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folly, ignorance, simplicity, and zeal without
judgment, that one is divided between an
inclination to laugh at it and to wonder at such
a manifestation of popular intelligence. This
is, of course, an extreme case; but does it
not accurately indicate the sort of thing
that female influence is likely to bring into
our politics should women ever obtain the
suffrage? That women look upon law as a
sort of fetich-a something that ought to
interpose itself everywhere and into every
thing, in order to carry out everybody's
ideas of what should be-has been repeated-
pointed out, and here we see striking
evidence of this tendency. These wom-
en, however, have one defense: there are
so many men in this country that run
screaming to Congress for laws in regulation
of every social question that it is no wonder
the feminine folk should lose their bearings,
and imagine that the shape of their bonnets,
the color of their ribbons, the costliness of
their ornaments, the cut of their dress, are
all matters that Congress has power to regu-
late, and hence ought to regulate them.

drying of the weekly "wash." By this ar-
rangement not only would all unsavory odors
be driven to the airs and spaces above, but
the back-yards would be rescued from their
present unsightly uses, and devoted to pur-
poses of elegant recreation. The laundry-
women, no longer tramping out the grass
with their big feet, would permit these
green plots to flourish; and the unsightly
weekly display of the family linen being
banished to upper and invisible regions, the
whole space now given over to the servants
and neighboring visitors of the feline spe-
cies could be converted into a handsomely
garden, into a bright rustic boudoir shaded
by trees and vines, where in the summer
season the household might assemble, and
even guests be received, under conditions
wholly refined and pleasurable. The disper-
sion of the disagreeables that usually pertain
to the lower ward of the house would, in fact,
enable us to elevate the now neglected yards
of our residences into artistic and beautiful
courts. The wealthy might imitate the an-
cient examples of marble arcades and cool-
ing fountains, and the humblest household
could do something to give grace and charm
to a precinct which is now degraded and de-
famed simply because it lies in close proxim-
ity to the unsavory kitchen.

Our readers may smile at all this. Wait
and see.
If the town-kitchen is not destined
to go up in the world, set us down as false
prophets.

ONE of the richest specimens of the tendency of people to run to government for the regulation of every thing that seems to them in need of regulation occurred, according to report, recently in Philadelphia. It seems that in that city of traditional demureness in behavior and modest simplicity of dress there is a "Free-Dress League," which is composed of ladies who think that reform is needed in the matters of female dress and adornment. Very few people would be disposed to contend with these ladies in this respect, but if a general looseness of idea as to the functions of government did not prevail, everybody would be amused and astonished at their manner of going to work in order to bring about the end desired. Confident in the power, the wisdom, and the unlimited scope of Congress, these ladies propose to address a petition to that body to appoint a joint committee to settle a suitable dress for the women of the country. This innocent reliance on the wisdom and authority of Congress, this belief that a great social reform may be brought about by a fiat of the state, this notion of free-born Americans that it is possible to restore the sumptuary laws of the despotic past, is such a rich mingling of

In this practical and prosaic age of ours
the cynic is apt to get the advantage of the
sentimentalist. The ridicule and satire of
the one blights and crushes the pathos (or
bathos) of the other. The world is too busy,
and life is becoming too short, to spend much
time on what is merely fanciful or tender,
which in a material sense profiteth the world
nothing. Yet now and then an incident
occurs which, though purely romantic and
sentimental, appeals strongly to the sym-
pathy and pity of the sternest-hearted cynic.
Such, for instance, is the story of that sim-
ple-souled, self-sacrificing, and loving young
Parsee who was recently found floating dead
in a reservoir in Lancashire, England. It is
often questioned whether hearts are ever bro-
ken for love, yet it is certain that young Dorab-
jee Hormusjee died for love. He went to Eng-
land not long ago to study cotton-spinning,
and intended to return to Bombay to set up
a mill among his fire-worshiping kindred. In
England he became deeply attached to a
young girl who failed to reciprocate his feel-
ings. She may not have liked his dark skin,
his broken language, his Oriental ways, his
pagan religion; at least poor Dorabjee, after
such advances as his simple and poetic na-
ture prompted, came to see that his cause
was hopeless. For him, then, it was just as
natural to die as to love. In his heart there
was no thought of reproach for the obdurate
fair one.
He simply sat down and wrote her
a respectful, tender, and plaintive letter, and
penned on the outside a request that she
would "please not show this to anybody,"
went up to the reservoir and tying his
hands behind him, took the fatal plunge. In

all the epistolary literature of love there is
no letter more sweet, simple, tender, and free
from selfishness or guile, than this of the
young Eastern fire-worshiper to his "Lan.
cashire lass." "I hope you will excuse me,"
he says, "for taking liberty for writing to
you, but really I cannot help it, because I
love you so much, and you must truly believe
that I never came across a young lady more
lovely and more affectionate like you. I
hope you will be happy, but don't forget me,
because I sacrifice my heart to you, dear. I
always dreamed about you; I don't think
you hardly believed it, that how I loved you,
my dear; but I am at last disappointed. But
never mind, it cannot be helped; but don't
forget me, because you are the only I loved.
I don't think you care much about me, but I
did. Remember me, my dear, remember me.
I hope you will be happy." In a more chi-
valrous time the fate of the hapless young
Oriental in a strange land would have been
celebrated by the odes of a Sappho or the
sweet lyrics of a Petrarch; now his prosaic
epitaph is the coroner's verdict, "Died
the result of temporary insanity!"

of

THERE has latterly arisen in some of the English papers a serious complaint of the manner in which eminent counsel at the bar sometimes treat their clients. This applies less to the enormous fees demanded by eminent lawyers full of business than to the custom they have of accepting a retainer and fees in cases, and then absenting themselves from court when those cases come on. This really seems a grievance, nor is it whol ly unknown on this side of the Atlantic. It is very well for a lawyer in request on every hand to charge roundly for his time; indeed, to get what he can for his services. It may be presumed that he has fairly won this right by a long and not always remunerative experience at the bar. But if a client with an important case resorts to the celebrated Mr. A. or Mr. B., pays him a very large retaining fee and subsequent "refreshers," in order that he may have his influence, name, and services, and those of no other, he has an excellent ground of complaint if the lawyer, being engaged otherwise, leaves his case to its fate, or sends a scarcely-fledged young lawyer from his office to blunder through it; and, above all, if, in addition to the loss of the great man's skill, he sees no more of the retaining fee and the refreshers. It may very well happen that the lawyer finds, when the case comes on, that he has more pressing business"in other places." In such an event, simple honesty requires that he should either furnish an equally eminent substitute, or return the money which he has received to do what he has not so much as made a pretense of doing.

IF

Literary.

F our first impressions do not deceive us, we have in Mr. Stedman's "Victorian Poets one of the most valuable contributions ever made by an American to the department of literary criticism. This is high praise; for the studies of Lowell and Whipple are recognized everywhere as among the best that contemporary criticism can show, and to think of Mr. Stedman's work in connection with these is to associate it with the 66 Age of Elizabeth" and "Among my Books." That it makes good its claim to such association will be conceded, we think, by every careful and well-informed reader of the book, which takes an additional value from the large amount of biographical and historical information which it contains in addition to its purely literary features.

In regard to the scope of the work we cannot do better than quote the statement of it given by Mr. Stedman himself. He says:

"Although presented as a book of literary and biographical criticism, it also may be termed an historical survey of the course of British poetry during the present reign-if not a minute at least a compact and logical survey of the authors and works that mainly demand attention. Having made a study of the poets who rank as leaders of the recent British choir, a sense of proportion induced me to enlarge the result, and to use it as the basis of a guide-book to the metrical literature of the time and country in which those poets have flourished. It seemed to me that, by including a sketch of minor groups and schools, and giving a connection to the whole, I might offer a work that would have practical value for uses of record and reference, in addition to whatever qualities, as an essay in philosophical criticism, it should be found to possess."

The poets accepted as leaders of the choir, and of whom more or less elaborate studies are made, are Landor, Hood, Matthew Arnold, Procter ("Barry Cornwall"), Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, Robert Browning, Buchanan, Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. Besides these, about one hundred and forty minor singers are discussed, though in many cases the criticism is confined to coupling an epithet with their names. Prefixed to the whole is an analytical study of "The Period," in which are set forth the principles which the subsequent chapters are intended to illustrate and expound.

Such being the scope of the book, we turn now to a consideration of the critical principles upon which Mr. Stedman has based his judgments; and here, again, we cannot do better than quote his own words:

"These essays are not written upon a theory. The author has no theory of poetry, and no particular school to uphold. I favor a generous eclecticism, or universalism, in art, enjoying what is good, and believing that, as in Nature, the question is not whether this or that kind be the more excellent, but whether a work is excellent of its kind. Certain qualities, however, distinguish what is fine and lasting. The principles upon which I rely may be out of fashion

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just now, and not readily accepted. They are founded, nevertheless, in the Miltonian canon of poetry, from which simplicity no more can be excluded than sensuousness and passion. The spirit of criticism is intellectual; that of poetry (although our curiously-reasoning generation often has forgotten it) is normally the offspring of emotion; secondly, it may be, of thought. I find that the qualities upon which I have laid most stress, and which at once have opened the way to commendation, are simplicity and freshness, in work of all kinds; and, as the basis of persistent growth and of greatness in a masterpiece, simplicity, and spontaneity, refined by art, exalted by imagination, and sustained by intellectual power.

The traits, therefore, which I have deprecated earnestly are in the first place obscurity and hardness, and these either naturalimplying defective voice and insight, or affected-implying conceit and poor judgment; and, secondly, that excess of elaborate ornament which places decoration above construction, until the sense of originality is lost-if, indeed, it ever existed. Both obscurity and super-ornamentation are used insensibly to disguise the lack of imagination, just as a weak and florid singer hides with trills and flourishes his inability to strike a simple, pure note, or to change without a sliding scale."

It is beyond our purpose to follow Mr. Stedman step by step through his work, nor could it be done usefully without occupying more space than we can spare; we will content ourselves, therefore, with indicating briefly his theory and method. As he defines it, the dominant method which has distinguished the Victorian period is the idyllic, which is a combination of an art-school, taking its models from old English poetry and from the delicate classicism of Landor and Keats, and of the contemplative didactic school, which had the imaginative strain of Wordsworth for its loftiest exemplar. The leader, and to some extent the founder, of the idyllic school is Tennyson; and, while in his hands rhythm, melody, and the general technical excellence of poetry, have been carried much farther than ever before, its influence has maintained an atmosphere unfavorable to the revival of high passion and dramatic power. Nevertheless, in spite of this adverse influence, a new dramatic and lyric school has arisen, under the leadership of Browning and Rossetti, and is engaged in a vigorous effort to reunite beauty and passion in rhythmical "Swinburne, beyond the rest, having carried expression to its farthest extreme, obeys a healthful impulse in seeking to renew the true dramatic vigor and thus begin another cycle of poetic song." This new school is obtaining the favor of a new generation, and Mr. Stedman believes that we are entering upon an era which will witness a glorious revival of dramatic poetry in England.

art.

Of the more special features of Mr. Stedman's work, the most noticeable, perhaps, aside from the ample knowledge and wide culture displayed, is its judicial and studiously temperate tone. There are no attempts at paradox or epigram, no pungent allusions, no affected brilliancy, no mere rhetorical garniture of any kind. The most anxious care is taken to avoid even the appearance of dogmatic dieta, or final pronouncements,

and there are probably fewer superlatives in the book than in any other recent vol ume of criticism. It is by no means certain, indeed, that this caution is not carried too far; and there is no doubt that it impairs the force and effectiveness of the style. Surely it is as much a mistake on the part of a critic to under-state his thought as to over-state it; and that Mr. Stedman does frequently understate his, he would probably be the first to admit. At worst, however, this is but the reverse side of the cardinal critical virtue; and the virtue is not exhibited so often that we need be hypercritical as to the particular phase which it may assume.

Great pains have been taken to render the volume serviceable as a reference-book, and, besides an admirable analytical index, there are copious marginal notes throughout, and a list comprising all the poets mentioned as belonging to the period under review.

MR. LONGFELLOW's new volume, “The Masque of Pandora, and other Poems" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.), is a collection of poems some of which, as "The Hanging of the Crane," "Morituri Salutamus," "Charles Sumner," etc., have already appeared, while others are now published for the first time. The longest poem, which gives its title to the book, is dramatic in form, and gives a pleasing version of the old myth of Pandora's box-relating the fashioning of Pandora by Vulcan, the breathing of life into her by Zeus, her fruitless temptation of Prometheus, her successful attempt upon Epimetheus, and finally her opening of the fatal box, whereby were released

"Fever of the heart and brain,
Sorrow, pestilence, and pain,
Moans of anguish, maniac laughter,
All the evils that hereafter

Shall afflict and vex mankind."

The story is effectively told, but the verse is narrative rather than dramatic, and the lyrics, of which there are many, are quite the best part of the poem. These are in the form of choruses emphasizing the salient episodes of the drama, and the following, à propos of the remorse of Pandora and Epimetheus, points the moral of the entire story:

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niversary of the class of 1825 in Bowdoin College, breathes a spirit of the loftiest melancholy tempered by the resignation which comes of the sure hope of the soul's immortality. The poems grouped under the familiar title of" Birds of Passage" comprise the elegy on Charles Sumner, the pathetic ballad of "Belisarius," and various descriptive reminiscences of the author's European travels. From the cluster of " Sonnets" at the end we quote the following, not because it is the best, but because it presents in brief form the philosophy of nearly all of Longfellow's later poetry:

66 A SHADOW.

"I said unto myself, if I were dead,

What would befall these children? What would be

Their fate, who now are looking up to me
For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read

But the first chapters, and no longer see
To read the rest of their dear history,
So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,

And generations pass, as they have passed,
A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
The world belongs to those who come the last,
They will find hope and strength as we have
done."

DEAN MERIVALE'S "General History of Rome (New York: D. Appleton & Co.) is partly a new work and partly an abridgment of his larger work, which has long been recognized as one of the standard authorities on Roman history. In plan and scope, however, it is entirely new; being an attempt to embrace within the limits of a single volume a compendium of Roman affairs from the foundation of the city (in B. c. 753) to the fall of Augustulus (in A. D. 476). Its claims to be regarded as a "General History," aside from the long period which it covers, are thus stated by Mr. Merivale: "It is addressed to no special class of readers, but rather to the reading public in general, who may desire to be informed of the most noted incidents in the Roman annals, the most remarkable characters which play their part upon the Roman stage, and the main course of events, together with their causes and consequences. With this object directly in view, the writer has no occasion to load his pages with references, or justify his statements by notes and critical discussions, for which his prescribed limits would allow him no room. It is for the orator, says the great critic of antiquity, to argue and persuade; the historian may confine himself to narration; but, in cutting my. self off from the resource of notes and references, I must at the same time refrain from disquisitions and speculations which cannot be conducted safely or fairly without them. These I must leave to the critical inquirer and the professed student; my pages are addressed, as I have said, to the general reader, who will be content to accept the conclusions which I present to him."

Dean Merivale's style, though deficient in vigor and the rhetorical graces of composition, is always simple, lucid, and pleasing; and, when dealing with the more striking incidents of Roman history, presents more than one excellent example of animated and picturesque narrative. His portrait-pieces (and

what other annals are so rich as the Roman in the representation of human character?) are especially good; and in this respect the present volume is scarcely inferior to the author's larger work. The tone of the "General History" is conservative, as becomes a work from which critical discussion is necessarily excluded. Mr. Merivale rejects most of Niebuhr's theories as "brilliant but visionary," and admits frankly, at the outset, that, though the legendary narrative accounts for the institutions which survived to the historic period, "there is scarcely one particular of importance throughout the first three centuries of our pretended annals on the exact truth of which we can securely rely."

The volume is clearly printed on goodsized type, and is well provided with maps, chronological tables, and index.

IN none of his subsequent works has Bret Harte rivaled the peerless perfection of his earlier stories; but the "Tales of the Argonauts" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.) approach more nearly than any of his recent productions to the standard established by his first work. The seven stories which the volume contains all deal with Californian incidents and the characters of the Argonautic period; and these so evidently "condition" Mr. Harte's genius that he seldom appears at his best in any other field. Nevertheless, though dealing with similar episodes and frequently with the same characters, there is a real difference, not only in quality but in method, between these later stories and "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," etc., etc. Mr. John Oakhurst, for example, a passage in whose life is here related, is a decidedly theatric and stagey personage, and the entire interest of the story is centred upon "Mrs. Decker." The narrative is vivid and dramatic, and the character-sketches curious. ly effective; but it lacks local flavor, and the scene might have been laid with even more appropriateness in Paris or New York. So of the "Episode of Fiddletown," the motif of which is the same as in "The Luck of Roaring Camp "-namely, the purifying and elevating influence of a child upon a corrupt and criminal nature. In the "Episode," however, it is a woman who is thus reformed, and the story loses in effectiveness more than it gains from the greater subtilty and elaboration of the study. Mr. Harte's method, in short, has lost something of its terse objectivity, and he seems to be passing from the study of human nature under peculiar local conditions to the study of human nature for its psychological interest. His moral point of view has also changed, and we look in vain in these later stories for the easy optimism of his earlier ones.

Perhaps the pleasantest novel feature of the present collection is the introduction of John Chinaman, who, in the persons of Wan Lee and Ah Fee, develops unsuspected capacities for humorous treatment.

The au

thor's genius for animal-painting also finds expression, and "Baby Sylvester" is without doubt the very drollest and most irresistible "bear-story" ever told.

DR. HOLLAND is a trained workman, and whatever he does has a certain workmanlike finish and facility. It is plain from his novels that he has no natural aptitude for story-telling that novel-writing is not the method in which his gifts would naturally seek expression; yet even here his trained skill subserves almost all the purposes of talent, and his novels fairly deserve the measure of popularity which they have achieved. Their plots are coherent and well-constructed, the narrative is interesting, the action dramatic, the characters tolerably life-like, the scenepainting vivid, and the style fluent and vigorous. What they lack chiefly is insight, and that taste and temperance which are instinctive in the true artist. Another and more radical defect is that the author's motive and object are primarily didactic: he is much more concerned to point a moral than to adorn a tale, and this leads to those pointed contrasts of character and conditions which, however they may harmonize with our notions of poetic justice, are sadly belied by our experience of real life.

"The Story of Sevenoaks" (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.) has a moral, of course the moral being that the love of money is the root of all evil. The leading figure of the story is that of a village manufacturer who, by cheating an inventor and oppressing his fellow-townsmen, becomes a millionaire, and then, seeking a wider field for the display of his riches, comes to New York and enters upon a life of lavish extravagance, vulgar dissipation, and wild speculation. For a time he prospers, but, being caught at length in the toils which he had spread for others, he commits a crime that ultimately strips him of his ill-gotten gains and nearly consigns him to the penitentiary. The character of this vulgar rich man is vigorously drawn, and is not without a certain rugged impressiveness; but it is greatly exaggerated, and can only be excused on the ground that it is not so much a portrait as a text. The pleasantest people to whom the author presents us are the villagers of Sevenoaks and a trapper and hunter named "Jim," who acts the part of deus ex machina to the rest of the characters, and divides with Belcher the honor of being hero. His shrewd and homely wit furnishes the amusing element of the story, which, if over-long, is interesting throughout.

The Arts.

WO large decorative pictures by a Mu

Tnich artist, Hans Makart, have lately

attracted a good deal of notice at Kurtz's Gallery. They are both called "Abundantia;" one of them represents the rich productions of the earth, the other of the sea.

On entering the gallery, the visitor sees spread out before him two very large, long canvases, covered with bright men and women so full formed and rich in color, that for an instant he might suppose he was looking upon some of the showy historical paintings by Rubens that hang upon the walls of the Louvre. But, on proceeding to analyze these pictures, he finds them curiously confused in

motive, with an endeavor, either conscious or not, of reproducing the ideas of Rubens, mixed with ordinary, we might say commonplace, thought.

Seen against a gilded background, which gleams in many points and masses between the men and women, and among the great boughs and leaves of the trees, the Abundantia of the earth is represented by a black-haired, southern-looking woman, with two large infants clinging to her lap. Rich clothing is draped upon her, and fruit and flowers in great masses droop from baskets borne in the hands and on the shoulders of a crew whom the artist apparently designed to be half satyr and half human. Dark faces of men pale upon the gilded sky with big, cunning eyes and black locks of hair. One of these men is dancing with a blond, innocentlooking child, he in shadow and she in a full light that takes away from her face and form nearly all shading; and she stands before the spectator about as a good reproduction of the manner in which Rubens might have treated such a subject, or as if the figures had been executed by a direct pupil of that master. On the other side of the painting jolly children are loaded with the fullness of the harvest, and grapes, poultry, and goats, are mixed up with them in free and careless profusion.

The other picture represents a scene in a galley whose golden prow breasts the waves, and whose big sail flops in the breeze, green and blue and golden as a peacock's plumes, over the heads of a band of men, women, and children, who load down the great barge. Here, as in the companion painting, a mother and her offspring give the key of the subject of the picture. Besides these figures, half a dozen in number, composed of the woman, babies, and two or three little girls, a mass of others fill up the scene. One fair, blond girl, with heavy contours to her pink flesh, sits with her naked back turned toward the beholder-a truly Rubens type of figure, both in its feeling and treatment. Another girl, with bare legs, is stretching out into the waves to catch in a shell the seaweeds and shells cast up from the water. All these figures, as well as the boat itself, are bound together by splendid colors of all textures that are filled with rich tones, from the peacock-colored sail to the woman's splendid skirts, and the pink and crimson lining of the sea-shells scattered so freely everywhere. Such are the main features of these two paintings.

Markart, who is a pupil of Piloty, appears to be a man of great but irregular sources of imagination and power. All his people show a great want of thoroughly good drawing, and the legs, arms, and torsos of nearly every one are inaccurate and impossible. But nobody accustomed to study works of this character can fail to recognize the remarkable freedom and power with which his figures are sketched upon the canvas. He does not hesitate to draw one of his children in full light with a bent body and twisted limbs, in an attitude that would have daunted many a more mature painter than he; nor does he doubt his power to succeed in filling in the great masses of bright

flesh in the back of the woman in the barge. It is the same, too, with his use of rich colors. He glazes and lays in superb body-colors because he likes to see them in the picture, and apparently from a keen relish for such tints, but not from any real knowledge how to use them.

The result of this richness of conception and imperfect fulfillment of the idea has been to produce a dazzling effect in both instances, but the paintings are at the same time entirely without repose either in the composition of form or in light and shade. These pictures have been said to recall Titian, but no painters could be farther apart than the painter of the "Entombment" of the Louvre, with its absolutely perfect relations of line and color, and light and shade, and the man who painted the "Abundantiæ.” That Markart resembles Rubens, with his flowing forms, big lights, and superfluous colors, is quite apparent; but it is Rubens in his pictures in the Louvre, and not with his chasteped powers exhibited at their best, in the mature and well-balanced "Descent from the Cross," at Antwerp.

Markart has power and imagination, but the "Abundantis" cannot be regarded as more than pictures showing great though immature talent.

A CORRESPONDENT, whose art-training entitles his opinions to respect, sends us from Richmond the subjoined description of Foley's statue to Stonewall Jackson, recently erected in that city, and unveiled on the 26th ultimo:

"Amid the fervid enthusiasm on the occasion of the unveiling of the General Jackson statue, probably not one in ten thousand looked upon the effigy otherwise than subjectively. The glamour of the past rose up and intervened, and the bronze shone through it as the personification of the deeds of Stonewall Jackson the successful chieftain, rather than as a work of art representing the man in his habit as he lived. When the excitement had died down, it was curious and interesting to note, as was the fortune of the writer, the calmer criticisms of the crowd as they pressed forward for a nearer view. It was the old story; and had the Stonewall Brigade and the other veterans that thronged the vicinity been furnished with chalk, as was the Athenian populace of old, in the well-known legend, one day to mark the excellences and the next the defects of the work, the result would have been exactly the same as in the classic storythe bronze would have been whitened by their comments.

"The sculptor who has to manage a single pedestrian portrait figure must find himself in something of a dilemma in attempting to

avoid imitation on the one hand or bald com

monplace on the other. The possible per

mutations and combinations of the members of the human frame have been wellnigh exhausted. The lamented Foley not only had this common difficulty to contend with in dealing with the figure in question, but the greater one of artificially presenting a subject whose externals were so entirely dissociated from the picturesque. Jackson's career was full of dash, yet he was slow, one might say plodding, in his habit. His demeanor was of that quiet sort that excluded any suggestion of the military hero. In short, to convert into

The

a striking work of art this man whose general appearance was the antithesis of his character as developed by the war, was no easy task for the artist. It may be safely asserted that he has succeeded: skillfully avoiding the tame without touching the over-dramatic. face is self-contained and noble in expression; the eyes evidently fixed on something of moment; the head turned to the right. The line of vision is somewhat higher than the eye, and the chin slightly raised in consequence. The hair and beard are handled perfectly, exhibiting, as do all the details, a masterly technique. The weight is upon the right leg, and it evidently bears it, without, however, any of the exaggerated bowing back of the leg or protrusion of the calf so often used to give the sense of firmness. The arm on the same side is akimbo on the hip, and so managed as to assist the feeling of solidity; while the gloved hand, in crumpling the gauntlet which it holds, assures us that the attention of the owner is fixed on some tense and absorbing matter. The left leg is in advance of the other, and, from the knee down, nearly parallel with it. This gives additional firmness to the figure-the necessity of bending it to obtain a change of line being obviated by the accessories. The left hand clasps the sword - hilt, the knuckles to the front, at once giving an easy turn to the wrist, and a chance for nice expression in the anatomy. The military cape has fallen into the hollow of the elbow, and thence drapes to the section of stone-wall upon which the point of the naked sword rests, and which rids the composition of gaps and the spindly look so often the defect of single figures unrelieved by accessories. As to the likeness, the figure is said to be too full and round. It may be that the artist knew this, and sacrificed the matter of fact to the matter of art, rather than imitate a meagreness which would have marred his work and remanded it to the limbo of slouching figures which disfigure our streets and galleries. But it is said that the widow of General Jackson considers it an excellent portrait.

"The best view of the statue is from its left, with the nose just cutting the line of the cheek. This aspect will expose both limbs and the right arm, and mass the composition very effectively. The figure is about eight feet high."

MR. WILLIAM HART is now engaged upon a painting entitled "A September Morning in the Keene Valley." The view, however, is more of a suggestive character than illustrative of a real study from Nature; or, in other words, it is a composition of a pasturefield, surrounded by hills resembling in form those which are found in Essex County, bordering on the Adirondack region. The landscape is partly obscured by the fog which is drifting slowly up the rugged hill-sides. In the foreground there is a group of cows browsing as they move along to the richer pasturage in the distance. The cows are in the shadow of the trees which line the road on the right, but come out strong against a bright area of sunshine in the middle ground. There is no suggestion of autumn colors in the foliage of the trees, which are yet fresh and green, but the ferns and weeds in their shade show some rich, brown tones, indicating the approach of frosty weather. In the background, obscured by the early morning fog, there is a suggestion of a mountain-peak.

The sky is covered with light cloud-forms, and its tone is delicate and expressive. As yet, Mr. Hart has given but little attention to the detail of the work. His main object has been to get the composition in form, after which he will finish it at his leisure. The group of cows is the most advanced part of the picture, and its treatment is already well worthy of the attention of lovers of fine painting. During last summer Mr. Hart made a large number of studies of Alderney cows, and several of these have been reproduced in this work. There is a dun-colored cow, with a head almost as delicately moulded as that of a deer, and the red and mottled animals are equally noticeable.

Another picture, a work of cabinet size, by Mr. Hart, has also, as its leading feature of interest, a group of cows resting at noonday on the bank of a meadow-brook. There is a grove of trees on the right, and the left gives a perspective view of a pastoral landscape with great force. This picture is nearly finished. It is charming in tone and sentiment.

ONE of J. G. Brown's latest pictures is entitled "Pitching Pennies," and shows a group of boot-blacks, ranged in front of the street-door of a tenement-house, engaged in that familiar sport. There are seven boys in the group, and all have made their cast ex

forest-vegetation is more sparse, and the view is diversified by rocky hill-sides and other natural features which are peculiar to the region. The sky is partly covered with rolling masses of clouds of a semi-transparent texture, which cast tenderly - defined shadows here and there over the landscape. The ruggedness of the view is toned down by the introduction of a delightful atmospheric effect, which also adds greatly to the harmony of the scene.

MR. CASPAR BUBERL, a German artist of this city, who executed in marble Valentine's recumbent figure of General Lee at Richmond, Virginia, in so thoroughly an artistic manner, has sent to that city a statuette of the general which has excited the most favorable opinion of the artist's skill. The figure is about two feet high, in military costume. The pose is very artistic, and the grouping of the cannon, saddle, etc., as accessories, are happily introduced. The artist is spoken of by the local press in connection with the proposed equestrian statue of General Lee.

From Abroad.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

October 19, 1875.

cept one little fellow who stands in the fore- THE greatest art event of the past week has

ground, and is poising his penny in his hand and measuring the distance with his eye before making his throw. It is evident that he is acting with caution, and his movements are watched with interest by the boys who have joined in the game. The leading figure among the boys who are looking on is a bright fellow whose hands are deeply inserted into the pockets of his trousers as if in search of pennies; but he is "dead broke," and his face tells the story of his bankruptcy. The serenity of his mind is also disturbed by the boy standing by his side, who holds up a penny in a most tantalizing way. Another boy on the right is seated upon the doorstep, and his face, too, shows that fortune is against him.

These boys were all drawn from life, and are strong and spirited studies. The diverse expression thrown into the faces, of pleasure, hope, and despair, is a noteworthy feature in the work.

RICHARD W. HUBBARD is painting a large canvas illustrating an Adirondack lake-scene. The view is not strictly from Nature, but is more of the character of a reminiscence of the wilderness than a real scene. In the foreground, from a rocky bluff, the view overlooks a little lake toward a narrow and rugged valley, which terminates somewhat abruptly at the base of a picturesque mountain in the middle-ground. A swift-running stream flows through the valley, and at the head of the lake unites with the latter in a series of cascades.

The current of this mountain-torrent is felt for some distance in the quiet water of the lake, and forms eddies of white foam upon its surface. The background is rolling, and is covered with an unbroken forest to the horizon-line. Near the lake, and following the line of the valley, the

been the first appearance of Signor Rossi as Hamlet at the Salle Ventadour. It has been said that no Italian, or, in fact, the native of no southern clime, could ever adequately personate the melancholy Dane. Something of the Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon element appears to be necessary to the nature of him who would fitly embody this greatest of Shakespeare's characters. Still less does it appear probable that he who can personate Othello grandly would succeed as Hamlet. The two characters are, in fact, the antipodes of each other. One is the man of reflection, the other is the man of action. One is dreamy, poetic, gentle, tortured by doubts, and shrinking even from Heaven-commanded deeds; the other is fierce, frank, credulous, and rash. One is a fiery Oriental, the other a philosophical Northerner. Therefore, the very greatness of Rossi's Othello filled me with doubts respecting his success as Hamlet. The result merely showed how false such preconceived ideas may prove. I have never been so fortunate as to witness the Hamlet of Signor Salvini. But with the refined, poetic, and scholarly personation of Booth I have long been famil

iar.

Nothing could be more unlike Booth's conception of the part than is that of Rossi, and yet both bear evidences of the closest and most thoughtful study, and both are fully justified by the text, thus proving how complex and many-sided is this perplexing and fascinating character. The Hamlet of Booth is a refined, dreamy, philosophical personage, delicate in nature to the verge of effeminacy, nervous even to hysteria, sheltering his excitable, sensitive nature behind a feigned madness that becomes half reality. But the Hamlet of Rossi is really and pitiably insane. He comes before us in the first scene bowed beneath the weight of a woe too deep for words; he scarce finds greeting in the listless depths of his misery for his friend Horatio, and only the tidings of the appearance of the Ghost have power to arouse him from his apathy. In the

scene with the Ghost he is more thrilled with terror than touched with that fine spirit of yearning tenderness that made Booth's cry "I'll call thee father!" so exquisitely pathetic. But nothing could be finer than the gesture wherewith he flung aside the restraining hands of his companions and turned to follow the spectre, in grand scorn of death or of terror. Like Booth, he falls prostrate as the Ghost disappears, and in the "wild and whirling words" wherewith the act concludes we catch a glimpse of the catastrophe that this awful revelation of the hour has brought to pass-Hamlet is mad. Like some stately column overthrown by an earthquake, his noble mind lies shattered before us, wrecked by the convulsion that has hurled the moral world around him into chaos. Henceforward throughout the tragedy in the wild eyes, the pale, haggard face, the speech that varies from mirthless mockery to fiercest passion or deepest woe, may be read the story of his distraught brain. Read by this light, "To be or not to be" becomes the wail of a tortured soul, seeking vainly for rest and willing to rush forth to win it, even through the dread portal of suicide. In the words "To die-to sleep-" might be heard the passionate yearning of the breaking heart and burning brain for the slumber that knows no wakening, but with the utterance of the line "To sleep-perchance to dream-" came the swift shuddering recoil that showed what manner of visions haunted the restless couch of the hapless prince. His interview with Ophelia is touched with intensest pathos. He craves her prayers as one lost in an abyss of hopeless misery. He bids her "go her ways to a nunnery as a refuge from a world that is but one scene of anguish. He has, indeed, forgotten that he ever loved her. What have such fair visions as love and tenderness and wedded joys to do with the world of horror wherein he dwells? He has truly wiped away all "trivial, fond records" from the table of his memory, only to inscribe there one allconsuming remembrance. In the play-scene, he crouches at Ophelia's feet, toying with her fan and peering from beneath it at the King and Queen, and in the last grand outburst

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'Why let the stricken deer go weep!"

he shivers the frail toy of ivory to splinters in his convulsive clasp. The scene with his mother formed one of the grandest points in the whole personation, though his cry after slaying Polonius of "Is't the King?" lacked the fierce, triumphant tone of exultation wherein Booth used to give it. But the frenzy of his terror at the appearance of the Ghost, and the pathetic tenderness wherewith he besought his mother to repent

". . . . Confess yourself to Heaven! Repent what's past; avoid what is to come," were beyond description. In the scene with the grave-diggers and the struggle at the grave of Ophelia we prefer the gentler Hamlet of Booth. But in the last act Rossi was grand beyond the power of rivalry. With the shadow of the coming doom darkening over him, he makes ready for the encounter with Laertes. Profoundly mournful was the deliv

ery of the words—

"Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart; but it is no matter," and from the very depths of pathetic prophecy he utters the famed and beautiful speech

"If it be now, 'tis not to come," etc. His fencing is a very model of grace and skill. He changes foils with Lartes in a swift, graceful way, that renders the substitution a per

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