eroded by means of ice, the effect of this agent having been rather that of levelling the minor inequalities of surface. Much of the characteristic superficial configuration of the Dale district, however, is referred to glacial erosion; and it appears that since this great sheet of land-ice did its work the surface of the country has suffered comparatively little from denuding agents.

UNDER the name of Koppite, Professor Knop, of Carlsruhe, has published the preliminary description of a new mineral from the Kaiserstuhl, which he dedicates to Hofrath Kopp, of Heidelberg. Mistaken hitherto for pyrochlore, it turns out to be a niobate of various metals, including calcium, cerium, lanthanum, didymium, potassium, &c.: a part of the oxygen in the compound being replaced by fluorine.

A FEW weeks ago we referred to the action taken by the Sub-Wealden Exploration Committee in starting a new bore-hole at a short distance from the old site. Although it had been suggested that the second boring should be undertaken at some other locality, the Committee saw no reason for altering their original determination, and consequently the new hole was started on February 11. The crown employed has a diameter of six inches, so that solid cores of nearly this size are now being extracted, and these large rockcylinders, when studied, will no doubt yield valuable geological information on the characters of the Sub-Wealden rocks.

SCIENCE in Sweden has suffered a serious loss

in the death of Professor Sundevall, the zoologist. He was born in 1801, and graduated at the University of Lund. He began his peculiar labours in 1824 by a survey of the fauna of the islands of Gotland and Öland. In 1827 he made a collection of insects in the East Indies. In 1838 he was elected as Swedish representative in the French scientific expedition to Spitzbergen under Gaimard; in returning he left the corvette at Hammerfest, and made the perilous journey over the mountains to the Gulf of Tornea alone. After this he made scientific excursions into various parts of Germany, France, Holland, and England. Until 1839 Sundevall gave his main attention to entomology, but in that year he became curator of the National Museum at Stockholm, and worked assiduously at all branches of natural history. Of the multitudinous writings with which he has enriched the literature of zoology, may be mentioned Skandinaviens Fiskar (The Fishes of Scandinavia), Svenska Foglarna (The Birds of Sweden), and Lärobok i Zoologi för Nybegynnare, an introduction to the study of zoology, which has had an immense popularity. The theories of Darwin reached him very late in life; they were among the latest speculations into which he entered, and totally as they were at variance with the traditions of his life, he did not reject them. "Probably true, but wholly unproved," was his cautious remark after reading the Origin of Species.

THE interpretation of the Eshmunazar inscription is not yet settled, in spite of the elaborate articles devoted to it by most of the present Semitic scholars. M. Joseph Halévy discusses it in the first thirty-nine pages of his recent book, Mélanges d'Epigraphie et d'Archéologie Semitiques, and we have before us a pamphlet on the same subject by Professor Kaempf, of the University of Prague, with the title Die Grabschrift Eschmunazar's Königs der Sidonier (Prag, 1874). It begins with an introduction on the relation of the Phoenician

dialect to Hebrew and Arabic; this, however, according to the author's statement, is only an extract from an elaborate MS. article of his on the same subject. It contains very interesting and judicious remarks on the grammar of the three idioms, and we should be glad to see the article printed in full. The commentary on the inscription itself is the most extensive which has yet appeared, indeed, perhaps a little too much so;

but the author's grammatical and lexicographical references to the Talmudic and Rabbinic idioms are no doubt of the highest value. We regret however to say that the new interpretations proposed by the learned professor are, in our opinion, inadmissible. Thus, for instance, in line 3,

מיתם

"assistant of an orphan," and in line 4, np, "a decree comes out. No government, &c.," are violations of the grammar and spirit of Semitic languages. Why search for new combinations when those of previous scholars are satisfactory? It is also to be regretted that Professor Kaempf was not able to consult M. Halévy's recent book, which, in spite of the wild opinions of the author, contains many valuable suggestions. We think that when writing on an inscription one ought to have a complete knowledge of all that the case with Professor Kaempf, according to his has been done by predecessors; but that is not own showing in the preface. A very remarkable hint for biblical scholars is the expression in the inscription line 12, wow лnn, "under the sun," which, as Professor Kaempf (p. 81) and others have remarked, occurs only in Ecclesiastes, and reminding us of the Greek pip; whereas in Daniel, not to speak of other biblical books, we find always "under all the heavens."

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. PHYSICAL SOCIETY (Saturday, February 13). PROFESSOR J. H. GLADSTONE, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. This was the first anniversary meeting of the Society. Messrs. E. Day, R. K. Gray, and O. J. Lodge were elected members. The annual Report of the Council on the state of the Society, and its progress during its first year, was read by the President; from this it appeared that the number of members was 140. Some changes in the by-laws, recommended by the Council, were adopted, and thereafter the following Officers and Council were elected to hold office until the next anniversary meeting:-President: Professor J. H. Gladstone, Ph.D., F.R.S. Vice-Presidents: Professor W. G. Adams, F.R.S.; Professor G. C. Foster, F.R.S. taries: Professor A. W. Reinold, M.A.; W. C. Roberts, F.C.S. Treasurer: Dr. E. Atkinson. Demonstrator: Dr. F. Guthrie, F.R.S. Other Members of Council: Latimer Clark, C.E.; W. Crookes, F.R.S.; Professor A. Dupré; Professor O. Henrici, F.R.S.; W. Huggins, F.R.S.; Professor H. M'Leod; W. Spottiswoode, F.R.S.; Dr. H. Sprengel; Dr. W. Stone; and E. O. W. Whitehouse.

Secre

ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE (Tuesday, February 23).

The writer gave a long and very full account of each day's proceedings, with a précis of the more important communications read. 4. "The History of the Heung-Noo, Part II." translated by A. Wylie, of Shanghae, with notes by H. Howorth. Previous to the reading of the papers, Captain Harold Dillon exhibited and described a series of arrowheads and spear-heads from Ditchly, Oxon; and Mr. R. B. Holt exhibited Esquimaux models of Caïques, Baidars, winter and summer huts, and sleighs, &c., all of native manufacture.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE.

(Wednesday, Feb. 24.) CHARLES CLARK, Esq., Q.C., in the Chair. Mr. G. Washington Moon read a paper "On Popular Errors in English," in which he discussed with much ability the changes that had taken place in both the written and spoken language of England during the last two hundred and fifty years, at the same time pointing out the extreme value of preserving its purity, and adding a copious collection of errors, many of them in places where their presence would scarcely have been suspected. Many such occur in the English translation of the Bible, as, for instance, "Solomon was wiser than all men," which ought to be than "all other men," for he was not wiser than himself, and "all" men would have included him. So, in such phrases as "no other alternative," "each one," "both of them," "all of them," the words "other," 66 one," redundant. Again, "none" is constantly used to "of them," are, respectively, govern a plural verb; yet this is incorrect, for 'none," as compounded of "no one," is necessarily singular. Mr. Moon further showed that change for the sake of euphony had proved one of the most fruitful sources of error, and further illusblunders in English sentences, arising generally trated his views by quoting many humorous from the defective arrangement of words of which they were composed.

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GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Wednesday, February 24). J. EVANS, Esq., F.R.S. President, in the Chair. Mr. G. Wareing Ormerod read a paper "On the Murchisonite Beds of the Estuary of the Ex," and made an attempt to classify the beds of the Trias thereby. Murchisonite is a variety of orthoclase-felspar, distinguished by the possession of a third direction of cleavage, and by an opalescence on this cleavage-plane. The author had carefully traced the distribution of the Triassic beds containing this mineral, probably derived from the Dartmoor granite, and exhibited maps and se tions illustrating his detailed examination of the country between Exmouth and Babbacombe, and extending inland as far as Dartmoor. Professor Rupert Jones and Lieutenant Cooper King dedescribed some newly-exposed sections of the Woolwich-and-Reading beds in the neighbourhood of Reading. Since the Geological Survey was at work in this district, favourable opportunities for examining the structure of the country have been presented; and the authors have made good us of these opportunities by constructing detailed sections in certain pits. Attention was called to some remarkable nodules of clay occurring in great numbers embedded in sand. A short paper was read "On the Origin of Slickensides," by Mr. Mackintosh. Specimens showing these polished surfaces were exhibited from the Cambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous, and Triassic formations; and it was suggested that the character of the surface might be due to the effects of fusion.

COLONEL A. LANE Fox, President, in the Chair. The following papers were communicated:-1. "On the Milanows of Borneo," by Lieutenant C. C. Crespigny, R.N. The author thought, judging from evidence derived from their religious convictions and ideas, that the Milanows were descendants of a race who were progenitors of people inhabiting the Moluccas and other islands near, and could not be considered as aboriginal in Borneo. They are an industrious and well-to-do people, expert fishermen; have less truthfulness than their neighbours the Malays, are goodnatured and hospitable. In physique they are ill-formed, especially the women, who are also especially short in stature. They believe in a future world closely resembling the present, and are conducted there by a beautiful female spirit, but not until some days of feasting and cockfighting have been indulged in. The paper contained an account of the habits of the people, and concluded with a vocabulary of the Milanow language. 2. "Further Stone Monuments of the Khasi Hills," by Major Godwin Austen, being a sequel to a former paper on that subject read in 1871. 3. "Report on the Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology held Stockholm in 1874," by II. II. Howorth, Esq.

at

ANTIQUARIES (Thursday, February 25). MR. FRANKS communicated some remarks upon the brasses now existing in Buckinghamshire, of which he has presented rubbings to the Society. The county possesses only 248 brasses, none earlier than 1350, and but few of importance. In

numerous intervals of just intonation), and Dr. Pole (who considered it advisable to settle what epithets should be used), Mr. Hullah replied, proposing that a sub-committee should be appointed to consider the subject; and took occasion to say that acoustics have never done the smallest thing for music, and that musicians could get on much better without acousticians than with them. He was perfectly satisfied with a piano made by a first-rate maker and tuned by a first-rate tuner. The science of acoustics has nothing to do with the theory of music, and musicians have only to do with the equally tempered scale.

FINE ART.

EXHIBITIONS AND BOOKS ON THE ARTS.

Paris: Feb. 20, 1875.

The "Cercle de l'Union Artistique," in the Place Vendôme, of which I spoke a few weeks ago on the occasion of the portraits exhibited by M. Carolus Duran, has just opened its yearly exhibition. This serves painters who are members of the Cercle as a kind of preparation for the official Salon, which opens on May 1. They try their effect on the public, sometimes by works which will figure at the Palace of the Champs-Elysées if they have first gained a decided success here; and sometimes by works which are only meant to serve as a preparation or even as a contrast. Without pretending that the classification is exhaustive, one may say that this group of painters belong to the school of Gérôme and of Meissonier.

M. Meissonier, of whom I shall speak in a subsequent letter, never exhibits here, but at the gallery of one of our great dealers, M. Francis Petit. M. Gérôme exhibits here, and in the house of M. Goupil, his father-in-law, as well. He has at the present moment at M. Goupil's, an Arabian Jew bargaining with some other Arabs in a sitting posture. The gesture of the Jew merchant is greatly praised. Here he exhibits Horses at the Door of a House at Constantine. The composition is skilful. As an engraving it will make a very pleasing vignette. But when it is considered as a painting the difference is great. M. Gérôme traces with remarkable precision the outlines alike of accessories, animals, and men; but he seems to concern himself less than ever with the mass included within this outline, with the local colours which give it reality, and the lights which give it life. This court in which two saddle-horses are

very

tethered is as icy as a well; the horses shine like toys turned in box-wood. Verbal description would give an equally correct idea of this scene, which, in spite of these defects, irreparable from the artistic point of view, is yet destined to furnish remunerative tasks to our engravers.

The school of Meissonier is represented by M. E. Detaille. He has not that freedom of touch and that vigorous draughtsmanship which make us pardon in his master the minute scale of his canvases. But he, too, has the art of posing his small figures with remarkable truth. People here are going into raptures, and not without reason, over a little picture entitled Surprise of a Picket. It is during the war of 1870. Some chasseurs à pied have surprised a picket of the enemy, and are dislodging it from its post. You only see our young soldiers ranged tier above tier on the steps of a large staircase under a vaulted roof, and firing with smartness and discipline. There are neither those unreal wounded, nor those accommodating dead, who, since the academies have been in operation, have served to bring the rest into relief in every battle piece. This is an advance in truthfulness which

deserves attention.

The whole of the younger school of genre painters-such as Vibert, Worms, Berne-Bellecour

is here, with scenes which are often very amusing, but which are more nearly related to the repertory of the Vaudeville than to the domain of painting. My letter would degenerate into a review of the theatrical week if I were to occupy myself with the story of all those little simpering

affectations, those idle parrots' melancholies, those costumes which transform the human being with his depth of passion into an ever ridiculous puppet. I shall only make an exception in favour of M. J. de Nittis, a young Italian who has been established among us for some years, and who, while a rapid producer, has chosen the better part, that of constantly painting after nature. M. J. de Nittis devotes himself to a thorough study of the landscape in which he is to place his figures, next to massing these figures well by subtle or vigorous bits of colouring, and finally to giving to this landscape and to these figures a modern and truthful turn. The epithet of modern as applied to a landscape would appear a paradox, did not M. de Nittis generally choose perspectives of the Place de la Concorde, of the great streets of Paris, of the avenues leading to the Bois de Boulogne. I have even seen in his studio a sketch taken at the end of Piccadilly, with the mansions on the right, and on the left the perspective of the trees in the park, commanded by the impassive outline of To follow modern life Wellington on horseback. in its general constitution, its outward manner, its peculiar beauties, its fleeting passions, is in our eyes one of the most difficult problems that a conM. de scientious artist can attempt to solve. Nittis is a delicate colourist. He paints with a freedom which brings him near the borders of the school of No compromise. He deals with the pretty tricks of dress and bearing of our Parisian ladies with a precision equally remote from caricature and from affectation. He is keenly alive to the fleeting aspects of light, of verdure, of the tone of the road or the streets, of distances. In a word, he interests himself in the individual in his relations with other individuals. We trust that the success which has attended the opening of his career may induce him to persevere in the right track.

1

The landscapes are by no means remarkable. Our landscape painters are too ready to exhibit, not studies revealing a passionate or deliberate desire to wed themselves with nature, but rather rapid sketches which it would be difficult to transform into complete pictures. This is a great rock ahead. I will except some good studies of sea and sky, made on the coast of Brittany, in Finistère, by M. Lansyer, and, in a very different order of ideas, that is, with a greater view to effect, some other ocean studies by M. Bellet Dupoizat.

I shall only mention among the portraits a very energetic study of a young woman by M. Carolus Duran, and the first productions of a young Russian painter, named Alexis Harmaloff. He belongs to a family of peasants, and studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. He is endowed with a very robust sense of design. On his way to Paris he passed through Holland. There he saw, studied, copied, Rembrandt. He was not imbued with the mysterious poetry of that mighty enchanter, but he noted with care and intelligence the effects of light which he cast over the face and the hands of his models. This is only the material technique of art. But M. Alexis Harmaloff combines with it an observation of the inner character of his subjects which is not without force. He knows how to pose his sitters, and characterise their special features. I have seen a portrait by him, not yet exhibited, of Mdme. Pauline Viardot, the great singer. The face is profoundly expressive; the mouth is like life; the hands are clasped over the knees like the hands of an artist who is taking rest while the brain continues to work. His Russian blood betrays itself, not without a barbaric charm, in the glitter and weight of the gold ornaments which he has hung on her breast. I should not be surprised

if he viewed Mdme Viardot, who is in every re

spect a remarkable woman, through the medium of the radiance of a Byzantine Virgin. M. Alexis Harmaloff exhibits here a portrait to the knees in a standing position of Prince Sergius Kotschoubey, a man with a high colour and stern face flanked by bushy white whiskers. It is a painting with a dash of the barbaric, which in its rudeness tells strongly

amid the insipidity of the over-refined schools of Europe.

Let us leave the Cercle to speak not of news, which would run the risk of ceasing to be new during the time that this letter would take to reach you, but of new publications; and first of a matter which has a somewhat personal bearing, and which raises a question of general criticism. Mr. Frederick Wedmore recently published in the ACADEMY a review of an Album published yearly to which I contributed a few pages by way of introduction. I have neither the right nor the intention of reviewing the review of a fellowcontributor and fellow-student. He has his reasons for pronouncing the etchings which he has mentioned to be bad. I should have mine for pronouncing remarkable the etchings of Detaille, Roybet, L'hermitte, Nittis, Dupray, Lerat, Boilvin, Lançon, Jules Héreau, and others in the same collection which he has passed over in silence. But I must not have it supposed, either that I let myself be surprised into a promise to put my name at the head of an inferior publication without seeing its contents beforehand-I am not so prodigal with my signature-or that I at all agree with that theory which places in the same rank painters who, be they good or be they indifferent, transfer their own thoughts to copper, and professional engravers, skilful or otherwise, who translate the thought of others. This is a heresy. We shall find some day without a doubt, for it is in the law of science, a mechanical appliance of some kind which will render the engraver useless. We shall never invent an instrument or a substance which will give form to a thought, an emotion, a recollection. If Mr. Wedmore, having to allude to my text on "la belle épreuve," had done me the honour to read it, he would have seen that I maintain, even as to the wholly material circumstance of the quality of an impression in etching, the same distance between the fresh and elaborate plate of a bad artist, and the plate, even though much worn, of a master's sketch. The idea of reproducing the works of others by etching -a method spontaneous, full of spirit and of freedom-is specifically modern. Etching has prevailed over line engraving, which it only allows us to forget when it attacks, what it is especially fit for, the works of colourists; it is fashionable to such a degree that the young engravers who cultivate it sell their proofs for prices ten times as large as creators, original geniuses such as Méryon, or Bracquemond, or Millet, or Leys, have been able to get for their master-pieces. This is a state of things that will pass away.

The publishing house of Bachelin-Deflorenne has just issued the first part-there are to be ten —of a publication entitled L'Ornement des Tissus. It is an historical and practical collection, with explanatory notes and a general introduction, by M. Dupont-Auberville, a distinguished amateur whose magnificent collection was on view at the last exhibition of the Union Centrale. This col lection was mentioned in the special articles published at the time by the ACADEMY. The designs are by M. Kreutzenberger. A hundred plates, lithographed in colours, gold and silver, by skilful artist in this special line, M. Régamey, give the most beautiful specimens of the art of antiquity, the Middle Age, the Renaissance and the last two centuries, drawn from the original pieces preserved in collections public and private. Thus, beside the Dupont-Auberville collection, the Museums of South Kensington, Nuremberg, the Louvre, and Lyons have already furnished cotributions. Each part contains, in addition to the ten coloured plates, ten explanatory texts giving information as to the origin of the stuff, mode of manufacture, and place where it is pre served. Naturally, as it is rich stuffs and types of ornamentation that are principally dealt with, the East and Italy furnish the greatest part of these materials, which are equally useful to amateurs in want of instruction and to manufacturers in quest

the in

genuity with which, at the close of the Middle Age—which remains to my mind the type of robust and healthy originality-France assimilates the Italian style, and so to speak disfigures it, as we sometimes render a man unrecognisable by making him wear garments to which he is wholly unaccustomed. M. Dupont-Auberville gives us a reproduction of a table-cover which belongs to a painter, M. Escosura. One can imagine nothing more widely removed from the animals which in the Middle Age ran in horizontal bands, and at the same time nothing more French. It is the whole difference between a gentleman of the court of the Valois, in close-fitting breeches, doublet, and plumed hat, and a man-at-arms clad in iron mail, and walking with the heavy tread of a beetle. It is the same with the choice of tones and the delicate effect of details. This table-cover is formed of an application of slashed black velvet on a background of white satin, with red and blue embroidery with the needle. The General Introduction gives details on the art of manufacturing silk in antiquity, to which I can only refer the reader who is desirous of knowing the present state of our researches on this special point of one of the facts most closely connected with the various phases of human civilisation. It is certain that the appearance of silk in the West must have greatly modified men's ideas as to the outward beauty of women and of men in power.

M. J. Blondel publishes through Messrs. Renonard an octavo volume, embellished with woodcuts in the text, on the History of Fans among all Peoples and at all Times. This history, which is the result of most conscientious labour, and is written in a very pleasing style, is all the more welcome as we only possess in France two monographs on the history and manufacture of the fan, which, like all vanities, has played its part in the great events of the world. One of these monographs was written by M. Natalis Rondot after the Great Exhibition of 1851, in his report on objects of personal ornament, fancy, and taste. M. Blondel has added to his study on fans three notices, likewise extremely curious, on tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, and ivory. One may say that general exhibitions have been the startingpoint and the origin of these monographs, in which science and statistics support the data of learning and of taste.

M. J. Blondel states that after making an appearance in England under Richard II., the fan spread little by little in the higher classes, principally under Henry VIII. Elizabeth brought it into favour. Nichols gives an example of a fan with a handle of gold enriched with diamonds, which was presented to her one New Year's Day. They were then worn at the waist. In order to find other examples of fans wholly of metal, we must go to Japan. There the generals' bâtons are iron fans. I have lent one to M. Blondel which is likewise of iron, but as delicately chiselled as ivory. It is a young prince's fan, more robust in tone than silver, and gently masculine in its rigidity.

The same publishers have brought out a book by M. Gruyer, to whom we are already indebted for some works on Raphael. It is entitled The Works of Art of the Italian Renaissance in the Temple of St. John, Baptistery of Florence. It is an octavo volume, full of carefully tested facts.

THE STUDIOS. III.

PH. BURTY.

M. LEGROS has decided not to send anything this year to the Royal Academy Exhibition. His absence from the walls will be a subject of regret to all those who take pleasure in the work of a master. He will exhibit, however, it is to be hoped, at the French Gallery in Bond Street. There, at any rate, we may look forward to seeing what he does send, which has usually been impossible at the Royal Academy. Last year his Leçon de Géographie was treated very nearly as

sees.

con

ill as M. Costa's noble landscape The Shore of the Mediterranean near Rome. M. Costa's painting was indeed skied, and offered perhaps the most flagrant instance of culpable carelessness, or want of judgment on the part of the hangers of the year; but the position usually assigned to M. Legros' work is always unworthy of its merits. The second and more attractive picture which he sent last year, Le Chaudronnier, was as spicuously ill hung as the Leçon de Géographie: in either case it was impossible to study the work. At present M. Legros is engaged in carrying out in oils a design of the fable of Phaedrus, Death and the Woodman. The shaft of a mighty treetrunk runs right across the picture from the left at the base of the design, passing out to the right across the sky. In the narrow wooded passage beneath its branches the two are met. The longveiled figure stands solemnly still; the woodman falls on his knees at its feet, half dropping, half clasping the bundle of fagots which he bears. It is only from the expression of his upturned face that we know what manner of vision it is that he The impressive character of the subject, the simple grandeur of the invention, the entire absence of any necessity for the introduction of minor elements of a pleasing character, render this design one especially well calculated to show us the full power of M. Legros' talent, to bring unmistakeably home to us the force of mind and hand which he puts into everything he does. For the special turn of M. Legros' mind seems to be always towards the dwelling on evidence of the rougher experiences of life. The signs which indicate an existence which has bloomed without grave trouble and pain do not fascinate him, and he does not render them caressingly, as one to whom the task was dear. The soft delights of childish forms, the unstained cheeks of women untroubled by struggle of body or mind, these good things and fair do not win from him the sympathy and recognition which he at once renders when he sees the painful marks of physical or intellectual suffering and toil. Thus it is that M. Legros' work is not popular, for to those who come, as the most of us do, asking for something bright, for something gay, which may stimulate and refresh our wearied senses, he says, "I cannot give you what shall please you, but if you will look here attentively you shall see with me the cruel pathos of long endurance-the strength, and the anguish of life." These things M. Legros touches with the hand of a master. That which he means to give us he gives us with absolute certainty of power; and if we wish to see them with him, we must renounce with him all craving for lesser pleasures of prettiness, and accept these facts clothed in that artistic form which is best suited to their highest expression. His etching of the Horse Grinding at the Mill, destined also to be carried out as a painting, is another design of the same class. Under an open penthouse, which is attached to a shed on the right, in the centre stands the weighty grindstone. The horse dragging at the pole goes heavy and dull on his unceasing round; close to the shed stands an inert group of slow-eyed monks. Over all, through the broken rafters, the steady gloom of a long twilight comes darkening down covering the far horizon. Every line of the drawing adds to the meaning of the ultimate intention. The entire scene is pregnant with a sense of the dull deadening burden of the oft-repeated daily round, reaching us, not in passionate protest, but simply "this is how it kills." As a specimen of the same class of treatment applied to individuals, there may be cited a portrait by M. Legros, an etching recently executed, the head of a distinguished Frenchman, a Communist of the higher type. The manipulation is brilliant, beyond even the average adequate perfection of M. Legros' work. The fine intelligence of the man is there; the possibility of entire devotion to an idea; but there, too, is the print of failure. The shape of the long head, and jaw; the lines of the brow; the concentrated gaze; the clinging to the ball

of the wide thin eyelid, speak of the inevitable fate of one who, keenly passionate and far-sighted for the wide issues of a theory, is condemned to be impotent in the effort to shape, in accordance with its laws, the destinies of men. Each point is set down with an unscrupulous fidelity, which is not the outcome of want of sympathy with his subject, but rather a necessary result of intense vision; and everywhere the means employed are absolutely sufficient for the proposed end. We recognise a master of the craft.

Mr. Boughton has several pictures now in progress, and whatever Mr. Boughton does is sure to present some claims to acknowledgment and admiration. Couleur de Rose and Grey Days are companion pictures, both equally delicate and graceful in sentiment and tone. Both subjects are impersonated by charmingly pretty young ladies enframed by attractive and appropriate surroundings. Couleur de Rose wears the now popular short-waisted white gown and cap of 1799. She stands in a garden of roses varying in hue from white and fainttinted pink down to the angry glow of blackcrimson, and holds a fresh-plucked blossom lightly in her half-closed fingers. The languid warmth of summer afternoon clings about her; through the heated air we see the garden wall, the not fardistant house, and the clear blue sky above the roofs. Grey Days walks in the cold and windy morning. She is cloaked and hooded in black. Beneath the black hood the wide frill of a white cap sits closely round a fair and wistful face. She pauses wearily in her step, and rests against an old stone wall, beyond which stretches upwards a barren strip of land. The sense of prevailing chill atmosphere in Grey Days is caught in skilful contrast as against the warm haze which envelopes Couleur de Rose. Mr. Boughton has also a large landscape with figures, which he proposes to call Woman and her Master. The scene is a large common, the edge of which is skirted in the distance by the slope of hill-sides fringed with clumps of distant trees, under the shelter of which a little homestead shows itself. The line of road leading through this common sweeps in a long depressed half-circle right round the whole space. Near to us, low on the right hand, an old labourer sits idly, hammer in hand, upon his stone heap. Behind this figure is a cart, and men busily engaged in leading away stones. Up the road, a little farther on, move the piteous figures of three women, heavily laden with various burdens, and one of them dragged back by a child. In front of this group, some paces ahead, walks the man, just as we are well accustomed to see him in our every-day experiences; his unembarrassed hands thrust clumsily into his pockets, his pipe in his mouth, his bull-dog close upon his heels. The humour of this situation is not, however, unwisely forced. The movement of the groups and their character is thoroughly in keeping with, and subordinated to, the general interest of the scene. The principal feature of the design is the fine curve of the line of road, and the way in which the minor lines of distance are run into it. entire scheme of colour responds to the style of the design. It is grave and pathetic. The sober key in which the grey cold sky is pitched has not only the value of distance and air, but is wisely felt in relation to the prevailing sentiment. There is a certain stamp of character on Mr. Boughton's treatment of this subject, an accent of more serious and considered spirit, which seems to indicate that he has in him a vein of greater power and independence of thought and feeling than either Couleur de Rose or Grey Days, sweet and graceful as they are, would lead us to expect.

The

E. F. S. PATTISON.

ART SALES.

THE sale of Baron Thibon's objects of art was finished on the 12th ult. The Sèvres porcelain sold as follows:-A jardinière with figures of children, 5,050 fr.; two seaux, period Louis XV., 4,220 fr.;

two jardinières, 6,300 fr.; two biscuit statuettes, model of the "Garde à vous," 8,500 fr.; bowl and stand, 1,600 fr.; oval plateau, 1,220 fr.; two small vases, pâte tendre, turquoise blue ground, 6,050 fr.; plate, with the cypher of the Empress Catherine II., part of her elaborate service, 2,400 fr.; biscuit medallion, Louis XVI. period, 1,100 fr. ; old Dresden teapot, 1,330 fr.; timepiece, Louis XVI. period, 5,000 fr.; another in the form of a vase, with musical emblems, 5,000 fr.; two fire-dogs, Louis XV. period, couching lions, 1,310 fr.; another pair, vases of flowers, same period, 3,520 fr.; bronze group, three nymphs after Clodion, 2,250 fr. The whole amount realised by this fine collection was 250,000 fr. (10,000.).

THERE has been just sold at Lyons, by one of the rich collectors of the city, a credence table for 100,000 fr., a splendid masterpiece of sculpture of the period of Francis I. It has been sent to Paris to enrich a well-known gallery.

In the sale, on the 16th ult., at the Hôtel Drouot, of the objects of art of the late M. Paul Baron, some pictures by modern artists sold as follows:J. L. Brown, Episode in the Seven Years' War, 1,155 fr.; Coessin, Acrobats, 1,710 fr.; Diaz, After Rain, 1,510 fr.; J. Dupré, Landscape, 1,470 fr.; Isabey, Sea after a Storm, 2,300 fr.; The Dancing Lesson, 1,220 fr.; and Beach at Low Water, 1,005 fr.; Jacque, Herd of Pigs Running, 1,550 fr.; Cock and Hen, 2,020 fr.; and Sheep in a Landscape, 800 fr.; Luminais, First Riding Lesson, 900 fr; Van Marcke, Pasture in Normandy, 3,040 fr. ; Riem, View of Venice, 1,960 fr. ; and another, same subject, 1,080 fr. The sale produced 56,513 fr. (2,2607.).

THE Library of the late M. Guizot is advertised for sale on March 8, and will extend until the 20th.

AT a sale at Brussels of the Sanford collection, the pictures sold at the following prices:-A. Achenbach, The Place of Scheveningen, 4,600 fr.; Backerkorff, Simple Remedies, 4,400 fr.; Bosboom, Interior of the Church at Delft, 1,550 fr.; Coomans, The Culprit, 7,400 fr.; De Groux, The Poor Box, 4,600 fr., and Tavern Brawl, 2,400 fr.; De Haas, Return from the Meadow, 1,200 fr., and Bullocks, 1,550 fr.; Hagelstein, Itinerant Musicians (retouched by Gallait), 400 fr.; C. Hoff, Chess Players, 4,400 fr.; I. Israels, The Prop of Age, 5,200 fr.; The Fisherman's Widow, 5,100 fr.; and Fisherman Mending his Nets, 5,200 fr.; Ittenbach, Virgin and the Infant Jesus, 3,200 fr.; Krans, Young Woman Sleeping, 1,625 fr.; Leys, The Old Lace Maker, 3,200 fr.; Robie, Still Life, 4,500 fr.; Roelofs, Approach of a Storm, 3,400 fr.; Ad. Schreyer, Irregular Cossack Cavalry in the Snow, 15,000 fr.; and Horses rushing from an Encampment on Fire, 13,500 fr.; Springer, View near Overyssel, 1,350 fr.; A. Stevens, The Reverie, 3,800 fr.

AT the sale of Mr. Hall's collection of modern pictures, at Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods', on the 20th ult., the following prices were obtained:-F. W. Hulme, The Stepping Stones, 19 gs., and Lane in Surrey, 200 gs.; G. H. Holmes, Caught, 294 gs.; Stothard, Scene from Love's Labour Lost, 40 gs.; E. W. Cooke, View on the Vechte, 40 gs.; Old Crome, Mills near Norwich, 15 gs.; H. Moore, Bright Weather after a Gale, 511. 98.; The Spanish Pedlar, 35 gs.; Cooper, Cattle, 851.; B. W. Leader, Autumn Afternoon, 2881. 158. R. Wilson, Landscape, 1181. 10s. Burgess, Reward of the Victor, 951. 118.; Niemann, Linton, 967. 128., and Surrey Hills, 1007. 168.; Watts, Landscape, 1831. 158.; A. Vickers, Morning off Portsmouth, 1831. 158., Evening at Pen Pale Point, 1521. 58., Meadows at Colchester, with Cattle, 126l., Coast Scene, with

Boats, 1361. 108., and Mouth of a River, 1201. 158.; Dawson, Running Fight, 5251.; T. Danby, Poet's Retreat, 1831. 158.; W. Shayer, Gipsy Camp, 190 gs.; E. Nicol, Balance on the Right Side,

1,900 fr. The sale produced 131,450 fr. (5,254/.). M. du Sommérard purchased for the Musée de Cluny thirty-six pieces, comprising all the Persian and the Hispano-moresque faïences.

NOTES AND NEWS.

2701. 198., and Balance on the Wrong Side, 2571. 58.; J. Holland, On the Grand Canal, Venice, 500 gs.; F. Goodall, A Café at Cairo, 100 gs.; E. W. Cooke, The Beach at Scheveningen, with Fishing Boats, 3201.; T. Gainsborough, three landscapes, lunette shaped, taken from his house in Pall Mall-subjects, a rocky landscape with cascade, a river scene, and a lake scene with ruins155 gs.; J. Gobaud, The Large Room at Christie's, MR. FREDERICK J. SHIELDS, one of the most when the " Snake in the Grass" of Sir Joshua Rey-estimable members (in all senses of the epithet) nolds (now in the Soane Museum) was sold, with of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, having portraits of celebrities of the time, 431.; Canaletti, for some years past been settled in Manchester, The Rialto, 1261.; Loutherburg, An Irish Fair, is now about to migrate to London. An ex90 gs.; Hoppner, A Lady in a White Dress, hibition of his works has been held from February 110 gs.; W. Müller, Gillingham, 50 gs. Most of 24 to March 3 in the rooms of the Royal Instituthe pictures were of cabinet size. tion, Manchester; the committee for the project dent of the Local Academy, Professor Ruskin, comprised the Mayor of Manchester, the Presiand Messrs. Madox-Brown, Arthur Hughes, D. G. Rossetti, George Richmond, Alma-Tadema, William Agnew, Grundy and Smith, and many others. The catalogue of the Exhibition enumerates 146 items. We may cite-The Toilet (1853), Mr. Shields's "first attempt in watercolours; Wesley Preaching at Bolton (1869); One of our Bread-Watchers (1865); Solomon illustrations, in the woodcut and other forms of Eagle warning the Impenitent (1870); and the execution, to the Pilgrim's Progress, and Defoe's History of the Plague. These two sets of designs, far less widely known than they ought for years things of their kind that have been done in Engpast to have been, are among the most remarkable land.

THE collection of china of the late Mr. Philip Cother, of Milford Grove, Salisbury, was sold on the 25th ult. by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge. One of the famed Bow milk jugs with goat at the base sold for 251. 10s. (At Mr. Marryat's sale one fetched 307.) A smelling bottle, with boy and goat and vines in relief, of white Bow, 71.; three Bristol jugs, with masks and festoons of flowers, attributed to Bone, 1207.; a chocolate cup and saucer of the celebrated ser

MR. JOHN SMART, the Scottish landscapepainter to whose work reference was made in the article on the Scottish Academy, has two important pictures in preparation for the forthcoming Exhibition of the Royal Academy. One of them is to be called The Crofter's Moss. It represents a peat bog at the foot of a mountain-the "moss 99 or bog being common to the different "crofters," or small farmers, of that district. A larger and more immediately impressive work is the Gloom of Glen Ogle: a bare mountain valley, seen under an effect of rolling storm. In both these pictures the spirit as well as the form of Highland scenery appears to have been seized, and they are already far enough advanced to be pronounced, confidently, as among the most vigorous works that Scottish landscape art has yet given us.

vice given by Champion to Mrs. Burke, 831. (a sale, 1874, for 937.); Shepherd and Shepherdess, similar cup sold in 1871 for 907., and at the Edkins 30 gs.; figure of Spring, one of the series of sale, 1874, for 931.); Shepherd and Shepherdess, The Seasons, in white porcelain, 547.; a Chelsea plate, claret ground, with bird in centre, 187. 10s.; a cup and saucer, gros bleu, with birds, 407.; Capo di Monte and cup saucer, figures in relief, 227. 108.; pair of Chelsea Derby groups, Philip Doddridge and his Mother and Mother and Child, 201. Belonging to another property were some very fine Oriental specimens:-An egg-shell plate, ruby back, with figures, 201., a shell-shaped dish, black and crimson, with birds and plants, 371.; a Plymouth mug, bell-shaped, with exotic birds and the Plymouth mark in gold, 417. 10s.; Vienna plate, Aeneas and Dido, beautifully painted, 181. One of the fifty copies of Wedgwood's Portland vase, from the collection of the poet Rogers, at whose sale it was bought by Mr. Addington for 1271. (At Mr. Parnell's sale, in 1872, Mr. Tite paid 1807., the highest price given.) This specimen, which is of remarkable beauty, was sold to Mr. Wareham for 1911. Worcester cup and saucer, gros bleu, painted with birds, 1581. Battersea enamel tea canister, 91. 158. ; and a beautiful small candlestick, turquoise blue, inlaid with silver, A SECOND Exhibition of Pictures has been 71. 15s.; pair of Bow figures, two cooks carrying opened at Edinburgh, containing many works dishes, 16 gs.; Bristol coffee pot, with trans- rejected by the committee of the larger Exhibifer figures, 10. 15s.; Chelsea bowl, cover, and tion. This second show contains very little that stand, gros bleu, 401; figure, Time clipping the is worthy of careful inspection, and thus, by imWings of Cupid, 291.; Derby statuette of Cathe-plication, it acquits the committee of the Scottish rine Macaulay, 20 gs.; Worcester basket, gros Academy of any charge of injustice to would-be bleu, 30 gs.; and an open fruit basket, 207. The day's sale realised 2,4157.

THE sale at the Hôtel Drouot of the late M. Séchan's collection, which took place Feb. 22 to 27 was one of the most important of the season. His relations with the East, where he had been charged with the decoration of the Sultan's palace and the theatre at Constantinople, had given him great opportunities of collecting works of art, and his specimens of oriental arms, Persian faïences, and Smyrna carpets, &c., were magnificent. Nor were his objects of European art less exceptional. The finest piece of the collection of arms, a scimitar pistol with straight blade, Venetian workmanship of the Renaissance, was purchased by Baron Adolphe de Frothschild for 50,000 ft. a Toledo sword of the sixteenth century with maker's name, 6,850 fr.; a rapier with handle of chased steel, 900 fr.; pair of pistols, dated 1577, 1,055 fr.; iron helmet engraved, 1,880 fr.; Per

sian faïence bottle, 1,510 fr.; another, 960 fr., another, 1,660 fr.; cylindrical pot, 1,320 fr.; large dish, 2,075 fr.; another, 1,000 fr, large Hispano-moresque dish, 1,010 fr.; another, 1,075 France; silver (wer and dish, Louis XV. period,

exhibitors.

WE understand that the great picture that the Paris world is expecting from Gustave Doré at the forthcoming Salon, the subject of which has been made somewhat of a mystery, represents a scene in L'Inferno. It is a work that has been in the artist's studio for many years, but is only

now finished.

The criticism that we have heard passed upon it is that "it is so full of writhing serpents that it resembles nothing so much as a bag of eels." The Doré Gallery in Bond Street is being enlarged at one end for the reception of this enormous work, for it is intended to exhibit it in London directly after the Salon. M. Dore has also finished his characteristic illustrations of the Crusades, and the work will be shortly published in Paris.

of some months in Italy, so no doubt we shall MR. FRITH, R.A., has left England for a tour Italy. soon have some Italian scenes by his hand. This It is sometimes a dangerous journey for an artis whose individuality is marked and whose style is matured, as witness poor David Wilkie, whose study of the great old masters overthrew his quite