allen, Francis Horner, and James Grahame, the author of The Sabbath.'. . . I, who knew Edinburgh both before and after the appearance of the Edinburgh Review, can bear witness to the electrical effects of its publication on the public mind, and to the large and good results in a political sense that followed its circulation. The authorship of the different articles was discussed at every dinner-table, and I recollect a table-talk occurrence at our house which must have belonged to this year. Mr. Fletcher, though not himself given to scientific inquiry or interests, had been so much struck with the logical and general ability displayed in an article of the young Review, on Professor Black's Chemistry,' that in the midst of a few guests, of whom Henry Brougham was one, he expressed an opinion (while in entire ignorance of its authorship) to the effect that the man who wrote that article might do or be any thing he pleased. Mr. Brougham, who was seated near me at table, stretched eagerly forward and said, 'What, Mr. Fletcher, be any thing? May he be Lord Chancellor?' On which my husband repeated his words with emphasis, 'Yes, LordChancellor, or any thing he desires.' seems to confirm Lord Cockburn's words in another place concerning the young Henry Brougham of the Speculative Society, that he even then scented his quarry from afar.'" This Mrs. Somerville's "Personal Recollections" proves that a book can be destitute of all those attractions for which we usually seck the memoirs or autobiographies of celebrated persons, or of those who have associated with celebrated persons, and still have a high value in affording us an intimate view of a pure, cultivated, and noble woman. But even in this respect Mrs. Fletcher's " Autobiography" fails. Being written solely for private circulation among friends and relatives, it takes for granted their knowledge of many things which would doubtless modify the apparently egotistical tone of the narrative. For this reason, if for no other, we think the publication of the "Autobiography" a mistake. Its interest on general grounds is slight, and it does less than justice to a character which, according to the uniform testimony of those who knew ber, must have been exceptionally lovable and elevated. DR. VAN LENNEP'S " Bible Lands" is al most too important a work to be dealt with in a cursory notice, and yet to treat it ans lytically on an adequate scale would require more space than we can command. It is a great contribution to Scriptural exegesis, its object being to throw such light as can be derived from the manners and customs of the modern inhabitants of Bible lands upon the social, religious, and political life of Bible times. Though in the eighteen bun dred years which have elapsed since the last page of the Scriptures was penned the lands of the Bible have passed through many vicis situdes and been overrun by diverse nations, yet it is the uniform testimony of all whe visit the East that in no other portion of the globe have traditions, customs, and eve modes of thought, been preserved with such fidelity and tenacity. This being the case, it is evident that the actual, existing East, and especially the manners and customs of its present inhabitants, is the most luminous of all commentaries on the Bible itself; and Dr. Van Lennep does not exaggerate its impor tance when he compares a picture of this East to a well-preserved copy of a portion of the Holy Scriptures which may prove the utmost use in restoring the original, now somewhat defaced by the tooth of Time. The branch of study thus indicated is n entirely new, but no writer so well equipped as Dr. Van Lennep has hitherto entered the field. Besides being a man of parts and learning, he has spent almost a lifetime à the East, and enjoyed unrivaled opport ties of intercourse with all classes of the p ple. A considerable portion of his picture therefore, is drawn from the life; and, even where he uses the materials gleaned from others, his experience enables him to app such tests as would conclusively indicat their true value. In arranging his materia's the author groups them under two divisions "Customs which have their Origin in the Physical Features of Bible Lands," a "Customs which have an Historical Origin" Under the first he treats of the geology geography, climate, and other physical fat ures of Palestine and surrounding countries including their productions and natural his tory. Under the second he discusses the ethnology and language, and describes the houses, furniture, customs, habits, mannera industries, government, and religion, of th present inhabitants. The plan, in itself con prehensive, is carried out on a liberal seal but, though the matter is abundant and th style elaborate, the attention of the readers * Bible Lands: their Modern Customs and MDners illustrative of Scripture. By the Rev. He J. Van Lennep, D. D. With Maps and Cuts. Ne York: Harper & Brothers. seldom fatigued. Of course, in a work like this, completeness and fidelity are the essential points, and Dr. Van Lennep rightly considers that the literary graces are a subordinate matter. The volume fairly overflows with pictures, all of which are useful, and many of which are beautiful specimens of engraving. It also contains two colored maps of the Bible lands, one physical and the other ethnological; and a capital double index completes a work which reflects credit upon author and publishers alike. Ir is reported of Boston that no littérateur there is considered to have won his spurs until he has published a volume of poetry. If this be the origin of Mr. George P. Lathrop's "Rose and Roof-Tree" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.), we congratulate him upon the promptness with which he has gained his initiation as well as upon the merit of the poems themselves. There is nothing strikingly original in the collection - there is, indeed, a faint echo in some of the pieces of a poet whose influence upon contemporary verse is growing wider and wider; but the inspiration is genuine of its kind, the sentiment pure and refined, and the verse for the most part musical and graceful. Mr. Lathrop is content to play upon minor chords; his muse is idyllic rather than lyrical; and he is most happy in his descriptions of Nature. Some of the descriptive pieces are extremely pleasing; though in the "Rime of the Rain" and the "Chant for Autumn" the experiments in intricate metrical harmonies rather tend to divert the attention from the sensuous word-painting which should monopolize it. The less elaborate pieces are better, and the following is one of several which struck us as very good indeed: THE SUN-SHOWER. "A penciled shade the sky doth sweep, And transient glooms creep in to sleep Amid the orchard; Fantastic breezes pull the trees Of aspect tortured. "Then, like the downcast, dreamy fringe "Now sparkles the air, all steely-bright, As a specimen of ingenious and sustained psychological analysis, Mr. Henry James, Jr.'s, "Roderick Hudson" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.) is a wonderful production; but as a novel it fails to stand the crucial test. It is surprising, indeed, that a book which is so good in many ways—so subtile in its insight, so full of the finest fruits of culture, and so eloquent withal-should fail so utterly in the essential point of impressing us with the objective reality of the people to whom it introduces us. The difficulty seems to be that, with all his knowledge of human nature and insight into character, Mr. James cannot conceive a person. The motives of any given course of action, the influence of antecedents and circumstances upon character, and the complex effects which in human life flow from an apparently simple cause, he can trace with marvelous skill; but he does not seem able to construct in thought the process by which a person reveals his personality, and becomes individual in the apprehension of others. The characters in "Roderick Hudson" are far from being mere puppets, and yet the action of the story is curiously suggestive of a puppet-show. The author discourses elaborately in explanation of the qualities and characteristics of his several dramatis persona, and then they come on the stage and say or do something to demonstrate the acuteness of his insight. They do not reveal themselves-they have no chance to reveal themselves-they are dissected beforehand with a precision and minuteness which leaves no opportunity for the spontaneous or the unexpected. The very conversation is for the most part a reflection of Mr. James's own mental processes, and even Christina Light, the spoiled child of fashion, talks like a trained metaphysician. But for this deficiency of dramatic faculty on the part of the author, "Roderick Hudson might be accepted without hesitation as the long-expected "great American novel." The story is finely conceived, and the book has an indescribable.charm. The history of a genius must always be fascinating and impressive, especially if it have vraisemblance, and the story of Roderick Hudson's rise and fall is almost terrible in its fidelity to psychological truth. But the great charm of the book lies in the atmosphere of Rome which pervades it-the very flavor of Italy. In no other work, except Hawthorne's "Marble Faun," is the Eternal City made so familiar to our imaginations. It infects one irresistibly with the "Roman fever," and we feel as we read that, if all roads do not in fact lead to Rome, at least none is worth traveling which does not promise to lead there. In the second part of "The Mysterious Island" (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.) M. Verne wearies of the problem which he originally set before his castaways-from nothing to produce every thing-and begins to work the miracles which so disgusted him in the case of "The Swiss Family Robinson." At a time when they were very much in need of material for sails and clothing, he discovers for them the case of the balloon in which they were originally lost; and he saves Captain Harding and his companions much ingenuity and labor by casting ashore at an opportune moment an immense chest containing every thing in the way of tools, weapons, instruments, utensils, clothes, and books, that colonists could desire. Evidently, too, he is coquetting with a sort of deus ex machina, who has already begun to extend "metaphysical aid" to the castaways, and who will doubtless be instrumental in their ultimate rescue. But, while the integrity of the original design is thus sacrificed, the story is well sustained, and even increases in interest. There is no longer any doubt that it will be one of Verne's best, or that it possesses merits which will secure for it a permanent place in the fascinating literature of castaways. It hardly detracts from these merits, and it certainly enhances the amusement to be derived from the book, that we encounter here and there such novel bits of information as that Martha's Vineyard is "a port in the State of New York," and that the editor of the New York Herald is "the Honorable John Benett." As in the previous volume, the illustrations are good and the translation bad. PROFESSOR A. C. KENDRICK's first collection of "Our Poetical Favorites" (New York: Sheldon & Co.) met with such wide acceptance as to induce him to bring out a second and complementary series. The first series was devoted exclusively to shorter pieces, and suffered somewhat from the omission of such universal favorites as Milton's "Comus," "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel," and Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon." The new series includes all these, and many others which fall properly into a collection designed chiefly to comprise longer pieces. As to the merit of the selection, it is enough to say that Professor Kendrick has confined himself to such minor poems as have already secured popular favor. He makes no attempt to secure an audience for neglected poetry, new or old, or to guide popular taste by applying a standard of excellence. His sole test is popularity; and the chief value of his two volumes lies in the fact that in them he brings together a large proportion of those poems which are most often in the mind of intelligent readers. MR. B. L. FARJEON'S "An Island Pearl" (New York: Harper & Brothers) is a rather brief story, but it contains enough of impossible coincidence, brassy sensationalism, and pretentious writing, to furnish forth two or three of the ordinary three-volume novels. The tale is of the sea, and turns upon the thrice-familiar episode of a shipwreck followed by long residence upon a desolate island; and we cannot say that Mr. Farjeon has redeemed a necessarily painful plot by any of that imaginative realism or grace of style with which Charles Reade, for example, imbues his "Foul Play." In fact, it is hard to find in this essentially commonplace and feeble story any trace of the author of "Grif," and, except that it is sent out under his own name, we should have done him the justice of supposing that it was the work of some less practised and capable hand. 66 "One In a suggestive article on Style," " in a recent number, the Saturday Review says: of those smart sayings which have become almost too familiar for quotation asserts the identity of a man and his style. We might paraphrase it by saying that the form of expression adopted by a writer or an artist lets us into the deepest secrets of his heart and mind. Nothing is apparently easier than to disguise one's secret thoughts. The most vicious of mankind may sing the praises of virtue, and the most effeminate may affect a virile force of passion, or the most heretical defend an orthodox thesis. But, though in such cases we cannot extract from the condemned work any distinct series of erroneous statements, we recognize instinctively the hollow ring of the phrases. The sense which guides us is often conversant with such impalpable essences that we may be utterly unable to assign any tangible reason for our strongest criticism. A practised lawyer can tell when a witness is lying, though he cannot tell what fine and half-conscious observations have led him to that conclusion. And the acutest of critics often renounce the task of exhibiting with any precision the evidence on which their conclusions are based. The manner of the writer makes such or such an impression upon them; it has an indefinable magic, or an ineradicable stamp of vulgarity; but they are forced to be content with recording instead of justifying their statements. A high degree of the instinctive judgment which passes such sentences is the mark of the most admirable critics, though it is unfortunately very easily simulated by persons who do not really possess it. This delicate sensibility is undoubtedly the rare and admirable quality which distinguishes the heaven-born critic from the ordinary mob of would-be critics. He can judge instinctively where a clumsier writer is forced to apply his scales and balances, and after all fails to detect the impalpable element which gives the characteristic flavor to the greatest writers." REFERRING to the announcement that Tupper has composed a Centennial drama called "Washington," which he will try to have represented in this country next year, the Nation says: "He [Tupper] has been exposed and riddled by the wit of the English weekly press more thoroughly than any modern but we must in candor repeat that one of the chief points of that value will be the essential aid it gives in demonstrably refuting the charges against General Sherman which his book was intended to prove." WHITTIER sent this response recently to a request for his autograph-a piece of goodnature which, we trust, will not tempt other applicants: Our lives are albums, written through The pages of our years, God grant they read the good with smiles, ADMIRERS of Shelley may rejoice. It is stated that papers will shortly be published showing that the so-called desertion of his first wife Harriett was in no sense his fault. These papers were, by his request, to be kept private until the occurrence of a certain event. They have been so kept, but are now likely before long to come before the world with the proof that he was more sinned against than sinning. THE latest additions to Messrs. Osgood & Co.'s new "Little Classic" edition of Hawthorne's works are: "The Marble Faun," in two volumes; "The Blithedale Romance," in one; and "Twice-Told Tales," in two. The series loses nothing of its attractiveness to the eye as it lengthens out on the shelf. The Arts. writer; his pretensions as a poet have been MR. SANFORD N. GIFFORD, who spent his philosophy has been shown to be no better than his poetry, and his poetry no improvement on his philosophy. Yet the callous bard goes on, after his kind, producing verses unblushingly, and his readers go on in their ignorance reading them; and, having fought the good fight of mediocrity and triumphed in England, it is no wonder that he should be tempted to conquer a new world on this side of the water." A WRITER in the Fortnightly Review says that, as poets in the truest sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy with the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the imagination of the North is derived from Italy. The nightingales of English song which make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with purest melody are migratory birds who have charged their souls in the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native wood-notes in a tongue which is their own." THE latest addition to the list of royal authors is the King of Siam, who has commanded the publication of a small cyclopædia which treats wholly of Siam, its history, geography, iiterature, and political constitution. The preface will be by the king himself, and one of the most interesting portions of the work will doubtless be an appendix containing a vocabulary of several little-known dialects spoken on the eastern frontier of the Siamese territory. In summing up an elaborate notice of Boynton's pretentious review of Sherman's "Memoirs," the Nation says: "Pending the publication by Congress of all the war-records, General Boynton's painstaking compilation from the files will have real historic value; of New Brunswick, has now on his easel two or three fine pictures representing striking atmospheric effects. The most important is a large and low-toned landscape of a still lake, surrounded by high hills. Sweeping up the valley, in the bottom of which nestles the quiet lake, a range of heavy thunderclouds darken the sky. The windy edge of the storm, of a greenish hue, looks as thick as the smoke from a furnace, and it wraps the ridges of the hill, which it covers, in almost the blackness of ink. Farther up the valley the different thunder-heads roll off toward the light, and through a rift in their marshaled ranks a pale sunbeam breaks the clouds, and slants with pallid gleam upon the tops of high pine-trees and a big rock, which cover one of the near hill-sides. Flut tering in the storm, a white eagle adds still further to the wildness of the wild day; and, as if to enhance the savageness of the pict ure, a camp of Indians in their wigwams on the edge of the lake show their forms bright against their fires on the shore. The forests which clothe the hills are red with autumn, and their rich tints and the firelight reflect in the lake, alone brightening the gloomy landscape. It is very seldom that we have seen so dark and wild a picture from Mr. Gifford. His paintings are usually so serene, and the skies and sunshine so warm and tender, that such a work as this one comes strangely from his easel. Mr. Gifford has another study for a large painting, taken from a considerable height, and looking across a hazy valley from one of the ranges of hills that lie west of the Hudson. A yellow sunset glow fills the great space of the sky, and down below, through the mists, the beholder perceives the pale thread of a distant river, and thin smoke as cending white above scattered house-tops. ABOUT a week ago a novel and inter esting collection of drawings and designs, made in the public schools of Massachusetts, were shown to a small gathering of people st the Cooper Institute. Since the teaching of industrial drawing has become a law in New York State, every thing which has a bearing on the subject has acquired an interest. These drawings, about a hundred in number, were selected at random from the many thou sand completed last year in Massachusetts. They are the work of pupils of all ages, from five years old to eighteen. The subjects have a geometrical basis, and begin with combi nations of straight lines, ascending by al the stages till the designs reach plant-forms, applied to decoration for plates, cups and saucers, lace, wall-papers, and brass or ments. The time occupied for this study has been from an hour and a half to two hours a week, and the plan of drawing has now been tried for about three years. Some of the pictures were really very beautiful and showed an originality and peculiarity that distinguished them from similar English designs, though the pupils work from a ba sis of English drawing-books, but the fare which guided their selection and arrang ment of forms was not English. It was it teresting to observe, in looking at thes drawings, traces of thought and fancy which they disclose. Comparing them with the stereotyped copies from the "flat," with which parents and children alike deceive themselves in the idea that they are learning to draw, anybody could see the superior val ue of this work-the result of intellectual tivity and ingenuity. It is from such a bas as this, we believe, that any advancement in our native design and extended taste m come. A gentleman, whose boy of seven eight years old had been studying in th way, told us of his aptitude in analyzing d sign. The child was looking at a lace cu tain, the basis of whose patterns he explained to his father, adding to his remarks a s gestion how certain portions of it might be improved. It is from observation and thouit such as this that all advance and inventi come, and when we can see the youth the country who have an aptitude for the arts, occupying their minds with consider. ing the best ways of coloring a carpt cutting a stone ornament, or filigreeing brass fender, we may expect that the same invention and ingenuity that conceive and design sewing-machines or start the electric telegraph, will, when they have gathered facts upon which to generalize, make strange, as beautiful, and as appropriate on nament as the most genuine life and inzer ious thought can anywhere produce. THE building for the New York Hospital, on Fifteenth Street, between Fifth and S Avenues, is rapidly approaching completion. so far as its exterior is concerned. Already its broad front, one hundred and seventy-fre feet long on the street, has been raised four stories high, and these stories are each so lofty as to dwarf to comparative insignifi cance the old, low four and five story buildings which flank it on either side. Size and presence-if the latter term can be properly applied to buildings, which is the usual designation of a personal quality-are the most prominent characteristics of our new buildings-characteristics in which this structure is very conspicuous. It is built mainly of Philadelphia brick, from which it is variegated by other brickwork of varied colors in conspicuous portions of the edifice, with Nova Scotia sandstone, and with Quincy granite, besides some ornament with tiles. Like most of the newer buildings, this structure presents a wall strengthened by brick projections between the windows, and without the useless and vicious pillars that divide each story, as shown in our degraded Renaissance architecture. The windows of the hospital are numerous and lofty, and are grouped irregularly by pairs, with intervening walls made in a diaper pattern of various-hued bricks, or there are small and irregular windows to vary the size and effect of the lines of each story. In the centre of the building, and rising directly from the sidewalk, a broad flight of steps conducts to the main entrance, formed of round-arches. Granite, whose polished lettering and mottoes are relieved by a dull and rough background, forms the material on which are inscribed the year in which the building was erected, together with camomile flowers, laurels, and the entwined wand of Mercury. Besides Quincy granite, red granite and polished white marble enter into the ornament of this portion of the building, and stained glass will still further enrich a portion of the windows. Mr. George B. Post is the architect, and, although the building is not possessed of so much variety of form as we could wish, it is quite free from the factory look that often makes such structures monotonous and dreary, and its large size, with the amplitude of all its main features, renders it worthy to rank as one of the finest of our recent buildings. THOMAS WATERMAN WOOD has just returned to his studio from his summer home in Vermont, and has brought with him, as usual, several fine character-studies, two of which are in the form of finished pictures. The largest work is entitled "The Old Bachelor." It represents the interior of a arpenter-shop, which also is the home of he bachelor occupant. Seated in a quaint wooden chair, with his feet resting upon the head of a cooking-stove, is the figure of an old man. His chair is tipped, and, with his at poised upon the back of his head, he ppears the picture of ease and content. ment; and this feeling is heightened by the pleased expression of his face as he glances over the news items in the daily paper which he holds in his hand. On the left, a corner of the work-bench is shown, and hanging upon the wall, and scattered around, are the implements of the carpenter's trade. Like all of Mr. Wood's canvases, every detail of this work is painted with the most conscientious care. The drawing of the figure is done with precision, and great cleverness as well. In the coloring of the work it is evident that Mr. Wood has adhered strictly to the local color of the old shop, and the tone, though rich and warm, shows none of the crude touches which artists appear so fond of introducing into their studies. For this faithful and realistic work Mr. Wood is deserving of much praise. The companion-study is done in water-colors, and gives a view of the interior of a cooper's shop, with the bossworkman seated astride his "shave-horse." There is a sign of "No Smoking" posted up prominently in the rear end of the shop, but the old fellow does not heed its warning, and proceeds to light his pipe while his eyes twinkle with a merry humor. There is a brilliant effect of light thrown over the figure, and every incident is carefully worked out. THE Loudon Daily News, in an article uttering a few criticisms upon the mania for china and the passion for decoration, concludes as follows: "The fact is, that though good por winds over fields of subtile fragrance, sentiment, dreams, despair. The taste for this kind of prose proves that decorative sentiment is creeping everywhere, encouraging one art to cross the limits of another, till poetry, painting, music, all aim merely at awakening vague subjective emotions rather than at presenting definite, well-considered pictures and thoughts. This may seem a long way from china - mania, and no doubt many china-collectors are the most prosaic of men. But the people who love china for its decorative quality, and who make decoration the highest of the arts, and hold that the happy life should be passed in a glorified curiosity-shop, are the real leaders of the furore for porcelain, and make no secret about their views as to art and life on the whole. These views affect literature in the way we have described; and a curious new tone creeps into books out of the bric-a-brac shop and the studio." From Abroad. OUR PARIS LETTER. ·November 23, 1875. celain and elegant furniture, and every thing M. THEODORE BARRIERE and the Not that Mrs. Malaprop calls articles of 'bigotry and virtue,' are very well in their way, they are not the whole of art. Decoration is not the whole of art, nor the highest field of art. To hear some people's conversation one would suppose that brass finger-plates for doors and brass fenders were of more value than all the works of Phidias. It seems to be held that no one can appreciate art who does not hang blue plates and scraps of rusty tapestry all over his walls; and that Japanese screens, red and yellow, with hideous women engaged in unknown industries, ought to be stuck about a chimney-piece, as a kind of outward and visible sign of inward æstheticism. to like spider-legged tables and chairs so hard and slippery that they may be called slidingseats is a symptom of hardened Philistinism. Who will deliver us from the tyranny of Chippendale?' many a stout guest must sigh to himself, as he hardly clings on to the chair of an artistic host. Whoever the late Mr. Chippendale may have been, and his name is a sort of party slogan or battle-cry among the artistic, he was mistaken in supposing that a kind of lace-work in mahogany was the best material for the legs of arm-chairs. Nor was his accomplice, Cheriton, a bit more careful of the comforts of his clients. Now, though we have very little 'style' in this present part of the century, we can at least make comfortable furniture. It is therefore greatly to be desired that the amateurs of Chippendale should also provide themselves with easy-chairs and sofas, whereon their friends may sit, and contemplate in comfort, and with minds free from the distraction of physical pain, the works of the master. We have been as fair as we can to china and to china-mania. But the taste is only one side of a whole theory of art, which tends to exalt sentiment, decorative color, above form and thought. One notices this taste in poetry, which runs more and more to mere music; in painting, which tends to present mere degrees of color and tone, beautifully handled indeed by Mr. Whistler, but not to be imitated by every one in search of a style. There is a kind of cadence and balance even in the prose of some writers which suggests limitless aspirations, vague desires, the sighing of lonely Théâtre du Vaudeville were united in their ill-luck last season. The "Chemin de Damas," a comedy on which the management of that unlucky theatre founded hopes of a revival of success, proved as flat and entire a failure as did any of its predecessors whose names are lost in the mists of oblivion. The "Procès Veauradieux" broke the evil spell, so far as the theatre was concerned, and the author of "Les Faux Bonshommes" has regained his lost prestige with the delicate, graceful, and charmingly-written comedy of "Les Scandales d'Hier," a Parisian success, which is destined ere long to become an American one, if I am not very much mistaken. It is just the piece for one of the high-comedy theatres of New York, such as Wallack's, the Fifth Avenue, or the Union Square. The plot is interesting, the characters well drawn and sympathetic, and there is scope for very fine acting on the part of nearly all the leading personages; and, notwithstanding a slight "Frenchiness" of incident, the moral tone of the piece is good, pure, and elevated. In an English dress, the play might be called "The New School for Scandal," or "The School for Reporters." It gives the history of one of those social scandals that are bandied from lip to lip and from ear to ear in fashionable drawingrooms, and are even alluded to occasionally in the columns of some gossiping newspaper. Mademoiselle Julie Letellier, the heroine, is a young lady of good birth but of reduced fortune. The young Marquise de Lipari makes her her demoiselle de compagnie and reader, with a salary far more in accordance with her former position than with her present services. So lovely is this impoverished damsel that nearly all the young men who frequent the house of the marquise are smitten by her charms. There is one notable exception, the Baron de Stade, who is madly in love with the marquise herself. Notwithstanding the age and infirmities of the marquis, the lady repulses the baron's protestations of affection. He lingers behind her guests at a soirée in order to take leave of her. Surprised by the entrance of Julie, he makes his escape through the window, unseen by the young girl, who, attracted by the unusual noise, however, goes to the window and lingers there for a few mo |