evil, would tear down the walls of natural limitation, and grasp knowledge, honors, and enjoyment, far beyond those degrees embraced by human experience. In the keen conflict Faust experienced between the ideal and the actual, the emphasis is chiefly laid on knowledge-knowledge all-comprehending, before whose potency all mysteries of Nature in the heavens, the earth, and under the earth, should flee away. It was a struggle for knowledge on the plane of a god, a sally for the conquest of omniscience, a rebellious impatience with the ignorance that remains in the human mind after all the sciences have been diligently and thoroughly learned. Mephistopheles, not an emperor like Satan, but a cunning devil of subordinate rankreally an incarnate sneer-offers Faust this supernatural knowledge on certain conditions. The thing sought is deemed the greatest good; the method of seeking it stood confessedly evil from the fact that diabolical agency only could secure for him that possession. The word Faust in the German tongue signifies fist, the symbol of combat, and that emblem is a true token of the central meaning of the myth and poem, provided we are careful to remember that the combat is not confined to the physical plane, but is an invisible fight between the strivings of the higher nature and the limitations and humiliations of the actual existence of man. It contains the problem to which every individual and generation of the race is born, the real riddle of the sphinx who devours those who do not answer it aright, the problem which is always waiting to be solved, and which few seem to solve wisely and well.

The Teutonic race had nothing greater in its early literature than the Faust-myth; and that it belonged to a stratum in the mental geology of Europe, is clear from the fact that about the same time similar weird legends appeared in other nations, that of Don Juan in Spain, that of Twardowsky in Poland, that of Merlin in England, and of Robert le Diable in Normandy.

Though the logic of such myths is in all ages substantially the same, the ascending scale seems to control their formation till the summit is reached in the German Faust, in whom the age of occult science, or of miracles of magic, forever expired. Faust is the last of his race. The problem is always new and fresh; he and his solution belong to the world's mythical souvenirs.

The Greeks, the most creatively æsthetic and gifted nation the world ever saw, doubtless had different ways for putting forward the subject of this conflict. Among the fables, that of Pythonous seems to hold the preference in this line of thought. His prayer to the goddess Aurora to be made immortal here on earth came from the same Faustian abyss of discontent and rebelling ambition in human nature as did the later legends. Pythonous had the attractions of personal beauty by which he had evoked the love of Aurora. Love in her could but grant the unreasonable prayer of exemption from death, which forced on Pythonous a new autagonism, wholly unknwn to his natural experience, namely, the conflict between the infirmities which age brought upon him and

his inability to get rid of his body. In praying for immortality, he had forgotten to pray for perpetual youth. So age came with increasing infirmities, and yet no release could be found in death, that gate being forever closed against him. This conflict eclipsed that which is common to all men in all times. Pythonous, life growing more tiresome, presents a new prayer to Aurora. He now prays for death. The goddess informs him that it is contrary to the law of celestial life that gods should recall the gifts they bestow. He now sees that he cannot undo his past folly and regain the condition he enjoyed. But, in his sadness, Aurora sent the only possible relief by transmuting him into a cicada, and permitting him as grasshopper to sing in the grass the song common to that race. Pythonous was the Greek Faust in a somewhat simpler form.

But has it occurred to us that the oldest, and I will say the grandest, Faust representation the world has read of is met with in the Garden of Eden, and that in the personal life of a woman? Such is the fact, and the same problem of which I have spoken is there present in all its magnitude, and in touching simplicity, in the story of Eve, the first woman, and the first Faust. Read the story under that view.

with the highest attributes of wisdom, the wisdom denied to mortals hitherto, I will run the risk of the consequences of disobeying God by going counter to his one restriction, and I will venture all upon the one object of being able to see and to know with the eyes of a god." It was, indeed, a grand motive, but, in method, a rebellion against the natural limitation. The antagonism of life was thereby freshly opened, and the endless warfare between the ideal and the actual begun. Her sorrows and man's sorrows became augmented. Though the earth should yield the nutritious herb, and bread to the sweating toiler, yet the eyes of humanity opened anew to the manifold antagonism which Nature everywhere presented. The wide world now became their garden, and necessity their teacher.

If woman relatively represents love, while man relatively represents wisdom, her earlier surrender to the temptation would imply that the primary appeals of temptation are to this element of being; and that, through the false leadings of love, the intellect also is drawn into the false way. So long as the reigning love is unseduced, the Eden remains unspoiled. As fruit may be gathered too early for health, so there is knowledge, good in itself, which may be prematurely acquired. The devil's method of knowledge does not end happily, but always ends in the loss of the Eden and in worse conditions. In the story, God's method of getting to the fruit of the tree of knowledge is not disclosed. Obeying awhile longer would have won it and prevented so much unhappiness. The first Faust, then, is found in the primitive garden, and in the person of the first woman.

It is immaterial to this survey whether we agree with Origen in regarding the story of the fall as an instructive allegory, or look upon it as a literal history of what occurred at the beginning of the primitive pair. The lesson is the same, though on a larger scale, if we admit with Swedenborg that Adam, like Israel, is a collective name for many, for the human race at that time. Under this latter view, Eve, representing the womanly half of mankind, reminds us of a period when the passion for knowledge became intense and all-spirit and method of harmonizing the elements commanding in the feminine part of the world, woman being the first aspirant for the supernatural fullness of intelligence, a wisdom on the plane of the "gods," making its possessor the peer + of the Deity.

Christianity is the highest solution of the conflict between good and evil, and gives the

of human nature in a good life, in which humility and aspiration are duly united.

REV. E. G. HOLLAND.

THE THREE AMERICAN PEERESSES.

IN

In the story of the primal Eden, the subtle serpent plays the part of prime persuader in securing an introduction to the source of knowledge. The reputation of this animal for wisdom among Oriental nations may ac N this centennial period, the links which count for this. Among the Hebrews, so late connect the last century of American as the day of Christ, the symbolization of freedom with the present century of Ameriwisdom by the serpent stood confessed in the can progress are few, and are gradually loosproverb, "Be ye wise as serpents and harm-ening and dropping apart. less as doves."

But, following the common belief that the serpent is only a metaphorical naming of the devil, the universal tempter, I will ask, What motive does he present to the woman in persuading her to violate the divine restriction? Does he promise her a future palace? or large stores of luxurious wealth? or elegant wardrobe? None of these things. Such motives had not prevailed. What was it? The serpent offered the same that Mephistopheles did, namely, a Godlike compass of knowledge. The cup was offered to the lips of a mental thirst. The quick thoughts of woman soon said, in substance: "Knowledge is beautiful and nutritious, and, if I may endow my mind

Time's effacing fingers will soon obliterate the general memory of a group of brilliant Baltimore beauties, the most celebrated by far in that city, renowned for its beautiful women. They come from the stirring times of the eighteenth century into our own day, for one died high in honor in England only last year; and one, with indomitable will and vitality, still lives-Madame Bonaparte, wife of Jerome, King of Westphalia, whose name and romantic career will come only incidentally into this sketch. Of three of the companions of her youth, the story is almost as remarkable as that of " Betsey" Patter

son.

In the year 1874, there was admitted to probate, in the Orphans' Court of Baltimore, the will of "the most noble Louisa Catherine,

Duchess-Dowager of Leeds, widow and relict of the most noble Francis Godolphin D'Arcy Osborne, seventh Duke of Leeds, of Hornby Castle, in the county of York, England."

that he found his Waterloo in the fair presence of Mrs. Robert Patterson, and that only the trifling impediment of a husband on her part, and a wife on his, prevented her becoming the head of Apsley House.

Her sister Louisa became the wife of the duke's aide-de-camp, Sir Felton BathurstHervey, baronet. Upon his death, soon after

Marquis of Carmarthen, eldest son of the Duke of Leeds, who inherited his father's title, and lived an easy, rural, fox-hunting, country life, and left his widow, the Catherine Louisa who, as we have seen, died last year, an ample fortune, and the dower-house of Hornby Castle.

The Duchess of Leeds, the most noble Catherine," as if she had stepped out of one of Shakespeare's plays, was the survivor of three sisters, daughters of Richard Caton, and his wife, Mary Carroll, and granddaugh--he committed suicide-she married the ters of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, "the signer." She left extensive estates in Maryland and Virginia, principally to religious uses. In Alleghany County, Maryland, alone lie some fifteen thousand acres, known-and this is one chief reason for mentioning the fact by such curious old patent-survey titles as "Anthracite Range," "Fat Pig," "Addition to Fat Pig," "Devil Take It," "Take All," "Last Shift," "Baron Devilbess," or, from some fancied resemblance to the objects, "Legs," "Gun," and other equally quaint designations.

We have said that the Duchess of Leeds was a granddaughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. The latter left two daughters, the eldest married to Richard Caton, of English birth, but a citizen of Baltimore; the youngest to Robert Goodloe Harper. From the latter, Mrs. Harper, the Bayards, of Delaware, inherit much of their talents. It was of her daughter, Mrs. Mary Sophia Bayard, that John Randolph of Roanoke wrote-the crabbed old man could pay a graceful compliment when he chose " Washington is dull, although Mrs. Bayard is here"-flattery delicate enough from him, the subtile bouquet of old times.

Mr. and Mrs. Caton had four daughters, who would have been called "the Graces," but for being one too many.

Three of them are, however, known in England as the "Three American Peeresses."

They were respectively, Duchess of Leeds, Marchioness of Wellesley, and Lady Stafford.

The eldest was Mary Caton, who married first Robert Patterson, the brother of Madame Bonaparte. The marriage ceremony was performed by Bishop Carroll, of the Catholic Church, in the chapel of Mr. Charles Carroll's private residence in Annapolis. It was the most brilliant wedding that had ever taken place in the State. With her husband, she went to England just previous to the Bonaparte-Patterson marriage, and we find Robert Patterson bothered beyond measure, while in Europe, with the affairs of his sister "Betsey," his slippery brother-in-law Jerome, and the angry first consul. He tried to pour oil on the troubled waters; but he might as well have trickled it out of a cruet upon the Atlantic Ocean. The final catastrophe soon came the separation; the second marriage of Jerome; the persistent refusal of recognition. Through all the trouble the records show that Robert Patterson, his wife, and his father, William Patterson, the Baltimore merchant-prince, acted very manly, frank, and honorable parts.

Mrs. Patterson had been joined abroad by her sisters, Elizabeth and Louisa Caton. They were in Paris when Wellington and the allies entered, and were conspicuous figures in the festivities which followed. They were favor. ites of the great duke himself, and it is said

The second sister, Elizabeth Caton, also married well--that is, she married a nobleman, and he was rich-the eighth Lord Stafford, of the Jerningham family.

In the mean while Robert Patterson had died, and Mrs. Patterson, a lovely widow, had returned to England. Possibly her heart turned again to the old Paris days, and the time of the Army of Occupation. As in Paris she reigned, during that period, in social circles, so in London her triumphs were repeated, and she could soon boast of having been the social queen of three countries, England, France, and America, and of three cities, London, Paris, and Baltimore. Nor was this all. After her second marriage she conquered the turbulent Ireland, and the still more turbulent Dublin, for she became the wife of the Marquis of Wellesley, Viceroy of Ireland, previously Governor-General of India, and the brother of the Duke of Wellington, a diamond edition of a British nobleman, as Hazlitt calls him, so gifted, small, and graceful was he.

Thus we see the "three American peeresses firmly fixed among the stars which revolve nearest the English throne. When we consider that only five American ladies have ever wedded the possessors of British coronets- the other two being Miss Magruder, of Washington, who married Baron | Abinger, and Miss Bingham, of Philadelphia, whose husband, Alexander Baring, was raised to the peerage in 1835 as Baron Ashburtonand that of these five three belonged to one family, the distinguished one in American history of Charles Carroll-the fact has an additional interest, which justifies a few reminiscences of an elder day and generation.

Many citizens of Baltimore remember, as visions of their youth, the beautiful Misses Caton.

These gentlemen of the old school who still remain with us, and retain all the fine old courtesy and softness of manners which are too often a dumb sarcasm on those of our pert modern age, delight to talk of the time when the Carrolls, the Ridgleys, the Olivers, and the Gilmors, displayed the hospitality of merchant - princes, and when their wives and daughters acted all their lives the stately parts we revive now for the amusement of an evening.

They tell us that Elizabeth Caton, who became Lady Stafford, was tall and remarkably graceful, with eyes of dark gray, expressing quickly both feeling and intelligence. She was more highly cultivated in literature than her sisters, and her society was more

largely sought by men of letters, and the statesmen and thinkers of the time, than by the ordinary beaux of society, for her mental qualities were brilliant and attractive. At the time of her womanhood it was an important part of education to cultivate a talent for conversation. If a man of celebrity at a dinner-party or elsewhere began to speak on an interesting subject, it was the custom for all the guests to listen to him, and if replied to, as was often the case, the encounter became a spirited debate, or a sharp cut and thrust of wit. Ladies never entered the field at dinner; but at eveningparties their share in these contests was conceded them, and among those who carried off the palm of victory most often was Miss Elizabeth Caton. She was less admired in Europe, however, than her more showy sis

ters.

The third daughter, Louisa Caton, afterward Duchess of Leeds, was small of stature, but of a beautiful figure, light and agile in all her movements, her conversation gay and playful, but commonplace. She had, however, her own peculiar charms, although in manners she differed from her sisters. Her admirers were a different style of men; and she was what is known, by a delicate shade of distinction from more solid merits, as a great "belle."

It is upon the eldest sister, Mary Caton, first Mrs. Robert Patterson, and then Marchioness of Wellesley, that we find the most extravagant encomiums lavished. Old men grow young again in describing her fascinations. Said a gentleman, an intimate friend of the family, one who passed his younger days under the roof of Charles Carroll: "Mary Caton was the most attractive woman I ever beheld in my life. I have seen the courts of St. Petersburg, France, and England, but I never saw her equal-never! The grace and elegance of her form; the charm of her manners; the sweetness of her voice -were inimitable. She was the most engaging and fascinating of human beings. I have seen her at a dinner given by Mr. Carroll to Sir Charles Bagot, the loveliest and most brilliant lady of an intelligent and courtly company, stately, courteous, kindly; richly dressed, and in a blaze of diamondsa picture for a court-painter."

Her bearing was as exquisite as her face, and her dignity never ruffled. This was one of her greatest charms-her courteous, graceful, even temperament. Were the obscurest commoner talking to her and a king waiting, she would have shown no impatience. Her companion would never have known by a shadow of change that he was not the most interesting of men to her. She was too proud and well bred to exhibit the slightest discourtesy; but she would have much preferred the king. For, after all, in all her nature she was a woman of the world, of fashion and of society-subdued, nevertheless, by the maxim impressed upon all these young girls by Mrs. Caton, who was not pretty, but very popular-a maxim extremely simple, but socially extremely comprehensive. It was this: "My dear child, there are a number of people in the world who take delight in saying disagreeable things. Now, it is

just as easy to say pleasant ones. Never tell an untruth; but never displease."

Co

In personal appearance Miss Mary Caton was large and handsome. Her eyes were dark brown; her face oval, and rather sallow; her hair dark; her mouth, nose, and chin, beautifully formed; her voice soft and musical. Lord Brougham, who as a Scotchman was, we suppose, a judge in matters pertaining to a foreign tongue-we beg every Scotchman's pardon-and who certainly acquired a pious command of strong Saxon, once said that she spoke the English language more correctly than he had ever heard it from the lips of woman. She was, nevertheless, no blue-stocking, but possessed both sound judgment and a fine perception. She was an excellent talker, and, what probably fascinated Brougham, a still better listener. While at the head of the viceroyal court at Dublin she united all parties, Protestant and Catholic, although a strict Catholic herself. Her charities were as free as her means would allow, and even to this day her memory is cherished by the poor of Dublin as that of a saint.

On the death of her husband, she lived in England in chambers granted her by the queen in the honorable retreat of Hampton Court.

All the sisters were devoted to their religion, the Catholic, but were no bigots. Their acquaintances comprised both Protestants and Catholics. They never forgot old friends. However fortune would turn the scale, whether to poverty or to riches, former associates, we are told, were never ignored.

The three sisters died childless; and the direct descendants of Charles Carroll of Carrollton came down by the line of the only son, Charles Carroll, of Homewood, near Baltimore, and by that of the Harpers and MacTavishes.

In Maryland, the "three American peeresses" have long been but shadowy presences in old mansions of Baltimore and Annapolis, and grateful memories in the hearts of the young gallants who met them at the balls and assemblies of long ago, and perhaps-who knows?-time buries the marks of so much besides beauty-cherished the passion of "the moth for the star, the day for the morrow," and who have grown gray, but never disloyal.

THE RENDERED ROSE.

NTO his hat she flung a rose,

INT

Pledge of a friendship true and tried, That storms and sunshine had seen disclose, That tears and sorrow had purified. Whether he threw it by that night,

In his worried mood of trouble and thought, Or garnered its leaves with a fond delight It matters little, its task was wrought!

Into her coffin he dropped a rose,

Faded and sere, and sweet no more.
"Go," he said, "at the evening's close,
The gift of the noonday I restore !
When at the judgment-bar we stand,
Face to face in that awful hour,
Once again from her constant hand

I shall receive thec-a peerless flower!"

EDITOR'S TABLE.

WHY

HY is it that artists are targets for everybody's arrows? What is there in painting and sculpture that prompts every half-schooled critic to utter his dogmas and pronounce his sweeping verdicts? Why is it that in art everybody who praises is at once declared an ignoramus, and everybody who sneers is promptly crowned and admired? How is it that in art-criticisms there are so much bold assertion, fierce depreciation, and utter ignorance?

Our interrogations have approached almost to the dimensions of a catechism. Perhaps some of our readers are wondering if the accusations implied by them are altogether just. We think they are.

American

art is amenable to many strictures, but no one has a right to praise or blame in art, or in any thing else for the matter of that, who has not some knowledge of the subject. The men who echo praise or blame, who admire because that cue has been given by some Mogul, or who condemn because condemnation is the thing on the cards, ought to be generally denounced. A man's reputation is dearer to him than his purse-but we punish the thief who robs him of the one, and applaud the reckless censor that despoils him of the other. But let us escape from these generalities to a few illustrations of what we mean. A recent art-criticism in a contemporary contains the following:

"We deplore the absence of thought in the mass of pictures shown at our Academy exhibitions, and we scold our artists' in the newspapers for not giving us something more substantial intellectually; but are we not a little unreasonable? How can the painters give us thought when they have none; not only have none, but don't know what it is. There is no mistake more common among painters and their public than to suppose that thought in art means allegory, literature, or what not. How few there are among the public or the painters who recognize the thought that goes to the right portrayal of a simple flower; who know the analysis, the mental mastery, the intense, refined application, the brooding imagination, the realization of character, that bring about the living presentment of some graceful, sturdy, wayside growth!" Perhaps there are comparatively few among the public who " recognize the thought that goes to the right portrayal of a simple flower," but where are the painters guilty of the mental confusions here charged upon them? The painters of to-day, the American painters as well as others, do not "suppose that thought in art means allegory, literature, or what not," but clearly understand that "mental mastery" in their art means the "right portrayal of a simple flower," or other object. This critic is wholly wrong. Our artists are far from being so incompetent as he asserts. We do not hesitate, indeed, to say that our painters-of course there are

C. A. WARFIELD. | exceptions-are of all intellectual workers the

most thoroughly filled with a desire to be true to their tasks. We know very well that there are theatrical painters-painters who study the market and produce that which will make a sensation and command a price — and of course this sort of thing is never found among versifiers, story- writers, essayists, journalists, or editors; but the majority of our painters struggle with the most direct and honest purpose to give the right portrayal of a simple flower," to catch the light upon cloud and sea and hill, to fill themselves with the truth and beauty of Nature in order that they may be reproduced upon the canvas. The paintings in our exhibitions are even dull to the ordinary visitor because their general tone is so honest and subdued. Very striking and effective are the passionate and weird and highly imaginative productions of the French pencil; our artists, indeed, may with some justice be accused of lacking in imagination; but their excellences are just of the character that arise from "intense refined application," from a proneness to do simple things with all honesty, from a love of the great beauties of Nature. There is nothing in this country that has so little sensationalism as our recognized art, nothing that is characterized by greater fidelity to right principles.

But another critic has this to say:

"The danger to all our young artists, of course, is that of being fascinated by unique individualities, and thus led away from Nature and themselves. To see things as the demigod sees them, to represent them by his methods, to be led by him, magnetized by him, fooled by him who has the misfortune to see things exquisitely wrong, and the power to represent them outrageously beautiful, is to be artistically ruined. What Nature says to him, his admirers cannot hear, save through him. What he sees in Nature, they can never know, save by his interpretation. There is no safety in following anybody, in any field of art. What God and Nature say to the artist, that, precisely, he is to speak, and he ought to speak it in his own language. To choose another's words, to look at Nature from another's window, is a sad confession of artistic incapacity and untruthfulness. Schools of art are no more built up around a man than a house is built up around a window. Turner could never produce a school, although he might injure one very materially—possibly benefit it, in some respects. Pre-Raphaelite theories can never produce a school, although they may contribute ideas to one. young artists need is absolute disenthrallment from the influence of strong individualities in art, and a determination to see things for themselves."

What our

There is a great deal of truth in this; there is nothing but truth in it, save where its lessons are applied to American art. Our young artists scarcely need "disenthrallment from the influence of strong individualities in art," because they rarely surrender to them. It is quite impossible for "strong individualities" not to exercise influence; it is only right they should do so, and they always have done so; but our young artists are as

profoundly impressed as their critics are with the necessity of being true to their own impressions, and not copyists of other artists' ideas of things. Has Durand, or Church, or Bierstadt, or Kensett, or Gifford, his followers and imitators? When a majority of the young artists of England were swept away by the pre-Raphaelite mania, ours stood firm; they studied the new school and derived valuable lessons from it, but they never servilely surrendered their judgment to it; they believed, in the language of our critic, that "there is no safety in following anybody, in any field of art."

We have not dwelt upon the power or the genius of our painters. That they have a great deal of both, we believe, but their talents are generally of a quiet kind. They are wholly weak in dramatic story-and this fact is probably to some people a deficiency in the only thing in art that interests them-but this is not the fault of the painters, whose subtile sympathies are for the strange charms and hidden beauties of Nature, and who would rather catch the spirit of a sylvan brook than paint a story of passion. Judging them within the limits of what they attempt to do, they stand very well beside the artists of other countries, while they have their own marked individuality.

WHILE on this topic we must be permitted to contrast with the criticisms quoted above a passage from an article on the last academy exhibition, by a writer who substitutes just insight for sweeping and erroneous assertion. We will give the reader the selection first, and let our comments follow:

"Of Mr. Homer's three pictures we have spoken, but there would be a good deal more to say about them; not, we mean, because they are particularly important in themselves, but because they are peculiarly typical. A frank, absolute, sincere expression of any tendency is always interesting, even when the tendency is not elevated or the individual not distinguished. Mr. Homer goes in, as the phrase is, for perfect realism, and cares not a jot for such fantastic hair-splitting as the distinction between beauty and ugliness. He is a genuine painter; that is, to see, and to reproduce what he sees, is his only care; to think, to imagine, to select, to refine, to compose, to drop into any of the intellectual tricks with which other people sometimes try to eke out the dull pictorial vision-all this Mr. Homer triumphantly avoids. He not only has no imagination, but he contrives to elevate this rather blighting negative into a blooming and honorable positive. He is almost barbarously simple, and, to our eye, he is horribly ugly; but there is nevertheless something one likes about him. What is it? For ourselves, it is not his subjects. frankly confess that we detest his subjectshis barren plank fences, his glaring, bald, blue skies, his big, dreary, vacant lots of meadows, his freckled, straight-haired Yankee urchins, his flat-breasted maidens, suggestive of a dish of rural doughnuts and pie, his calico sun-bonnets, his flannel shirts, his cowhide boots. He has chosen the least pictorial features of the least pictorial range of

We

scenery and civilization; he has resolutely treated them as if they were pictorial, as if they were every bit as good as Capri or Tangiers; and, to reward his audacity, he has incontestably succeeded. It makes one feel the value of consistency; it is a proof that if you will only be doggedly literal, though you may often be unpleasing, you will at least have a stamp of your own. Mr. Homer has the great merit, moreover, that he naturally sees every thing at one with its envelope of light and air. He sees not in lines, but in masses, in gross, broad masses. Things come already modeled to his eye. If his masses were only sometimes a trifle more broken, and his brush a good deal richer-if it had a good many more secrets and mysteries and coquetries, he would be, with his vigorous way of looking and seeing, even if fancy in the matter remained the same dead blank, an almost distinguished painter. In its suggestion of this blankness of fancy the picture of the young farmer flirting with the pie-nurtured maiden in the wheat-field is really an intellectual curiosity. The want of grace, of intellectual detail, of reflected light, could hardly go further; but the picture was its author's best contribution, and a very honest, and vivid, and manly piece of work. Our only complaint with it is that it is damnably ugly!"

This is very clear and very just. The writer confesses how much he dislikes the painter's subjects, but he nevertheless studies and endeavors to comprehend his methods; and hence, however much the admirers of Mr. Winslow Homer may differ from the critic, they can but acknowledge the fair and open spirit with which the criticism is penned. But we have made this selection not only to show the reader a good piece of criticism, but because it illustrates the possession in the artist of exactly that individuality the need of which one of the critics from whom we have quoted so much deplores. And Winslow Homer is an exception to the greater number of our painters simply in pushing his individuality too far. It is an axiom very generally prevailing among our artists that it is incumbent upon each painter to do honest and manly work, to avoid all academic methods, aud to reject the authority of every school but the great school of Nature. And this right and fine principle the critics ought to recognize, instead of being forever ready with their sneers. The criticism above upon Mr. Homer, let us say, is by Mr. Henry James, Jr., and appeared in the Galaxy.

A SENTENCE in a London journal in regard to the Beecher trial reflects a sentiment entertained by many people on this side of the ocean. "It is impossible," exclaims our foreign critic, "to read the reports of the trial with which the American newspapers have for some months been flooded without

feeling that there must be something essentially unsound in the constitution of a society which delights to gorge itself day by day with such loathsome garbage, which treats the suspected wickedness of a popu lar preacher as a good bit of gossip, and prostitutes the forms of justice to the pur

poses of mere personal display and popular amusement."

Now we deplore, as much as any one does, the wide publicity of this Brooklyn scandal, but we believe that they are wholly wrong who think they discover, in the intense interest evinced by the public in the Beecher trial, a sign of " something unsound in the constitution of our society." Similar censures to this are always uttered when an important murder-trial is agitating the public mind; on occasions of this kind it is sure to be declared that the popular interest in the details of the crime evince a morbid appetite wholly lamentable and degrading.

There is, to our mind, just sufficient truth in these censures to give them currency and an air of wisdom. There are undoubtedly many people, and altogether too many, who derive pleasure from the scandalous details of a divorce suit, or the bloody incidents of a murder; but, if one will study the phenomena of the public sympathy and interest in these matters, he will discover that they are governed almost altogether by elements entirely apart from the horrors or the pruriency connnected therewith. These elements are mystery and perplexity. No trial ever profoundly agitates the public unless there is opportunity for marked division of opinion, unless it becomes, as it were, a curious and baffling puzzle of which all are eager to find the solution, or is like a grand drama which the beholders watch with breathless interest for the dénoûment. The murders in this country, for instance, that most profoundly excited the public mind were those of Helen Jewett and Dr. Burdell in New York, and of Parkman in Boston. In each of these instances the details of the murder were scanned and discussed mainly as to their significance in determining the all-absorbing question as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. The more perplexing and contradictory the evidence on any trial, the greater will be the public excitement. Where the mystery is very profound and the testimony perplexing, the community becomes divided into zealous partisans. Each man has his theory; everybody exercises his detective talent; and in every social circle the incidents of the story are taken up and searched through and through with a zeal immensely stimulated by the puzzling circumstances, and the opposition which each theory encounters from other theories. It is a peculiar constitution of the human mind to experience great excitement and zest in a mystery. Whatever baffles it stimulates it. And hence men and women must be made of very different stuff from what they are now if they can look on so strange and perplexing a game as we have recently seen played at Brooklyn without feeling a most intense interest in the issue. It may be said that, admitting our argument to be true, the sight of a whole people subjugated by a curiosity of this kind is not very

edifying. Quite true. But in justice we ought, in excitements of this nature, to look closely and see what the real cause of the public concern is; and if concern in the issue of a scandal be not a very high order of intellectual activity, it is at least immeasurably better that it should be this than merely a morbid love for prurient details. And let us say that the disposition to find in every act of our neighbors the baser motive is not elevating to him who indulges in it, nor is it calculated to exercise an influence for good upon the community.

THOSE Who know Victor Hugo's manner of political disquisition and prophecy will shudder to think what is coming. We are threatened with a perfect inundation of glit tering generalities and epigrammatic highfalutin in the shape of political memoirs. Victor Hugo does nothing, at least with the pen, by halves. His literary schemes are as elaborate and full of complex structure as a military engineer's plan of siege. He, therefore, lays out a scheme of discouraging proportions; nor will he be able to relate his part in French politics in less than three good-sized volumes. We already have his prologue, which is the shape of an essay on "Right and the Law," in which the illustrious Academician seems bent on persuading Frenchmen that right is one thing and law another, and that, if they want to do right, they must hold the law in slight esteem and scant obedience. Following close upon this super - transcendental thesis, which has the tone of oue conjuring mankind to resolve to be perfect, and so abolish all necessity for law, we shall be confronted with three volumes of memoirs, entitled, respectively, "Before Exile," "During Exile," and "After Exile." Modern French history, then, is to be marked by epochs of Victor Hugo's own career. Instead of saying that such and such a thing occurred in the reign of Louis Philippe, it will be proper to say that it occurred "Before the Exile." And we must believe that "During Exile the current of French politics ran dark and turgid enough. Why will not men of real genius be content with the fame which that genius achieves in its own proper sphere ?

There is no doubt of Victor Hugo's illustrious rank among men of letters in his generation. The author of "Notre-Dame" and "Les Misérables" and "Hernani" and "The Terrible Year" ought to be content with the immortality which these bring, without seeking new worlds to conquer. As poet and romancer he is sometimes extravagant, too often hyperbolical; but here, at least, he is in an element where he is strong and great. The moment that, with a strange fatuity, he enters the political arena, and imagines himself a statesman, he becomes stilted, visionary, wild, and, we had almost said, nonsensical. It is sad that such a man as Victor Hugo should be laughed at; but, every time that

to be the one Frenchman whom ridicule neither dismays nor silences. He insists upon it that he is created to be the constitutionbuilder to "the parliament of man, the federation of the world; " being sure that, if only his scheme be adopted, the war-drum would throb no more, and the battle - flags would be furled. Hugo, like Carlyle, is bent on being a school-master of mankind; and the good-natured world, considering the glory of their writings, will, no doubt, "grin and bear it." They have, perhaps, earued the right to be chartered libertines of political pedagoguery.

MR. CHARLES READE finds time, amid his literary labors, to make frequent diversions as a social reformer. He is a vigorous rival of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Every thing he says and does is thoroughly Readesque in energy and pungency. Now, he has been running a tilt against an institution called "The Dogs' Home." It was founded as a charity. Stray dogs, masterless and kennel-less, were picked up and welcomed to this canine retreat and hearthstone. Thence they were doled out to such people as wanted a faithful follower and domestic policeman. But, being for the most part ugly creatures, mongrel in breed and without the advantages of a liberal education, there were few demands upon the supplies of the "Home." Mr. Charles Reade, hearing suspicious things of the Home," made a private tour of inspection thither; and the result is one of his crisp, sharp, and witty letters to a London paper. He says that the dogs are confined in seldom-cleaned cages, are poorly fed, and kept like canine felons. Nor was this the worst. He found out that after a certain time the undemanded dogs were ruthlessly killed to save their board. "So swift to shed blood," says Mr. Reade, "was home, sweet home.'" They were sacrificed because they could not "sell all in a moment, like a hot roll."

Mr. Reade goes on to tell the world what he knows about dogs, the sum of his information being that the half-bred dog is "often a handsome animal and generally a more intelligent one than the thorough-bred." He finds, however, that "if the dog captured is a retriever, hound, or even plain Pomeranian, his chances of living a week are small; and

if he is half as great a mongrel as the AngloSaxon race, he is pretty sure to be murdered in a week, that home, sweet home' may save his biscuit and sawdust, and sell his skin." Between the policeman, who is given a reward for every stray dog he captures, and the " Home," which sells the dogs or kills them for their hides, the system has become a sheer commercial speculation. "Humanity," says our Society F. T. P. C. A. of one, "started a dogs' home; trade has grafted the

mayed at the mountain of dogs, and retreated. Trade saw its chance, and shot into the vacant place. The iron egotists who rob a poor creature of its life to sell its skin shall not pass for soft sentimentalists while I can wag a pen. The crying hyena is a new trader, and I resist him in the name of dog and man." It is certainly a good work to expose imposture, and strip the garment of charity from what seems to have become a mere moneymaking operation; but we fear that Mr. Reade will have to give over novel-writing altogether-which would be a sore grief to his thousands of readers-if he sets about unearthing all the trading wolves which go about appealing to public sympathy in the innocent garb of wool. However, one such exposure is a worthy deed, and Mr. Reade has proved himself as efficient a champion of the dog as he is skillful in "wagging a pen."

TH

Literary.

HE first thing which it occurs to us to say of Tennyson's "Queen Mary" is, that it is really a drama. Many of the modern so-called dramas are nothing more than poems, or "studies of character," broken up into dialogue and cast in dramatic forms, but impossible of representation on the stage, and, in fact, never intended for it; but Mr. Tennyson's characters really act, his scenes appeal to the eye and not to the imagination, and the drama itself, probably, will be seen in its true proportions only when seen on the stage. We do not mean by this that it takes its interest in any degree from the "surprises," "business," "gags," and carpentry, which are supposed to be indispensable to the acting play; but the dialogue is too vig. orous, direct, and personal, for the full flavor to be caught by merely reading it; the action is rapid, and great pains have evidently been bestowed upon the pictorial accessories. Few dramas in the language, indeed, afford finer opportunities for the magnificent scene-painting which forms one of the achievements of the modern stage-Whitehall Palace, Lambeth Palace, the Guildhall, the Tower, London Bridge, Westminster Palace, the Houses of Parliament, all would call for representation-and provision is made for at least three street-pageants of a particularly impressive description.

The action of the drama covers the entire period of the reign of "Bloody Mary," open

ing with the entry into London which occurred just subsequent to her accession to the throne, and closing with the proclamation of Elizabeth by the Lords of the Council. Of the dramatis persona, there are no fewer than forty-five, besides "Lords and other Attendants, Members of the Privy Council, Members of Parliament, two Gentlemen, Aldermen, Citizens, Peasants, Ushers, Messengers, Guards, Pages, etc.;" but out of the

* Queen Mary. A Drama. By Alfred TennyBoston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

son.