each having distinctive characters of its own. M. Antolik calls the picture impressed on the plate across which the spark really passes, i.e., whose electrodes are directly connected with the two coatings, the active picture; that, on the other plate, which is due to a kind of reaction, the passive picture. The active picture is characterised by a bright line forming its core, which is surrounded by a narrow brown border, whose distinctness increases with the strength of spark. Around this, again, is a bright portion, which is indeed the most conspicuous part of the whole spark-picture, and consists of a series of stratifications perpendicular to the central bright line. Outside these there is a bounding layer, generally of a faint and cloudy appearance. The passive picture has a dark elongated nucleus which is bordered by a bright portion, and this again by other portions more or less bright. The two pictures the active and the passive-are in fact complementary. Many interesting variations in the forms of the spark pictures were obtained by compelling the spark to follow a certain track, which was done by painting a path for it on the sooty glass.

In rarefied air (about 20 millims. pressure) spark-pictures were also obtained, but were not so decided or so characteristic as those formed at the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere.

BOTANY.

MR. HENRY CHICHESTER HART, one of the naturalists appointed to the Arctic Expedition, has published a list of the plants found in the Islands of Aran, Galway Bay. From the geo graphical position and geological construction of these islands, their flora offers many features of interest. The geological formation of the islands belongs to the upper subdivision of the carboniferous limestone, and many of the rocks are replete with fossils. In several places large rounded blocks of conglomerate and granite are to be met with, evidences of a boulder drift from the adjoining shores of Connemara. Some of these measure seven or eight feet in height; they are called Connemara stones by the natives. The interesting feature of the flora is the presence of southwest European types, which reach this part of Ireland. The total number of species hitherto observed on this group is 372, about thirty of which the author claims to have added to those previously known. The luxuriance of the maidenhair and other ferns abounding in the deep fissures of the rocks, and the diminutive forms of many flowering plants on the thin crust of soil covering the rocks in some places, are characteristic features of the flora. There are no species peculiar to these islands, but several of the commonest plants are of the Atlantic type of Watson. This enumeration includes only the flowering plants and ferns; the lower cryptogams are said not to be abundant.

DR. ALEXANDER PRYOR has announced his intention to publish a new Flora of Herefordshire. In a circular that he has issued, in which he defines the nature of the information sought to make his projected work as complete as possible, he solicits the assistance of all botanists whose residence in the county, or other resources, would enable them to render the desired aid.

THE Oesterreichische Botanische Zeitschrift has celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday, and Dr. Sko

fitz, its editor and founder, was duly feasted and

congratulated on the event. In the February number Dr. Niessl describes some new spheroid fungi -Gnomonia misella, G. riparia and Chamaemori. This paper is to be continued. The first part of an almost complete translation of H. C. Sorby's article on "Comparative Vegetable Chromology," by Alfred Burgerstein; and various short notes

on descriptive and geographical botany complete

this number.

DR. BUNGE'S monograph of the species of the

genus Oxytropis has appeared. In the preface the author requests some indulgence for his work, and complains of the difficulties encountered in attempting a classification and discrimination of the species of this genus as compared with the closely-allied Astragali. He found it exceedingly difficult to devise satisfactory sectional characters.

No. 77 of the Botanical Section of the Journal

of the Linnean Society is entirely occupied by twenty papers forming the commencement of a series of contributions to the Botany of the Challenger Expedition. It contains a number of interesting observations on the Flowering Plants, chiefly of Bermuda, St. Vincent, St. Paul's, Fernando de Noronha, Tristan d'Acunha, and Kerguelen's Land; a paper on the Freshwater Algae obtained at Azores; and a number on the cryptogamous vegethe boiling springs at Furvas, St. Michael's, tation of the countries visited, in which several new species of lichens, fungi, and algae are is occupied by two papers on systematic botany; described. A large portion of No. 78, just issued, Notes on Indian Gentianaceae, by Mr. C. B.

Clarke; and Additions to the Lichen Flora of New

Zealand, by Dr. J. Stirton, consisting chiefly of technical descriptions of species. A valuable morphological paper is contributed by Dr. Masters on the Bracts of Crucifers, treating chiefly of the cause of the normal absence of the organs in that order; and a very interesting addition to our knowledge of Insular Floras is contained in Dr. Hooker's paper on the discovery of Phylica arborea, in the South Indian Ocean, with an enumeration a tree of Tristan d'Acunha, in Amsterdam Island, that island and of St. Paul. Surgeon-Major W. of the phanerogams and vascular cryptogams of H. Colvill sends a paper on the vegetable productions and the rural economy of the province of Baghdad.

Carnivorous Plants. Since Dr. Hooker gave his lecture at the Belfast meeting of the British Association on the carnivorous propensities of certain plants, some attention has been paid to the subject by other observers. The most recent contribution to this branch of botanical science is a paper by Mrs. Treat, of New Jersey, on the American species of Utricularia or bladder-wort, especially U. clandestina. These plants grow in water; the stems float on the surface, and are furnished with a number of bladders of very beautiful structure, composed of irregular cells, with clusters of star-like points, always four in number, arranged very regularly, and evenly distributed over the inner surface. These bladders are so constructed that when the minute insects which abound in the water in which they grow enter them, it is almost impossible for them to escape; they quickly perish and rapidly become absorbed or digested, as is shown by the coloured fluid from the bladders being transmitted to the neighbouring parts of the leaves and stem. Mrs. Treat found in almost every well-developed bladder one or more animal remains in various states of digestion. There was some variation with different bladders as to the time when maceration or digestion began to take place, but usually, in less than two days after a large larva was captured,

the fluid contents of the bladders began to assume a cloudy or muddy appearance, and often became so dense that the outline of the animal was lost to view.

THE third and concluding part of volume xxx. of the Transactions of the Linnean Society is

of tirely occupied by Mr. Bentham's revision of the sub-order Mimoseae. In his introductory remarks the veteran systematist points outwhat must inevitably be the case in any practically convenient system of classification-the great difference between the values in different cases of the characters on which different classes

and gene Cassia and the order Compositae resemble genera are founded. Thus he remarks that

each other in these respects-that both are perfectly isolated; the pistil and seeds are uniform

in each; the variations in the corolla are scarcely more marked in the one than in the other; and the androecium and fruit present, if anything, more important diversities in Cassia than in Compositae; in fact, on purely abstract principles, the latter have as good a claim to be included within the bounds of a single genus as the former. And yet, because there are 10,000 species of Compositae, and only 350 of Cassia, the latter has been almost universally treated as a single genus, while the former is divided into genera varying between 750 and 1,200. The 1,200 Mimoseae are as uniCompositae; the corolla is more uniform than in form in their pistil as the 350 Cassia and 10,000

either; the androecium and fruit are much more varied than in Compositae, and they were established by Linnaeus as a single genus. They are here treated as a sub-order, divisible into six tribes, Parkieae, Piptadenieae, Adenantherae, Eumimoseae, Acacieae, and Jugeae, and into twenty-nine genera. Mr. Bentham considers that the Mimoseae probably originated in some ancient warm country, whence they were enabled to spread gradually over the various tropical regions they now occupy, the greater number of the genera now existing having become differentiated before the disappearance or disruption of their original native country; and that the absolute identity of a few tropical species in the Old and New Worlds is in most cases due to human intercourse and commerce.

AN illustration of the laborious nature of German scientific-literary work lies before us in Dr. Just's Botanischer Jahresbericht: Systematisch geordnetes Repertorium der botanischen Literatur aller Länder. Erster Jahrgang (1873), Erster Halbband. The editor has had the assistance of above twenty-five "Mitwirker," eminent in various branches of botanical science, and every depert The value of such a work as this is seen on its ment appears to be worked at with great assiduity. face; its defects could only be ascertained by careful study; but so far as we are able to judge, it presents a valuable and complete bibliography of the year. The titles of the works are classified under various heads, so as to admit of easy reference, and of each of the more important ones an abstract is given, in many cases signed by the compiler as a gage of its trustworthiness. The amount of work annually turned out from the German botanical workshops (we have none in England, or only one or two) is truly amazing.

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. LINNEAN SOCIETY (Thursday, March 18). DR. G. J. ALLMAN, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The following papers were read: 1. "On Thirty-one New Species of Marine Planarians from the Eastern Seas," by Dr. Collingwood. 2. "On the Resemblances of Ichthyosaurian Bones to the Bones of other Animals," by Mr. H. G. Seeley.

NUMISMATIC SOCIETY (Thursday, March 18). MR. JOHN EVANS, President, in the Chair. A paper was read by Mr. Arthur J. Evans on the coins of Magnentius and Decentius, à propos of a hoard of 260 of these recently found at Alres ford. The writer pointed out that Magnentius represented the conservative reaction of the West ment introduced by Diocletian, and, in the i and the troops against the Oriental type of govern ginning of his reign, the party opposed to Chris been expected, we find in the early part of Magtianity. Corresponding with what might have nentius' reign' no Christian symbols on coins; the Emperor's head also is bare of the diadem. After the defeat of Mursa, Magnentius threw oppose the Arian Constantius, and at this perial himself into the arms of the orthodox party we find both Christian symbols and the imperial insignia. Mr. Evans supported his somewhat

PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Friday, March 19). REV. R. MORRIS, LL.D., President, in the Chair. Mr. Joseph Payne discussed the subject of the Old French or Norman element discoverable in the English patois of the Midland area. Before examining special words, he laid down the principle that many of the patois forms are explained by the difference between the laws of English and Old French accentuation. In naturalising French words the distinguishing or tonic accent, generally resting on the last syllable, was by the English rule transferred to the first or second syllable, the effect of which was to shorten or obscure the vowel or diphthong which had before been prominent and distinct. Thus enchantóur became English enchanter, batáile, báttel or battle, tichre viker, gramáire grammer, figúre figger, &c. It was also noted that the English tonic syllable became by this transference of accent almost invariably short, whatever might have been its quantity before. On these principles the writer accounted for the patois forms-náppern for naperón, lábber for labour, fávver for favour, súvver for sabur, mitten for mitaine, dúbbler for doublér, árran for araine, sóller for solér, púzzen for poison, fizen for foisón, mánner for manúre, Márry for Marie, bottle (of hay) for botelle, cántle (a corner) for cantél, skillet for escuelette, résson for raison, créttur crittur for creatúre, pápper for papier, better for bevére, déssent for decent, &c.

It was also shown, as a mark of the Midland patois, that there is a constant tendency to fling off the syllable preceding the tonic syllable, especially in words of French extraction-fend, gree, noint, Bery, stry, tice, tend, gin, &c., from defendre, agréer, encant, descrier, destruire, enticér, attendre, engin, &c. This tendency sometimes-as was shown in reference to mend, ray, &c.-brings about a form which expresses the very contrary meaning to that of the original word. Thus, amendér is to free from blots or faults, desráier to throw into disorder; hence mend ought to mean to blot, and ray to put in order.

As to special words, the writer showed that grudgeons, copper-rose (Norfolk name of the red poppy), gofers, huspil (to disturb, harass), lucam, tarbles, etc., were referable to the Norman or Old French words grugeon, coprose, gauffre, houspiller, lucarne, garbouil. The curious expression "a mort of people" was also compared with the Norman patois phraseology, "il y avait du monde charger à mort," where "à mort"

66

à mort, means in abundance, in excess. The South Lancashire idiom, "a two-three miles," was also shown to be paralleled by the Guernsey patois, "chès deux-treis choses."

ROYAL INSTITUTION (Friday, March 19). THE last Friday evening lecture was delivered by Dr. Liebreich, on "The Real and Ideal in Portraiture," but chiefly in portrait sculpture; painted portraits, though equally distinguishable as realistic or idealistic, being yet less suitable for the demonstration either of the effects of light or of anatomical facts; and these were two of the points on which the lecturer had to lay great stress. Greek sculpture, he began by saying, had worked out certain types of ideal beauty, between which and actual portraits was the difference conceived to exist between gods or heroes and ordinary mankind. In modern times the consequence of studying and copying these Greek types has been to produce sculptors who either implicitly followed out the classical models, or who sought to com

bine in some way Greek forms with a partial

accuracy to nature and to modern habits. These realists, who apply themselves exclusively, or proare the idealists, compared with whom are the fess to do so, to the observation of nature. If each class would keep within its own limits, there realistic sculptor in particular is constantly being would be nothing to say. But unfortunately, the tempted away, even in portraiture, from the living model before him, whose general expression he is satisfied to reproduce in a way, while the details, which would require the most careful observation, are worked out with a facility acquired by copying from the antique. The forehead of the Olympian Jupiter, the neck of the Apollo Belvidere, or the thorax of the torso of Hercules, is present to his mind, and guides his hand when he is engaged on the portrait of a mortal. The result, too often, is not only the loss of likeness, but the production of an imitation of a being not recognisable by naturalists as belonging to the human species in its present state of development. It was against this proceeding that the lecture was levelled. Greek portraiture, so far as it is known, i.e., from the time of Alexander onwards, was intensely true to nature. The same may be said of the large series of Roman busts or statues still existing, with the exception of instances where an emperor was represented in the character of a god. As an example of modern so-called idealism in portraiture, a cast from Chantrey's bust of Byron was exhibited and compared with an admirably realistic old bust of Dr. Ray. It was shown that if you covered only the familiar lock of hair on Byron's brow, the likeness vanished from the rest of the face, while, if you covered even one of the eyes and part of the brow of Dr. Ray, the likeness was not in the least diminished. On the other hand, when a bad light from below was turned on both busts, it appeared that Byron's suffered the least, and this, considering the frequency with which sculpture is exposed to light of this kind, might be an argument for trying to take advantage of it, by reproducing only the accidental characteristics of a face, and neglecting the essential features! Then followed a description of the essential features in a portrait bust the skull, with the form of which not the slightest liberty was to be taken; and the skin, a source of great difficulty, requiring accurate anatomical and physiological knowledge in the artist, if he would distinguish between furrows or lines in the face formed by the habitual movement of certain muscles (and, therefore, expressive of an essential tendency of character), or by a temporary movement. But anatomical knowledge gained from the dead body must, before it is applied to copying from life, be corrected by physiological observation, and if this is fully done, the lecturer contended that a truthful reproduction of the external part of the human face might be accompanied with the animation and intellectual expression which constitutes the true idealism in portraiture. He concluded by strongly urging this method of studying on those who have the

direction of schools of art, especially in cases where copying from the antique forms a large part of the training, and by its very nature tends to dull the appreciation of fine distinctions in nature. Casts

from several strikingly realistic early Florentine portraits, with some others of Greek and Roman origin, were exhibited in the theatre and referred to as illustrations of the main points of the lecture as they arose. In the library a series of modern sculptures or casts were arranged so as to show the true manner of lighting sculpture.

FINE ART.

Children of the Mobility. Drawn from Nature by John Leech. With a fine Portrait of Leech, and a Prefatory Letter by John Ruskin. Reproduced from the Original Sketches by the Autotype Process. (London: R. Bentley & Son, 1875.) THIS is a publication of six sketches of the slightest description by the excellent draftsman and humorist, who, year after and year, week after week all round the year, gave us so many witty and brilliant satires and jeux end of his Studies on the Renaissance, the d'esprit. If, as Mr. Pater has put it at the best philosophy of actual life is that which affords the greatest number of pleasurable sensations-and, indeed, nearly all our daily activities and successes go towards this end

-then John Leech was one of the men most deserving the gratitude of society. To how many thousands every Saturday, or Friday evening, did he not send a smile and a flash of light; and we cannot remember any instance in which he outraged good taste. On the contrary, he and the publication in which he worked were always on the right side, and must have done immense service to the minor morals, the manners, of the age. In an art point of view they were equally admirable, or nearly so: Leech's type of lady. hood and manhood was no doubt repeated over and over again, but then it always gave pleasure because it was excellent and so beautiful, and his children were ineffably charming, even when enacting the enfants terribles, first made so amusing by Gavarni. The mention of the illustrious French humourist, who was even abler as a draftsman than his English contemporary, suggests a comparison, and an instructive one, because so expressive of the national differences that indicate a substratum, we hope, still more distinct. The motive in Gavarni's pictures was very frequently a betrayal by means of the children of the infidelities of papa or mamma, or serious offences against truth, in either case by no means amusing to any party concerned, nor properly to the spec; while Leech's were invariably pleasantries, gaucheries, or evil manners properly punishable by laughter. The same may now be said of Leech's successors, but I am far from attributing the change to his influence; there can be no doubt at all that all caricatures take their colour and stamp exactly from the lamp-light and the matrix of the social life they illustrate and depend upon. The humblest of our comic or pictorial journals are not indecent; they may be sensational or even brutal, but direct indecency is left to our neighbours, and without it the Journal pour Rire and such like would find their occupation gone. The change with us had been going on ever since the day of Rowlandson, whose works were insufferably coarse; Kenny Meadows's cuts in Bell's Life were the earliest that

tator either

showed clean hands and that only occasionally, but his style of drawing was a little better than had before been seen in trivial comic prints, and he himself was far from being a vulgar or unaccomplished man.

Under the influence of Meadows, I remember John Leech first beginning his tentative designs. When I became acquainted with both of these men, Meadows was engaged on The Heads of the People, a series

of sketches that still deserves some consideration as an exponent of the society and humble life of the day, while Leech had just dropped out of the ranks of medical, or rather surgical, student life, and his first productions, one or two of which I remember him then showing to the elder artist, were sketches of Parisians done on a visit to France, and published, I think, in Bell's Life. He was determined to follow the bent of his genius, but the pay was so little that he thought of painting comicalities in stead of drawing them. One or two attempts in oil colours, however, convinced him that painting was an art beset by immense difficulties, technical adaptations, and, as he called them, artificialities, that would, ere he attained to any success, warp and destroy his powers as a satirist and truthteller. The fashionable dress of the moment was as dear to him as its manners and vices; and his despair on showing his first pictures to his friends, inspired by the evident impracticability of the square black hat and roll-collared surtout, as well as the difficulty his visitors had in answering his plaintive interrogative, why he could not be allowed to paint them and everything else simply as they were, we still vividly remember.

This was, as far as we can recollect, about 1839. Time gives a wonderful importance to events tiresome or trivial in passing, and now it is very interesting to recall this passage in Leech's life, and the contemptuous reply of Kenny Meadows that the things of the day were ephemera not worth embodying, except to get a guinea for pocket money, and then showing, very modestly, however, his own highly-finished water-colour painting, his last done, for Mr. Heath's Book of Beauty or Shakespeare Gallery. In these truth-telling was altogether ignored, that highly polished publisher requiring Mrs. Page to be represented just as young as her daughter, for the very absolute reason that nobody would buy the print unless the face was as young and pretty as a valentine.

Perhaps the reader begins to think I am wandering from my brief and its substantive, The Children of the Mobility. But it is not so; the surfeit of prettiness at last given the public by these "Books of Beauty," culminated in a volume of pictures called The Children of the Nobility, and Leech at the time made these drawings (now published apparently from imperfect tracings), to satirise the superfineness and the snobbery, which, however, collapsed and died out as suddenly as they had risen.

tion.

How these slight and evidently never finished drawings come to be published in this splendid manner requires some explanaWe should like to see The Adventures of Mr. Briggs, and various other sets of prints reproduced carefully-but perhaps that is not possible now-as they were poured

out in the shape of Pictures from the Collection of Mr. Punch, Christmas books, too soon after their first appearance, and too profusely printed, four or six or even eight on a page, to be highly valued. A selection of his best works will, no doubt, some day be done; meantime we can scarcely think the six sketches forming the subject of the present reproduction by photography, thrown off in 1841, important enough. The organist, one of the curses of Leech's later years, when continuous application to the amusement of the town had induced nervous impatience, called here The young Denticci the Italian Instrumentalist, and The Flinn Family, show something of the artist's appreciation of beauty in female children. The Family of Mr. and Mrs. Blenkinsopp has pathos, but the set as a whole is not of sufficient consequence to be produced by themselves. This the publishers have felt, as they have padded the thin quarto volume by introducing a portrait of Leech, a Coat of Arms of the Mobility, lithographic sheets of writing, and "A Preface," as it is called in the advertisements, "by John Ruskin." This preface, which is no preface at all, making no allusion to the subjects, or to Leech as an artist or satirist, is printed small, like the Lord's Prayer on a sixpence, surrounded by an absurd piece of Renaissance ornament.

WILLIAM B. SCOTT.

THE LINNELL EXHIBITION.

MR. E. T. WHITE, a picture-dealer who has been a large purchaser of recent works by our octogenarian but none the less highly vigorous landscape-master John Linnell, has collected together, at the Gallery No. 48 Pall Mall, sixteen specimens of the painter's skill, associated with a moderate spondence, actively carried on by Mr. White and number of pictures by other artists. The correothers, regarding certain spurious copies of Linnell palmed off fraudulently as originals, will be fresh in many readers' recollection. Of the Linnell works now exhibited, the only one that bears a remote date is a small and fine View near Bayswater, Sunset, executed in 1820. The recent ones may be somewhat thinner and sketchier in handling knowledge, picturesque perception, abundance, and than when the painter was in his prime; but, for sureness, they would stand high, if matched against the productions of any other living master. Some of the best examples are The Barley Harvest, The Pons Asinorum, The Woodcutters, A Storm in Harvest, Down Rays, and Harvest Home. Trade-interests, rather than anything pertinent to the essence of the exhibition, may have been served by the display of the works by other painters. stance, Prince Charming, by Mr. Pettie, is of no Some of these are trivial or objectionable: for inhigher rank than those photographs so numerously presented to the eye in shop-windows, gregariously termed "leg-pieces; nor should such trumpery as the Crowned with Flowers, by Mr. Baxter, have found admission here. It seems at any rate a pity that the Linnells should have been compact assemblage. Pictures of creditable standscattered over the walls, instead of forming one ing, already well known, are Calderon's British Embassy in Paris on the Day of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, Watson's Pet of the Common, and Poole's Banquet Scene from the Tempest. Prince Arthur and Hubert, by Mr. Pott, is recklessly anachronistic in showing us a tapestry proper to some such date as 1550. A View in Italy is a good specimen of William Linnell, the by Cataneo, is a refined and impressive conventprotagonist's son. Visitors from the Outer World, picture, with a peasant woman and her daughter gazing at the nuns as they pace the jealously-shut

It is now

WHEN Mr. Burne Jones's painting, The First Mirror, was yet in an early stage of progress, the design was described in these pages. all the incredible promise which it gave from the far advanced towards completion, and is fulfilling very commencement. Then, Venus and her group of kneeling disciples gleamed like palpearls in the still quiet of the solemn landscape: now, they glow before our eyes resplendent with the full passion and mystery of colour. Venus, the all-powerful goddess, has guided from afar a with a mute gesture of authority on the edge f willing band of maidens. She stays their steps a clear pool, which lies a sheet of glass fringed by myriad blooming forget-me-nots filling the wide foreground. All have sunk on their knees, and gaze entranced by the sweet magic which shows them the reflections of their own forms mirrored on the placid surface of the water. The centre figure stoops boldly forward resting on the palms of her hands, and looking intently into the depths below; behind her kneel three of her companions. Either side of this central group comes a little break, then on the left rises the dominant figure of the goddess shrouded in misty draperies, grey tissues, thin and cold as waving wreaths of morning cloud. At her right hand, stooping partly forward, stands a young girl, her eyes eagerly fastened on the face of Venus, seeking, as it seems, to read the full meaning of her leader's mind. This figure is repeated and varied in gracious balance on the opposite side of the central kneeling group, and finally the lines drop on either side like wings softly unfolding, for two other maidens kneel lowly couching close to their stooping companions. Then the circle is completed by the chain of reflected images on the water, which loops across from side to side connecting either point. The robes of the kneeling They are ranged round the dead quiet of the cool maidens burn with change ful brilliance of colour. water, which sleeps buried in its thick-set border of innumerable blue blossoms, even as might show so many lamps of live flame shooting rays of fitful hue. Out of their midst towers the grey-white form of the goddess, shining pale with a faint opalescent light, her eyes wide in strange vision looking on to the coming of many mysteries. Behind the kneeling band, grandly upheaved against the sky, rise slowly the weighty forms of bushless downs. Vast shapes of earth now poured out as in the youth of the world, unfretted and unworn by terrible agencies yet undeveloped, but destined later to tear and rend the land. The tranquil embrace of morning lies upon the hills, and folds them in the peace of promise. The great curves of the mountain background which vary and accent the sinuous chain of figures that girls with the hopeful light of early dawn. Before us about the still waters sweep across a sky serene kneel the mothers of the race which shall be They kneel with the message of days to come of their lips, and the spirit of the tale which shall be told looks out upon us from their eyes.

Laus Veneris brings us to a later hour. Women with their toil, and the dreams of unsatishes have worked alone the long day. They are worn longing lie heavy on their weary souls. Some gather about a desk near an open window. Ther sing. Their lips, their eyes, their very repeat the refrain which we trace on the leaves of the book open before them, Laus Veneris. One has drawn apart, beneath the tapestried wall of the narrow chamber. She sits apart, too sick for

movements

"My length of days goes swiftly down,
The thronging hours have brought no crown;
The hours, the days, no pleasure prove,
I have not seen the face of Love."

But even now fate has sent to the love-sick damsels those for whom they wait. Through the open window we see knights riding by. They hear the song, and at the hearing they will stay their steeds. This design also is resplendent with all the glory of lovely colour. It is yet unfinished, but portions, such as the orange-red robe of the damsel on the right, woven over with curious pattern of scale-work half hidden, half revealed, and again the deep cool tones of the tapestry close against which this figure sits, show the key in which the whole harmony will ultimately be pitched.

The Feast of Peleus, which has also been previously alluded to in these pages, is but a portion indeed of a large scheme, planned originally to be carried out with attendant accessories of bronzework and marble; but which it is to be feared will remain a project only realised on canvas. The framework of marble and bronze should have contained six pictures. The centre design shows The Judgment of Paris, beneath this is inserted The Feast of Peleus. Then, on the right hand, we see a vision of Aphrodite. Her statue looks to Paris, and grants him fair Helen. Beneath this design is placed a peaceful picture of happy lovers, whose bliss is guarded by the presence of the goddess herself, enthroned, and bearing on her knees the fateful apple awarded by Paris. But on the left are other sights-the fiery burning of Troy town, the fall of Aphrodite's statue, the crouching figure of Helen captured by the wrathful Greeks; and below this picture, fulfilling all its awful threat, passes the dread spectacle of the torments which are the miserable portion of unhappy love, the band of helpless sufferers driven by the cruel authority of the merciless god who sits aside, and with eager gestures appoints to each his allotted portion of woe. As a whole this design is scarcely beyond the point of commencement. The Feast of Peleus only has been painted by Mr. Burne Jones on a separate canvas, and one or two of the other subjects have but been sketched in. And now, again, in this nearly completed picture of the Frast, the colour challenges the eye with the prick of keenest pleasure. It is brilliantly lovely, and it is only when we come patiently to examine it in detail that we begin to understand how it is that this extraordinary effect of radiance is brought about. Every little passage is in itself a study for purity of tone and matchless delicacy of hue. The gleaming gold flashed with faint lilac which shows in the corselet of Minerva is a moment of effect felt with the most exquisite sympathy of quick and intense sense. Everywhere the same vivid passion of sight has gone to the seeing, not only of colour but of form. The accidents of

manner which once were sufficient to disturb the enjoyment which many might otherwise have felt in the work of an artist of the rarest type, have long since disappeared. Before work such as that of the First Mirror, for instance, we are now left defenceless, charmed by the resistless force of an attraction which sucks up from us all energy. We are absorbed in mere sight and feeling, we drop off at last after long looking in a great fatigue of soul, with senses filled to the edge with pleasure.

But the paintings which we have mentioned are but three among a number of works now lying in Mr. Burne Jones's studio. Seven designs of the Seven Days of the Week; four designs of the Story of the Briar Rose, destined for wall decoration; designs for tapestry; a painting of Merlin and Vivien; of Luna, and many others, are design and poetic invention. In all we see the there, all showing the same qualities of noble expression of the habitual strain of a mind ever selecting from things visible those facts which may fitly give shape to the conceptions of a fervid imagination, stimulated by a precious sensitiveness to the highest forms of beauty, and sustained by unwearied industry which day by day stores up the rich results of stricter discipline, and passes onward to fresh triumphs. E. F. S. PATTISON.

THE BRITISH ACADEMY OF ARTS AT ROME.

THE British Academy of Arts in Rome is an institution that one would imagine would readily

commend itself to the notice of all those concerned

in art matters in England. Considering the splendid Academy that the French Government is able to support in Rome, it seems somewhat hard that our poor little English school should languish for want of encouragement and subscriptions. A short time ago it seemed as if it must be given up altogether, the secretary having last year intimated his utter inability to carry on the school with the interest of the fund placed at his disposal. In this state of things a committee was formed to investigate the affairs of the Academy, and the report made by this committee last January now lies before us.

It will be seen into what a state of neglect all business connected with this Academy had fallen, when it is stated that for twenty-one years there had been no committee of management, and that its direction had wholly but illegally devolved on the late Mr. Gibson, R.A., and the late secretary, Mr. C. Coleman. No rules had been printed during this time, and when the present committee began their work of investigation the books and papers of over fifty years had to be examined in detail and classified. After this was done and a careful statement it was too truly found that the income of the gained from the bankers, Messrs. Plowden and Co., 907.) per annum, a sum obviously inadequate for Academy scarcely amounted to 2,300 lire (about

en

the necessities of the school. Under these circumstances it was determined to appeal to the public for assistance, and accordingly circulars were printed and sent with letters to the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, and to each individual member of those bodies, and many other influential persons in England. The Scottish Academy immediately responded by voting a sum of 50%, but, strange to say, the Council of our Royal Academy in London, which in the time of Sir Thomas Lawrence accorded the most generous have intimated through their Secretary that they support to the then infant institution at Rome, are unable to afford any help in its present difficulties. The subscription made last year among the artists of Rome was, however, most couraging, and Mr. Halswelle also collected a sum of 100. in London, so that it is still hoped that the endeavour now being made to organise the Academy on a more efficient and extended basis will be successful. One difficulty that pressed heavily on the committee last year has fortunately been removed. It was thought then that it would be necessary to remove the Academy from the premises it at present occupies, as the landlord Signor Girelli had announced his raising the rent. This removal of the heavy casts intention of making various alterations and of and other property of the Academy would have entailed a great expense, and in the present state of things in Rome it would have been almost impossible to find premises sufficiently commodious that did not exceed in rent the resources at command. In the ACADEMY of February 27 it was stated that application had been made to our minister, Sir Augustus Paget, to obtain the sanction of government for the purchase of a vacant convent on the Pincian Hill as the locale of the Academy, by Signor Girelli agreeing to make certain necesbut all thought of removal has now been set aside sary alterations and repairs on condition of a

slight increase of rent. The committee consider

nothing is now wanted to ensure the working this arrangement in every way satisfactory, and efficiency of the Academy but some little aid towards defraying its very moderate expenses. It will surely be something of a reproach to the forthcoming. Unlike the other foreign Art instiArt authorities in this country if this aid is not by their respective governments, it must be restutions in Rome that are fostered and encouraged

membered that the British Academy receives no help from the State, but owes its existence to

private enterprise, and is entirely dependent on private aid. It was founded in 1823 for the purpose of maintaining "a free and permanent school for the benefit of all British artists studying in Rome," and among those who have availed themselves of its benefits may be mentioned such artists as Etty, Gibson, Eastlake, Wyatt, Rennie, Yeames, Prinsep, and others of equal note. Barry, Hook, Armitage, Leighton, Poynter,

Of late years, of course, the efficiency of the Academy under such a long era of mismanagement has greatly declined, but there seems good reason for believing that the exertions now being made will tend to raise it to a higher position than it has hitherto held. MARY M. HEATON.

THE ESQUILINE AND PALATINE HILLS.
Hotel Costanzi, Rome.

The Esquiline Hill continues to be the principal centre of public works and antiquarian discoveries, most noticeable among the latter class being a bust of a woman (probably ideal) of much beauty, destined, with other such treasure-trove, to have its final place in the Capitoline Museum. temple), which I have already mentioned, has The splendid pavement of a ruined hall (or lately been removed, for its preservation, from the area occupied by its rich marbles and alabasters on the same hill; and it is reported that in the course of such transfer it is found to contain alabasters of no fewer than 200 species. Near the same spot have been discovered the remains of another ancient building-a mansion with paintings of some interest on the stuccoed walls. The number of houses more or less like patrician houses found on this hill confirms the statement that in the reign of Constantine a population of 200,000, almost equal to that of all Rome at the present day, inhabited the three zones into which the Esquiline is divided.

The works on the Palatine Hill-commenced by order of its former owner, Napoleon III.—were purchase of that ground from the ex-Emperor in prosecuted under the new Government, after the 1870, during more than a year with some vigour, but with no such valuable results as had previously been obtained. Before the end of the year 1873 they were, to the regret of many, interrupted, all activities being thenceforth diverted to the Forum and Flavian Amphitheatre.. I am glad to say that on January 15 the scavi on the Palatine were resumed, and on the spots where the hitherto most interesting because marked with the characdiscovered ruins (long buried and unknown) are the western ridge of this hill, which overlooks the ter of highest and most venerable antiquity. On now cultivated and almost uninhabited valley of the Circus Maximus, were brought to light, a few origin of which is strikingly manifest, and the years ago, groups of buildings the primaeval dim twilight of a perhaps prehistoric past seems more mysterious here than among almost any other extant ruins in Rome or its environs. The theory maintained by Signor Rosa-still, as under the French Emperor, the director of the works on this hill-and indicated in a quotation from the Aeneid on a tablet set up among these Palatine remains

"Tum rex Evander Romanae conditor arcis," (Aen. viii. 506.) -is that he traces here the veritable ara of Evander, near which that Arcadian king of the prehistoric Rome received the fugitive from Ilion on the Latian coast. It is questionable whether the principal ruin here before us, consisting of a low elevation of stonework, lithoid tufas in enormous square-hewn blocks, which enclose two narrow quadrangular chambers, one much smaller than the other, be the cella of a temple or the chief tower of a fortress. One may be led to decide for the latter, seeing that the edifice is so placed as to command the access to the hillsummit by a very steep approach between walls of