operation—or would do so were there anything particular for her to perform. This is excellently done, but (it may be hinted) a trifle uninteresting. Other domestic pictures of a high order of merit are contributed by Mr. Shields, Mrs. Allingham, and Mr. Walker. Hide is, in composition and the style of the figures and expressions, one of the most graceful works that Mr. Shields has produced. A little boy some six years of age, curly-headed and slim like a girl, is hunting after his sister, several years older, whom he knows pretty well where to find: she stands minimising her form in the doorway: an apple-tree is in lavish bloom close by, and the sun-shadows are blue upon the white wall. Both faces are smiling, but not with the same smile the boy's is shifting and furtive, replete with espièglerie; the girl's broad and goodhumoured. Mrs. Allingham's picture is entitled Young Customers: two small damsels, of five and four years old, in a village shop temptingly stocked with toys and sweetstuff, waited upon by the spectacled old woman of the establishment. Both the children are dressed uniformly, in little close bonnets and pink tippeted frocks; one of them holds a doll, the other an imitation flat-iron. For motionless demureness, as they sit in the high chairs which the shop provides for adult customers, there is not a pin to choose between them. This is a work of great completeness in object-painting and colour: all is nicely and evenly finished. Mr. Walker's subject is The Old Gate, the same composition which he exhibited some years ago as a large oilpicture, here reappearing as a very elegantlyhandled water-colour.

We shall return to this Gallery at a future opportunity.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION.

(Second Notice.)

as

Historical Subjects (continued).-The Waterloo campaign has the luck, which can seldom have befallen it of late years, of furnishing three pictures to the collection; and able pictures they are very able indeed. Miss Thompson, with the load of her last year's celebrity upon her, certainly shows on the present occasion even higher capacity than she then did; though maybe not higher capacity than a number of people, easily led by the nose as asses are," were all agog to ascribe to her, after hearing that the Prince of Wales (who may be presumed to know as much about art-matters as nineteen men out of twenty, and a good deal less than the twentieth) had paid her picture an after-dinner compliment. present subject is The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras, and is described in the catalogue in terms which we slightly abbreviate:

Her

"This regiment played a conspicuous part in the Battle of Quatre Bras, June 16, 1815. Formed together with the Royals into square in a field of particularly tall rye, it was repeatedly assaulted by the enemy's cavalry, cuirassiers and Polish lancers; who closed a long series of unsuccessful attacks by a furious charge, simultaneously delivered against three faces of the square. The picture represents this last effort of the enemy at about 5 P.M. The failure of these attempts to break their formation was productive of much levity on the part of some of the younger soldiers."

The particular anecdote upon which, as we have been told, the picture is based, might also have found a place in the catalogue. It is said that, as another charge of the enemy was impending, and the order went round to the ranks, "Close up, close up," a sergeant, worthily representing the race which knows not when it is beaten, remarked, "What! are they going to try that nonsense on again? ?" Miss Thompson displays in this work a really extraordinary amount of force. Every action, of raging assailant and dogged defender, is forcible; every face-of deadly determination, of unsubduable resistance, of frantic jeering is forcible; every foreshortening, of horse or musket or sword, of arm or leg, is

forcible; the brightness and the dimness of the contest, its play of metal and uniform, its volumes of smoke thickening and dispersing, converting many a stalwart fellow into a dim silhouette, are forcible. Three very youthful soldiers, recruits fighting their first battle, are especially hilarious and defiant. One of these, a central figure, is scarcely so successful in expression as some of the others. For difficulty of action well conquered, the French horseman to the left, on his ungovernably startled and rearing charger, might be cited. The handling generally is both free and definite. In testifying with all unreserve to the great merits of this picture-merits really surprising when we consider that the subject is a military and most energetic one, and the painter a woman-we would not be understood as implying that every sort of excellence is here exemplified. Miss Thompson appears to have less aptitude for the absolutely artistic than for some other elements of a good picture: she shows for instance no special gift for harmonious or beautiful colour. She has treated with fair ability that trying point-the red-coated uniform of the British soldiery; but she has not turned it exactly to the sort of account which a colourist would have managed— has not transmuted it out of a troublesome problem into a pictorial resource. With this fine work we may compare a cognate production by one of the best-reputed battle-painters of the time, M. Philippoteau-La Charge des Cuirassiers Français à Waterloo. That Miss Thompson should hold her own against the French master is high praise indeed, for he shows in this work all his well-known skill of combination and execution. He gives a larger field of action, more multitudinous combatants, more scenic fullness, and yet plenty of point in the individual groups and figures. A Highland regiment in front is receiving the onslaught of the French Cuirassiers; on the rising ground above, other Cuirassiers, galloping beyond the line of British cannon, with cannoneers dead at their posts, are coming to close quarters with an English regiment, which will know how to give an account of their gallant adversaries. The third picture in this series is the Ligny of Mr. Crofts; a capital performance, with more of a pictorial management of light and shade than in either of the others: the dark-blue uniforms are also in his favour, as regards the general massing of colour. Hard by a big windmill, Napoleon sits stoically on his white charger: one more detachment of the troops-one more lot of "food for powder "-is mounting the brow of the slope.

Another scene of fight and turmoil, though of a very different kind, has engaged Mr. F. W. W. Topham: The Convent of San Francesco during the Sacking of the City of Assisi by the Perugians, 1442. The spot is an arcaded passage in the convent, with stairs leading up and down. The condottieri or trained-bands of the Perugians are at length swarming up the steps. Two friars endeavour to stay the first of these ruffians: they seize both his hands, one of which grasps a rapier. One of the nobles of Assisi, an armed knight wounded in the knee, is taking, before he returns to prolong an unavailing resistance, a hurried farewell of his wife, hardly thinking ever to rebehold her alive, or undishonoured: she kneels on the pavement, beside column's blackened and perforated with shot. Two women, a mother and an adolescent daughter, crouch together in horrid silence and expectancy. There is a very fair amount of meaning in this picture, and of skill, though it is thinly painted. It does not strike one as particularly interesting as a whole; but points of individual significance come out not unimpressively as one pauses over them. Under the title Ready, Mr. P. Cockerell has painted the son of William Tell standing backed against a tree, with the apple on his head, ready to be shot at. This is a capable and solidly-painted work. The face has a genuinely courageous look, mingled as it should be with a certain nervous tension and

uneasiness; all well marked, although there is hardly any change from entire stillness of feature. Mr. Wallis may always be counted upon for something realised thoughtfully so far as his purpose is concerned, and vigorously as regards execution. His richly-coloured Fugitives from Constantinople, 1453, responds to both these demands. It has a meaning, intense look: the eye is satiated with opulence of hue, and the mind led onward and inward. Seated on one of the marble benches of the patriarchal church of St. Mark in Venice, we see a splendidly handsome man, some thirty years of age, with a crutch under one armpit, and a youth of sixteen dozing fitfully beside him. Beyond the arcade of the piazza, a great crowd of Venetians has assembled to witness some sight of public or national moment. The sun blazes; the marbles glow and shine with their magical variety of tint; the immemorial pigeons flutter and settle for a moment; the air rings with cries of acclaim. Those two, the Byzantine aliens and refugees, linger apart, in the scene and not of it. Sad memories and poignant thoughts ring them round with a personal solitude. Mr. Wallis's second contribution is also a Venetian subject-On the Ponte della Paglia, going to the Council; slighter in import, but also worthy of his hand. A senator and a procurator of St. Mark are crossing the bridge, close to that angle of the Ducal Palace which is sculptured with the Drunkenness of Noah. The younger man whispers to the elder, with a subtle uninterpretable smile: pleasant and companionable, the two magnates are yet enfolded in statecraft and secresy closer than in their crimson robes. Jacobites, 1745, is the diplomapicture of Mr. Pettie, R.A., and is a very adequate specimen of his forthright, picturesque manner. Several Highland chieftains (their national costume managed with much effectiveness) are assembled in an unfrequented upper room of a mansion: the master of the house, an elderly and dignified gentleman in the ordinary dress of the time, is reading out to them the contents of a written paper, ominous of failure to their cause, and casting a gloom over the group. They are all armed, and claymores and targes lie secreted in a corner of the apartment, ready for use on occasion.

General Subjects.—Under this indefinite heading we shall deal with a number of figure-pictures which are neither sacred in theme, nor historical,

nor domestic.

Mr. Millais sends a moderate-sized painting named The Crown of Love, being a modification of a design which appeared many years ago as a woodcut in Once a Week. The story is that of a "young lover of romance" who was required, as the condition for wedding "the fair Princess of France," to carry her in his arms up to the summit of a mountain: he achieved the feat, but died of exhaustion at the moment of success. This is one of Mr. Millais's slighter paintings, and yet its power is such as only a very able artist could evince: the face of the Princess, with her floating hair of pale yellow, her mouth open, large eyelids, and a hectic flush-mingling tenderness and anxiety-is the most interesting point. The black-haired youth, his countenance turned away from the spectator, mounts upward with stalwart naked legs, and with determined effort: a bird flies a long way below him; from the rocks, a river can be seen, and distant blue hills; the sky is of hard slaty grey, unpitying as the lifeless and death-giving crags. A detail to which we may object is the red velvet sleeve of the wooer, painted with a salient effect not in harmony with the general tone of colour. Mr. Poynter exhibits two narrow upright companion-pictures, The Festival, and The Golden Age. The former represents two young women engaged in the floral decoration of an Ionic temple. One of them is on a ladder, and stoops down to receive the rose-garland which the other, seated very low, and in a posture almost like kneeling, reaches up towards her; the faces

The

are finely drawn, especially the lower one, with its foreshortened turn, sideward and upward. Many more roses are in a basket and on the floor, along with a vase of antique varicoloured glass. This is a choice and accomplished work; though a certain charm which would be appropriate to it, compounded of spontaneity, freshness, and subtlety, is not among the gifts of Mr. Poynter. We like this better than its pendent, The Golden Age, which pourtrays two young men nearly naked, one of them handing down from a ladder a bunch of pears, to be added to the already well-filled basket which his companion attends to. Open-air health and fresh-blooded youth would be of the essence of this subject, but are counteracted by the almost leaden dullness of the flesh-hues. Mr. Albert Moore is a slightly provoking painter, even to those who sincerely admire him without fallingas some critics appear disposed to do-into absolute fatuity of praise. The resolute unintellectuality of his work, and its constant limitation with regard to tones of colour and of chiaroscuro, abate at last the pleasure which we feel in his sense of beauty and of grace, fineness of tint, and Greekish delicacy. Two of his minute contributions have already been reviewed in our pages; we shall therefore only specify the third, A Palm Fan, showing a girl distended on a sofa, with very visible contours through gauzy drapery, and pale-blue as the predominant colour. This is a covetable little piece of art, fully equal, on its restricted scale, to Mr. Moore's reputation. Mr. Pickersgill exhibits the strongest work we have seen from his hand this long while, quoting to it the verses of Tennyson's Mariana in the South where the deserted wife is represented as conning the old love-letters addressed to her, thus feeding the hunger of her affection and the embers of her resentment. figure is of full life-size, and constitutes the entire subject, but for some well-found adjuncts of lilies and orange-tree, dense blue unvaried sky, and glimpse of blue lake. Mariana is dressed in deep full-tinted green, with dark plum-red sleeves; her yellow-brown hair trails untended; bitter retrospect, and rising indignation incapable of its object, are in her pale face-a face of solitary seclusion, to which no relief of confidence and companionship is vouchsafed. Mr. Poole's Entrance to the Cave of Mammon (from the Faerie Queen) has poetical unity of conception, and, like his sacred picture previously mentioned, ranks among his best works. It resembles that considerably in the general tone of colour. We feel some doubt as to what sort of lighting is intended; whether late twilight, or possibly moonlight; but, as the subject is one to which "the light that on sea or land would be fitting enough, this is of the less consequence. Of Mr. Frith's contributions in this section, the best is La Belle Gabrielle, holding a silver goblet on a salver of the same metal-for the refreshment, as we are to understand it, of Henri IV., who does not appear on the canvas. The face, in soft reflected light, with a little direct sunshine on the left brow, is skilfully treated in this respect. Mr. S. Lucas (a name we do not recollect) has three clever pictures: Oxford, 1650, a student in his chamber; A Difference of Taste, representing a cavalier of the same period looking at a portrait of a lady by Vandyck, while an elder man with an eyeglass is more attracted by a small seapiece; and By Hook or Crook, 1745. Here we see a gentleman in a travelling-suit standing on some loppings of timber to talk to a young lady, who has mounted a ladder, and is giving him her hand; his portmanteau lies on the ground, with a rather slovenly man-servant beside it holding a whip; the roof of a Tudor mansion is to be seen behind. The general relation of the personages is clear enough-the gentleman is about to depart in clandestine haste, and is the lady's lover; but it may be questioned whether an elopement is pending, or whether (as the date 1745 might seem to intimate) we are to regard the man

never was

as a Jacobite fugitive. Both here and in the other pictures, the workmanship is very efficient-broad and unlaboured. Mr. Hodgson pursues with increasing zest the line of Oriental or Tunisian paintings of a humorous characterincreasing zest, and, it is to be feared, increasing indifference to beauty. A Barber's Shop in Tunis is decidedly unsightly; the colour husky, the manipulation ordinary, and some of the faces, wrinkled with laughter or under a small stream of water poured upon the hairless head, ugly beyond the permissible point. This is the sort of thing that passes in a sketchy caricature, not in a fully executed oil-picture. We like The Talisman better; also A Cock-fight, in which the expressions of the chagrined youth receding with his defeated chanticleer, and his conquering rival who holds out his own bird in triumph, proffering renewal of the combat, are extremely true, and the general treatment of the various figures is only moderately uncomely. Mr. Dobson's picture in the mild Oriental manner, Children's Children are the Crown of Old Men, might be designated as a booby and a baby, with some subordinate personages. Another Eastern subject, treated on a large scale and with a numerous array of figures, is A Sheikh and his Son entering Cairo on their Return from a Pilgrimage to Mecca, by Mr. Dowling. This is a meritorious effort in its way, but that way is at best third-rate: no element of the theme is managed pre-eminently well. Of the two principal Oriental pictures of the year, those by Mr. Leighton (Mr. Lewis does not contribute at all), mention has already been made in our columns: a third example, Little Fatima, a small girl of Damascus, is pretty, with the innocent quaintness of early childhood.

ART SALES.

W. M. ROSSETTI.

THE collection of furniture, faïence, tissues and arms completed the Fortuny sale. Like all artists, he was a great collector, but of works solely relative to his paintings, and when he saw some rare specimen not to be acquired, he would make it himself. Thus, swords he would chase with a perfect knowledge of the style characteristic of each epoch. One which sold for 2,000 fr. was designed, forged and damascened by himself. It was of Moresque character, and of splendid workmanship. A connoisseur one day admired its rare beauty, and not doubting its authenticity from the matchless workmanship of the blade, offered to buy it. to buy it. "Willingly," said Fortuny, smiling, "but wait till it is finished." A state helmet, of Italian work of the sixteenth century, sold for 12,000 fr.; Arabian bronze, 3,035 fr.; ivory casket, 4,000 fr.; portière of red velvet on gold ground, with border of various colours, 6,650 fr.; altar frontal of brocade, Spanish work of the sixteenth century, 10,200 fr. The piece most highly prized by Fortuny was a large Hispano-Moresque vase of metallic lustre, covered with gold arabesques, which he had found in a Moresque palace at Granada in 1871, and which he considered equal to the famed vase of the Alhambra. It sold for 30,000 fr. Another, with handles and neck wanting, 6,650 fr. The five days' sale of the pictures and works of art produced 800,384 fr. (32,015.).

THE price of English china rises higher and higher, as the sale of Mr. J. Sanders's fine collection by Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods on the 4th and following days testifies. A Worcester teapot, blue scale ground, with large medallions of exotic birds, and the Dresden mark, 44 gs.; a pair of hexagonal vases, deep blue and turquoise borders, with medallions, 280 gs.; oval jardinière, same style of decoration, 87 gs.; the Nelson service, painted with his arms and crest and border of oak branch and gold, name inscribed, was sold in lots of a pair of dishes or plates, and ranged from 81. 58. to 8 gs. the pair; Bow, deep blue vase and cover, 12 in. high, with

pierced neck and subject medallions, 135 gs.; figure of bishop in a mitre and robes, 29 28.; Chelsea, an oviform vase, deep blue, striped with gold, 125 gs.; one with exotic birds, 120 gs.; a magnificent group of two pastoral figures seated, with lambs and dog, and mayflower ground, 16 in. high, mark R, modelled by Roubiliac-this group is similar to one sold in Mr. Lucy's collection (ACADEMY, May 8), only an inch taller and more highly finished. Mr. Lucy's specimen sold for 241 gs; that of Mr. J. Sanders, after a spirited competition, fell to Lady Charlotte Schreiber at the enormous price of 330 gs. A pair of figures, Shepherd and Shepherdess, 100 gs.; another, 15 in. high, 290 gs.; another, with lambs and dogs, 110 gs. Britannia, a figure of unusual size, 273 in. high, 150 gs.; the Seasons, four allegorical figures of children, 100 gs. ; pair of figures. mountebank and female, 79 gs.; Quin as Falstaff”, 30 gs.; the Welsh Tailor and his Wife, 10 in. high, 100 gs.; tall beaker-shaped vase, deep blue, with medallions, 95 gs.; Bristol coffee cup and saucer, one of the service presented to Burke by Mr. and Mrs. Champion, 75 gs.; the companion, 50 gs.; Chelsea Derby statuette of Wilkes, 16 gs.; and a pair of vases, with turquoise, white, and gold decoration on crimson ground, with subjects in medallions, 130 gs. Mr. Sanders's collection also contained fine specimens of European china of almost every manufacture-too many to enumerate. An oblong tobacco box and cover, formerly the property of Frederick the Great, sold for 132 gs.; and a set of fine vases, finely painted in Chinese subjects in medallion of the richest decoration and the AR mark, 146 gs. Nove, jardinière, from the Reynolds collection, 60 gs. The sale closed with a charming little collection of Chelsea bonbonnieres and scent-bottles, ranging from 13 gs. to 20 gs each; and a fan-shaped toilet-box, consisting of nine boxes, with beautifully painted cover, formerly the property of the Princess Elizabeth, 90 gs.

THE sale of Mr. Sanders's china was followed at Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods's by that of the pictures and water-colour drawings of the being above 500 lots:-Water-colour drawing, late Mr. Leaf, which occupied three days, there cock and Still Life, 305 gs.; Head of a Mulatto Hunt, Boy Eating Porridge, 130 gs.; Dead PeaGirl, 300 gs.; Interior at Hastings, 205 gs; Roberts, Bridge of Irun, 150 gs.; Street Scene in Madrid, 122 gs.; Stanfield, The Drachentes, 130 gs.; Tayler, The Poultry Yard, 250 g; Hawking Party, 205 gs.; Turner, Chepstow, with pencil sketch, an early piece, 160 gs.; Great Malvern Abbey, 150 gs.; Tivoli, 390 gs.; A River Scene, a sketch, 60 gs.; Barret, Walton Bridge, Sunset, 315 gs.; Burton, Yilitza, 500 gs.; Interior of Bamberg Cathedral, Franconian Peasants, 775 gs.; Cattermole, Baronial Hospitality, 190gs Haag, A Rehearsal, Cairo, 525 gs.; Oath of Vargas, 340 gs.; Sir John Gilbert, Burial of Ophelia, 160 gs.; Joan of Arc entering Orleans, 305 gs.; Harding, Venice, 305 gs.; Lewis, Murillo painting the Holy Family for a Convent, 350 gs. and the companion, Sacking a Convent, 320 gs.. Read, Interior of St. Stephen's, Vienna, 300 gs. Nesfield, Fall of the Tummel, 310 gs.; Lewis. Courtyard of the House of the Coptic Patriarch, Cairo, 1,850 gs.; Faed, Baith Faither and Mither 1,650 gs. The whole sale produced 32,357l.

NOTES AND NEWS.

MR. C. J. GALLOWAY, of Manchester, has bought Mr. Watts's picture of Love and Death for 1,300 guineas.

THE collection of ancient engraved gems belonging to the Duke of Marlborough, with which the public is by this time familiar from its exhibition at South Kensington and elsewhere, is to be sold at Christie and Manson's towards the end of June. About the half of the collection was

formed by George, third Duke of Marlborough. The other half consists of two previously celebrated collections, the one made by the Earl of Arundel in the time of Charles I., and the other by Lord Bessborough. It is seldom that a collection of this importance and magnitude comes into the open market, and doubtless the sale will attract great numbers of connoisseurs.

M. CHARLES W. DESCHAMPS, the successor of M. Durand Ruel, of 168 New Bond Street, announces that he hopes to be able to exhibit next winter the noble collection of drawings by the late Jean François Millet, now being shown in

Paris.

The

SUBSCRIPTIONS are being raised for the restoration of a portion of the ancient church of Methley, one of the most picturesque ecclesiastical buildings in the neighbourhood of Leeds, and well worthy of notice in these columns. A small, weather-worn statue of St. Oswald, king and martyr, to whom the church is dedicated, figures on the gable of the porch. The Waterton chantry, founded there in 1424, contains fine alabaster effigies representing Sir Robert Waterton and Cicely his wife. The large features and curling beard and moustache of the knight are very striking; an S.S. collar is round his neck, and a jewelled girdle round his skirt, his head dressed in a turban-like cap ornamented with a rosette. Here too is a fine monument in memory of Sir Lionel, sixth Baron Welles-killed at the battle of Towton in 1461-a stalwart figure, with bold features, feet resting on a lion, head on a helmet, from which the crest has been broken, a chain about his neck, an embroidered belt, &c. pieces of old glass in the east window, though not now in their original positions, are judged to be chiefly of the date of the reign of Edward IV. Below are figures of saints, representing, it is believed, Paulinus (who is said to have founded the church at Dewsbury, not many miles distant from Methley); Cuthbert holding in his hand the head of St. Oswald; Edmund, King of the East Angles, and others. One Anthony Elcocke, Minister at Methley before the Civil Wars, tells as piteous a story in his petition to Charles II. after the Restoration as any to be found in Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy. This petition for the living to be confirmed to him, still preserved among the State Papers, recounts how Elcocke, "for his loyalty to your Father of ever blessed memory, and the Government of the Church hath oftentimes been Imprisoned and Carried from place to place, and his house divers and sundry times plundered, four of his Brothers slain in the service of his late Majesty, and your petitioner driven to great want and necessity." He fears that unless he be reinstated, "himself, wife and children, after all their long sufferings are utterly ruined and undone." It is not quite clear that this petition was granted, but we meet with a sub-dean of York of that name in 1662, and "Dr. Anthony Elcocke" dies rector of Kirkheaton in 1670; so his sufferings and services went not unrequited. It is, perhaps, straying a little from our subject to add, as an instance of how these researches into personal and local history dovetail into matters of wider interest, that Elcocke's rectory was sought after and obtained, when he died, by his brother-in-law, William Shippen, rector of Stockport, the father of Pope's " downright Shippen," M.P. for Newton in Lancashire. Another noted rector of Methley was Gilbert Atkinson, a curious account of whose death has been preserved in a letter from one William Cookson to Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, dated at Leeds, January 8, 1708-9. Cookson writes:

66

:

"On Saturday last Parson Atkinson, of Methley, a man whom I know you and all that knew him valued for his general learning and accomplishments, was unfortunately slain in the following manner. He had been shooting, the forenoon, and about noon (it beginning to snow) gives his gun to a boy that attended him, and orders him to throw his coat capo over the lock to preserve it from wet, in doing which (the par

son being turned with his face from him), the cock was moved and the piece went off and shot him into the thigh, broke the bone in pieces and pierced the fatal place which is commonly called the Pope's Eye; whereupon notwithstanding the pangs of death were very violent, he had the courage and presence of mind to fall upon the other knee (as I am told) and prayed with great fervour for his family, the church, and his neighbours; and told those present (which I suppose were two or three neighbours and his own son) that he was dying and that he felt his eyes fixed. The fatal step was betwixt the church and his own house (but near the church), from whence a bier was

immediately fetched to convey him home; but his speech was taken away before he got home, and presently after his life."

Methley Hall and estate have been held, since the time of Elizabeth, by the Saviles, now Earls of Mexborough; the first holder of that name being Sir John, Baron of the Exchequer, brother of Sir Henry Savile, the learned Provost of Eton. Close by, at Oulton, was born another celebrated scholar, Richard Bentley.

A NEW archaeological discovery, writes the Gazzetta di Venezia of May 2, has been made in our Alps of an ancient chalice of massive silver, which was found some time back by a carpenter, a native of this alpine district, when climbing the highest of the calcareous, Jurassic rocks, in the valley of Rodena, between Castel-Tesino and S. Doria di Lamon, in order to cut down some old plants of larch and beech which had taken root round the mouth of a hollow opening; here, when scraping the tufaceous earth of the cavern, he found a silver chalice of ancient form, concealed with other ecclesiastical furniture. On descending this almost inaccessible peak, he carried his cup to Lamon, where it was soon purchased by the officials of the church of St. Peter, to be preserved as a work of art. This vase is of massive silver, covered externally with an ancient green glaze that is partly corroded by age. The cup is large, of the capacity of a litre and a half; it has a small, low foot, artistically worked, the weight of the whole 342 grammes. Round its upper margin is inscribed in round capital Roman letters the following legend: De donis dei Sancto Petro et Sancto Paulo Ursus diaconus obtulit. The form, roundness and impression of the characters are exactly similar to those in the basin of Gelimer (ACADEMY, February 6 and March 13), and they are probably of the same period. From the form of the chalice it may be inferred that it was used when both elements were administered to the laity. In the hollow under the pedestal is the ancient Roman letter D, which appears to belong to the sixth century. The inscription round the rim informs us that about the fifth century there was erected at Lamon the church dedicated to the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, upon the ruins of an ancient Roman castle, of which there are still the remains in the calcareous rock, and that this church was administered by a deacon, Orso by name, who made the gift of the chalice to the same church as an oblation. How it came to repose in this obscure place is yet to be discovered. Later researches may show.

THE Union Centrale des Beaux Arts have

transferred their residence to No. 3 Place des

Vosges, and have resumed the series of their annual conferences, which take place every Thursday and are gratuitous. The programme is as follows: May 13, M. Albert Jacquemart, upon ceramics; 20th, M. de Montaiglon, upon the taste of Brunelleschi in architecture; 27th, M. Lameire, upon the decoration of public works; June 3, M. Ph. Burty, upon Bernard Palissy; 10th, M. Sédille, upon architecture; 17th, M. Racinet, upon decora

tion.

LEOPOLD FLAMENG, encouraged by the success of his two admirable Rembrandt reproductions The Hundred Guilder Piece and The Night Watch-has now undertaken two new plates-The Anatomy Lesson and The Syndics. The Anatomy Lesson, in spite of its disagreeable

subject, is universally esteemed as one of the most powerful of Rembrandt's works; and The Syndics, painted in 1661, though less known, is equally remarkable for the wonderful life and individuality of the heads and its clear golden tones. works afford noble themes for the popular French engraver's admirable talent.

Such

THE Municipal Committee of Archaeology has recently published the statistics of all the antique objects, sculptures, &c., discovered on the Esquiline Hill in the year 1874, but exclusively within the range over which the scavi ordered by the municipal authorities extend: 17 statues; 10 torsi; 47 busts and heads, more or less preserved; 5 sarcophagi and cinerary urns; 12 ex-votos and other objects for sacred purposes, i.e. offering in temples or to deities; 6 engraved gems or cameos; 11 basso-rilievi in ivory or bone; 5 ornaments in gold and 6 in silver; 30 objects of similar character in bronze; 11 silver coins; 8,925 bronze medals and coins; 75 objects in terra cotta, of various kinds; 11 fragments of architectural ornament; 39 inscriptions, without including in the list a countless number of utensils for culinary, toilette and household uses.

THE sixth great annual exhibition of paintings at Vienna was formally opened last week. The number of works (460) seems extremely small, and of these 100 are by exhibitors from other cities, Munich supplying half these numbers. Paris, by the way, has not sent a single picture to testify to its artistic activity. The gem of the exhibition is, according to the verdict of the German papers, Hans Makart's Cleopatra in her State Barge on the Nile.

MEN of letters who are careful to stand well with posterity may with advantage consider the fate of the two writers who were leading the romantic school in France a few years before the accession of Louis Philippe. M. Alexandre Soumet and M. Guiraud were then held to be the greatest of Chateaubriand's disciples; their poems were read in the drawing-rooms, and won the applause of Talma and Benjamin Constant; their tragedies were performed on the boards of the Français and the Odéon; they were elected to the Academy with unusual readiness and unusual compliments; they had under them Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Emile Deschamps, Jacques Ancelot and Jules Lefèvre; and now their dramas and romances are left to the hawkers of the Quai Malaquais, to be bought for two sous a-piece by playwrights in search of a plot. Yet they had thought to be wise in their generation, and had withdrawn from the tumult of politics to illustrate, each in his way, their belief that the decline of the human race ended with the coming of Christ, and that its progress then began. This was the purpose of M. Guiraud's novel, called Flavien, which M. Soumet put on the stage with the title of Le Gladiateur. Seeking in the first place to show that social order could only be founded on

liberty, and liberty on Christianity, and seeking in

the second to carry out their maxim that historical truth should be observed in the minutest

details, they here drew a striking picture of the Roman Empire in the reign of the last Gordian, when Rome was at the mercy of a licentious mob and the gods were esteemed as little as the emperor, a handful of fanatics could create a deity. government. A troop of soldiers could set up an Philosophers and Galileans, Cynics and Platonists, Gnostics and Ebionists, jostled one another in the schools. In the suburbs Thessalian witches were giving audience to the rich and reading their destiny in the entrails of newborn children. In the caverns under the Tiber were crouching the Christians, who practised their rites without temple or altar. From every street in the city between the Baths of Caracalla and the Mausoleum of Augustus poured the populace in holiday attire to see the

Christian maidens, who had blasphemed Serapis, mangled by the bulls and tigers and beheaded by the gladiators. And from the schools of the gladiators came the cries of desperate men who were beginning to arm themselves for the revolt that took place under Probus.

Without a just comprehension of the state of Rome in this third century of the Christian era, Signor Salvini's performance in the Italian version of M. Soumet's tragedy is liable to be misconstrued. Moreover there is a great gulf fixed between an actor of one country and a spectator of another; the conditions by which the actor's imagination has been restrained or enlarged are for the most part unknown to the spectator, and his shades of meaning lost, and scarce anything carried away but a general impression compounded of his tricks of manner and his broadest effects. Yet from this second work of the Italian actor's genius no one can fail to conclude that the vehemence with which he clothed the character of Othello is not essential to his style, but that in repressing his passions and concentrating them into an ominous stillness, he is as consummate an artist as in loosing the avalanche of his fury. Outwardly the gladiator is a cold and impassive man. He has been too long under the ban of slavery to have much room for feeling. His twitching fingers and the ceaselessly shifting expression of his face are the only signs that a storm is raging underneath. He comes to the catacombs to strike a bargain with the Christians, asking them to join their hate of the rulers to his and aid him in a projected revolt. He prays them to excuse him if his manner is boisterous: the lion's roar must have got into his voice that it should sound so harshly in the solitude: but the brand on his forehead will tell them his story. Fifteen years ago he had been the slave of Fausta, who was now the mother of Caesar, and had won his twenty victories in the amphitheatre fifteen years ago he had for wife a fair-haired Gaul, whom Fausta slew in giving birth to a daughter, born under the same star as Fausta's son; and he then had fled with the child to Egypt, where the priests of Osiris stole her from him. For all this he would not rail at fortune, and yet was scarcely minded to believe in a God, whether the Christians' God or another. He had now returned to Rome with a few other slaves at his back, had found that the times were not ripe for revenge, and while waiting for their ripening was ready to place his sword at the service of his old mistress, and in humble gratitude do his best to rid her of the girl Neodamia, her rival in the affections of a valiant captain of Praetorian guards. But the people had heard of their favourite's return: the cells were full of Christians, the arms of the common executioners were growing weary, and their axes blunt: and therefore a tribune was sent with his lictors to bring the gladiator into the sovereign presence. For a moment the slave's heart failed him, and clinging to the statue of Jove he poured out passionate supplications. Then the old mood came back again. The god, after all, was a god of stone, and was daily crumbling to pieces: falling it might crush him, but standing it could

The

not help him; and he accompanied the tribune with unfaltering step. In this fever of changing moods Salvini's power is acknowledged: he uses his power with finest judgment, and avoids monotony by the most startling transitions of feeling that the English stage has seen. dramatist's conception of the gladiator is pitched in too high a key, and the play is shrill with declamation: Salvini conceives him as a patient man of sensitive and not ignoble nature, cut to the quick by his sense of wrong, yet moved to publish it by nothing but the cruelest provocation, dallying with his revenge, ever putting it off till to-morrow and to-morrow, and in the end missing it.

In the circus he is on his own ground, and can afford to indulge his irony. He will do the bidding of the holiday folk, the kings of the amphi

theatre, who have honoured him with their applause; he loves the scent of any sort of blood, provided that part of it be his; he will mow down some score of Sarmatian or German slaves, nor shall the holy gods of the people be insulted by a Christian rabble while the gladiator holds a knife. And he sharpens his weapons with the air of a butcher. The sound of a woman's voice softens him. He was not prepared for this: he had thought to hack to death a band of sturdy heretics, to do battle with a leopard, or perhaps a hyena; but a girl of fifteen, a child in white martyr's robe and fillet, with pure upturned face and long streaming hair-this was a tougher job. Yet he seized her, and hastily tearing away the veil and raising the hair, found a long jagged scar on her neck, and knew that the martyr Neodamia was his daughter. At this point the actor's art momentarily deserts him; he falls into the convulsions of melodramatic ecstasy, and wastes the fine opportunity for original expression that M. Regnier may be remembered to have seized in La Joie fait Peur, and Mr. Boucicault to have used with excellent effect in performing his English version of the same play. Then the gladiator grows calm, and turns to the people; he will fight in the ring for twenty years against all comers if they will give the girl to him. But the people are unmoved. Fausta, remembering that her son's life is bound up by destiny with the life of Neodamia, tries in vain to save her. So the gladiator slays her with his own hand, and offers her blood to the poor and naked god of the Christians," praying that the deed might " flash in the eyes of tyrants and cry to a new age that the reign of force was ended and the reign of liberty begun." In the delivery of this prayer, which ends the play, Signor Salvini touches the highest point of histrionic art; he speaks it with rapid forced utterance, lest the clamouring populace break in and choke his speech. His scheme of vengeance has been abandoned, and, with his daughter, he has lost every hope in life: yet he will not fall a-cursing like a drab, nor declaim like an inspired prophet; he addresses a hurried phrase, like a mumbled formula, to an unknown God, wildly hoping that the slaves might yet find favour in heaven, though the gods of Olympus had deserted them. But from one end of the performance to the other Signor Salvini showed his purpose of breaking with tradition. The hot frenzy of Othello is exchanged for the chilling sarcasm of the gladia

tor.

The uncontrolled jealousy of a man in high place is set against the long-suffering of an outcast. Instead of the explosion of animal instincts we have here an Oriental submission to fate. The second impersonation is the supplement of the first, and an impartial judgment on the actor's abilities can only be grounded on a careful consideration of them both.

WALTER MACLEANE.

MR. BYRON'S new comedy at the Strand Theatre is called Weak Woman. It will be remembered that in Roman law the right of taking under a will was denied to women propter sexus levitatem in common with the deaf and dumb, prodigals and idiots. The father of Mr. Byron's latest heroines was so far convinced of the wisdom of this provision that he disinherited his daughters, less on account, however, of the levity of their sex than of the mercenary greed of their suitors. the intentions of the testator were unknown to his And many complications ensued from the fact that usual comedies, which resemble nothing so much heirs. This is the shell of one of Mr. Byron's as the contrivances called detonating fireworks, which explode at an early stage of their flight, and discharge a thousand coloured lights before they

reach the end of it.

THE revival of M. Herve's Chilpéric at the Alhambra Theatre supplies the denizens of Leicester Square with a very dazzling spectacle.

TO-NIGHT Mr. Herman's romantic play, Jeanne

Dubarry, and Mr. Clay's comic opera, Cattarina, are to be produced at the Charing Cross Theatre; and Mr. Hollingshead opens his campaign of comic opera at the Gaiety Theatre with Les Mousquetaires de la Reine, by Halévy. Halévy is a standing proof of the eclectic spirit in which England appreciates musical art. He was a composer of the supplest talent, turning with ease from the sublimities of La Juive to the graceful frivolities of L'Eclair and Les Mousquetaires. No French musician had a greater command of orchestral resources, a richer fund of harmony, or a sweeter flow of melody; and yet he is less known in England than his relation of the same name who wrote La Grande Duchesse.

WHEN La Boule has ceased to be played at the Opéra Comique, Mdlle. Hélène Petit will appear in M. Sardou's play, Andréa.

MR. ALBERY'S comedy at the Olympic Theatre will be produced on Monday, the 24th inst.

MR. WALTER POLLOCK is to deliver two lectures on the Drama at the Royal Institution. The first will be delivered to-day (Saturday), at three in the afternoon.

THEATRICAL affairs in Paris are very dull; but M. Francisque Sarcey, of the Temps, announces that he has at hand a new theory of dramatic art which will carry him safely through the hot weather, and form one of the chapters of the volume he is meditating on the aesthetics of the stage. Meanwhile M. Sarcey and the other French critics are reduced to reviewing, with great care, a little act by MM. Meilhac and Halévy, Le Passage de Vénus, produced at the Théâtre des Variétés, and a comedy by M. Emile de Najac, La Dernière Poupée, played at the Théâtre du Gymnase. The first treats of a kind of Gresham lecture delivered by a learned astronomer to an audience composed of the porter and a young man who had retired to the solitude of the lecture-room for the purpose of writing a love-letter; and the second handles the old subject of a young girl's love for her stepfather with a delicacy that speaks well for the future of its author.

As to coming events of the French stage, even the Figaro confesses its remarkable powers of vaticination to be at fault. It has even refused to print some of the thousand communications repecting the productions of the future which it daily receives from the authors of these productions. It argues with justice that these letters will soon assume some such form as this:-"Dear Sir,-You will oblige me infinitely by informing your readers that I have just bought the paper which I propose to write a drama in five acts and in verse for the Théâtre Français. Yours, etc., the author of the Broken Brace." This touches an amiable weakness of English journalism pretty closely.

MUSIC.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA-"LOHENGRIN." LAST Saturday the long-promised and often-deferred production of Lohengrin at Covent Garden took place before a crowded audience; in fact, for more than a week before the performance there was not a ticket to be had. It is long since any event in connexion with the opera in this country has aroused so much curiosity; nor are the reasons far to seek. The interest so generally felt on the subject of Wagner's music is largely due to the efforts of Mr. Dannreuther during the last few years as conductor of the concerts of the Wagner Society; partly, also, no doubt, to the reports of the success of Lohengrin, first in Italy, and more recently in America. Though, as has before been composer's operas given as concert pieces furnish a said in these columns, any mere excerpts from the most inadequate idea of his genius, the selections given by the Wagner Society, especially those from the present work, gave evidence of a power

which naturally excited a desire to make further acquaintance with the opera. Besides this, Wagner enjoys the distinction of being in all probability the best abused man in Europe-for which, by the way, he has largely to thank his own combative disposition; and the pros and cons of the "Wagner question " have been debated at more or less length in nearly every musical and literary paper in the country. To this must be added the fact that until last Saturday no really representative work of the master had found its way on to the stage at either of our opera houses. The Fliegende Holländer, it is true, was produced at Drury Lane by Mr. Wood in 1870; but this piece, full of beauties and often characteristic of its author as it is, was written before Wagner had cast off the conventional operatic forms, and in no degree illustrates the new views of the musical drama which he propounds and which he carries out in the construction of his later works. For a summary of these views, our readers may be referred to the article on the subject which appeared in the ACADEMY last year (February 14, 1874). Lohengrin is the first of Wagner's operas in which they are completely developed.

Before proceeding to speak of the performance, it is necessary to give some account of the opera itself. Like all Wagner's later works, with the exception of the Meistersinger, the period of action of Lohengrin is laid in the ages of romance, and the supernatural plays an important part in it. After the orchestral prelude, which is well known to our concert frequenters, the curtain rises and discovers a meadow on the banks of the Scheldt near Antwerp. Henry the Fowler, King of Germany, has come to Antwerp to summon his lieges against the Hungarians. He finds the people in a state of anarchy, and calls upon Frederick, Count of Telramund, to account for this. Telramund explains that the late duke of Brabant had died and left two children-a son Gottfried, and a daughter Elsa, both of whom were committed to his charge as guardian. The boy had mysteriously disappeared, and he accuses Elsa of the murder of her brother. The king summons Elsa to appear and answer the charge. She comes forward, and in reply to the accusation relates, as if in a trance, a vision she has had of a knight in white armour, who, she says, shall be her champion. Her manner makes a visible impression upon the King and the nobles present. Telramund answers that he is not misled by her apparent innocence, and that he has good proof of his accusations, but that it would ill beseem his dignity to bring forward witnesses, and that he is prepared to justify his charges with his sword. The King asks Elsa if she will abide by the issue of battle, and she replies by naming her mysterious knight as her champion. The herald summons the champion with trumpet-call to appear, and after considerable delay, a boat is seen on the river, drawn by a swan, in which stands a knight in white armour, exactly answering to Elsa's description. The music here is wonderfully truthful in dramatic expression, and works up to an almost overpowering climax at the arrival of Lohengrin. The knight steps forward, accuses Telramund of falsehood, and declares himself Elsa's champion. Before he will fight for her, however, he asks her if she will be his wife, should he prove victorious. She assents, and he then says, if he is to protect her, and if nothing is to separate them, she must promise never to ask him whence he came, nor his name nor rank. She gives the promise, and he engages in combat with Telramund, whom he overcomes, and the curtain falls on the songs of

victory.

The second act takes place in the City of Antwerp. It is night. On the right of the stage we see the entrance to the cathedral, on the left is the Kemenate (the ladies' dwelling), and in the background the palace. On the steps of the cathedral are seated Telramund and his wife Ortrud. The former is in deep dejection, and upbraids his wife violently as the cause of his

disgrace, for we learn that it was she who had told him that she had herself seen Elsa drown her brother. Ortrud replies that she had only spoken the truth, and that the victory of the knight was the result of magic; that were he forced to disclose his name he would at once lose all his supernatural power; but that no one but Elsa had the power to force an answer from him, and hence his strict injunction to her to make no enquiries. She undertakes to instil suspicion into Elsa's mind, while Telramund is, before the King, to accuse the Knight of magic. Elsa appears at the balcony. Ortrud appeals to her pity, and induces her to take her into the house. The day breaks gradually, and the citizens come forth to their work. The King's herald proclaims the banishment of Frederick von Telramund, and announces that the strange knight, who assumes the title of "Guardian of Brabant," is to be married on that day, and on the morrow will lead the forces against the enemy. Elsa, and a procession of her ladies, among whom is Ortrud, come forth from the Kemenate to go to the cathedral; as the former ascends the first step, Ortrud advances, and claims precedence. "Wilt thou," says Elsa, "go before me? thou, the wife of one whom God hath judged by ordeal of combat?" "At least," replies Ortrud, my husband's was a highly honoured name. What of thine? thou canst not even say who he is!" While the dispute is at its height, the King and Lohengrin enter; Elsa appeals to the latter for protection against Ortrud,

and all are about to enter the cathedral when Telramund advances and charges the strange knight with magic arts, alleging in proof his mysterious appearance, drawn by a swan, and demanding who he is. Lohengrin replies that none but Elsa has the power to ask that question. He turns to her- Elsa, wilt thou put the question to me?" She is in a tumult of emotion and doubt, but at present trust prevails, and she replies, "My love shall stand far above all doubt." As they go into the cathedral, the curtain falls.

Act the third opens with a brilliant orchestral prelude, familiar to many from its frequent performance at the Wagner Society's concerts, where it was one of the stock pieces. The curtain rises on the bridal chamber, to which Lohengrin and Elsa are conducted in state by a procession of knights and ladies to the music of the well-known bridal chorus. When they have retired a long scene follows, in which the doubts which Ortrud has insinuated into Elsa's mind gradually increase in power, and at length force from her the fatal question to her husband, who he is, and whence he comes. Just as the question is asked, Telramund and four retainers burst into the room with the intention of assassinating Lohengrin, who, with one thrust of his sword, strikes Frederick dead; his vassals submit. Lohengrin orders them to carry the corpse before the king, and summons two bridesmaids to conduct Elsa also to the royal presence, where, he says, he will answer her enquiry. The scene changes to the banks of the Scheldt, as in the first act, and after some gorgeous procession music, to which various knights and their vassals arrive on the scene, ready to depart for the frontier, the King appears. Telramund's retainers bring in his corpse. Elsa enters, heart-broken, and last of all Lohengrin comes forward, and, after explaining the death of Telramund, charges Elsa with having broken her promise, and thus destroyed her happiness and his own. plains that he is a Knight of the Holy Grail, gifted with supernatural powers in defence of innocence; but that such is the sacred mystery of the Grail that it must not be revealed to the public, and if once it is known its knight must immediately depart. This was the reason why he forbad Elsa to ask who or whence he was; now that he had been forced to declare it he must return. The entreaties of the King, Elsa, and the people fail to move him, and the swan is seen approaching on the river to carry him away.

He ex

As he is about to enter the boat, Ortru d comes forward, scoffs at Elsa, and tells her that the swan is no other than her brother Gottfried whom she (Ortrud) had enchanted, and that if Elsa had not asked the question, Lohengrin would have had the power to restore him to a human shape. The Knight of the Grail hears her, and kneels by the side of the boat in silent prayer. A white dove appears hovering over the boat; Lohengrin understands the sign, and gladly loosens the chain by which the swan is fastened. The swan sinks below the water, and in its stead arises Gottfried, whom Elsa joyfully recognises, and the people of Brabant acknowledge as their ruler. Lohengrin chains the dove to the boat and departs. Elsa, with one agonising cry of "My husband! My husband!" sinks lifeless in her brother's arms.

It will be seen from the above abstract that the libretto of Lohengrin is no ordinary opera book. It abounds in forcible situations, and the poetry, as in all Wagner's libretti, is of very considerable literary merit. With regard to the music, it may be frankly confessed that it is certainly not of a kind calculated to attract the habitués of the Italian Opera. It overflows with melody; but it is not the sort of melody which catches the ear at once and haunts the memory afterwards. There is no fear that Lohengrin will ever be heard on the barrel-organs in company with Madame Angot! There are no detached songs or choruses; one piece follows another without the slightest break, so that the audience, even when most excited, had hardly a chance, so to speak, to get a clap in edgeways. It was very curious to see how the tendency to applause kept on breaking out, and was as constantly hushed down by those who knew the music. In one case it broke all bounds. The grand scene of Lohengrin's arrival in the first act roused an enthusiasm which there was no resisting. The audience positively refused to allow the performance to continue until it had been repeated a decided error of judgment, though a most intelligible one; at the second performance the chorus, not having been led up to by the previous music, failed to produce anything like the impression it did the first time.

This brings us naturally to notice the distinctive characteristic of the Wagner opera-its dramatic unity. To record a personal impression, I may say that never in my life have I been so overpowered with any operatic performance as with Lohengrin. And the force of the impression produced arises not merely, nor even chiefly, from the music per se, but from the entire combination of music, drama, action, and mise-en-scène. There are many pages of the music which heard in the concertroom would be simply insufferable, but which on the stage produce the deepest impression. Such is especially the case with the long and gloomy scene between Frederick and Ortrud which opens the second act. There is hardly a phrase of melody that one can recall after a single hearing; yet the dramatic truth and power of the whole scene are unmistakeable. It has often been said that Wagner's music can only be heard and judged on the stage; and this statement was to the fullest extent justified on Saturday evening. Those who would appreciate the work, however, must lay aside all their preconceived ideas of opera, and be prepared to accept dramatic truth instead of pretty eight-bar phrases. Moreover, to understand the music fully, intimate acquaintance with it is needed, as otherwise much of the significance of the introduction of the chief subjects ("Leitmotive," as they are termed) will be lost altogether, though the general impression of power and beauty cannot fail to strike the unprejudiced hearer, even if he have no previous knowledge of

the work whatever.