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scene. The picture is a veritable comedy, the painter was surely in sympathy with the hero of the story, his works and talents when he conceived the tableau.

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SELDOM is a more correct picture seen, cor

rect in drawing, color and composition, than Gerome's "L'Eminence Grise."

Up the grand staircase of Cardinal Richelieu's palace ascend two by two a train of courtiers and cardinals, they are bending low, hats in hand, as they crowd to the right, while all alone, his eyes intent upon his breviary, his long lank figure clad in a simple monkish vesture of gray, descends his eminence, Father Joseph, of the order of Capuchins! The violent contrast between dazzling red, blue, green and black costumes of sash and bow clad and feather bedecked train, whose low abaisement far from signifies respect for the powerful friar Joseph and his almost meagre vestments, is sarcastic and trenchant indeed.

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**

MEISSONIER'S "Partie Perdue" (the Lost

Game) is one of those paintings which express so much, is so finished, is so final in all that it asserts, so self-asserting, that it is but small compliment to say that were the name Meissonier entirely unknown and the painting were placed side by side with the choicest of the world's most precious art, it would not be lost, you could not ignore it, it cries out for attention. Personally to us it is dry and hot in color. Another work by the same artist is "The Stirrup Cup," a traveller and a white horse and an innkeeper offering him refreshing draught; is on a panel 3 1-2 x 4 3-4, and is very full of sunlight and atmosphere, though a trifle "thin" in painting.

NEXT
EXT in importance comes Zamacois' "Levy-

ing Contributions," one of those monk satires for which the artist was so famous. It is a perfect gem in its way, though more sombre in color than was the artist's later works. It was painted in 1866. Vibert's "First Born" is a dainty work, very delicate in handling, preferable we think to his more brilliant Scene at a Spanish Diligence Station," though the latter is a strong example of the master. Jules Worms' "Uncertain Weather" must not be omitted

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FORTUNY'S portrait of "A Spanish Lady"

should be bought for some public museum. It is superb in color and modelling; the hands are equal to Rembrandt. The black waist and skirt are painted with masterly strokes. The cata-, alogue to the collection was full of copious notes ofttimes very valuable, but at others most ridiculously mal apropos. A hasty water-color sketched by the same master entitled Pifferari" was made the target for the following. As the picture was a mere sketch and a rather poor one at that, many comments were far fetched in the

extreme.

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"The champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere! Silence and passion, joy and peace

And everlasting wash of air,— Rome's ghost since her decease.

Robert Browning.

"He sits under a wall, among the ruins which chronicle his country's greatness and decline. The Roman sunlight warms him, while it soothes his senses as he blows his spirit into the rude and simple instrument of his race. He is resting from a journey, as his staff leaning against the wall denotes, and as he sends the notes of his pipe wheezing out upon the air, his eye dwells listlessly upon the lean flocks grazing amid the decay of an empire. His uniform is that of his class; a vest of red wool, blue breeches, and a loose shirt of coarse cotton stuff whose white sleeves show through his sleeveless coat. Simple his wants and few, he has achieved the crown of his ambition, idling by the way side, and silencing with the drone of his bagpipe the sleepy murmur of the cicadas and the dull buzzing of the wandering bee." Ernest Knaufft.

THE COSTUME RECEPTION. THE "costume" reception given at the Aca

demy of Design last Tuesday evening for the joint benefit of the American Water Color Society and the Society of Decorative Art was an immense success. The members of art committee, Messrs. Hopkinson, Smith and Walter Satterlee, had charge of the decorations, and the old Academy's walls down stairs were changed from commonplace paint and plaster into the

most tasteful and sumptuous tapestry bedecked and brocade hung corridors. Antique Spanish pillars loaned by Mr. Le Gran Cannon, bric-abrac hangings loaned by Mr. Devinne, the well known dealer, and bronzes and brass candelabra filled the halls and staircases. About the galleries richly covered settees and divans were arranged.

The Hungarian band furnished the music in the hallway, and Landers in the main gallery with fifteen of his men in costume played for the dancing.

Mrs. Richard Hunt, dressed in a Queen Elizabeth court dress copied from Holbein's portrait, and Mr. J. G. Brown, president of the Water Color Society, received the guests. A Venetian quadrille, a Sir Roger de Coverley and a French minuet were danced during the evening.

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Here are the names of a few who were present, with their costumes: Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, Venetian lady; Miss Louise Shepard, costume copied from Titian, “La Bella ; Mrs. W. D. Sloane, a Llamee dancing dress; Mrs. John Sherwood, Eleanor, Queen of Aquitaine, 1408; Miss Elsie De Wolfe, Italian princess; Miss Dora Wheeler, costume taken from Rubens' portrait; Miss Marquand, antique Watteau; Mrs. J. Sanford Saltus, Juliet dress; Miss Hunt, second wife of Rubens; Mrs. W. S. Webb, time Henry IV.; Miss Sallie Hewitt, Adrienne Lecouvreur, which she lately wore at amateur theatricals. Miss Elsie Leslie Lyde came in her Little Lord Fauntleroy, blue plush with point lace collar and cuffs. Miss Dora Lyde in a reproduction of Mary Anderson's " Perdita" dress of pink crepe.

I shall be very brief with the men's cos

tumes.

F. Hopkinson, Henry IV. costume; R. Swain Gifford, Charles I.; Louis C. Tiffany, Capuchin friar Percy Moran, courtier time of Francois II.; Leon Moran, German 14th century dress; Sanford Saltus, time Henry IV.; Geo. H. Galt, Capuchin friar; Richard M. Hunt, Cimabue; Edmund C. Stanton, Gustav Adolph, King of Sweden, after a Van Dyck portrait; Harry Le Grand Cannon, Francis I.; Edward Hewitt, Florentine, 15th century; Robert Hargous, apprentice in "Die Meistersinger"; Harry Marquand, Chinese nobleman. Mr. Louis Keller's, unique masquerade consisted of a General

Boulanger make up of full uniform and a sword once carried by the noted Frenchman. J. B.. Guilder, Directoire; J. M. Rutherford, incroyable, and Sanford White as Don Quixote in an armor costing $1,000.

MY STUDY.

I WAS only a poet and lived by my wits,

And very poor living it was, I've been told,
When death, who unheralded fortune remits,
A legacy left me in gold.

And now I will build me a study, I thought;

A room I have dreamed of for poet like me; Not like this, where so long I have labored and wrought;

But a thing to inspire it shall be.

So I found an abode that just suited my case,
And I frescoed the ceiling with classic design;
And the gold-papered walls showed me many a face
Looking down with regard upon mine.

Of curious woods was the floor of my room,

No stretches of carpet invited the tread;
But luxurious rugs from an Orient loom
Lay over the spaces instead.

My windows with curtains were hung rich and rare,
Descending from shining bars, fold upon fold;
My doorways were each a superb portiere
Of velvet embroidered with gold.

On bracket and shelf there was choice bric-a-brac,
And treasures of art the interior graced,
Here a bust and a vase, there a bronze and a plaque,
A blending of beauty and taste.

Then of pictures, of course, my walls were not bare;
Not many, indeed, but my favorite few-
Gerome, Leighton, Millais, Cabanal were all there;
And a gem of Meissonier's, too.

But my exquisite desk was the all perfect sum

Of my joy-it was something unique and complete

I fancied poems rising like incense therefrom,
As I sank in the soft-cushioned seat.
And now all was done and my future was framed,
The past I regarded with pitying scorn-
"Let me harness my Pegasus quick!" I exclaimed,
"In the trappings he never hath worn.'
With my paper before me and glittering pen,
I lifted my eyes to the wealth that was mine-
I gazed round my study again and again—
But my paper received not a line.

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As I looked round my room with an air of surprise That no answering muse met my beckoning call, An old print in a corner arrested my eyes

That had no right to be there at all.

I remembered it well, but how came it there?
It hung there, I'm sure, by no order of mine.
My eyes became fixed in a petrified stare

At this relic of old lang syne.

I remembered it well-'twas a thing of my choosing In days when such pictures my attic was bold with

Doctor Johnson The Vicar of Wakefield perusing In the lodging of Oliver Goldsmith !

I awoke-all my splendor had melted to air;

Not a vestige remained of the glory and gleam;And I sit in my attic, which boasts but one chair, With the pen that has written a dream.

William L. Keese.

NOTES FROM LONDON.

SAVAGE CLUB, January 26, 1889.

WITH the single drawback of atrociously bad

weather, the London season, so far as it has proceeded since the arrival of Christmas and the departure of Santa Claus, bids fair to be the most successful on record. All the best known theatres, without a single exception, are doing unprecedentedly large business, and the numerous (too numerous) variety shows, music halls, and other holiday entertainments are prospering as they never prospered before. Although trade is not improving, and many thousands of unemployed operatives are on the verge of starvation, it is satisfactory to know that the sixty or seventy thousand people who are employed in London places of amusement alone are, for the most part, earning fair wages and living in comfort if not in absolute luxury.

The dense black fog which, on New Year's Eve, covered this city of five millions of fog producing chimneys and the same number of human throats, with a blanket of total darkness, played havoc with all the playhouses and kept thousands of people at home who had prebooked and paid for their seats. The fact is that all vehicular traffic was stopped for some hours and the people who did venture into the streets were hopelessly lost in the fog, It took the present writer five hours to get by omnibus from the city to Kensington-one mile per hour, and we came to

a stand still and got lost-of all places in the world, in Fleet street. At some of the theatres, notably at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, the fog was as thick inside as outside, and at both those great houses the performance was gone through in dumb show. Outside the theatres, messieurs les pickpockets had a high old time of it and hundreds of robberies were committed in the most barefaced manner.

The fancy dress ball given at the Metropole on the 3d inst. by Colonel North, the millionaire "Nitrate King," was a very mixed affair. With the exception of Mrs. Bernard Beere, Miss Fortescue, and Messrs. Toole, Thorne, Shine, Sir Arthur Sullivan, and a few others, the great people of the "profession" and our great society magnates were conspicuous through their absence, Three thousand people were invited, but only twelve hundred responded to the call. Prominent amongst the guests were a number of Jew money lenders, several Strand restaurateurs, and some ve.y" shady" coryphees. Some surprise was expressed over the presence of Mr. Toole, who was almost fresh from the funeral of his only child. If it be true, as was reported, that the entertainment cost the giver of the feast $40,000. "Colonel Croesus" must have got precious little for his money.

With the exception of second rate pantomimes at Astley's and the Surrey, the Drury Lane manager has the field all to himself this season, and his" Babes in the Wood" is the only pantomime to be seen in a West-end theatre. It is a magnificent production and it is said that Augustus Harris expended $50,000 over the piece. The joint efforts of three authors were expended upon the libretto, but the book is poor stuff, and not very creditable to the literary trio,. The actors, as usual, have to invent their business and create their own fun, such as it is, but they do it very dolefully, and get more jeers than cheers for their reward. There are two performances daily, doubtless to the great satisfaction and profit of the artistes, who receive extra half salaries. The business is simply enormous, and the gross receipts are between $15,000 and $20,000 per week. This means a weekly profit of $1,000 for the lucky manager.

Covent Garden has again been turned into a huge variety show, with Hengler's circus thrown

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in. Mountebanks and acrobats are not quite at home in the famous old opera house, and the sawdust does not retain its old flavor. But the performing geegees and the very clever scenes in the circle afford great delight to overflowing audiences twice a day. Here, as at the "Lane", the juvenile element greatly predominates, and Freeman Thomas, the manager, has acted wisely in giving pantomime a wide berth this season.

Henry Irving has made the biggest success of his proud career with his new Macbeth" at the Lyceum, and I hear that every seat in the theatre is booked up to Easter.

Indeed, so great is the demand for places that the advance booking often exceeds $2000 per day. "Macbeth" is a magnificent and costly production, the grandest ever attempted on the English stage, and it completely puts "Faust" into the shade. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the performance is far from being faultless. The critics have been severely airing their scholarship over it, but they are by no means unanimous in praising the piece. Many of them are remarkably in accord in condemning it. Irving's Macbeth is certainly not so good as it was sixteen years ago on the same stage. He has mutilated Shakespeare without having improved him, and many glaring defects are discernible in his acting. Ellen Terry, too, discloses many imperfections in her acting, and she is probably the most unrealistic Lady Macbeth ever seen. She looks charming and graceful as ever, but she does not feel the part and she never grapples with it. I am afraid Miss Terry has been spoiled with too much praise, but she has more to unlearn than learn before she can play the part of Shakespeare's only ambitious heroine. Either of the three retired leading ladies who gave masculine utterance to the lines of the three weird sisters would have made a better Lady Macbeth than Ellen Terry. Some of the other parts were of the stage stagy, but Alexander as Macduff, and Wenman as Banquo, are excellent, and they stand out in bold relief from all the other characters in this very unequal all round performance. Sir Arthur Sullivan has composed new incidental music and poor old Locke has been " improved" out of the play. But, with all its faults, "Macbeth" is the talk of London. Irving has been laid up more

than a week with a bad cold (who ever heard of a good cold?) but his part is being admirably acted by Herman Vezin, one of the very few old school Shakespearian scholars and actors who are still left to us.

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Next in the category of brilliant successes is Sims and Pettitt's new drama, The Silver Falls." at the Adelphi. This at once “caught on" with the first nighters, and it is drawing tremendous houses. On Boxing Day the receipts were the largest ever taken in the theatre in one day, William Terriss and Miss Millward again sustain the parts of the hero and heroine, to the usual stimulating influence of thunderous applause. Miss Olga Nethersole, one of our new actresses, plays the second heroine, but she failed to create a favorable impression, and an unruly claque on the first night did her more harm than good. All the other parts are cleverly acted and the piece is very beautifully staged. When "The Silver Falls" have run their course Terriss and Miss Millward will be enabled to proceed to America to fulfil their engagement with Augustin Daly.

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Beerbohm Tree is admirably managing the Haymarket Theatre. He succeeded in working Captain Swift" into a solid success and the well written play has enjoyed a fairly long run. But Tree's greatest managerial coup is a beautiful revival of “The Merry Wives of Windsor" for a series of weekly matinees. In this the versatile actor-manager has quite astonished old playgoers by his remarkably artistic assumption of the rarely attempted character of Sir John Falstaff. Fat Jack has not been seen to such advantage since Mr. Hackett, the American actor, played the part on the same stage between thirty and forty years ago.

At the Iodrell Theatre Patti-Rosa, who is likely to prove a very formidable rival to Lotta and Minnie Palmer, and who must be sorely troubling the restless mind of "Yours Merrily," J. R. Rogers, is rapidly acting, singing, dancing, and banjoing herself into public favor. Patti is now playing a funny ollapodrida sort of a piece, called "Bob," to greatly delighted, fashionable, and nightly increasing audiences. A more genuine metropolitan success has not been achieved for a long time. Mrs. Iodrell, who gave her name to this theatre, is proving herself a capable

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