on a pillar and set up in the temple of Athene, to the end that all men might know that the allied cities were ready to reward their benefactors. It is further stated that this pillar and inscription were to be kept in repair by the people of Gargara, while towards the end of it there is also the statement that, beside his other benefactions, Malusius had given 3,500 gold staters to the Agonothetae, beside paying the debts they

had incurred in a former year.

The forms of the letters suggest the latter end of the fourth century B.C. as the date of this inscription, and from internal evidence we may presume it was engraved between B.C. 301 and 311. The larger donation of 3,500 staters must have represented a sum equal to 20,000l. of our present

money.

ROYAL SOCIETY (Thursday, January 28). THE following papers were read: "On the Theory of Ventilation," by Dr. François de Chaumont; "On the Atmospheric Lines of the Solar Spectrum," by J. B. N. Hennessey.

num.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES (Thursday, January 28). A PAPER was read by Morgan Nichols, Esq., on "The Recent Discoveries elucidating the Topography of Rome, especially of the Forum RomaMr. Nichols exhibited a map showing the portions of the city which have been excavated down to the original level, and the lines of the via sacra and other principal roads, with the sites of the buildings whose bases have been brought to view. It has been found that the via sacra or via sub veteribus (sc. tabernis) after traversing the forum does not proceed in a straight line to the temple of Vesta, but turns off at a right-angle northwards for a short distance, and then resumes its original direction past the temple of Faustina and on to the basilica of Constantine. The angle thus made was doubtless cut off by a foot-path leading past Vesta's temple, as mentioned by Martial in a passage quoted by Mr. Nichols. Of the temple of Vesta all that now remains is the raised base, a circular mass about fifty feet in diameter, and near it is a bank of earth, which is probably the site of the Virginea domus, "Where dwelt the holy maidens who fed the eternal flame." Near this stood the temple of Castor, and in the same neighbourhood the temple of Julius, of which the brick base of about twenty-two feet in height has been laid bare by the excavations. The front of this base was used as rostra, and was ornamented by Augustus with beaks of the galleys taken at the battle of Actium. In addition to the maps, Mr. Nichols exhibited many photographs of buildings and other remains at Rome, and among them representations of two bas-reliefs which were discovered in September, 1872, in the northern part of the Forum. These are two slabs of white marble, about seventeen feet by five feet six inches, placed so as to form an approach, probably to an altar. On the inside face of each slab are sculptured a ram, a bull, and a boar, decked with sacrificial bands and vittae, their heads pointing towards the spot where the altar probably stood. The outside faces bear sculptured groups representing acts in the life of the emperor in whose honour the altar was erected. On one is a figure of the emperor seated on a throne, surrounded by attendants, receiving with outstretched hands a female figure holding a child on one arm and perhaps leading another, to judge by the attitude; but the sculpture is at that part too much injured to allow of more than conjecture. It is supposed that this group commemorates the provision made by the Emperor Trajan for the children of poor citizens. On the other side is a group of men bearing large portfolios, and depositing them in a heap, to which another person is stretching out his hands, probably with a torch. This, it is presumed, represents the burning of the registers of taxes remitted by the Emperor. It is known that this ceremony was performed by order of Ha

FINE ART.

THE DUDLEY GALLERY.

ROYAL INSTITUTION (Friday, January 29). A LECTURE on "The Geological Results of the Challenger Expedition" was delivered by Professor Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S. Tracing back our knowledge of the character and distribution of deep-sea deposits to the early observations of Sir the lecturer remarked that these observations had John Ross, Sir E. Sabine, and other explorers, proved that large areas of the sea-bottom within the Arctic seas were covered with the siliceous remains of minute plants and animals belonging to the Diatomaceae and Radiolaria. Subsequently the exploration of the Antarctic seas showed that a similar polar cap of siliceous mud covered the sea-bottom of this southern area. It has since been abundantly proved that, between these two bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are zones of siliceous deposits, large portions of the covered with a calcareous ooze, made up in great measure of the tests of foraminifers, especially those of the Globigerina. But the dredgings of the Challenger have recently shown that certain deep oceanic valleys contain thick deposits of finely-divided red clay, composed of silicate of alumina and peroxide of iron. Thus, between Teneriffe and St. Thomas, a great valley was found at a depth of about 18,000 feet, the bottom of which was covered with this red material. The origin of such deposits is probably to be found in some experiments by Mr. Buchanan, the chemist to the Challenger, who, by treating the globigerinamarl with dilute acids obtained about one or two per cent. of insoluble residuum, which strikingly resembled the clay in question. Hence the conclusion appears to be forced upon us that the great deep-seated deposits of red clay actually represent the remains of marine organisms, of which myriads must have suffered decomposition to furnish these vast accumulations of their débris. We are now, therefore, in a position to show that siliceous, calcareous, and argillaceous deposits may be formed by the long-continued action of organic agencies. Nor should it be forgotten that internal casts of foraminifers in glauconite have been dredged up similar to those which Ehrenberg originally described as occurring in certain beds of greensand. It is thus clear that sedimentary rocks of almost any mineralogical composition may be formed by the action of natural causes still in silent operation in the depths of the sea. These researches consequently lend great support to the views of those geologists who find an explanation of the past history of the rocks in the present operations of nature-views which were held half a century ago by Sir Henry De la Beche, were advocated by Mr. Poulett Scrope, and were still more clearly developed by Sir Charles Lyell, who has so ably elaborated the doctrine of uniformitarianism originally enunciated by Hutton. Sir Charles has, indeed, survived the prejudices which at first opposed his views, and has lived to see the reputed heresies of his youth become established as the creed of every philosophical geologist.

Professor Poynter's small figure-picture may, on the whole, count as the leading work of that class in

the room.

It bears the motto

"In time long past, when, in Diana's chase, A bramble-bush pricked Venus in the foot, Old Aesculapius helped her heavy case Before the hurt had taken any root." The composition presents Aesculapius seated under a portico; Venus standing on her right foot, and bending forward her left across the right knee, to exhibit the injured part, and propping herself with her left hand (which along with the arm is a weak point in the drawing) upon one of the close by the first; the third, whose back only is three attendant Graces; the second Grace stands seen, calls to a female slave for water from a dripping fountain close by. This little work is a careful and complete piece of execution, good in form, and, if not precisely poetical in spirit, still free from anything discordantly prosaic. It is a choice specimen from a choice hand. Three of the painter's carefully-observed landscape-bits are also in this gallery. The Farm near Hartlebury Common and Wilden Pool are pleasant local studies. Hardrow Scar may be somewhat less satisfactory, having an ordinary general look, and (as well as the Wilden Pool) too lightless a sky: the water flung straight downwards over the rock, into successive almost flounce-like undulations, is however a valuable item of reality. Along with Professor Poynter we may name, as painters of classical subjects, Mr. Crane and Mr. Henry Holiday. Mr. Crane sends two pictures. The first is named Pluto's Garden; and shows Proserpine, in the Elysian fields, plucking the pome granate, by eating which she forfeited her chance of ever returning to earth. phus was the only one who saw it; and, for his discovery, the goddess immediately changed him into an owl." There is always a great difficulty in representing pictorially any transformation of this sort. Mr. Crane adopts the expedient of showing us Ascalaphus as a bald-headed redrobed man, gazing at Proserpine; and then, on a marble seat hard by, he gives sculptured figures of two owls, and besides a real living owl perching. This is one way of suggesting to the eye what the mind needs to realise, in case the incident is to be treated at all: it is not quite a reasonable way, if (as would seem) we are to infer that Ascalaphus was the first owl created, and parent of all owls. The garden of Pluto presents clipped old-fashioned hedges, an arcaded palace behind, with baleful-looking fires beyond it, and a multitude of marigolds and sunflowers; this floral material being perhaps the most telling element in the picture. The face of Proserpine is inexpres sive, but is of a large Grecian type, in itself appropriate enough. The like may be said concerning the recumbent figure of Mother Earth in Mr. Crane's second contribution, named The Earth and Spring. The sonnet given in the catalogue marks well the character of the work:

"Ascala

"Child Spring, escaped from harsh Dame Winter's rod,

Upon the still green meads stole forth to play, Glad in the sun's first smile that early day, Fresh daffodils declaring where he trod Full softly; while upon the tender sod, Amid the quickening blooms, asleep Earth layThough Spring to her had many a word to say, And token sweet to bear from Day's bright God.

Then on his pipe he made sweet noise, that woke The singing fowl by every wood and hill,

And soaring treble from the answering sky,— Until the sweet unrest Earth's slumber broke: Though, fearing it a dream, yet bode she still

A little space, till Spring to her did cry." The landscape-background here is pleasing and well-felt in this simple poetic way. Spring is a Cupid-like boy, poorly drawn: Earth is grand in pose, but her foot somewhat clumsy. Mr. Crane takes a good place among the neo-classicists who seen to think that they must paint goddesses and demigods, but should mingle naïveté with abstractness in the form of presentment. Mr. Holiday's female impersonation of Music (marked "unfinished, though we hardly know why) has moderate elevation in nude form, with a good deal of nature: she touches a lyre, to the symphonious murmur of the waves on the sea-beach. This Portion of the picture, no less than its principal Subject-matter, is very attentively studied, and the whole executed with much efficiency.

may be cited in proof, but the amount of work in it is scanty. Miss Constance Phillott exhibits Lucy Gray, Wordsworth's little secluded country-maid, knitting busily as her bare feet trip along the hillside path; the artist's conception is fairly enough in harmony with the poet's, and there is an elegant turn in the execution. Mr. Jopling is not entitled to any of the like commendation: he must either have an odd idea of Fielding's Sophia Western, or else has signally failed to convey to the spectator any moderately apposite idea which may have been present to his own mind. This Amazon has much more of the blasé jaded look befitting one of those heroines, whether of romance or of society, who used to be comprised under the name, "The Girl of the Period." Miss Adelaide Claxton's Ghost is, in art, the counterpart of "Pepper's Ghost" in supernature. A Warder's Dream in the Tower of London has afforded this lady a great opportunity of introducing a medley of shadowforms, Anne Boleyn and numerous others: her trick is a dexterous one, but tedious on frequent repetition. We may conclude this section of our notice-the figure-subjects not including the portraits-by calling attention to the following works:-Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, A. W. Bayes; Off Duty, a member of a sisterhood returning home through the snowy country roads, G. Pope; Far Away, Adrian Stokes; A Crowd, a Sketch at Bergen, J. Reed Dickinson; The best Friends must Part, a sale of lambs to a butcher, E. Penstone; A Wanderer, an Italian tambourine woman in a French country-town, G. Clausen; A Highland Girl, Townley Green. W. M. ROSSETTI.

ART JOURNALISM.

Paris: Jan. 6, 1875.

WITH the new year a new Art journal has appeared in Paris. It is called L'Art, and is quite original enough in its aspect not to pass unnoticed. It will probably have a satisfactory career, for it was founded by persons who no doubt have a great interest in supporting it. Its very cradle is sumptuous; a publishing office bearing its name has been opened for its special behoof in the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, near the new Opera. To introduce it to the world like a young man of fashion, a quantity of very costly etchings have been bought or ordered. It is the first time that we have seen such a mise en scène for a journal whose motive power is neither the restoration of a throne, nor a great banking speculation, nor the throat of a singer, nor the legs of a balletgirl.

Mr. John Scott sends two subjects-The Course of true Love never did run smooth, and An Afternoon's Amusement in the Fourteenth Century, some youths and maidens at archery practice; both tasteful in some fair degree, and seeming to pronise agreeable work when the artist's hand shall be stronger, and his practice more assured. Mrs. Stillman's May-time represents a loveable hearty | little girl, with a face of much sense as well as comeliness, holding a bough of hawthorn over her head in a thicket; she seems to be standing still a moment, to reply to some questioner not shown in the picture. This is a work of fine simple colour, much accurate detail, and no pettiness. The same accomplished lady exhibits two flower subjects, Chrysanthemums and Christmas Roses, and Study of Lilies-the latter more especially effective. Mr. Hennessy's little picture-The Offering, Normandy—is unusually pleasing; we see a baby-girl assisted by her mother, a fisherman's sprightly wife, to set a taper on the metal stand in front of an effigy of the Virgin and Child, placed in a small side-chapel, along with some of the homely votive pictures of ships &c.; a tenderly and nicely felt work. The Rescue, by Cabianca of Rome, is an uncommon piece of picturesqueness, in which great artistic value is got out of the long dark stretch of convent-wall, with its darker cypress and other verdure: this is indeed a work not easily forgotten, and ensuring no small popularity to its painter. The figures also have a certain pictorial sense and tact, but, when looked at individually, are peculiarly stolid and ungainly in visage. The incident appears to be a nun carried off from her convent by a party of Florentines of the fourteenth century: but it is not so perspicuously made out, and certainly not so dramatically forcible, as it should in reason have been. The Pigeons of St. Mark's is by the same artist, and has suavity as well as vigour of colour. Another painter resident in Rome, M. Charles Bellay, paints, as Fatima, an Oriental girl with her brown soft hands clasped over the edge of a brazen platter; an elaborately patterned wall serves for a background. The execution combines depth with softness. Mr. Alfred Emslie has selected a very odd subject to which a distich serves as title; an old whitewoolled negro plays the fiddle, seated in the grounds of some house, while a small baby-negro, neatly costumed, and tied in a high chair, laughs with glee, and the pet dog, outstretched in lazy enjoyment, contributes a canine smile to the gene ral satisfaction. This very quaint little picture is carefully as well as dexterously touched. Another example of quaintness is I'd be a Butterfly, by foulard dress gazing at a yellow butterfly by a rough-hewn wall. Mr. George M'Culloch mostly displays a feeling for design, more or less carried

out=

the work named Débris, representing a young an who has drowned herself

"One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,❞—

In short, it is an interesting fact that a new art journal is being founded among us, which gives good illustrations, which pays etchers and engravers well, and brings together a young and combative staff. The next few numbers will speedily reveal to us what its secret designs are, if it had not for its sole and single object the disinterested propagation of works of art and of the laws which govern them.

tions on Painting. editor of the Gazette, M. René Ménard, and an English translation appears on the opposite page by Mr. P. G. Hamerton, who has an article in the first number of L'Art.

The text is by the present

come.

M. Eugène Véron, formerly editor of a Liberal political journal at Lyons, who has lately published a popular history of the Union Centrale, is the chief editor of L'Art. He has rallied round him several well-known names: M. Jules Castagnary, the inventor of the word "realism," and the vigorous champion of Gustave Courbet; M. Jules Claretie, a more indefatigable writer even than M. René Ménard himself; M. Champfleury, a humorous writer, keeper of the Sèvres Museum of Pottery since the Fourth of September. Then comes a whole battalion of young writers, which advances to the attack of the academic doctrine by the French bayonet or by German turning movements. It is these above all-the rest having taken their degrees already-that we would heartily welTo the slackness of our art corresponds the slackness of our criticism, which is very far from lacking vigorous and honest men, but which is given to the world in the columns of political journals, that is, precisely where manifold concessions have to be made to the all-powerful class of old subscribers. The Artiste is almost dead. The Gazette is tossed this way and that without any very clear direction. The daily papers devote to criticism only the space left vacant by politics and the news of the day. For some years the Figaro has given the example of a rapid, superficial, ill-informed criticism, without previous education, which amuses without instructing, and confers on the beginners whom it patronises hasty and unwholesome reputations. The Temps, the Débats, the Siècle, and some others by being doubly serious, they sometimes fall into only just escape this reporters' epidemic. Again, the same error as those husbands who, the more cheerful their wives are, grow but the surlier

Some lines in the Preface, which is signed "La Rédaction," will produce the impression that the idea of this journal originated during the last Exhibition of the Union Centrale. A dealer in pictures and works of art, M. G―, had placed in the rooms devoted to the History of Costume some ancient stuffs and a few portraits of the English school of the eighteenth century. He is an active and enterprising man. He published this winter several catalogues of sales sumptuously adorned with etchings, and it was he also who was the originator of the famous Wilson collection. After lending a part-too large a part -of these plates to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, which I hope, for its own sake, will henceforth renounce such loans, which are more compromising than profitable with subscribers used to unpublished or very scarce engravings, M. Ghas just collected them, adding the second part of an American Museum left by America to M. Jules Jacquemart, in a large volume entitled Conversa

themselves.

There is plenty of room, then, for minds, young, active, laborious, willing to be bound by the modern laws of criticism; to read, travel, frequent artists of all schools and of all countries, to devote themselves in a loyal spirit to certain ideas or certain men, by concentrating on the creatures of their choice all the strength of passion and of reasoning, of information and of public confession. If Eugène Delacroix had had about him ten apostles with the talent and loyalty of W. Bürger, we should have witnessed the complete development of the mightiest genius in modern painting, and the doctrine of David would not have been diverted by the pedants from its true aim, naturalism calling to its aid the study of the remains of antiquity.

L'Art, then, if it favour the new school without systematically disparaging the old, is called to play a part of some consequence. It addresses itself to a wealthy public; for though it is published weekly, and only costs three and a half francs a number, the annual subscription is 120 francs. There is an édition de luxe at 400 francs, and another which, like Jean Maria Farina's triple eau-de-Cologne, costs 1,200 francs. I do not doubt that L'Art will get subscribers. But I do doubt whether its subscribers will consent to receive their engravings bent double.

The first number contains two etchings: one is by Rajon, a young etcher whom I had the good fortune to bring forward in the Gazette, and who is deservedly held in high esteem by amateurs among you, for he is laborious and clever. It is The Court of a Dutch House, after that vigorous Pieter de Hooghe, which from Sir Robert Peel's collection passed to the National Gallery. The second is by Boilvin, The Happy Mother, a pleasing pastoral composition by François Boucher. Boilvin, who is at least as young as Rajon, is a painter, which makes him aim at colour and life in his engravings. He drew and engraved some very expressive heads for Lemerre's highly artistic

very sweet and harmonious. The woman holds some autumn flower listlessly in her hand, but the feeling of the deep leafage has overpowered her. She lies back in the soft bed of the grass as in a grave, and her limbs are placidly laid out almost as if in death. The whole is hardly an idyl, but rather a reverie or a recollection, a single poetical chord struck in tones of sombre and delicate colour. FROM a return which has just been made, in compliance with Lord Hampton's motion, we gather that there has been expended in the diocese of Hereford since the year 1840 no less a sum than 435,5791. upon church building and restoration. In an agricultural diocese such as that of Hereford, it is obvious that the greatest part of this sum must have been spent upon restoration, and we find that more than 200 of its churches have been subjected to this hazardous process. While honouring the zeal which has been able to accomplish so much, we cannot help fearing (and knowing) that it has not always been tempered with discretion. An unrestored church is rapidly becoming a curiosity, and in the next generation both antiquaries and architects are likely to suffer from want of occupation. In their interest, as well as in that of the buildings themselves, we would urge a little less haste.

Ar the last meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute, on Friday, February 5, at 4 P.M., was exhibited a very interesting addition to the already-known authentic portraits of Michel Angelo Buonarotti. It consists of a medallion portrait in wax, which there is every reason to believe the original, modelled by Il Cavaliere Leo Leoni, of Arezzo, from the life, from which he executed the medallion signed by him, and noticed by Vasari as one of the few undoubted portraits of the maestro. A discourse referring to the circumstances connected with the discovery of this relic, and to the other known portraits of the sculptor, was read at the meeting by Mr. C. Drury Fortnum.

model horse-shoe (of silver?), duly inscribed, by which he sought to win the Virgin's favour in a race in which he had a horse engaged. This strangest of all donations ever made is lost. On enquiry it was stated that it had been removed by a sacristan, who thought a horseshoe (it was declared to be only of iron) was an unbecoming gift to the Queen of Heaven; and on a suggestion that the horse-shoe was silver, not iron, the official professed ignorance. Subsequently he modified his statement by asserting that it was lost in the flood of 1872, which inflicted so much damage upon the altars and interior of the Pantheon, and repeated his assertion that it was only a piece of iron. Whatever Mr. Greville's gift was made of, it has disappeared; but whether in consequence of the conscientious scruples of a sacristan, or by the waters of the Tiber, it is hard to say. It might be thought that metal offerings, if washed down, would lie on the pavement when the waters subsided, and could hardly be removed unless very little supervision was exercised over those who swept the mud away.

THE Gazzetta di Venezia of the 24th ult. gives the account of an important discovery at Fonzaso, near Treviso, on the property of Signor Buzzati. In excavating round the foundation of an old castle, one of the line of fortresses built to defend the road from the Valley of Belluna through the Rhaetian Alps to the German territory, the woramen came upon a large basin slightly concave, pon which rested another basin inverted over the other. Above the second basin lay a cup, also nverted, and carefully fitted together. On further xamination, these vessels proved to be of solid sier, weighing in all 2 kilogrammes 139 grammes. The larger basin had concentric rays radiating from the centre, and terminated by a circular line, round which was incised in Roman characters Geiltamir Vandalorum et Alanhorum Rex+. The basin measures 49 centimètres in diameter. The other, of more finished workmanship, two thirds of the size of the first, and a little more concave, has in the inner side, impressed in relief in repoussé, three figures, representing a helmeted warrior, spear in hand; a young woman attired, her head crowned, and a bouquet of flowers in her hand, and a child standing between them; behind is a covered urn, and on the other side what appears to be a column. The cup inverted Over the basins has the outside edge ornamented with arabesques in relief. These pieces may have constituted part of a service for the use of the oyal Vandal table, or perhaps, to judge from the subject, for a marriage ceremony. The description recalls the "Treasure of Hildesheim," so well reproduced by Christofle, and which was described early number of the ACADEMY. M.CLESINGER has just finished a bust representcalma "La France" that is greatly admired for its power and originality. writes a French critic, "cuirassée et casquée, non "C'est la France," point belliqueuse, mais prête à la guerre.” Ex Mr. Greville's Memoirs, it appears that he presented the Madonna of the Pantheon with a

in an

ing

PIUS IX. has not fallen behind his predecessors in restorations and preservations. Those executed in Sta. Maria in Trastevere are very splendid; the pavement in "Opus Alexandrinum" is especially superb. The church of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva does not present a good instance of restoration, although it is evident that an enormous sum has been expended. The clustered piers are covered with scagliola, representing a grey-veined marble; and however well they may be done, still they are evidently false. The ribbed and vaulted ceilings are painted blue in the mediaeval manner, with mosaic borders and gold stars after the old fashion; and groups of prophets and saints are represented in a later style floating in the blue ether, which somehow have a very modern look. The apse is filled with painted glass by Pompeo Bertini, of Milan, with all his unsurpassed skill of drawing and painting, and with all his usual indifference to congruity of style; and the occhi or round windows of transepts and clerestory are filled with kaleidoscopic patterns which it would be cruel to assign to any artist whatever.

The result of all these decorations and darkenings is that the Christ of Michel Angelo is thrown into such profound shadow that a work of art which, despite its admitted defects, is worth all that the church contains, is extinguished. It can only be examined, at all events on a winter day, by standing within a foot of it; further off it is a dark mass, the outline only of which is visible.

AN annual pension of 1200 francs has just been granted to Millet's widow, on the recommendation

of the Director of Fine Arts.

pearl, and burgau; the second, those of gold, of gold and enamel, and of gold and cameos; the third, the enamelled snuff-boxes; the fourth, the paintings mounted upon the boxes; and the fifth, various compositions. For a detailed description, we refer the amateur to the admirable catalogue prepared by MM. Barbet de Jouy, &c., in which each piece is described with a technical precision which leaves nothing to be desired.

THE Galerie Lenoir in the Museum of the Louvre has just been opened. The donor of this curious collection is a former proprietor of the celebrated Café de Foy, in the Palais Royal, rendered popular by the swallow which Carle Vernet painted upon the ceiling. Having amassed an immense fortune, and having no son to inherit it, Philippe Lenoir amused himself by forming a collection of snuff-boxes, which, by the will of his widow, is bequeathed to the Louvre. Mdme. Lenoir has left the rest of her fortune to the

66

Assistance Publique." The collection is divided into six divisions-the snuff-boxes, enamels, miniatures, ivories, jewels, and old lacquers. The great attraction consists in the snuff-boxes, so many masterpieces of the ornamentation to which the goldsmith's art was applied in the eighteenth century with such taste, and such diversity of invention.

AN exhibition of the works of Maxime Lalanne

is being held at Bordeaux. "France," says the English custom of having small private exhibiChronique, "is beginning to acclimatise the tions of artists' works." Lalanne's works were exhibited some months ago at the Cercle de la rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, and achieved a great success. The catalogue enumerates nearly 400 drawings of various kinds, ninety-nine etchings, three lithographs, and eight wood engravings, beside some interesting photographs from drawings not exhibited.

AN important archaeological discovery has been made, says the Bulletin Français, at Bourbonnes-les-Bains (Haute-Marne), a little town resorted to by the lame and paralytic for its thermal waters, which were well known to the Romans, who had here an important station where persons of distinction, as well as those unfavoured by fortune, came annually to leave their infirmities or drown their ennui. In executing soundings in the thermal reservoir there have been found already more than 4,000 pieces or medals in bronze, 300 of silver, and several pieces of gold, embedded in the clay of the river, which have been placed in the museum of the town. The gold pieces, of which the largest are of the size of a forty-franc piece, bear the effigies of Nero, Hadrian, archaeologists to be ex-voto offerings made by the Honorius, and Faustina, and are thought by sick.

found a considerable number of pins and rings of finished execution.

Beside these medals, there have been

THE Allgemeine Zeitung for January 29 contains an interesting report by Dr. Schöner of the most recent excavations at Pompeii, where, in a lately uncovered house, which was apparently only half-completed at the time of the destruction of the city, a splendid frescoe of Orpheus charming the beasts of the forest has been brought to light. The figure of Orpheus, which is nude, is, according to Dr. Schöner, one of the most perfect as yet found. In the grandiose but perfectly symmetrical proportions of the limbs, the beauty of the face and head, and the power and calm abstraction in the expression and attitude, it has while the bright glow of the landscape which more of the divine than the human character; forms a framework to the figure contrasts strikingly with the characteristic wildness of the animals grouped near him, to which he seems to give no attention, while he looks forth into the far distance as he strikes the lyre which rests on his knee. Accessory groups of strange and brightly plumed birds, and of various domestic animals, till up ivy-framed compartments of the wall on either side, and with the main group constitute one grand whole, which must be ranked among the most beautiful of the rescued remains of Pompeian art.

Some of these boxes are valued at

festoons which decorate the interior and exterior of the portico have been found, and also a block of marble, part of a frieze and architrave richly decorated, which is sculptured internally and externally; singularly enough, the subject of the frieze-lions drinking water from large vases-is the same on both sides. The sculpture is not of a high order. It is understood that the lofty iron railings which are at present placed between the noble granite shafts of the Corinthian order of the portico, and which sadly disfigure it, are to be moved to the outside of the new excavations. This is an admirable idea, but perhaps it would be well also to diminish the height of these railings. The name of Pius IX. will be remembered as long as the Pantheon endures, by the restoration made at his expense of the superb marble pavement, a work worthy of the age of Augustus.

THE Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst for January is particularly rich in interesting matter and illustra

tions. 1. We have a continuation of Robert Vischer's Sienesische Studien, in which he describes the curious old frescoes by Simone Martini and other masters of the Sienese School in the Palazzo Pubblico. These frescoes have already been de

scribed in Crowe and Cavalcaselle's History; but Herr Vischer's independent study and criticism of them is particularly valuable. A beautiful, graceful head representing Concordia, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti; a quaint resurrection of the Virgin, with many figures, by Taddeo Bartoli; and Soddoma's splendid figure of San Vittorio, illustrate the subject well. 2. The conclusion of Dr. Woltmann's long critique on the Suermondt Gallery. 3. A letter from a Boston correspondent respecting the projected Exhibition at Philadelphia. 4. Some newly-discovered particulars about an artistic family named Knop, who appear to have lived and worked in Münster at the beginning of the seventeenth century. They were artistic workers in metal, and executed much of the splendid armour of that period. 5. A short but graphic account of the excavations at Pompeii, are continued at their present rate, it is reckoned that the whole of the town of Pompeii, of which about a third is now laid bare, will be uncovered in the space of seventy-two years.

and their most recent results. If the excavations

The larger illustrations of the number are an etching by Leopold Flameng of a winding river landscape by Hobbema, and one by W. Unger, of three Flemish Graces by Rubens.

THE STAGE.

"HOME."

Home might have had some interest as a strong drama, if the author had not endeavoured to make it a comedy: it might have had much merit as a comedy if the author had not endeavoured to make it a strong drama.

The principal characters are an adventuress and a well-disposed young gentleman who baffles her projects; and had Mr. Robertson kept the character of the adventuress, as he has undoubtedly kept that of the young gentleman, within the modest limits of English domestic comedy, the work would have been harmonious, and the result just pleasantly laughable. But M. Augier's Aventurière furnished him with his plot; that is, he followed the lines laid down by a writer who grapples with important problems and makes a serious study of all the subtleties of character and emotion. To show elaborately, among many other things, the soul of goodness in things evil, is work congenial to Emile Augier, and work for which he is fitted. Mr. Robertson had no taste for that kind of analysis; and probably no talent for it.

Here, in Home, writing for a larger stage than the Prince of Wales's—a stage demanding greater effects than the effects of witty charades in a parlour-he did venture on more difficult ground. It was not new to him to give some serious in

terest to his pieces, but the serious interest had generally been idyllic. Here it is meant to be very strongly dramatic. You are to sympathise very keenly with a woman, whose scoundrel of a brother does for her what Edith Dombey's mother did for her teaches her, that is, to display herself to advantage, and to sell herself to the best bidder. She recoils from all this, and feels the shame of it, and has a long scene of passionate avowal of her past, and a fine moment of amendment. But in all this Mr. Robertson is strangely out of his element. The words and the thoughts proper to the many situations she passes through came to him apparently with difficulty. And yet of all the serious interest that is in the piece, hers is treated the best. Other characters have serious interest, or are meant to have. The well-intentioned young man who is to baffle the adventuress, in her hunt for the hand of his father, comes back from Ame

rica, when his friends have thought him dead. He comes back as somebody else, so that his father shall not suspect his plan, and he tells his sister who he is. The sister receives the intelligence that he is not dead but living-nay, here beside her as the most natural thing in the world, and as a rather good joke, into the bargain. chocolate. She is seventeen, and has a lover, and She laughs; he kisses her-she proceeds to eat he too finds the happiness of courtship to consist of eating chocolate à deux. Again, when the father receives a letter informing him that the long lost son is alive, he has hardly more than a being about as genuinely surprised as a man sentence to say about it. He lifts his hand, and is when he receives a "testimonial admiring friends observes to Lucy, "Your " from his brother Alfred is alive," or words to that effect, and soon he proceeds to the transaction of ordinary and social business. There is a ludicrous want of just proportion in a scene so conceived and executed. I don't suppose the spectator can for an instant believe in its reality.

cepted fun, though chiefly fun of the kind that is produced for the benefit of Mr. Sothern. The drunken scene, when the adventuress's brother calls for his host's champagne at early lunch, and passes through various stages of intoxication until he lies helpless on the drawing-room sofa when he should be giving his arm to one of the young ladies, is not only farcical, but entirely superfluous. It is none the better because it is fairly acted by Mr. Rogers. It leads on to nothing whatever in the piece, and concludes the first act feebly. Of Mr. Sothern's love-scene (that is, Alfred Dorrison's, with the young visitor, Dora Thornhaugh), more is to be said in praise. It drags a little at first; it reminds you too much of the Dundreary you would fain forget; but as it goes on it improves-really tells upon the action and progress of the piece, and besides that, has some delicate touches which are true to the art of domestic comedy and to the nature of commonplace young people.

On the other hand, there is a good deal of ac

Mr. Sothern's acting with Miss Ada WardMrs. Pinchbeck, the adventuress-is quite as good, though not so characteristic, as his acting with Dora (Miss Dietz). A vein of well-preserved irony runs through all his love-making with her; and he makes love to her, remember, only that she shall release his father, being fascinated by the position of the German Count, whom he represents himself to be. The few serious utterances given to Mr. Sothern to make are delivered well and genuinely; but Mr. Sothern in serious moments turns away his face from the audience, so that little facial expression is seen or attempted. His acting, as far as it goes, is undoubtedly good; but the part might be much finer, if Mr. Sothern made a greater demand on his own powers, and, in giving the character its proper scope and range of naturally exhibited feeling, aimed to be here a high comedian as well as a comic actor.

Miss Ada Ward's performance of what might be a very great part indeed, is better at the end

than at the beginning. The first strong gestures are decidedly unhappy. Here the tone is melodramatic; the emotion forced and exaggerated. But her performance notably improves as it proceeds, and leaves on you at last the impression of many spontaneous gestures, many pathetic touches. The gentleness of her love scene with young Dorrison is well-nigh all that it should be. But she cannot quite rise, as a great French artist would, to the scene in which the adventuress refuses to profit by her brother's bargaining and wiliness on her behalf, and tears up the cheque which young Dorrison has written and given her as the price of her peaceful departure.

As the young lover of young Dorrison's sistera lad who, as some cynic says, is just at the age when lovers are most in earnest-Mr. Lytton Sothern makes a first appearance on the London stage, and plays his part with a little too much roughness, perhaps, but at least very frankly, good-humouredly, on the whole very suitably, and with a good deal of promise. Lucy, the girl to whom this youth, Bertie Thompson, has pledged his early loves, is represented by Miss Minnie Walton, already an established favourite with The actress is lively, to Haymarket audiences. she is playing. But she has hardly the expression look upon, and sets herself with a will to the part of a true ingénue, so rare to find on the English stage; so much more readily found on the stage of France, owing to one wonders what influences of French life, of French manners and education. The Lucy Miss Walton represents is welcomed by the public. She is indeed agreeable, but not child-like; jolly, but not naïve.

FREDERICK WEDMORE.

MR. CLEMENTS MARKHAM-Secretary of the Geographical Society-writes to us, of course unofficially, that he is anxious to get managers of theatres to present the Arctic Expedition with any dresses and other properties they may be able to spare. "Theatricals and fancy dress balls," he writes, "proved an important resource in keeping the minds of the men healthily employed, in for mer expeditions, so that if the managers would give any contributions they would really be doing a national service." Theatrical people are pro verbially prompt to do good services, and very possibly some of the managers may be inclined to take up Mr. Markham's suggestion; or it might perhaps be thought advisable to open a subscription list, so that private persons might have the opportunity of contributing their part in so useful a work, with which, we are sure, there would be very general sympathy.

IN the ACADEMY, "Mr. Wedmore weekly theatrical paper in its last issue-" signs his name to dramatic articles, and they have weight. He declares that both Mr. and Mrs. Kendal are in the habit constantly of false accentuation. Many people have thought so before, but few people have said it." The criticism, whether true or not, can only have been by a slip of the pen attributed to Mr. Wedmore. It is not his, nor that of any other writer in this journal.

Maggie's Situation is the name of a somewhat farcical comedietta to which a prominent place is now given in the bills of the Court Theatre. The piece is by Mr. Madison Morton, and is not without good points, to which the acting of Mr. Edgar Bruce, Mrs. Chippendale, and Miss Marie Litton give force; but Maggie's Situation is without real importance, though its merits and those of the actors are enough to keep it for some little time in the programme.

bouffes-La

THE New Royalty Theatre opened its doors on Saturday night, with the first English perform ance of one of Offenbach's best opera Périchole-and with an adaptation from the Fe, and Mr. Lin Marcel, called Awaking. Ôf the latter piece, and Rayne, and Miss Bessie Hollingshead, there may