ness, basing his work on a theory derived from long thought and observation, uniformly, as our readers may remember, paints his skies of a deeper color and in a lower key than any other of our landscape-artists. Against this solemn gray-blue, or rather in the space it forms, he stretches out the level shoulders of the great hills and the long, waving lines of their summits. The gorge of Tuckerman's Ravine appears here far removed into the picture, and sunk in great recesses of the air that forbid the beholder to cousider it except vastly remote and utterly beyond his access. Near the summit of the range, and veiling the long, flat line of upland beneath the main peaks of the range, pale snow glimmers from out the vast hazy distance, while Thorn Mountain, the "Ledges," and the familiar near 'peaks, afford full play for the rich, deep purples and porphyry tones Mr. Inness knows so well how to produce. In the foreground again is spread his magnificent and subtile palette, and trees and meadow are massed with strong and well-characterized appreciation of their forms, stalwart or graceful, as the groups contained maples, silver birches, or dark pines. But the glory of this picture consists in the delicacy and spiritual serenity of the mountains, which seem like a great humanity raised ahove the imperfection and weakness of earth.

Another picture of almost equal beauty with the one we have just described, and very characteristic of another phase of Conway scenery, represents the gathering of a storm on the lower flanks of Mote Mountaiu. This mountain, which is about four thousand feet high, forms the western boundary of the Conway Valley, and stretches in a long ridge, broken by several small peaks, from the village of Conway to near where the road passes up toward the great Notch. Less interesting in shape than many of the other ranges of hills in this neighborhood, Mote Mountain has remarkable beauty and variety of color when the great masses of rock that largely compose it expose their red and yellow and purple surfaces over great areas, made desolate by the burning of the woods along its sides. Here are seen the last red clouds of sunset, and above its ragged summit lingers the last glow of the evening sky. On this side of the valley, also, are collected great masses of cloud and the vapors that precede the mountain-storms, which, descending the upper ridges of the mountain, settle down toward the valley below, and wrap its huge shoulders in obscurity and gloom. Frequently by day the farms and orchards that cover its base are bathed in bright sunshine, while the upper regions of the mountain are hidden by dense and dark thunder-clouds, which roll about it in round masses dun as smoke. It is such a scene as this that Mr. Inness has depicted, and, while many another painter would have left it uncertain how vapory and of what character the clouds might be, in Mr. Inness's painting the light and shade are a perfect tour de force, though pedantry of means is one of the last motives that ever influence this artist. Ruskin, in his wordpictures of Turner, describes the appreciative rendering by him of the minute and local features of a landscape, and in his storm on

Mote Mountain Mr. Inness's mind and brush appear most lovingly to dwell upon the great purple mass of the thunder-cloud, with its van of silvery thunder-heads; and beneath this mass of darkness he has painted the cool wreaths of mist, forerunners of wind and rain, which scud along in a lower current of air, and tangle and confuse themselves in the small clefts of the hills. A bright light still rests on the base of the mountain, and beyond it, stretching far down to the southward and the Ossipee Hills, masses of pink cumulus are the outriders of this storm.

Mr. Inness has made another painting of another day in Conway, for it seems to us that these pictures may be better designated as "days" here than as this or that particular view, in which pale birches and the pale, far-off Ossipee Hills sleep under bands of white, satiny clouds, and a sky whose blue is soft and sparkling with a silvery sheen. The sky looks very high and far away, and the whole atmosphere seems pervaded by the sense of warmth and peace. Like Corot's woodland pictures, the row of birches in this painting seem more a feature of this sentiment of light and quiet than to have been painted for themselves only, and their delicate leaves and white stems quiver and gleam in the breeze, which is slight enough only to stir this aspen class of forest - trees. Mr. Inness is best known by the strength and richness of his coloring, and by strong con. trasts of light and shadow. His paintings each represent a sentiment or a passion, "Nature passed through the alembic of humanity," as Emerson says. Yet his pictures are by no means ideal conceptions of Nature, and, were it not that the artistic instinct and the human feeling which dominate them were so much more impressive than their realistic forms, the beholder would suppose that he painted only for the pleasure of reproducing a daguerreotype likeness of natural objects.

As we remarked, it is usually the strong effects of scenery by which Mr. Inness is most conspicuously known. But such paintings as these silvery birch-trees show him to be possessed of a much wider range of power and of sympathy, and, while he is at home with storm and shadow, the quiet reaches of peaceful landscape are as near him.

THE Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was formally opened for the autumn and winter season of 1875-'76 on the 1st of the present mouth, has received several important additions to its collection of prehistoric relics and objects of modern art. In sculpture, the chief example is a life-size marble group of "Latona and her Children, Apollo and Diana," by the late Mr. Rinehart. The design represents the goddess seated in a reclining attitude, with her head bent forward, and gazing with an expression of admiration and love upon her sleeping children. The infant Apollo lies on his back, and his breast serves as a pillow for Diana's head. The idea conveyed by the pose of the goddess is that she fears for the safety of her children, and she bends over them as they sleep to preserve them from real or imaginary harm. The figure of Latona is draped, but it simply

covers without concealing the gracefully rounded contours of her form. The design is charmingly composed, and is generally conceded to be the sculptor's master-work.

Among the prehistoric relics is a sarcophagus sculptured from a species of calcareous stone, and recently discovered by General Di Cesnola in his excavations in the old tombs at Golgos. The sarcophagus is oblong in form, and has a roof-shaped cover, with nondescript animals, in high-relief, . sculptured upon the four corners. The side is ornamented with a series of scenes representing, evidently, some of the old heroes of mythology, listening to the music of graceful young women. The reverse suggests a sporting scene, with archers and spearmen in conflict with wild bulls and boars. The sculpt ured scenes are in low-relief, and, like the other objects discovered on the island of Cyprus, represent the dawn rather than the maturity of art. The ends are ornamented in the same style, but illustrate a chariotrace, and a foot-traveler, carrying a staff and bundle on his shoulder, and followed by a dog. This sarcophagus was somewhat injured on its passage to this country, but it has been skillfully repaired, and is as fresh in appearance, no doubt, as when entombed many centuries ago. The massive sarcophagus-cover, in the shape of a mummyfied fig. ure, which came from Cyprus with the original Di Cesnola collection, now rests upon its case, which has just been received. The cover was discovered several years ago, but the case was not brought to light until later and more thorough excavations were made. General Di Cesnola, it is said, has recently discovered another and more elaboratelysculptured sarcophagus in his researches, which represents a higher development of art than any thing heretofore recovered, and it will be forwarded to the Museum in a short time.

In the collection of bass-reliefs there are six new objects with inscriptions, which, it is thought, will prove of peculiar interest to the student and scholar. They are oblong in form, and were intended for the ornamentation of the fronts of the tombs in the ruins of which they were found. They are of calcareous stone, and rude sculptures at the best, but objects of interest as relics of prehistoric times. Several other objects of this character have also been received from General Di Cesnola; but, as the trustees of the Museum have no room at disposal for their proper exhibition, they will not be unpacked at present.

In the department of modern art there are a series of the original copperplates of Audubon's "Birds of America." They are neatly inclosed in frames, under glass, and were presented to the Museum by Mr. William E. Dodge. Another elegant object of art is an electrotype copy of the famous Mil. ton Shield, the original of which was first exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867, and is now in the South Kensington Museum. The design was by Ladeuil, and the work was executed by the celebrated firm of Messrs. Elkington & Co., of Birming| ham, England. Aside from the artistic beauty of the design, the exquisite mechanical

execution of the work is worthy of the highest praise. This rare object was lent by Mr. Charles M. Congreve, of Brooklyn. The collection of Japanese ivory carvings lent by Mr. Pruyn, of Albany, remains on exhibition as arranged last spring, and the gallery of modern paintings is composed of works selected from the best private collections in New York. It is probably the most valuable collection of modern oil-paintings ever opened for exhibition in a public gallery in this country.

PIETRO VAINI, the Italian artist who committed suicide when engaged in a dramatic recitation nt a social gathering at City Island, Long Island Sound, a few days ago, was a young man of brilliant promise, and esteemed for his attractive personal characteristics as well as for his art ability. He came to New York from Rome, his native city, in 1872, and his work from the first attracted great attention. He worked with the greatest facility in oil, water-colors, pastel, and crayon, and in the off-hand brilliancy of his touch and coloring, when using the former medium, showed himself an accomplished master of the school in which he was educated that of Rome. Vaini was possessed of a morbid fancy, and this is shown in his selection of subjects for his pictures. One of these, and the most shocking of the series, illustrates a dark story of intrigue drawn from Florentine history of the fourteenth century. The Duchess of Cibo, a noble Italian lady, being annoyed by the attention of her husband to a beautiful rival, procured her assassination, and had her decapitated, and the head sent to her private study. The head she afterward enveloped in her husband's ruffles, and sent it to him in a basket. The subject of the picture represents the dark-haired duchess standing beside the table upon which rests the beautiful head of her rival, and apparently gloating upon ber horrible revenge. In the delineation of this subject Vaini showed conclusively that he was possessed of a dramatic power of composition which was of the highest order, but unfortunately it was linked with a gloomy infatuation which led to his own sad end. Another subject of interest painted by him is entitled " After the War," and represents two poverty-stricken wretches seated by the wayside on a winter's day asking alms; but its sad story is too realistic to please the multitude, and, like the picture of the Duchess of Cibo, it remained in the possession of the artist up to the time of his death. Vaini at times touched with his pencil the follies of modern female costume with vigor and brilliant effect. One of these subjects, entitled "Fashionable Piety," shows a pretty woman partly kneeling and bending gracefully over the back of a chuir during prayer. Another picture is that of a young lady in fashionable costume posing gracefully upon one of the lake-bridges in the Central Park, in silent admiration of herself and the swans which are floating gracefully on the water at her feet. Vaini was also a successful portrait-painter, and probably two of bis best works in this specialty are life-size pictures of Madame Ristori and her daugh

lent basis for a gallery, which now, that it has so dignified an abiding-place, is a tempting place, where really important portraits can be most worthily placed.

Music and the Drama.

THE opening of the French opéra-bouffe

season at the Lyceum Theatre drew together a large audience to witness the first complete representation of Offenbach's "Madame l'Archiduc" given in this country. A somewhat curtailed version of the opera was presented last year by the Soldene troupe in English, but so garbled and changed as to offer but little of the characteristic of the original. "Madame l'Archiduc" has proved abroad one of the most popular of the recent Offenbachian operas, and it is so completely marked by the stamp of the composer's peculiarities as to demand but little general comment as a musical work.

The airs are merry and jingling, the concerted music conceived in the widest spirit of opéra-bouffe extravagance, and the choruses peculiarly bright and good. Whatever else may be said of Offenbach, his music can never be charged with being dull and tame. People do not expect to have their hearts stirred or their emotions elevated by such gay and superficial sparkle in sound, but they rarely fail to have a hearty laugh, or to find in the quaint and characteristic songs, if well executed (by no means an easy task, even if the music is of a trivial nature), admiration of something like genuine art. The peculiar intonation and coloring given, the singing is so subtly interwoven with dramatic expression, that there is often demanded a greater power of a peculiar sort than in the more pretentious opera. Mere singing will not suffice, for often the musical foundation by itself is too slight. Mere acting is equally insufficient, for in all the principal rôles there are enough of bright and pretty tunes, occasionally of really brilliant and difficult arias, to tax the art of an accom

HARVARD is comparatively in its infancy, but already a good many names of its students are illustrious in our history, and, for the past hundred years, good portraits of these men have gradually become the property of the college. Until the new Memorial Hall was completed, these paintings were hung in old Harvard Hall, but now they have been placed permanently against the ash panels beneath the windows of the new college din. ing-room, and sixty-four portraits of men prominent in history, or interested in the college, gaze at the visitor. As a fact of art-importance, here is a very fine collection of Copleys, several Stuarts, pictures by Trumbull and Stuart Newton, besides some by artists of our own time-Hunt, Page, Ames, and Healey. On the left side are fulllength portraits of Nicholas and Thomas Boylston in flowing brocade gowns, ruffled hands and velvet-tasseled caps. Benefactors of the college in the last century, and founders of the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, they, and their old mother, who sits in satin and lace, are among the most excellent specimens of the painting of Copley. Ten pictures by this artist form a collection by themselves of very unusual value and interest, numbering among them likenesses of Samuel Adams, of John Adams, and several other famous personages. Gilbert Stuart has portraits of Fisher Ames and John Quincy Adams; Trumbull contributes three likenesses: one of Washington; one of Christopher Gore, the donor of Gore Hall to the college, and the founder of a professorship; and one of John Adams. Sully painted the body and back-plished cantatrice. ground to a full-length of John Quincy Adams, but the paint is faded and chalky. Of the more modern portraits of artistic excellence are Page's President Quincy, and the beautiful picture of young Colonel Rob. ert G. Shaw, which was much admired in New York two or three years since. One of William M. Hunt's finest pictures is here, too -alikeness of President Walker, the picturesque qualities of whose mellow, wrinkled, and keenly-intellectual face have been well understood and delineated. Chester Harding has a picture of Lord Aberdeen, and there is a copy from Van Dyck's famous portrait of Cardinal Bentiovoglio.

In addition to these valuable works of art, many marble busts of famous Americans are ranged in brackets on the two sides of the room. The work of Powers, Story, Clevenger, Crawford, the two Grenoughs, and others, is immortalized in heads of Everett, Felton, Sparks, Walker, Judge Story, and other names familiar in American history. This collection of paintings and busts accumulated by the college forms an excel

Mdlle. Coralie Geoffroy, the prima donna of the present French company, has all of the wantonness and abandon of her predecessors, but lacks their finer art. Robust physical beauty and bouncing gayety of manner can hardly compensate in the art demanded by the opéra-bouffe stage for the seductive diablerie, the beguiling suggestiveness of Aimée or Tostée. It is less dangerous in a moral sense, but far less satisfactory as art. Every thing must be measured by its own standard. Mdlle. Geoffroy's voice and method are both far inferior to those of the other exponents of opéra-bouffe, and, while she has the best intention to vie with them in breadth and lubricity of suggestion, she falls far short of that fine artistic tact necessary to gild the abandon of the part in the minds of the more refined and cultivated auditors.

The story of "Madame l'Archiduc" is simple but effective. It hinges on a series of conspiracies supposed to be carried on against the Archduke Ernest. Count Castelando is suspected of being a leader in there plot, and is on the point of being arrested,

when he persuades Giletti and Marietta, domestics at an inn (Mdlle. Geoffroy and M. de Quercy), to dress in the clothes of himself and wife, and thus enable him to escape. The mock count and countess, under the charge of Fortunato, captain of the guard (Mdlle. Duparc), are arrested and carried into the presence of the Archduke, who is an original, and disposed as far as possible to turn the whole of life into a kind of picnic or burlesque.

Sentence is passed on the mock count and a quartet of comical conspirators, whose mysterious movements enliven the action with flashes of merriment. The Archduke, however, falls in love with Marietta, and at last is teased by her into the comical freak of intrusting to her the government of his duchy, with Giletti as prince-consort. Of course, affairs are turned upside down in the government. The new ruler indulges in all sorts of extravagant freaks, and the amorous duke finds himself no nearer than before in winning Marietta as his mistress. Finally, Giletti, the obnoxious lover, is sent away on an embassy to leave the coast clear. But he suspects the purpose, and returns at a critical moment, again frustrating the plans of the amorous duke. The story closes with the marriage of Marietta and Giletti, and the conclusion of the Archduke that he would do best to govern himself, and not interfere with the happiness of the humble couple.

The story is comical, interesting, and well sustained, and full of droll situations; and the music, as we have said before, bright and entertaining. There is not more than the usual amount of double entendre, a sort of negative praise, which must suffice in lieu of more direct eulogium.

M. de Quercy, the tenor of the troupe, is an unusually clever singer and actor of his school, and Mdlle. Duparc, one of the débutantes, has rather a good voice and style. The concerted music and choruses are finely done, and the opera is well mounted.

Among the novelties promised by Mr. Grau are "Le Canard à Trois Becs," "Indigo," and "Les Prés St.-Gervais," all of which made decided successes in Paris during the last season.

WHILE Mr. Barry Sullivan's Hamlet errs on the side of tameness, ns we said last week, his Richelieu errs a little on the side of noise. The personation of the cardinal is less even and finished than that of Hamlet, being more variable and marked, both as to its merits and defects, while it is far better calculated to impress a miscellaneous public. Mr. Sullivan's Hamlet is monotonous and dull, but his Richelieu is at least vivid, picturesque, full of strong contrasts, and never wearies, even if it does not wholly please, the auditor. Its defects are: that it lacks dignity; that the passionate scenes are without true fire; that the value and significance of many pas sages are not fully brought out; that the picture is not complete in all its parts, being without force here, without color there, without the hundred and one minute touches that mark the difference between the thorough and the imperfect artist. A personation that

has so many good and bad features as Mr. Sullivan's Richelieu is difficult to adequately characterize. Genuine fire the man does not (we should judge by the two personations we have seen) possess; and hence, in this particular, his performances will never be electrical, never exhibit the glow of true genius; but an actor who is so good in many things ought to be able to carry his study and his elaboration a few points further. He ought not to miss so often as he does the real significance of his language, and he should not so frequently lose the cue to the dominant passion of the moment. We will illustrate our meaning by one example: When François comes to tell Richelieu of the dispatch being wrested from his hands, he begs that his life may expiate his fault. Richelieu, quivering with excitement and disappointment, impatiently thrusts the proposition aside. "Who talks of lives?" he shouts, and rushes swiftly to consider the means of remedying the almost fatal mishap. But Mr. Sullivan has no quiver of impatience, no flash of eager passion, and pauses to strike an attitude and sleepingly debate the issue with the boy. Swiftness is a great force in dra

are simply attached to the plot like so many excrescences, their purposeless and motiveless coming and going soon become wearisome. The story of "The Mighty Dollar" has no national significance. It has no relation to the period, the country, the locality, or the characteristics of the people. It is just such a sentimental story as may be picked up any time in the magazines, and, to this commonplace outline, all that is added is a succession of scenes designed, with or without reason, to set the spectators laughing. A play that gives no insight into character, that has no new story to tell, that presents no faithful picture of persons or of manners, that is without wit of language or felicity of incident-such a play is an impertinence in art, however much it may contain in the way of farcical situation to set the theatre in a

roar.

IN "The Mighty Dollar," produced at the Park Theatre on the 6th inst., we were again called upon to accept a few incoherent scenes of broad burlesque as American comedy. 'As burlesque this new production is not unamusing; it is quite likely, indeed, that Mr. Florence's humorous personation of Slote, the Congressman, may become as widely known as Mr. Raymond's Colonel Sellers. Like that irrepressible speculator, he has his catch phrases, which, before the performance on the first evening was over, were current in many mouths; and there is nothing like a pat phrase to establish the popularity

of a farce. As a coarse satire in which the colors are broad, the features salient, the humor fantastic, this personation has its merits. The actor's make-up is capital; he quite sinks his individuality, indeed, in the part, and, as the external semblance is one that every one will recognize as truthful, there will be more readiness, on this account, perhaps, to overlook the extravagaut doings of the man. But there are defects in the play that may prove fatal even to its chances of a popular success. Art cannot be wholly disregarded at any level of effort. In this production there is a slight story, based upon the far from fresh incidents of the discarding of a lover for the sake of a wealthy marriage; and around the few scenes directly connected with this story characters and incidents rotate with the slightest possible relation to it. There can be no permanent enjoyment of characters or incidents in a play when they are not the artistic outcomes of the conditions of the story. If humorous characters

From Abroad.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

August 24, 1875. E are reveling in really exquisite weather now, bright, cool, and sparkling, after the more than tropical heats of the past week. The thermometer on one day actually rose to ninety-eight degrees in the shade. Think of that in a land where ice-water and baths are wellnigh unattainable luxuries! However, one does wrong to complain, remembering that we have only had two socalled "heated terms" since the 1st of June, and neither of these lasted over a week. A brilliant American lady, for some years past resident in Paris, once remarked to me that it was her experience that the average of pleasant weather in Paris was far higher than that of any other place-there were fewer uncomfortably warm days in summer, and cold days in winter, and fewer days on which one could not go out-of-doors. And such I believe to be the case.

The correspondence between Napoleon I. and his brother Louis, King of Holland, has just been collected and arranged by M. Bocquain. It is known that the resistance of Louis to the

inflexible will of of the emperor, who wished to destroy Holland, was greatly to his credit, although the very serious views which he took of his own regal rights were occasionally rather absurd. M. Frédéric Béchard has published a few of the most interesting of these letters in the Journal Officiel. Among these last there is one which bears on the tradition of the disputed paternity of Louis Napoleon and the reported liaison between Queen Hortense and Admiral Verhuel. King Louis desired to send the admiral to St. Petersburg as embassador. "I think," "writes the Emperor Napoleon to his brother, in 1807, "that it would not be proper to send Marshal Verhuel to St. Petersburg: first, because I may have need of him on account of the movements of the flotilla; and, secondly, because it is not customary to send a marshal as minister to a foreign court. Since you have established the dignity, you ought not to lower it. I do not enter into the reasons which lead you to part with your ministers of war and of the marine, who are just now very useful to you. But if you are anx ious to send Verhuel away, I should prefer you to send him as embassador to Paris." To this the king makes answer: "It is true, sire, that I have had private reasons for changing

terror triumphed over the lethargy, and enabled her to break its fetters. To the amazement of the artist, the supposed corpse bounded from the bed, and, seizing a mass of the

It is a well-known fact that Louis Napoleon, while multiplying portraits of Queen Hortense in every direction, studiously avoided any display of that of King Louis, and indeed official mention of his royal papa was seldom or never made. Rochefort, in one of the earlier and more witty numbers of his famous Lanterne, maliciously called attention to this fact, and begged to be informed why the " august father" of the emperor was persistently kept in the background, while his august mother was smiling in every style of portrait possible on every side. Could it be that the striking dissimilarity between the features of Napoleon III. and those of the late King of Holland would have provoked remark? Certain it is that a portrait of Admiral Verhuel is to be seen in one of the public galleries in Holland (I think at the Hague), and any one familiar with the long, narrow eyes, the attenuated features, eagle nose, and stony composure of visage of the late emperor, will be struck with the resemblance. The scandal may be false, but, false or not, it is universally believed in Paris, even amid the partisans of the late emperor.

A singular and melancholy mortuary relic was lately exhibited at a private soirée in Paris. It is the handkerchief which the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico held in his hand at the moment of his execution. It had evidently belonged to the Empress Carlotta, as it is a woman's handkerchief of small size, of the finest cambric, bordered with Mechlin lace, and bearing the arms of the empress embroidered in one corner. At the moment that he fell his fingers closed convulsively upon the handkerchief, which is spotted with the blood that flowed from a wound in the wrist. This mournful token of conjugal affection and misguided and betrayed ambition belongs to Don Andres de Valdejo-Arjona, a wealthy Mexican gentleman.

In the current number of the Revue Britannique M. d'Oroet gives some curious and heretofore unknown details respecting a famous model who posed for the Atalanta of Pradier and the young girl in Gérôme's "Cock-Fight," now in the gallery of the Luxembourg. She was also the personage from whom Henri Marger drew his Musette. She was a thorough original, and, though she arrived in Paris a young and illiterate peasant, she managed to educate herself, even going so far as to study Latin. While posing for the Atalanta, she ceased one day to come at the accustomed hour, so Pradier went in search of her, and found her, as he thought, lying dead. An attack of brain-fever had struck her down, and in a few days all was over, to all appearance. But this seeming death was only the rigidity of an intense attack of catalepsy, and poor Musette knew all that was passing around her. After the first shock was over, Pradier coneluded that he would take a cast from the corpse. The modeling of the hands and feet gave the poor patient no uneasiness, but it was far otherwise when it was a question of taking a cast from the head and chest. Even if care had been taken to keep the mouth and nostrils free, which in the case of an artist modeling a corpse was extremely improbable, the weight of the plaster on her chest would Infallibly suffocate her. So great was poor Musette's fright that the very excess of her

dier's face. The violent exertion did her good. A profuse perspiration ensued, and Musette was saved. But the sculptor vainly tried to win her favor again. She never forgave him for having nearly been the innocent cause of her death by suffocation, even though he did actually save her life. She refused ever to set foot in his studio again, aud Pradier was forced to engage another model to complete his Atalanta.

Schneider is making an ado again among authors and managers, after her usual irrepressible fashion. She was engaged to create La Boulangère a des Ecus at the Variétés, as I wrote you a few weeks ago, but she refused to sign any contract, and the other day, after exacting from the managers and MM. Meilhac and Halévy, and M. Offenbach, all sorts of impossible changes and alterations, she coolly walked out of the theatre, declaring, like a spoiled child, "If you don't do as I ask you, I won't play." Tired out with her whims, M. Bertrand, the director of the Variétés, took the | troublesome lady at her word, and engaged Mademoiselle Aimée to fill her place. Now, be

there merely, as the gentlemen dismissed the carriage at the race-course, and returned to the hotel on foot. Another friend of mine, who went to Spa to stay some time, found, on leaving, that he had been charged with two extra rooms which he had tried to engage for his children but was unable to procure; nor would the landlady consent to deduct the price of the rooms from his bill, saying that, as he had put more persons in the rooms he had at first hired, it had come to the same thing in the end.

The credit of discovering and creating the beautiful watering-place of Trouville is divided between Alexandre Dumas the elder, and a celebrated French marine-painter named Mozin. In the summer of 1825, M. Mozin, being in search of some new and good sea-views, quitted Honfleur, and in his travels reached a shabby little village on the sea-shore, the beauty of whose site bewitched and charmed him. He lingered there for some weeks, and painted several fine views which he sent to the next year's Salon. These pictures attracted the notice of the public, and a sudden influx of tourists to the heretofore unknown village was the result. The seal on the growin reputation of the new watering-place was set by the elder Dumas, who wrote a short article about it, full of all the exquisite sparkle and witchery of his style. On the publication of this article, a

A small but significant fact: M. Léon Say, the Minister of Finance, has suppressed the female figure representing the French Republic on the postage-stamps and coinage of France. The competition for the new designs for the postage stamps closed yesterday. Among the drawings submitted were several very amusing caricatures. One joker sent in an admirably - drawn figure of Punch, and another a very elaborate drawing representing M. Thiers in the garb of a Roman emperor. This new issue of stamps will occasion fresh worries and expense to the ardent devotees of that passion dignified by the name of philately and otherwise known as postage-stamp-collecting. Does any one know all the symptoms and varieties of this mania; how valuable a complete set of the stamps used in the government departments of the United States are; how there is a stamp used in the isle of Réunion whose value in Paris to a collector is one hundred francs (twenty dollars); how there is a regular exchange carried on once a week at the corner of the Champs-Elysées and the Rue de Marigny, etc., etc.? And can any one suggest a remedy for this fever which is at once exhausting and expensive? We pause for a reply.

We hear a great deal about the extortions of some of our American watering-places, but the experience of a party of four American gentlemen, who went down to the races at Trouville recently, rather surpasses all that I ever heard of in the way of charges on our side of the water, even at Newport or Long Branch in the height of the season. Four dollars apiece was charged for a bed to sleep in, all four gentlemen being put into one room. board, of course, was in proportion, and then the carriage in which they drove to the races was set down at sixteen dollars for the drive

The

entered into negotiation with the fishermen of the coast for the purchase of their huts and little patches of ground. He had made arrangements for the expenditure of some two thousand dollars in that way, when a cautious friend came along who dissuaded him from thus spending so large a portion of his capital. To-day the ground for which he had negotiated is worth twelve hundred thousand dollars.

There is a prospect that the new Hippodrome will be opened on the 11th of September. It is to contain ten thousand people, and the prices of the seats are to range from five francs down to ten cents. A stream of water is to be introduced which can be shut off or turned on at will. The Theatre of the Ambigu is to be reopened in the fall with a new company and a new director. The opening piece is to be a revival of the old melodrama of "A Son of the Night." Marie Delaporte was to have made her rentrée at the Théâtre du Gymnase in "Frou-Frou" this week, but the sudden illness of the actor who was to have personated De Valreas has necessitated the postponement of the revival of this charming comedy. The drama of "Jean-Nu-Pieds " has been withdrawn at the Vaudeville in favor of the great summer success, "The Procès Veauradieux." Mademoiselle Jeanne Samary, the lucky "first prize" of the Conservatoire, makes her début at the Comédie Française tonight in the character of Dorine in the "Tartuffe" of Molière. Only four of the Parisian theatres still remain closed-namely, the Ambigu, the Renaissance, the Bouffes Parisiens, and the Odéon. LUCY H. HOOPER.

OUR LONDON LETTER.

I KNEW that the works of your "good gray bard," Walt Whitman, are very scarce over here, but I must confess I didn't know till the other day that they are valued so highly. "Leaves of Grass," at any rate, is evidently much prized by bibliopoles, for, in one of our second-hand bookseller's catalogues, a copy of the first edition of it is priced at no less than six guineas, and a copy of the second edition at two guineas.