EDITOR'S TABLE.

WE

E give place here to a brief paper by one of our contributors, which touches upon a subject we have often discussed. We cannot agree altogether with the writer's estimate of lower - class dwelling - houses abroad, but in the main the views expressed are quite sound, and our national deficiencies,

so well pointed out, call for attention. Many of the poorer dwellings in the London suburbs are to us excessively ugly, and many of the better class are wholly uninteresting in their style of architecture. But, however mean or ineffective an English house in itself may be, it is always rendered in a manner attractive by the adornment of flowers and vines; and everywhere in England supreme neatness is the rule. The slovenly streets of American towns, the untidy condition of railway-stations, village roads, and commons, the generally unkempt air that pertains to all our country-houses and city-dwellings below the best, strike one fresh from English travel very forcibly. At the same time he discovers more variety, vivacity, so to speak, and picturesque character in many of our town as well as country houses. In England the houses are flat and bare to the light- necessarily so, perhaps, in that climate while with us the deep porch, the veranda, and the balcony, break up and vary the surface with picturesque projections. English streets are often very bare, cold, and uninteresting, on account of the long, flat line of houses, although the mellow tints of age often in part redeem the fault. Once transplant here English neatness and care of detail in garden, lawn, and street, and then we shall not have cause to fear, taking our structures as a whole, a comparison with modern domestic architecture anywhere. But hear what our contributor has to say upon this subject:

"One of the greatest charms to American tourists in Europe consists in the finish and simple adornment of the outsides of the homes of the lower classes. The natural order of things would lead us to suspect elegance in palaces, but, from our usual association of thought at home, poverty is synonymous with roughness of exterior arrangements. Of course, we are painfully impressed nearly everywhere in Europe by the squalid wretchedness of the habitations of large classes of the people, but side by side with these indications of ignorance and misery are significant marks of refinement and an old civilization. The history of the architecture of these dwellings of the poor is difficult to reach, but some obvious features of it have certainly arisen from the _circumstances of climate and from the supply of building materials. The deficiency of wood, xcepting in Switzerland, makes briek or stone o be used nearly everywhere; and the great heat of Southern Europe, and the necessity of making the house a stronghold, to some degree, against outside violence, have led to

ing impression, strong enough at times to eclipse the charm of all that Nature had done in the large features of the place. Succory and sorrel sprung up in every direction, interspersed

the building of very thick walls. The Swiss chalets, with their low, overlapping roofs, shed the snow readily, and their eaves furnish convenient lean-tos, where fagots and household commodities are conveniently stored. But al- | with patches of rough earth and unkempt grass.

Scarcely a cultivated flower appeared in the town, and no bit of garden, even a couple of feet square, gave indication that the least interest in the tasteful side of life existed in the mind of one of the inhabitants. Yet these people have time enough, and, except in the short summer season, are without pressing employments. Geranium - slips planted in boxes of earth in the winter, or verbenas or

most everywhere in Europe we see striking evidences of good taste and industry in the decoration of even the rudest dwellings by means of flowers, and, in many parts of the Continent, by the use of home-made lace as an ornament. The women of Europe, in fact, seem to use their hands more industriously than our women generally do, and are seldom idle, even when they are watching their children or sitting beside baskets of fruit or flow-mignonette started in the stormy days of ers in the market-place, and the fruits of this universal industry present themselves not

spring, with a little thought and a little time could relieve this disheartening aspect of a

has been blighted by man.

only in the lace of commerce, but in the lace | neighborhood whose untouched wild beauty that beautifies their homes internally, and in the external ornament of lovely flower-gardens. As we walk through the clean, winding streets of Antwerp, or toil slowly up through the Swiss valleys, in many a nook and at many a turn we see two little windows clad in the whitest net-work of lace, made by the poor people in the midst of their important duties; and behind or above this simple lace drapery the room glows with flowers, varied and thriving as a conservatory. In the dark cottages of England the same sight appears, and where these adornments do not exist, the beholder instinctively feels that hope and cheerfulness are absent as well as the flowers. In scraps of ground so small that in America they would be almost sure to be wasted, around the little railroad - stations on nearly all the lines in England, and in the little strip that divides the sidewalk from the house, are splendid clumps of roses, mignonette, fuchsias, and the best of our hot-house plants, most carefully tended and trained to cover a homely wall or to convert an ungraceful door or window into a pleasing one.

"In striking contrast to this tasteful and elegant finish, formed out of the cheapest and most accessible materials, are the rough, uncared-for towns and villages so generally found in the United States, and which are said to be consequent on a newly-settled country and the high price of labor. There is a great difference of taste as to the merits of a highlyartificial landscape, but in regard to the general qualities of the color of dwellings and the beauty of simple adornment there is no question. Within a few years, a number of wealthy and intelligent New-Yorkers, who make their

"The resources of flowers and vines are generally known to the wealthy class of Americans, and in their country-houses they have usually availed themselves of landscape-gardening. But it is only very lately that plants and vines have been introduced as an element of architectural effect. In the new houses in our cities whose walls are varied by balconies and by bay-windows of different shapes and of different colors of brick and stone, vines trail from story to story, and parlor gardenboxes full of flowers of every hue combine in a graceful mass one story of the house with another. Mingled with these are birds in their hanging cages, and tall plants growing in pots on the marble floor of the vestibule, which modify the dry, hot character of the house, and substitute for it coolness, elegance, and repose. But these villas and elegant town-houses form but a minor feature of the aspect of our country, and it is especially on its great democratic middle and lower class that we must rely for indications of the civilization and character of the people at large. The apostle of a good household taste in arranging and furnishing the interiors of our houses does real good, and helps to promote a healthy condition of society. In the same spirit we believe that whoever teaches people how they can make their villages and farm-houses more attractive does a really patriotic act, while he pleases and cheers the mind of everybody who looks upon a house and door-yard which, though humble in its material and construction, has been made beautiful by the expenditure of a little thought, and time, and taste. No house is so plain

summer home in one of the hill-towns of New | and homely that a woodbine, or ivy, or mornEngland, have carried out the idea of improving-glory, growing on a trellis over door or ing the appearance of the village by forming a club with the permanent inhabitants, in which simple principles of good taste in dwellings and landscape gardening are discussed. The influence of this club has been most encouraging, for the staring white cottages and houses that formerly appeared bare of vines and destitute of shrubbery in the midst of rough fields, stony and overgrown, are now turned into unobtrusive dwellings, brown with the tints of natural wood and the earth, the doorways shaded by woodbine and delicate and beautiful flowers lighting up and lending elegance to the little streets.

window, may not soften its rugged lines, and gray colors that tone with the landscape are usually more pleasing and not more costly than plain white paint. In time picturesque architecture will come everywhere, we doubt not, with red roofs, clustering chimneys, and pretty projections; but in the mean time, and while we cannot pull down and build over again our plain, square farm-houses and tedious rows of dwellings all alike in the village street, let all in town or country do what they can to vary and make beautiful their own and other people's bit of landscape."

THE little ones suffer and die these summer days, say the good Samaritans that go about among the poor. The air in the tenement-houses is close, the odors from the streets are unwholesome, and the little creatures hence need, we are told, the tonic of

"In these days of household-art, when it is sought to put beautiful and useful furniture within the reach of simple families, the adorning of the outside of our houses does not seem to have kept pace with the embellishment of their interiors. In a visit this summer to a popular New England resort, where sea, mountain, and climate, have done their best to make the place beautiful, the sight of the rough and vulgar door-yards made a dispirit- | the sea-side and the healthful breezes from

動

mons; such, for instance, as condemning a the costermonger, who was proved guilty of havning told a rival tradesman to "go and be

blowed," to fine and imprisonment. Dickhiens, in the "Sketch-Book," describes Docbtors' Commons as "the place where they

grant marriage-licenses to lovesick couples, Hand divorces to unfaithful ones, register the wills of people who have any property to Dit leave, and punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by unpleasant names." Since this was written, however, Doctors' Commons has lost many of these functions, and has come to be a mere dingy excrescence and obstacle to air and light; so the decree of delenda est is launched against it. Christ's Hospital is far more interesting as one of the great and ancient English charities. Who, that has visited London, has not seen the bareheaded "blue-coat" boys, with yellow stockings, running about in its neighborhood? Who, that has read the matchless "Essays of Elia," has forgotten Lamb's description of his early days as a "blue-coat," with their hardships and rough fun; where he was the schoolmate of Coleridge, who even then was given to long monologues on "the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus," and whom Lamb, remembering him as he was then, calls "the inspired charity boy?" It is a strange place, indeed, for a school containing not far from a thousand boys; but commercial London has grown up around it, where it has been standing above three centuries. It was founded by pious young Edward VI., and its income has gradually swollen by donations of state and individuals, till it has now attained the good ly figure of fifty-two thousand pounds a year. Many boys are sent thence every year to the universities; and once a year the lord-mayor and corporation proceed in state to Christ's Hospital to hear a sermon and sup in the great hall. It is thought best, however, to tear the fine old place down, and find a spot somewhere out of London for the "bluecoats," who will be greatly missed from the crowded streets round about Newgate.

ACCORDING to a current anecdote, a lady, whom a policeman had taken by the elbow

to conduct across the street, turned to him,

e and said, "Sir, if I wish you to touch me, I'll ask you." If this response to the policeman's attentions seems a little ungracious, it is really not so. The officer was only performing a duty for which he was selected, and he had no right to presume upon his position so far as to take the least familiarity with either lady or gentleman for whom his Services were required. It is not policemen alone who are guilty of this vulgar habit of taking people by the arm or shoulder. Car

are in the common habit of touching each passenger upon the shoulder when demanding his fare. It is not too much to say that any gentleman who found himself rudely touched in this way would be justified in knocking the man down, and equally justified in resenting such an offensive familiarity to any lady. And yet conductors and policemen are not so much to blame as their employers are. These men err through their ignorance; many of them, indeed, would be amazed to learn that there is any thing wrong or disagreeable in putting their hands upon others when no violence is intended. They have not been educated in those canons of breeding that teach the respect and reserve due to others, and do not understand that ladies and gentlemen with high sense of personal dignity cannot permit any one to lay his hands upon them. Hence, it is the business of those who place men in official positions to instruct them in all details as to their conduct. So long as this is not done, it would be well for every lady who finds herself familiarly handled in the way we have mentioned to resent the indignity in

some such manner as in the instance we have quoted, and for every gentleman also to utter his protest in a similarly quiet but effectual style.

in any respect than his, and none are more uniformly readable and amusing. The most omnivorous or the most blasé novel-reader can take up any one of them with absolute. certainty of being entertained. The extent

of our criticism is, that it has become easier for him to write than to refrain from it, and that his later novels partake of the defects inseparable from work upon which little pains is bestowed.

"The Way we live now" is a satire upon English high life, and a more despicable set of people, actuated by meaner motives, and performing worse actions, was probably never grouped together in a single novel. The trouble, indeed, is that the satire is too indiscriminate to be really effective; we lose our sense of the baseness of all knavery where the comparison is only between knaves and knaves, and no elevated standard is offered to us. The most malicious, if not the strongest, part of the satire is directed against the literary critics, against whom Mr. Trollope evidently feels that he has a grievance; and if his book has a serious purpose at all, it is to retort in kind upon the critics, and to let them know how little he esteems them. To this end we are introduced at the very beginning to three typical editors, whose characters are analyzed with great minuteness, and whose practices are exposed from time to time during the progress of the story. The first of these is Mr. Browne, editor of the Morning Breakfast-Table, "a man powerful in his profession-and fond of ladies." His praise of Lady Carbury's worthless book, "Criminal Queens," was obtained by that handsome lady's looking into his eyes, leaving her soft, plump hand for a moment in his, and resenting but mildly a kiss upon which he ventured. Mr. Booker, editor of the Literary Chronicle, is described more fully. "He was a hard-working professor of literature, by no means without talent, by no means without influence, and by no means without a conscience. But, from the nature of the struggles in which he had been engaged, by compromises which had gradually been driven upon him by the encroachment of brother authors on the one side, and by the demands on the other of

scious, simply acquiesces; and the involuntary or mechanical, in which actions are performed in the customary way, independently of the will. We are inclined to think that with Mr. Anthony Trollope novel-writing has reached the last of these stages. It would certainly be impossible to find in literature | employers who looked only to their own profan equal number of books which resemble each other so exactly and in so many ways as his last half-dozen or so of novels; and equally so to find any which indicate so little mental effort on the part of the author. His novels are always long-"The Way we live now" (New York: Harper & Brothers), for example, contains four hundred and eight large, double-columned, closely-printed pages -but there is no perceptible reason why they should not extend to thousand, or two thousand, or any number whatever. Mr. Trollope apparently leaves off at any given point, not because he has nothing more to say, or because he could not go on indefinitely in the same way, but because he thinks the reader has had enough of one combination of circumstances and one set of characters. Now we do not mean to intimate by this that we think poorly of Mr. Trollope's

a

its, he had fallen into a routine of work in which it was very difficult to be scrupulous, and almost impossible to maintain the delicacies of a literary conscience." He wrote for magazines, and brought out some book of his own almost annually; but he was driven by stress of circumstances to take such good things as came in his way, and could hardly afford to be independent. His praise of "Criminal Queens" (and very warm praise it was) was secured by a hint on the part of Lady Carbury that she was to review his "New Tale of a Tub" in the Breakfast-Table, and in doing so she was disposed to observe the golden rule. Mr. Trollope's most envenomed shafts, however, are reserved for Mr. Alf, editor of the Evening Pulpit, at whose hands he has apparently suffered in person. Mr. Alf had discovered the great fact that "a newspaper that wishes to make its fortune

woman, who, looking back over her past, yields to a longing to "write the story of that past, so that when the evening comes, and the companions of my life have dropped -away from me, and I wait alone till the time comes for me to go to them, I may not be quite alone, having them with me still in what I can remember of them." This sentence from the introductory chapter strikes the key-note of the story as to both substance and style; for the narrative is one which might really have been written for her own satisfaction by a refined and cultivated lady, whose life had been spent "far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife," whose experience had scarcely transcended the bounds of the domestic affections, but who had passed beneath the chastening hand of sorrow. Skillful as it is in construction, however (and ew fictitious autobiographies maintain the llusion more perfectly), the strength of the Jook lies in its character sketches. None of the characters are distinctly new, perhaps, though we do not at the moment recall a prootype of Mr. Leslie, the retired mathemati

the period; Aldgate will be very 'richly decorated; we shall be delighted with the exact representation of Lambeth Palace and St.

Mary's Church; and a popular actress will doubtless draw tears from sympathetic eyes when she exclaims that 'she has slain her Philip! It will be acted, and then, like all plays that want the soul of action, it will disappear from the stage. But, as an intellectual exercise, as a scientific study of abstract motives, as a stimulant of those subtile ideas which the luxurious modern imagination delights to substitute for action, as a monument of ingenious and refined expression, in all these points Mr. Tennyson's drama may long continue to afford pleasure to the reader. And more than this, at a time when the tradition of the poetical drama has been forgotten on the stage, it would perhaps be idle to expect."

THE Paris correspondent of the London Daily News gives a bit of entertaining gossip about the habits and occupations of M. Thiers. "There is nothing the matter with M. Thiers," he says, "beyond his seventy-eight years. His health is excellent, his spirits are elastic, and his activity is unabated. He is on foot between four and five in the morning. On

ian and student of science; but the special | getting out of bed he takes a cup of chocolate. elations and circumstances in which they are placed are sufficient to individualize them learly. "Tyne" (Eglantine), for example, Delongs to a not unfamiliar type of heroine, tet the tenderness, the reserve, the entirely eminine stand-point from which she is here revealed to us, give her the freshness and charm of an entirely original creation. The same may be said of Miss Leslie, the narrator, of John Elphinston, the curate, and of Joe Rollekins, the coast-guardsman, who, out of somewhat conventional types, are gradually converted into persons whose complete individuality it is not at all difficult to concede.

"Eglantine," in short, is a good illustration of the kind of success which may always be achieved by an author who is satisied to aim at what is clearly within her Dower to perform, and who respects that aim ufficiently to spare no pains in carrying it out. It is in no respect a great novel; but it is thorDughly good of its kind, and will add to the meader's stock of "harmless pleasure."

THE quarterly reviews have now begun to ndicate their (presumably weighty) opinion "Queen Mary." The Quarterly, analytical ad mildly laudative throughout, says: "To Im up our opinion of Queen Mary,' we are clined to think it the best specimen of the erary drama which has been written in our ne. It is, at least, admirable in form. It is tter than Mr. Browning's dramatic studies, ich have no form at all. It is better than The Spanish Gipsy, which has a hybrid m. It is better than 'Bothwell, as it has re backbone, and less of the enormous volde and verbosity which, we think, would alys prevent Mr. Swinburne from achieving cess as a dramatist. Of the dramatic spirit, the Shakespearean sense, the play, as we re said, has nothing; it lacks the personal arest which might recall the genius of nanal action, and excite the ardor of patriotby the representation on the stage of -it historic examples. It is guilty, too, of

blunder, at once historical and dramatic,

making a heroine out of Bloody Mary. Of rse, it will be acted. Tib and Joan will ear in miraculously accurate costumes of

..

..

He then runs about the garden, looking at the flowers, visits the greenhouse, and goes to see his horses. After doing this he ascends to his library, on the first floor, to work at his desk or to classify his papers. M. Thiers has several literary irons in the fire. He is still engaged on his philosophical treatise, and he is writing memoirs. A "History of Modern French Art" is also said to be in course of progress." The Athenæum observes that "young poets are apt to be low-spirited, not to say disdainful of happiness and regardless of mirth." Two new and important documents relating to Shakespeare have been discovered lately. One is said to show conclusively that there was no substantial foundation for the scandal concerning the poet and Mrs. Davenant, of Oxford; and the other is a quarto volume containing six plays issued during the life of Shakespeare, including the first edition of "Troilus and Cressida." Some of the best European novels are being translated into Spanish, and published under the title of "Biblioteca de Buenas Novelas." Works by Hendrick Conscience and Xavier de Maistre have been selected to begin the series. A rumor which will delight all true lovers of literature is to the effect that Mr. James Russell Lowell will begin to publish next autumn eight or ten volumes of English plays and poems, from Marlowe to Dryden, which he has undertaken to edit. The first volume will probably be devoted to Marlowe. Dr. R. B. N. Walker, who has been ten years located at the Gaboon, and with the French expeditions, is now on his way home with the intention of publishing his twenty-five years' experiences in Equatorial Africa, during which time he has visited nearly all the colonies and countries on the West Coast. The poet Seidl, author of the Austrian national hymn, "Gott erhalte unsern Kaiser," died at Vienna on the 18th of July.... Mr. Swinburne is said to be writing an article on Beaumont and Fletcher for the "Encyclopædia Britannica."

...

Miss Braddon is writing a new novel, entitled "Dead Men's Shoes," which will be published in various English, Irish, and Scotch journals. Translations of the novel will also

died at the age of seventy-five, lost his eyesight in early youth, but was nevertheless an indefatigable student, and during the half-cen

tury that intervened between his death and

the occurrence of the calamity which brought on his blindness he devoted himself to the study of classical and modern poetry. Among his numerous works special attention is due to his translations from Ovid, Goethe, and Shakespeare, while his collection of original poems, entitled "Primavera," many of which treat of blindness are very highly esteemed by his countrymen. A public library has recently been established at Yeddo for the use of both natives and foreigners. It is open all the year round, from 9 A. M. to 5 P.M., except on national and general holidays. Readers are allowed to make excerpts, but are not allowed to borrow books from the premises without the special permission of the Minister of Education. The tireless Mrs. Oliphant begins a new novel in the August Macmillan, entitled "The Curate in Charge." The new sixpenny English monthly, entitled The London Magazine, of which our London correspondent, Mr. Will Williams, is editor, will contain in its first number articles by Henry J. Byron, Charles Gibbon, Edmund Dicey (editor of the Observer), Charles H. Ross (editor of Judy), William Sawyer, Dr.. N. C. Bennet, Harvey S. Leigh, Austin Dobson, Frederick Locker, Lady Duffries Hardy, William Black, and Hon. Rodney Noel certainly a goodly array.

T

The Arts.

...

HE Inter-States Industrial Exposition at Chicago is announced to open September 10th, and the display promises to be unusually comprehensive and fine. In addition to the exposition of the industrial products of the West, it will embrace a large collection of paintings, sculptures, and other art-objects. Last year the art display, which was organized under the direction of Mr. Henry W. Derby, contained nearly six hundred works, the majority of which represented foreign names, and were selected from the best private collections in this city. The galleries for the exhibition of art-works in connection with the exposition building are six in number, and have skylights, and are in every respect admirably adapted for the purpose intended. This year the organization of the exhibition has been placed under the control of Mr. Stafford, who has made it his aim to give it more of an American character than the corresponding display had last season, and, with that object in view, he has secured the coöperation of Mr. R. E. Moore, of Union Square in this city, and Mr. William H. Beard, the animal-painter. By well-directed efforts they have already sent forward up

ward of four hundred works of art to Chicago. Of this number, at least three hundred and fifty have been contributed by New York owners, both artists and collectors, and a large proportion of the paintings represent American names. The arrangement of the exhibition is under the direction of Mr. Beard, and the plan is to form groups, so far as pos

Although the works of our New York artists will largely predominate in the exhibition,