considerable acquaintance with the methods and data of the leading sciences, a vigorous and lucid style, and great fervor of conviction. He evidently believes that the issue between himself and the "advanced thinkers "of the period involves the very foundation of all religion; and he addresses himself to its discussion with every species of argument, and all the force of eloquence that he can command.

As a specimen of skillful dialectics Professor Cocker's book is admirable, but it is open to criticism in several minor points. It was incumbent upon him to deal with science as it really is, and not merely with his particular version of science; yet we doubt very much whether scientific men would, with any degree of unanimity, accept his dicta concerning the "tendencies" and "conclusions" of science, for it would be easy to establish almost any conclusions if we followed Professor Cocker's plan of stating a proposition, citing in support of it those who it is well known advocate such opinions, and ignoring the fact that others equally eminent hold radically opposite opinions. Another similar feature of the professor's argument is the facility with which he will quote an author in support of some proposition which he wishes to strengthen, and ignore him when he comes to a cognate proposition which he wishes to refute. For example, Mr. J. S. Mill is quoted with great satisfaction in support of the argument that the uniformity of Nature is an induction from experience and not a primary intuition, but it is nowhere intimated that Mr. Mill held that the other so-called primary intuitions," for which Professor Cocker is more zealous, are "inductions from experience" also.

"The Theistic Conception of the World" is an able book, well worth the attention of thoughtful readers; but its chief value lies, perhaps, in the indication which it affords of the extent to which Christian metaphysics are being influenced by the progress of scientific discovery.

"THE CALDERWOOD SECRET," by Miss Virginia W. Johnson (New York: Harper & Brothers), is another illustration of the incongruity which results from the attempt to construct a romance out of the crude materials of our every-day American life. Somehow an old family, with a long pedigree beginning with a mysterious emigré, a venerable family mansion slowly crumbling into ruin, an ancestral curse operating through two or three generations, and a century-old will disemboweled from the interior of a Chinese idol, refuse to harmonize with the clatter of machinery, the broad daylight of common schools, and the fever of speculation on Wall Street. Had the scene of Miss Johnson's story been laid in Virginia, it might perhaps have been acquiesced in; but, when the locale alternates between a thriving manufacturing village on the banks of the Delaware and St. George's Square, New York, the obstacles encountered are too much for the imagination. The sense of incongruity is deepened, moreover, by the characters to whom is intrusted the working out of the plot. These are, or are intended to be, typi

cal Americans of the period, to bind whom in the fetters of romance would require rather more ingenuity on the part of the author than was displayed by Theodore Hook in his derivation of pickled cucumbers from the prophet Jeremiah.

Aside from this fundamental error, the story is well constructed and fairly readable throughout. Miss Johnson conceives her characters clearly, and possesses considerable power of delineation. Anstice is, perhaps, too pale-hued a heroine to catch the reader's fancy, but Andrew Keith and his daughter Maggie are thoroughly good portraitures, as are also the three Buckley Calderwoods, and the star-gazing clergyman and his wife. We never expect the hero of a woman's novel to be more than a highly-respectable aggregation of epithets, and Eugene Dillon acts his part in the present story about as well as most other characters of his type. The servant, Ann, would be a very good portrait but for a touch of grotesquerie at the close. Irishwomen don't go mad nowadays over the death of a mistress, and, if they did, their madness would hardly take the form of decorating a grave with flowers.

Miss Johnson's style is so good that it would really be worth all the trouble it would cost her to eliminate a few pet mannerisms into which she has fallen-for instance, the perpetual linking of her " scenery" to the particular mood of some one of her characters, or to some critical circumstance of her story. We might, indeed, renew our quarrel with the word "knightly;" but Miss Johnson, like other Southern writers, evidently uses it as a local euphemism for a man who keeps his face and hands clean, who lifts his hat to a lady, who resists all temptation to lie, cheat, or steal, and who indulges in fine sentiments toward the gentler sex.

THE papers which for some months past have been appearing in Blackwood's Magazine under the title of "The Abode of Snow" have been gathered into a volume, and re.printed in this country by G. P. Putnam's Sons. During the course of the publication of the series in Blackwood we several times gave our readers a proof of their quality by extracts published in our department of "Miscellany." "The Abode of Snow "—a title derived from the literal meaning of Himalaya (hima, snow, and alaya, abode)—is the result of "observations on a tour from Chinese Thibet to the Indian Caucasus, through the upper valleys of the Himalaya," a ground of which the world has hitherto known very little, and which Mr. Andrew Wilson, the present traveler, describes with a good deal of spirit and graphic power. Mr. Wilson is the son of the Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, one of the oldest and most respected missionaries of India, and had made lit erary reputation previous to this work by a history of the suppression of the Chinese Taiping rebellion. His trip through the upper valleys of the Himalaya was undertaken partly for his health's sake, partly for pleasure, and partly, no doubt, in order to make a contribution to the world's knowledge of an unfamiliar region. Mr. Wilson is an admirable traveler. He is a good

observer and a good relator; he carries his reader into the spirit of his experiences, and paints the scenes that he witnesses in colors that transfer them effectively to the imagination of his listeners. The general outline of his travels is as follows: Starting from the Himalayan Sanitarium Mussoorie (Masuri), he proceeded via Umballa to Simla, and thence struck off northeast, across the Hima. layas, toward Chinese Thibet, which it was his first intention to explore. After passing through many hardships, he reached the town of Shipki, a Thibetan frontier-city of considerable importance. Here he was met by determined opposition from the natives, whom nothing could induce to allow him to proceed into Thibet, or even to remain in Shipki itself. He was obliged to turn ab ruptly westward toward Cashmere, and set forth on a novel route for that famous valley. He skirted the northern slopes of the Himalayas, at an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet, often traversing remote valleys and gid. dy passes never before trod by the foot of a European. All around him was an everchanging scene, which for grandeur could be excelled by no other on the face of the globe. Now the reader descends with the adventurous traveler into a dark gorge overhung by precipices, with a foaming torrent for its bed, dimly seen through shadows and a film of rising spray. We are then taken along the crisp snow more than sixteen thousand feet above sea-level, and given a glimpse of a distant giant of the Himalayas towering some ten thousand feet higher still above us. We pass through Lahaul and solitary Zanskar, till the broad waters of the Jhelam appear before us, and we enter the charming vale of Cashmere. Thence Mr. Wilson continues his journey into British territory, and, passing through Abottabad and Peshawur, visits the Khyber Pass and a small part of Afghan territory.

The American publishers have evidently rechaptered the book, and in doing so overlooked some of the references in the preface, where we are referred to chapter twenty-nine for an explanation of how the phrase "abode "is a literal translation of the Sanskrit compound "Himalaya; " and to chapter thirty-five for another matter, whereas the American edition contains but ten chapters, all told!

of snow

THE Concluding paragraph of the Academy's excellent notice of General Sherman's "Memoirs" (written by Colonel Chesney) is as follows: "There were those among us, at the time of the great Civil War, who hoped that it would end in the independence of the South, not so much from sympathy for that side, as from the belief that, in the spectacle of two rival nations in the West facing each other across several thousand miles of border, there would be found a guarantee for the continued independence, if not the political supremacy, of England. Those who are still in that way of thinking must surely, we may hope, be few. Whatever may have been the merits of the quarrel, in the first place, the final issue of the war has been a blessing to the world. When we look at the state of Europe, and see how one great war becomes merely the forerunner of another, to be still more momentous and destructive; how we seem to be getting farther

2

and farther from the chance of peace, as whole nations are taken away from the work of life to be used in the work of death, and the neatest way of killing our fellow-creatures occupies every day more and more attention-one might despair for the future of humanity if we could not turn to the opposite picture presented by the Western world. There, at any rate, we have an instance where a cruel war has yet led to a lasting peace; and in the spectacle of a great continent peopled by an undivided nation, which has had the firmness and fortitude to put down internal dissensions at any cost, we have surely a political condition which is immeasurably superior to that presented by Europe, where the different nations, all armed to the teeth, are only waiting

for the chances of fortune to be on their side to fly at each others' throats. The condition of the United States shows, happily, that this -degraded condition is not an essential condition of humanity. And men like Sherman, who gave up their peaceful occupations in soberness and sorrow, and took to war in order to make war impossible in their country for the future, are patriots in the truest and most noble sense."

MR. CHARLES READE makes the extraordinary statement, in his last letter to the Tribune on the copyright question, that one hundred and twenty thousand copies are not a very large sale for a book in this country, and that he has known books that have quadrupled that figure in a year's sale. We should be glad to know the titles of the books that have met with this remarkable success. We should like to hear, indeed, the titles of those that have reached the sale of one hundred and twenty thousand. With the exception of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," we can recall no book that has met with a sale in excess of the last-named figure. Of course, we are not referring to school-books. Instead of one hundred and twenty thousand not being a very large sale for this country, onehalf the number is a very great success, and I books of some of the most popular authors do not attain a sale of over thirty thousand copies. Mr. Reade is wild in his figures.

THE Spectator has a very poor opinion of the much-trumpeted 66 Speaker's Commen

shown that the old orthodox notions and phrases are not true in their literal, and still popular, acceptation-as in reference to the Creation, the Deluge, the longevity of the antediluvians, and many other unverified traditions-these orthodox errors are dressed up in language made to look as like as possible to that of honest criticism within the lines of modern thought and knowledge, but really meaning nothing, after all."

THERE is one species of American literature for which the Saturday Review can always find a word of praise, and that is the official publications of the State and Federal Governments. Of Dr. Elliot Coues's "Birds of the

Northwest," published under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey, it says: "The book is one of reference rather than of use-for public libraries rather than for the private studies even of ornithologists; but it is a necessary link in that chain of information concerning the natural history and physical geography of their vast empire which the Federal and State authorities of the American Union have spared. no labor or expense to amass, preserve in print, and render accessible to students who may digest it for the general reader, or to inquirers who may desire an answer to a particular question. As we have often said before, it is only by means of such liberal official patronage that this kind of knowledge could be collected and published; and it is chiefly, if not only, in these official reports that it is to be found." The Rev. W. W. Gill has nearly ready for publication in London a work entitled "Myths and Songs of the South Pacific," which will contain a preface by Professor Max Müller. Mr. Gill, resident as a missionary for many years among the islands of the South Pacific, has taken down these myths and legends from the lips of the natives, and has, with great care, collated the several versions. . . . Among the autumn announcements of books of travel in London is "The Great Divide: A Narrative of Travels in the Upper Yellowstone," by the Earl of Dunraven.

...

The Arts.

EDDER'S pictures are so rarely seen

and place the theology of the English Church on the sure basis of demonstrated truth. It says, referring to the most recently-published volume: "Nelson, in reporting the rout of a Neapolitan army, said, 'They lost little honor in the battle, for, though they lost all they had, that was very little.' And the story recurs to us on reading the commentary on Isaiah in this volume; for we might say that small as have been the merits of the previous volumes, the demerit of the first half of this one is greater than could have been expected even in the 'Speaker's Commentary.' Whatever the promises in the original prospectus, every real student of the Bible knows that he need not look to that Commentary' for any thoroughly honest criticism, such as is available in all good commentaries on the classical literatures. Orthodoxy, not truth, is, we might say avowedly, the first object of the editors and contributors. In as far as orthodoxy coincides with truth, as it does in the main, these commentators uphold the truth with more or less, but generally considerable, learning and ability, though, being clergymen, it is mostly the homiletic side of the truth, with but indifferent appreciation of the great historical characteristics of Jehovah's chosen nation; but, wherever modern science has

in a public place it is the subject of much interest and comment. Vedder's position as an artist is a difficult one to define. Careful thought leaves it hard to discriminate whether it is his fancy which dominates his brush, or his knowledge of the expressiveness of paint that is superior to his poetical conception. He does not seem to possess great power in drawing or modeling the human figure; but, notwithstanding this lack, his people live in the memory longer than men and women whose hands are moulded to look like flesh and blood, or whose forms appear like veritable bone and muscle. Whether he is spiritual, sensual, or intellectual, we cannot define, nor whether his pictures are elevating or demoralizing. We incline to think the latter. At any rate, they are interesting, and they are always exciting. In two we have lately seen at Doll & Richards's, in Boston, one of them, a woman's head, makes us ask ourselves all these questions. Her flesh is pale and white, but it looks as if, should you touch the cheeks, they would be warm and soft.

Vedder understands, as we before remarked, the expressiveness of paint, for this flesh, not very well executed, derives its character and expression from the warm, red under-tint to it, which strikes the rough and permeates the heavy opaque white which forms the skin. We have often thought, when watching the eyes of a snake, a dog, a cat, or an ox, that it was only the tradition that they had no souls which made us deny to their pleading, shrinking, or magnetic personality, that attribute of man. The converse is not infrequently the case, and we have sought in vain to discern beneath the animal gleam, which lights the eyes of human beings in some cases, any indications of a higher personality. The eyes of Vedder's people make them appear to occupy this nondescript neutral ground, till we cannot say whether he intends them or not for the types of that strange phase of humanity deficient at the same time in human passion and in any immortal spark. In the same manner that Mr. Vedder compels this common red paint to express subtile heat and fire in his face, in this picture, he uses glazes and slight scumblings of purple and pale gray to describe and vivify a purple and white drapery about the shoulders of his subject, and make the modest and sober coloring gleam, and quiver, and sparkle, like lambent tongues of fire in the subtile recesses of the sea-waves.

This picture of a fair, young Greek woman, with laurel-leaves growing on a tree behind her, and draped in the pearly mantle, is called "A Sibyl;" but, from the perplexity it induces in the beholder, it might perhaps better be named "A Sphinx." The key to Vedder's pictures no one knows, so far as we can learn, and over and over again we ask ourselves whether tricks of paint he has discovered cause their production, or if, under an imaginative form, he intends to depict subtile and strange conditions of human consciousness.

The other picture is more comprehensible in its way, and is besides a very clever piece of composition of light and shade, texture and still-life. It is called "The JewelBox," and is a scene at a lady's toilet. Before a glass a sort of pre-Raphaelite woman, in girdle, brocade, and long drapery, which last hangs in heavy folds till it sweeps the floor, holds in her hands an open box, and around her are ranged all the fancy articles of a toilet. Beyond her stands a cabinet, curiously carved, and above it, half concealed and partially disclosed, is a tapestry of palegreen satin, embroidered with animals and flowers. The half light and dim shade in this portion of the picture form an admirable little "bit," especially combined as it is with various ornaments on the top of the cabinet, that give it crispness and sparkle. Behind the woman, and shutting off an inner room, hangs a red-pink curtain, and this is of the magical peculiar quality we notice in the mantle on "" The Sibyl." Half like the sheen on clouds at sunset, the rich fabric glows as if in broad sunshine, or more particularly still as if it gleamed with its own inherent light. A brown-porcelain vase contrasts strongly with this background, and harmonizes this composition together into a very

courses through the purple veins in those slender and perfectly-moulded fingers. The treatment of the hands is unquestionably the crowning achievement in the picture, as the face is in partial shadow, which precluded the introduction there of flesh-tints in high and diffused lights, for which Cabanel's pencil is so famous. The bust is draped with an under-garment of spotless white, which expresses purity, and perhaps sorrow, and an outer robe of a silken, pale-green texture, lined with pink. It must be admitted that "The Angel of Sorrow" showed faultless taste in her apparel, and a worldly longing after harmonious colors. The costume, notwithstanding the connection of the subject with ethereal things, does not disturb the harmony of the composition nor its exquisite expression of sentiment.

One of the largest pictures at present on view at Schaus's is by Du Paty, and illustrates an incident of the war between France

burned to the socket of the candlestick, tells the story of her weary work during the night, and the tired languor of her pose, together with the wan expression of her features, suggest the idea of exhausted nature. Her attire is well worn, but she is not in unwomanly rags." Mr. Mayer in his portrayal has maintained the connection of the subject with the text very closely, but the painful features have been so toned down that one is not shocked as might have been expected from its literal rendering. The figure is well drawn, and the surrounding accessories are in perfect accord with it. The coloring is rich, and the cool gray light of early morning, which is diffused in the room, is introduced and handled with great judgment and feeling.

Music and the Drama.

Island of Ré," in 1627. The subject represents the Marshal de Schomberg encamped with his troops around La Rochelle, when he receives orders to march to the relief of the Count of Toiras, whom the English had surrounded in the fortress of St.-Martin. The marshal has just received his orders, and appears seated in camp, in the midst of his officers, considering their import. Soldiers are grouped around in various attitudes, some in the act of examining their arms, and others marching in squads toward the beach. The quaint ships of the period, with sails bent, are riding at anchor in the offing, as if in readiness for the embarkation of the troops, and to sail. The picture is admirably composed, the drawing of the figures clear and forcible, and the perspective effect is excellent. There are no positive colors used in the work, but its brilliancy is nevertheless very remarkable. The sky is cloudy, and a gray tone, in consequence, pervades the landscape, which gives it an attractive as well as harmonious character. The work is treated in the broad and decisive method of the Spanish-Roman school.

THE artists are now returning to their studios for the season in considerable num. bers, and several of them have already begun their winter's work. Constant Mayer, since his return to town, has finished a large picture in illustration of Hood's "Song of the Shirt." The scene portrayed is in an attic chamber, with a window looking out upon the house-tops of a great city, in the gray light of early morning. The sewer sits in a quaint old arm-chair with her work held in her left hand, and partly resting on her lap, while her right hand is raised in the act of tightening the stitch. Her eyes at the moment are raised as if the thought—

"Of the cowslip and primrose sweet," or of the wish for

ized with the great powers of Ristori and Salvini in the histrionic art that they are prepared to accord a rare fruitfulness to Italy as the mother of noble actors as well as of singers. The coming of Rossi, whose reputation abroad is nearly if not quite as great as those of the former two, will complete for us our knowledge of a gifted triad, who have raised Italian dramatic art to a high place. While we would not forestall judgment derived from personal knowledge, the dignity of Rossi's place as a tragedian entitles us to give our readers some account of his life and career.

ERNESTO ROSSI was born at Leghorn, in 1829, and, like all great artists, has had a stern struggle with his conditions before finally achieving his ultimate success. He was sent to the University of Pisa to pursue the study of the law, but the bias of his tastes showed itself unmistakably almost from the outset. Jurisprudence was neglected by the young enthusiast, and he constantly haunted the benches of the play-houses in obedience to an irrepressible instinct. The bent of his feelings finally culminated by his desertion of university-life, and uniting himself with a wretched band of vagabond players, who were then giving entertainments throughout the country towns of Tuscany. For some years he suffered and struggled in vain with bis inauspicious surroundings, learning little more than the mere trivial details of his profession aside from that internal development which comes of all severe struggle.

The first vital impulse to his future greatness, as also to that of Salvini, his rival, came from Joseph Modena, an actor of striking creative genius, though but little known out of the limits of Italy. Shakespeare had not yet become known to the histrionic art of Southern Europe, and Modena was deprived of this key of international reputation, though in both Germany and France the Shakespearean tragedies had become recognized in spite of the war waged against them by the old school of classics. The example and teaching of Modena, who became deeply interested in his young compatriot, constituted the turning-point of Rossi's life. Genius, however individual and creative, nowhere displays itself more than in

the power it has of assimilating the work of other great minds, and perhaps no bigher tribute could be paid to the obscure Modena than that so freely accorded to him by both Rossi and Salvini in the acknowledgment that to him they owed the model and suggestion of what they have since accomplished.

For a long time Rossi struggled unacknowledged, though conscious to himself of great advances in his art-growth, and getting constantly the same discipline which precedes effective power. At last he became attached to the Royal Company of Comedians playing at the court of Turin, and his ability attracted notice. Madame Ristori was a member of the same troupe, and it was owing to her mediation that he was selected as one of the representative company who proceeded to the first International Fair at Paris in 1855. It need not be said that the young and unknown artist acquired little beyond drill and experience by this tour. The attention of critics and public was so absorbed in the great duel between Ristori and Rachel that the subordinate actors remained unrecognized, and Rossi's genius, had it been tenfold greater, would have remained in the dark.

Our young actor, chafed and impatient, soon returned to Italy, with the determination of forming a company of his own, by which he could appeal to the world in a more successful fashion. Three years were devoted to the task, pursued under great difficulty of collecting and moulding a troupe to his purpose. The unequaled fitness of Shakespeare as a vehicle of displaying histrionic power had already attracted his notice, for Ristori had made one of her greatest successes in Lady Macbeth. Rossi devoted himself to the study of the English dramatist with great ardor, and finally became confirmed in his resolution to introduce the plays to the Italian stage, and make them his specialty. He had not only to overcome the difficulty of securing adequate translations, but of infusing into his company the new spirit and school of acting demanded by the Shakespearean drama. It was long before Italian audiences could be made to accept the romantic and daring conceptions of the English poet, set as they are in such an extravagant wealth of incident, with any thing like enthusiasm. Tastes modeled on the severe and narrow standard of Alfieri and his predecessors could hardly be made to appreciate the boundless imagination which laid heaven and earth under contribution for its material.

Playing month after month to empty benches did not discourage his purpose, though it reduced him and his actors, whom he had succeeded in inspiring with much of his own enthusiasm, to severe straits. Perseverance at last, however, reaped its reward, and it commenced to be whispered in cultivated and critical circles that there was a new revelation of dramatic possibilities in the Shakespearean performances of the Rossi company. The tide once turned, it set with an ever-increasing flood of interest and popularity, and "Mabeth," Hamlet," Lear," Othello," ," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Coriolanus," were stamped with the seal of general admiration and approval throughout the Italian Peninsula.

Determined to extend his triumphs abroad, Rossi, in 1866, took his Italian company to Paris, and he was at once acknowledged by the leading critics, among the chief of whom were Jules Janin, the art-father of Rachel, Sainte-Beuve, and Théophile Gautier, as a tragedian of marked genius and scholarship. He became a favorite with the French court and aristocracy, and the fashionable star of Parisian amusements. From Paris, then the European arbiter of art-matters, the tragedian proceeded to Spain, Portugal, and South America, where his acting produced great enthusiasm among the impressionable playgoers of those countries.

In 1873 Rossi played an extensive répertoire of Shakespearean pieces at Vienna, and thence proceeded to Berlin and the other principal cities of Germany. Nowhere has Shakespearean art and criticism absorbed more attention than in the literary centres of Germany. The profound, almost fantastic scrutiny given to the great conceptions of the English dramatist among the countrymen of Goethe, Lessing, Tieck, and Schlegel, makes the interpretation of them a more than ordinarily trying task before critical and cultivated German audiences. Rossi was successful in passing the ordeal, and was warmly welcomed as not merely a gifted actor, but as a subtile and searching Shakespearean student. The Italian tragedian has thus appeared before the principal publics of Continental Europe, and it only remains for him to obtain the verdicts of England and the United States. He will ere long make his début in New York, when theatre-goers will be enabled to judge for themselves on what foundation his great European reputation

rests.

To Rossi, even more than Salvini, must be given the glory of having naturalized the greatest of dramatic poets in Southern Europe, where his name had hitherto been little more than a shining myth, or at best a closet poet, locked up except for the perusal of the scholar. This, if nothing else, will secure him a hearty reception among English-speaking audiences. Rossi's greatest performance is said to be that of Hamlet, a rôle unique in this, that, while any well-trained and thoughtful actor can produce it respectably, none but one of remarkable genius can interpret its deeper significance in a way satisfactory to cultivated audiences. While we forbear any thing like a prospective judgment or a guess at Rossi's effect on American audiences, we cannot refrain from copying an extract from a letter of Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke, published in the Athenæum, and written from Italy in 1873:

"Last night, at the Teatro Paganini here, one of Italy's best living tragic actors, Ernesto Rossi, gave a performance of 'Amlete,' the Italian version of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet.' It is a finished piece of impersonation, careful, and very refined. The mingled awe and tenderness that prevailed, his manner toward the spirit of his father, the abstraction and melancholy of his demeanor throughout, the aroused look of wandering wits when answering those who address him during his assumed madness, evinced scrupulous study of the author's text, and great power of acting. The famous dialogue beginning 'To be or not to be,' was delivered with a concen

trated earnestness of thought and impressed imagination that well merited the enthusiastic Although extreme quietude marked the genappreciation it received from the audience. eral tones and bearing of Rossi's declamation, yet he rose into noble energy when the passion of the diction demanded it, and his inflections of voice were varied and expressive. The fencing-match in the last scene was an exquisite piece of grace and manliness, while the closing touch of making the Danish prince stagger on to the throned seat, when effecting the death of his usurping uncle, and there towering above the mass of human ruin brought about by his kinsman foe, formed a picturesque and appropriate final effect to the drama. Ernesto Rossi's Amlete is a beautiful piece of acting, and forms an extremely interesting companionpicture of Italian Shakespearean representations to Adelaide Ristori's Lady Macbeth and Tomaso Salvini's Othello, of which latter I sent your readers a detailed description so long ago as January, 1864."

From Abroad.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

PARIS, September 14, 1875.

THE chief art-event of the past week has been

the production of "Faust" at the Grand Opéra. This revival, which the wide-spread popularity of the work has rendered peculiarly interesting, has attracted more attention than that of any opera as yet performed at the new opera-house. Every thing that could be done in the way of mise-en-scène and costumes has been lavished upon it, and only three firstclass singers were wanting to make the representation perfect. These, however, were unfortunately lacking. The scenery was really exquisite, and but for a certain lack of appreciation of the source of the libretto, the grand poem of Goethe, it would have been faultless.. The first scene, the desolate chamber of the sage, presented, of course, no opportunity for splendor or display. In the vision of Marguerite at her spinning-wheel, Madame Carvalho THE subject of music in the public schools decidedly spoiled the effect by keeping her is one on which the JOURNAL has had a word to wheel in motion. The weird effect of the tasay before, and assuredly it is a topic of no litbleau is only to be gained by total stillness. tle public interest. The time has come when However, we owe a vote of thanks to Maits treatment by the Board of Education furdame Carvalho for posing herself, and for not nishes matter of pleasure and congratulation. having a vulgar-looking chorus-singer dressed The slovenly and inefficient method, worse up to represent her, as is usual on the Eurothan its total neglect, in which it has been pean boards. Miss Kellogg was, I believe, taught, has long called forth the reproaches the first Marguerite who ever took her place in of the friends of musical education. The this opening scene in propria persona. The second act showed us a German village-street, Board of Education has become aroused to with the quaint-pointed gabled-houses all the facts of the case, and a radical reform is decked for a festival, but there were no signs promised. A committee was recently sent to of the Kirmesse anywhere, neither booths nor examine the system as carried out in the shows. The beautiful chorus of the old men Boston schools, and, consequent on their re- and the soldiers was sung by twenty perform. port, a plan has been devised which promises ers in each division. The stage was thronged to meet the wants of the public with an elab- in every part with peasants, soldiers, burghorate and well-devised machinery. Before ers, etc., and the ballet, which was danced this reaches the public, a chief superintendto the celebrated waltz-music, was charming ent of music, with eight assistants, will and thoroughly characteristic and appropri ate. Next came the garden-scene with walks have been appointed, one for each district, to and flower-beds and vast shady trees, but the systematize the teaching of music. Each atmospheric accessories were very poor, the assistant superintendent will instruct the moonlight coming all of a sudden just when it

teachers in his or her district in the method to be pursued, and give such practical drill as may be necessary. The chief will exercise a general supervision over the whole, and see that there is a general unity of purpose and plan. This is the system carried out by the Boston Board of Education, and with such success, too, that celebrated musical visitors in Boston have declared that to hear the school - children sing in concert is not the least of the many pleasures to be enjoyed in the American "Athens."

Now that public action has been taken in New York, we may look for thorough and effective work in this important quarter. It will take some time, of course, to get the new system in good working order, but its fruits may easily be forecast. Lovers of music and musical education can appreciate the influence which will be exerted on popular taste, and, with the preparation of such a vast amount of material in the rudiments of singing and music, we may look forward to the time when Boston will no longer be able to say, with justice, that it has the only really great choral society in the United States. When the new system is thoroughly organized, we hope to say something of it at more length and in greater detail.

was wanted in very primitive fashion. I once

saw

"Faust" performed in Berlin when this act opened under the golden and rosy tints of a summer sunset; these faded away to give place to a cold gray twilight; the sky deepened and darkened by degrees, and the stars came forth one by one, and finally the moon rose, and the act closed under a flood of silver radiance. In the fourth act we had a scene in Marquerite's chamber which I have never seen represented on the American boards, and which is apparently introduced only to give Siebel an opportunity to sing a second aria. Then came the cathedral-scene, very grand and imposing, a vast Gothic interior, seen in profile with the side of the altar, a dark, massive structure towering high in the air, and blazing with candles turned toward the audience. A low railing of white marble with an open portal sur mounted with two statues stretched along one side; it was through this portal that Marque rite came to kneel beside the altar, while the other worshipers passed on into the body of the church. The street-scene, where the "Soldiers' Chorus" is sung and Valentin is slain, followed, and was the most beautiful of all. It showed the ramparts of an ancient German town, with a steep, ascending road in the background leading through a curved archway; the battlements, crowned with statues of warriors, crossed the stage at the back, while on the right-hand side towered a mas