The Arts.

ITHIN two or three weeks there has

W been a very large and important ex

hibition in Boston of drawings from the public schools of the State. This collection, which numbered several thousand specimens, comprised a wide range of subjects, including geometrical drawings, designs for lace, calico, china, architectural plans, and problems in perspective. The work was done by pupils six years old and upward. Massachusetts, as is well known, took the initiative of introducing drawing into the common schools some four or five years ago, since which time there have been yearly exhibitions, each of which has been superior to the previous ones.

It is known by persons competent to judge that the peculiar genius of different nations gives a marked character to their art; and never perhaps so well have the temperament and sensibilities of Americans had so distinct an expression as in these little drawings made by thousands of Massachusetts children uninfluenced by traditions or preconceived ideas. Copied from natural objects, or designed on general geometrical princi- | ples, many of them seemed to us full of the nervous sensibility peculiar to the American character.

The general system of instruction in drawing is that pursued in the English schools, but in its application, outside of some leading and axiomatic propositions, the mind of every child is allowed, within the scope of these positive points, to work in perfect freedom. Among the designs, those which seemed to us distinctively American were the patterns for calicoes and wall-papers, and also for china. Uniting the unpretending, honest thought that characterizes so strongly the South Kensington School, the Minton china, and, in fact, all the good new English designs, some of the pictures in this exhibition had a delicate quality both in form and color quite unlike the solid and somewhat clumsy decoration of England. One design we recollect in particular, from a country school, that was based, we believe, on a hepotica, or wild-geranium-a semi-transparent flower, whose delicate petals possess in nature an almost gossamer-like fragility. The design was developed on the most rigid principles of botanical analysis, and in it were indicated, with the precision that marks every English pattern, the character of the green leaves, the peculiarities of stem and flowerstalk, and these, too, with the excellent English absence of unmeaning flourish or ornament; but more, we think, than the English or French character would appreciate, as a chief and distinctive attraction, the filmy, gossamer-like beauty of the petals and their lovely curves were dwelt upon, and so lovingly emphasized, that we could not doubt the motive that had prompted the selection of this flower.

Without the testimony of our own eyes, we could hardly have believed that under any system of teaching children six years old could have produced little designs of their

own so precise, pretty in proportion and in general form, as were some of these drawings made from dictation-lessons. But a few precise and rigid directions were given in the class, and these the children were bound to follow, and, after these instructions had been carried out, every little creature who is fond of wreathing flowers in its hat, or arranging stones or buttercups in pleasant forms on the grass, had but to put the same amount of fancy upon the plan that was geometrically laid down of squares, or ovals, or composed circles, and a pleasant picture was almost certain to be the result.

THE recent death of the French artist Millet has given an added interest to his pictures, so that the exhibition of one of the most famous of them, "The Sower," in the Loan Collection in Boston, has been made the subject of much comment in art circles.

This picture is somewhat known from engravings, but, like the large proportion of works of art, it is only the original that embodies its own especial peculiarity. Hung near the picture by Paul Veronese, of which we had occasion to speak two or three weeks ago, the merits of this representative of a new school, and a masterpiece by a great leader of Italian art, have provoked a good deal of criticism and many comparisons. Painted in an age when subjective literature and the most subtile analysis of human motives form the chief staple for the reading world in the dissection of character by George Eliot, George Sand, Balzac, and Kingsley, "The Sower," by Millet, is yet the most subjective picture we ever saw.

Strong as an athlete, the heavy-jointed, dark limbs of the Sower swing along as he moves down an open furrow of the field. His joints are big as those of a cart-horse, and the peasant-coarseness of the paintings by Courbet is mingled with the proud and thoughtful composition of his form. The upper part of his face is concealed by shadow, and his coarse lips and nose and jaw, resolute and sad, over which the daylight is playing, are the active power in a life whose spirit is delineated by the artist as in an eclipse analogous to that which conceals his eyes and forehead. A pouch of grain hangs round his waist, and from it he flings broadcast corn into the open earth, while behind him, and corresponding to the lower qualities of his nature which are stamped in the lines of his heavy mouth and jaw, "the fowls of the air" stoop to devour the ill-planted grain. Far off above him, in an upland meadow over which the sunlight is brooding, a man with his oxen is driving a plough. If the career of Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo's "Misérables," be fateful and hopeless, this picture of "The Sower" might be a fitting likeness of that strange character struggling against a nature whose good impulses seemed predestined to defeat; or to show in paint a man as entangled in the meshes of his own inherited proclivities as the fly in the spider's web in that most melancholy portrait of life in Hugo's "Notre-Dame."

Considered as a composition in paint, this work has many fine points. The swing and action of the figure of the Sower are free

and simple, and the expression of melancholy and strength entirely exempts it from any thing conventional or melodramatic. The beholder never thinks of the man as a posed figure, and the grand, simple repetition of lines through the composition is appreciated as solemnity and force, and not as a pedantic exhibition of the resources of the artist.

It is a good thing to be able at a glance to study two pictures and two standards of thought so diverse as this Millet and the Veronese; each seems to make the epoch of the other more distinct and appreciable. Comparing the two, it appears to us that no technical artist can resist the impression of the purity and perfection of the conditions that made such a painting possible as "The Marriage of St. Catherine." Beside the wild, impassioned, and withal somewhat muddily-colored and raggedly-lined picture of "The Sower," it hangs in its perfection of parts and delicacy of line and color, in its balance of light and shade, as complete and harmonious as a lily on its stalk, or an antique statue on its pedestal.

ALTHOUGH a great many monuments have been erected or completed in Germany since the last war with France, only one of themthe Hermann Monument, in the Teutoburger Forest-has, in every respect, a truly national character, and this commemorates an event which happened nearly nineteen hundred years ago. Now, however, the whole German nation has become deeply interested in the project of erecting a monument which shall stand as a memorial of the greatest epoch in modern German history-the union of the race against the French, and the formation of a new empire under Kaiser Wilhelm. It is to be placed upon the Niederwald, a lofty summit at the extremity of the Taunus Mountains, overlooking the Rhine. From this point there is a magnificent view, not only of the beautiful, vine-covered province known as the Rheingau, but also of the country on both sides of the river for many miles around, The monument will be distinctly visible for an immense distance.

The idea of constructing such a monument was first entertained very soon after the accession of the King of Prussia to the imperial throne. It was taken up with ardor among all classes of the people in every part of the empire, and preparations were quickly made for obtaining a suitable design. A large number of designs were submitted to the committee of judges by many noted German artists, but the one offered by Professor Johannes Schilling, of Dresden, was unanimously declared to be the most appropriate and meritorious.

This symbol of German unity will probably be about ninety feet high, and not less than sixty in width at the base. The dimensions, however, have not yet been given with exactness. It will be constructed of differently-colored granite, with figures of bronze. To the right and left of the socle, or broad, projecting lower pedestal, which will form the centre of the base, there will be terraced walls surmounted at each end by a colossal bronze candelabrum. In the middle of this socle there will be a sculptured group, repre

has been the case in many instances, to obtain a place of exhibition before there is any thing to show. The other details of such an institution, as the procuring of suitable men to give the practical instruction we have spoken of, and the providing of sufficient funds to meet the current expenses, will also obtain in time whatever is necessary for their execution. It is now two years since Baron Schwarz-Senborn set to work at his scheme of raising the intellectual condition of the working-classes in his own country, and his Athenæum, the only monument of the Vienna Exhibition still standing, is now quite prosperous and efficient. Yours respectfully,

THE

G. A. F. VAN RHYN.

From Abroad.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

HE celebrated historical Château of VauxPraslin is to be offered at public sale on the 6th of July. It was built in the reign of Louis XIV. by the celebrated Fouquet. It originally cost eighteen million francs (three million six hundred thousand dollars), a sum which represents at least three times as much at the present time. Three villages were destroyed to form the site for the immense gardens, laid out by Lenôtre, which were counted among the wonders of Europe. The fountains were the model of those afterward constructed at Versailles. The famous Lebrun had adorned the state-apartments with admirable pictures. St.-Germain and Fontainebleau, the chief country-seats which the kings of France then possessed (for Versailles and Marly were as yet undreamed of), could not compare in magnificence with Vaux-le-Vicomte, as this palace was then called. The fountains, in particular, then a novelty, became widely celebrated. They appear to have surpassed those of Versailles by their admirable arrangement, by which a full view of them could be obtained from the state-apartments of the chateau, every cascade, jet, and basin, forming part of an harmonious whole; while the royal fountains are scattered, and have to be viewed separately; they are, moreover, at a great distance from the palace, and invisible from it. No trace of these splendid water-works remains the basins and imagery are there, it is true, but the Duc de Villars, whose father purchased Vaux after the overthrow of Fouquet, caused the leaden pipes to be dug up and sold, finding the expense of keeping the works in order too great for his purse to endure. Some idea of their extent may be gained from the fact that the lead thus obtained brought the sum of over a million francs. It was here that Fouquet gave the celebrated fête to the young king and his court, which was the ultimate cause of his downfall. He had the temerity and the madness, though a married man, to fall in love with Mademoiselle de la Vallière, then in the full enjoyment of the fickle affections of Louis. The dress which she wore at this magnificent festival is thus described in the memoirs of the time: "Her robe was white, wrought with golden stars and leaves on Persian embroidery, and was kept in place by a pale-blue sash knotted below the bust. Her beautiful blond bair, flowing in wavy masses over her shoulders, was adorned with flowers and pearls, arranged in seeming carelessness, but without confusion. Two large emeralds sparkled in her ears. Her arms were bare, and to break their too fragile outline they were each surrounded above the elbow with a circlet of gold set with opals. Her

gloves were of Bruges lace of the yellowishwhite tint then fashionable, but so finely worked that her delicate skin only appeared the more rosy beneath it." Thus attired, the tender and fragile loveliness of this flesh-andblood Ophelia, this anticipation in a court of Goethe's bourgeoise Gretchen, must have appeared even more charming than usual. Fouquet had already had the audacity to lay his heart and twenty thousand pistoles at the feet of this gentlest and sweetest of erring women, and had received an indignant repulse, notwithstanding which he was weak and wicked enough to place her portrait among those of his acknowledged conquests in a private cabinet at Vaux. He also took advantage of her presence at the fête to approach her anew with an avowal of his unwelcome passion, a circumstance which the lady at once revealed to her royal lover. Some one, thinking to injure La Vallière in the estimation of Louis, had already informed him of the presence of her portrait in the private cabinet, and from that hour the downfall of Fouquet was resolved upon.

From the family of Villars the palace passed into the possession of the Count de Choiseul-Praslin, cousin to the celebrated Duc de Choiseul, minister to Louis XV. By Madame de Pompadour's influence, the count was created a duke under the title of Duc de Praslin, the old château was rechristened anew by the title of Vaux-Praslin, and it has remained in possession of that family up to the present time. Hither, in 1825, the young Marquis de Praslin brought his bride, Fanny Sebastiani, the daughter of Marshal Sebastiani, to pass the honey-moon, the bridegroom being but twenty-one years of age and the bride eighA mutual affection presided at this union, and it was destined to be still further cemented by the birth of numerous offspring. Twenty-two years later the wife, then the Duchesse de Praslin, was murdered by her husband under circumstances of peculiar horror -not, however, at Vaux-Praslin, but in the Paris residence of the family on the ChampsElysées. Tradition still preserves many anecdotes of the good and charitable deeds of the unfortunate lady, who was the earthly providence of all the poor people dwelling around the château whenever she came to take up her residence there.

teen.

The family having fallen into poverty, the present duke resolved to mend his fortunes by marrying an heiress. A lovely American girl, the daughter of an immensely wealthy NewYorker, was selected by him for the doubtful honor of becoming Duchesse de Praslin, a title which had never been borne by any woman since the fatal night on which his mother had perished by his father's hand. The preliminary arrangements were wellnigh concluded, when in an evil hour the duke invited the object of his affections and her father to a lunch at Vaux-Praslin. The shrewd American came, saw, and investigated the huge pile of half- ruined buildings, and, finding that three hundred thousand dollars would be needed to put the château in thorough repair, and sixty thousand dollars per annum to keep it up and enable the young people to live in it, he very sensibly broke off the match. The duke afterward married an American lady, and it is said that the union is wholly one of affection. At all events, Vaux-Praslin is to be sold, as I said before, on the 6th of July. The estate is to be divided up into lots, and it is quite probable that the château itself will be torn down. The day for huge edifices and gigantic estates for the residence of private individuals in France has passed away.

The Figaro continues to publish extracts from the interesting and gossipy memoirs of the veteran actor Laferrière. One of the later chapters gives an account of the funeral of the great actress Marie Dorval, her who was the only rival really feared by Mademoiselle Mars when the latter was in the height of her career. Madame Dorval was the original Marion Delorme and Catarina of Victor Hugo's "Marion Delorme" and "Angelo," and she also created the heroines of several of the principal plays of the elder Dumas. She was the queen of the theatres of the Boulevard, as was Mademoiselle Mars of the Comédie Française. In her later days, though her talent was unimpaired, she lost her hold on the affections of the fickle Parisian public. Her last engagement was a total failure, and was canceled. by the directors of the theatre at which she appeared (the Théâtre Historique) after the first three nights. This failure, and the death of a little grandchild to whom she was much attached, broke the poor actress's heart. She survived the blow but a short time, and the desertion which had attended her last appearance was not lacking at her funeral. Laferrière says: "Her hearse passed through the careless crowd followed only by a few faithful friends. I was of the number, as were also Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, one or two of the sociétaires of the Comédie Française, a few authors, a few of her former comrades; and that was all. On the outer boulevard leading to the cemetery two men of the people stopped to look at the melancholy cortège. One said to the other:

"Why, that is Dorval's funeral.'

"It isn't possible,' remarked his comrade, 'there is nobody at it.'

"She had ceased to make money,' answered the other, shrugging his shoulders. And they went their ways. That speech came near being the only funeral oration of Dorval, When we were ranged around the grave, the grave-digger, after throwing in the first shovelful of earth, leaned on his spade and seemed to wait. A dead silence ensued, people looked at each other, but no one stirred. At last a young man, perceiving this singular abstention, came quickly forward, and, in a voice trembling with emotion, made a few remarks full of touching sympathy. That young man was Camille Doucet,* then a simple author. That was one of the many good actions of his life, which numbers so many. He has often been reproached for his skillful diplomacy, but I have never known any thing of him but his heart.

"As we were about to withdraw, a woman, supported by two servants, advanced to the brink of the yawning grave and gazed into it for some moments in mournful contemplation. That woman, enveloped in a black veil like Rodogune, and who bore on her majestic features the traces of a beauty once world-renowned, was Mademoiselle Georges. She said but two words, Poor woman!' But they were said in such a way that a unanimous sob broke from every breast. I have never heard any thing that was at once more simple and more grand."

Laferrière gives the following account of an interview which he once had with Victor Hugo. He thus begins his narrative:

"I quitted the company of the Porte St.Martin in the following manner: At the first reading of Marion Delorme,' a rôle ́of about ten lines had been allotted to me. Youth is

*Now a member of the French Academy and one of the leading dramatic authors of France. -(TR.)

ambitious; it wants ordinarily to do more than it can, and to do less seemed hard to me. Therefore I refused the ten lines.

"Victor Hugo, being informed of my decision, invited me by letter to call upon him. I went to the Place Royale. The poet received me with his most majestic expression, and, without inviting me to sit down, demanded of me the reason of my refusal. This cold reception restored all my composure. Veiling, nevertheless, my resistance under a good deal of circumspection, I said to Victor Hugo:

"Your celebrity, sir, stimulates my ambition, and if I, an humble débutant, have permitted myself to refuse the supernumerary role that was allotted to me, I hasten to solicit from you the part of the young Marquis de Savernay. There, at least, my ambition will find a noble field.'

"But, however caressing my tone might be, it could not destroy the effect of that unlucky supernumerary' which had slipped from me unawares.

666 What, sir!' made answer the poet, in serious amazement, 'you have scarcely begun your career, and you already aspire to play the principal part in one of my works. That is impossible. As to the term of supernumerary,' which you have just made use of, know that ten lines by Victor Hugo are not to be refused, for they will endure.'

"And the poet touched the handle of the door. I withdrew.

"One hour afterward I had canceled my contract with the manager. I was free."

When a child, Laferrière was present at the debut of Mademoiselle Georges. Of her first and her last appearance on the French stage, he gives the following account:

"That evening, one Mademoiselle Georges Weimar was to play Roxana; the emotion in the audience was great. The evening previous Duchesnois had played the part, and the public, which always enjoys the spectacle of theatrical rivalries, disputed already respecting the relative superiority of the two actresses. The curtain rose.

How beautiful she is!' was the unanimous cry of the entire audience. No one thought of either analyzing or disputing her talent; she was accepted in her youth, in her beauty, and in that splendor which was like a canticle of triumphant Nature. Like Phryne, she had conquered her judges merely by showing herself.

"Duchesnois was forgotten.

་

"More than forty years later I was present at the last setting of this star-that is to say, at the representation which she gave at the Théâtre Français in the winter of 1854. Rodogune' and the Malade Imaginaire' formed the programme of that solemnity. The house was crowded; even the orchestra had been taken possession of by the public. When the three knocks had sounded, the curtain rose amid a profound silence. It is impossible to assist at a solemn representation at the Comédie Française, when the musicians are absent, without being impressed by the rustling of that curtain which rises slowly and majestically to reveal one of those palaces of painted canvas once inhabited by those sovereigns who bore the names of Le Kain and Talma.

"Cleopatra entered, clad in black and wearing a pointed gold crown surmounted with pearls. Never did a greater physiognomy produce a more striking effect.

"Pale, meditative, and advancing with that step which was weighed down by years, she came forward, leaned upon the back of the great arm-chair, and raised slowly upon the

public her magnificent eyes, then clouded with the immense sadness of a goddess who is about to die. She cast around her, above her, and afar, that veiled and mournful glance. She seemed to be contemplating the vanished years, and to be astonished at finding herself, after so much glory that was no more, still lingering so late in the vacant temple.

"Then I heard around me the same exclamation that I had heard more than forty years before, 'How beautiful she is!'

"The whole career of Mademoiselle Georges, her life, her glory, her genius, her faults, and her triumphs, lay between, and was explained by, those two exclamations."

Laugel's recently - issued work, entitled "Grandes Figures Historiques," contains sketches of Josiah Quincy and of Charles Sumner.

The theatres are closing one by one. The Comédie Française has revived "On ne badine pas avec l'Amour," by Alfred de Musset, and the critics are "going for " Croizette savagely, because in the last scene she reproduces the ghastly effects of the death-scene of the Sphinx, and that, too, when the personage she personates has merely to announce the death of a rival. LUCY H. HOOPER.

OUR LONDON LETTER. Ar the St. James's a new "musical folly " has been produced-the music being by Mr. Arthur Sullivan, the libretto by Mr. "Rowe." If I am not greatly mistaken, Mr. "Rowe" is Mr. W. S. Gilbert, than who no one can write more nonsensically (I mean this as a compliment). The plot is simple, and as unreal as need be. It shows how the Earl of Islington, disguised as a footman, makes love at the Zoological Gardens-the piece is named "The Zoo"-to a pretty bar-maid. A peculiar kind of love-making it is. His lordship drinks, eats, and flirts, with the pretty wench, and then eats, drinks, and flirts, with her again, the result being that at last he "stuffs" himself so full of buns and lollypops that he faints away. Then is his real rank discovered. On his coat being torn open, the order of the Garter is seen. However, the earl's intentions prove to be honorable, for in the end he proposes to the fair bar-maid, and she, it need hardly be said, eagerly closes with the offer. The various airs are very spirited; doubtless we shall soon have them on the street-organs. But isn't Mr. Sullivan wasting his talents in giving us such trivial work?

Miss Ellen Terry, who has so suddenly come to the very front of her profession, is paying the penalty of success. The green

eyed monster dogs her footsteps; her fellowactresses are intensely jealous of her. At a "five-o'clock tea" the other evening, at which I was present, Miss Terry's name happened to come up. "She is much overrated, I am sure," remarked one lady, a well-known tragédienne, poutingly, turning up her delicate retroussé nose. "Hard and uncultured to a degree-now, don't you think so, Mr. Blank?" Mr. Blank did not think so; but what could he do? He attempted to shuffle out of answering the question, failed miserably, and made her of the nez retroussé his enemy forever.

'Tis well to be an opera-singer-that is, of course, if you become popular. Look at the salaries some of the musical "stars" get! Madame Patti is just now receiving two hundred pounds for each night she sings at Covent Garden; while Capoul is having a salary of four hundred pounds a month. And, after all, Capoul is not getting so well paid as Faure

or Nicolini. They have six hundred and twenty pounds a month each.

Mr. Comyns Carr is the writer of the spicy World articles on the London press. Mr. Carr is well known as an art-critic. He has a capital paper in the Portfolio this month on the drawings of Albrecht Dürer in the British Museum-a splendid collection.

comes.

66

More new plays. The other night an adaptation of "La Dame aux Camélias was produced at the Princess's, and since then a new and original comedy-drama," as the author, Mr. Hamilton Aide, describes it, has been brought out at the Court. The adaptation-it is entitled "Heartsease "-is by Mr. James Mortimer, the proprietor and editor of the London Figaro, who has done his work not at all badly. His is a free adaptation; he by no means sticks to his text. With him Traviata, so far from being "naughty," is a virtuous and consumptive actress, by name Constance Hawthorne. Her accepted lover is one Herbert Maitland, the son of a rich old fogy. The old gentleman, when he hears of Herbert's passion for Constance, has an interview with her, tells her that Herbert can never be hers, as their grades in life are so different, and ultimately persuades her to run away from him. The climax soon Constance gains the protection of a Captain Bloodgood, but soon after dies brokenhearted, not, however, before she meets Herbert at a ball, and is unjustly accused by him of all sorts of things. Perhaps Mr. Mortimer carries the whitewashing process a little too far; but then, you know, every thing on the English stage must be strictly correct, except the dresses, and they, notwithstanding the lord-chamberlain, are, as a rule, as short above and brief below as ever. The heroine is played, with some pathos, by Miss Barry, the biggest woman-she is both very tall and stout-on our boards, I should imagine; while the hero is inadequately personated by perhaps our heaviest-built actor, Mr. William Rignold, the brother of him who has been turning, as we are told here, the heads of so many of your belles. On the first night, by-the-way, there was an amusing scene. Mr. Mortimer is out of the good books of the "gods." In his paper, some time ago, he called them "rabble," and they have never forgiven him for it; wherefore, whenever he appears in a theatre, they hoot and hiss at him, and address to him remarks any thing but complimentary. On this first night they made an energetic attempt to "damn" his piece. Again and again were the opening scenes interrupted by them; they "chaffed " the actors and actresses, and jeeringly called for their arch-enemy, Mr. Mortimer, himself. Suddenly, while Miss Barry was standing alone upon the stage in a pathetic attitude, in rushed Mr. Rignold, his eyes flashing fire, his great fists clinched. "Stop! stop!" he yelled. "If you are Englishmen, those of you who have mothers, wives, or daughters, remember there is a lady before you! For myself," he went on, still at the top of his powerful voice, "all I ask is justice! Hiss me, howl at me, if you like, but don't abuse me before you see the picture I am about to draw." This exhortation saved the piece. Silence reigned throughout the evening. The gods were completely cowed. Probably if they had known, as I did, that Mr. Rignold had merely repeated a bit of "copy"-that, as the opposition was foreseen, he had learned the words by heart, in order to rush in with them on his tongue at the most fitting moment they would only have laughed at him.

Mr. Aide's play (Mr. A. is a novelist and a song-writer) is far cleverer than Mr. Mortimer's; indeed, take it all in all, it is one of