,transcriber's ,note3 ,italics are enclosed in underscores1 boldface in equals signs4 ,additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook4 ,,on ,,books ,,and ,,arts ,,on ,,books ,,and ,,arts ,,by ,,frederick ,,wedmore ,,london ,,hodder ,,and ,,stoughton #bg ,,paternoster ,,row #ahii ,edinburgh3 ,t4 and ,a4 ,,constable1 ,printers to ,her ,majesty ,,note ,in the pages that here follow ,i have gathered up such of my more or less critical contributions to various ,reviews1 and to one great daily paper1 as ,i am least unwilling to preserve within the covers of a book4 ,as the proportion borne by things reprinted from the #8,standard' will seem small to those who know during how many years ,i have been permitted to contribute to its columns the expression of opinion on many of those arts which have been both my delight and my laborious study1 let me just simply say that every line that ,i have written in that paper has been written with a single eye to the needs of the occasion and the moment1 and the more expressly any writing is designed for a particular need and place1 the less1 ,i think1 is it adapted for transplanting4 ,there has been no attempt to bring these essays1 or these fragments1 #8up-to-date'--to bring them to the point of view1 ,i mean1 of the time at which they chance to be republished4 ,a suppression here1 and there the alteration of a phrase--little else is attempted4 ,they remain1 frankly1 #8contributions4' ,f4 ,w4 ,westminster1 ,october #ahii4 ,,contents ,,page ,,the ,,short ,,story #a ,,my ,,rare ,,book #be ,,balzac #dd ,,george ,,eliot #ee ,,my ,,few ,,things #fd ,,anne ,,oldfield #ig ,,siddons ,,and ,,rachel #ajc ,,joseph ,,jefferson #aji ,,zola',s #8,,th,r,,se ,,raquin' #aac #8,,macbeth' ,,and ,,irving #aah #8,,the ,,duchess ,,of ,,malfi' #abb ,,rembrandt #abh ,,dutch ,,seventeenth-,,century ,,drawings #add ,,velasquez #aeg ,,french ,,eighteenth-,,century ,,painting #afd ,,chardin #agb ,,moreau #ahh ,,gainsborough #bjb ,,cotman #bai ,h4 ,g4 ,,hine #bcc ,,thomas ,,collier #bce ,,lord ,,leighton #bcg ,,millais #bdh ,,burne-,,jones #beg ,,bosboom ,,and ,,his ,,contemporaries #bfc ,,henner #bgj ,,francis ,,james #bge ,,the ,,short ,,story ,one of the most engaging of the wits of our day wrote lately in a weekly newspaper that it is1 for the most part1 only those who are not good enough actors to act successfully in ,life1 who are compelled to act at the ,theatre4 ,under the influence of such an amiable paradox it is possible that we may ask ourselves1 in regard to story-writing1 whether the people singled out to practise it are those1 chiefly1 to whose personal history ,romance has been denied3 so that the greatest qualification even for the production of a lady's love-tale1 is--that the lady shall never have experienced a love-affair4 ,eminent precedents might be cited in support of the contention4 ,a great editor once comfortably declared that the ideal journalist was a writer who did not know too much about his subject4 ,the public did not want much knowledge1 he said4 ,the literary criticism in your paper would be perfect if you handed it over to the critic of ,music2 and the musical criticism would want for nothing if you assigned it to an expert in ,art4 ,and ,mr4 ,thackeray1 speaking of love-tales1 said something that pointed the same way4 ,he protested1 no one should write a love-story after he was fifty4 ,and why8 ,because he knew too much about it4 ,but it was a personal application ,i was going to have given to the statement with which this paper begins4 ,if the actor we see upon the boards be only there because more capable comedians are busy on the stage of the world1 ,i am presumably invited by the ,editor of ,the ,nineteenth ,century to hold forth on the ,short ,story because ,i am not a popular writer4 ,the ,editor1 in the gentle exercise of his humour1 bids me to fill the place which should be filled by the man of countless editions4 ,it is true that in the matter of short stories1 such a writer is not easy to find2 and this too at a time when1 if one is correctly informed1 full many a lady1 not of necessity of any remarkable gifts1 maintains an honourable independence by the annual production of an improper novel4 ,small as my personal claims might be1 were they based only on my books--,renunciations1 for example1 or ,pastorals of ,france--,i may say my say as one who1 with production obviously scanty1 has for twenty years been profoundly interested in the artistic treatment of the ,short ,story2 who believes in the short story1 not as a ready means of hitting the big public1 but as a medium for the exercise of the finer art--as a medium1 moreover1 adapted peculiarly to that alert intelligence1 on the part of the reader1 which rebels sometimes at the longueurs of the conventional novel3 the old three volumes or the new fat book4 ,nothing is so mysterious1 for nothing is so instinctive1 as the method of a writer4 ,i cannot communicate the incommunicable4 ,but at all events ,i will not express opinions aimed at the approval of the moment3 convictions based on the necessity for epigram4 ,in the first place1 then1 what is1 and what is not1 a short story8 ,many things a short story may be4 ,it may be an episode1 like ,miss ,ella ,hepworth ,dixon's1 or like ,miss ,bertha ,thomas's2 a fairy tale1 like ,miss ,evelyn ,sharp's3 the presentation of a single character with the stage to himself 7,mr4 ,george ,gissing72 a tale of the uncanny 7,mr4 ,rudyard ,kipling72 a dialogue of comedy 7,mr4 ,pett ,ridge72 a panorama of selected landscape1 a vision of the sordid street1 a record of heroism1 a remote tradition or an old belief vitalised by its bearing on our lives to-day1 an analysis of an obscure calling1 a glimpse at a forgotten quarter4 ,a short story--,i mean a short imaginative work in the difficult medium of prose2 for plot1 or story proper1 is no essential part of it1 though in work like ,conan ,doyle's or ,rudyard ,kipling's it may be a very delightful part--a short story may be any one of the things that have been named1 or it may be something besides2 but one thing it can never be--it can never be #8a novel in a nutshell4' ,that is a favourite definition1 but not a definition that holds4 ,it is a definition for the kind of public that asks for a convenient inexactness1 and resents the subtlety which is inseparable from precise truth4 ,writers and serious readers know that a good short story cannot possibly be a prcis1 a synopsis1 a scenario1 as it were1 of a novel4 ,it is a separate thing--as separate1 almost1 as the ,sonnet is from the ,epic--it involves the exercise almost of a different art4 ,that1 perhaps1 is one reason why it is generally--in spite of temporary vogue as pleasant pastime--a little underrated as an intellectual performance4 ,that is why great novelists succeed in it so seldom--or at all events fail in it sometimes--even a novelist like ,mr4 ,hardy1 the stretch of whose canvas has never led him into carelessness of detail4 ,yet with him1 even1 in his short stories1 the inequality is greater than befits the work of such an artist1 and greater than is to be accounted for wholly by his mood2 so that by the side of ,the ,three ,strangers1 or1 yet better1 that delightful thing1 ,interlopers at the ,knap1 you have short tales tossed off with momentary indifference--as you can imagine ,sheridan1 with his braced language of comedy1 stooping once to a charade4 ,and if a master nods sometimes--a master like ,hardy--does it not almost follow that1 by the public at least1 the conditions of the short story are not understood1 and so1 in the estimate of the criticism of the dinner-table1 and by the criticism of the academic1 the tale is made to suffer by its brevity8 ,but if it is well done1 it has done this amazing thing3 it has become quintessence2 it has eliminated the superfluous2 and it has taken time to be brief4 ,then--amongst readers whose judgments are perfunctory--who have not thought the thing out--it is rewarded by being spoken of as an #8agreeable sketch1' #8a promising little effort1' an #8earnest of better things4' ,in this wise--not to talk of any other instance--one imagines the big public rewarding the completed charm of ,the ,author of ,beltraffio and of ,a ,day of ,days1 though pregnant brevity is not often ,mr4 ,james's strength4 ,and then ,mr4 ,james works away at the long novel1 and1 of course1 is clever in it1 because with him1 not to be clever might require a passiveness more than ,american4 ,very good2 but ,i go back from the record of all that #8,maisie' ought not to have known1 to ,the ,author of ,beltraffio and to ,a ,day of ,days--#8promising little efforts1' #8earnests of better things4' ,well1 then1 the short story is wont to be estimated1 not by its quality1 but by its size2 a mode of appraisement under which the passion of ,schumann1 with his wistful questionings--in ,warum1 say1 or in ,der ,dichter spricht--would be esteemed less seriously than the amiable score of ,maritana6 ,and a dry-point by ,mr4 ,whistler1 two dozen lines laid with the last refinement of charm1 would be held inferior to a panorama by ,philippoteau1 or to the backgrounds of the contemporary theatre4 ,one would have thought that this was obvious4 ,but in our latest stage of civilisation it is sometimes only the obvious that requires to be pointed out4 ,while we are upon the subject of the hindrances to the appreciation of a particular form of imaginative work1 we may remind ourselves of one drawback in regard to which the short story must make common cause with the voluminous novel3 ,i mean the inability of the mass of readers to do justice to the seriousness of any artistic1 as opposed to any moral1 or political1 or pretentiously regenerative fiction4 ,for the man in the street1 for the inhabitant of ,peckham ,rye1 for many prosperous people on the north side of the ,park1 perhaps even for the very cream of up-to-date persons whose duty it is to abide somewhere where ,knightsbridge melts invisibly into ,chelsea4 ,fiction is but a dlassement1 and the artists who practise it1 in its higher forms1 are a little apt to be estimated as contributors to public entertainment--like the ,carangeot ,troupe1 and ,alexia1 at the ,palace ,theatre4 ,the view is something of this nature--,i read it so expressed only the other day3 #8,the tired clergyman1 after a day's work2 what book shall he take up8 ,fiction1 perhaps1 would seem too trivial2 history1 too solid4' ,the serious writer of novel or short story brings no balm for the #8tired clergyman'--other than such balm as is afforded by the delight of serious ,art4 ,at high tension he has delivered himself of his performance1 and if his work is to be properly enjoyed1 it must be met by those only who are ready to receive it2 it must be met by the alert1 not the fatigued1 reader2 and with the short story in particular1 with its omissions1 with the brevity of its allusiveness1 it must be met half way4 ,do not let us expect it to be #8solid1' like ,mill1 or ,lightfoot1 or ,westcott--or even like an ,a ,b ,c ,railway ,guide4 ,you must condone the #8triviality' which puts its finger on the pulse of life and says #8,thou ailest here and here'--which exposes1 not a political movement1 like the historian of the outward fact1 but the secrets of the heart1 rather1 and human weakness1 and the courage which in strait places comes somehow to the sons of men1 and the beauty and the strength of affection--and which does this by intuition as much as by science4 ,but to go back to considerations not common in some degree to all ,fiction1 but proper more absolutely to the short story4 ,i have suggested briefly what the short story may be2 we have seen briefly the one thing it cannot be--which is1 a novel told within restricted space4 ,let us ask what methods it may adopt--what are some of the varieties of its form4 ,the short story admits of greater variety of form than does the long novel1 and the number of these forms will be found to be increasing--and we must not reject conventionally 7as we are terribly apt to do7 the new form because we are unfamiliar with it4 ,the forms that are open to the novel are open to the short imaginative piece1 and1 to boot1 very many besides4 ,common to both1 of course1 is the most customary form of all--that in which the writer narrates as from outside the drama1 yet with internal knowledge of it--what is called the #8narrative form1' which includes within its compass1 in a single work1 narrative proper and a moderate share of dialogue4 ,common again to both short and long stories1 evidently1 is a form which1 in skilled hands1 and used only for those subjects to which it is most appropriate1 may give strange reality to the matter presented--the form1 ,i mean1 in which the story is told in the first person1 as the experience and the sentiment of one character who runs throughout the whole4 ,the short story1 though it should use this form very charily1 adopts it more conveniently than does the long novel2 for the novel has many more characters than the short story1 and for the impartial presentation of many characters this form is a fetter4 ,it gives of a large group a prejudiced and partial view4 ,it commended itself once or twice only to ,dickens4 ,david ,copperfield is the conspicuous example4 ,never once1 ,i think1 did it commend itself to ,balzac4 ,it is better adapted1 no doubt1 to adventure than to analysis1 and better to the expression of humour than to the realisation of tragedy4 ,as far as the presentation of character is concerned1 what it is usual for it to achieve--in hands1 ,i mean1 much smaller than those of the great ,dickens--is this3 a life size1 full length1 generally too flattering portrait of the hero of the story--a personage who has the lime-light all to himself--on whom no inconvenient shadows are ever thrown--the hero as beheld by ,sant1 shall ,i say8 rather than as beheld by ,sargent--and then1 a further graceful idealisation1 an attractive pastel1 you may call it1 of the lady he most frequently admired2 and1 of the remainder1 two or three ,kit-,cat portraits1 a head and shoulders here1 and there a stray face4 ,the third and only other form that ,i remember as common to both novel and short story1 though indeed not equally convenient to both1 is the rare form of ,letters4 ,that again1 like any other that will not bear a prolonged strain1 is oftener available for short story than for big romance4 ,the most consummate instance of its employment1 in very lengthy work1 is one in which with infinitely slow progression it serves above all things the purpose of minute and searching analysis--,i have named the book in this line of description of it3 ,i have named ,clarissa4 ,for the short story it is used very happily by ,balzac--who1 though not at first a master of sentences1 is an instinctive master of methods--it is used by him in the ,mmoires de ,deux ,jeunes ,maries4 ,and in a much lighter way1 of bright portraiture1 of neat characterisation1 it is used by an ingenious1 sometimes seductive1 writer of our period1 ,marcel ,prvost1 in ,lettres de ,femmes4 ,it is possible1 of course1 to mix these different forms2 but for such mixture we shall conclude1 ,i fancy1 that prolonged fiction offers the best opportunity4 ,such mixture has its dangers for the short story2 you risk1 perhaps1 unity of effect4 ,but there are short stories in which monotony is avoided1 and the force of the narrative in reality emphasised1 by some telling lines from a letter1 whose end or whose beginning may be otherwise imparted to us4 ,i devote a few lines to but two or three of the forms which by common consent are for the short story only4 ,one of them is simple dialogue4 ,for our generation1 that has had the fascination of an experiment--an experiment made perhaps with best success after all in the candid and brilliant fragments of that genuine humorist1 ,mr4 ,pett ,ridge4 ,the method in most hands has the appearance of a difficult feat4 ,it is one1 often--and so is walking on the slack-wire1 and the back-spring in acrobatic dance4 ,of course a writer must enjoy grappling with difficulties4 ,we understand that4 ,but the more serious artist reflects1 after a while1 that the unnecessary difficulty is an inartistic encumbrance4 #8,why1' he will ask1 #8should the story-teller put on himself the fetters of the drama1 to be denied the drama's opportunities8' ,pure dialogue1 we may be sure1 is apt to be an inefficient means of telling a story2 of presenting a character4 ,there may be cited one great ,english ,classic who has employed the method--the author of ,pericles and ,aspasia1 of that little gem of conversation between ,henry the ,eighth and ,anne ,boleyn4 ,but then1 with ,walter ,savage ,landor1 austere and perfect1 the character existed already1 and there was no story to tell4 ,mere dialogue1 under the conditions of the modern writer1 leaves almost necessarily the problem unsolved1 the work a fragment4 ,it can scarcely be a means to an end2 though it may1 if we like1 be a permissible little end in itself1 a little social chatter1 pitched in a high key1 in which one has known tartness to be mistaken for wit4 ,thus does #8,gyp' skim airily over the deep1 great sea of life4 ,all are shallows to her vision4 ,and as she skims you feel her lightness4 ,i prefer the adventure of the diver1 who knows what the depths are3 who plunges1 and who rescues the pearl4 ,then1 again1 possible1 though not often desirable for the short story1 is the diary form--extracts from a diary1 rather4 ,applied to work on an extensive scale1 your result--since you would necessarily lack concentrated theme--your result would be a chronicle1 not a story4 ,applied to the shorter fiction1 it must be used charily1 and may then1 ,i should suppose1 be used well4 ,but ,i1 who used the form in #8,the ,new ,marienbad ,elegy' in ,english ,episodes1 what right have ,i to say that the form1 in the hands of a master1 allows a subtle presentation of the character of the diarist--allows1 in self-revelation1 an irony1 along with earnestness1 a wayward and involved humour1 not excluding sympathy8 ,it is a form not easily received1 not suffered gladly4 ,it is for the industrious1 who read a good thing twice1 and for the enlightened1 who read it three times4 ,i throw out these things only as hints2 we may apply them where we will1 as we think about stories4 ,but something has yet to be said4 ,of the two forms already named as generally unfitted for the long novel1 and fitted only now and then for the short story1 one1 it will be noticed1 is all dialogue2 the other1 necessarily1 a form in which there is no dialogue at all4 ,and ,i think we find1 upon reflection1 the lighter work leans oftenest to the one form2 the graver work leans oftenest to the other4 ,indeed1 from this we might go on to notice that as far as the short story is concerned1 most of the finer and more lasting work1 though cast in forms which quite permit of the dialogue1 has1 as a matter of fact1 but little dialogue in it4 ,balzac's ,la ,grenadire--it is years since ,i read it2 but has it any dialogue at all8 ,balzac's ,l',interdiction--an extraordinary presentation of a quaint functionary1 fossiliferous and secluded1 suddenly brought into contact with people of the world1 and with the utmost ability baffling their financial intrigue--this is certainly the most remarkable short story ever written about money--,l',interdiction has not much dialogue4 ,in the ,atheist's ,mass1 again--the short story of such a nameless pathos--the piece which1 more even than ,eugnie ,grandet itself1 should be everybody's introduction1 and especially every woman's introduction1 to the genius of ,balzac3 ,la ,messe de l',athe has no dialogue4 ,coming to our actual contemporaries in ,france1 of whom ,zola and ,daudet must still1 it is possible1 be accounted the foremost1 it is natural that the more finished and minute worker--the worker lately lamented--should be the one who has made the most of the short story4 ,and in this order of his work--thus leaving out his larger and most brilliant canvas1 ,froment ,jeune et ,risler ,an--what do we more lastingly remember than the brief and sombre narrative of ,les ,deux ,auberges8--a little piece that has no story at all2 but a #8situation' depicted1 and when depicted1 left4 ,there is an open country2 leagues of ,provence2 a long stretching road2 and1 on the roadside1 opposite each other1 two inns4 ,the older one is silent1 melancholy2 the other1 noisy and prosperous4 ,and the landlord of the older inn spends all his time in the newer2 taking his pleasure there with guests who were once his own1 and with a handsome landlady1 who makes amends for his departed business4 ,and in his own inn1 opposite1 a deserted woman sits solitary4 ,that is all--but the art of the master6 ,now this particular instance of a pregnant brevity reminds me that in descriptions of landscape the very obligations of the short story are an advantage to its art4 ,nature1 in ,fiction1 requires to be seen1 not in endless detail1 as a botanical or geographical study1 but1 as in ,classic ,landscape ,composition1 a noble glimpse of it1 over a man's shoulder1 under a man's arm4 ,i know1 of course1 that is not the popular view4 ,blameless novels have owed their popularity to landscape written by the ream4 ,coaches have been named after them2 steamboats have been named after them4 ,i am not sure that1 in their honour1 inaccessible heights have not been scaled and virgin forests broken in upon1 so that somewhere in picturesque districts the front of a gigantic hotel might have inscribed on it the title of a diffuse novel4 ,but that is not the great way4 ,the great way1 from ,virgil's to ,browning's1 is the way of pregnant brevity4 ,and where dialogue is employed in the finer short story1 every line of it is bound to be significant4 ,the short story has no room for the reply that is only near to being appropriate1 and it deserves no pardon for the word that would not have been certainly employed4 ,it is believed1 generally1 and one can well suppose that it is true1 that the average dialogue of the diffuse novel is written quickly4 ,that is in part because so little of it is really dramatic--is really at all the inevitable word4 ,but the limited sentences in which1 when the narrator must narrate no more1 the persons who have been described in the short story express themselves on their restricted stage1 need1 if ,i dare assert it1 to be written slowly1 or1 what is better1 re-read a score of times1 and pruned1 and looked at from without1 and surveyed on every side4 ,but1 indeed1 of the long story1 as well as of the short1 may it not be agreed that on the whole the dialogue is apt to be the least successful thing8 ,the ordinary reader1 of course1 will not be dramatic enough to notice its deficiencies4 ,in humorous dialogue1 these are seen least4 ,humorous dialogue has a legitimate licence4 ,you do not ask from it exactitude2 you do not nail it down to its statement4 ,but in the dialogue of the critical moment1 when the fire of a little word will kindle how great a matter1 how needful then1 and how rare1 that the word be the true one6 ,we do not want laxity1 inappropriateness1 on the one hand2 nor1 on the other1 the tortured phraseology of a too resolute cleverness4 ,and those of us who have a preference--derived1 it may be1 from the simpler generation of ,dickens--for an unbending when it is a question of little matters1 and1 when it is a question of great ones1 for #8a sincere large accent1 nobly plain'--well6 there is much of modern finessing we are hardly privileged to understand4 ,yet if one wants an instance1 in a long novel1 in which the sentence now said at a white heat is the result1 inevitable1 burningly true to life1 of the sentence that was said just before1 one condones the obscurity that has had its imitators1 and pays one's tribute of admiration to the insight of ,diana of the ,crossways4 ,one of the difficulties of the short story1 the short story shares with the acted drama1 and that is the indispensableness of compression--the need that every sentence shall tell--the difference being1 that in the acted drama it must tell for the moment1 it must tell till it is found out1 and in the short story it must tell for at least a modest eternity1 and something more1 if that be possible--for if a #8,fortnight is eternity' upon the ,stock ,exchange1 a literary eternity is1 perhaps1 forty years4 ,of course the short story1 like all other fiction to be read1 does not share the other difficulties of the acted drama--above all1 the disadvantage which drags the acted drama down--the disadvantage of appealing to1 at all events of having to give sops to1 at one and the same moment1 gallery and stalls3 an audience so incongruous that it lies outside the power of ,literature to weld it really together4 ,in the contemporary theatre1 in some of the very cleverest of our acted dramas1 the characters are frequently doing1 not what the man of intuition1 and the man who remembers life1 knows that they would do1 but that which they must do to conciliate the dress circle1 to entertain the pit1 to defer not too long the gentle chuckle with which the #8average sensual man' receives the assurance that it is a delusion to suppose our world contains any soul1 even a woman's soul1 that is higher and purer than his4 ,to such temptations the writer of the short story is not even exposed1 if he be willing to conceive of his art upon exalted lines1 to offer carefully the best of his reflection1 in a form of durable and chosen grace1 or1 by a less conscious1 perhaps1 but not less fruitful1 husbanding of his resources1 to give us1 sooner or later some first-hand study of human emotion1 #8gotten1' as ,william ,watson says1 #8of the immediate soul4' ,but again1 contrasting his fortunes with those of his brother1 the dramatist1 the writer of short stories must1 even at the best1 know himself denied the dramatist's crowning advantage--which is the thrill of actual human presence4 ,i have not presumed1 except incidentally and by way of illustration1 to sit in rapid judgment1 and award impertinently blame or praise to the most or the least prominent of those who are writing short stories to-day4 ,even an occasional grappler with the difficulties of a task is not generally its best critic4 ,he will criticise from the inside1 now and then1 and so1 although you ought to have from him1 now and again1 at least--what ,i know1 nevertheless1 that ,i may not have given--illuminating commentary--you cannot have final judgment4 ,of the art of ,painting1 where skill of hand and sense of colour count for much more than intellect1 this is especially true4 ,it is true1 more or less1 of ,music--in spite of exceptions as notable as ,schumann and ,berlioz3 almost perfect critics of the very art that they produced4 ,it is true--though in a less degree--of creative ,literature4 ,we leave this point1 to write down1 before stopping1 one word about tendencies4 ,among the better writers1 one tendency of the day is to devote a greater care to the art of expression--to an unbroken continuity of excellent style4 ,the short story1 much more than the long one1 makes this thing possible to men who may not claim to be geniuses1 but who1 if we are to respect them at all1 must claim to be artists4 ,and yet1 in face of the indifference of so much of our public here to anything we can call ,style--in face1 actually1 of a strange insensibility to it--the attempt1 wherever made1 is a courageous one4 ,this insensibility--how does it come about8 ,it comes about1 in honest truth1 partly because that instrument of ,art1 our ,english tongue1 in which the verse of ,gray was written1 and the prose of ,landor and ,sterne1 is likewise the necessary vehicle in which1 every morning of our lives1 we ask for something at breakfast4 ,if we all of us had to demand breakfast by making a rude drawing of a coffee-pot1 we should understand1 before long--the quickness of the ,french intelligence on that matter being unfortunately denied us--the man in the street would understand that ,writing1 as much as ,painting1 is an art to be acquired1 and an art in whose technical processes one is bound to take pleasure4 ,and1 perhaps1 another reason is the immense diffusion nowadays of superficial education2 so that the election of a book to the honours of quick popularity is decided by those1 precisely1 whose minds are least trained for the exercise of that suffrage4 ,what is elected is too often the work which presents at a first reading everything that it presents at all4 ,i remember ,mr4 ,browning once saying1 propos of such a matter1 #8,what has a cow to do with nutmegs8' ,he explained1 it was a ,german proverb4 ,is it8 ,or is it ,german only in the way of #8,sonnets from the ,portuguese'8 ,anyhow1 things being as they are1 all the more honour to those younger people who1 in the face of indifference1 remember that their instrument of ,english language is a quite unequalled instrument of ,art4 ,against this happy tendency1 one has to set--in regard at least to some of them--tendencies less admirable4 ,for1 whilst the only kind of work that has a chance of engaging the attention of ,sainte-,beuve's #8severe ,to-morrow' is work that is original1 individual1 sincere1 is it not a pity1 because of another's sudden success1 to be unremittingly occupied with the exploitation of one particular world--to paint for ever1 say1 in violent and garish hue1 or in deep shades through which no light can struggle1 the life of the gutter8 to paint it1 too1 with that distorted #8realism' which witnesses upon the part of its practitioners to one thing only1 a profound conviction of the ugly6 ,i talk1 of course1 not of the short stories of the penetrating observer1 but of those of the dyspeptic pessimist1 whose pessimism1 where it is not the pose of the contortionist--adopted with an eye to a sensational success of journalism1 to a commercial effect--is hysteria1 an imitative malady1 a malady of the mind4 ,the profession of the literary pessimist is already overcrowded2 and if ,i name two writers who1 though in different degrees1 have avoided the temptation to join it--if ,i name one who knows familiarly the cheery as well as the more sombre side of ,cockney character and life1 ,mr4 ,henry ,nevinson1 the author of the remarkable short-stories1 ,neighbours of ,ours1 and then again a more accepted student of a sordid existence--,mr4 ,george ,gissing1 in ,human ,odds and ,ends especially--,i name them but as such instances as ,i am privileged to know1 of observant and unbiassed treatment of the subjects with which they have elected to deal4 ,in ,france1 in the short story1 we may easily notice1 the uglier forms of #8,realism' are wearing themselves out4 #8,le soleil de ,france1' said ,gluck to ,marie ,antoinette1 #8le soleil de ,france donne du gnie4' ,and the genius that it gives cannot long be hopeless and sombre4 ,it leaves the obscure wood and tangled bypath2 it makes for the open road3 #8la route claire et droite'--the phrase belongs to ,m4 ,leygues--#8la route claire et droite o marche le gnie franais4' ,straight and clear was the road followed--nay1 sometimes actually cut--by the unresting talent of ,guy de ,maupassant1 the writer of a hundred short stories1 which1 for the world of his day at least1 went far beyond ,charles ,nodier's earlier delicacy and ,champfleury's wit4 ,but1 somehow1 upon ,de ,maupassant's nature and temperament the curse of pessimism lay4 ,to deviate into cheeriness he must deal with the virtues of the dclasses--undoubtedly an interesting theme--he must deal with them as in the famous ,maison ,tellier1 an ebullition of scarcely cynical comedy1 fuller much of real humanity than ,de ,goncourt's sordid document1 ,la ,fille ,elisa4 ,but that was an exception4 ,de ,maupassant was pessimist generally1 because1 master of an amazing talent1 he refreshed himself never in any rarefied air4 ,the vista of the ,spirit was denied him4 ,his reputation he may keep2 but his school--the school in which a few even of our own imitative writers prattle the accents of a hopeless materialism--his school1 ,i fancy1 will be crowded no more4 ,for1 with an observation keen and judicial1 ,m4 ,ren ,bazin treats to-day themes1 we need not say more #8legitimate'--since much may be legitimate--but at least more acceptable4 ,and then again1 with a style of which ,de ,maupassant1 direct as was his own1 must have envied even the clarity and the subtler charm1 a master draughtsman of ecclesiastic and bookworm1 of the neglected genius of the provincial town 7some poor devil of a small professor71 and of the soldier1 and the shopkeeper1 and the ,sous-,prfet's wife--,i hope ,i am describing ,m4 ,anatole ,france--looks out on the contemporary world with a vision humane and genial1 sane and wide4 ,pessimism1 it seems to me1 can only be excusable in those who are still bowed down by the immense responsibility of youth4 ,it was a great poet1 who1 writing of one of his peers--a man of mature life--declared of him1 not #8he mopes picturesquely1' but #8he knows the world1 firm1 quiet1 and gay4' ,to such a writer--only to such a writer--is possible a happy comedy2 and possible1 besides1 a true and an august vision of profounder things6 ,and that is the spirit to which the ,short ,story1 at its best1 will certainly return4 7,nineteenth ,century1 ,march #ahih47 ,,my ,,rare ,,book ,i wish ,i could say it was my diligence that discovered it1 and that ,i hunted it out of some fifth-rate bookstall of ,goswell ,street or of the ,new ,road--#8all this lot at #f;d4 apiece4' ,but no1 it has no romantic story as far as ,i am concerned4 ,given perhaps1 eighty years ago1 by friend to friend1 or lover to sweetheart1 in days when our great-grandmothers were beautiful and our great-grandfathers devoted1 it got to be neglected1 it got to be sold--somebody ceased to care for it1 or somebody wanted the few shillings it then would bring--somehow it tossed about the world1 till a keen bookseller or keen bookbuyer rescued it1 and took it to a binder of note1 and then it was arrayed in seemly dress1 and safer for the future4 ,afterwards--but not for very long1 ,i think--it was a rich man's possession3 one thing1 and quite a little thing1 in a great library of ,english classics1 from ,defoe and ,sterne to ,dickens and ,tennyson4 ,then it came to be sold1 along with most or all of its important companions1 and so ,i got it1 in prosaic fashion4 ,i bought it under the hammer at ,sotheby's--or rather1 ,mr4 ,f4 ,s4 ,ellis bought it there on my behalf--on the #crd of ,march1 in this present year of grace4 ,and now it takes up its position on insignificant shelves1 by the side of the ,rogers with the ,turner illustrations2 by the side of a few things--but the collector knows them not4 ,this is how it figures in the auctioneer's catalogue3 #8,wordsworth 7,w47 ,lyrical ,ballads1 with a few other ,poems 7including ,rime of the ,ancyent ,marinere by ,coleridge71 ,,first ,,edition1 green morocco extra g4 e4 by ,riviere1 #agih4' ,the #8g4 e4' means nothing more mysterious than #8gilt edges4' ,the morocco is of a rich and sunny green--the #8good' green of modern artistic speech1 which rightly enough1 ,i suppose1 endows colour and line with moral qualities4 ,i am thankful to the rich man for having saved me both money and trouble1 in binding1 completely to my taste1 it happens1 my rare book4 ,and few things1 perhaps1 deserve more careful guardianship4 ,the ,lyrical ,ballads1 as the world now knows1 were a starting-point in the new ,english ,literature1 which addressed itself to study in the field of ,nature more than in academies1 and which taught us the beauty and interest of common life and of everyday incident2 and it is a delight to me to see the pages of these simple lyrics and pastorals as ,wordsworth's own eye was content with them when ,cottle1 the ,bristol bookseller1 passed them through the press1 and printed them1 as well as might be1 on pleasantly toned paper1 bearing here and there on its water-mark the date of its making1 #8#agie4' ,on the whole1 it is a well-printed book2 two hundred and ten pages1 tastefully arranged1 and of errata there are but five4 ,those were days when centralisation had not brought the best work all to ,london1 and even concentrated it in certain quarters of ,london2 and of what is sometimes called provincial1 but of what there is better reason to define as suburban1 clumsiness--for nothing is done so ill in the world as what is done in ,london suburbs--there is only a trace in the gross inequality of the size of the figures in the table of contents3 they are taken1 it appears1 from different founts4 ,but generally the book is printed with smoothness and precision1 and1 even apart from the high literature which it enshrines1 is worthy of its good green coat1 joyful of hue1 pleasant of smell1 and grateful of touch to the fingers that pass over it4 ,and nothing that comes now1 even from the ,chiswick ,press1 or from ,jouaust or whoever may be the fashionable printing man to-day in ,paris1 can be much neater than its title-page2 the mention of which brings me to a point of interest to the bibliophile4 ,the book has two title-pages2 or1 rather1 like many of the books of its day1 there belong two title-pages to the same edition of it--the custom having been for a second bookseller1 who bought what the first bookseller was minded to get rid of1 to print his own title-page4 ,this is the course that the thing followed in the matter of ,lyrical ,ballads4 ,the book was printed1 as we shall see in detail presently1 by ,cottle1 in ,bristol1 in the year #agih4 ,five hundred copies were printed1 but they did not sell4 #8,as a curious literary fact1' says ,cottle1 in his #8,recollections1' #8,i might mention that the sale of the ,first ,edition of the ,lyrical ,ballads was so slow1 and the severity of most of the reviews so great1 that its progress to oblivion seemed ordained to be as rapid as it was certain4' #8,i had given1' he adds1 #8thirty guineas for the copyright2 but the heavy sale induced me to part with the largest proportion of the impression of #ejj1 at a loss1 to ,mr4 ,arch1 a ,london bookseller4' ,mr4 ,arch printed his own title-page4 ,my copy has his title-page1 #8,london1 printed for ,j4 ,a4 ,arch1 ,gracechurch ,street'2 and so1 ,i think1 had the copy sold at ,mr4 ,dew ,smith's sale1 about four years ago4 ,the date1 of course1 remains the same1 #agih1 and all else remains the same4 ,the ,british ,museum copy--it was ,southey's copy--has the ,bristol title-page1 and the ,museum may possibly acquire a copy with ,mr4 ,arch's when opportunity occurs4 ,in the only copy of the ,first ,edition which they have at present1 the words are1 #8,bristol1 printed by ,biggs and ,cottle1 for ,t4 ,n4 ,longman1 ,paternoster ,row1 ,london4' ,thus the ,first ,edition of five hundred was divided--say two hundred for ,mr4 ,cottle1 say three hundred for ,mr4 ,arch when the ,bristolian found the sale was #8slow' and #8heavy4' ,where have they all gone to8 ,it was only eighty-four years ago4 ,but where have all the copies of the big edition of the ,christmas ,carol gone to8 ,that was hardly forty years ago4 ,to recall a little the origin of the book--the circumstances under which ,wordsworth and ,coleridge planned and produced it4 ,it was in the ,nether ,stowey and ,alfoxden time1 when the men were neighbours1 three miles of green ,somerset country dividing the home of ,coleridge from the home of ,wordsworth4 ,i saw the place--that is1 the neighbourhood1 and ,coleridge's home--a few years since1 much in that summer weather which tempted their own more prolonged wanderings1 which followed them in that excursion to #8,linton and the ,valley of ,stones1' which was the first cause1 ,wordsworth says1 of the issue of ,lyrical ,ballads4 ,plain living and high thinking they practised then1 and from necessity as much as from choice4 ,a yeoman of ,somerset would hardly have lived at that time--and certainly he would not live to-day--in the cottage which was ,coleridge's4 ,straight from the country road you step to its door3 in an instant you are in the small square parlour1 with large kitchen-like fireplace1 with one1 or1 ,i think1 two small windows1 and a window-seat from which1 on days of evil weather1 the stay-at-home commanded the prospect of the passing rustic as he walked abroad--perhaps of the occasional traveller on his way to the village inn4 ,but generally1 fair weather or foul1 the spectacle was scanty--time was marked by shifting light and changes in the colour of the sky1 or by the movements of beasts at milking-time1 or at hours of rest and of labour4 ,never1 ,i should say1 was one hour merely frittered away by either the poet who lived or the poet who visited in that humble cottage4 ,never a call of ceremony3 an interview that bears no fruit--a social necessity1 the continual plague of cities4 ,never an hour that did not tell in some way1 by active work1 or by #8wise passiveness1' upon the mind that was to be cultivated and the character that was to be developed4 ,such a life1 led not in actual isolation1 but in narrowed and selected companionship1 was perhaps about the best preparation men could make for work of the concentrated and the self-possessed power of the #8,ancient ,mariner1' and of the serene profundity of the lines connected with ,tintern ,abbey4 ,this was the place1 and these were the conditions1 for the quietude of life and thought felt as the greatest necessity of existence by ,wordsworth1 #8a worshipper of ,nature1' #8unwearied in that service4' ,in #agig came the first thought of the book4 ,wordsworth's account of it may already be familiar4 ,prefixed in later editions to the poem of #8,we are ,seven1' which was printed for the first time in ,lyrical ,ballads1 is a note which says3 #8,in reference to this poem ,i will here mention one of the most noticeable facts in my own poetic history1 and that of ,mr4 ,coleridge4' ,and then he tells the story3 #8,in the autumn of #agig1 he1 my sister1 and myself started from ,alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon1 with a view to visit ,linton and the ,valley of ,stones near to it2 and1 as our united funds were very small1 we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a poem1 to be sent to the ,new ,monthly ,magazine1 set up by ,phillips1 the bookseller1 and edited by ,dr4 ,aikin4 ,accordingly1 we set off1 and proceeded along the ,quantock ,hills towards ,watchet2 and in the course of this walk was planned the poem of the 8,ancient ,mariner10 founded on a dream1 as ,coleridge said1 of his friend ,mr4 ,cruikshank4' ,and then ,wordsworth adds some details which are characteristic4 #8,much the greatest part of the story was ,mr4 ,coleridge's invention1' he says2 #8but certain parts ,i suggested4' ,now1 what were those parts8 ,they were parts which yield to no other in importance1 and which do very much to throw over the work the glamour of noble imagination1 the sudden magical charm which was ,wordsworth's own1 and with which he was accustomed to illumine the commoner themes of his habitual choice4 ,it was ,wordsworth's suggestion that the ,ancient ,mariner should be represented as having killed the ,albatross1 and that #8the tutelary spirits of these regions'--the regions of the ,south ,sea--#8should take upon them to avenge the crime4' #8,i also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead men1 but do not recollect that ,i had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem4' ,a detail1 however1 he had to do with4 #8,i furnished two or three lines at the beginning of the poem1 in particular-- 8,and listened like a three years' child3 ,the ,mariner had his will40 ,these trifling contributions1 all but one1 which ,mr4 ,c4 has with unnecessary scrupulosity recorded1 slipped out of his mind1 as they well might4' ,if the contributions themselves were characteristic1 so certainly is the manner of speaking of them4 ,these men1 and the men who were more or less their associates1 believed much in each other4 ,in no different spirit from ,wordsworth's did ,coleridge himself write1 in his introduction to ,poems on ,various ,subjects1 these words about ,charles ,lamb3 #8,the effusions signed ,c4 ,l4 were written by ,mr4 ,charles ,lamb1 of the ,india ,house2 independently of the signature1 their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them4' ,and in no different spirit did ,coleridge write of ,wordsworth1 years afterwards1 in the ,biographia ,literaria1 when their ways had parted4 ,he could explain generously then #8what ,mr4 ,wordsworth really intended' by the theories put forward in that famous preface which was too much for ,coleridge4 ,but to return to the book--or rather1 for the moment1 to ,wordsworth's account of it4 ,as the friends endeavoured to proceed conjointly in the construction of the #8,ancient ,mariner'--it was still that same evening in which the poem was conceived--their respective manners proved so widely different that it would have been1 to ,wordsworth's mind1 #8quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from an undertaking upon which ,i could only have been a clog4' #8,the 8,ancient ,mariner0 grew and grew1' he adds1 #8till it became too important for our first object1 which was limited to our expectation of five pounds2 and we began to think of a volume1 which was to consist1 as ,mr4 ,coleridge has told the world1 of poems chiefly on supernatural subjects taken from common life1 but looked at1 as much as might be1 through an imaginative medium4' ,that #8imaginative medium' was to distinguish these poems1 we have been told elsewhere1 from the rhymed stories of ,crabbe4 ,poetic realism and prosaic realism1 and what a world between them6 ,in ,april #agih ,wordsworth wrote to his friend1 the ,bristol bookseller3 #8,you will be pleased to hear that ,i have gone on adding very rapidly to my stock of poetry4 ,do come and let me read it to you under the old trees in the park4' ,definite proposals1 too1 were to be made2 and it was written to ,cottle--this time1 ,i think1 by ,coleridge--#8,we deem that the volumes offered to you are1 to a certain degree1 one work in kind4' ,that same spring1 but later on1 ,cottle did visit ,nether ,stowey1 and he writes of it in his own book of interesting if sometimes illegitimate gossip3 #8,at this interview it was determined that the volume should be published under the title of ,lyrical ,ballads1 on the terms stipulated4' ,thirty guineas seems to have been ,wordsworth's share4 ,and1 furthermore1 it was settled that it should not contain the poem of #8,salisbury ,plain1' but only an extract from it--,cottle himself1 nevertheless1 thought that poem the finest ,wordsworth had written2 that it should not contain the poem of #8,peter ,bell1' but consist rather of shorter poems1 and for the most part of pieces more recently written4 #8,i had recommended two volumes1' ,cottle tells us1 #8but one was fixed on1 and that to be published anonymously4' ,all which speedily came about4 ,cottle further says1 #8,the volume of the ,lyrical ,ballads was published about midsummer1 #agih4' ,but it was not really till some while after midsummer1 for not only were the ,tintern ,abbey lines1 which close the little volume with so august a calm1 not written till the #acth of ,july1 but it is said expressly in ,wordsworth's ,life that as late as ,september the #acth the book was #8printed1 not published4' ,some weeks before1 ,wordsworth and his sister took up temporary abode in ,bristol1 that they might be near the printer4 ,then1 at length1 in the early part of autumn1 the ,lyrical ,ballads appeared1 and ,wordsworth and his sister1 and ,coleridge1 left ,england for ,germany4 ,to the first edition of ,lyrical ,ballads is prefixed four pages of #8,advertisement1' or preface4 ,about it two or three points are noticeable4 ,first1 it gives no hint that two poets have been engaged upon the volume3 #8the author1' who speaks of himself in the third person1 is responsible alike for the #8,ancient ,mariner' and for #8,goody ,blake and ,harry ,gill4' ,secondly1 it is written in that familiar language--just our daily speech a little chastened and braced--which ,wordsworth employed at the beginning1 and employed to the end4 ,again1 it utters1 thus early in ,wordsworth's life1 that note of warning as to mistaken notions of what ,poetry demands1 which the writer repeated afterwards with infinite elaboration4 #8,it is the honourable characteristic of ,poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind'--that is1 by implication1 his first apology for the choice of humble theme4 #8,readers of superior judgment may disapprove of the style in which many of these pieces are executed3 it must be expected that many lines and phrases will not exactly suit their taste4' ,expressions may seem too familiar--may seem lacking in dignity4 ,but1 #8it is apprehended that the more conversant the reader is with our elder writers1 and with those in modern times who have been most successful in painting manners and passions1 the fewer complaints of this kind will he have to make4' ,here is the apology for the fashion of presentation--the germ of that which was afterwards so fully developed in famous writings which borrowed here and there a neat and significant phrase from this first #8,advertisement4' ,the title of the #8,ancient ,mariner' begins the table of contents1 and the poem runs on to the fifty-first page of the volume--nearly a quarter of all that the volume holds4 ,but ,coleridge's remaining contributions were small and few1 consisting of #8,the ,nightingale1' and of but one other4 ,that he made even these contributions has sometimes escaped people's notice4 ,he had intended to do more1 for he tells us in the ,biographia ,literaria that1 having written the #8,ancient ,mariner1' he was preparing1 among other poems1 #8,the ,dark ,ladie' and the #8,christabel4' #8,but ,mr4 ,wordsworth's industry has proved much more successful1 and the number of his poems so much greater1 that my compositions1 instead of forming a balance1 appeared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter4' ,when the #8,ancient ,mariner' came to be reprinted--under ,coleridge's banner alone--some minor changes were made4 ,some of them were gains1 but some were losses4 ,and there was added then1 what the ,lyrical ,ballads does not contain1 the #8,gloss'--that wonderful telling of the story and yet departing from it--which is set forth in grave and inspired prose4 #8,it was an afterthought1' ,wordsworth tells us1 in speaking of his friend's poem4 ,of ,wordsworth's own share--that far greater share of his--in the poems1 it is interesting to notice how the general title1 ,lyrical ,ballads with a few other ,poems1 is required to cover the whole of it4 ,for they are of two kinds--,wordsworth's poems in the volume--the simple stories of humble life1 which may or may not be dramatic1 in which the #8,i' of the poet is not necessarily himself1 and the poems which record unmistakably his personal feeling and experience1 such as #8,the ,tables ,turned1 an ,evening ,scene1' the noble lines written near ,tintern ,abbey1 and the small poem which rejoices in perhaps the longest title ever bestowed upon verse1 #8,lines written at a small distance from my house1 and sent by my little boy to the person to whom they are addressed4' ,these1 and one or two others1 are the contributions to which ,coleridge refers when he says that #8,mr4 ,wordsworth added two or three poems written in his own character1 in the impassioned1 lofty1 and sustained diction which is characteristic of his genius4' ,many of ,wordsworth's verses1 whether of the one class or the other1 in the ,lyrical ,ballads1 bear reference to the circumstances of the moment and the place--are stamped with the mark of his ,alfoxden sojourn4 #8,the ,thorn' arose out of his observing on the ridge of ,quantock ,hill a thorn on a stormy day4 ,he had often passed it unnoticed in calm4 #8,i said to myself1 ,cannot ,i by some invention do as much to make this ,thorn prominently an impressive object as the storm has made it to my eyes at this moment8 ,i began the poem accordingly1 and composed it with great rapidity4' ,he adds that ,sir ,george ,beaumont painted a picture from it1 which ,wilkie thought his best4 ,wilkie--sagacious ,scotsman6--did not commit himself too much by such praise4 ,but ,wordsworth thought the picture nobly done4 ,the only fault of any consequence1 he said1 was the woman's figure--too old and decrepit #8for one likely to frequent an eminence on such a call4' #8,expostulation and ,reply1' which ,wordsworth learned was a favourite among the ,quakers1 was composed in front of the house at ,alfoxden1 in the spring of #agih4 #8,the ,tables ,turned' was composed at the same time1 in praise of the ,spontaneous wisdom breathed by health1 ,truth breathed by cheerfulness4 ,and of #8,the ,last of the ,flock1' the author says that the incident occurred in the village of ,holford1 close by ,alfoxden4 ,but ,i think the most interesting of the records is the record of #8,we are ,seven4' ,this was composed while walking in the favourite grove4 ,in ,wordsworth's confession that he composed the last stanza first1 we get at the secret of how entirely the subject had struck him from the spiritual side4 #8,but they are dead2 those two are dead6 ,their spirits are in heaven6' ',twas throwing words away1 for still ,the little maid would have her will1 ,and said1 #8,nay1 we are seven6' ,the life of the poem lies in the instinctive thought of immortality1 and in the sense of neighbourhood and close companionship between the quick and the dead4 ,it is the same thought1 the same sense1 that throws its magical light on the tale of ,lucy ,gray1 and permits those last verses which make the whole thing wonderful1 and the common story fine-- ,yet some maintain that to this day ,she is a living child2 ,that you may see sweet ,lucy ,gray ,upon the lonesome wild4 ,o'er rough and smooth1 she trips along ,and never looks behind2 ,and sings a solitary song ,that whistles in the wind4 ,the poem of #8,we are ,seven1' expressing a conception precious to ,wordsworth1 yet not expressing it exactly as he would have it expressed1 was1 after its first publication1 subjected to more changes than any composition of its length4 ,of course the direct address to #8dear brother ,jem'--#8,a little child1 dear brother ,jem'--is removed4 ,wordsworth only allowed it to stand at first because he relished the joke of hitching in his friend ,james ,tobin's name1 and this gratuitous reference to a good fellow1 a bad critic1 and the brother of the author of #8,the ,honeymoon1' was promptly suppressed4 #8,i sing a song to them1' is substituted for a line far more effective with the context--#8,i sit and sing to them4' ,another line1 beautiful with the context--#8,and all the summer dry'--yields to the line #8,and when the grass was dry4' ,but at one point #8little ,jane' becomes #8sister ,jane1' perhaps happily1 and1 #8,quick was the little maid's reply' gives the desired sense of readiness and certainty better than the line it effaces4 ,it is the old story of careful verbal alterations--some are for the better1 some are for the worse4 ,more than one of the graver pastoral poems are missing1 naturally enough1 to my rare book4 ,i do not find in it that pastoral of #8,michael1' which of itself is quite enough1 it seems to me1 to ensure to its writer a fame which shall last as long as any judges of ,literature remain--any judges who1 caring for style itself1 care supremely for its fit association with the sentiment it is its business to express4 #8,michael' is intensely realistic3 in the best sense it is more realistic than anything of ,crabbe's1 and the verse that seems to be halting is but prosaic deliberately4 ,the effect is sought for1 and the effect is gained4 ,the pathos is all the greater because the elevation of language is so slight and infrequent4 ,when it occurs1 it tells6 ,that poem belongs to the next series of the poet's works--to the little collection published first1 ,i think1 in #ahjb1 and assuming to itself the title of ,lyrical ,ballads2 ,volume the ,second4 ,there had before been no hint of a second1 and the first is complete in itself4 ,i said1 just now1 in speaking of the #8,we are ,seven1' that ,mr4 ,james ,tobin--#8dear brother ,jem'--was a bad critic4 ,he showed himself so in this wise4 ,when ,lyrical ,ballads was going through the press1 it was ,cottle1 ,i suppose1 who gave a sight of it to dear brother ,jem4 ,he went to ,wordsworth upon that1 as one charged with a mission1 and who would not be denied4 ,there was one poem1 brother ,jem said1 in the volume about to be published1 which ,wordsworth must cancel4 #8,if published1 it will make you everlastingly ridiculous4' ,and ,wordsworth begged to know which was the unfortunate piece4 ,he answered1 #8,it is called1 8,we are ,seven40'--#8,nay1' said ,wordsworth1 #8that shall take its chance1 however4' ,for he knew his strength4 ,and another generation has reversed the judgment which ,tobin's approved4 7,gentleman's ,magazine1 ,may #ahhb47 ,,balzac ,through the #8usual channels of information'--,i mean1 of course1 the daily papers--many readers have become aware of the recent publication1 in the ,revue de ,paris1 of a series of ,balzac's letters4 ,but few have understood their importance4 ,their interest for the student is great1 for in a revelation of their author1 that is impressive and almost final1 they confirm to the full the view of ,balzac which those of us have taken 7,i took it myself in my little ,life of him in the #8,great ,writers' ,series7 who have perceived that by his temperament and inclination1 as well as by his power1 he is divided widely from those more sordid and limited realists at whose head it was erewhile the fashion to place him4 ,romance1 it has been claimed--often by friend and foe alike--,romance was ,victor ,hugo's1 ,materialism was ,balzac's4 ,and now ,balzac is found--and one has a right to be surprised1 not of course at the kind1 but only at the degree of the manifestation--he is found in mature years to be in his own conduct more simply and absolutely romantic than the most visionary or most warm-hearted schoolgirl4 ,he works himself into a genuine and indescribably enthusiastic1 but always respectful1 attachment to a young married woman whom he has never seen1 who inquires of him about his stories1 who sends him ,thomas ,kempis 7which he translates later into the ,mdecin de ,campagne3 #8c'est l',evangile en action'71 who writes to him confidentially for a year or two before she meets him1 who later receives him as her guest in ,russian ,poland1 and whom he marries at last1 in #ahej1 only several years after the death of her husband4 ,the facts that have been mentioned latest have been known since about the time of the publication of the now familiar couple of volumes of ,balzac's ,correspondence4 ,it is the earlier and most interesting part of the story that is new4 ,the report had previously been current that ,balzac had for the first time been made aware of ,madame de ,hanska's existence when he was staying at1 or passing through1 ,neuchtel1 in ,september #ahcc4 ,she announced1 so it was said1 her wish to be introduced to him on hearing that he was at the hotel2 and this last autumn 7such is the vanity of human effort upon matters after all not profoundly important71 ,i established the fact1 in concert with the present proprietor of the ,htel ,belle ,vue at ,neuchtel1 that the old but not yet disused ,htel du ,faucon must have been the hostelry in which this memorable meeting took place4 ,the #8,faucon1' which had been built just in the middle of the little town but a few years before the date of ,balzac's visit1 was then the inn at which a traveller of any importance was sure to descend--neither the #8,belle ,vue' nor the #8,lac' existed at that period4 ,let us take courage1 however--our trouble was not so useless as ,i had for a moment imagined it4 ,the actual meeting-place of two friends1 two #8lovers' 7in ,walt ,whitman's sense1 at all events71 is in the end at least as interesting as the meeting-place of two strangers1 who were to warm towards each other only in future years4 ,they met1 then1 we may fairly presume1 at the ,faucon at ,neuchtel1 but met after a correspondence by turns polite and chivalrous1 intimate and ardent4 ,it was no unusual thing for ,balzac--the historian1 above all things1 of men's ambitions and of women's hearts--to receive1 together with the compliments1 the confessions of the fair4 ,in our own age--an age perhaps more enamoured of physical prowess and presence than of intellectual or spiritual achievement--,i have not heard that the novelist or the successful writer of the short story is in constant receipt of the confidences and eulogiums of women4 ,these1 ,i am informed1 when bestowed liberally on the stranger1 are directed1 nowadays1 in chief to the jeune premier with a rapid action and a well-made coat4 ,but it was otherwise two generations ago2 and ,balzac1 sometimes complaining of the embarrassment1 sometimes1 on the other hand1 with not a little of honest pride in the circumstances that caused it1 avows himself endowed with the functions of a confessor4 ,in the two volumes of the well-known ,correspondence ,i have referred to before1 and in such other writings as have hitherto been accessible1 it is chiefly question of a certain anonymous #8,louise1' whom he never saw1 to whom he said many pretty things on writing-paper1 and to whom he was once minded to dedicate one of his stories4 ,as a rule1 ,i believe1 he left unanswered the letters of the stranger--felt1 perhaps1 that it was enough that they should have been received1 and1 if they contained anything that was noteworthy1 registered1 very likely1 in the book of his memory for possible employment in fiction4 ,but now it is made clear abundantly1 that in the case of ,evelina de ,hanska1 not only was there correspondence1 intimate if scarcely voluminous1 before any personal meeting1 but likewise that by means of it such a tie was created1 such a mutual fascination formed1 as could hardly with ease be broken4 ,and yet1 what if when they met in the flesh there had been--as after all there might have been--disillusionment6 ,what if ,evelina de ,hanska had proved as distasteful to ,monsieur de ,balzac as ,anne of ,cleves to the experienced ,henry6 ,he was in the best of all possible moods1 however1 to be impressed with ,madame de ,hanska1 during the period of their earliest correspondence2 for unquestionably he was wounded1 unquestionably he was sore4 ,among the friendships--verging sometimes on love-affairs--which ,balzac formed with women1 two were at this moment in the crisis of their fate4 ,many years before the existence of ,madame de ,hanska became known to him1 ,balzac had been friend1 trustful dependant1 would-be lover1 probably--it is difficult to express the relationship--of a certain ,madame de ,berny4 ,she was a little older than he was1 and she helped him in money troubles when he was young enough to be able to accept her assistance without shame1 and she knew the world at a time when1 if ,i may proffer the phrase1 he joined the inextinguishable simplicity of the artist to the more prosaic simplicity of the inexperienced4 ,at ,madame de ,berny's house in the ,oise1 ,balzac had written his brief and restrained masterpiece1 ,le ,cur de ,tours4 ,her difficult virtue1 and all her other qualities and characteristics1 made1 confessedly1 much of the interest of ,le ,lys dans la ,valle4 ,that relationship of theirs--into which1 as ,i consider1 a morbid element1 an exaggerated sentimentality1 did at one time to some extent enter--was only wholly broken by ,madame de ,berny's death4 ,for two years at least she was the victim of a mortal illness4 ,the illness began1 and the depression caused by it in ,balzac began1 about #ahcc4 ,but during the year #ahcb1 ,balzac1 whose feeling towards ,madame de ,berny--#8an angel at my side'--must with long years have somewhat changed its character--during the year #ahcb ,balzac had passed through an experience the end of which he speaks of1 long afterwards1 as #8un des plus grands chagrins de ma vie4' ,and that was his experience with the young ,madame de ,castries--the ,duchesse de ,castries she became1 in due time1 some years later--a light of ,parisian ,society1 fully as fascinating in the quietude of ,aix-les-,bains as amidst the distractions of all the salons of the capital4 ,it is not from the letters that ,balzac wrote to her--not1 at all events1 from any that have been published--that we know or can surmise how irresistible for ,balzac was her personal magnetism4 ,it is rather from certain amongst the letters sent by him to his life-long friend1 his sister's school friend1 ,madame ,zulma ,carraud of ,angoulme1 that we are informed of the effect of ,madame de ,castries' dealings with him4 ,she was at one time a delight1 then a disillusionment1 and then 7and1 as it seems to me1 ever afterwards7 a painful yet attractive memory4 ,the rupture--never a quarrel avowed to the outsider2 never indeed a rupture that was quite complete1 or that was in any way explicable save under the supposition that the lady of the belle chevelure venitienne had a blonde's inconstancy and a ,scottish caution--the rupture1 such as it was1 occurred in the autumn of #ahcb1 when ,balzac1 who was to have gone over into ,italy with the lady and her brother1 parted from her at ,geneva1 and consoled himself 7let me be permitted to hope7 as best he could1 by buying1 at that famous dealer's on the ,quai des ,bergues1#a a little of the #8,carl ,thodore' 7,frankenthal7 porcelain that his soul loved4 ,the #8collector1' ,i am informed1 is heartless--but he has his compensations4 #a ,since moved to the ,corratorie4 ,the second of the just published letters addressed to ,madame de ,hanska contains sentences which are meaningless1 if it is not to ,madame de ,castries that they refer4 #8,only ,heaven and ,i can ever understand the frightful energy with which a heart must be endowed1 if1 being full of tears that are repressed1 it must suffice still for the labours of writing4' ,again--and this time why should ,i translate8--the cry of a moment3 #8,toutes mes passions1 toutes mes croyances1 sont trompes4' ,and he tells his correspondent that ,madame ,recamier at least never sat1 as was supposed1 for ,feodora4#b #8,i met a ,feodora once1 but her ,i shall never paint2 besides1 the ,peau de ,chagrin was written long before ,i met her4'#c ,yet again1 #8,i made ,feodora out of two women whom ,i knew1 but not intimately4 ,observation was enough for me--with a few confidences to boot4' #b ,feodora1 the evil genius1 one may say1 of the ,peau de ,chagrin4 #c ,if this was ,madame de ,castries1 the intention did not always hold good1 since more than touches of that charmer there are supposed to be in the ,duchesse de ,langeais4 ,what ,balzac seems to have been struck with1 from the first1 in ,evelina de ,hanska1 was her sincerity and oneness of purpose1 the truth of her devotion to his work1 and a certain similarity1 an immediate sympathy1 between his nature and hers4 ,much of his work1 as he avows1 has been done to strike the public--to provide the public with that without which it could scarcely accord him the attention he asked4 ,but #8certainly there are books in which ,i have loved to be myself2 and you will know well which they are1 for they are those in which my heart has spoken4' ,when at length the two came together1 at ,neuchtel in #ahcc--;as in ,vienna1 and in ,russian ,poland itself1 in later years--there was nothing1 it seems1 in either to diminish the interest or to break the spell4 ,and the fascination continued4 ,i have for my own part a little theory that the sympathy of the woman1 her deep interest in his work1 her participation in it 7,sraphita and some kindred labour1 whatever be its defects1 would never have existed but for that influence of this mystic ,northerner71 gave the attachment1 as far as ,balzac was concerned1 something of the features of an attachment of consolation4 ,his early adoration1 as ,i hold1 his boyish passion1 was for ,madame de ,berny4 ,and1 in maturer years1 his ideal1 his very dream of beauty and of charm1 was ,madame de ,castries--,madame de ,castries set1 so to put it1 in the best of her backgrounds3 ,madame de ,castries at ,aix-les-,bains4 ,never1 ,i think1 in ,balzac's life was that experience1 or the force of it1 equalled4 ,but in ,evelina de ,hanska1 whether as friend or wife1 he discovered and obtained a steady rest--a rest the more assured1 it may be1 because she entertained for him feelings of a deeper devotion than any that were extended by that admirable and almost lifelong comrade1 his friend1 his sister's friend1 the blameless and the wise ,madame ,zulma ,carraud4 ,an idealist1 anyhow1 ,balzac was at the beginning2 an idealist he remained to the end4 ,the #8amitis d'piderme1' as he excellently called them1 attracted him but little4 ,in my short book about him1 in the #8,great ,writers' ,series1 ,i tried to show that what he sought for and obtained was the intimacy of the heart4 ,gautier knew this4 ,and one-sided indeed must be those people--whether the word of their choice is intended for blame or for praise--who1 judging either by life or work1 think that ,balzac is properly described as #8materialist' or #8realist1' alone or chiefly4 ,the ,real1 which is not always the hideous1 he was strong enough to face2 yet ,romance was essential to him4 ,it is time1 now1 that the sentimental and soi-disant ,romantic began to understand that in ,balzac there were depths of feeling and of poetry to which they could never approach2 and time also that those tiresome disciples of mere ugliness in literary theme and literary treatment1 who account him their yet insufficient master1 were informed1 roundly1 that whatever the lessons he may half-incidentally have taught them1 nothing of ,balzac's greatness can ever fairly be claimed as supporting or justifying the narrow limitations of their sordid sect and creed4 7,the ,bookman1 ,march #ahid47 ,,george ,,eliot ,the accounts of ,george ,eliot's earlier life1 which are in general circulation1 are in some respects imaginary4 #8,george ,eliot'--,mary ,ann ,evans--was not the daughter of a poor clergyman1 nor was she ever #8adopted' by a wealthy one4 ,she was the daughter of a land surveyor in the ,midland ,counties1 and was brought up at her father's home1 her mother dying when ,mary ,ann ,evans was still a child4 ,nor was she ever the #8pupil' of ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer1 nor a frequent writer in the ,westminster ,review4 ,she made the acquaintance and the friendship of ,mr4 ,spencer when she was a woman1 and already the mistress of the abstruse subjects in which she then chiefly delighted4 ,she was for a time joint-editor of the ,westminster with ,dr4 ,chapman2 but her writings in that ,review were neither numerous nor generally important4 ,after a residence of some years in ,coventry--where she learned profoundly the features of the #8,midlands1' which she afterwards described--,mary ,ann ,evans came to ,london4 ,at twenty-six years old she translated ,strauss's ,life of ,jesus1 and seven years later1 ,feuerbach's ,essence of ,christianity2 but her efforts at creative writing were wisely delayed4 ,her apprenticeship to ,literature and ,philosophy was elaborate and laborious2 her training was extensive and deep4 ,it was not until #aheh that ,scenes of ,clerical ,life betrayed the presence of a new artist in ,fiction--an artist of fresh gifts1 but of undeveloped art4 ,the narratives of the #8,sad ,fortunes of the ,reverend ,amos ,barton1' of #8,janet's ,repentance1' and of #8,mr4 ,gilfil's ,love-,story'--the ,scenes of ,clerical ,life1 in other words--impressed certain readers1 and deserved to impress them2 but not even the pathos of ,mrs4 ,barton's death would have given the writer lasting reputation had the book continued to stand alone4 ,on re-perusal1 the imperfections of its mechanism are too apparent2 the novelist had not learned the art of proportion1 nor the art of selection and rejection4 ,some little books1 no bigger than the ,scenes of ,clerical ,life1 have been enough to secure for their authors an enduring fame4 ,nothing more than the ,vicar of ,wakefield could have been required to keep ,goldsmith's memory green4 ,sterne1 desiring to be immortal1 was under no obligation to write anything more1 after he had written the ,sentimental ,journey4 ,but the ,scenes of ,clerical ,life1 admirably fresh and spontaneous as they were1 gave no such position to their author4 ,it was not a young woman1 but it was a woman young in her art1 who was at work in them4 ,with ,adam ,bede it was otherwise4 ,adam ,bede1 published about the beginning of #ahei1 was seen at once to be more than a touching1 and more than a popular1 story4 ,it was an achievement of complete art1 and had the power of complete art1 #8to teach a truth obliquely1' nor #8wrong the thought'--as ,mr4 ,browning has subtly put it--#8nor wrong the thought1 missing the mediate word4' ,it was at bottom a work of noble teaching4 ,in it the novelist described with fidelity1 but with poetic fidelity1 scenes and characters the like of which she thoroughly knew2 and the world recognised both the truth and the charm of the portrayal1 and if it did not take to the young ,squire1 it took about equally to the two most strongly contrasted heroines that ever figured in one volume--to the preaching woman1 ,dinah ,morris1 with her exalted and patient spirit1 and to the giddy ,hetty1 who had no virtue but the virtue of fascination4 ,it was chiefly to provincial society1 or to the humbler society of the country-side1 that ,george ,eliot kept in her earlier works2 and it was there that she was ever best4 ,the elaborate ,dutch painting of ,silas ,marner dealt sympathetically with the religious life of obscure sects2 ,the ,mill on the ,floss portrayed the humours of the lower middle class1 and gave us a delightful study of the passionate and lovable #8,maggie'2 ,felix ,holt dealt with country politics1 though its best interest lay in the development of three wonderful characters--the agreeable ,esther1 the perplexed ,felix1 and the ,dissenting minister who1 in that old-world corner of ,england where the scene lay1 had even in our own generation the dignity and quietude of an ancient ,puritan emigrating beyond seas4 ,immense and always tender study of actual life was evident in these novels2 and yet it did not require the publication of such a tour de force as ,romola1 which1 in #ahfc1 followed ,the ,mill on the ,floss and ,silas ,marner1 to prove that the only novelist of quite the first rank who had arisen since ,dickens and ,thackeray was most powerful in work inspired by meditation and learning1 rather than by observation1 and that in that respect1 as of course in many others1 she differed absolutely from ,dickens1 whose strength lay in the observation of humanity1 and from ,thackeray1 whose strength lay in the observation of #8good society4' ,if some works of ,george ,eliot's1 of later date than ,romola1 remind us too often that their author1 like the character in ,faust1 had schrecklich viel gelesen--that ,george ,eliot was burdened with her learning--,romola is a conspicuous example of the #8talent that forms itself1' not exactly #8in solitude1' yet by profound and continuous meditation4 ,like all the greater works of its writer1 it is a study of the heart4 ,and in ,romola the subtle wit of ,italy is displayed1 with curious variety of power1 by a writer who had shown herself mistress1 long before1 of the blunter ,english humour4 ,but such a success as that of ,romola--the success of an historical novelist for whom history is alive and is not a mere tradition1 mere decorative background--is hardly to be made more than once4 ,romola may live at least as long as ,esmond--in ,esmond the tour de force is1 if anything1 more apparent2 the machinery creaks sometimes yet more audibly in the working4 ,in any case ,george ,eliot did wisely to bring her imagination back to ,england1 and to the shires #8which we the heart of ,england well may call1' and1 having given us ,felix ,holt1 to give us ,middlemarch4 ,middlemarch1 perhaps1 has two faults as a work of art1 but they are faults which evidence1 at all events1 the range of its writer's mind4 ,it is not properly one story1 but several stories4 ,the desire to put forth in a single colossal work--and ,middlemarch is of the length of two three-volume novels--a picture of the whole of provincial life1 touched at points1 and disturbed1 by the problems of our time1 resulted in the creation of a book in which the many threads of narrative were often but slightly blended4 ,middlemarch is not a cabinet picture2 it is a vast panorama4 ,again1 in ,middlemarch there was visible1 for the first time in ,george ,eliot's career1 some relaxation--or worse than relaxation--of literary style4 ,though on the whole it is justly allowed to be a noble piece of ,english writing1 it is in expression less lucid and felicitous than the earlier novels2 and the germs of a style charged too much with scientific similes are found to be of increased growth in ,daniel ,deronda4 ,in ,george ,eliot's earliest fiction1 though it was written in mature years1 her art was not developed4 ,in her latest1 it was not concealed4 ,but between the two--between the ,scenes of ,clerical ,life and ,daniel ,deronda--there lie some half-dozen romances1 prolix1 indeed1 and dull at times1 yet in some ways almost perfect in the most serious order of literary work4 ,and1 moreover1 the presence of sheer mental power1 the power chiefly of analysis and of synthesis1 is almost as evident in ,daniel ,deronda as in the better fictions4 ,the study of modern ,jewish life and character in that formidable novel was of such a nature as to lead a leader of ,jewish ,society to pay a tribute to its knowledge and its sympathy4 ,that study was directed1 not only by insight1 but by a continuous desire to do justice to the subject selected--to the minds chosen for dissection4 ,the wide and deep interest in the fortunes of humanity1 which characterised ,george ,eliot1 and which increased with her learning and her years--as her art somewhat declined--can never have been more apparent than in ,daniel ,deronda4 ,the interest was sometimes1 it is true1 evidenced by way of an exalted pity2 and seeing how removed that pity seemed from all that aroused it1 the saying was remembered by certain critics that pity is akin to contempt4 ,those critics had understood ,george ,eliot but superficially4 ,all through her later works--and not in ,daniel ,deronda and ,middlemarch alone--there is visible an increasing personal sense of the inevitableness of mistake1 of a #8waste of force' in human life2 and that gave to the labour of even this bright intellect a sadness which was scarcely bitterness at all4 ,george ,eliot1 during many years1 was occasionally busy with what is formally poetry--informally1 of course1 much of her best prose was poetry1 and poetry of a higher order4 ,in some of her verse--in ,jubal and the ,spanish ,gypsy--she touched on the careers and characters of people whom she would hardly have brought into her novels1 and in one or other of her poems she expressed with a fulness and intensity not found in her prose fiction that love of music and that sympathy with the aspirations of the musical artist which she shared with the great writer of ,abt ,vogler4 ,the docile public received her poems with at least sufficient appreciation--a part of which may fairly be set down to the remembrance of those triumphs as a novelist which1 for the time1 she had laid aside4 ,but her poems were1 in the main1 like ,raphael's departure from the art of his more constant practice--like the sonnets of ,michael ,angelo--the evidences of an artist's aspiration towards a field of success which shall have the charm of what is new and unfamiliar4 ,they were that1 and hardly more4 ,it is1 of course1 on the romances of ,george ,eliot that her fame will rest1 and on them not because of any reflection they present of the manners of our time--these1 in truth1 they left to other novelists--but because of the earnestness and profundity of their dealing with problems of the age1 and problems of our nature4 ,a future generation may find1 and1 indeed1 not a few judges1 most worthy to be listened to1 declare already1 that much of her sad philosophy is itself a mistake as great as any which her genius discovered in the world she lived in4 ,but if ,george ,eliot's analysis of life betrays some deeply rooted faults1 it will at least always be admitted that it was that of a grave and gifted inquirer4 ,if the work which began with the ,scenes of ,clerical ,life1 and ended1 not auspiciously1 with ,theophrastus ,such1 has great deficiencies1 it was wrought1 at all events1 by a serious artist1 a free and wonderful spirit4 7,standard1 #bdth ,december #ahhj47 ,,my ,,few ,,things #8,my few things6' ,in the very title there is conveyed1 ,i hope1 some apology for writing of them4 ,if ,i accept the invitation to do so1 it is partly because ,i must needs know more of what they are--they are #8but poor few1' in ,shakespeare's phrase--than any one else can know2 partly again because1 as ,i am pleasantly informed1 it may be interesting to certain readers to be told1 for a change1 not what can be amassed--amassed and perhaps neglected--by a millionaire who gives several thousand guineas for a modern painting1 but what can be got together with merely #8joyful trouble1'--with pains1 and waiting1 and love of the things1 and only a little money--by a simple man of ,letters1 who happens to have been concerned1 to some extent1 with other arts than his own2 and partly also because1 connected with the few things that one has1 there are associations1 not few but many4 ,a little blue-grey drawing--an early drawing of ,varley's1 which has nothing but the lasting virtues of ,economy and ,style--was the first artistic thing that ever belonged to me4 ,it came to me--like a prized ,morland mezzotint1 many years later--from the portfolio of my great-grandfather1 who was1 as ,i am told1 a friend of ,turner's earliest patron1 ,dr4 ,munro4 ,but it is prints1 not drawings1 that1 since ,i began to collect a little1 ,i have chiefly brought together4 ,in a collection of prints there is something less indefinite1 something more systematic1 than in a collection of drawings4 ,the things1 if they are good1 have the advantage of being known1 of being more or less recognised--not1 indeed1 by the large public1 but at least by the people with whom1 on matters of ,art1 it is most interesting to come into contact4 ,prints are classed and catalogued4 ,each print by a particular master has1 in the collector's mind1 a direct bearing on the component parts of that master's work4 ,again1 fine drawings1 although cheap in relation to the prices paid for modern paintings1 are dear in comparison with many prints to which the adjective #8fine' could scarcely be denied2 for1 while here and there an #8,adam and ,eve' of ,drer is sold under the hammer for many hundred pounds1 that is the exception absolutely2 and while1 at ,sotheby's or ,christie's1 on eventful sale days1 two thousand pounds may be the ransom of a ,rembrandt etching1 that is not only because it is fine1 but because that particular etching--or that particular #8state' of it--is excessively rare4 ,it has been chronicled2 it has been read of2 it has profited by the existence of the accurate catalogue of the work of the ,master--it is a certified thing4 ,but1 with knowledge gradually acquired1 with diligence exercised in the right place1 a print extremely fine1 extremely desirable1 may still be bought for a few pounds4 ,it will be much fuller of ,art than any drawing which ordinary good fortune is to enable you to get for the same outlay4 ,and ,i say this as one who loves drawings--as one who1 notwithstanding his theories1 even ventures to live with a few of them2 but1 if ,i have a preference in the matter of collecting--well1 ,i suppose it is for prints4 ,about a print1 every point is interesting4 ,apart from subject1 apart too from technical treatment of the copper1 there is the delightful question1 ,how does your own impression compare with other people's8 ,and1 again1 the paper4 ,the true print-lover can talk about different papers--old ,french1 old ,dutch1 old ,english1 ,japanese--as the connoisseur of clarets talks of ,pontet ,canets and ,pichon ,longuevilles4 444 ,but my ,solander-box is all this time unopened6 ,i suppose the first print that ,i ever bought was a #8,liber' print of ,turner's4 ,the ,burlington ,fine ,arts ,club had held a wonderfully important exhibition of them--there were ,mr4 ,j4 ,e4 ,taylor's1 ,mr4 ,henry ,vaughan's1 ,mr4 ,gambier ,parry's finest impressions2 illustrative1 thoroughly1 of that which ,turner meant to do2 of the means1 to some extent1 by which he did it4 ,and having by that time discovered what ,i most cared for in the set1 and made1 no doubt1 the politic compromise--learning to bring my needs within the limits of a lean purse--,i got my friend1 ,stopford ,brooke1 to choose from amongst several impressions of #8,hind ,head ,hill1' that happened then to be at ,colnaghi's 7for it was soon after the great ,turner ,sale71 the one he thought the best2 and from amongst an equal number of impressions of #8,severn and ,wye1' that happened to be at ,mrs4 ,noseda's1 similarly1 the best4 #8,i chose well that day1' said ,stopford ,brooke1 many years afterwards1 noticing those prints on my wall4 ,no such opportunities of choice1 as existed then1 are likely again to be afforded4 ,those were the days when1 if ,i bought at all1 it was--at first at least--#8for the wall' and not #8for the folio'--to use a phrase of ,halsted's4 ,halsted meant by it to distinguish between the buyer who1 from the very nature of things1 must promptly be satisfied 7since you can neither multiply #8walls' nor enlarge them71 and the buyer to whom the infinite was open--that infinite in which ,solander-box succeeds ,solander-box1 folio succeeds folio1 and drawer succeeds drawer4 ,his1 perhaps1 is the more dangerous case2 but the collector who can display on his walls all his possessions--who can stop buying when the mere purposes of furnishing are answered--is simply not a collector4 ,halsted scorned him4 ,the mention of this aged dealer's name brings back to me recollections4 ,i saw ,mr4 ,halsted in almost the latest of his days1 when he was a less prominent but probably a more interesting figure1 in the world of ,art and ,connoisseurship1 than he had been in his prime4 ,in his prime1 his shop was in ,bond ,street2 but when it was my privilege to go1 a humble learner1 sitting at the feet of a dealer who had known #8,mr4 ,turner1' and had been for at least one generation surrounded by his work1 ,halsted1 elderly1 deliberate of speech1 slow and almost halting of movement1 large1 angular--a craft somewhat difficult to #8bring round' or to #8change the course' of1 within the scanty waters of his back shop--had his abode--his mart at all events--in ,rathbone ,place1 by the ,french blanchisseuse de fin and a little ,swiss caf4 ,he was half retired2 and there in the back shop he would cause you to sit down1 in a perfect light under the window1 and would show you what you had asked for1 if he had it--for1 in those days1 he bought nothing2 he was engaged merely in selling1 in the most leisurely of manners1 and at prices which were never open to any suggestion of abatement1 the remains of his old stock4 ,standing over you--a little away from you--with something of a soldierly sternness1 like a sergeant in a barrack-yard1 he rolled out1 slowly1 story after story of ,mr4 ,turner1 of ,sir ,john ,hippesley1 whom he had influenced to admire the #8,liber1' by placing before his eyes a #8,severn and ,wye1' at breakfast-time1 and then of ,mr4 ,turner again4 ,you bought something1 of course2 but the best of it is1 you never were sorry for it afterwards1 for ,halsted's eye was faultless3 his knowledge1 though he was old1 was in advance of his day4 ,i cherish as impressions which had received his imprimatur--if one may use the word of things he had thought worthy to buy and to sell--an #8,oakhampton ,castle1' a #8,hindoo ,worshippers1' and ,i forget for the moment what else4 ,these two1 ,i remember1 bear the stamp of passage through the collection of the famous ,mr4 ,stokes--the first #8,liber' collector--and of his niece1 ,miss ,constance ,clarke4 ,one thing amusing about a visit to ,halsted's was the occasional presence of his brother4 ,you went to the shop perhaps once by chance1 and ,halsted was away4 ,in his place was an inferior sort of person1 courteous and good-natured1 but humbly conscious of his own inferiority4 ,you could do no business with him4 ,if ,i remember rightly1 he was not even allowed to have the keys4 ,the fine prints were quite inaccessible4 ,yet this was1 after all1 but one of the inferior brother's manifestations4 ,he had another phase--another facet4 ,chancing1 one summer evening1 to walk northwards1 through ,camden ,town1 ,i suddenly beheld the brother standing on what proved to be his own doorstep1 free of heart and with no one to say him nay4 ,he1 too1 had a shop1 it appeared1 and here it was1 come upon unexpectedly3 a print shop of the third order--you wondered who they were1 in ,camden ,town or anywhere else1 who bought the cheap things which alone it contained4 ,only one other of the old-fashioned dealers1 the dealers of another generation1 did ,i ever see4 ,that was the aged ,mr4 ,tiffin1 once busy in the ,strand1 but1 when ,i called upon him to inspect the remains of his possessions1 living chiefly retired1 slow and deaf1 in the small bourgeois comfort of a villa at ,canonbury4 ,there--not to much practical purpose--,i sought him out4 ,he too was a figure of the elder world1 and as such he dwells in the memory4 ,but ,i have wandered from the prints of the #8,liber ,studiorum1' of which indeed1 though one of the warmest admirers of them1 ,i possess but a handful4 ,amongst them ,i greatly cherish one impression--the gift of a friend whose benefactions to the ,national collections are remarkable1 and whose knowledge of ,turner is profound4 ,it is an early #8state' of the subject known as #8,inverary ,pier1 ,loch ,fyne1 ,morning'--one of those plates engraved from end to end by ,turner's own hand4 ,this impression was given by the ,master to ,lupton1 the mezzotint engraver of the #8,solway ,moss1' and1 a generation ago1 my friend had bought it from him4 ,another admirable student of ,turner's art sent me once more than one of those etchings which1 in ,turner's case1 are the interesting preparations for the finished #8,liber' plate4 ,the rare #8,isis' is amongst them4 ,amongst the ,turner prints that ,i have bought1 ,i have always been guided rather by fineness of impression than by priority of #8state4' ,thus1 side by side with a ,first ,state of the #8,london from ,greenwich' ,i do not fear to place a late one of #8,the ,frontispiece1 with the ,rape of ,europa4' ,the impression must have been printed the moment the plate had profited by ,turner's retouch4 ,as for the costly curiosities known as #8engraver's proofs'--working proofs1 in fine1 struck off to see how the plate was progressing--speaking broadly and roughly1 ,i do not believe in them4 ,they have their own interest1 of course1 as illustrating the means by which the effect was obtained2 but1 in quality1 they yield to an impression taken when the effect had just been got1 or1 in the case of a fine ,second or later ,state1 to an impression taken when the effect1 lost in the interval by wear1 had just been regained4 ,no one who appreciates ,turner can quite confine himself to the #8,liber1' though the #8,liber' is the most comprehensive expression of that infinite genius4 ,accordingly1 in my drawers there may be found1 no doubt1 pieces from one or other of his engraved publications3 something1 it may be1 from the #8,rivers of ,england'--amongst them the #8,york' and the #8,ripon1' which are not his indeed1 but his friend ,girtin's--something from the #8,southern ,coast'2 and1 from the #8,england and ,wales1' that exquisite #8,yarmouth1' which1 like the #8,clovelly' and the #8,portsmouth' 7both of them in the #8,southern ,coast'7 exemplifies old ,william ,miller's marvellous faculty of rendering the sky effects1 the aerial perspective1 of ,turner's maturest art4 ,one has heard of ,turner's compliments to ,john ,pye1 over #8,pope's ,villa1' and they were not undeserved2 but how great should his recognition have been of the ,scottish ,quaker1 simple of nature1 subtle of gift1 for whom no passage of ,turner's brush-work was too intricate or too baffling6 ,but let us turn to earlier ,masters4 ,only well-to-do people can buy1 in any large numbers and in those fine impressions which alone rightly represent their subjects1 the etchings of ,rembrandt2 but it is a wonder1 and almost a shame1 that so few well-to-do ,english people take advantage of their opportunities2 for1 as a result of their not doing so1 or doing so at the best in so scanty a measure1 a most undue proportion of the fine ,rembrandts which have been the ornaments of ,english collections have within the last few years crossed the seas1 and are now lodged--where they are justly appreciated--in ,paris1 ,berlin1 ,vienna1 ,baltimore1 ,new ,york4 ,where1 amongst us in ,england1 are the successors of ,dr4 ,wellesley1 of ,sir ,abraham ,hume1 of ,mr4 ,holford1 of my kind1 delightful friend1 ,richard ,fisher8 ,we want a new race of collectors of the highest class of ancient prints2 the old is dying out2 the young is too modest or too timid3 it is afraid to spend its money1 though its money could hardly be spent more economically4 ,looked at even from the financial point of view--as the great auctions prove--nothing is better justified than the investment of important sums in the prints by the ,masters4 ,rembrandt is for all ,time4 ,every year--taking the wide world over--there is an increase in the number of people sensible enough to desire and determine to possess themselves of some representation of his work4 ,nothing but small means has prevented my buying in abundance ,rembrandt's incomparable landscapes1 so well aware am ,i that ,landscape ,art reaches its topmost level in the best of ,rembrandt's work--in his #8,cottage with ,dutch ,hay-,barn1' say1 and in his #8,landscape with a ,tower4' ,his ,sacred ,subjects1 with all their virtues of #8sincerity and inwardness1' commend themselves less to us4 ,his ,portraiture1 upon the other hand1 combines every artistic charm with every human interest4 ,a few examples ,i have--a mere handful1 but good impressions they must always be2 and the two which1 from their subjects1 are least unworthy of mention1 are1 ,i suppose1 a ,first ,state of the #8,clment de ,jonghe1' the ,amsterdam print-seller1 which has a picturesqueness less obvious1 but a character more subtle1 than in the plate's later states2 and an early and fortunate impression from that group of studies1 executed1 ,i am convinced1 in different years1 and containing as its chiefest and latest ornament an energetically sketched portrait of ,rembrandt himself1 in that advanced middle life of his1 which gave us1 perhaps1 the greatest number of the fine fruits of his genius4 ,to certain of the commentators on ,rembrandt1 this rare little plate--a masterly collection of croquis1 and nothing besides--is not1 ,i fancy1 quite sufficiently known2 though our admirable ,english amateur1 ,wilson--who wrote in #ahcf--;and the latest deceased of the great ,french collectors and commentators1 ,monsieur ,dutuit1 of ,rouen1 do it conspicuous justice4 ,my impression belonged1 a generation or two ago1 to the ,arozarena collection4 ,i got it1 with some other things1 at that fascinating shop in ,paris1 whose outside is so simple and so unassuming1 whose inside is stuffed with treasures--the shop a door or two from the ,quai ,malaquais1 up the dark and narrow #8,rue des ,saint-,pres1' at which1 from the morning to the evening hours1 sits placidly at his desk #8,monsieur ,jules'--,clment's successor1 once ,clment's assistant--the learned #8,marchand d',estampes de la ,bibliothque ,nationale4' ,even the smallest of collectors may have a #8speciality'--and ,i suppose my speciality to be the comparatively humble one of ,mryon and of ,whistler--or1 perhaps1 of modern etchings generally--but 7let me say it for myself as well as for others7 it is at one's peril that one is specialist alone4 ,things are seen then out of all proportion2 bias and prejudice take the place of judgment--a mere fanaticism flourishes1 where there ought to be a growing critical capacity1 alert and lively4 ,on that account1 in my small cabinet1 a ,whistler or a ,mryon is liable to be confronted with an ,italian of the ,renaissance1 a ,german of the day of ,drer4 ,zoan ,andrea's #8,dance of ,damsels1' after a design of ,mantegna's1 a ,coat of ,arms of ,beham's1 an ornament of ,aldegrever's1 instructively remind me of a delicacy earlier than ,whistler's1 and of a burin sobre et mle that was wielded three hundred years before ,mryon's4 ,but while1 in collecting1 ,i venture to discountenance the exclusive devotion to a particular master1 ,i am almost as strongly against the acquisition of isolated examples of very many men4 ,if a man is worth representing at all1 represent him at the least by a little handful of his works4 ,collect one or two masters largely1 and obtain of others small but characteristic groups4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i am fond of my few ,french prints of the ,eighteenth ,century4 ,it is easy to dispose of them 7a common way in ,england7--the works1 ,i mean1 of all that ,eighteenth ,century ,school--by calling them light1 trifling1 even indiscreet in certain of their revelations of a life that seldom aimed to be austere2 but1 in reality1 the prints of the #8,dix-,huitime' represent all phases of the thoughts and ways of ,french society--its deeds and its ideals--from the childhood of ,louis ,quinze to the ,revolution2 and1 if you read ,french contes and comedy1 memoir and criticism1 these things1 from ,watteau to ,chardin1 from ,chardin to ,fragonard1 are their true illustrations4 ,for myself1 ,i do but mourn that ,i have so few of them3 not a single ,moreau1 for instance--not the #8,sortie de l',opra1' with the love-letter conveyed in the nosegay1 nor #8,c'est un ,fils1 ,monsieur6' in which a well-favoured young woman bounces into the library of the fortunate collector1 with the news that he is also1 as it seems1 a parent4 ,the insular pre-,raphaelite speaks of the ,french ,eighteenth ,century as #8the bad period4' ,it is #8the bad period' to people who are too rigid to grasp its grace4 ,the narrowly learned1 as ,walter ,savage ,landor reminds us--#8the generality of the learned1' he is even severe enough to say--#8are apt to conceive that in easy movement there is a want of solidity and strength4' ,now1 #8easy movement1' spontaneous elegance1 is the very characteristic of the ,art of ,france1 as it is of its delightful people2 and not to recognise1 not to enjoy that1 is merely to be under the sway of pedantry1 antiquarian or academic4 ,french ,eighteenth ,century ,art1 like ,dutch ,art of the ,seventeenth ,century1 like the ,art of ,titian and of ,velasquez1 reflected ,life--much of the charm of ,life--and unless it be that ,life itself and ,beauty have no interest for us1 we cannot afford to pass that ,art superciliously by4 ,wonderfully small1 however1 is the amount of sympathy that ,i am privileged to expect from ,english collectors of the older type1 in my enjoyment of a sometimes faulty1 but an often bewitching1 school4 ,a score of ,french prints1 some of them recording the high elegance of ,watteau1 the pleasant gallantry of ,baudouin or ,lavreince1 the sober homeliness and the grave truth of ,chardin 7whose lessons were ,wordsworthian in their way7--these various things1 which ,i shall still venture to cherish1 are wont to be #8sat upon' by the antiquary2 much as a certain little table-case of ,battersea enamels1 dainty and aglow with colour1 like flowers on a wintry day 7puce and gold and rose du ,barry1 that no time and no winter fades71 is #8sat upon' by some of my friends who behold indescribable virtues in every product of ,japanese design4 ,we have all of us got our limits--,i remember1 though1 that in ,france1 two of the men most prominent and influential in their love for the artistic work of their own country in its famous #8,dix-,huitime1' had been almost the first to welcome the inventions of the ,japanese4 ,these men were ,philippe ,burty and ,edmond de ,goncourt--but then it is lamentably true that they ignored ,rembrandt and ,drer1 as far as any practical interest in them was concerned4 ,the mention of the ,frenchmen brings me once more face to face with two striking personalities4 ,burty was a critic in journalism1 and an ,inspecteur des ,beaux ,arts besides--an enthusiast1 a connoisseur1 a real curieux4 ,when ,i knew him he had already done much in ,france for the popular recognition of ,etching4 ,his flat upon an outer boulevard--the ,boulevard des ,batignolles--told charmingly of the refinement and variety of his tastes4 ,some kakemonos and tsubas hung on the walls2 but here there was an etching1 and there an ivory4 ,and he had a little coin de tapisserie1 as he smilingly said1 #8like ,erasmus at the ,louvre'--he was thinking of the background of ,holbein's picture4 ,in his deep ,french bookcases1 well-bound volumes were ranged1 a second row behind the first1 and when the glass doors were opened and a few vacant places discovered1 ,burty's favourite cat--the cat of the literary man1 moving with quietude1 treading with grace--curved about in the bookcase1 sleek and smooth1 harmless1 careful1 almost appreciative4 ,one ,sunday afternoon1 when1 ,i remember1 as the result of an accident1 we had failed to see ,zola1 ,philippe ,burty drove me down to ,auteuil--to the ,villa ,montmorency1 with its wild poetic garden--to spend a couple of hours with ,edmond de ,goncourt and his treasures4 ,jules1 the beloved brother1 was already dead1 and ,edmond1 surrounded by his collections1 lived lonely at ,auteuil1 in the house arranged for both4 ,stately and distinguished1 melancholy1 and yet interested1 a descendant of the old noblesse1 with many memories in the dark brown eyes that lay under black eyebrows and silver-grey hair1 ,edmond de ,goncourt moved about amongst his portfolios1 saying a word here1 and there directing a glance4 ,the history of his life surrounded him--the treasures he and his brother had amassed and studied1 before the #8,dix-,huitime' was fashionable1 and very much as a recreation from those #8noires tudes de la vie contemporaine'--the words are his own--which had given us ,germinie ,lacerteux and ,manette ,salomon4 ,no such collection of that fascinating ,french #8,dix-,huitime' as belongs to ,edmond de ,goncourt has ever been made4 ,his ,maison d'un ,artiste is a book which is written for the most part about it1 and in comparison with its treasures my humble score of chosen prints--chiefly1 after all1 by the ,eighteenth ,century's more serious masters--becomes absolutely insignificant4 ,still1 they remind me1 pleasantly enough1 of a delightful period1 a delightful people1 and of an art that was masterly when it was ,watteau's1 more lightly gracious when it was ,pater's1 and1 when it was ,chardin's1 was sedate and simple and almost austere4 ,sketches in oil or water-colour by ,cotman and ,james ,ward1 by ,thomas ,collier and ,charles ,green1 ,edwin ,hayes1 ,alfred ,east1 ,shannon1 ,linton1 ,fulleylove1 ,carl ,haag1 ,wyke ,bayliss1 ,francis ,james--,i need not finish the list1 and it would be foreign to the present purpose to enlarge on the men--do something1 one may hope1 to prevent one's bowing the knee at only a single shrine4 ,but is that indeed my danger8--,i1 who confess to have felt at times the force of quite another temptation--the temptation to be busy at last in getting together things with which the pictorial ,art that ,i love has nothing to do4 ,a comely little piece or so of #8,blue and ,white'2 a bit of ,worcester1 with the square mark2 a ,nantgarw plate1 with its #8,billingsley rose'2 a plate of ,frankenthal1 bought in the ,corratorie at ,geneva1 at a shop where1 two generations ago1 they had sold things of that fabric to none other than ,balzac 7who declared1 through his ,cousin ,pons1 that ,frankenthal would one day be as much sought after as ,svres7--these things1 ,i say1 the thin end of the wedge1 things that are nothing by themselves1 remind me that1 in gathering china1 ,man may be happy4 ,and so a few books--the earliest obtained being the ,lyrical ,ballads of #agih1 relieure ,jansniste1 a green coat by ,riviere1 and the ,rogers with the ,turner illustrations1 in #8original boards1' now1 alas6 disposed to crack--assure me of the charm that must lurk for my luckier brethren in the seriously gathering together of ,first ,editions or of famous ones4 ,let us pass to the examples of the ,revival of ,etching4 ,about forty ,mryons1 about seventy ,whistlers1 are mine4 ,the one artist has been much more prolific than the other1 and thus1 while1 as regards ,mryon1 the possession of even #8forty' prints allows the collector to be fairly well provided for1 as regards ,whistler1 the #8seventy' represent scarcely a third part of that etcher's catalogued work4 ,mr4 ,h4 ,s4 ,theobald has more ,whistlers than ,i have2 so has ,sir ,john ,day2 ,mr4 ,b4 ,b4 ,macgeorge1 of ,glasgow1 has1 ,i know1 more ,mryons2 while1 of both these masters1 distinctly larger collections than my own rest in the hands of ,mr4 ,samuel ,p4 ,avery and of ,mr4 ,howard ,mansfield1 of ,new ,york4 ,nearly all the finer plates of ,mryon--those in which1 to use his own phrase1 he #8engraved ,paris1' with a fidelity so affectionate1 yet with an imagination so tragic--were wrought between the year #ahej and the year #ahed4 ,bracquemond was the only important figure in the group to whom the ,revival of ,etching is due1 who was working at that time4 ,whistler1 ,seymour ,haden1 ,jules ,jacquemart1 and ,legros1 were all of them a little later2 ,whistler's first dated plate--and he was quite among the earliest of these artists--being of the year #aheg4 ,in looking through my ,mryons1 it interests me to find that a good many that are in my ,solander-box to-day1 belonged1 long since1 to distinguished ,frenchmen who were ,mryon's contemporaries4 ,thus1 a ,first ,state of the #8,saint-,etienne-du-,mont' was given by ,mryon to ,bracquemond4 ,my impressions of the #8,abside' and the #8,stryge' belonged to ,aglas ,bouvenne1 who catalogued ,bonington1 appreciated ,mryon1 and1 in comparatively recent years1 wrote some reminiscences of him4 ,a #8,rue des ,toiles1 ,bourges' has on it ,mryon's dedicatory inscription1 addressed to ,hillemacher the painter4 ,a curious proof of the #8,partie de la ,cit de ,paris1' before the introduction of the towers1 which were never really in the actual view1 though ,mryon chose to see them there1 came from the friend of ,mryon's youth1 a friend who spoke over his grave--,m4 de ,salicis4 ,some others of the prints have been ,philippe ,burty's4 ,the final trial proof of the #8,tourelle1 dite 8de ,marat10' and one or two other subjects1 of which ,i spare the reader the details1 were originally bought of ,mryon by ,m4 ,wasset1 a man the public wots not of1 but a collector full of character3 the #8,cousin ,pons1' ,i dare to call him1 of my own earlier day4 ,let me1 in a paragraph devoted to himself alone1 recall ,m4 ,wasset to my memory4 ,an employ--secrtaire1 it may be--at the ,ministry of ,war1 he lived1 when ,i mounted to his flat1 one winter's night 7how many years ago67 in a dark1 winding1 narrow street1 of the ,rive ,gauche1 between the ,seine and ,st4 ,sulpice--the ,rue ,jacob4 ,the ,cousin ,pons1 did ,i say1 this gentleman resembled8 ,but ,pons was gourmet as well as connoisseur--,m4 ,wasset knew no passion but the collector's4 ,he dined modestly--by subscription1 it was understood--at the ,caf ,procope1 in the ,quarter--was abonn for repasts taken there1 in a haunt once classic1 now dull and cheap4 ,his rooms in the ,rue ,jacob1 low and small1 were stuffed full with his collections4 ,bric--brac he had1 even more than prints4 ,strange beings who dredged in the ,river1 brought him ancient jewellery1 and seventeenth-century watches1 that had slept their ,rip ,van ,winkle sleep in the mud of the ,seine4 ,i see the venerable collector now1 his sombre and crowded rooms lit with a single lamp1 and he1 passing about1 spare1 eager1 and trembling1 with bowed figure2 garrulous1 excited as with wine1 by the mere sight and handling of his accumulated possessions4 ,a few years afterwards--urged thereto by the greatest of ,parisian printsellers1 ,clment1 who is now no more--he had a sale1 in the ,rue ,drouot1 of his hundreds of prints1 of which the ,mryons1 of course1 formed but a small part4 ,other treasures--then ardently desired--he was to purchase with the proceeds4 ,is his heart1 one wonders1 with those treasures now--in the dark ,paris street8 ,or1 the hands that trembled so1 fifteen years since--have they relaxed their hold1 for ever1 of the things that were meat and drink1 that were wife and child1 to him8 ,mryon1 ,i remember1 took me by storm as a great artistic personality1 and1 since he conquered me immediately1 ,i have always been faithful to him4 ,in that there is no sort of virtue2 for has he not now become1 thus early1 almost everywhere1 where prints are loved1 an accepted classic8 ,to appreciate ,whistler--even at all to enjoy him--requires a longer education4 ,there are even some things that at first one resents4 ,a touch of charlatanry lurks1 one at first supposes1 in the ,bond ,street #8arrangement in yellow and white1' and in the velarium under which we were invited to gather when the master held sway in ,suffolk ,street4 ,but1 in time1 that impression passes4 ,then1 one accepts the man whole--takes him as he is--genius like his has a certain licence to be abnormal4 ,and though it pleases ,mr4 ,whistler1 in sundry catalogues and joyous little books about the #8art of making enemies1' to represent from time to time that ,i1 among a hundred others1 do not appreciate him1 that is only because he would have us believe he is a victim to the interesting monomania of persecution1 and ,i1 forsooth1 when this is his mood1 am called upon to figure as one of those who would pursue and vex him4 ,peace6 peace6 ,now that he has #8done battering at ,england' 7,i will not vouch precisely for the phrase71 ,i am1 it seems1 an #8enemy' no more4 ,so much the better6 ,i take it1 he and ,mryon are quite the greatest of the etchers this century has seen1 and if so 7since of great true etchers the ,eighteenth ,century was barren71 they are the greatest since the days of ,claude and ,rembrandt4 ,to no one who has studied any group of their plates for a single quarter of an hour1 can it be necessary to insist upon the essential unlikeness of these two remarkable men4 ,unity of impression--almost a test of excellence1 the one note dominant1 the rest subordinated--that is found1 ,i know1 and found almost equally1 in the work of both4 ,but by what different measures has it been maintained6 ,whistler1 in so much of his work1 has shown himself the flexible1 vivacious1 and consummate sketcher1 the artist whose choice of economical and telling #8line' is faultless and perhaps well-nigh immediate4 ,mryon1 upon the other hand1 has been remarkable for building up1 with learned patience worthy of ,albert ,drer1 little by little1 his effects2 so that when the thing is done1 and that sombre vision of his has become a realised performance1 he has not so much made a drawing upon a plate1 as erected a monument 7for so it strikes one7 from base to coping-stone4 ,such work has at least the permanence of the very monuments it records4 ,an uvre de longue haleine--a task severe and protracted--is each one of ,mryon's important coppers4 ,yet all the length of ,mryon's labour witnesses to no relaxing hold of his first thought1 and in the great complexity of ordered line there is revealed no superfluous1 no insignificant stroke4 ,each man is discovered in his work4 ,in ,mryon's #8,abside' say1 in the #8,pont ,neuf1' in the #8,saint-,etienne-du ,mont1' is his brooding spirit1 his patient craftsmanship1 his temperament intense and profound4 ,he was poor2 he was often weary2 he spent himself on his work4 ,in ,whistler's #8,garden1' in his #8,piazzetta1' in his #8,florence ,leyland1' in the #8,large ,pool1' in that wonderful tiny thing1 #8,the ,fruit ,shop1' there is the boyish freshness1 the spirit of enjoyment1 which he has known how to preserve till the present time4 ,whistler has never been tired1 or1 if he has1 he and his work have parted company at that moment4 ,wonderful as is his gift of observation and handling1 his plates are a lark's song4 ,as you see the man before you1 elastic1 joyous1 slim1 and dbonnair1 having never known the heavy and sad wisdom of our modern youth1 nor the cares of our middle age1 his appearance almost persuades you that all his exquisite craftsmanship1 practised now for forty years1 is but the blameless recreation of an hour snatched from life's severer tasks--the task of sipping duly1 l'heure de l'absinthe1 one's apritif1 on the ,boulevard2 of pulling on the ,river1 in the long ,june days2 of condensing every rule of life into perhaps three epigrams1 effective at a dinner-party4 ,who would not envy this possessor of a craft fantastic1 airy1 and immortal6 ,though ,mr4 ,whistler may entertainingly insinuate that long life has been denied to his friendships1 he will agree with me1 ,i know1 when ,i assert that it is secured to his etchings4 ,that my print-drawers contain but four or five etchings by ,seymour ,haden is at once my misfortune and my reproach4 ,as one looks at them one conjures up visions of bygone sales at ,sotheby's1 when as yet ,mr4 ,wilkinson1 benign and aged1 sat in the chair1 to wield the ivory hammer--what opportunities neglected1 of which the more diligent have availed themselves6 ,for ,i cannot accept ,seymour ,haden's too modest estimate of the value of his own work4 ,labour so energetic and decisive is not destined to be prized by one generation alone1 and in esteeming it comparatively lightly1 his connoisseurship1 accurate enough when it is concerned with ,claude and ,rembrandt1 ,mryon and ,whistler--all of whom1 in his time1 he has loved and collected--is for once at fault4 ,i am somewhat poor again in those etchings which are the creation of the austere genius of ,legros4 ,popular they will never be1 for ,legros is almost alone among men of genius in not belonging to his own day--in receiving well-nigh no influence from the actual hour4 ,he is a belated ,old ,master--but a #8master' always3 never an affected copyist1 who pranks #8in faded antique dress4' ,had he but humoured the affectations of the time1 it is quite possible that the time would at all events have talked about him1 and1 denied actual popularity1 he might yet have been solaced by an sthetic coterie's hysterical admiration4 ,but that has not been for ,legros4 ,as it is1 with his gravely whispered message1 his general reticence1 his overmastering sense of ,style1 his indifference to attractive truths of detail1 his scorn of the merely clever1 he is placed at a disadvantage4 ,but his work remains2 not only the etchings1 of which ,messieurs ,thibaudeau and ,poulet-,malassis catalogued a hundred and sixty-eight as long ago as #ahgg1 but the grave pictures in which the peasant of the ,boulognais devoutly worships1 or in which the painted landscape is as the landscape of a dream1 and the vigorous oil portraits--not one of which1 perhaps1 reaches the nobility of his etched portrait of ,watts--and the pencil drawings of the nude1 several of which ,legros has given to the ,museum of his birthplace1 ,dijon1 where the stray ,englishman who stays to look at them finds that they are as finely severe as are the pencil drawings of ,ingres4 ,i have his one big etching1 #8,la ,mort du ,vagabond'--the scale too large to be effective generally1 but1 pace ,mr4 ,whistler1 ,i do not1 in this case1 find it #8an offence1'#d--;and amongst others1 two that have1 it may be1 no particular rarity1 but that are worthily1 and ,i think even exceptionally1 characteristic4 ,the one is #8,la ,communion dans l',eglise ,saint-,mdard'3 in line and in feeling an instance of the most dignified treatment of ecclesiastical function or religious office4 ,and the other is #8,les ,chantres ,espagnols1' the singing-men1 aged and decayed1 eight of them1 in a darkened choir--was ever a vision of narrow and of saddened lives more serious or more penetrating6 #d #8,the huge plate1' writes ,mr4 ,whistler--on the whole truthfully--#8the huge plate is an offence3 its undertaking an unbecoming display of determination and ignorance1 its accomplishment a triumph of unthinking earnestness and uncontrolled energy4' ,from these grave things it is sometimes a relief to turn to ,jacquemart's etchings of still-life4 ,the man himself had troubles3 not difficulties about money1 nor1 like ,mryon1 the knowledge that he was little appreciated--for appreciation came to him early--but lack of health during years that should have been vigorous1 and a compulsory flight towards the sunshine1 which yet did not appreciably lessen the distance that divided him from ,death4 ,but his work1 from end to end1 in its serene1 deliberate accomplishment1 suggests no chances and changes1 no personal emotion1 and even no actual experience of human life4 ,one says at first1 it might have been done at any period2 then one recognises perhaps what one may call a modern feeling for the object portrayed2 then one thinks of ,hollar's #8,five ,muffs1' and of ,rembrandt's #8,shell1' and remembers that both have a freedom1 a delicate skill1 akin1 after all1 to the skill and the freedom in the etchings of ,jacquemart4 ,of ,jacquemart's two great series1 the prints for his father's ,histoire de la ,porcelaine and those of the #8,gemmes et ,joyaux de la ,couronne1' ,i possess only the first1 and these in book form1 as they were sent me by ,madame ,techener1 the widow of ,jacquemart's publisher and friend4 ,in a simple1 russet-coloured half-binding1 done afterwards by ,zaehnsdorf1 they stand on a shelf ,i go to4 ,elsewhere are such proofs of ,jacquemart etchings as the occasional good fortune of auction rooms--snatched in a spare half-hour--has brought to a life-long lover of engravings4 ,there is a certain plate of sword-handles and daggers--things1 some of them1 that #8rend and rip'-- #8,gash rough1 slash smooth1 help ,hate so many ways1 ,yet ever keep a beauty that betrays ,love still at work with the artificer1 through all his quaint devising--' as ,robert ,browning wrote1 describing weapons that lay1 as ,i remember1 at peace at last1 on his own drawing-room table4 ,how ,jacquemart etched such blades6 ,by this print of his there is one of a seventeenth-century watch--just such a watch as ,i said used to be fished up from the bed of the ,seine1 for quaint old ,monsieur ,wasset--and with it the presentment of ,renaissance jewel2 and1 perhaps1 of a carved mirror1 or a bit of ,valenciennes porcelain4 ,allow me a reflection6 ,the cheapest way of enjoying objets d'art is to enjoy them in etchings2 and it is often the easiest way1 since you have but to sit in your chair and look2 and it is often not the least true1 since the etcher himself has seen with trained eye before his trained hand came to draw4 ,well1 to enjoy objets d'art in that fashion1 with tolerable completeness and extreme satisfaction1 the intelligent poor man has really but to get the two chief series of ,jacquemarts 7those that are still lacking to me1 the #8,gemmes et ,joyaux de la ,couronne1' are1 ,i know ,seymour ,haden would tell me1 the bigger1 broader1 richer1 more spontaneous of the two71 and those fifty plates by different etchers1 of whom ,courtry1 ,greux1 and ,le ,rat were among the principal1 which ,holloway published about a score of years since--#8,works of ,art in the ,collections of ,england4' ,in that excellent folio1 the men who have just been mentioned1 and several others1 followed hard on ,jacquemart's heels4 ,what a treatment of jade1 in some of those plates6 ,mr4 ,addington's vase in particular--absolutely unctuous4 ,what a treatment of cristal de roche6 ,desgoffe's painted panel at the ,luxembourg is only a little finer4 ,what a treatment of ivory6--that extraordinary ,moorish casket1 that was ,malcolm of ,poltalloch's4 ,but this is only copyist's etching1 some people may say4 #8,copyists'--,no6 ,you would not enjoy it so much1 were it merely servile imitation4 ,it is interpretation1 significant and spirited1 alert and vivid4 ,of the original etchers of the younger school in ,england1 ,frank ,short and ,william ,strang have long seemed to me the most interesting1 notwithstanding the as yet somewhat marked limitations of theme of the one1 and that possessing #8devil' of the love of ugliness which ,i have now almost ceased to hope may be exorcised from the other4 ,strang1 for all the presence of that which is repulsive to many1 is a man of great qualities4 ,a ,celt to the depths of him1 he is wildly imaginative4 ,he is dramatic1 and his prints are dramatic1 however much he may profess to be busy with line and tone4 ,besides1 there are moments in which he confesses to being a poet4 ,he has the instinct of tragedy4 ,technically1 his etchings are almost always good2 nor is it1 to my mind1 a sin in them that so many of them set you thinking4 ,i have but a few of ,mr4 ,strang's prints2 of ,frank ,short's ,i have more1 and when he can interpret a ,dewint like that #8,road in ,yorkshire1' and a ,constable like that sketch of ,mr4 ,vaughan's1 ,i see no reason for not putting those mezzotints--interpretations so brilliant1 translations so faithful yet so free--by the side of his work in ,etching1 inspired not by familiarity with the art of another1 but by the presence of charming line or charming vista in ,nature4 ,frank ,short1 in his original work1 is a most delicate draughtsman of form in landscape4 #8,evening1 ,bosham1' and #8,sleeping till the ,flood1' sufficiently show it4 ,of another good man1 ,mr4 ,c4 ,j4 ,watson1 ,i have not enough to judge him at my ease2 but he is a sterling etcher1 distinctly gifted1 and without artifice and trick4 ,an actually imaginative vision one must not perhaps ask of him1 but mental flexibility--can he but cultivate it--may enable him to go far4 #8,profil de ,jeune ,fille1' a rare dry-point by ,paul ,helleu1 has1 it seems to me1 like much of the work by that most modern of ,parisian pastellists and etchers1 a delightful spontaneity and force and freedom4 ,it is an inevitable chef-d'uvre--the greatest1 perhaps1 of a facile and exquisite master4 ,my gossip stops4 ,grant me only the grace of one more line1 to avow the satisfaction with which1 even after having enjoyed the companionship of at least some little work that is admittedly classic1 ,i can look upon the prints of ,mr4 ,charles ,holroyd1 a young etcher of our latest day4 ,in them so much of what is generally1 and often even rightly1 seductive1 is frankly abandoned1 that they may keep unimpaired at least the distinction and reticence which are the very soul of ,style4 7,art ,journal1 ,january and ,march #ahid47 ,,anne ,,oldfield #8,mrs4 ,oldfield1 the celebrated comedian1' is the title inscribed by a contemporary--who knew how the lady should be spoken of--upon the copper which ,edward ,fisher engraved in mezzotint from the picture by ,richardson4 ,a photogravure reproduction from this rare1 desirable print--which shows the lissome grace and flexible charm of a young woman who enchanted the town1 and who was the delight of ,mr4 ,mainwaring before she was the delight of ,general ,churchill--forms the frontispiece to the slight and gossipy and unscientific1 but by no means disagreeable volume which ,mr4 ,robins has compiled--we cannot say written--about the actress whom he dubs familiarly #8,nance4' ,a cheaper reproduction of another portrait of her--the original also by ,richardson--is to be found upon a later page4 ,in both portraits she is represented in propria persona1 of which we need not complain1 but which it is expedient to chronicle1 inasmuch as such portraiture throws no direct illumination upon the achievements of her art4 ,deprived of any such assistance as might well have been given1 at all events had the compiler of the volume been dealing with a comedian of later time--with ,garrick1 say1 whose ,abel ,drugger is known to us by the canvas of ,zoffany2 with ,siddons1 who not only as the #8,tragic ,muse' reveals the characteristics of her power2 or even with ,mrs4 ,abington1 whose performance as ,miss ,prue in ,love for ,love we seem to witness by dint of familiarity with ,sir ,joshua's picture--we are thrown back entirely1 for our acquaintance with ,mrs4 ,oldfield1 upon the written records produced for our survey4 ,these are remarkably scanty4 ,of the life of the fascinating woman much remains in mystery4 ,of the achievements of the actress there is what is called1 in stilted language1 #8a consensus of opinion1' but singularly little of definite chronicle4 ,certain passages in the ,spectator discuss the appropriateness of her delivery of a comic epilogue to a tragic play--for it was the fate of ,mrs4 ,oldfield to act ,tragedy sometimes1 though she preferred1 upon the whole1 that the management should #8give such things to ,porter'--and a few other contemporary allusions to her were printed in her day2 but her day was before the era of very penetrating criticism1 either professional or not professional3 no ,lamb1 no ,hazlitt1 had the chance of making her a peg for whimsicality or pungent brilliance2 and the appreciative amateur who1 a generation before her1 had1 in the diary that the world cherishes1 chronicled his sense of the delightfulness of ,mrs4 ,knipp and of ,nell ,gwynne--#8all unready1 pretty1 prettier than ,i thought'--was deprived by ,fate of the occasion of waxing cordial over the personal grace of ,mrs4 ,oldfield4 ,accordingly1 we receive from an industrious ,american a volume written #8round' ,mrs4 ,oldfield1 rather than actually about her4 ,we cannot altogether blame him for it4 ,we do blame him for once or twice slinking away1 as it were1 from the evidence of his own1 perhaps unavoidable1 ignorance1 under cover of propriety and a regard for the conventionalities4 ,of this nature is his exceedingly slight treatment of the possible existence of a daughter of the actress2 but he had already brought himself to chronicle some particulars of two sons--and this was perhaps as much as we could expect4 ,mrs4 ,oldfield was never married4 ,her time looked leniently upon such freedom as she took in love affairs2 and the transference of her affection was neither frequent nor brutal4 ,she was a woman of impulse and of sensibility and of magnetic charm4 ,men who #8dined with ,walpole' passed on without a trace of consciousness of inferiority in her companionship to the agreeable converse of ,oldfield4 ,she was as kind as she was pleasant4 ,she relieved ,savage1 who rose to excellence in the verses penned by him on her demise4 ,she was endowed with common sense1 which is frequently possessed1 though not invariably exercised1 by people of genius4 ,she was nice to the humblest1 and she walked with ,royalty on the slopes of ,windsor4 ,brought up in a third-rate street in ,westminster and in a tavern in ,st4 ,james's ,market1 she died at her house in ,grosvenor ,street1 in only middle age1 and left a comfortable fortune to the two youths born of her connection with distinguished and superior men4 ,such1 briefly1 was the woman--mercurial1 gay1 and charming2 bringing tears1 bringing laughter1 never bringing regret4 ,would that it were possible to write even as definitely as that of the actress and of the method of her art6 ,mr4 ,robins1 who has filled his pages with the stories of the plot of a few of her pieces and with extracts from two or three comedies in which she was presumably most brilliant1 would have made his book perhaps not more generally engaging1 but more instructive1 had he printed from ,mr4 ,joseph ,knight's scholarly record in the ,dictionary of ,national ,biography the immense list of her rles4 ,he does1 of course1 speak incidentally at least of the actress's range2 but nothing convinces one of it quite so surely as the scanning of that record of her honourable labour4 ,so far as one can tell1 she must have been about at her best in ,the ,provoked ,husband2 but1 did she play ,andromache or even ,sophonisba1 she got from each the maximum of its effect4 ,though poor originally1 she was of gentle blood1 and perhaps she played best1 with her poetic realism1 the parts of ladies of her day4 ,over a spell of twenty years1 her art--like ,ellen ,terry's and ,mrs4 ,kendal's in our own time--knew no decay4 ,like ,aime ,descle1 she acted at the last in presence of great physical suffering4 ,when she died the ,town grieved #8sincerely'2 and though1 with curious ,english compromise1 she was refused a monument1 she was not forbidden to be buried in the great grey ,abbey whose walls rise cliff-like over against the street in which she passed her childhood4 ,it is a pity that her story has been told by ,mr4 ,robins with so nave an absence of anything approaching style4 ,she was a theme for a writer4 ,but the amiable book-maker and genuinely interested student of her craft and period who is responsible for the various prolixity of this volume must be forgiven much because he has loved much4 ,he tells us1 it is true1 by way of permissible yet not wholly praiseworthy padding1 much more about her contemporaries in her palmy days1 and in her days not palmy1 than about herself4 ,mrs4 ,oldfield meanders1 like a thin stream1 through a meadow of ,queen ,anne and early ,georgian gossip4 ,we do not resent the gossip4 ,if it is not authentic information1 it is readable chatter4 ,would only that it were easier to disengage from the mass of it the delightful and enlivening and kindling personality of ,mrs4 ,oldfield6 7,literature1 #bbnd ,october #ahih47 ,,siddons ,,and ,,rachel ,two little books by ,mrs4 ,a4 ,kennard--contributions to the #8,eminent ,women' series--give with much tact and grace of treatment all that the ordinary reader1 if not quite all the special student1 needs to know about the two great tragic actresses of ,england and of ,france4 ,with regard to both1 the special student may ask1 perhaps1 for more of theatrical criticism1 for an analysis more elaborate of that which was accomplished in sight of the public1 by the two famous artists4 ,yet1 as regards ,sarah ,siddons--a tragedian removed from us now by the space of three generations--there may well have been difficulties4 ,rachel1 of course1 lived in a period of criticism more diffuse and systematic2 ,jules ,janin filling1 in her day1 to some extent1 the place since filled by ,vitu and ,sarcey2 and1 indeed1 the published records of her performances1 though scattered1 are elaborate and abundant4 ,turning from the public achievement to the private character1 little else remains to be told of ,mrs4 ,siddons2 but of ,rachel there might have been produced many a scandalous chronicle4 ,wrong from one point of view1 ,mrs4 ,kennard1 in this matter1 was certainly right from another4 ,of the #8,dichtung' and the #8,wahrheit1' which meet in the life of the artist1 she has taken1 in some respects1 chiefly the #8,dichtung4' #8,we have tried1' she says herself1 in her preface1 #8to extract the poetry and romance there is to be found in this life1 rejecting what is base and unworthy4' ,nor must it1 after all1 be supposed that in ,rachel's life--outside her art--all was unworthy or base4 ,always she was a dutiful daughter2 always a devoted mother2 sometimes a generous1 and once or twice a constant1 friend4 ,but her life was a fever4 ,and1 in her maddened demand for excitement1 it ran its course rapidly4 ,how different all this matter was with ,mrs4 ,siddons6 ,rachel was a ,jewess1 born in an inn in ,switzerland1 and bred in ,france2 a ,bohemian who1 after twenty-four hours of enforced respectability at ,windsor1 #8avait besoin de s'encanailler'--thirsted to be a cad again4 ,mrs4 ,siddons was an ,englishwoman2 even the ,irish blood1 not quite absent from her veins1 was without influence on her personal life--we are far from saying it did not prompt her to be an artist4 ,and not only was she an ,englishwoman2 she was a ,kemble besides1 and rigid self-control was the very watchword of the ,kembles1 in art and life4 ,we are told she had #8the gift of tears4' ,it may be4 ,certainly she roused in others pity and passion4 ,but when one recognises this1 one may remember1 too1 how the methods acceptable to one age may be ineffective in another4 ,mrs4 ,siddons's epoch was the epoch of the acceptability of ,claude's and ,david's art4 ,it was the age of firm contour in draughtsmanship1 of composition in painting1 of deportment in manners4 ,in manhood1 the age admired as ideal what ,mr4 ,turveydrop1 some time afterwards1 only unwittingly burlesqued4 ,the fire1 and genius1 and spontaneity of ,rachel would speak to us to-day4 ,rachel gave to the most artificial of tragedy--to the tragedy which was #8so ,greek' to its admirers1 so full of ,louis xiv4 to ourselves--that truth which ,descle1 after her1 bestowed upon an incident in the ,avenue du ,roi de ,rome--upon a passion of this morning4 ,should we be equally sensible to the favourite effects of ,mrs4 ,siddons8 ,should we--who have passed not only through ,romanticism1 but into ,naturalism1 since her day--be impressed1 genuinely or profoundly1 by her ,lady ,macbeth1 her ,hermione8 ,as regards the outer life of the two women--,sir ,joshua's #8,tragic ,muse' and the ,phdre whom even ,sarah ,bernhardt1 who has so much in common with her1 has not been able to surpass--it was1 as may be expected1 essentially different4 ,mrs4 ,kennard owes something1 but cannot owe very much1 to the ,life of ,mrs4 ,siddons by ,campbell1 the inefficient friend of her later years1 to whom she bequeathed her memoranda1 letters1 and diary4 ,boaden's ,life1 of which ,crabb ,robinson spoke as #8one of the most worthless books of biography in existence1' cannot have helped ,mrs4 ,kennard much more2 but she acknowledges handsomely her obligations to ,mr4 ,percy ,fitzgerald4 ,about ,rachel a whole literature has been written2 yet much of it is hardly serviceable4 ,at least one biography is avowedly hostile4 ,arsne ,houssaye does not mean to be ill-natured1 but will at all costs be amusing4 ,jules ,janin--a man of words1 so much more than of thoughts--is hopelessly fluent4 ,he betrays the essential worthlessness of the mere ready writer4 ,on the whole1 perhaps1 it is the letters of ,rachel that are the truest guide4 ,letters to her parents1 to her sister1 to her friends--if not to her lovers--to her master1 ,samson1 on the conditions and the problems of her work--letters of gratitude1 letters of regret1 letters making a small gift1 though refusing a great loan--these things build up gradually1 on a pretty sure foundation1 the edifice of ,rachel's character1 as it is fitting that we should see it4 ,rachel's life was in the ,present4 ,after excitement1 was to come1 not rest1 but le nant4 ,she acted in bad health as in good1 chiefly to satisfy one of the deepest needs of her nature1 reckless what might follow4 ,mrs4 ,siddons1 when youth and impulse had left her1 dragged herself somewhat unwillingly from town to town1 to repair the losses of her husband--the honest and somewhat incapable gentleman who sought a refuge for rheumatism at ,bath--and she undertook yet another round of engagements in order that she might provide herself with a carriage on her retirement3 #8a carriage1 now become a necessity4' ,as regards the society the two women cultivated and enjoyed1 ,mrs4 ,siddons liked the intellectual and #8the great world1' and visited it as its equal4 ,but ,rachel1 in her loftiest social flights1 was not so much an artist as a show4 ,exhibited to the mighty1 and encouraged by them1 and bound to behave herself in their presence--for the success of eccentricity had not then been established--she was really most at home with a few ,bohemians1 and with her kith and kin who lived on her4 ,mrs4 ,siddons cared for the stage much more than did ,fanny ,kemble4 ,she had for it a respect which was wanting1 it would seem1 even in ,macready's feeling for it2 yet1 in a measure1 she acted to live1 rather than lived to act4 ,rachel--with the capacity for unnamed odiousness1 and supported in her private life by no fine example and no noble tradition--did yet1 in the main1 live for the practice of her art2 though its practice can hardly have been furthered by her moral deterioration1 and the chaos of her later days4 7,academy1 #crd ,september #ahhg47 ,,joseph ,,jefferson ,joseph ,jefferson has been seen again--and with all the enthusiasm of many years ago--in ,rip ,van ,winkle4 ,the playbill which announces his appearance makes no mention of ,washington ,irving1 but claims the play as #8written by ,dion ,boucicault4' ,it needs1 however1 no very profound student to detect in that tender and graceful fancy of the story1 a quality not to be numbered among the useful talents of the versatile dramatist who can give us anything that lies between ,london ,assurance and the ,shaughraun4 ,but ,i believe that1 after all these years1 the work of three hands is really to be found in the play2 ,mr4 ,jefferson himself having manipulated much of its action and business4 ,he does not act the piece3 he lives in it4 ,and he is only to be compared with ,got1 in ,balzac's ,mercadet4 ,both performances are restrained and reserved1 without the appearance of restraint and reserve4 ,both are quiet4 ,there are no dramatic outbursts1 and no surprises4 ,but in each case a character1 a career--one might almost say a life itself--is put before the spectator4 ,greater things have undoubtedly been done upon the stage--greater things have been done on the stage of our day by ,irving1 and greater remain to be done by him--but nothing quite so complete has been seen3 nothing giving one the sense of so easy and unlaboured a mastery4 ,the pathos is very gentle3 the humour has something of ,charles ,lamb in it4 ,jefferson has a face of the utmost good-humour2 very kindly eyes1 gentle ways1 which win upon the children and the dumb things of his village of ,falling ,waters4 ,for it is certainly his village1 this ,falling ,waters2 we cannot seriously separate the actor from the man4 ,and he has a voice of admirable quality and compass3 an enunciation of the utmost distinctness1 with no perceptible mannerism1 unless1 indeed1 the studied quietness be itself a mannerism4 ,the voice is capable of what would be called an almost womanly tenderness1 by those who have never observed that the tenderness of a man--as here to children--may be even a profounder thing4 ,in ,rip ,van ,winkle he plays a winning character4 ,we have all of us a weakness for the amiable ne'er-do-well1 who begins by ruining himself1 and ends--much against his feeble inclination--by ruining his children and his friends4 ,our sympathy is wholly with him1 and not with his irritated wife2 and when he has drunk away his fortune1 and all that he can of hers1 we think that if he sits quietly under her reproaches1 or makes but a gentle answer1 he has atoned for everything4 ,that is the magnetism of the lovable4 ,and that is the kind of character that ,mr4 ,jefferson embodies1 in a manner so entirely natural that you are constantly forgetting that it is a performance4 ,he has learned nothing by rote4 ,he has an easy way of seeking for his words3 a half-absorbed repetition of part of a phrase1 as in our everyday1 unchosen speech4 ,he does not finish his sentence like an actor who has learned his lines and counted the delivery of them1 and measured them to the end4 ,the common actor winds up an address as ,rossini and his school wind up a finale--#8,i have the honour to remain your humble and obedient servant1' ,schumann said of them4 ,but ,mr4 ,jefferson's sentences die off sometimes1 or are changed a little1 by a slight thing happening in his presence1 or by the swift occurrence of a fresh thought which you may read in his face4 ,it is the perfection of naturalness--the perfection of seeming spontaneity4 ,and if his humour is as mild as ,charles ,lamb's1 his pathos is as gentle as ,hans ,christian ,andersen's4 ,there is the delicate suggestion1 for those who can seize it--the suggestion and nothing more4 ,when ,rip goes out from the home from which his wife has at last banished him--goes out pointing to the child1 in answer to his wife's reproach that he has no part in this house3 #8,you say ,i have no part in this house'--the pathos is of a simple and suggested kind1 comparable only to ,hans ,andersen's1 in the ,story of a ,mother4 ,and as there is nothing in ,literature like the one1 there is little on the ,stage like the other4 7,academy1 #fth ,november #ahge47 ,,zola',s #8,,th,r,,se ,,raquin' ,on ,saturday ,i went to ,thrse ,raquin at the ,royalty ,theatre2 and while ,i found the piece itself--as indeed ,i expected to find it--far less of a melodrama than certain of its critics had said1 ,i discovered that the performance1 though good and creditable1 was not quite so noteworthy as it had been pronounced4 ,the thing is worth seeing1 though--would indeed in any case be worth seeing4 ,it is but the second piece of ,m4 ,zola's which has found hospitality among us3 nay1 in a certain sense1 it is the first1 for ,l',assommoir was hardly seen in its nakedness and truth1 though it was seen with fulness of horror in ,charles ,reade's version ,drink4 ,the version of ,thrse ,raquin--executed mainly1 as ,i suppose1 by ,mr4 ,de ,mattos1 but overlooked by ,mr4 ,george ,moore--does not widely depart from the original4 ,it is not a bad translation1 though it might1 with advantage1 have been a little more colloquial4 ,it suggests nowhere that it has been subjected to the process which ,i believe to be the only satisfactory one1 in translation1 to a writer who is ambitious1 as he ought to be1 to write the ,english that we talk3 the process of wholly discarding the original at a certain point--when the bare but real equivalent of that original has once been secured--of forgetting1 from that moment1 the existence of the original1 and of setting oneself solely to say well and naturally what the translation1 which is still beside one1 says with awkwardness4 ,the translation of ,thrse ,raquin is good enough1 it may be1 for most people's requirements on the stage2 but it is not good enough to be counted as literature4 ,the thing--that is--has not become ,mr4 ,de ,mattos's own3 he has remained its somewhat mechanical interpreter4 ,thrse ,raquin occupies a middle place in ,m4 ,zola's work4 ,in point of date1 it is early2 but ,i mean #8a middle place' in that it displays neither the exaggerated and sterile realism of the uglier of the writer's books nor the abounding poetry of the finer of them4 ,a problem in itself less interesting than the problem of the ,page d',amour is1 in ,thrse ,raquin1 treated with hardly a trace of the poetic tragedy which gives the ,page d',amour so much of its value4 ,thrse ,raquin contains only one or two sentences--they are those in which the wicked little bourgeoise expresses her desire to live for ever in the sunshine--which permit one to realise that its author is the author of the passionate idyl ,la ,faute de l',abb ,mouret4 ,but1 on the other hand1 in ,thrse ,raquin we are not face to face with the superfluous and unveracious hideousness of ,la ,terre2 and the view of humanity is not so brutal and so gross as that which is taken in ,nana4 ,no2 in these respects we may rank ,thrse ,raquin rather with ,l',assommoir itself3 in both a sad and ugly and degraded world1 but a glimpse of the skies4 ,in both--as in everything1 for the matter of that1 that ,m4 ,zola writes--an austere moral3 the assured march of evil-doing to its own punishment4 ,if ,thrse ,raquin were simply the melodrama some of its opponents have pronounced it to be1 the murder1 which is the cause of the two lovers' remorse and collapse1 would have been done1 not in the interval between two acts--the first of which ends and the second of which begins with a quiet game of dominoes in a ,parisian parlour--but in sight of the audience1 with an abundance of water in the middle of the stage1 and at the back a panorama of the ,seine by ,asnires or ,meudon4 ,as it is1 with the material circumstances of the murder we are not for one moment invited to be concerned4 ,we are shown in one act the state of mind and feeling in which1 to two people who were perhaps not born to be villains1 such a solution as murder becomes possible2 we are shown in another the state of mind and feeling which1 in two such people1 may presumably succeed to that deed of violence of which they have been guilty4 ,the interest of these acts--different slightly from the interest of the later ones--is the interest of mental analysis2 and1 if these acts are melodrama1 ,the ,ring and the ,book is a #8shocker4' ,the intelligent1 unprejudiced person who goes to see ,thrse ,raquin1 comes away with the knowledge that he has witnessed an exposition of several bitter truths--an exposition made by ,m4 ,zola with power and with singleness of aim1 but here and there accompanied by a purposeless1 or at the least an unsuccessful1 diffuseness1 which is one of the most characteristic and abiding defects of this important writer's method4 ,this diffuseness1 this fulness of detail which is not actually illustrative and explanatory1 ,balzac1 who was ,zola's master1 had in a measure2 but he had it far less than ,zola4 ,a profuse employment of the commonplace1 in order that one may be #8natural'--this avoidance of selection and rejection1 when selection and rejection are of the very essence of ,art--commends itself1 as ,i understand1 to a little school of criticism1 or of dogmatism1 which has now found voice among us2 and that it does so is an entertaining evidence of the capacity of its professors for critical preachment4 7,academy1 #bdth ,october #ahia47 #8,,macbeth' ,,and ,,irving ,i question if ,macbeth can ever1 in the hands of any tragedian1 make the same mark as ,hamlet4 ,hamlet1 as far as the opportunities for the display of the one actor are concerned1 might almost have been written by an actor's playwright of our day1 bent on securing prominence for the #8star4' ,macbeth claims little of our sympathy4 ,most of us wonder more at his wife1 and care more for ,macduff4 ,but it is a point in ,henry ,irving's art1 as displayed in this play1 that he brings into such high relief all that ,macbeth had of noble1 or of the remains of noble3 reverence and awe2 indignation at crimes that seemed to him baser1 because they were done for pettier ends1 than his own2 admiration of courage in another1 and of character more resolute than his2 hesitation1 having gone so far1 to go yet further in the taking of innocent blood4 ,macbeth's attitude before the prayer of the grooms2 his righteous satire--#8your spirits shine through you'--on the hired murderers2 his invocation to his wife2 his almost tender and pitying warning to ,macduff-- #8,but get thee back3 my soul is too much charged ,with blood of thine already'-- all these things show one or other of the qualities that are good in him4 ,but other things1 of course1 showing the quite other qualities that have given ,macbeth a name1 are more conspicuous and abundant3 at all events are more upon the surface2 and the art is great that knows how to dwell on the sympathetic and worthy1 and that in doing so does much to modify the popular conception4 ,it may be true1 of course1 that the main thought of ,irving in ,macbeth is to show the deterioration of character through one crime that brings another2 but such deterioration is1 after all1 generally a gradual process1 and there is time1 while it is proceeding1 to show something of the higher nature with which the character began4 ,i think ,i note also1 in ,irving's ,macbeth1 an added emphasis1 not only on his belief in the supernatural1 but in the power of the supernatural over him4 ,the prophecy of the weird voices is more than ever a destiny4 ,his crimes are done under a spell4 ,he is moved to them from without1 by a something not himself1 making for ,evil4 ,and the hold that this force from without1 this supernatural power1 this sense of destiny1 this something not himself1 making for ,evil1 has upon him1 divides ,macbeth until the very end of the action of the play1 from such as his own hired murderers4 ,not that these1 indeed1 are set before us1 by ,shakespeare1 as quite voluntary cut-throats1 rejoicing in their profession2 but as men rendered desperate3 the one #8,whom the vile blows and buffets of the world ,have so incensed1 that ,i am reckless what ,i do to spite the world'3 the other1 less revengeful1 yet more weary1 #8,so weary with disasters1 tugg'd with fortune1 ,that ,i would set my life on any chance1 ,to mend it or be rid on 't4' ,of course no commonly intelligent actor could fail to indicate--for the play itself indicates it a hundred times--how much ,macbeth is separated from these1 originally2 but it does need some such a deep understanding of the character as seems to be ,irving's1 to indicate1 as time goes on1 the gradual sinking to that level of theirs--the fact that the distance that divided the one from the others at the time that the one would ponder regretfully that he #8could not say 8,amen0' when the grooms #8said 8,god bless us10' had shrunk to well-nigh nothing by the time when ,macbeth's first greeting to an arriving messenger must needs1 in his desperation1 be no milder than-- #8,the devil damn thee black1 thou cream-faced loon'-- words which recall the purposeless and exaggerated angers of impending frenzy--and when his final and bloody resolution-- #8,yet ,i will try the last1' is spoken to his foe with a savage hopelessness akin to the murderers' own4 ,and it is at least a suggestive and worthy1 if not at every point a complete2 stage performance that can display the half-repenting pathos of the first1 and the savagery of the last1 and the passages from crime to crime by which the transition is accomplished4 7,academy1 #bcrd ,december #ahgf47 #8,,the ,,duchess ,,of ,,malfi' ,the ,independent ,theatre has pleased a few1 and1 it is to be feared1 displeased many1 by its production of ,mr4 ,poel's version of ,the ,duchess of ,malfi4 ,but it is the ill-advised whom on one account or another it has now vexed2 it is the wisest whom it has at last done something to satisfy4 ,i said #8at last4' ,that was ungrateful4 ,for1 once1 at least1 before1 the ,independent ,theatre--eschewing mere eccentricity and the #8experimental' drama 7a pretty word1 very1 for the dull or the unseemly7--once before was it occupied with work of genius and high literary art1 or with work at all events by a writer whose genius1 here and there1 is not to be gainsaid4 ,did it not give us1 for a change1 what is at all events the lucid realism of ,m4 ,zola8 ,and now1 after a rgime more or less of the experimental and unnecessary1 we have again a great man's work4 ,the ,independent ,theatre has once more realised that to be revolutionary is not to be sufficing4 ,we have had a taste of ,webster--,webster1 it is true1 with the lime-light turned on at the appropriate moment2 ,webster with a skirt-dance2 ,webster with a measure of scenic effect1 dexterously shocking1 or dexterously entertaining1 as the case may be1 to the modern taste4 ,but still a classic--a giant in conception and writing--a strong tower in comparison with a puny earth-work4 ,excellently has ,mr4 ,swinburne said of him1 #8,there is no poet morally nobler than ,webster4' ,fearlessly has ,mr4 ,gosse asserted that ,the ,duchess of ,malfi is #8a masterpiece excelled only by ,king ,lear4' ,and1 if ,i take down my volumes of ,lamb's ,specimens1 ,i find that1 in a little footnote1 ,elia becomes most eloquent and most descriptive when he descants upon this play4 #8,to move a horror skilfully1 to touch a soul to the quick1 to lay upon fear as much as it can bear 444 this only a ,webster can do4' ,and again1 contrasting inferior writers with this potent if imperfect master1 #8,they know not how a soul is capable of being moved2 their terrors want dignity2 their affrightments are without decorum4' ,but ,webster1 with all his qualities1 had faults that were of his time1 along indeed with faults1 or deficiencies1 that were his own4 ,among the latter ,i would note some absence of clearness in exposition4 ,the relation of character to character1 the how and wherefore of the minor events--these things are not invariably made plain3 ,webster himself1 perhaps1 could hardly have passed creditably through a searching examination in them4 ,and among the faults1 or accidents1 if you will1 of his time1 were--one need hardly say it1 but that it affects his acceptability upon the modern stage--the permitted coarseness1 the absence of reticence on matters we are not accustomed to amplify and define2 and1 in mechanical arrangement1 the frequent shifting from scene to scene within the compass of a single act--a point in which no ,english dramatist1 as far as my remembrance carries me1 went wholly right1 until the trick had been learned from the ,french masters of construction of our own time4 ,mr4 ,poel1 in a version reverent and tasteful by the absence of additions1 has dealt with the deficiencies of ,webster's epoch with judgment and tenderness4 ,as far as it is possible to be so1 the piece is now what on the playbill it is asserted to be--#8rearranged for the modern stage4' ,and if the modern stage should turn out1 after these initial performances of the new version1 not quite willing to have it1 that will be not so much on account of the irrepressible horrors--the modern stage has no deep-seated aversion to them--as on account of the limited measure of interest which that stage displays in the achievements of ,writing1 in the noble dealing with almost baffling themes1 in the vigour and affluence of literary imagination and style4 ,the similes of ,webster--pregnant1 and less far-fetched than much of the imagery of his contemporaries--are rather lost upon a public and upon players who account inflation to be poetry and familiarity to be wit4 #8,cover her face2 mine eyes dazzle2 she died young1' is one among a hundred lines1 for instance1 in which a writer of stately simplicity--born writer1 rather than playwright--requires to be heard by those to whom the suggestive is sufficient3 requires1 in a word1 to be met half-way along his road4 ,then1 again1 though there are hints of lightness1 there is no touch of actual comedy4 ,and when the tortures so characteristic of the ,italian temperament--a temperament never more inventive than when spurred on by the motive of cruelty--when these are tried upon the long-suffering ,duchess--when crazy folk yell in an adjoining chamber1 and a hand that seems to her dead and cold is proffered to her where she expected a live one--an audience without imagination1 without historical knowledge1 versed only in the commonplace and the cockney1 titters1 it may be1 or becomes indifferent4 ,much of ,mr4 ,poel's best work went into the training of an intelligent company4 ,his rehearsing ensured a certain smoothness and expressiveness of general movement4 ,mr4 ,bassett ,roe bore himself with dignity and ease as the ,cardinal1 through whose influence--for such appears to be ,mr4 ,poel's reading of the situation--the forces of the ,church in its bad period1 the terrors of the ,inquisition1 are brought to bear upon the ill-fated ,duchess4 ,mr4 ,murray ,carson1 as ,daniel de ,bosola1 filled a great part well4 ,miss ,mary ,rorke1 with a dignified presence1 a rich voice completely at her service1 and an unusual sense of the simplicity of pathos1 was1 as the ,duchess1 an interesting and satisfactory figure4 ,and ,miss ,hall ,caine filled out to completeness1 by her intelligence and sunny1 sympathetic style1 the small part of ,cariola4 ,some people thought the #8,dance of ,death1' as ,mr4 ,arthur ,dillon--a learned1 helpful student of the time--had cleverly devised it1 was too horrible3 it had to me the fascination at once of the beautiful and the macabre4 ,horrors there were in the performance1 and in the piece1 of necessity2 but the ,independent ,theatre--sometimes too little in touch with the main-stream of ,english life and thought--may well permit itself to give a piece in which ,literature is burdened with horrors4 ,has it not more than once indulged its supporters with things in which horrors are unburdened with ,literature8 7,academy1 #bith ,october #ahib47 ,,rembrandt ,it is a bold thing to say1 but yet ,i think it is a true one1--and the saying is welcome to surprise the academic and conventional--that if the painted work of ,rembrandt did not exist at all1 and if his drawings were unknown1 the three hundred etchings that he wrought during some forty years of labour would assert for him1 amongst all capable judges1 a claim to that place1 precisely1 which he is now admitted to occupy4 ,it is not that in saying this ,i would underrate for a moment the skill of the pure colourist1 the dexterity of the juggler who plays with subtle hue1 the master of the material which is applied to prepared canvas2 but that if one asks oneself1 #8,what are the qualities1 really1 which in any ,art lead us to assign to the practitioner of it his particular and permanent station8' one finds shortly that one's answer has to be the following1 or something like it3 #8,the qualities are an alert freshness and comprehensiveness of spirit1 an individual vision of the world1 and the knowledge how best to wield the instrument by which that vision is expressed4' ,in the case of a writer1 language is the instrument1 and ,sterne's or ,molire's perception and sensitiveness are made evident in words4 ,in the case of a pictorial artist1 paint may be the instrument1 or water-colour1 or the humble but expressive pencil--or the instrument may be that which was ,rembrandt's more than any other's3 it may be the needle of the etcher4 ,i hope that1 in my enumeration of the qualities of intellect and craftsmanship that make for excellence in creative ,literature and in pictorial ,design1 ,i have cut the ground from under the feet of those who advocate the work of craftsmen merely--those who consider that in technique lies the end as well as the beginning of success4 ,even to the most casual of the students of the ,arts--to the most superficial observer of the means whereby the several performers may produce their effects1 in story1 drawing1 print--it can scarcely be necessary to say that a command of technique must be demanded by the severe and accurate judge4 ,but the genius of a man of the first order--a ,goethe1 ,coleridge1 ,balzac1 ,rembrandt1 ,turner--is1 as it seems to me1 misunderstood altogether1 if the flexibility and freshness of spirit and the originality of vision are not remembered and praised when we praise too the excellent command of technical means4 ,and in the case of ,rembrandt1 the character and charm of whose three hundred etchings are the theme of my discourse1 the first thing to take account of is that we have to deal not only with a conjurer of the brush and a magician of the needle1 but with a deep soul4 ,an me d'lite--that is the true phrase for it3 a being not above human faults1 but above average human excellence2 a reveller in pageantry1 who yet had a tender eye for the large lines of simple landscape2 an artist who1 with masculine perception of the import of material things1 was alive1 constantly and keenly1 also to the concerns of the spirit2 a judge of character1 who understood and who dissected all that he portrayed2 a man of feeling1 who rendered to the full the pathos of age1 of suffering1 and of ,death--who somehow rendered also1 as in the wistful portrait of the ,prince of ,orange1 the incommunicable pathos of ,youth4 ,over all ,rembrandt's work1 from the beginning to the end of it1 as much on canvas as in drawing1 as much in drawing as in etching1 there reigns an absolute sincerity4 ,it was himself that he expressed4 ,warped by no prejudice1 modified by no fashion1 his art1 during the generation and a half in which he did his joyful labour--in the midst of personal triumph1 in the midst1 too1 of personal disaster--recorded his own unaffected perception of the outward world and his own profound vision of the souls and the experiences of men4 ,to study his work1 therefore1 is1 if we have the wit1 to have the opportunity to glean from it that which it is open to us to glean always from the greatest ,classics--the richer harvest of a familiarity not alone with technical achievement1 but with the great1 deep way of apprehending ,life and the world4 ,from youth to age1 with art delightful and supreme1 ,rembrandt expressed himself in ,etching4 ,one of his first prints--the subject known to many by ,wilson's title of it1 #8,head of a ,woman lightly etched'--is the earliest of his known portraits of his mother2 and that shows already mastery of character and mastery of line1 as the lady1 with the pardonable vanity of the handsome1 the pardonable self-appreciation of one who was scarcely less a woman of the world because she was bourgeoise by station1 smiles her sagacious1 kindly1 genial smile1 and lives with ,whistler's #8,portrait of his ,mother1' with ,holbein's #8,erasmus1' with ,latour's pastels that glow sober yet vivid on the walls of the ,museum of ,saint-,quentin4 ,it is a sketch1 and consummate4 ,his very last print--so it is generally accepted--is that #8,woman with the ,arrow' which1 unless the place be given to the print often called #8,ngresse couche1' is the most tolerable of his nudities4 ,it is not faultless in draughtsmanship2 or1 if it is faultless in draughtsmanship1 then how deficient was the model in perfection of form6 ,but1 in a fine impression--and in ,etching1 if the impression be not fine1 the work does not exist--how alive is the figure6 ,the flesh1 how supple6 ,the pose--the grace of the faulty4 ,the light1 how glowing1 and the shade1 how velvety6 ,you forgive--it may be rather that you scarcely notice--the inexplicable mixture of realism with the classic4 ,the side of a bed1 the young thing sitting on it3 ,degas might have conceived the figure thus4 ,but it is not pure realism1 for she holds an arrow--suggests some light allegory1 as much1 save for her imperfections1 as some nudity of ,titian's or ,tintoret's--just that touch of the ,classic1 that one remove from the actual1 ,rembrandt's tribute to an art inspired by higher thought1 by fancy more elegant1 than any that it was the privilege1 generally1 of the art of ,amsterdam to show4 ,between that early etching1 the first of his mother's portraits1 and this final one1 his last record of the body1 to which he has imparted a slimmer charm than the charm that belonged unquestionably to ,hendrickje ,stoffels1 the young and sympathetic companion of his later years--recorded1 opulent and somewhat sensuous1 in the great ,edinburgh picture1--the range of ,rembrandt1 in about three hundred prints1 is almost inconceivably great4 ,several of his plates1 and these not really the least attractive1 are1 like the rare sheet of studies1 with the portrait of ,rembrandt himself 7,no4 #hb in the catalogue of ,mr4 ,middleton-,wake71 so to put it1 thumb-nail sketches as he passed upon his way and was struck and interested by this or that countenance1 this or that gesture4 ,many deal with ,sacred ,subjects1 and invariably with a directness1 a homeliness1 one might say almost1 that is his alone4 ,it would have been impossible so to have conceived the incidents of ,bible ,story if ,rembrandt had not so profoundly believed in them4 ,the conventional and perfunctory are altogether banished4 ,and though1 for reasons that the present place would not perhaps be quite the fittest for dwelling on1 the ,sacred ,subjects of this great ,dutch master do not attract or charm as the portraits and the landscapes do1 there is yet in them a world of material for serious study3 in them invention and imagination enrich a treatment fortified already by closeness of observation4 ,his mind is stored2 his spirit is devout4 ,in the #8,death of the ,virgin' he takes advantage of tradition--gives us therefore not only ,st4 ,joseph moved at his loss1 ,st4 ,luke with hand on wrist as feeling the pulse of the dying1 but 7as ,mr4 ,middleton-,wake reminds us7 a company of ,apostles1 brought miraculously1 legend says1 from distant missions2 and1 above1 are angels and cherubim4 ,a religious composition better known to the public1 is the #8,christ healing the ,sick1' or1 as it is called often1 #8,the ,hundred-,guilder ,print4' ,it got that latter name because1 during that portion of his life in which ,rembrandt was popular1 the then substantial sum of a hundred guilders was wont to be obtained for it1 when1 out of ,rembrandt's studio1 an impression of it was sold4 ,its intense reality and homely pathos--the qualities in it which have influenced1 so greatly1 later and now living etchers1 like ,legros and ,william ,strang--gave it immediate value4 ,and since those days a fine impression has always had its price1 though it should be said here that the difference in money value1 established more particularly in our own generation1 between a fine impression of the most rare #8,first ,state' of this plate and the less rare but often as desirable #8,second1' is a fantastic difference1 dependent only upon relative difficulty of acquisition4 ,thank goodness1 even now a twenty-pound note will buy sometimes a most desirable ,rembrandt etching4 ,a couple of hundred guineas is required to buy a fine impression of the ,second ,state of the #8,hundred ,guilder'2 and of a ,first ,state1 could it come into the market1 there is every reason for knowing that two thousand pounds would be about the ransom4 ,in various branches of his practice1 ,rembrandt's fame is about equally dependent on picture1 drawing1 and original print2 but ,i take leave to ask the reader to impress upon his mind that in one branch1 the branch of ,landscape1 that is not so at all4 ,lord ,lansdowne's #8,mill1' a famous landscape at ,cassel1 and a few other landscapes scattered about collections private and public1 could not1 however undeniable their art and however complete their charm1 secure for ,rembrandt that exalted place amongst the makers of ,landscape which the drawings give1 and which is given yet more by the etchings4 ,it may be asked1 naturally enough1 #8,why were ,rembrandt's painted landscapes so few--his mastery being so great8' ,the answer is1 that like our own ,gainsborough's1 a century later1 they were painted1 most of them1 for his own personal delight4 ,the painted landscape of ,rembrandt could not have been warmly appreciated by a generation that made difficult the life of ,hobbema1 and that extended welcome less to ,wynants and ,de ,koninck than to the ,dutchmen who had become ,italianised in theme and treatment4 ,how1 then1 about the drawings and the etchings8 ,well1 the truth is1 with these it mattered little4 ,the drawings were generally masterly brief studies4 ,in the case of the etchings even1 hours1 not weeks1 for the most part--a day and not a month--had been bestowed on the performance4 ,for ,rembrandt1 with at least some other sources of income1 it was enough to have had the delight of execution2 and then1 here and there a friend--the ,burgomaster ,six perhaps1 or ,uytenbogaert1 the ,receiver-,general to the ,states of ,holland--would want an impression or so4 ,there was the little sketch #8,six's ,bridge'--a decisive1 plain-sailing1 by no means particularly picturesque record of the wooden way whose name is associated with ,rembrandt's lifelong friend4 ,there is the #8,goldweigher's ,field'--his estate1 rather3 the estate of ,uytenbogaert1 lying a few miles from ,amsterdam2 its pavilion and ornamental water1 the surrounding lands1 the modest1 heathy uplands1 the trees and towers1 a bird's-eye view1 a very panorama of slightly undulating plain that stretches to the ,zuyder ,zee4 ,of ,rembrandt's etched landscapes--which are rare generally--this is one of the rarer1 one of the more important4 ,art like that does not captivate at just the first glance at it2 but1 with knowledge1 comes a deep appreciation of the vision and the chronicle4 ,two other landscapes ,i should wish to name as at least the equals of this one1 and both of them1 it may be1 are easier to receive1 easier for the little-trained eye to enjoy promptly4 ,one is the #8,large ,landscape with a ,cottage and ,dutch ,hay-barn'2 the other is the #8,landscape with a ,ruined ,tower4' ,the first is a record of sunshine2 the second1 of the more dramatic weather that threatens storm4 ,the first is the more intricate4 ,little in keeping with the fashions of our moment1 in the art of landscape1 is it to present within the limits of a single composition a view so varied and so elaborately wrought4 ,but ,rembrandt1 even more than ,turner1 could achieve without any loss of unity of impression the presentation or suggestion of every fact of the scene2 and the piece remains #8modern1' though a ,classic4 ,the #8,landscape with a ,ruined ,tower'--broad1 decisive1 concentrated--is1 in a sense1 an anticipation of the method of ,constable3 the interest lying less in formal elegance of line or placid light than in the strong realisation of the forces of ,nature--a vivid broad illumination and an ominous shadow1 and the expression of these exalting somehow the features of an everyday land1 as emotion transfigures a face4 ,the #8tower1' the close observer may inform me--thinking of the title--is not #8ruined'2 for here is its domed roof4 ,yes1 but the domed roof is in the ,first ,state only1 and that is so rare that it is doubtful if it had ever been examined by the cataloguer who bestowed upon the etching the name by which it is still known4 ,although the etched ,landscape of ,rembrandt1 in its singular union of simplicity and learning1 in the close1 uncustomary alliance of ,style with personal impression1 stands well-nigh alone1 and suffices as the basis of a reputation as great as ,titian's1 ,claude's1 or ,poussin's--and one which now1 with only slight and temporary declension1 has endured for two hundred years--we have yet to give consideration to his triumph in that branch of ,art with which1 in the mind of the average educated person1 he is more generally identified--,i mean ,portraiture3 which means to some the taking of superficial likeness1 and to some the revelation of character4 ,for this reason and that1 every industrious and thoughtful1 as well as every careless1 student of pictorial ,art1 has his own favourites in ,portraiture3 there is our pride in ,reynolds1 our joy in ,gainsborough1 our wonder at the magic of ,velasquez1 our steady confidence in truth when ,holbein is the draughtsman1 our grave and brooding satisfaction over the august portraiture of the ,venetians4 ,but ,rembrandt unites men's suffrages--carries with him even those who admire most warmly this painter's unswerving veracity and that one's fluent grace4 ,and as one thinks what was the human material which furnished elements for the creations of ,rembrandt--the old men and the women and the youths of ,amsterdam--one thinks all the more1 how exalted was the vision1 and yet how firmly with his feet on earth stood the man to whom it was vouchsafed6 ,over and over again1 the needle1 as the brush1 of ,rembrandt1 has been occupied with a face which had no beauty--at all events no formal beauty--that we should desire him4 ,he has given it interest and dignity--dignity without a touch of the artificial or pretentious2 the dignity of the individual soul in its best hours4 ,he did this more or less at all times1 but he did it more markedly in his later time than in his earlier2 for1 wonderful as was the completeness of ,rembrandt's art within its self-set limits in even his earliest time1 he had1 in common with most of the greatest of creative and critical intellects1 that gift of long development1 of steady progression4 ,rembrandt was no juvenile prodigy4 ,as time passed1 as experience gathered1 as misfortunes saddened--at all events in certain lonely hours--the spirit of a man of whom upon the whole indeed it may be said1 he #8rose distinct ,above slave-sorrows1 to his chariot linked1' ,rembrandt's command of the instruments of his employment became only more complete1 if also his method was more summary4 ,more and more sonorous were the notes he uttered1 and the vox humana stop1 which is absent in colder craftsmen1 sounded with increased frequency and more assured appeal4 ,of course in ,portraiture1 though he succeeds always1 he succeeds best when his themes are the best4 ,with the exception of #8,clment de ,jonghe1' with the exception of #8,lutma1' with the exception perhaps of #8,jan ,six'--etched by him many years before he wrought the noble painted portrait which is owned still by a descendant of its sitter 7,mr4 ,six van ,hillegom of ,amsterdam7--,rembrandt is most profoundly interesting1 most penetrating1 most sympathetic1 when it is this or that member of his own family who serves as his model4 ,once or twice at least he portrayed the features of his son2 several times those of his mother1 whom in the #8,mre de ,rembrandt au voile noir' he records in an hour of austere and guarded meditation1 as in the #8,head of a ,woman lightly etched' he records her in the relaxation of social ease4 ,many times1 in drawing1 print1 and picture1 he portrayed his wife1 ,saskia--in moods that seemed to vary with his own3 now perched upon his knee1 in the ,dresden canvas of almost aggressive buoyancy and self-satisfaction2 now demure and pretty1 in a ,berlin drawing2 now radiant and almost stately in the #8,great ,jewish ,bride1' so it is said--though ,i find least witness of her here--now the healthy1 blameless animal of ,mrs4 ,joseph's golden canvas2 now the sick1 worn woman1 with vitality gone1 eye dimmed1 life surely ebbing1 of the lovely and pathetic little etching which ,sir ,seymour ,haden was1 ,i think1 the first to christen #8,the ,dying ,saskia4' ,but oftener than he depicted any member of his family--and oftener much than he thought fit to give expression to the cordial youthful face and ample contours of ,hendrickje ,stoffels1 the agreeable consolation of his age--he had recourse to his own countenance4 ,in the great series of what the ,germans call #8self-portraits' we may trace the changes in his air from spirited youth to burdened years4 ,to-day he is comely1 clean1 and fit4 ,to-morrow1 after a night of revelry1 it may be--for from few human experiences did ,rembrandt1 any more than ,goethe1 stand aside--he is haggard and #8to pieces4' ,then he is proud in cap and feather2 he buckles on his sword4 ,or1 aged a little1 he paints himself in loose gown1 palette in hand1 it may be1 and mahl-stick at his side4 ,then1 heavy and stooping1 baggy below the eyes1 with mouth tender yet saddened1 trouble has come upon him from all the ends of the earth4 ,he totters1 scarcely yet irresolute1 but weighed down certainly by years and sorrows2 his wife long gone2 his fame obscured2 his means narrow2 and1 save for the sustaining power of his art1 and one hopes1 at least1 for the consolation of one deep affection1 anxiety in all his hours4 ,we will not leave him like this--though like this we find him in ,lord ,iveagh's immortal picture1 and in one or two representations of kindred character in ,vienna and at ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,we will leave him happy in his drawing4 ,it is an etching of scarcely surpassable interest1 existing in many #8,states'--a print to be avoided in the later1 which are flat and expressionless2 to be cherished in all the earlier1 of which the first is rarest and most vigorous4 ,see its slashing directness4 ,with blow to left and blow to right1 so to say it1 on the copper1 he hacks his way triumphantly and speedily to his goal4 ,he is the master of all methods4 ,here1 as in so much besides1 he has been broad and rapid4 ,in the #8,burgomaster ,six'--which has something of the quality of a mezzotint--how tender and how slow6 ,in the #8,clment de ,jonghe'--the printseller of ,amsterdam--how large yet subtle6 ,he is the master of many an instrument4 ,we can apply to him the phrase1 and the implied eulogy1 of ,robert ,browning--he #8blows through brass1' but he can #8breathe through silver4' 7,pall ,mall ,magazine1 ,december #ahih47 ,,dutch ,,seventeenth ,,century ,,drawings ,the drawings1 the studies1 of the ,italian ,schools1 and of all ,schools besides1 have these sources of interest1 always admitted--they reveal to us1 as studies must1 the personal thought of the master in his theme1 and they may often be identified as preparations for some long recognised picture with whose history we are henceforth to be the better acquainted4 ,but some among the drawings of the ,dutch ,school1 though coming late indeed in the procession of the world's ,art1 are still the earliest to possess for us that different and self-contained interest which belongs to work done for its proper sake1 itself realising the intention with which it was begun1 and so1 in the first form in which it comes down to us1 at once final and complete4 ,the ,school of ,holland--that northern ,school to which at last1 in the great ,seventeenth ,century1 supremacy in ,art had moved--was perhaps the first to adequately feel the value of those immediate impressions which the ,italians and the early ,flemish had recognised chiefly to control1 to alter1 to enlarge4 ,and in the many methods of their ,art1 the masters of ,holland sought to perpetuate for the beholders of their work the impressions which to themselves who recorded them had perhaps been as fleeting as vivid4 ,sketches in oil1 sketches in water-colour1 sketches in chalk1 in bistre1 and with the reed pen1 and sketches with the etching needle--these all1 in the hands of the great ,dutchmen1 were not merely studies for themselves1 but possessions for their public1 just as expressive and interesting as work more prolonged and elaborate4 ,therefore the amount of finish which each of such finished sketches received was not the important matter3 with the greatest artists the amount was often but small3 they knew that the important matter was the sufficiency of finish--its capacity for conveying to one mind the impression received by another4 ,and it is characteristic of ,dutch ,art1 and especially of ,dutch ,landscape ,art1 that it had no period of painful and tentative labour1 like that during which the art of earlier schools had had to struggle slowly towards freedom of expression4 ,profiting no doubt by the experience of the ,past1 and the recent ,past especially of ,bruges and of ,leyden1 it gained almost at once the power of finish always expressive1 always economical1 yet often very swift and summary4 ,the work of its earliest masters--,roghman say1 and ,van ,goyen--has neither pettiness of manipulation when it is most delicate1 nor uncertainty when it is most rapid4 ,the signs of an art mature and masculine--economy of means1 decision of hand--are promptly upon it4 ,roghman1 it appears1 made few pictures1 but many drawings4 ,there are five-and-twenty in the ,museum of ,rotterdam alone4 ,his drawings must have been acceptable to the public of his day1 and they show that a public then existed capable of the intelligent interpretation of the work of an artist who left much to be interpreted4 ,van ,goyen1 if he did not make many drawings1 painted many pictures with at least as marked an economy of means as he has used in the few drawings we know4 ,his science of large design and the expressive completeness of his gradations of tone1 enabled him--often in picture and drawing alike--to dispense with the easier attraction of various colour1 so that even a modern master of colour1 ,thodore ,rousseau1 was wont to hold him up as a model to his own pupils4 ,van ,goyen travelled1 and ,roghman travelled1 but their art1 like that of ,rembrandt--their younger and greater contemporary1 who remained at home--continued to be not an imported art1 but an art of the soil2 and it was only at a later period that the experience of travel1 and the contact with an art very different from their own1 were to bring to the ,dutchmen a new method with a false ideal4 ,there was first the true ,dutch time1 rich and fertile--a time in which ,van ,goyen painted1 with a seeming monotony always delicately varied1 the long river banks1 the low-lying towns1 and the great high skies of ,holland2 in which ,cuyp fixed interest on the common aspects of the afternoon fields1 steaming in moist sunshine2 in which ,adrian van ,ostade passed from the vulgarities of the alehouse to the skilfully rendered charm of the cottage door and the bench in the sunlight2 in which ,jan ,steen perfected himself in as keen and comprehensive a knowledge of the world of men as ,art has ever displayed2 and in which ,rembrandt contentedly imaged ,dutch life and landscape1 always with nearly equal vigour1 nearly equal artistic precision1 though at one time in a style that formed the style of ,gerard ,dow and at another in one that was inherited by ,philip de ,koningh or by ,nicholas ,maas4 ,there were various local centres for these various workers and their works4 ,leyden itself was a centre--the birthplace of ,rembrandt1 the birthplace of ,van ,goyen4 ,the ,hague became a centre1 and ,van ,goyen removed to it2 ,amsterdam a centre1 and ,rembrandt was a leader there4 ,but ,haarlem was the favourite1 and probably because of the privileges that belonged to the ,guild of ,st4 ,luke--,st4 ,luke1 the painters' patron saint--which was established in that town4 ,the ,guild of ,st4 ,luke at ,haarlem has left us valuable records--not indeed the raciest1 but certainly among the most trustworthy we can hope to have access to--upon ,dutch ,art1 which has wanted always1 and wants to-day1 a trustworthy general historian4 ,laurens ,van der ,winne 7as the ,dutch writer1 ,m4 van der ,willigen1 tells us1 in his ,artistes d',harlem71 towards the end of the seventeenth century1 made a list of one hundred and seventy-four men who in his time were all reputed as good painters1 and whom he had personally known4 ,his son1 in #agjb1 after the father's death1 noted that of these only sixteen were then living2 and the grandson1 possessing himself of manuscript books and account-books of the period1 was able to enlarge the list of early members of the ,guild1 and to add to our knowledge of its laws4 #8,no one without the pale of the ,society could sell or introduce his pictures4 ,many painters thus found themselves obliged to join the brotherhood in order to enjoy its advantages4 ,every year two sales were announced by the officer of the ,society2 each member could bring to the sale whatever he desired to sell4' #8,many painters were attracted to the town1' for lesser or longer periods2 but1 though many painters contributed to the ,guild1 #8it appears1' writes the ,haarlem citizen1 #8that they did not all live here4' ,notwithstanding the advantages of the ,guild1 the profession of painting was not lucrative for the many4 ,even the busiest and most prolific artists1 like ,wouvermans1 were debtors sometimes to men who befriended them4 ,others were so indigent that they must needs be excused their payment of the yearly moneys to the brotherhood4 ,in #affa1 ,frans ,hals1 the greatest of the ,haarlem masters1 found himself in this circumstance4 ,haarlem1 since his death1 has happily delighted to honour him4 ,the art of ,holland1 like the national life1 saw many vicissitudes during that eventful ,seventeenth ,century2 and the second half of the century brought changes of taste and fashion1 which cast for a while into the shade even such supreme art as the art of ,rembrandt4 ,leaders of social opinion were not proof against the attractions of the work of ,both and ,berghem1 which sacrificed so much that it might gain1 as it did gain1 the outland charm of southern colour and southern light2 and the friend of ,rembrandt1 ,jan ,six1 as one of many1 showed himself in the later years of the century a convert to that newer and brilliant but bastard art4 ,by the time that ,cuyp and ,wynants had died old and ,adrian ,van de ,velde had died young--when the seventeenth century was entering its fourth quarter--there remained among the home-bred landscape painters hardly one to hold his own against the newer fashion4 ,hobbema1 it is true1 worked on1 with great and patient fidelity1 but he worked unregarded and died poor4 ,and in other branches of ,art1 after this time1 the school declined4 ,william ,van de ,velde and ,backhuysen--the two great painters of the sea and the fleet--had had a worthy precursor in ,renier ,zeeman1 but they had no worthy successors4 ,the best painters of gentle life and of the life of the tavern were falling away4 ,in the comparatively humble but yet delightful field of #8still life1' only1 could the early years of the ,eighteenth ,century surpass the achievements of fifty years before4 ,the admired painter of flowers1 ,jan ,van ,huysum--whose drawings are seen in large numbers at the ,british ,museum1 and whose work is known1 perhaps1 at its best and boldest in his drawings--then arose4 ,he was one of a whole family of flower and fruit painters2 and not the only one who gave some excuse for the ecstasy of a ,french novelist who was also a connoisseur4 ,balzac declared of him that his work would hardly be paid for if it were covered with diamonds4 ,but ,michael1 his kinsman1 was perhaps almost as worthy of that praise4 ,to their work succeeded1 far on in the ,eighteenth ,century1 the vulgar mimicry of ,van ,os1 with the colours of the chromo-lithograph4 ,and as to ,landscape ,art--that1 free once more from ,italian influence1 was indeed natural and ,dutch again in its aim1 with ,van ,stry especially2 but in its practice it insisted rather upon the importance of detail than upon the value of effect4 ,jacob ,cats carried to its last length the trivial elaboration which had become the fashion of his day4 ,the virtue had gone out of ,dutch ,art1 and ,dutch ,art faded imperceptibly into modern painting4 ,it was one of the characteristics of the great men of the ,renaissance1 that they tried many arts and were masters of many4 ,it was one of the characteristics of the ,seventeenth ,century ,dutchmen1 that they tried many branches of ,art1 and were masters of all that they tried4 ,supreme in technicalities of painting and in technicalities of etching1 they were the first to use with any large effect the medium of water-colour1 and their use of that1 in a manner not tentative and occasional1 like ,drer's1 but often familiar and accomplished as our own 7of our great last generation71 is shown by many drawings4 ,coloured sketches assigned to ,rembrandt1 doubtless on good foundation1 are in the collections of the ,british ,museum and of ,m4 ,j4 ,de ,vos1 a veteran collector at ,amsterdam2 and on our ,burlington ,club walls--not to speak of the wonderful pen drawings1 so decisive at once and free--is a sketch of a city gate1 from the collection of ,seymour ,haden1 a sketch in which line counts for little1 and the effect is sought and gained by tender gradations of tinting in monochrome4 ,probably of the same period are the two drawings in which ,philip ,de ,koningh1 who in landscape came nearest to ,rembrandt1 has used his orange-browns with subtle variation1 to portray his wonted effects of infinite distance4 ,colour1 or it may be a wash of sepia1 used by ,rembrandt and by ,de ,koningh chiefly to suggest distance or tone1 is used by ,berghem more often to suggest the pleasantness and warmth of sunlight1 which were so precious to him1 and were the charm of his art4 ,his artificial but agreeable landscape of ordered valley and well-disposed mountain and happy peasant of the opera1 is represented notably by one of the many splendid drawings belonging to ,malcolm of ,poltalloch--a delicately coloured design1 airy and sunny almost as ,de ,koningh's best paintings1 and to be noticed1 not only for the extreme rarity of such work in water-colour at that time and by that master1 but also for its foretaste of the subtlety with which our own great art of water-colour learned1 so many generations afterwards1 to reach atmospheric effects4 ,but it was in the painting of interiors that the resources of the art of water-colour were used most fully by the ,dutchmen1 and they were used only most fully in the old age of ,berghem1 and after the death of ,rembrandt1 when ,adrian van ,ostade1 himself now old1 had come from ,haarlem to ,amsterdam1 and they were used best by that master of ignoble conception and often repulsive work4 ,the special virtues of ,ostade--accomplished management of light and shade1 and faultless composition of mean subjects--an instinct1 that is1 for the spacing out1 the perfectly balanced filling1 the never crowding1 of his given area of paper or canvas--have long ago been acknowledged2 and his sense of beauty in colour and beauty in grouping1 and beauty indeed sometimes in line1 in inanimate things1 has gone far to atone for that vulgar indifference to charm of figure and face1 common indeed to many of the ,dutchmen1 but ,ostade's to an exceptional degree4 ,drawings of ,mr4 ,malcolm's and ,mr4 ,cook's show him1 once for all1 the consummate practitioner of a branch of art1 the precedence in which--the invention of which1 almost--our own country has liked to claim4 ,rich and mellow1 tender and luminous1 beyond all that has thus far been acknowledged1 was the best work of ,ostade in his old age1 in the ,english art of water-colour4 ,dusart followed him in elaboration of work1 but not at all in felicitous adaptation of the means to the end4 ,there are naturally certain masters rightly famed for their work in oil painting1 who are seen at a disadvantage in drawings1 whether by pen or chalk or washes of colour4 ,it is not all who gave to their smaller designs1 with whatever purpose of immediate sale1 completion so brilliant and expressive as that which we see1 for instance1 in a little red chalk drawing of ,wouvermans--a group of figures1 horses and dogs--a sharply finished work1 exquisite in its possession of every quality for which the master may be praised4 ,again1 some men dependent on glow of colour or gradations of tone beyond the art of limited material1 or at least beyond their command of it--,cuyp1 for instance--might be judged hardly by drawings4 ,the pleasantness of ,cuyp is not in his drawings4 ,and then there are the great masters of one generation1 who have not been great masters at all in another3 their excellence1 seen late1 escaped the appreciation of their contemporaries or of their immediate successors4 ,fashions in art change1 and ,van der ,heist1 exalted by ,sir ,joshua above ,rembrandt1 drops later to his proper place4 ,each age1 we may be sure1 has something right in its criticism3 the great ,sir ,joshua himself1 who thought that #8,bruges afforded but scanty entertainment to a painter1'--,bruges1 with its masterpieces of the sacred art of ,memling--had the keenness to see the style and the beauty under the orgies of ,jan ,steen4 ,but to this inevitable variation and inconstancy of taste is due1 alas6 much permanent loss--things that were treasures once being now not to be guarded1 or things of no account until now1 being treasures for to-day4 ,and the loss is felt most surely in the case of drawings--so short a period of neglect being enough to destroy them4 ,it may be that certain artists unrepresented in collections1 or represented inadequately1 drew very little4 ,all did not multiply studies with the fertility of ,william ,van de ,velde2 but all must have drawn1 and the work of some is missing to us4 ,the flying sheets of long unvalued artists1 on which ,hobbema pencilled the forms of many trees1 with a patient precision which in modern art only ,crome has equalled--on which ,wynants drew his narrow path1 wandering over the sandhills or by the side of the farm--on which ,jan ,steen caught the rare girl's prettiness and the last subtleties of vivacious gesture--on which ,de ,hooch or ,metsu drew tenderly faces of grave quietude1 absorbed in daily and common occupation--these flying sheets1 one fears1 were dust and refuse two hundred years ago4 7,introduction to ,burlington ,club ,catalogue1 ,april #ahgh47 ,,velasquez ,,at ,,the ,,new ,,gallery ,a collection of ,spanish ,art at the ,new ,gallery contains such representation as it has been possible to acquire of ,murillo1 ,ribera1 and ,zurbaran--and even of the artists of our own century3 ,goya1 ,madrazo1 ,fortuny--but nothing that vies for a moment in attractiveness and vitality with the work of ,velasquez4 ,unfortunately1 it does not include two of the most important of those canvases of ,velasquez which have a resting-place in ,england--,mr4 ,bankes's priceless #8document' 7for it is that and something besides71 the first study1 we mean1 at ,kingston ,lacy1 for the great ,madrid picture of #8,las ,meninas1' and the yet more important1 because the even more exceptional and more perfected picture1 the astonishing #8,venus1' whose home for many years has been at a small country house upon the borders of two counties in the ,north4 ,the sketch--the oil sketch1 for ,velasquez never made preparatory drawings--the sketch of #8,las ,meninas' would have recalled appropriately the composition1 and conveyed something of the character of a mature masterpiece whose actual presence can never be looked for here2 and the recumbent #8,venus' would have shown an almost austere artist winning for once an easy triumph in the treatment of a luxurious theme1 more properly1 or more habitually1 ,titian's4 ,but1 as it is1 the representation of ,velasquez1 in ,regent ,street1 affords ground for study4 ,we could wish1 for our own part1 that decorative1 even symmetrical1 arrangement had been discarded1 and that the master's works1 as far as they are here1 had been seen close together1 with no distracting juxtaposition of paintings of a secondary rank4 ,to have ranged the ,velasquez canvases in order of date would have been at least to have facilitated reference and to have assisted observation4 ,nothing1 perhaps1 is earlier1 among the canvases of ,velasquez now shown1 than the large1 somewhat straggling picture--with perfect composition yet to learn--of a #8,peasant ,boy ,feeding ,fowls4' ,it comes from ,ireland1 and is lent by ,lady ,gregory4 ,it does not1 in every particular1 want breadth of treatment3 it is broader in treatment1 indeed1 than some things which may presumably have been painted not very long after it4 ,the vigour of perception1 the realistic outlook upon life1 the point of view1 in fact1 is hardly less characteristic than in work avowedly mature2 yet1 to pass on from it to painting of the first ,madrid1 rather than of the ,seville1 period1 is to move into the presence of a much greater accomplishment4 ,before taking another step1 however1 it may be well to glance at one picture like it in subject1 and1 it is scarcely too much to say1 even richer in handling--a picture not ,velasquez's at all1 yet a link in the chain of his history1 for it is the work of his first master1 whose harsh temper drove the youth from his painting-room--,herrera el ,viejo3 it is a broad and finely treated representation of a bird upon the wing--#8,a ,partridge4' ,this is one among the many interesting loans of ,sir ,clare ,ford1 whose opportunities of study have been exceptional1 and whose devotion to ,velasquez himself is indeed hereditary4 ,the ,duke of ,wellington is the owner of what seems to be the first picture by ,velasquez of whose history there is authentic record4 ,we saw it at the ,royal ,academy1 one winter1 in bygone years4 ,it is called the #8,water-,carrier1' or #8,el ,corno1 ,aquador de ,sevilla1' and it represents1 with a force and luminousness already extraordinary1 a man in tattered brown doublet1 bearing in one hand the large earthen jar1 and1 with the other1 tendering a glass of water to a boy standing beside a table4 ,it is recorded in the inventory of ,buen ,retiro1 all but two hundred years ago4 ,since then its fortunes have been various4 ,the picture figured amongst the impedimenta of ,joseph ,bonaparte in his flight from ,madrid1 but at the rout of ,vittoria it was captured from his carriage1 and ,ferdinand ,,vii4 afterwards gave it to the ,great ,duke4 ,sir ,charles ,robinson contributes an illustration of the story of ,jael and ,sisera1 painted1 possibly1 about #afbc--;a composition in which1 it is said1 there is to be discerned a portrait of the ,conde ,duque ,olivarez 7who at that period summoned ,velasquez to ,madrid71 and a posthumous portrait of the ,duke of ,alva2 and it is suggested that there may be in this canvas an allegorical reference to the assassination of ,william the ,silent4 ,two figures are in armour4 ,at ,madrid1 we believe1 there are three suits of armour of the ,duke of ,alva's--there are ten of ,charles the ,fifth's4 ,a typical group of the earlier work of the master may be said almost to end with the presentment of the veteran #8,spanish ,beggar1' belonging to ,sir ,francis ,cook1 and1 as it would seem1 somewhat unnecessarily questioned by such an industrious authority as ,justi1 who considers that it is the work of a ,fleming4 ,not even the most audacious of assailants has ventured to throw doubt upon the portrait of #8,quevedo'--a head and shoulders1 black and deep brown-grey--the poet wearing conspicuously those thick and dark-rimmed glasses which1 by reason of too assiduous study1 he is reported never for a moment after middle life to have been able to dispense with4 ,with ,mr4 ,huth's portrait of ,philip the ,fourth1 a full-length1 life-size figure1 and with the portrait of ,don ,balthasar1 the eldest son of a monarch who would appear to have spent an appreciable portion of his lifetime in the painting-room of ,velasquez1 the artist reaches the hill-top--a summit1 fortunately1 from which1 even to the end of his days1 he was not destined to descend4 ,the #8,don ,balthasar' is the possession of the ,duke of ,westminster4 ,it shows the child in a costume enriched with gold and silver1 mounted upon a prancing pony1 in the courtyard of the palace2 and finely painted as the face is1 the picture1 as a whole1 illustrates the justice of ,mr4 ,r4 ,m4 ,stevenson's contention that in the outdoor full-length portraits1 in which ensemble1 and atmosphere1 realised background even1 a sense of the presence of the actual world1 must needs count for so much1 there is not to be looked for that searching and intimate treatment of the visage which ,velasquez reserved in the main for works which were studies of the head alone4 ,and if the ,duke of ,westminster's #8,don ,balthasar' 7not to speak of the ,queen's well-known and splendid representation of the boy7 illustrates this--a subordination of the personal portrayal to the general effect--so the very perfection of the study of individuality is evidenced in one or two of the portraits of ,philip's second wife1 ,mariana of ,austria1 and in that unsurpassable achievement1 the ,duke of ,wellington's half-length1 or head and shoulders1 of ,innocent the ,tenth4 ,it is probable that in more than one of the portraits of ,mariana--those in which she is depicted at full-length--much of the painting of her raiment is due to the hand of some pupil of the master's4 ,but by ,velasquez wholly1 as we should surmise1 is ,sir ,francis ,cook's bust of the little lady1 and this is the earliest of her portraits here1 and is succeeded by ,mr4 ,cuthbert ,quilter's three-quarters length1 and by ,sir ,clare ,ford's extraordinarily fresh and vigorous and thorough rendering of the girl in much the same manner4 ,greatest of all1 perhaps1 for colour1 character1 and--there is no other word for it--#8modernness1' or actuality1 is the #8,innocent the ,tenth4' ,it belongs to the ,duke of ,wellington4 ,seven years ago we paid it1 at the ,old ,masters1 our tribute of homage4 ,it is one of several treatments of the same dignitary1 wrought by ,velasquez after that voyage to ,italy in which the artist had ,spinola for companion4 ,but it is one of the most genuine and one of the most intact2 and perhaps it is but by an error of phrase that it is described as a #8repetition' of the picture at the ,hermitage4 ,in it1 at all events1 the finest qualities of masculine portraiture are combined and displayed4 ,it is said that the key to human expression is most of all at the corners of the mouth4 ,charged with the love of life1 the love of its good things1 and the love of domination1 is this mouth of ,innocent's4 ,but is his eye less revealing8--wary1 here1 and shrewd2 watchful1 yet full of fire4 ,what a study of character1 and what a triumph of brush-work6 ,a noble #8,philip the ,fourth1' harmonious in silver and rose-red1 from the ,dulwich ,gallery1 sets forth1 certainly not better than this does1 the greatness of ,velasquez' mission1 nor has it quite as fully as this the pre-eminent decisiveness which is so much of his charm4 7,standard1 #cjth ,december #ahie47 ,,french ,,eighteenth ,,century ,,painting ,there is plenty of variety in the ,exhibition which the ,academy proffers to the ,londoner this winter2 and that was desirable--we may almost say1 necessary--for the ,old ,masters proper--such of them as are shown--have not nearly the attractiveness and importance that have been customary4 ,this1 under the circumstances1 is scarcely to be wondered at1 for while of the ,venetian painting there is but the most doubtful or the scantiest trace1 the great ,dutch and ,flemish ,masters of the ,seventeenth ,century are altogether unrepresented4 ,rembrandt and ,rubens1 ,hobbema and ,snyders1 ,de ,hooch and ,nicholas ,maas1 are as if they were not4 ,the ,second ,room1 in which they are wont to be gathered together1 makes not a sign of them2 and the ,third or ,great ,gallery contains a not quite happy or well-balanced representation of the masters of the larger canvas1 although we note already one exceptional ,claude1 one faultless ,vandyke1 and one superb ,velasquez4 ,even the ,first ,room1 which is exclusively ,english1 is not so attractive as it has sometimes been2 though here and there a late ,turner or an early ,cotman1 a ,hogarth #8conversation piece1' vivacious and sterling1 or a ,william ,dobson portrait1 honest at least and capable1 asserts unmistakably the hand of a master4 ,much of the interest is concentrated upon the newer occupants of the ,second ,room4 ,most of them are clever1 but many hopelessly incompatible4 ,this ,second ,room is given over to the ,french of two periods4 ,but what have the ,french of the ,eighteenth ,century in common with the ,french of the ,nineteenth8 ,they have not even a tradition--they have only a name4 ,in ,england1 as you pass from ,richard ,wilson to ,turner1 from ,hogarth to the elder ,leslie1 from ,reynolds and ,romney1 even to ,etty and ,james ,ward1 the break of continuity is never complete2 the elders were in a certain sense the ancestors of the younger men4 ,but in ,france the incomparable grace of ,watteau found no reflection of itself in the powerful brutality of ,delacroix4 ,imagine ,corot as the successor of ,boucher--or ,millet's vision of the peasantry succeeding to the suave dream of ,prud'hon4 ,yet it is with these juxtapositions of the essentially incompatible--with this momentary joining together of those whom ,heaven 7or1 indeed1 the peculiarity of their different genius7 has put asunder--that we are face to face at ,burlington ,house4 ,yet1 even as it is1 there may be a certain interest in the comparison2 and if it is made fairly1 the result will be an enhanced appreciation of those great masters of the ,eighteenth ,century1 who were ,french in spirit as well as in name4 ,briefly and slightly we will speak of these1 and these almost alone4 ,as the authorities of the ,national ,gallery have never yet been so fortunate as to possess a ,watteau1 it is well for the nation that we have1 at ,dulwich1 one beautiful and unexceptionable example of his art1 and it is well too that that picture is now at ,burlington ,house4 ,this is the canvas known as a #8,ball under a ,colonnade'--the scene an arcade overlooking a garden2 a lady and gentleman dancing a minuet in the foreground1 and1 to right and to left of them1 groups of gay1 happy people1 disposed with ,watteau's naturalness and ,watteau's consummate skill4 ,the condition of the picture is faultless1 but this--with the great master of ,valenciennes--is scarcely rare4 ,watteau's method was not a method of experiment2 his technique was as sound as his spirit was vivacious4 ,what is more remarkable--what would be remarkable anywhere--is the perfection of accomplished workmanship1 the carrying out to the end1 with all the vividness of a sketch1 of a conception definite and elaborate from the beginning4 ,the colouring comes as an inheritance from the ,venetian--as ,watteau's adaptation of the palette of the supreme decorators4 ,there are many canvases by the master spirit of the ,french ,eighteenth ,century larger of touch than this one2 there are few more happily intricate or truer to the graceful side of life1 in a world finely imagined as well as finely seen4 ,next to this admirable picture1 which only the ,louvre1 or ,edinburgh1 or1 it may be1 ,potsdam1 can surpass1 hangs a beautiful and interesting work1 avowedly by the pupil with whom ,watteau was once angered1 but with whom in his declining days he was generously reconciled1 calling him to him1 and imparting to him1 as a final gift1 what he could of the secrets of his art4 ,to ,mr4 ,alfred de ,rothschild belongs #8,the ,pleasure ,barge1' a work in which the foreground figures are on a larger scale than in the ,watteau1 and in which the handling is neat and obviously careful1 even while it is broad4 ,if ,pater himself had been the inventor of the genre1 or even1 perhaps1 if he had practised it in any fashion recognisably his own1 this piece of delicate and painter-like work--which1 as it is1 no one with any true appreciation of the graceful can possibly dispraise--would have had a higher rank4 ,as it is1 we recognise the dexterous handiwork1 the pupil's strangely complete reception of his master's spirit2 but feel1 at the same moment1 that ,pater is an echo rather than a voice--that his talent glowed only at the fire that ,watteau lit4 ,lord ,rosebery is the possessor of a portrait of ,robespierre1 by ,jean ,baptiste ,greuze4 ,it is a direct1 good portrait2 very sound1 and only perhaps a little nattering2 the #8sea-greenness' of the revolutionary1 having1 it may be1 been apparent but to the imagination of ,carlyle4 ,a second ,greuze1 highly and daintily finished1 and so appropriately small in scale1 is the #8 ,vous' of ,mr4 ,clementi ,smith1 an interior1 with three friendly figures1 and the glass genially passing4 ,thus1 though in both cases ,greuze is represented creditably1 in neither is he represented by the kind of picture which in our own day is associated with his name--in neither is there the too seductive or too adroitly planned presentation of womanhood with its lines refined to the slenderness of the child1 or the child with1 too early upon her1 and too consciously and evidently1 the contours of the woman4 ,fragonard's #8,letter1' belonging to ,lady ,wallace1 is an engraved picture1 small and of undoubted quality--the #8,lettre d',amour1' it should be called1 properly--that is indeed its name in the print--for the impulsiveness of the scribe1 the earnestness of her glance1 the fire of her action1 are due to no urgency of everyday business1 but to the ecstasy of love4 ,small as the thing is1 in its touch and spirit we recognise the southern temperament of sunshine and storm1 and remember that ,provence was the land of ,fragonard's birth1 and that of its half-,italian landscape he has been till now one of the most sympathetic of depictors4 ,from the same gallery--from ,lady ,wallace's--we might conceivably have had the loan of a more important ,fragonard1 #8,l',escarpolette4' ,to ,baron ,ferdinand de ,rothschild belongs the life-size portrait of ,madame de ,pompadour1 seen somewhat from below1 lounging upon a sofa1 and dressed in the colours whose particular combination ,boucher so much affected--sky blue and rose4 ,the picture has little restfulness1 and not too much of character--the mistress rather than the dilettante1 was it1 perhaps1 at the moment1 the courtier's business to paint4 ,it is in a high key1 yet not precisely garish2 a clever tour de force1 agreeable1 gay4 ,two interesting1 since somewhat unusual1 examples of ,prud'hon come from ,hertford ,house2 one of them1 a little nude boy inadequately described as #8,le ,zphyr1' a work in which a master of tender sentiment1 and graceful1 even if somewhat monotonous1 design1 betrays some debt to ,correggio2 the other the singular allegory of #8,the ,triumph of ,bonaparte'--,napoleon surrounded by female figures and by ,cupids in a triumphal car--a picture in which ,prud'hon shows something1 indeed1 of himself1 and much of his obligation to the ,greeks4 ,it is a work more characteristic than the first1 and less ambitious than the second2 but it is in his simple designs most of all that we can discern best the real ,prud'hon1 with just a touch of a ,classicism never austere1 and a world of tenderness never actually effeminate4 ,in the #8,odalisque1' a sketch of an ,oriental nudity1 we see for once that which is rather surprising in work of ,ingres's--a picture1 that is1 in which1 at the stage now reached1 the colour is better than the design1 if it is not better than the draughtsmanship4 ,the curved line of the right arm repeats1 surely1 only awkwardly the curve of the wide-hipped figure2 and in the left arm1 and in the modelling of some portions of the trunk1 there is little indication of the #8correctness of form' which1 to borrow ,gautier's phrase1 was1 at least with ,ingres1 #8virtue4' ,we are glad1 of course1 to see any canvas of ,ingres's at ,burlington ,house1 because it is a sight vouchsafed but seldom1 and again1 because ,ingres is a master in whose labours there is1 alike in ,france and ,england1 some right revival of interest4 ,but it would have been well had it been possible to represent him1 not semi-romantic and luxurious1 limp in line1 impoverished of colour1 but rather1 as in #8,the ,apotheosis of ,homer1' august of conception1 or1 as in #8,the ,source1' refined and exquisite of form4 7,standard1 #dth ,january #ahif47 ,,chardin ,jean ,baptiste ,simon ,chardin--a man of the bourgeoisie1 as original as ,hogarth--was born on the #bnd ,november #afii4 ,it was in ,paris1 in the quarter of ,st4 ,sulpice1 in the trading quarter where shopkeepers and skilled artisans wait on the wants of the neighbouring ,faubourg ,st4 ,germain4 ,he was of humble1 decent parentage1 as befitted the place2 and he had for godmother1 when he was christened1 one ,anne ,bourgine1 wife of ,jacques ,riche1 who declared herself unable to sign her name in attestation of the event4 ,chardin's father was a cabinet-maker2 a dexterous craftsman1 with a speciality which1 along with such honour as it afforded1 he passed on to one of his sons4 ,he made1 as ,chardin's best biographer has told us1 #8ces billards monumentaux dont une planche de ,bonnart nous a gard le dessin1' and he made them for the ,king4 ,but though he worked successfully and well1 the burden of a family weighed on his fortunes1 and his thought about his children was chiefly that they might find means of support4 ,chardin was given little education1 and he was to have followed his father's trade1 but he showed1 in his quite early youth1 enough of promise as a painter for it to be held reasonable that he should enter ,m4 ,cazes' painting-room4 ,cazes was not at this time an unknown artist1 but ,chardin learned almost nothing from him4 ,the inventor of a genre1 ,chardin must needs be his own best teacher4 ,time and his own individuality alone could allow him his sturdy facility of touch4 ,only in working for himself could he acquire the schemes of colour1 the tones1 the delicate justice of expression1 for which we admire him to-day4 ,and if he was already independent of a master in the selection of his method1 still more his own was his choice of the world which he observed to record4 ,that world1 of which ,chardin has given us so veracious yet so poetic a chronicle1 was indeed the world of his daily life4 ,his art concerned itself with the familiar pursuits of the lower middle class1 homely because it was bound to be frugal1 but refined because it was ,french4 ,the grosser manners which reflected accurately--as manner is wont to do--the duller thoughts of our ,english lower middle class of a hundred years since1 would never have afforded to an artist who desired inspiration from that class alone1 such an opportunity as was offered to ,chardin by the lower bourgeoisie of ,france4 ,the ruder civilisation of the ,london of that period provoked from ,english art no such exquisite transcript4 ,and had it come1 it could hardly have been welcomed1 for in the two countries the taste of the day was different--the one was finer than the other4 ,a similarity in coarseness1 in imaginative ,literature--the unquestioned grossness of ,rtif de la ,bretonne1 placed by the side of the grossness of ,smollett--may seem to deny it4 ,but pictorial art makes the contrast evident4 ,in ,france it was possible not only for ,chardin to exist1 but for him to be valued4 ,in a life that was eighty years long--a life mainly calm1 and filled with peaceful work--,chardin was of course able to accomplish much1 and to labour with variety2 but whatever may have been his great successes in other departments of ,art than that of genre painting1 it is by his mastery and originality in that that he may be expected most to interest us4 ,it was to that that he chiefly devoted the middle years of his career4 ,other successes established his fame2 other successes came happily to its support1 long afterwards1 when he was failing4 ,we do not note1 indeed1 in ,chardin1 rapid transitions1 sudden transformations--the one occupation was apt to overlap the other--but until we are to look into his course in great detail it may be accepted as roughly true that it was first still-life that engrossed him1 then scenes of the domestic interior1 and then1 in the late days1 portraiture4 ,of the two first1 he was a painter in oil4 ,for the third he employed pastel4 ,that1 putting it briefly1 was the course of his work4 ,what was the course of his life apart from work8--the course1 ,i mean1 of that second life of the artist in painting or literature which is separate from his production1 yet must affect it so much8 ,how about the people who were nearest to him8--those whose society gave him his pleasure or withheld it8 ,chardin was twice married4 ,while he was still engaged in the struggles of his youth1 before his position was assured1 he met a young girl1 ,marguerite ,saintar1 at some modest merrymaking1 where his parents had planned that he should find her4 ,whether or not he knew of their aims1 his own wishes seemed to have been at one with theirs4 ,he liked ,marguerite ,saintar1 who liked him in return4 ,the attachment appears indeed to have been so mutual that in their loves there was no place for the proverb of the #8one who kisses' and #8the other who holds out the cheek4' ,in #agbh1 ,chardin being twenty-nine1 he was received into the ,academy1 and by #agca he was permitted to marry the young woman to whom he was devoted4 ,she was still but twenty-two1 but in the few years that they had waited1 their positions had a good deal changed4 ,chardin had won a reputation to which already a certain modest money value was attached1 and the girl had lost her small fortune4 ,the painter's father was now opposed to the marriage1 but his objections were overcome4 ,the couple were wedded for but four years4 ,their only child1 a son1 remained to ,chardin1 when his wife died1 after a time of union troubled as to outward matters1 and which1 in the wife's declining health1 it must have needed either satisfied love or a happy temperament to make even fairly bright4 ,chardin's was a temperament of calm--the shrewd smiling face1 painted by himself when he was seventy years old1 shows him yet elastic and vivacious4 ,at forty-five--it was nine years after the close of the first domestic episode--,chardin married a second time4 ,still in the parish of ,st4 ,sulpice1 to which from his youth he had been constant1 he wedded a youngish widow1 ,franoise ,marguerite ,pouget4 ,later1 he was to paint1 in her agreeable features1 a #8rve de femme et la philosophie de ses quarante ans4' ,she bore him company during the rest of his life1 from the days of his eminence to the days when fame forsook him4 ,on the whole he was fortunate4 ,he worked so slowly and deliberately that it would not have been easy for his painting to have made him rich1 but he had no unsatisfied ambitions1 and he enjoyed his art and his home and his assured friendships4 ,no utterly disabling blow fell on him till he had entered upon his later years4 ,then his son died1 who had been in a measure his pupil and follower4 ,the remembrance of this1 and his own gathering age1 and the neglect of his art1 affected him in the end1 and he was a martyr to the disease which caused ,bishop ,butler1 who himself suffered from it1 to say that the keenest physical pleasure in life was the cessation of pain4 ,in the last days dropsy followed upon stone4 ,on the #fth of ,december #aggi1 ,doyen wrote to a familiar friend of ,chardin's1 ,m4 ,desfriches--#8,madame ,chardin begs me to inform you of her situation1 which is very pitiable4' ,the last sacrament had been given to the aged painter4 #8,m4 ,chardin a reu le bon ,dieu4' #8,he is in a state of exhaustion which causes the greatest anxiety4' ,later in the day he died4 ,the placid and agreeable cheerfulness of ,chardin's temperament affords some key to the things which his art chose1 and the things which it left aside4 ,contentment with the daily round1 and with the common lot1 alone could have allowed him to confine the subject of his work within the limits of a narrow experience4 ,he painted what he saw1 and he saw the bourgeoisie1 nor was he anxious to extend the field of his vision4 ,he is the artist of #8,le ,bndicit1' of #8,la ,mre ,laborieuse1' of #8,l'conome1' of #8,la ,bonne ducation'--that is1 he is the painter of decent middle-class life1 in its struggle with narrow means1 and in its happiness1 which is that of the family and of tranquil and ordered labour4 ,even the pursuits of his youth1 when he painted still-life1 and the pursuits of his age1 when he was drawing portraits1 accorded with that chronicle of the ,parisian bourgeoisie which was the work of his mid-career2 for the portraits were yet of everyday folk1 and the still-life1 the fruits1 the china1 the copper vessels1 the silk-lined workboxes in whose familiar textures1 colours1 tones1 his brushes revelled so adroitly1 were the natural accessories and accompaniments of an existence led always within the limits of the home4 ,thus regarded--and this is the fair way of looking at his course--there is really no sudden change of route to be discovered in his artistic progress4 ,his was the record of the things he saw2 but in his youth he did not feel himself strong enough to portray1 in what he saw1 that which was one day to interest him most--,humanity4 ,he began very humbly4 ,it was in #agbh1 when he was but twenty-nine1 that his picture of #8,the ,skate' attracted some notice2 and other objects of still-life were grouped with it at the ,exposition de la ,jeunesse1 in the ,place ,dauphine1 when ,m4 ,largillire--not a bad judge1 one would have thought--inspected his things1 and1 not knowing that they were ,chardin's1 protested that they must be the work of some very excellent ,dutchman1 and that ,chardin would be wise if he copied them4 ,soon after that1 as we have seen1 he was accepted at the ,academy1 and from that time forward he exhibited at the ,louvre4 ,an exhibitor for forty years1 he was for twenty years a hanger4 ,that was a capacity in which he was sure to make enemies2 but at least he was never blamed for bestowing unmerited prominence upon his own labours4 ,chardin won1 and he would have deserved to retain1 a reputation by his still-life pictures alone1 for the truth is1 none of the older ,dutchmen had conceived of common matter so nobly2 and1 sentiment apart1 none had brought to its representation a touch quite so large1 a palette quite so rich4 ,to ,chardin belongs at once a reality without meanness1 and an arrangement without pretension or artifice4 ,the very gathering of his groups of household things has a significance2 it is characteristic2 it reveals in him that sense of human interest with which his forerunners were scarcely occupied1 and which we1 in these later days1 have missed equally in men as different as ,blaise ,desgoffe and ,william ,hunt4 ,into ,chardin's pictures nothing is put thoughtlessly2 and1 possessed as he was of a perception uniquely keen to note the varied individuality of matter and its artistic interest1 he yet had little of mere pride in his ability to paint so well the object and the substance of his choice4 ,the simple materials gathered on his kitchen-slab have their place there of right1 and tell the story of modest and frugal provision--from the little red jar of rough but highly glazed pottery1 to the eggs and the saucepan4 ,in one picture there will be exactly the material for the humblest meal1 and the things that are required to prepare it--that and no more--a transcript from his own limited home in the early days1 when he was an ill-rewarded painter and the husband of an ailing young woman whose fortune was gone4 ,in another1 and it is most likely of a later time1 there are the fruits for the dessert of the well-to-do1 and with them is the silver and the gold1 and the sugar-bowl of now famous ,dresden4 ,but though ,chardin does justice to a luxury of colour1 as in the #8,goblet d',argent1' and in the picture--both are in the ,salle ,lacaze--of the brown wooden jewel-box whose pale-blue soft silk lining catches so discreet and delicate a light1 the charm of the very simple never escapes him4 ,a tumbler of water and three tiny onions1 and there is a subject for ,chardin4 ,and in all the still-life of his earlier and of his middle years there is an unfailing vigour of draughtsmanship1 a quiet truth of chiaroscuro1 an effect of unforced picturesqueness2 and with easy decisiveness he executes intricate schemes of colour4 ,his hues1 above all1 are blended and fused2 the influence of colour upon the colour that is near it he is found to have studied to perfection4 ,he is a master of the elaborate interchange of reflections between the silver cup and the glazed copper-hued pottery1 on which its light chances to play4 ,and now the reflected light is cold and clear1 and now it is vague and warm4 ,to see these things as ,chardin saw them1 is really to see them for the first time4 ,he opens to us1 in a measure that is entirely his own1 the charm of the world of matter4 ,no engraving--hardly even the soft lights and the opulent shadows of mezzotint--could render the character of this still-life of ,chardin's4 ,no etching1 short of ,jacquemart's1 could do justice to work in itself so subtle1 yet apparently so bold4 ,but the manly and refined line-engraving of the ,french engravers of the middle of the ,eighteenth ,century was happily able to translate1 with singular excellence1 the work of ,chardin's middle age1 a work in which the rendering of matter counted indeed for something1 yet in which character1 sentiment1 story counted also for much4 ,it was in #agcd1 and still at the ,place ,dauphine1 that ,chardin showed that which seems to have been the first of his genre pictures--a picture of a woman sealing a letter4 ,from that time onwards1 to about the beginning of his last decade1 the painter's work consisted chiefly of the record of the daily life of the civilised bourgeoisie1 on whom ,fortune never smiled too lavishly1 but from whom she rarely turned with a quite empty hand4 ,the value of the bourgeois virtues1 of reticent affection1 of subdued love1 of calm persistency in uneventful and continually recurring labour1 ,chardin himself must have felt4 ,unlike too many of his ,dutch brethren1 he saw life1 and dealt with it1 where life was not gross4 ,his children have an unconscious innocence along with their reflectiveness2 his boys are all ingenuous2 his young women bring the delightfulness of grace to the diligent doing of household work in kitchen or parlour2 and his seniors1 in gaining experience1 have not lost sweetness4 ,and with the interest of pleasantness you have in ,chardin's case the assurance of the interest of truth4 ,hogarth was as true1 but he was less pleasant2 ,morland was as pleasant1 but he was less true4 ,hogarth painted an individual2 ,morland generalised or idealised the individual1 and was contented with a type4 ,chardin's figures do not cease to be typical of the race1 while they retain the delicate accuracy of personal studies1 and betray an untiring reference not to a few models only1 but to all the nature he lived amongst4 ,always without exaggeration1 always with directness and a deep simplicity1 the self-effacing art of ,chardin accomplished its task1 writing for us in picture after picture1 or print after print1 the history of the quietest of refined lives that the ,eighteenth ,century knew2 arresting for us the delicate gesture1 in itself so slight1 yet so completely revealing2 and tracing1 on honest and sensitive faces1 every expression that rises above broad comedy1 or falls short of high passion4 ,unaccustomed though it was to the sincere portrayal of homely things1 ,chardin's own generation became quickly appreciative of the finest phase of his art1 and from #agch to #ageg 7as ,m4 ,emmanuel ,bocher has so laboriously and carefully recorded in a volume which is the inevitable supplement to the ,de ,goncourts' literary study7 the best engravers of the time--,laurent ,cars1 ,lpici1 ,surugue1 ,le ,bas1 and others besides--were busy in the translation of ,chardin's work4 ,such accomplished draughtsmen with the burin could not fail1 of course1 to express his obvious subject1 and to retain in the black and white of their copperplates the sentiment of the canvas4 ,but they did more than this--their flexible skill allowed them to retain often ,chardin's manner and method2 so that the very men who had rendered best1 or as well as the best1 the trembling light of ,watteau and his immense and airy distance1 with all its delicate gradations and infinite planes1 are found to be the complete interpreters of ,chardin's peculiar breadth and simplicity1 and of that deliberate firmness which is opposed the most to ,watteau's masterly indecision4 ,the low prices at which the prints were issued made the prints saleable1 and popularised ,chardin's art among the educated middle class4 ,often but a couple of francs were charged for an engraving worth1 if it is in fine condition1 three or four guineas to-day4 ,contemporary criticism1 and especially the criticism of ,diderot1 was favourable to ,chardin1 and may have assisted his fame4 ,there were years in which #8the father of modern criticism1' occupied as much with intellectual charm and moral teaching as with technical perfection1 fairly raved over the painter whose work was the eulogium of the tiers tat4 ,lafont de ,st4 ,yonne1 in #agdf1 places him very high in the ranks #8des peintres compositeurs et originaux4' ,in #agec1 the ,abb le ,blanc writes of him--#8,il prend la nature sur le fait4' ,and a few years later it is ,diderot who says3 #8,it is always nature and truth4 ,m4 ,chardin is a man of mind4 ,he understands the theory of his art4' ,again1 #8,m4 ,chardin is not a painter of history1 but he is a great man4' ,then there dawns upon the critical mind some sense that the painter is repeating himself4 ,from the old mint he reissues1 with but slight modification1 the old coins4 ,still-life apart1 he can give us no new subjects2 and the familiar ends by being undervalued1 and the excellent is held cheaply4 ,at last1 from ,diderot1 in #agfg1 there comes the undisguised lamentation1 #8,m4 ,chardin s'en va6' ,fortunately1 however1 though popularity passed from him1 the old man was able to interest himself in a fresh department of work4 ,he had painted a few portraits at an earlier time1 but now his attention was attracted to portraiture in pastel--that was the medium in which an artist as masculine as himself1 and as penetrating1 had obtained an admitted triumph2 and why should ,chardin fail where ,quentin ,latour had brilliantly succeeded8 ,nor did he fail altogether4 ,he was able to draw back upon himself1 in the last years1 a little of the old attention4 ,and the pastel portraits1 if they had the #8fragilit' had also the #8clat1' which a well-known verse attributes to the then fashionable method4 ,and in subjects which were portraits only1 the flesh tints were no longer1 by any possibility1 effaced by the stronger reality which somehow ,chardin had been wont to bestow upon the accessories in his pictures4 ,pleasant to him and well merited as must have been that slight return of appreciation which came to ,chardin in his eighth decade1 it is not by the labour of that time that we are now likely to class him4 ,with the galvanised revival of a classical ideal1 his name1 after his death1 fell into dishonour4 ,some of his worthiest pictures tumbled1 neglected1 about the quays of ,paris4 ,only within the last quarter of a century has there been evident the sign of an intention to do justice to his work2 and for us his principal distinction is1 as ,i have said already1 that he is not only foremost1 but was for years alone1 in the perception of the dignity and beauty of humble matter1 and of the charm which ,art may discover in the daily incidents of the least eventful life4 7,the ,art ,journal1 #ahhe47 ,,moreau ,one of the prettiest chapters of the volume in which ,french artists of the ,eighteenth ,century have recorded with grace and freedom the lighter manners of their age1 is that certainly which was written by ,moreau le ,jeune4 ,he employed1 with extreme diligence1 half a life in writing it4 ,born in ,march #agda1 he died in ,november #ahad4 ,the son of a ,parisian wigmaker1 of the parish of ,st4 ,sulpice--which was also ,chardin's--he1 with his brother1 ,moreau l',an1 a painter not greatly known1 was drawn early into the circle of the producers of ,art4 ,he was a pupil of ,louis de ,lorrain1 a now forgotten painter1 whom he followed1 at seventeen years old1 to ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,coming back to ,paris1 he was in the workroom of ,le ,bas1 the engraver1 and there he learned the secret of the burin's expression4 ,he engraved with delicate skill4 ,it was but slowly1 however1 that in his own designs he showed himself an accomplished draughtsman2 for though his daughter1 ,madame ,carle ,vernet--who wrote an account of him--lets us understand that he was born drawing1 there is much of his early work that is obviously laboured4 ,suddenly1 the ,de ,goncourts tell us--those critics who1 with ,m4 ,maherault1 the industrious collector1 have studied him the best--suddenly his power of draughtsmanship declared itself--the individuality of his vision and method4 ,it was in a drawing commissioned by ,le ,bas1 who sought to engrave it1 the #8,plaine des ,sablons'--a review by ,louis ,,xv4 ,in it he was revealed as the successful draughtsman of festivals1 the historian of lively ceremonies4 ,and such success was rewarded4 ,for1 with commendable promptitude1 in #aggj--the year after the drawing was executed--he was appointed #8,dessinateur des ,menus-plaisirs1' and five years later1 when ,cochin retired1 #8,dessinateur du ,cabinet du ,roi4' ,thus1 while still a young man1 ,moreau's position was assured1 and he was left free to use much of his time in works on which it was possible to bestow a more exquisite grace than any which could be fitly employed upon labours in which official portraiture counted for much4 ,moreau was free to invent for himself1 and free to illustrate the best literary inventions of a literary age4 ,his career was before him1 and the day not distant when he would produce #8,l',histoire des ,murs' and the illustrations to the #8,nouvelle ,hlose4' ,i have indicated now1 by a brief line or two1 the direction in which ,moreau le ,jeune must chiefly be studied1 and the places in which he may be seen if men would see him at his prime4 ,perhaps it may be a matter of taste1 and a matter of taste only1 whether one prefers him in his more spontaneous or in his more official work4 ,the draughtsman is the same in either labour1 though the inspiration is different4 ,for me his greatest achievement is #8,l',histoire des ,murs1' or1 in another phrase1 #8,le ,monument du ,costume1' which must be spoken of in detail later on4 ,for many1 and above all1 for the lovers of curiosities1 the seekers in byways of history1 his celebrity hangs chiefly on his performance of the various #8,sacres'2 his records of the public functions1 his #8,ftes at ,versailles for the ,marriage of the ,dauphin and of ,marie ,antoinette'2 his #8,crowning of ,voltaire'--at the ,thtre ,franais--in #aghh2 his #8,ftes at the ,htel de ,ville1' on the birth of a new ,dauphin to ,louis ,,xvi4 ,among these we may look perhaps principally at the #8,crowning of ,voltaire1' for it has the virtues of them all4 ,the drawing was engraved by ,gaucher1 who has preserved in the print the lively touch of the original4 ,but what1 one asks1 was the occasion of the ceremony1 what the cause of the #8crowning'8 ,at the ,thtre ,franais1 ,voltaire's ,irne had been performed for sixteen nights4 ,in those days of limited audiences that was a brilliant success4 ,the bust of the poet is placed then in the middle of the stage1 to be adorned and declaimed before4 ,madame ,vestris--another1 of course1 than the ,vestris known to ,englishmen--reads aloud1 and with emphasis1 the lines of which the ,marquis de ,saint-,maur has hurriedly been delivered4 ,other performers1 in more or less classic garb1 cluster about her with garlands in their hands1 ready to bestow them on the bust4 ,in a box1 high up on one side of the theatre1 sits the demi-god1 with two fair friends--one of whom is his niece1 ,madame ,denis1 and the other that ,marquise de ,villette to whom the print that represents the occasion is dedicated4 ,the playhouse is full4 ,the clapping of hands is lusty and enthusiastic4 ,people rise in their boxes4 ,men stare upwards from the pit4 ,fine ladies crane their necks to catch a glimpse of the hero with the thin angular face1 with its tell-tale lines of wit and mockery and observation4 ,moreau must have seen the sight himself1 and borne away the vivid recollection of it4 ,never was l'actualit--the thing that passes1 the thing that may be insignificant to-day1 but is to be ,history to-morrow--never was l'actualit designed with a more fitting mixture of grace and precision4 ,but in the more important work next to be spoken of1 there was greater room for invention4 ,therein was ,moreau1 in the true sense1 dramatist as well as draughtsman1 for even if the outline of the subject was suggested to him by the speculator who undertook the publication1 it was ,moreau alone who gave veracity and character to the head and gesture of each person in the play4 ,the #8,suite d',estampes pour servir l'histoire des ,murs et du ,costume dans le ,dix-huitime ,sicle' began to be published in #agge by ,prault1 of ,paris1 though it has been of late suggested that it was really conceived and undertaken by a ,german of the name of ,eberts4 ,the notion was to give a series of plates in which the most correct and fashionable manners1 and the dress of the moment1 and the furniture in vogue1 should be together portrayed4 ,the artist first pitched upon to recall them was1 strangely enough1 a foreigner4 ,freudeberg1 a ,bernese settled in ,paris1 a draughtsman of grace and charm undoubtedly1 but of a closely bounded talent1 had found favour with the public1 and it was he who was chosen to make--and he did make--the first dozen drawings4 ,the best engravers of the day were forthwith to engrave them4 ,but by the time the first series was finished--and two odd pieces1 ,i believe1 not generally taken account of as belonging to the set--,freudeberg became home-sick and resolved to depart1 and the business of continuing the work1 which in the view of its promoter was to be a practical guide to fashion1 was assigned to ,moreau4 ,moreau did the second series1 and then the third4 ,the second dealt with the fortunes of a lady2 the third with those of a grand seigneur1 who was likewise something of a petit-matre4 ,and for each there was a text1 bald1 it may be1 but in a measure appropriate4 ,it was anonymous1 and chiefly descriptive4 ,a little later1 in a new issue1 it was sought to associate the work with popular literature1 and ,restif de la ,bretonne--a free-spoken #8realist1' whom1 after long neglect1 it is now1 not altogether without cause1 the fashion to enjoy--was invited to write his commentary1 and his commentary took the form of quite a new interpretation4 #8,restif1' says ,m4 ,anatole de ,montaiglon1 #8au lieu de respecter le sentiment des trois suites1 a isol chaque motif et chaque planche4' ,restif1 that is1 has invented for each plate some fresh little story4 ,in life1 the mind associates with a given and chosen landscape the more magnetic and memorable of the figures that people it4 ,these alone bestow on it the reality of its human interest1 and the others may be ignored4 ,and so1 among the masses of description and criticism of the arts of design1 the writings which we really associate with the works they endeavour to vivify are those generally which have a charm of their own--the charm of the literary touch4 ,restif de la ,bretonne's stories1 with all their faults1 have just that charm4 ,there is that in them which permits their author to take possession of the theme1 so that the theme belongs no longer at all to whatever dullard chanced to be the first to treat it4 ,two designs which ,i never see without wanting them are the most vivacious of ,moreau's series4 ,they are the #8,sortie de l',opra' and #8,c'est un fils1 ,monsieur6' ,others1 even among the most admirable1 are more limited in their aim4 ,the #8,grande ,toilette1' for instance1 as its name implies1 is occupied more particularly with raiment4 ,it is a very summary of fashion4 ,it is the great lord1 or the consummate petit-matre1 displayed to us when dressing is completed4 ,the edifice1 it seems1 has just been crowned4 #8,monseigneur1' vividly writes ,restif de la ,bretonne1 #8,monseigneur is dressed2 for some minutes already he has been standing2 his cordon bleu is assumed2 they have just given him his purse1 and he has his bouquet4' ,yes1 the edifice has been crowned3 ,monseigneur is ready2 for--and the touch is untranslatable--they have achev de le chausser4 ,you see the neat shoes1 the garter1 the closely drawn stocking1 the whole paraphernalia of the leg he was proud of4 #8,achev de le chausser'--it is all in the phrase4 ,and now he is free1 no doubt1 to enjoy the idleness of the morning1 to do a service to a comedian1 and1 after an author has had audience of him1 to accept the dedication of a book4 #8,la ,petite ,loge' is just as characteristic4 ,what one sees is the inside of an opera-box1 of which the tenants are a couple of bachelors of fashion4 ,a dance is over1 on the stage1 and a girl who has taken part in it has been brought into the box1 to be encouraged--to be touched under the chin4 ,and here is an epitome of ,restif's story4 ,a ,prince1 struck with the beauty of a ragged little child in the street1 determined that she should be educated--pensioned her and her mother4 ,soon1 however1 busied with the greatest business of his class and day--#8occupied with intrigue1' the story-teller tells us--he forgot his little protge4 ,she had her money regularly--all that she was promised--but he was too busy to think of her4 ,then1 one night1 at the ,opera1 smitten with the charm of a new dancer1 he inquired who the dancer was1 and ordered her to be brought to him4 ,as soon as she was in the box1 #8,il lui passa sous le menton une main un peu libre'2 but then it was disclosed to him that she was the child he had been struck with4 ,coulon1 the famous dancing-master1 had by this time taught her to some purpose4 ,as for her future1 her mother--an ancestress1 ,i take it1 of ,halvy's #8,madame ,cardinal'--had already a register of one hundred and twenty pages1 filled with the propositions of the ,court and the town4 #8,sa mre se reservait le droit de les comparer1'--for nothing1 it seems1 even by a ,madame ,cardinal1 should be done in a hurry4 ,well1 among the girl's many lovers there was one who was unselfish4 ,what did he want but to marry her6 ,the ,prince--not minded now to be outdone in chivalry--generously urged that he should be accepted1 and ,isabelle was glad to consent4 ,but the ,king ordered the lover's arrest1 and the young people were separated4 ,the girl lived prudently1 in ,london and in ,paris4 ,she and her art were admired2 but she died of a sudden illness4 #8,her young lover was in absolute despair1 and the ,prince1 her protector1 wept for her4' ,in the #8,sortie de l',opra' we see the elegant and famous crowd that surged out of the theatre after a performance long looked forward to4 #8,gluck's new ,operas--it is essential to see them1' said a writer who knew what it was that a fashionable woman could not afford to neglect4 ,the #8all ,paris' of the day was there2 and at the end1 when the crowd was in the lobbies1 and the aboyeur was calling the carriages1 and the flower-girl was a messenger of intrigue--that was the moment that gave birth to plans for dainty suppers eaten away from home1 the time when #8abbs without a family learned the secret of how they might belong to all4' ,what a bustle of flirtation6 ,what a passing about of love-letters6 ,the elegance of the scene must make amends1 as best it can1 for its light-hearted naughtiness4 #8,c'est un fils1 ,monsieur6' has no such forgiveness to ask of us4 ,it is the blithest picture that we need to be shown of the home joys of the refined4 ,a young husband1 who is known already as #8le ,prsident1' and who is a student and a fortunate collector of ,art as well as a man of the world1 rises from his study chair with outstretched hands and radiant face1 as the newly born baby is carried in to him in triumph1 followed by a procession of household retainers1 and preceded by the lively ,miss ,rozette1 the ,president's foster-sister4 ,nothing is more expressive than the joyous pantomime of this privileged young woman1 and the answering gestures of the newly made father2 and delightful is the sentiment of the piece4 ,in ,england1 popular ,art has sometimes made the joys of domesticity a little dull2 but here the respectable is actually gay1 and nothing but sunshine lies upon the path of duty4 ,of the many writers whom ,moreau avowedly illustrated1 as distinguished from those who furnished a text for his designs1 ,rousseau was the one in whom he most believed1 and for ,rousseau much of his best work was executed4 ,his designs for the ,nouvelle ,hlose were among the last of the important drawings wrought by him before he made that journey into ,italy which his daughter speaks of as having #8opened his eyes1' but which1 to whatever it may have #8opened' them1 certainly closed them to the aspects of that ,france it was his truest mission to portray4 ,the types of ,julie and ,saint-,preux are types which ,moreau understood--he understood their impulse and their sentiment2 and how many faults he would have forgiven them for their grace6 ,to illustrate ,rousseau was of course to have the opportunity--and in ,moreau's case it was also to profit by it--of representing both a deeper and a more immediate sensitiveness than most of that which claimed interpretation in the sometimes callous figures of the #8,monument du ,costume4' ,moreau was grateful for so fortunate an occasion1 and he thoroughly responded to it4 ,his ,julie is #8un type de ,greuze honnte1' with her #8bouche entr'ouverte1' her #8regard profond1' her #8gorge couverte en fille modeste1 et non pas en dvote1' her #8petite figure de blonde1 mouvante et sensible4' ,moreau read ,rousseau again and again3 he genuinely cared for him1 and when ,rousseau died1 the death-scene was not suffered to pass unrecorded1 and of the grave in the ,ile des ,peupliers1 by ,geneva1 he made a little etching4 ,presently1 however1 ,moreau was to be led away from the very sentiment of the scenes he had understood the best4 ,his individuality was lessened1 his flexibility arrested by the journey to ,italy1 undertaken with ,dumont1 the architect1 in #aghf4 ,and his association with ,david--#8le peintre de ,marat assassin et le membre de la ,convention'--operated to make more certain his style's divorce from all the natural grace and flowing sentiment and homely unheroic dignity with which it had lived so fruitfully for more than twenty years4 ,the illustrator of ,rousseau was already less happy as the illustrator of ,voltaire2 and in #agia ,moreau was received into the ,academy2 the drawing which procured him the distinction being that of #8,tullie faisant passer son char sur le corps de son pre4' ,wille1 the engraver1 writes1 in his published journal1 how he went to the ,academical ,assembly when ,moreau was received4 #8,there was an ,academician to receive3 it was ,monsieur ,moreau1 draughtsman and engraver4 ,he had begged me to be his sponsor1 and ,i presented him to the ,assembly with a great deal of pleasure4' ,but ,moreau's entrance into the ,academy was the signal for his exit from the regions of his native art4 ,the bibliophile may seek with avidity for the editions of ,renouard1 which years afterwards ,moreau illustrated4 ,but his verve had deserted him2 his talent was gone2 his originality had yielded up the ghost4 ,and somehow1 too1 in his last years1 and in his old age1 poverty overtook him4 ,in ,february #ahad1 he wrote to ,m4 ,renouard that he was penniless--#8,je n'ai pas le sou4' ,friends he had1 though2 and one of the first acts of ,louis ,,xviii4 was to reappoint him to the old office--#8draughtsman to the ,king4' ,he held the place for but a short time2 for on the #cjth ,november1 in the same year1 ,moreau died4 ,with his later style both he and his daughter1 and the group1 too1 by whom they were surrounded1 were content--no one assailed it then or looked back regretfully to the earlier--but it is by the work of the first half of his career as an artist that ,moreau finally takes rank as one of the most precise and flexible of draughtsmen1 and as the closest possible observer of the gay1 great world that he portrayed4 7,the ,art ,journal1 #ahhe47 ,,gainsborough ,,at ,,the ,,grosvenor ,,gallery #8,if ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire for us the honourable distinction of an ,english ,school1 the name of ,gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity1 in the history of the art1 among the very first of that rising name4' ,so wrote1 in his ,fourteenth ,discourse1 ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds--a lover of pomp and ceremony even in the art of ,literature--doing therein #8untimely justice' to the merits of his contemporary1 whom he survived4 ,since then the ,english ,school1 whose separate existence this accomplished admirer of the ,roman and the ,bolognese did but doubtfully and modestly look forward to1 has become an accomplished fact1 and all but a hundred years after his death1 #8the talents of the late ,mr4 ,gainsborough' are honoured at the ,grosvenor ,gallery4 ,in the two large rooms and in the vestibule there are to-day exhibited about a couple of hundred pieces from his brush2 the great ,sir ,joshua ,exhibition of last winter is felt to be successfully rivalled2 and an opportunity is given to the student to perceive the range1 the flexibility1 the spontaneity of ,gainsborough's art4 ,gainsborough1 like any other distinct individuality in ,art or ,letters1 is best understood when he is taken simply on his merits1 without reference to other personalities who happened to be of his time4 ,to institute a perpetual comparison between him and ,sir ,joshua is to make the sterile blunder that is made when ,dickens is pitted against ,thackeray1 the epic of ,copperfield against the satire of ,vanity ,fair4 ,in each case it was only accident that brought the men into juxtaposition2 and as regards ,gainsborough1 it is rather with ,velasquez or ,vandyke1 or with some ,french ,eighteenth ,century ,master of familiar grace1 that we should compare him4 ,these were his kindred1 with these he had something in common1 as the ,romans1 the ,bolognese1 and sometimes the ,venetians1 were the kindred of ,sir ,joshua4 ,and yet1 to a certain extent1 comparison between ,gainsborough and ,sir ,joshua is even now unavoidable4 ,living at the same period and in the same great town1 painting the same people1 and--save for the briefer apparition of ,romney--dividing between them1 though dividing unequally1 the applause of polite ,society1 that choice which the men of their time had to make of one of them1 has still to a certain extent to be made by us4 ,often1 of course1 we are liberated from the necessity of any such narrow alternative2 but when we look at the portraits1 by the two artists1 of ,johnson1 ,garrick1 ,mrs4 ,siddons1 the characteristics of each--what each lacked and what each brought to the accomplishment of his task--cannot but suggest themselves4 ,and it will then be apparent that ,reynolds painted with a more obvious learning1 ,gainsborough with a more spontaneous grace2 ,reynolds often with a more determined adherence to the particular character1 ,gainsborough with a keener enjoyment of the suggestions that character afforded for translating a sometimes uncouth nature into an exquisite art4 ,take1 for instance1 the two portraits of ,mrs4 ,siddons3 the learning and tradition of the ,schools1 the disposition towards a dignity that may be well-nigh pompous1 are in ,sir ,joshua's #8,tragic ,muse'2 the spontaneous grace1 the disposition towards simplicity are in the ,mrs4 ,siddons of ,gainsborough4 ,further1 again1 to compare the portraits of ,dr4 ,johnson by ,sir ,joshua with that one by ,gainsborough at the ,grosvenor ,gallery1 is to see that here is an instance in which the fidelity--the unflattering fidelity--is on ,reynolds' side1 and the idealisation on ,gainsborough's4 ,yet it is hardly needful to declare of so great a man as ,gainsborough that he never idealised merely that he might flatter4 ,he idealised because his vision of the world was bound to be poetic4 ,he was a poet above all things4 ,the ideal was his atmosphere4 ,but ,sir ,joshua1 with all his accomplishments1 lived with the prose of the world1 and1 as a rule1 was but in vain ambitious to reach to its poetry4 ,the poetic character of ,gainsborough's mind and work is1 then1 the first thing to be realised1 if we are to understand his pictures4 ,for otherwise we shall be offended at exaggerations and astonished at suppressions1 both of which are the result of a method he adopted in obedience to his temperament1 which combined1 of course1 a gentle and genuine love of ,nature with a consuming thirst to see that ,nature was never deprived of the assistance of ,art4 ,gainsborough has been written of as the earliest ,master of ,naturalism--save1 indeed1 ,hogarth--in the ,english ,school4 ,nor is the description untrue2 in the sense that he sought his inspiration from ,nature1 instead of from academies1 and that his landscape had more than a suggestion of ,suffolk or of ,somerset4 ,yet ,morland carried ,naturalism much further than ,gainsborough1 and ,constable much further than ,morland4 ,gainsborough was never a mere copyist of ,nature4 ,from the first he composed and arranged1 but his artifices were seldom very apparent1 and his control over actual form--his artistic modification of it--was gentle and tempered1 and this is most of all made evident by the display of his ,landscape4 ,with the permanent exhibition at the ,national ,gallery and the annually recurring winter shows at ,burlington ,house1 no one of course has any need to be ignorant of the fact that one of the most fascinating of the painters of portraits was also a landscape painter4 ,but the display at the ,grosvenor ,gallery will bring home to people a truth some may have overlooked1 because at the ,grosvenor ,gallery ,gainsborough's range in landscape work is seen to have been extensive4 ,no single early painting there1 indeed1 can claim to be quite the equal of the #8,great ,cornard' picture in ,trafalgar ,square1 but the paintings are so many1 and the subjects so varied1 that the impression they produce must be great4 ,in the ,east ,room1 the smaller room1 are some of the most interesting of these landscapes4 ,there--to begin with only a minor example--is the #8,landscape with ,figures against a ,tree'3 one of the very few dated pictures4 ,it is of the year #agge1 or just about the time that the painter left ,bath for ,london4 ,it is interesting as seeming to belong to an earlier period1 as carrying on to a time when most of his work had changed character1 the features of his more youthful work4 ,it is a bit of every day ,english scenery1 accepted for what it is1 with a tolerance of the commonplace rare with him1 indeed in any day1 but1 as one would have thought1 quite impossible to his later life4 ,here1 too1 is one of his few failures to attain what was really beautiful1 #8,a ,landscape with ,cows1' lent by the trustees of the ,duke of ,newcastle--an artificial scene of blue distance and of hot and #8unconvincing' foreground4 #8,a ,view in ,shropshire' is in character not less classical1 not less suggestive of ,claude1 but it is far more successful4 ,the foreground is of wooded country1 brown and gold2 behind it1 a richly illuminated champaign ends abruptly in a conical hill1 which is the ,wrekin beheld in the light of a selected hour4 ,the ,catalogue of the ,exhibition--full of industriously compiled detail and of quaint anecdote1 carefully burrowed for in half-forgotten places--might1 perhaps1 have chronicled the fact that the great picture we are speaking of is repeated1 feature by feature1 in another4 ,but this other happens to be hung so high that its merits we can hardly estimate4 ,its pedigree1 however1 is unimpeachable4 ,the little #8,landscape with ,horses ,ploughing' recalls1 in the disposition of its objects1 ,turner's #8,windmill and ,lock1' and ,turner1 who was never above taking suggestions--who took them from every one--may possibly have seen it4 ,lord ,bateman's #8,boys and ,fighting ,dogs1' though by no means among the most attractive things1 is at least memorable4 ,it shares with several other pictures the business of proving that as a draughtsman of animals--certainly as a draughtsman of dogs--,gainsborough had few rivals2 and it is one of the rare instances of ,gainsborough's painting what is properly called a subject picture--a picture in which the portrayal of an incident has been the first care4 ,furthermore1 the boys here--like that uncouth child1 #8,jack ,hill1 in a ,cottage'--are1 at all events1 perfectly natural examples of everyday folk4 ,generally his cottage urchins1 though they have rustic grace and rustic wildness1 though they roll on the greensward and dabble in the brook1 are not profound studies of a real peasantry2 and1 though ,leslie indeed said of the #8,girl with a ,pitcher' that nothing more beautiful had ever been painted1 we may remember that this lavish appreciation by a brother artist who was invariably generous was bestowed at a time when the graver aspects of the peasant's life had1 as far as pictorial art is concerned1 been mirrored only in the art of ,turner4 ,the student of to-day1 the student of ,millet1 can hardly single out for truthfulness1 though he can always single out for grace1 the rustics of ,gainsborough4 ,into the realities of peasant life1 ,gainsborough scarcely even essayed to have any deep entrance4 ,the large #8,view at the ,mouth of the ,thames' is one of the most realistic1 one of the least poetic1 of ,gainsborough's pictures4 ,it is an instance of how well this curiously flexible genius could at need perform that which somebody else could still perform much better4 ,and if it had not to be remembered that ,collins and ,turner came after ,gainsborough1 instead of before him1 we should say the same about the ,duke of ,westminster's #8,coast ,scene4' ,here a sea that has only enough of movement to give it vivacity and sparkle1 runs up to a narrow breadth of beach1 behind which a cliff rises4 ,three figures are on the beach--a group of country or of fisher folk2 a man kneeling by a basket hands up a fish1 to be inspected by two girls1 who bend towards him4 ,the inspiration of an ancient master and some concession to ancient traditions are discernible in the umber and golden shores of another piece4 ,it is in the #8,river ,scene with ,cattle' that ,gainsborough is more characteristic2 it is there that he delights us in full measure with that which is his own4 ,the scene is at a ferry somewhere in the ,eastern ,counties1 where the stream is wide1 the land large and flat1 the sky ample1 the horizon infinite4 ,at the edge of a miniature cliff1 stands a group of cattle4 ,below them are figures in shadow1 and from the water1 to the right1 rise high into the sky the tall and narrow sails of two fishing-smacks drawn up together4 ,here the scene is an everyday place1 but ,gainsborough has known how to choose the hour2 his selection of objects has been justified by a fortunate grouping2 he has secured a rhythm of line second only to that which lies at the service of a subtle draughtsman of the figure or a great ,ornamentist2 and the hues of silvery blue and golden grey with which his picture is flooded1 are those that gather only on the palette of a born colourist4 ,when this picture has been adequately seen1 and its calm radiance appreciated1 the student has little need to go further to find what ,gainsborough was as a poetical recorder of earth and sky1 and what as a pure painter4 ,but for variety's sake1 and for the sake of noting how much ,gainsborough saw for himself1 and how much he was influenced1 too1 by the ways in which predecessors as different from each other as ,hobbema and ,cuyp had seen the world and presented it1 it is well to look carefully at some of the smaller landscapes in the other and larger room4 ,there are1 perhaps1 especially the #8,small ,landscape1' with luminous white clouds1 remote in a lofty sky2 the #8,forest ,scene1' and the unfinished sketch1 in which ,gainsborough has given to a little group of gypsies and their beasts a greater dignity than a ,fleming could have bestowed on a ,flight into ,egypt4 ,there are1 of course1 larger works not claiming less attention2 and one and all1 by their deficiencies as well as by their merits1 show that the greatness or the general attractiveness of ,gainsborough as a landscape painter is due not much to his naturalism--which was naturalism only in his own day1 and is seen to have been almost idealism in ours4 ,his greatness as a landscape painter consists much more in his continual endowment of ,nature with the grace and magic of ,style4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in ,portraiture1 the only failing that can be laid to ,gainsborough's charge--and it may at times be a serious one--is that he was apt to be less impressed by individuality of character than by the occasion which his subject presented for the painter's triumph in brush-work4 ,facile observer as he was1 and wonderful draughtsman1 it was not often that he braced himself to such an effort of stern realism as was made in the portrait of #8,judge ,skinner4' ,this light of the law1 sitting robed--with the keen1 sagacious face perfectly dominant over all the splendour of attire--was painted 7on the canvas of which we are now speaking7 for ,christ ,church1 ,oxford1 of which in #agdb he had been a student2 but the ,grosvenor ,gallery contains another1 though a less admirable1 presentment of the same person4 ,this1 though inferior1 comes likewise from an unimpeachable quarter--it is lent by the ,honourable ,society of ,lincoln's ,inn4 ,of portraits of ,william ,pitt1 there are several by ,gainsborough2 but his best representation of all1 of the young man who governed ,england1 is that which comes1 like the second portrait of ,skinner1 from ,lincoln's ,inn4 ,the natural charm of the model here accorded with that which was the frequent preoccupation of ,gainsborough's art1 and sincere must have been the painter's pleasure in dealing with a face which--like the face of ,dickens in his youth1 two generations later--expressed sweetness with firmness1 and placidity with boundlessness of resource4 ,the portrait of #8,david ,garrick' is less satisfactory as an effort of craftsmanship4 ,the shrewd little lady who succeeded the great and genial ,peg ,woffington in ,garrick's love1 declared that it was the #8best portrait ever painted of her ,davy1' so we will not attempt to dispute the excellence of the likeness2 but the thought that inspired the composition was comparatively trivial and commonplace4 ,in a park-like scene1 the background somewhat suggestive of ,garrick's favourite retreat at ,hampton1 the actor whose attentions were wont to be divided between the ,tragic and the ,comic ,muse--as ,sir ,joshua has expressed so suggestively in his happy allegory--stands by a pedestal on which is placed the bust of ,shakespeare1 and ,garrick has his arm round the bust1 and almost familiarly caresses it4 ,more valuable would have been a picture in which the head of the actor had been more dominant than the dgag gesture4 ,the head of ,garrick1 however1 if the story goes truly1 was always a puzzle to ,gainsborough4 ,of ,garrick and of ,foote--mobile comedians1 baffling beyond all men--he is said to have exclaimed1 when he essayed to paint them1 #8,rot them for a couple of rogues1 they have everybody's faces but their own4' ,generally1 it may be noted1 the full-lengths of men--sometimes1 also1 the full-lengths of women--are less attractive than the half-lengths and the busts1 though whatever could be done by any artist to overcome the difficulty of making the full-length interesting1 could be done by ,gainsborough1 since he was a master of draperies1 and skilled1 as a pupil of ,gravelot's should have been1 in the secrets of dignified and gracious carriage4 ,but1 to remain for the moment with the men's portraits1 one's admiration of the elegance and harmony of ,tenducci's portrait must be in excess of any feeling that can rightly be prompted by the #8,garrick4' ,this1 again1 is the portrait of an artist--,gainsborough's sympathies were with artists--and ,tenducci is said to have #8warbled so divinely4' ,and then1 to take an instance from the women's portraits1 and to single out a full-length figure1 in which the face is modelled with exceptional exactness1 and is one1 too1 of peculiar refinement1 take the portrait of ,lady ,sheffield1 with her aquiline nose and her almond-shaped eyes--even here the importance of the countenance is a little effaced by the brilliant light on the showy drapery of the skirt4 ,no one could assert that1 for real charm1 that picture--masterly as it is in its own kind--is equal to any one of half a dozen busts or half-lengths in the same ,gallery4 ,but1 on the other hand1 the #8,sir ,bate ,dudley1' #8skilled in the nice conduct of a clouded cane1' is an instance of ,gainsborough's occasional triumph1 even with the full-length male figure2 and the #8,mrs4 ,graham1' at ,edinburgh1 is one of the most fascinating full-length portraits of a woman that has been painted since the days of the ,venetians4 ,furthermore1 three more quite masterly full-length male portraits are in the ,grosvenor ,gallery itself3 they are first1 those that are lent by the ,queen1 the portrait of ,colonel ,st4 ,leger1 the portrait of #8,fischer' the musician1 and last1 the familiar #8,blue ,boy1' a work directed possibly at the theories of ,sir ,joshua and inspired by the practice of ,van ,dyck4 ,as one looks over the subjects of ,gainsborough's portraits1 one understands in part how it was that1 comparing them with ,sir ,joshua's1 or perhaps even with ,romney's1 so few of them were engraved4 ,romney was1 above all things1 seductive3 he saw ,lady ,hamilton--or when not ,lady ,hamilton1 then some one who was almost equally pretty--in everything1 and the public liked what he saw4 ,sir ,joshua was a courtier1 careful to be on the best of terms with the great world4 ,gainsborough courted nobody1 and the world talked much less about him4 ,though1 after the lapse of years1 he succeeded in getting a hundred guineas for a full-length picture1 and moved1 without imprudence1 from the cottage at ,ipswich1 rented at six pounds1 first to the ,circus at ,bath1 and then to the west wing of ,schomberg ,house1 ,pall ,mall1 he was never really in his own time ,sir ,joshua's rival in the public favour4 ,and much of his best work in ,portraiture--over and above that work in landscape which confessedly engaged his choice--was devoted to the record of people of the artistic rather than the fashionable world2 people of professions the members of which were not in those days motioned to the velvet of the social sward4 ,we have already spoken of more than one instance--and #8,giardini1' the fiddler1 is another--of such a natural selection which governs ,gainsborough's art4 ,it is as characteristic of him in portraiture as it is of ,watteau in genre pieces and gallant pastorals4 ,but there is a little canvas1 the portrait of an unknown ,mrs4 ,carr1 which holds its own either against portraits of people from the artistic world or people from ,georgian #8,society4' ,it is curiously natural and refined in expression1 exquisitely suggestive of elegant carriage1 though so small a portion of the figure is seen1 and as a piece of flesh-painting1 it is unsurpassed by any of the more famous examples of ,gainsborough's skill4 ,who was #8,mrs4 ,carr'8 ,and had ,gainsborough1 we may wonder1 some further interest in her than that which is aroused in any qualified observer of ,humanity by the vision of such agreeable beauty8 ,for ,gainsborough1 as a rule1 painted best the models he knew the most4 ,executing every touch with his own hand1 and doing his most picturesque with every model because he was so essentially artistic1 he yet must have undertaken many a portrait of fashionable persons or of enriched bourgeois1 into the dull recesses of whose character he did not care to penetrate4 ,where he knew and liked1 he painted with delight4 ,he was so profoundly impressionable3 what he enjoyed stirred him3 if somebody played the fiddle particularly well1 tears of rapture stood on ,gainsborough's cheek4 ,his wife1 who was in her youth a rose and brown coloured beauty1 and whose countenance was long afterwards lustrous enough under the becoming grey of her powdered hair1 ,gainsborough painted several times1 and always with distinction and conspicuous artistry4 ,his handling of the subject is best in the portrait numbered #age--;a worthy companion to his own sensitive and high-bred countenance 7,no4 #ahe74 ,and his portraits of his daughters--his only children--are at the least satisfying4 ,one is a group--the two together2 another is a half-length of ,mrs4 ,fischer2 another1 again1 a half-length of the brighter personality who remained #8,miss ,gainsborough4' ,there is some likeness between the two young women1 in the general contour of the head and in the fulness of the under-lip4 #8,miss ,gainsborough1' with her clear brown eyes1 delicate eyebrows1 compact and intelligent forehead1 is the greater beauty2 but to ,mrs4 ,fischer there belongs a winning expression of pathetic reverie4 ,both are felt to be the true daughters of their father3 the one by her possession of the gaiety and fire of temper which characterised ,gainsborough in his happiest times2 the other by her obvious inheritance of what proved more than her share of ,gainsborough's keen perception of the sadness of so much of human fortune4 ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds1 who was almost wholly intellectual and #8practical1' who lived on the outside of things1 had nothing of ,gainsborough's sense of profundity and pathos4 ,and1 in so far as he had nothing of this1 he was1 in the essentials of character1 the less of an artist4 ,for ,goethe said--and when he said it he was uttering one of the deepest of his truths--#8,to be artistic is to be serious4' 7,the ,standard1 #ast and #fth ,january #ahhe47 ,,cotman ,it remained for the ,norwich ,art ,circle to hold1 for the first time1 an exhibition of the drawings of an artist who was nothing less than a great master in water-colour1 but whose place in the ranks of ,art was for many a year1 by the general public1 not so much contested as ignored4 ,cotman was born a few years after ,turner4 ,possessed of a sensibility as keen1 but of less tremendous vitality1 he died a few years before him4 ,turner was amongst ,cotman's friends2 not a #8chum1' perhaps1 but an advocate1 strenuous and judicious--and strenuous and judicious advocacy may claim to be called friendship4 ,had it not been for ,turner1 it is unlikely that the less-known artist would have received that post at ,king's ,college which afforded him comfort1 though not affluence1 in the last years of his life4 ,like ,dewint1 ,cotman taught drawing4 ,but in ,london his connection was less influential than that of ,dewint1 whose usual fee of a guinea an hour was no doubt never reached by the draughtsman from ,norwich4 ,the appointment of drawing-master at ,king's ,college was therefore very serviceable3 the more so that ,cotman's original work1 though it was produced with the enthusiasm and the untiring enjoyment1 and the sweat of the brow besides1 which in any art are the real artist's equivalents or substitutes for mechanical diligence--,cotman's original work1 ,i say 7like a little of ,mozart's best music71 was produced #8for himself and two friends4' ,even the connoisseur1 as a rule1 held back4 ,the public8 ,but can you for an instant expect the public to understand work which1 frankly1 makes no bid for its sympathies1 which is never furnished #8according to sample1' which is bound to be itself and wholly fresh1 and is content to be excellent8 ,an intelligent criticism might perhaps have drummed into the big public1 not the real sense1 but at all events some tacit acceptance1 of ,cotman's peculiar merit4 ,but where was the intelligent criticism of #ahbj and #ahcj8 ,there was little critical writing then--at all events in the papers--that was either an influence or an art4 ,john ,sell ,cotman was born at ,norwich on the #afth of ,may #aghb4 ,his father was a well-to-do haberdasher1 established at that time in ,cockey ,lane1 but afterwards1 when able to retire from business1 living in a villa at ,thorpe1 with a garden that looked on the river4 ,cotman himself drew the garden--and idealised it--in the last year of his life4 ,his father survived him2 dying very old--at eighty-four4 ,cotman died at sixty4 ,whatever troubles there had been on the subject of ,cotman's trade or profession1 they were got over by the simple process of his going his own way1 and of his father's forgiving him4 ,the boy was educated at the grammar school1 and at sixteen years old1 after much discussion about his future--after the interposition of ,opie1 with the not very measured remark that the boy #8had far better black shoes than be an artist'--young ,cotman chose the less desirable of these unhappy alternatives1 and1 that he might be an artist1 journeyed to ,london4 ,a young man at that period1 and especially a young man who was wishing to be a landscape painter1 had little opportunity of artistic training1 unless indeed it might be that best kind of training which consists in familiarity with people of mind1 and with the works of art that bygone genius has produced1 and with those natural scenes which1 like the voice or the face of your friend1 stimulate and enrich and endow with a new experience4 ,cotman in these things was happy4 ,he was trained by the world1 and by those lessons in noble by-past ,art which he was so well fitted to receive4 ,his own true taste1 and the faculty of real development--which some of us call1 like ,wordsworth1 #8a leading from above3 a something given'--made him independent of academic influence2 and in his case no one undertook the academic task1 and made the too-confident promise to turn into fine gold what is brass at the beginning1 and must be brass to the end4 ,cotman was fine gold4 ,he was1 that is to say1 an artist born1 not manufactured4 ,at the hospitable house of ,dr4 ,munro1 in the ,adelphi ,terrace1 the young man fell into association with a group of painters1 most of whom were his seniors4 ,at eighteen years old he exhibited six drawings at the ,royal ,academy1 and while he was still extremely young1 he presided over a little society--a sketching club1 one may call it--of which ,varley and ,dr4 ,munro were members4 ,at very moderate prices his drawings seem to have found a sale1 and he began to make excursions into remote parts of the country--into ,yorkshire and ,lincolnshire--besides visiting his family at ,norwich4 ,it was either at ,norwich or ,yarmouth1 in the first years of the century1 that he made the acquaintance of ,dawson ,turner1 the antiquary4 ,that acquaintance became a friendship1 and1 to use the phrase of ,charles ,lamb in regard to such matters1 #8a friendship that answered4' ,dawson ,turner was at once1 and for many a year afterwards1 a help to ,cotman4 ,and as a serious student--not only a rich dilettante--he knew that he gained as much as ,cotman from their association4 #8,we value him greatly1' ,dawson ,turner wrote to ,cotman's father1 very long after their first introduction1 and when it was wanted to arouse the father to an understanding of ,cotman's position1 and of his depressed state4 ,in ,november #ahje we find ,cotman established in ,charlotte ,street1 ,portland ,place1 writing to ,dawson ,turner that he had been in ,yorkshire and ,durham all the autumn1 #8making many close copies of the fickle ,dame ,nature--copies1' writes ,cotman1 not very elegantly1 #8consequently valuable on that account4' ,a hope of settling in ,norwich--of working1 and founding a drawing-class there--was now growing upon him1 and in #ahjf it was accomplished4 ,a young bachelor of four-and-twenty--personally a little extravagant1 but taking his art very seriously--he possessed himself of an excellent house in ,luckett's ,court1 ,wymer ,street4 ,i saw the house this summer4 ,a dignified house1 with gables of the ,seventeenth ,century1 and much of the interior woodwork seemingly of the early ,eighteenth4 ,for six years ,cotman lived there4 ,there1 was wrought almost all the best of his earlier art3 ,mr4 ,j4 ,j4 ,colman's #8,st4 ,luke's ,chapel'2 ,mr4 ,reeve's #8,twickenham' 7from a yet earlier sketch72 the same collector's #8,mousehold ,heath'2 my own ewe lamb1 #8,bishopgate ,bridge'2 and a mass of work besides--much of which1 unquestionably1 has been mislaid1 neglected1 ruined1 forgotten4 ,the exhibition held at ,norwich--to which ,i began by referring--gave us an excellent opportunity of really studying this rarer and earlier art4 ,i am not thinking of the insignificant fact that there was to be seen there a puerile yet rather clever performance which dates from ,cotman's twelfth year2 but to the assemblage of work of the early time when he was really an artist--from #ahjj1 say1 to #ahab4 ,what was the character of his labour then8 ,with whom did he sympathise8 ,whom did he at all resemble8 ,the influence of ,turner and of ,girtin is to be detected in some of the work of this period--in the noble architectural work1 especially--and it is not in the slightest degree unlikely that1 in his turn1 ,cotman exercised some influence over ,turner2 at a much later time ,i mean1 when everyday sobriety sufficed for neither of them1 and when ,cotman1 surely quite as much as ,turner1 led the way to revelries of colour4 ,between ,cotman and ,girtin there could be no such reciprocity of influence1 for ,girtin died1 an accomplished master of water-colour1 though less than thirty years old1 in #ahjb1 and ,cotman was then but twenty4 ,mr4 ,colman's large and solid and sober drawing of #8,durham' 7it has these qualities1 and yet is1 somehow1 without charm7 reminds me of an early ,girtin2 while a ,girtin of the finer sort1 just as simple1 just as straightforward1 yet with something of the later magic of the hand1 is recalled by ,mr4 ,reeve's #8,bridge over the ,greta4' ,a quiet realism2 a sense of the picturesque1 entertained but yet subdued2 a composition1 ordered1 yet not seemingly artificial2 a breadth that was never thereafter for a moment departed from--these are1 perhaps1 the characteristics of the mature and noble drawings of the earlier period1 such as #8,st4 ,luke's ,chapel1' #8,bishopgate ,bridge1' and #8,mousehold ,heath4' ,wherever there is opportunity for it--as1 in my #8,bishopgate ,bridge1' in the yew-tree to the left and the slope of the bank to the river--there comes in ,cotman's sense of grace1 his appreciation of style and of dignity1 his avoidance of mere topography2 but it is in ,mr4 ,reeve's #8,twickenham'--thanks to the occasion of which the scene itself is lavish--that that sense of grace dominates1 and the stately trees throw their shadows over the lawn by the water4 ,in #ahab1 ,cotman removed to ,south ,town1 ,yarmouth2 ,dawson ,turner being1 presumably1 at the bottom of the change4 ,the painter's association with the interesting antiquary became more and more intimate4 ,purely architectural1 or1 as one might say1 monumental1 draughtsmanship was at this time a good deal occupying him4 ,he was issuing at the moment the first part of the ,antiquities of ,norfolk4 ,in the year #ahag1 he paid1 on the advice of ,dawson ,turner1 a first visit to ,normandy4 ,he went there again in #ahai and #ahbj2 and1 two years after the third visit1 his ,architectural ,antiquities of ,normandy saw the light4 ,it was not until #ahch that he produced the book which best represents the characteristics of his style--the book in which1 fettered by no established task1 his sense of elegance1 his genius for composition in line and in light and shade1 had free play--,i mean1 of course1 his ,liber ,studiorum3 soft ground-etchings of unquestioned force and charm4 ,but at ,yarmouth he had much to engage him4 ,his range of subjects increased4 ,there it was that he acquired the close knowledge of coast #8effects' and of marine architecture which made him1 in addition to all his other capacities1 so excellent a painter of the shore and sea4 ,it was in #ahbc1 ,i think1 that ,cotman left ,yarmouth3 a married man in early middle age1 with five young children4 ,he did it to establish himself again at ,norwich1 hoping perhaps to sell his pictures better there1 and expecting again to add to his group of pupils--he still went regularly and frequently to those who learnt of him at ,yarmouth4 ,this time it was only a house opposite the ,bishop's ,palace--the address1 #8,st4 ,martin's at ,palace'--that sufficed for ,cotman's needs1 or ,cotman's ambitions4 ,but before long1 though he made no change1 his mind suffered tortures from the costliness of his new abode1 and the unremunerative character of the adventure4 ,he went to the ,dawson ,turners in utter gloom1 and then it was that his excellent friend wrote to him and to his father letters full of tact1 wisdom1 and feeling1 pointing out to the well-to-do father that ,cotman must really be relieved1 and pointing out1 to the now depressed and now exalted genius of a son1 that his position1 could he but face it1 and retrench a little1 was not by any means so bad4 ,the existence of the letters on this subject allows us entrance into the intimacy of these housekeeping troubles1 and of the troubles of mind that threatened to be more serious4 ,but we do not get the end of the story4 ,we can only suppose that ,cotman's father1 who was really on good terms with him1 afforded reasonable help1 and that though the house was not moved from with promptitude1 the expenses inside it were curtailed4 ,cotman rubbed on1 somehow1 and in #ahcd he received the appointment which ,i spoke of at the beginning--that post of drawing-master at ,king's ,college1 ,london1 which he was to retain till his death4 ,preparing to quit ,norwich1 and wishing to put money in his purse before doing so1 he had a sale by auction of many of his effects4 ,these included nearly twenty of his paintings in oil1 and five guineas was the highest price realised for any one of them4 ,he sold1 likewise1 some copies of his printed book3 the demand proving by no means #8active'--they were indeed rather #8quiet' than #8lively' or #8firm'--but of the drawings he wisely kept back all that were still in his possession3 they were destined to be serviceable in his ,king's ,college lessons4 ,after a brief sojourn in ,gerrard ,street1 ,soho--a mere preparatory time--,hunter ,street1 ,brunswick ,square1 was the spot fixed upon by ,cotman for his ,london home4 ,but he went down to ,norwich still1 now and then1 in the autumn4 ,his son1 #8,j4 ,j41' already gifted1 and afterwards eccentric1 was settled there4 ,cotman wrote letters to him1 in many moods1 now bright and fanciful1 now depressed and forlorn4 ,he was fond of the ,thames before the ,thames was popular--witness ,mr4 ,reeve's early #8,twickenham1' and ,mr4 ,pyke ,thompson's later #8,twickenham1' the #8,golden ,twickenham' of the ,turner house at ,penarth--and in one of those letters to the son #8,j4 ,j41' there is #8the log' that records the adventures of ,mr4 ,cotman's #8voyage' with others of the ship's company to ,windsor1 where they were #8not victualled from hence'--from ,london1 that is to say--and so might be expected to put in at ,datchet4 ,then later1 the brightness was all gone1 and illness was upon him4 #8,it was my duty1 it was my wish1 and ,i threatened to paint for your sake when you were here1 but ,i could not2 ,i was ill in body1 and spiritless4' ,again1 still later1 #8,i am not quite well1 but better4 ,i am painting4'#e ,and then he could paint no more4 ,he died1 in ,hunter ,street1 in ,july #ahdb1 and was buried on the #cjth of that month1 in what is now the dull suburban cemetery behind ,st4 ,john's ,wood ,chapel1 within sound of the cheers from #8,lord's' and the screech of the ,metropolitan ,railway4 #e ,these letters1 some of which belong to ,mr4 ,reeve1 and others to the ,british ,museum1 have been quoted from more amply in my ,studies in ,english ,art4 ,the beginning of the later period of ,cotman's art dates rather from the days of his visits to ,normandy than from those of his removal to ,king's ,college4 ,i used to think that it was a good deal by the composition--by the theme chosen and by the disposition of its different elements--that we could best affix some approximate date to the undated work of this delightful master4 ,and1 unquestionably1 composition counts2 and the tendency as time advanced was towards a greater elegance in this matter--a more elaborate art1 a franker departure from that ,nature which suffers1 in ,boucher's word1 the grass to be #8too green1' which #8lacks1' in ,lancret's answer1 #8harmony and seductiveness4' ,but1 with a pretty familiar knowledge1 now1 of at least a couple of hundred of ,cotman's sketches and designs--the most accomplished of his work1 with its wise and learned or inspired omissions1 is sometimes disparaged as a #8sketch'--,i am inclined to extend the period during which ,cotman's art was wont to be wrought into studied fineness of line1 and ,i would appeal1 perhaps1 chiefly to colour to settle the question as to the date of this or that drawing1 coming from the hand of one who was a poet at the beginning and a poet at the end4 ,undoubtedly1 in the best--in the very best--of ,cotman's later work 7in ,mr4 ,pyke ,thompson's #8,blue ,afternoon1' for instance1 and ,mr4 ,bulwer's #8,blasting ,st4 ,vincent's ,rock'71 there is a greater freedom of poetic expression than was reached in the earlier work2 an even keener sensibility1 an added love of luxury of hue and of forms that have grandeur sometimes in their restraint1 or elegance in their abandonment4 ,certain black-and-white studies done in the last autumn of ,cotman's life--one ,october and ,november1 when the country around ,norwich lay under flood1 and ,cotman1 visiting his native city1 went out to depict no definite landscape1 but #8the world afloat'--display that faculty of seizing the spirit of a thing more than its body1 which ,youth1 in any art1 can hardly claim--which comes to men1 it may be1 with the refinement and chastening of the years4 ,but the germs of all this faculty were there from the first4 ,cotman was indebted for them to no institution1 and to no outward training4 ,the ,heavens had so willed it that his delightful labour--so sterling1 so sober1 so poetic--should evade popularity4 ,he was granted his sensibilities that it should be impossible to vulgarise him4 ,through good report and evil report he was an artist only4 ,and so he accomplished his work4 7,magazine of ,art1 ,december #ahhh47 ,h4 ,g4 ,,hine ,strangely little notice1 considering the artistic importance of the subject1 has been taken of the death of ,h4 ,g4 ,hine1 the eminent artist in water-colours1 vice-president of the ,royal ,institute1 who died a fortnight ago1 aged eighty-three years4 ,the explanation1 ,i fear1 of the scanty comment his death has evoked1 is to be sought in the fact that the mass of that public which concerns itself with ,art at all1 is occupied chiefly with such art as exhibits an easy piquancy of treatment or an obvious interest of subject4 ,hine's did neither2 yet the best-equipped critics have long done justice to the steady perfection with which he dealt with those themes of serene weather upon #8the billows of the ,downs1' which--superlatively though they were executed by him--he1 with a hankering sometimes after other compositions and other effects1 declined to consider his speciality4 ,yet a speciality1 of course1 they were3 those visions of turquoise or of opal sky1 and of grey gold or of embrowned gold turf1 with the long1 restful sweeps and subtle curves1 the luminous shadows1 the points of light1 with the shepherd and his flock on the ascending hillside1 with the ancient thorn-tree bent by the winds of many an autumn4 ,singularly unlike the work of strange refinement and unsurpassed subtlety which it was his wont to produce1 was ,hine himself1 with his sturdy and sailorlike personality4 ,yet the character of the man was1 in truth1 not less admirable than the artistic finesse of his work4 ,he found his true path somewhat late in life4 ,his genius came to him almost as tardily1 but then1 perhaps1 almost as powerfully1 as did ,david ,cox's4 ,he was long past fifty when--with a charm of composition not less certain than ,copley ,fielding's1 and with the genius of a far finer and fuller colourist--he began to do justice to the ,sussex ,downs1 amid whose generally unconsidered scenery it had been his excellent fortune to be born4 7,academy1 #cjth ,march #ahie47 ,,thomas ,,collier ,english landscape art--the practice of which he had adorned by five-and-twenty years of noble work--sustains a profound loss in the death of ,thomas ,collier4 ,he was born in the year #ahdj1 at ,glossop1 on the ,derbyshire border4 ,he early addressed himself to the career of a landscape painter2 and it is true1 no doubt1 that his method was founded upon that of ,david ,cox1 nor is it possible that he could have set up for himself a better model of delicacy of observation1 and of decisive and economical handwork4 ,and the medium of ,collier was--like that of ,david ,cox--almost exclusively water-colour4 ,his oil paintings were few1 and1 like ,cox's1 they were executed chiefly in his later time4 ,but1 with him1 the later time was still only middle age4 ,collier died when he was fifty-one3 ,david ,cox at seventy-six4 ,had ,david ,cox left us at the age of ,collier1 he would hardly have been remembered to-day1 and could have been an example to no one4 ,collier passed through no such prolonged period of preparation for mastery4 ,he was already a master in his early manhood4 ,his work cannot well be divided into periods3 freedom of manner1 largeness of vision and touch1 belonged to him almost from the first4 ,to the quite superficial observer of his drawings1 it appeared that he painted only two or three subjects1 and these on the same grey day4 ,but to the real student of his work1 the richness and variety of his resource is revealed4 ,he observed and recorded differences of weather and light which escape all casual and all untrained notice2 and if he was among the simplest and most vigorous1 he was also among the most poetic recorders of ,english countryside and homestead--of farm1 and coast1 and moor4 ,his work1 exhibited in ,france1 obtained for him the decoration of a chevalier of the ,legion of ,honour1 and here in ,england he was one of the most distinguished members of the ,royal ,institute of ,painters in ,water-,colours4 ,but it is doubtful whether the opportunities afforded to the large public for seeing his work were frequent enough to secure him that degree of actual popularity which was his due2 and it is at all events certain that when the cabinet of sketches which he showed occasionally to his friends shall come to be known more widely1 ,collier will be accorded1 without cavil or questioning1 a lasting place among the ,masters4 7,academy1 #bcrd ,may #ahia47 ,,lord ,,leighton ,by the death of ,lord ,leighton1 the ,royal ,academy loses a great ,president and ,england a many-sided artist1 who was certainly not far removed from being a great painter4 ,it was more1 perhaps1 by the combination of so many various qualities of character and talent than by the firm possession of one especial vein of genius1 that #8our dear ,president1 our admirable ,leighton'--to use the words most fittingly applied to him by ,sir ,john ,millais--had come1 of recent years at least1 to be distinguished and known4 ,the painter's and designer's art1 evidenced in his youth1 about forty years ago1 by the #8,procession of ,cimabue1' had not only never fallen into disuse1 but had never come to occupy1 in his mind1 a secondary or comparatively unregarded place4 ,but1 along with the well-maintained devotion to the craft to which he had first vowed his affections a full generation ago1 there had sprung up1 partly of necessity and partly by reason of ,lord ,leighton's exceptional temperament1 many interests1 exclusive of merely official duties1 which occupied time and thought--so much so that if he had not added to the tastes of an artist the habits and qualifications of a great man of affairs1 it would have been impossible for him to have successfully crowded into his life all the pursuits that engrossed it4 ,it is easy for the #8admirable ,crichton1' in these modern times1 to degenerate into the ,mr4 ,brook of ,middlemarch--the not unamiable dilettante who was pretty certain to have once #8taken up' everything1 and was pretty certain also to have dropped it4 ,but ,lord ,leighton1 great as was the diversity of his interests1 was absolutely systematic and thoroughgoing2 and1 outside his especial art 7in which his place1 whatever may have been his deficiencies1 was peculiar and unquestioned71 he not only practised but excelled4 ,leighton was linguist1 student1 antiquary1 man of fashion1 administrator1 even philanthropist4 ,his oratory was an accomplishment2 albeit1 in its addiction to ingenious ornament1 his style was not quite of our period4 ,his tact in dealing with men and with affairs was almost faultless4 ,his opinions were decided1 and he never concealed them2 yet1 in uttering them1 he hardly ever gave offence--never1 indeed1 to the reasonable4 ,when all these things are remembered1 and when there is added to them the recollection of a presence elegant and stately1 and of a manner which1 though it could well keep intruders at a distance1 had singular and winning charm for the many whom it was intended to please1 it will be fully realised what a difficult and heavy honour awaits ,lord ,leighton's successor in his great function--that of ,president of the ,royal ,academy1 and official representative of ,english ,art4 ,the ,academy contains several painters of genius2 several amiable and distinguished men of the world2 but as those who can look back the furthest declare that no past ,president of whom they had any knowledge ever equalled ,lord ,leighton1 it may well be doubted whether a future ,president is likely to equal him4 ,so much by way of rough indication of the character of the man1 and of the public man4 ,a further explanation of his individuality must1 of course1 be discovered in his ,art2 and even a cursory survey of it--and of the creations which were the events of his life--will disclose something of his strength1 and something1 too1 of his weakness4 ,the son of a physician whose life was extended to a most ripe old age1 and grandson of ,sir ,james ,leighton1 also a doctor--long resident at the ,court of ,st4 ,petersburg--,frederic ,leighton was born at ,scarborough1 on the #crd ,december #ahcj4 ,a ,yorkshireman in fact--like ,william ,etty1 and another remarkable artist of a later generation1 ,thomas ,collier--no one could have been less of a ,yorkshireman in character than was the late ,president4 ,to what is understood or conjectured to have been a ,jewish strain in his blood are possibly to be attributed his profoundly artistic inclinations1 which were manifested very early1 and which1 as the public knows1 dominated the whole of his career4 ,it is recorded that young ,leighton received drawing lessons in ,rome as long ago as the year #ahdb2 and not two years afterwards he entered as a student at the ,academy of ,berlin4 ,with ,rome1 perhaps1 began that long series of ,wanderjahre which made him so cosmopolitan an artist and so many-sided a man4 ,he had some general education at ,frankfort2 then1 after a removal to ,florence1 where the ,american sculptor1 ,hiram ,powers1 was consulted with a view to an opinion on his ability1 and prophesied that the boy #8could become as eminent as he pleased1' young ,leighton's father withdrew his long-standing objections to the adoption of painting as a profession2 and the new decision was followed by a sojourn in ,brussels and a longer stay in ,paris4 ,in ,paris the youth attended a life-school1 and copied at the ,louvre4 ,next we hear of him at ,vienna1 where he was a pupil of ,steinle1 himself a pupil of ,overbeck4 ,of ,overbeck's religious unction1 ,leighton had never a perceptible share4 ,something he no doubt owed to the leaders of the ,german ,renaissance of ,painting2 but amongst these1 more1 it may be1 to ,cornelius than ,overbeck4 ,after his sojourn in ,vienna1 he was back again in ,rome--these early and most prolonged wanderings are worthy of chronicle1 because they had so much to do with the formation of the characteristics of the artist--and it was from ,rome that he sent to the ,royal ,academy ,exhibition of #ahee a picture which made no bid for immediately popular effect1 which was nothing1 moreover1 of a #8pot-boiler1' and which made no concession to ordinary bourgeois liking4 ,it was the canvas in which is depicted1 with something of reticence and grace1 and with a very learned draughtsmanship1 the procession which passed through the streets of ,florence1 on its way to ,santa ,maria ,novella1 when ,cimabue's picture of the ,madonna was carried in the midst1 and honour and peculiar recognition--in which a whole city joined--were bestowed upon its painter4 ,elegant as the picture was1 it did not lack favour2 a certain relative warmth1 a certain romantic spirit1 the presentation of the ideal1 it may be1 in more homely form1 pleased a generation familiar with ,dyce1 ,maclise1 and ,cope2 and the picture1 as it happened1 had an immediate success4 ,paris was ,leighton's next halting-place1 and now1 an artist rising above the horizon1 he was no longer likely to seek direct instruction from any one of the painters who were there at work2 but he was associated with1 and was to some extent influenced by1 men like ,ary ,scheffer 7whose #8,augustine and ,monica' was long appreciated in ,england7 and ,robert ,fleury4 ,he contributed almost without intermission1 for the next eight or nine years1 to the ,royal ,academy1 and it was in #ahfd1 when he was represented by an #8,orpheus and ,eurydice1' that he was elected to the ,associateship--becoming in #ahfi a full member4 ,the year of his election to the ,associateship was likewise the year of the exhibition of his charming and seductive invention1 #8,golden ,hours4' ,to the painter of medival or ,renaissance history1 and of themes avowedly classic1 there was vouchsafed the expression of the romantic and the unquestionably poetic1 and it is1 no doubt1 to the certain element of poetry that is in ,lord ,leighton's work--far more1 at all events1 than to its austerer qualities of design1 which never had any popularity at all1 and which1 even amongst painters1 have gone terribly out of fashion--that is to be attributed part of the great favour which his art has enjoyed4 ,in #ahfi was shown #8,electra at the ,tomb of ,agamemnon1' and in #ahgf the second great processional1 #8,the ,daphnephoria4' ,two years later the #8,arts of ,war'--not the least dignified and decorative of modern frescoes--was finished for ,south ,kensington1 where was already its companion1 #8,the ,industrial ,arts of ,peace1' completed in #ahgc2 another mural painting1 that of #8,the ,wise and ,foolish ,virgins1' having1 at an earlier date1 been placed in the chancel of a fortunate parish church in ,hampshire4 ,the year of the completion of #8,the ,arts of ,war' was that of ,lord ,leighton's election to the ,presidency of the ,academy1 which he obtained1 it will be remembered1 in direct succession to ,sir ,francis ,grant1 with whose courtly qualities1 and with whose large and manly sympathies1 he combined a width of artistic outlook1 a refinement of artistic expression1 which had scarcely perhaps belonged to any ,president of the ,academy since the days of its first leader1 ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds4 ,president1 and knighted in consequence of that distinction in #ahgh1 ,leighton was given a baronetcy in #ahhf4 ,in the interval he had not only proved beyond dispute his fitness for the responsibilities of the official position1 which he filled1 but--to mention only some of the most memorable of many works--had completed his own portrait for the ,uffizi1 had wrought the really grave and impressive canvas of ,elisha raising the son of the ,shunamite widow1 and had1 in his peculiar fashion1 effected an alliance between luxury in colour and sculpturesque arrangement of #8line' in the great #8,cymon and ,iphigenia4' ,in actual ,sculpture1 too--sharing the ambition of the men of the ,renaissance for a triumph in various mediums--he had produced #8,the ,sluggard4' ,it was extraordinarily clever1 but perhaps its qualities were less truly sculptural than was some of his design executed in the older and more familiar material4 ,yet1 if this particular work did not possess to the full all the great qualities that might have been expected in it1 the order of ,lord ,leighton's talent was one1 nevertheless1 which empowered him to succeed thoroughly in ,sculpture1 sooner or later2 for1 in ,sculpture1 while there was room for the generally unimpeded play of his own skill in design1 there might have been a relief found from the exercise of his art in a path in which success to him was more uncertain and capricious--the path of colour4 ,it is too early1 of course1 to attempt to settle definitely the place of ,leighton in ,english ,art2 but it is certain that his influence1 whether as ,president or painter1 tended to the extension of its vistas4 ,an upholder of the ,classic--never1 with all his range1 much in love with ,realism--he was yet nothing whatever of a partisan1 and--it may be mentioned as a characteristic detail of him in his daily ways--he was accustomed from time to time to purchase clever little drawings 7sometimes the very last one would have thought he would care for7 by artists who esteemed him as a ,president1 but who regarded him very lightly as a practitioner of their own craft4 ,lord ,leighton was perfectly aware that several circumstances limited--especially of late years--the appreciation of his work4 ,he was not altogether insensible of its real defects--at all events1 of peculiarities which were defects upon occasion4 ,he knew that his #8brush-work' was not absolutely #8modern4' ,he must have allowed that1 now and again1 when it was by no means one of his aims to seek it1 the texture of his flesh was porcelain-like1 and thus mainly conventional4 ,he was1 confessedly1 not greatly occupied with #8values' of colour1 with the relation of part to part4 ,he was at one--perhaps more than they knew it--with many of our newest artists in demanding a decorative quality2 only the decorative quality of his choice was not always--was1 indeed very seldom--that of theirs4 ,a successful pattern of colour they could understand the virtue of4 ,the ,japanese1 or ,mr4 ,whistler1 had taught it them4 ,but a successful pattern of line1 they were less capable of appreciating4 ,they1 for example1 or some of them1 execrated ,bouguereau1 and resented in some degree the hospitality prominently offered to that distinguished ,frenchman on the walls of the ,academy4 ,lord ,leighton1 on the other hand1 was1 very possibly1 not fully alive to ,bouguereau's vices or failings--to his mere smoothness1 softness1 not infrequent vapidness of human expression4 ,but he valued justly ,bouguereau's possession of the best ,academic graces1 of faultless composition and subtle draughtsmanship4 ,for these things--these best ,academic graces--he himself strove4 ,these1 too1 he generally1 though not always1 attained4 ,in regard to this particular matter1 there were times when ,leighton knew himself to be a vox clamantis in deserto4 ,but he had his mission4 ,it is an immense tribute to him to recognise that any one caring1 as he undoubtedly cared1 to be acceptable amongst his fellows--amongst the younger men1 even1 who were some day to succeed him--should yet have been so true to his particular message4 ,but ,lord ,leighton had an admirable courage as well as a great patience and an untiring diligence4 ,and there were times1 fortunately1 when it was brought home to him beyond cavil1 that some educated appreciation existed of his own especial artistic qualities1 as well as of those human virtues which made him1 in many ways1 so estimable a man1 and so fitting a leader of men4 7,standard1 #bgth ,january #ahif47 ,,sir ,,john ,,millais ,for the second time within a few months the ,royal ,academy has lost its chief1 while ,english ,painting is deprived of its most popular representative1 and contemporary ,english ,art of one who was long its most vigorous and most varied personality4 ,born at ,southampton in #ahbi1 the #8son of ,john ,william ,millais1 ,esquire1 by ,mary1 daughter of ,richard ,evemy1 ,esquire'--as the official biographies relate--,millais was really the descendant of a ,jersey family of long standing2 but in character1 personal and professional1 he was typically ,english4 ,it is partly by reason of the fact that1 as a man and as an artist1 ,millais summed up some1 perhaps1 of the defects1 many certainly of the great qualities1 of our ,english race1 that his popularity amongst all personal associates1 and amongst the spectators of his decisive1 strenuous1 and eager work1 was won so early1 and has been so firmly held4 ,the man himself1 during forty years or thereabouts of active adult life--the artist during forty years of scarcely relaxed endeavour--has been in thought1 in conduct1 in taste1 and in production1 pre-eminently healthy4 ,millais1 in the generation and a half of his active life--for he began young--had seen fashions good and bad1 foolish and reasonable1 rise and pass away2 but1 save by the influences of his quite early days1 the days of the ,pre-,raphaelites1 he has been practically unaffected4 ,he has developed in the direction proper to himself4 ,as time has passed1 he and his sympathies have broadened and modified1 and if we miss in much of the later work the intense and concentrated poetry of the earlier1 that later work has qualities of its own that do something to compensate4 ,the man himself1 too--sportsman1 man of the world1 excellent comrade1 hearty and sincere good fellow--has been essentially greater in his more recent than in his earlier times2 for the temptations of a success1 brilliant and uninterrupted1 did him1 as a man at least1 little harm4 ,simple and generous he was--by all the records of his fellows--when he was at #8,mr4 ,sass's ,academy' fifty years ago4 ,simple and generous--generous especially in thought and judgment as well as in action--he remained1 when in the late winter of the present year he was appointed to the visible headship of the profession to which he had given so much of the energy of his life4 ,sir ,john ,millais was only nine years old when he gained his first medal at the ,society of ,arts--,mozart himself scarcely came before the public in more tender years1 as an executant upon the limited keyboard of his day--and when he was seventeen1 #8,jack' ,millais was already an exhibitor at the ,academy4 ,he was only twenty when his #8,isabella1' from the poem of ,keats1 disclosed a new talent1 almost a new order of talent2 at the least1 a personality that had to be reckoned with--an influence that had to be either accepted or fought against4 ,yet more marked by an artistic individuality which was1 in part1 a return to older conceptions and views than those of his day1 were the #8,carpenter's ,shop1' #8,mariana in the ,moated ,grange1' the #8,huguenot1' and #8,ophelia4' ,these1 or most of them1 are typical ,pre-,raphaelite pictures--the offspring of the tacit rebellion of a whole group of men1 only one of whom1 ,mr4 ,holman ,hunt1 remains to give effect in his later life to the principles enunciated in youth4 ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti--,pre-,raphaelite to the end1 though of course with certain modifications--was another of those men2 but years have passed since he went from us4 ,the group was completed by others never as celebrated1 nor1 as the world judges1 so successful4 ,they painted their pictures2 they made their illustrations2 they wrote as well as drew1 in the quaint publication called ,the ,germ1 which the lapse of time and the fad of the collector have since made rare and valuable4 ,truth1 rather than convention1 was the aim of their practice2 but they were not peculiar in that1--all youth1 if it is earnest at all1 is earnest for truth1 or earnest rather for that particular side of truth which happens just then to have been revealed1 and of which it exaggerates the value4 ,much has been written about the ,pre-,raphaelite #8movement' and its supreme importance--as if it were a great religious ,reformation and a ,french ,revolution rolled into one4 ,in ,history it is destined to be remembered because it was a phase through which two or three men of genius passed--a something1 moreover1 that for the moment welded them together4 ,it will not be recollected1 because at a later time mere imitative weaklings1 by the dozen1 made feeble fight under what they professed to be its banner4 ,the interest1 then1 for sensible people1 in ,millais's early pictures1 lies1 not in the fact that they were ,pre-,raphaelite1 but in the fact that they showed1 many of them1 an intensity of vision1 a profundity of poetic feeling1 which is the property of gifted and of eager youth4 ,the passionate1 constant devotion--the devotion of a minute which lasts1 you feel1 for a lifetime2 the #8moment eternal1' as the great poet puts it--of the ,puritan ,maiden and of the ,cavalier she helps1 is the interest of the #8,concealed ,royalist4' ,the burning love-affair of the #8,huguenot' is the interest of a canvas on which1 before the days when the aesthete had invented #8intensity' of attitude1 ,millais had determined that his lovers should be intense1 instead of sentimental4 ,millais was in those years occupied very much with the presentation1 never of strictly sensuous enjoyment 7,rossetti's field1 rather than his71 but of violent emotion1 and uncontrolled1 almost uncontrollable1 impulse4 ,his people felt keenly1 but with the elevation of poetic natures1 or of a poetic mood4 ,and ,millais painted them when their blood ran high4 ,he chose the incident that seemed to him the most dramatic in all their story4 ,he painted them on the crest of the wave--at the moment of crisis4 ,this1 however1 like the more nave ,pre-,raphaelitism of a yet earlier time1 was but a phase--remarkable now chiefly because it has been so absolutely outlived2 nay1 because so much of the view of life taken subsequently by its author has1 dominating it1 a spirit so opposed to this one4 ,but the transition was not rapid3 the #8,autumn ,leaves' of #ahef1 and the #8,vale of ,rest' of #ahfj1 have1 at least1 the poetic quality to the full1 though with no violence of emotion4 ,rather1 they are suggestive and reticent2 weird and extraordinarily expressive3 in the one there is depicted the wistfulness of childhood1 in the other the melancholy resignation of a nun to whom #8rest' means brooding on a ,past more eventful and more poignant than the occupation of her present day4 ,notwithstanding his later technical development1 nothing that ,sir ,john ,millais has painted will be remembered more definitely and firmly than these2 and it is noteworthy that they are among the first pictures in which he relied in great measure upon landscape to express or suggest the sentiment which it was the picture's business to convey4 #8,spring ,flowers' of #ahfj was in a lighter and gayer vein1 if it is1 as we believe1 the picture known originally as #8,apple ,blossom'--girls lounging in an orchard under the loaded and whitened boughs4 #8,my ,first ,sermon1' in #ahfc1 was more purely popular than anything we have named4 ,it dealt with childhood almost in the spirit of douard ,frre1 but with its author's singular realism of execution4 #8,vanessa1' in #ahfi1 marked ,millais as occupied increasingly with technical problems--with the attainment of an almost novel boldness of effect4 ,it is1 like so many pieces of his middle and later middle time1 brilliant in colour and brush-work4 ,no one now thinks1 we suppose1 of claiming it as dramatic--that is1 of connecting it especially with the character of the lady who came off second-best in the affections of ,swift4 ,very soon after the exhibition of #8,vanessa1' ,millais1 who had already sought impressiveness in landscape background1 turned to pure landscape as a theme sufficient for the exercise of his art4 ,he gave us then #8,chill ,october1' the ,october of the north and of the lowlands1 with the wind passing over water1 and the reeds and scanty foliage bent aside by its breath4 ,the picture excited interest4 ,it was visibly forcible4 ,the conception of the scene1 too1 was unusual and1 of course1 unconventional2 but in some later landscape work1 ,millais may have been at once nearer to ,nature and nearer to the attainment of a perfected art4 #8,new ,laid ,eggs1' in #ahgc1 with navet of expression and dexterity of handling1 but with a rusticity not very convincing1 was a #8taking' picture of happy1 healthy1 self-confident girlhood4 ,its importance1 in the volume of its author's work1 was quite eclipsed the following year by the #8,north-,west ,passage1' a canvas full of interest almost romantic1 yet most direct in its record of character--the main figure being1 indeed1 a portrait of that ,trevelyan who is associated in most men's minds with the career of ,shelley4 ,he it was who in ,sir ,john ,millais's picture posed as the sturdy sailor whose imagination engages him in a remote and unknown voyage4 ,when1 many years after it had been painted1 the #8,north-,west ,passage' was seen again in the ,millais ,exhibition1 at the ,fine ,art ,society's or at the ,grosvenor ,gallery1 it was felt that at the moment of its execution the painter had reached the summit of his real artistic greatness1 the masculine and potent hand here best executing that which had been prompted by a mind at its most vigorous4 #8,a ,jersey ,lily1' in #ahgh1 was a tribute to the then girlish beauty of ,mrs4 ,langtry1 who at about the same period was recorded by ,mr4 ,watts with exquisite simplicity4 ,again1 just as in his diploma picture it had pleased ,millais to invoke the name of ,velasquez1 and to perform a feat such as that to which ,velasquez was most wont to address himself1 so1 in another canvas1 in one sense more important--that of the three ,miss ,armstrongs playing whist with a dummy--it pleased him to follow visibly in the steps of ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds--recalling his composition2 the portrait group of the three ,ladies ,waldegrave being the one with which he on this occasion made it his business to vie4 ,in #ahgi ,sir ,john was able to exhibit one of the masterpieces of portraiture--that record or idealisation of ,mr4 ,gladstone of which the nobility and charm were instantly recognised--a canvas which of itself would be sufficient to prove that the faculty of poetic vision never finally deserted an artist who had seemed of late to concentrate his energy rather on dexterous execution than on the expression of profound feeling or elevated mood4 ,the #8,mr4 ,bright1' which pretty closely followed the #8,gladstone1' was comparatively unsuccessful4 ,and the illness of the sitter and the consequent incompleteness of his presentation on ,millais's canvas1 made yet more disappointing the portrait of ,lord ,beaconsfield which hung upon the walls of the ,academy in #ahha4 ,next year1 however1 came the #8,cardinal ,newman1' to atone for all that had been amiss--again a poetic vision1 a worthy rising to the exigencies of a great theme1 a performance at once decisive and tender1 energetic1 yet exquisitely suave4 7,standard1 #adth ,august #ahif47 ,,burne-,,jones ,unexpectedly and suddenly1 from an attack of angina pectoris1 following upon the pest of influenza1 ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones died yesterday morning4 ,he was sixty-five years old1 and he looked worn for his age--a man of delicate appearance1 and certainly of great sensitiveness2 yet1 as it had seemed already1 of much staying power1--a #8creaking gate1' as his friends thought1 not so very regretfully1 since destined1 in all probability1 to #8hang long4' ,but now his work and life have been arrested2 the laborious days which he had lived for forty years of manhood are for ever over1 and the wan face of the untiring craftsman1 which bent eagerly over his task1 and brightened with quick sensibility in the relaxation of the social hour1 is for ever still4 #8,finis' is written to the volume of achievement of one of the greater practitioners in what we may call the second generation of the ,english ,pre-,raphaelites4 ,of the first ,pre-,raphaelites--of those of the first generation--more than one changed his ways1 his work1 his whole conception of ,art1 obviously1 as time went on1 and the most illustrious of them all--,millais--was far enough removed from a ,pre-,raphaelite in the end4 ,but of that distinguished and untiring practitioner of the second generation1 whose hold1 of late years at least1 upon the ,english and to some extent upon the ,french public has become phenomenal1 though it will not be constant1 it is certainly to be noted that although there was1 at different times1 an unequal capacity1 there was at no time visible change in the direction of his tastes or in the method of his work4 ,of the human figure ,burne-,jones was not at the first an excellent1 and was never1 at any time1 an absolutely faultless draughtsman4 ,yet the poetry of his figure-drawing1 the almost feminine tenderness with which he followed the lines of dainty human movement1 the dreamy grace that was in the place of strength1 the elegant diffuseness1 so to say1 which was characteristic of his style--never even by accident tense and terse--these things are noticeable in his earlier water-colours and in the very latest of his performances in this year's ,new ,gallery4 ,it was as a water-colour painter that he first began to be known4 ,a pupil of ,rossetti1 as far as he was a pupil of any one1 ,burne-,jones was from the beginning romantic1 and he was affluent in colour4 ,but what1 it may be asked1 are the especial characteristics of ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones's art1 as it has been revealed not only in the designs for painted glass1 mosaic1 tapestry1 in numberless pages decorated with beautiful ornament--such as the ,morris translation of ,virgil1 and later1 the great ,chaucer--but likewise in the series of large pictures1 the adequate display of which was1 so to say1 one of the raisons d'tre of the old ,grosvenor ,gallery8 ,he had indeed extraordinary individuality4 ,he was amenable to influence1 for all that2 and the influence he felt the most--that of his true fellows--was exercised by the ,italians of the earlier ,renaissance3 a period scarcely primitive1 scarcely accomplished4 ,those early ,italians1 though engaging1 were not really great draughtsmen of the human figure--not great draughtsmen in the sense of the ,greek sculptors1 or ,michael ,angelo1 or ,raphael1 or ,ingres1 or ,leighton1 or ,bouguereau4 ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones1 lacking the peculiar education which fitted the temperament and brought out the qualities of the men we have named last of all1 not unnaturally sympathised with those in whom intention counted sometimes for more than execution4 ,but it must not be thought that because the ever-inventive artist did not possess the ,academic qualities1 he was not1 therefore1 in certain respects1 very remarkable in draughtsmanship4 ,he drew with the ease of conversation2 and1 though never a master of accurate gesture--seldom dramatic in the representation of the particular hour or scene--he was a master of quaint and simple1 and sometimes of elaborate1 grace2 and for the untiring record of the particular type of maidenhood1 seen best perhaps in the #8,golden ,staircase1' or in #8,venus's ,looking-,glass1' he stands alone4 ,we name those pictures rather than1 for instance1 the #8,days of ,creation1' or any of his various #8,seasons1' because in them he is at his happiest--his girls1 though in the work of the suave decorator they are never essentially various1 can be radiant as well as doleful4 ,his men have plenty of wistfulness1 but they have rarely energy1 strength1 decision4 ,they are even1 in a measure1 sexless4 ,and of childhood1 ,burne-,jones has never been an inspired1 or even1 it would seem1 a particularly interested chronicler4 ,of course1 it must be remembered that ,burne-,jones is judged unjustly when judged by the rules of even the least narrow realism4 ,he painted1 not the world of our own day1 or of any day--least of all the ,kensington in which he lived1 and slept1 and had his studio--but a world he had imagined and created2 a world his conception of which was fed1 no doubt1 by the earlier and graver of mid-,italian art4 ,imagination1 now stimulated by legend1 now supported by classic lore1 and now the product of the brooding of an isolated mind--that is really the genesis1 the raison d'tre1 the ,alpha and the ,omega of his art4 ,burne-,jones had1 at his best1 and especially in his middle period--the days of the #8,chant d',amour1' with its fitly welcomed splendours of crimson and blue and golden brown--a wonderful gift of colour2 and1 even where the draughtsmanship of the human figure left something to be wished for1 he was a marvellous1 a loving1 and a patient draughtsman of flower and of herb4 ,the backgrounds of some of his inventions1 in landscape and the architecture of towns1 were of strange and mystic quaintness4 ,sometimes1 in these1 he recalled almost the spirit1 the mystery1 almost the charm1 of the backgrounds of the prints by ,albert ,drer4 ,the great ,drer6--well1 that is saying much4 ,but we have left to the last what was perhaps ,burne-,jones's most essential characteristic1 certainly his greatest accomplishment4 ,we mean his gift of composition of line1 his power of precisely and perfectly filling1 and never overcrowding1 the space it was his business to occupy4 ,his composition of light and shade was less remarkable4 ,he was a master of agreeable outline1 of flowing and spontaneous tracery4 ,but if it is not his imagination which is to keep his memory green1 in the minds of the students of ,art--and we doubt whether1 with all his very individual merits1 it really is--then it is that in which1 in all our generation1 and perhaps in all our ,english ,school1 he may be accounted to have most possessed--the humbler faculty of patterning1 of weaving faultless webs of subtle line over the surface1 large or small1 which was devoted to the exposition of whatever chanced to be his theme4 7,standard1 #ahth ,june #ahih47 ,,bosboom ,,and ,,his ,,contemporaries ,the ,english cognoscenti of the modern type have now for some time recognised that in ,dutch ,art there is more than one great period that has to be reckoned with--that the great ,seventeenth ,century does not exhaust the achievements of this people4 ,it may not be quite true to say of ,dutch painting1 as of ,french sculpture1 that the traditions have been invariably preserved1 and that there has been little break in the school2 for the last century in ,holland was a barren one--just as barren there as in ,france and ,england it was brilliant4 ,the revival has been for later generations1 and of those who did most to accomplish it some are yet living1 in an old age not so very advanced1 and others are lately dead4 ,a history of this revival would be a great and worthy subject3 it may yet1 one hopes1 be undertaken by some one writer qualified to treat it4 ,such a writer could not possibly be a person who had lived wholly within its influence4 ,he would have to bring with him something better and wiser than the ungoverned admirations of the modern studio4 ,a knowledge of the ,past must be his4 ,meanwhile1 we receive1 and experience a certain satisfaction in receiving1 even that fragmentary contribution to the subject which is made in the volume called ,dutch ,painters of the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,max ,rooses--the keeper of the ,muse ,plantin-,moretus at ,antwerp--furnishes a general introduction1 which is readable and fairly comprehensive1 if not particularly critical4 ,and many writers1 whose collaboration is of necessity destructive of unity of idea1 but whose individual opportunities of personal knowledge give the book something it might yet have lacked had it been written by one serious and capable critic1 contribute biographical notes1 authentic and amiable4 ,the painters have been caressed1 not analysed4 ,that is exactly what the least instructed and least studious portion of the public is supposed to like1 in the #8text' of its big ,christmas picture-books--which1 of course1 is why that text is written so seldom by the serious professional writers who1 if they chose to do it at all1 could do it best4 ,only a dozen painters are represented in ,mr4 ,max ,rooses' volume1 and the selection of this dozen is extremely arbitrary1 or would be if it were not1 as we understand1 the intention of the publishers to follow up the present with at least one other volume4 ,two women figure amongst the twelve4 ,miss ,jacoba van der ,sande ,backhuysen1 the aged flower-painter1 who died three years ago1 and then was seventy-one1 deserved probably to be included4 ,she is included4 ,some of her work is of freedom and vigour1 if some also tends to be precise and impersonal4 ,you cannot find in every generation or in every land a ,fantin-,latour or a ,francis ,james2 and the flowers of ,jacoba van der ,sande ,backhuysen are generally welcome4 ,but the introduction of ,henriette ,ronner1 a popular and quite delightful lady1 with the narrow speciality of painting cats1 was surely scarcely merited4 ,as for the men1 the choice is hardly less arbitrary4 ,israels1 of course1 is in his place1 with his grey record of the homely and the sad2 and1 though ,alma-,tadema is a naturalised ,englishman1 it is not surprising that the ,dutch should be reluctant to forget what at least was his origin4 ,but if ,alma-,tadema is to be included1 why is ,van ,haanen--a ,dutchman still1 probably1 and the truest and subtlest of all living painters of ,venetian life and character--why is ,van ,haanen to be left out8 ,we receive gladly what is given us of ,bisschop1 ,weissenbruch1 and ,gabriel4 ,but the omission of such gifted ,dutchmen as ,mauve and ,mesdag and ,artz and ,mathieu ,maris--even in a first volume--is memorable4 ,further1 the omission of the great name of ,jacob ,maris--certainly one of the most potent of all contemporary masters--would be fatal to any pretensions that the volume might make to completeness1 or1 if the phrase may be accorded us1 to even a temporary finality4 ,but if it becomes the duty of any qualified observer to note important omissions1 compelling further instalments of the history1 it must be satisfactory to him to chronicle such inclusions as those we have already cited as welcome and reasonable1 and it is nothing less than a pleasure to find1 not only contained1 but placed in the forefront of the volume1 the name and work of ,johannes ,bosboom4 ,to ,bosboom1 and his right of place there1 we will devote our remaining comments1 and partly because the large ,english public is still strangely deficient in the appreciation of his work4 ,johannes ,bosboom was born at the ,hague in #ahag4 ,he died in #ahia1 aged seventy-four1 and in the artistic world of ,holland he had by that time long enjoyed complete and cordial recognition2 to painters and to the best critics--above all1 perhaps1 to that rich painter1 ,m4 ,mesdag1 collector as well as artist--belong the majority of the best of his works4 ,the art of ,bosboom is displayed to some extent in oil pictures1 but more finely1 on the whole1 in the great series of his water-colours4 ,he is a painter essentially of the succession of ,rembrandt--a master of the arrangement of light and shade--holding his own honourably in the presentation of landscape1 but known chiefly1 and known on the whole most to his advantage1 as a painter of church interiors4 ,his earlier work is in method drier and smaller than his later4 ,the maturity of his genius finds him as broad as ,cotman or ,dewint4 ,he has the restfulness and dignity of these men when they are at their best4 ,he has not ,cotman's gift of colour1 and in those very church interiors to which ,cotman would have given a colourist's charm--as his kindred work in the possession of ,mr4 ,james ,reeve and the late ,mr4 ,j4 ,j4 ,colman assures us--,bosboom's preoccupation is with tone1 and with sense of space2 though1 of course1 in his colour he is never inharmonious4 ,each is great in his own way1 and the one is almost as profoundly poetic as the other1 though ,bosboom1 if anything1 excels ,cotman in the restful picturesqueness of his vision4 ,with him1 invariably1 as in the great artist we have mentioned by the side of him1 the detail is nothing but a part of the whole4 ,it is never aggressive2 it is never importunate2 it is even for the most part effaced4 ,bosboom1 dealing with church interiors1 is not1 like ,sir ,wyke ,bayliss1 a painter of great scenes as well as of great architecture4 ,for him the pageant has no attraction1 and in the painting of a ceremonial or a service1 such as the #8,taking the ,sacrament in ,utrecht ,cathedral1' he is not really at his best4 ,he is best when his church is quiet1 and all its spaciousness #8tells4' ,see1 for instance1 the admirable #8,church at ,trier'--immense1 velvety1 solemn--and1 likewise1 the not less masterly water-colour1 the #8,st4 ,joris ,church at ,amersfoort4' ,an architectural draughtsman1 in the technical or narrow sense1 he is never1 from beginning to end--a fact that is partly due to the broader and more poetic bent of his genius1 and partly1 too1 no doubt1 to his observation having been chiefly exercised and his imagination chiefly stirred by interiors quaint rather than elegant1 massive and large rather than exquisite in detail1 picturesque rather than perfect4 ,the book of ,mr4 ,max ,rooses' editing1 will1 in ,england1 have not been without its service1 if it1 or even our own comments on it1 should secure wider attention to the work of a master as eminently human and sympathetic as he is austere and sterling4 ,but1 for the fuller comprehension of ,bosboom here1 in ,england1 there should be gathered together in a single place a fair array of his work2 and we commend to the enlightened dilettanti of the ,burlington ,fine ,arts ,club this appropriate and honourable enterprise4 7,literature1 #crd ,december #ahih47 ,,henner ,the first thing to remember of the painter ,henner is that he is above all a poet4 ,has he then created stories or narrated them pathetically8 ,has he made it the business of painting to do literary work8 ,he has done nothing of the kind4 ,even where he has used classical mythology and ,biblical tradition as the excuse for his canvases1 the derived subject seems to have taken hold of him but lightly2 he has been dramatic to the extent to which--well1 shall ,i say8--to the extent to which a reciter in a drawing-room is permissibly dramatic--gracefully indicating action and character1 never violently insisting on them4 ,henner's poetry--his gift of creating1 of idealising1 in restrained and refined ways--is never shown by the usurpation of another's functions4 ,it is shown in part by his choice of beautiful1 artistic themes2 by the exceptional fulness of his appreciation of lovely form and hue2 by the combinations of faultless and harmonious colour which occur upon his canvases2 by the associations these somehow evoke2 by the high pleasure they bestow4 ,to define it much further is impossible4 ,i feel myself1 in describing his art1 to be ineffective and faltering2 but the analyst does not exist who could account completely for his charm4 ,henner1 it will be allowed by those who are most qualified to notice1 is a great painter of the ,nude4 ,the ,nude1 according as you treat it1 can rise to poetic heights and address itself to the refined1 or can sink to more than prosaic depths4 ,there is the high and there is the low1 and there are many levels for the painter to stay at and live upon between them2 and to the real artistic instinct1 to the real fineness of taste1 in looking at the ,nude1 there is permitted that immediate ease of judgment and decision by which the work is classed at once1 and its motive appraised4 ,when the true judges appraise the ,nude of ,monsieur ,henner1 the decision is a happy one4 ,he is refinement to the finger-tips--as refined as ,burne-,jones1 yet not sexless4 ,painters whom only the ,puritanic could accuse of vulgarity--,benner1 say1 in ,france1 with his #8,dormeuse' of ,amiens2 ,ingres1 a generation ago1 with his #8,source' and her #8me vgtale'2 ,etty1 say1 in ,england1 with his daylight flesh-colour1 which the sunshine suffers to be neither creamy nor grey1 but rose and opal--they1 and how many others1 may be named with praise4 ,but ,monsieur ,henner's work has somehow1 in this matter1 a reticence and a distinction--a part of his ,alsatian ,poetry--which one is apt to think unique4 ,and it is worthy of notice--it throws a little light on the undramatic1 the simply painter-like method of ,henner's work--that the undraped figure is there1 not seldom1 as a necessary note of colour1 and nothing besides3 a note of ivory1 telling1 in some picture of evening1 against that olive green of the embrowned woodland which rises1 massed and darkening1 against the last turquoise of the sky4 ,yes1 it is a purely painter-like quality1 the poetry of colours in that more than blameless juxtaposition which is a rare achievement of ,art--the poetry of gleaming form1 of discreet light1 of restful and mysterious shadow--that ,henner will live by4 ,the story he illustrates gains nothing in dramatic interest by his treatment of it4 ,his business1 even when he paints an #8,hrodiade1' is to solace and charm rather than to excite2 and the refinement and suavity of his vision may accomplish for us of the ,nineteenth ,century what ,david's music did for the troubled soul of ,king ,saul4 ,like ,puvis de ,chavannes--in work more grandly decorative1 in conception vast and suave--he administers to men the refreshment of a pure and high beauty4 ,in such a subject as his #8,prayer1' it is his function but to vary things delicately3 to escape the commonplace1 nothing more4 ,but1 as regards his figure painting1 in the refinement of his models we are never suffered to lose sight of what is familiar1 homely1 intimate1 personal4 ,nature has been suggested with reticence1 but nature has been constantly referred to4 ,of his landscape1 the materials are simple and few2 breadth and simplicity are of the very essence of his treatment4 ,his selection is arbitrary2 a certain noble conventionality reigns in his canvases4 ,give him a tranquil sky1 a pool1 a square stone fountain1 a nymph1 a solemn cypress1 a tangle of woodland--what more6 ,petty imitation1 fussy realisation of a hundred objects1 he will hold to be valueless4 ,but his work must have ,unity3 it must have ,style4 ,an artist with these preoccupations is not1 one may say with safety1 likely to be a very popular portrait painter4 ,yet ,henner has painted a fair share of portraits4 ,and no #8hard and fast' line can divide such portraiture as he produces from his ideal work4 ,when the touches on his canvas are no longer dictated by what is obviously imagination1 it is not likely that a striking realism succeeds to the control1 that modernit speaks from every corner of the picture1 that the poet has become the fashionable portrait painter4 ,reticence is still remembered4 ,henner can perceive character1 but it must be conveyed without emphasis4 ,with the palette set as of old1 and the schemes of colour such as the ideal work has already accustomed us to1 ,henner must pursue his task4 ,perhaps it is the pallor of a thoughtful face of middle age1 to be framed in black hair1 with an olive background4 ,perhaps1 as in the #8,crole1' it is the old ,venetian tresses that are to fall richly on the bust that is shining marble1 that is gleaming ivory4 ,a likeness1 no doubt2 but before all things1 a picture4 7,magazine of ,art1 ,may #ahhh47 ,,francis ,,james ,i leave to a biographer in the ,future the task of recording ,mr4 ,francis ,james's birthplace and of settling the number of his years2 of saying1 too1 where he chiefly lived and chiefly practised4 ,i am concerned with his drawings1 and not with the man1 except in so far as his drawings must reveal him2 and the real man1 and not the outside facts about him1 a man's work does always to some extent reveal4 ,in the case of ,francis ,james1 his work is his water-colours4 ,i know no oil painting by him4 ,i remember no pencil studies4 ,i know no etchings by him1 no lithographs by him4 ,and1 moreover1 modern man though he is1 he seems to be able to express himself without the assistance of silver point--the interesting and difficult medium1 the employment of which threatens to become a label of the cultivated4 ,his own work in water-colour is as direct1 immediate1 uncorrectable as that2 but colour is of the very essence of it4 ,whatever he tackles1 whatever he elects to let alone1 ,francis ,james is essentially a colourist4 ,one thing about his life and circumstances ,i shall here--taking breath in a parenthesis--venture to record4 ,as a youth he was never compelled to prepare for a profession4 ,being a country gentleman who gradually became an artist1 ,mr4 ,francis ,james had a little comfortable means1 one may suppose4 ,is he to be cursed1 then1 on that account1 with the name of amateur8 ,certainly not4 ,no more than ,mryon1 who was brought up in the ,french ,navy2 no more than ,w4 ,w4 ,may1 the charming marine artist1 in early life a sailor1 and in late life ,keeper of the ,painted ,hall at ,greenwich2 no more than ,robert ,goff1 who was in the ,coldstream ,guards2 or ,seymour ,haden1 ,president of his own ,academy1 and once such a successful surgeon that he might have been ,president of the ,college of ,surgeons to boot4 ,in art of any kind--in ,painting1 ,writing1 ,modelling--the spirit in which a man does his work1 and not the means that he possesses1 or the family that he belongs to1 constitutes him professional or amateur4 ,is his art his chief interest8 ,if so1 whatever may be his status upon other grounds1 professional artist1 serious professional artist1 he is1 with his books or his pictures4 ,to the serious artist a little money is of endless usefulness1 even if it be only a very scanty portion--three hundred a year and an umbrella--for that scanty portion1 which has caused the fool to eat the bread of idleness1 has caused the wise man to work with a will4 ,it has gone some little way towards securing him that deepest boon for the artistic nature1 la libert du travail4 ,i suppose it was his exquisite enjoyment of flowers1 as he had lived amongst them1 at all seasons of the year1 in their natural place1 that gave the first impulse to ,francis ,james to render flowers in ,art4 ,then1 as to method in ,water-colour painting1 there came the influence of ,dewint1 and then the influence of some1 at least1 of modern ,french practice1 and then the influence of his neighbour1 down in ,sussex--that sensitive ,impressionist1 ,h4 ,b4 ,brabazon1 with his mature thought upon the matter1 and his delightful practice1 his #8blobs' upon the drawing-paper--#8blobs' which are so very few1 and are so admirably right4 ,james has become1 of late years at all events1 less purely an ,impressionist than ,brabazon4 ,in his work1 whatever be its theme1 there is always more of positive and yet refined draughtsmanship4 ,but the influence of ,brabazon is there all the same2 or1 at least1 is there from the first4 ,an immense sensitiveness as to colour1 a refinement of colour which does not preclude boldness1 the cultivation of an alertness as to the most delicate gradations of colour--these things characterise ,francis ,james4 ,they are of assistance to him1 even of incalculable assistance to him1 in all the things that he depicts1 in all the visions he realises4 ,but ,i think they are of most use to him of all when it is flowers he is looking at2 composing with grace1 painting with ineffable charm4 ,and1 so far as ,i understand1 flowers were the subject with which he chose to begin4 ,it would1 however1 be now thoroughly unfair to ,francis ,james to consider him only as a flower painter4 ,outside flowers altogether1 there is a class of effect which he has made his own1 and which is his by reason of his habitual command of colour--fearless1 original1 and gay4 ,i am talking of the church interiors1 beheld in keen1 clear light2 and interesting less it may be by their architecture--as to which1 while ,john ,fulleylove1 and ,albert ,goodwin1 and ,wyke ,bayliss1 speak1 who is there that shall speak with equal authority to-day8--interesting less by their architecture than by their hues and their illuminations1 and their accidents and accessories2 the ornaments about the altar1 the wreath of flowers that encircle the figure of a saint1 the bit of heraldic glass that recalls ,nuremberg1 the sacred piece hoisted above the altar2 the banner1 it may be1 or perhaps only the pink cushion of the altar rail1 or the little green curtain that gives privacy to the box of the confessional4 ,at ,rothenburg1 as well as ,nuremberg itself1 ,mr4 ,james went in for very serious draughtsman's study of statues in their niches1 of the traceried wall1 of plate upon the altar1 of this and that little detail1 of which the treatment remained broad while it became finished4 ,at ,nuremberg--to name two1 that for excellent reasons ,i remember--admirable is the broad and luminous picturesqueness of his interiors of the ,kaiser ,kapelle and ,st4 ,sebald4 ,at ,rothenburg1 as far as simple architecture is concerned1 what a variety lay before him6 ,and yet from all its richness and variety he turned now and then1 to paint the humble window of the little bourgeois or little tradesman's house2 the window-sill with its few pots of green-leaved and blossoming flowers1 seen1 some of them1 against the brown-red shutter2 fragile fuchsia1 and healthy geranium4 ,but whether ,francis ,james is occupied with flower painting1 or with church interiors of ,germany or the ,eastern ,riviera1 or with landscape pieces1 or with studies of the village shop1 it is always the same spirit of broad interpretation that dominates his work4 ,its business is to recall an impression--artistic always1 whether beautiful or quaint--it is not generally its business to be imitative1 strictly imitative1 of actual object or scene4 ,quite an infinity of detail is pleasantly suggested by a drawing of the grocer's shop at ,bewdley--the ,post ,office of the country town--and just as much by #8,shop ,front1 ,bewdley1' which shows us the deep bow-window of ,mr4 ,bryan1 the bookseller2 a background before which some quiet figure out of ,jane ,austen might conceivably have passed4 ,but the detail is not obtruded4 ,if you peer closely into the paper1 it is not dryly made out4 ,in a sense1 #8il n'y a rien4' ,stand away a little1 and then again1 #8il y a tout4' ,but1 of course1 ,mr4 ,james's preoccupation with a quaint little world of the provinces1 whose combinations of colour1 as he here shows us them1 are curious rather than lovely--that preoccupation of his is occasional rather than constant2 and we shall never therefore take his measure by an inspection of work like this4 ,some quaint line it possesses1 and to the interest of quaint as well as of lovely combinations of line1 ,francis ,james is quite alive4 ,but it is where the combinations of line may be lovely--where they may have their highest quality herein--and yet more where with beautiful lines there must 7to do justice to the theme7 be associated beautiful colour2 it is here that ,mr4 ,james is most characteristic4 #8,autumn1 ,asolo1' shows this to some extent2 and so do other landscapes in which the world to which he has addressed himself1 whether of ,lombard or ,venetian plateau1 or of ,alpine height1 is dealt with with intrepidity4 ,but it is to churches and flowers--or sometimes to the interiors of drawing-rooms or bedrooms lived in by tasteful people1 and full therefore of objects that should gratify the eye in their happy1 well-arranged union--it is to churches and flowers in the main1 and most of all flowers1 that we must come back1 to find ,francis ,james quite at his most exquisite1 quite at his most characteristic4 ,perhaps it is hardly possible nowadays to paint flowers without submitting to some extent to the influence of the ,japanese4 ,from them1 whatever else you learn1 you learn freedom of treatment and a conception based upon essentials4 ,the limitations of ,japanese ,art it does not happen just now to be the fashion to recognise2 though every one who is really educated--every one who understands the ,classics of ,art1 the immense achievements of ,europe from ,holbein to ,turner--must know of these limitations1 and must feel them4 ,that does not prevent the perception of the value of those things which ,japanese art 7among the arts of other peoples indeed7 has had some capacity for teaching us4 ,and when ,francis ,james makes his pink and white roses trail over the paper1 with tints so pale and delicate1 ,i think sometimes of the ,japanese4 ,i think of them much less when he sets a whole posy--a whole group1 at least--in a tumbler1 and has his massive colour1 his rich1 great colour1 his fearless juxtapositions4 ,and then1 perhaps1 with the ,japanese influence not lost altogether1 but still mainly subdued--not displayed at all1 and scarcely even insinuated--do ,i rejoice in ,francis ,james at his best4 ,among painters1 water-colour painters1 ,francis ,james is the poet of flowers1 as ,van ,huysum1 it may be--two hundred years ago--was their prose chronicler4 ,the public knows ,van ,huysum best by his work in oils4 ,the rare amateur of noble prints knows him best by ,earlom's two splendid translations of him into the medium of mezzotint4 ,but the not less rare connoisseur of the fine drawings of a past period1 knows him by water-colour sketches1 such as those possessed by the ,department of ,prints and ,drawings at the ,british ,museum4 ,and as there are moments1 moods1 opportunities1 when men apparently far apart get nearer together1 so1 just now and again by ,van ,huysum's practice in water-colour--by his pure sketching in that medium--the gulf that separates him from ,francis ,james1 is1 not bridged indeed1 but narrowed4 ,the moment ,van ,huysum passes beyond the pure sketch1 the perhaps even rapid study1 something that is of the nature of the artificial1 of intentional and obvious intricacy1 begins to assert itself4 ,now1 with the delightful artist of the day whose eulogium ,i am slowly making1 that is never the case4 ,francis ,james's fondness for flowers is1 in some sense1 akin to a woman's instinctive fondness for everybody's children4 ,he has joy in their mere life4 ,and it is their life that he paints4 ,and he paints them in their own atmosphere--the sunlight heightening so the key of their colour1 or a little rain perhaps has fallen and their life is refreshed4 ,had the rain fallen when ,van ,huysum painted them1 the drop would have glistened on the petal2 the perfection of the imitation of it is what we might have been asked1 first of all1 to see and admire4 ,but it is not their accidental condition that ,francis ,james imitates4 ,it is their splendid vigour or exquisite freshness--see1 for instance1 this noble primula with its deep glowing1 slightly mauveish reds and its enriched green leaves2 in its condition1 a very bridegroom coming out of his chamber4 ,amongst flowers1 ,francis ,james1 ,i find1 is universal in his loves4 ,he does not swear fidelity to the rose--or he does not swear the particular fidelity which is only exclusiveness4 ,in every garden1 every greenhouse1 every season of the year1 he has 7to use the sailor simile7 #8a wife in every port4' ,he is as various in his appreciations of the beloved and the admirable as is a young man by ,mr4 ,thomas ,hardy4 ,primula1 tulip1 rose1 pelargonium1 and then the hundred orchids--having thanked one of them for its beauty1 and profited by it1 he turns with happy expectation to another4 ,nor does disappointment await him4 ,one little confidence--made to me long ago1 ,i recollect--,i propose1 before ,i finish this article1 ruthlessly to break4 ,james destroys many drawings4 ,he strangles the ill-begotten4 ,he pronounces1 with severity1 judgment upon his creations4 ,he assists the fittest to survive4 ,three or four years back he was wrestling manfully with the treatment of the orchid4 ,no one1 ,i think1 had really treated the orchid before then4 ,since then1 in oils1 ,mr4 ,william ,gale1 in a group of works too little known1 has treated it with unequal1 of course1 yet often with remarkable1 skill4 ,but when ,francis ,james had drawn1 at ,sanders' nursery--during several months' sojourn at ,st4 ,albans1 to that end--orchids of every kind1 great was the massacre of the innocents4 ,we were permitted afterwards to see the successes2 the failures had been done away with4 ,this is characteristic1 and that is why ,i record it4 ,people who observe flowers1 and do not only buy them1 will not be astonished that when this happened most--this severe review and condemnation--it was orchids1 orchids only1 that were in question4 ,and this for several reasons4 ,some are beautiful1 but some are ugly1 almost morbid indeed--things for the delectation of ,des ,esseintes1 the too neurotic hero of ,m4 ,huysman's ,rebours2 scarcely for healthy folk1 whom mere strangeness may not fascinate4 ,and then again1 the extreme intricacy of the forms of some of them1 tells in two ways against their employment as subjects for a painter4 ,it is not only--it is not so much--that their intricacy adds to the difficulty of correctness2 it is rather that it adds to the difficulty of their comprehension by the spectator of the draughtsman's drawing4 ,the public knows the rose and the geranium--it knows1 besides1 two score of flowers of ,english garden and hedgerow4 ,but the intricacy of the orchid is as yet an unfamiliar intricacy1 and it is infinitely various2 and therefore1 though the painting of the orchid in ,francis ,james's water-colours was an experiment interesting and courageous1 and within reasonable limits successful1 that work was but one phase--far from the most important--of a career and of a talent full already of individuality1 distinction1 charm4 7,studio1 ,january #ahih47 ,,the ,,end ,printed by ,t4 and ,a4 ,,constable1 ,printers to ,her ,majesty at the ,edinburgh ,university ,press ,mr4 ,frederick ,wedmore's ,short ,stories ,each ,vol4 #cs4 #f;d4 ,pastorals of ,france4 ,fourth ,edition4 #8,the publication of the 8,pastorals0 may be said to have revealed not only a new talent1 but a new literary genre4 ,the charm of the writing never fails4'--,bookman4 #8,in their simplicity1 their tenderness1 their quietude1 their truthfulness to the remote life they depict1 8,pastorals of ,france0 are almost perfect4'--,spectator4 ,renunciations4 ,third ,edition4 ,with ,portrait by ,j4 ,j4 ,,shannon1 ,a4,r4,a4 #8,mr4 ,wedmore has gained for himself an enviable reputation4 ,he has the poet's secret1 how to bring out the beauty of common things4444 ,the 8,chemist in the ,suburbs10 in 8,renunciations10 is his masterpiece4'--,saturday ,review4 #8,we congratulate ,mr4 ,wedmore on his vivid1 wholesome1 and artistic work1 so full of suppressed feeling and of quiet strength4'--,standard4 ,english ,episodes4 ,second ,edition4 #8,distinction is the characteristic of ,mr4 ,wedmore's manner4 ,these things remain upon the mind1 as seen--not read of4'--,daily ,news4 #8,a penetrating insight1 a fine pathos4 ,mr4 ,wedmore is a peculiarly fine and carefully deliberate artist4'--,westminster ,gazette4 ,orgas and ,miradou4 ,with ,other ,pieces4 ,the beautiful story of 8,orgas and ,miradou0 is typical of ,mr4 ,wedmore's power of expressing and translating the poignancy of human emotion4 ,it is charged with depth of feeling1 and vivid in its extreme reticence and discrimination of touch4 ,in it1 there is nothing short of divination4'--,athenum4 #88,orgas and ,miradou0 deals with the most poignant situation that can be imagined4 ,it is the most perfect piece of work ,mr4 ,wedmore has given us4'--,st4 ,james's ,gazette4 ,transcriber's ,notes ,punctuation1 hyphenation1 and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book2 otherwise they were not changed4 ,simple typographical errors were corrected2 unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious1 and otherwise left unbalanced4