unable to complete any very important picture till 1890, when "The Queen of Sheba's Visit to King Solomon " was exhibited at Mr. McLean's in the Haymarket for a short time previous to its despatch to the art gallery of Sidney, New South Wales. The finished study for it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891. It is the last as it is the most gorgeous and elaborate of his larger pictures. On no work did he spend greater care in preparation. The studies nude and draped for its fifty figures are almost legion; every detail of architecture and armor, costume and ornament, every accessory in the shape of vessels and musical instruments, "apes and peacocks," was the object of conscientious care, and for the golden lions which line the steps he had models made from his own design. Solomon is represented in the prime of life. He wears a jewelled cap (like a glorified "fez ") and carries a sceptre

in his left hand. He extends the right to greet the Queen of Sheba as she ascends the throne with downcast eyes and gently undulating motion. She is nude to the waist, with the exception of her tiara and the rich coils of jewels which fall over breast and arms. The rest of her body is robed in rich purple drapery spangled with gold. It needs scarcely be added that Sir Edward made numerous studies for these two principal figures both draped and undraped.

Though space only enables me to dwell upon the more important of the president's pictures, it must not be supposed that between a " Visit to Esculapius" (1880) and "The Queen of Sheba" (1890) he did not produce many beautiful things. Indeed he may be said during these ten years to have made a separate reputation for cabinet pictures of which the creation of beauty was the sole aim. They are generally classical in subject, gem-like in color, and ex

quisitely finished, and not from want of individuality, but from similarity of subject, challenge comparison with Leighton on the one hand and Alma-Tadema on the other -interiors, mostly of Roman or Greek temples, houses, and baths, or scenes on marble terraces and steps with sparkling glimpses of sea or landscape in the distance, and slightly draped figures of women and children engaged in some simple or playful occupation, like teasing a beetle or feeding pigeons. The human figure and architecture-human flesh and marble-may be said to be the primary motives of nearly all these dainty works, and none of them are more charming in feeling and color or more irreproachable in technique than Mrs. Renton's "Corner of the Villa" and "Corner of the Market-place." But among the pictures of this period there are a few which call for a special word, and one of these is certainly "The Ides of March" (1883). Generally Sir Edward has avoided strong effects of light, preferring, in common with the greater masters of Italy, a light so diffused as to enable every object to show its definite shape unconfused by atmospheric accident; generally also he has kept clear of

feeling which approaches the tragic and anything like magic or mystery. But in this picture, in which Cæsar and Calpurnia are gazing at the portentous comet which strikes like the blade of a dagger across the cloudy sky, he has combined tragedy, chiaroscuro, and the supernatural in one work, as if to show for once and for all how powerfully he could treat them if he were so minded. Another picture which is almost unique amongst the president's work is Outward Bound"-two children on the shelf of a rock watching the fortune of a tiny toy boat that is slowly sailing out to sea. Never has Sir Edward drawn children more natural or unconscious than these little girls, or painted a bit of natural scenery with greater skill. Lastly, perhaps not quite so unusual but yet remarkable even amongst Sir Edward's works for the grace of its figures and the beautiful balance of its composition, is Mr. Evans's picture of "Knucklebones" (1891), a subject which the artist has repeated more than onceunder the title of When the World was Young"-with the figures draped. Whether the drapery was a concession to Mrs. Grundy or not, I do not know, but the

The men were rising from their seats, and the air was full of welcome.-Page 727.

FITZ-ADAMS'S CAMP, ENGLISH CENTRE, LYCOMING COUNTY, PA. Tuesday, October 27, 1891.

IN spite of the fast falling rain FitzAdams, the boss, ordered us up at halfpast four, as usual, this morning; but when breakfast was over, the rain was too heavy to admit of our going to work. Some of the woodsmen are gone back to bed and some are mending their clothes in the loft, and the rest of the gang are loafing in the "lobby," smoking, and playing what they call "high, low, Jack, and the game," except Mike, a superb young Irishman, who, seated on a bench with his back braced against the window-sill, is reading a worn paper copy of one of the Duchess's novels, which is the only book that I have so far seen in the camp. Jenny, the head cook and house-keeper, has given me leave to write at one of the long tables where the gang is fed.

It is a relief sometimes to get away from the men. There may be ennui that is more soul-destroying, but I have never known any that caused such evidently acute suffering as the form which seizes upon workingmen, of my class, in hours of enforced idleness. When the day's work is done, they take their rest as a matter of course and enjoy it. But a day like this, which lays them off from work, and shuts them within doors, furnishes awful evidence of the poverty of their lives. Most of the men here can read, but not to one of them is reading a resource. The men at play are in blasphemous ill-temper over the cards, and are, apparently, on the brink of blows, while Mike is laboriously spelling his way through a page and nervously squirming in an effort to find a comfortable seat. And I know, from the experience of Sundays, in what humor the

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men will come down to dinner from the loft, to face an afternoon of eternal length to them, which in some way must be lived through.

I note the contrast with their normal selves the more, because, as a body of workmen, this is much the most wholesomely happy company which I have so far fallen in with. We are about twenty in number, a curiously assorted crew, all bred to the roughest life. Far up in the mountains, miles from any settlement, we live the healthful life of a lumber-campworking from starlight to starlight, breathing the mountain-air, keen with the frosty vigor of autumn, and fragrant of pine and hemlock; eating ravenously the plain, well-cooked food which is served to us, now in the camp and now on the mountain-side, where we sit among the newly stripped logs; sleeping deeply at night in closely crowded beds in the cabin loft, where the wind sweeps freely from end to end through the gaping chinks between the logs, and where on rising we sometimes step out of bed upon a carpeting of snow. This is the life which these men know, and which half unconsciously they love, breaking from it at times, in a passion of discontent, and spending the earnings of months in a short, wild abandon of debauch, but always coming back again, remorseful, ashamed to meet the faces of the other men, yet reviving as by miracle under the touch of their native life.

They charm you with their freedom of spirit, and their rude sturdiness of character, until you find your heart warming to them with a real affection, and feeling for them the infinite pain of personal sorrow at sight of their cruel limitations. Away from their work, their one notion of the necessary accompaniment to leisure