Chapter XXIX (7)

The Salon (official) catalogue contains this year 696 pages. There are 3957 paintings exhibited; 2085 designs, sketches in charcoal and watercolors; 30 engravings on stone, etc.; 111 designs for architecture; 46 specimens of lithography; 701 pieces of sculpture; 305 eaux-fortes; and 54 specimens of monumental art--in all 7280 objects. Though we all thought last year that the number of paintings exhibited was immense, this year the number is 917 more. Alas for the poor critics! How many an additional ache that implies for them! Still, as we have a cozy reading-room at the Palais de l'Industrie--an innovation of this season for the benefit of those who get tired of looking at the pictures and wish to "take a rest"--the weary critic may enter and take a seat (if he can find one unoccupied, which is highly improbable), and there write out his "notes," as I am doing at this moment.

While standing in front of a charming picture by Dagnan-Bouveret (_Un Accident_), I felt a soft arm brush gently against mine, and glancing down recognized the capricious Sara Bernhardt. Yes, Sara was there, leaning on the arm of Mr. Stevens, the Belgian painter who is credited with finishing Sara's paintings, and followed by her son Maurice and a little retinue of admirers, mostly young men--artists and actors--and stared at with persistency by all who saw her pass. "There goes Bernhardt!" "Did you see Bernhardt?" were the remarks on all sides. Her head, which bore itself as if quite unaware that a suit for three hundred and fifty thousand francs damages was suspended over it like the sword of Damocles, was covered with a mass of rich auburn-colored hair. She is as changeable as a chameleon in the matter of her hair: I never see her twice with the same colored _chevelure_.

The Salon this year contains at least four _good_--one might almost say _great_--pictures. Of these four, the one to which popular opinion seems to award the _grande medaille d'honneur_, is Bastien-Lepage's _Jeanne d'Arc_. This large painting (3-15/100 metres by 3-45/100 metres) represents the Maid at the moment when, seeing the vision of the Virgin, she is inspired to go forth and save her country. A peasant-girl, strong and muscular, she leans against a tree, her face uplifted to heaven and aglow with a noble inspiration. The cottage in the background, the trees and weeds in the middle distance, the distribution of light and the subdued tones of this impressive picture, are all excellent. Some critics object to the artist's perspective, but I fancy that is a bit of hypercriticism.

Then comes Fernand Cormon's _Flight of Cain_, suggested by Victor Hugo's lines:

Lorsqu' avec ses enfants couverts de peaux de betes,
Echevele, livide au milieu des tempetes,
Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah.

This canvas is one of the largest in the Salon--4 by 7 metres. The chief figures are grandly painted and the whole picture is very impressive.

Alphonse Alexis Morot's _Good Samaritan_ is an exceedingly strong picture. The Samaritan is represented holding upon his own beast the poor maltreated Jew and walking by his side. The figure-painting is wonderful in its vigor and _verve_.

The fourth picture is Alexandre Cabanel's _Phedre_. The source of the artist's inspiration was the well-known passage from Euripides: "Consumed upon a bed of grief, Phedre shuts herself up in her palace, and with a thin veil envelops her blonde head. It is now the third day that her body has partaken of no nourishment: attacked by a concealed ill, she longs to put an end to her sad fate." Phedre, as she lies wishing only for death as a surcease of sorrow, gazed upon with solicitude by her pitying attendants, is a vivid picture of all-consuming grief. The decorative work of the bed and the wall is chaste and classic.

Of the minor pictures, that of Dagnan-Bouveret, _Un Accident_, is one of the best. It is indeed a rare picture in the excellence of its execution in every detail. A boy has been badly wounded in the wrist by some accident, and the surgeon is engaged in dressing the injured part. The dirty foot of the boy as it peeps out beneath the chair, shod in a rough sabot which fails to conceal its grime, the bowl standing on the table half full of blood and water while the wrist is now being skilfully bandaged by the surgeon, whose operations are watched with great solicitude by the group of sympathetic relatives,--all these features give a living interest to this painting which is unusual. The red, grimy hands of the old mother of the boy are very faithfully painted. The expression on the lad's face of heroic endurance and a determination not to cry in any case is touching.

As for Mademoiselle Sara Bernhardt's _La Jeune Fille et la Mort_--a veiled skeleton coming up behind a young girl and touching her on the shoulder--it would attract little attention if it had not been signed by the flighty (and lately _fleeing_) actress. The verses underneath the picture are the best part of it:

La Mort glisse en son reve, et tout bas:
"Viens," dit elle,
"L'Amour c'est l'ephemere, et je suis l'immortelle."

The great names--Meissonier, Gerome, Munkacsy, Madrazo, Berne-Bellecour, Detaille, De Neuville, Rosa Bonheur, Flameng, etc.--are conspicuous this year by their absence from the catalogue of the Salon. It is whispered that the reason Munkacsy does not exhibit is because the administration of the Beaux-Arts saw fit to place the pictures by foreign artists separately in the Galerie des Etrangers. An "impressionist" artist-friend of mine--Miss Cassatt, the sister of Vice-President Cassatt of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company--says that the reason these distinguished artists do not exhibit any more is that they are disgusted with the way in which the Salon is conducted by Edmond Turquet, the present sous-secretaire aux Beaux-Arts, and the very unfair acts committed in the awarding of medals, admission of pictures, etc.

M. Jean Jacques Henner's _La Fontaine_ is a true Correggio in delicacy and clearness of tone. His treatment of the flesh is peculiar, and much envied by many a Paris artist. In this picture the nymph, leaning over the fountain, is dressed in a very inexpensive costume--in fact, the same fashion that Mother Eve introduced into Eden. There in the placid water the beautiful creature contemplates the reflection of her face, and seems to breathe, with all her being, those charming lines of Lafenestre:

Heure silencieuse, ou la nymphe se penche
Sur la source des bois qui lui sert de miroir,
Et reve en regardant mourir sa forme blanche
Dans l'eau pale ou descend le mystere du soir.

Gustave Jacquet's _Le Minuet_ is one of those pictures which fascinate and draw us back again and again. A rarely-beautiful girl is dancing the minuet, surrounded by a group of her friends, beautiful blonde girls and a fair-haired young man. The costumes are perfectly exquisite, yet there is not too much _chiffonnerie_ in the picture. There is a remarkable effect of depth in the painting of the figure of the dancing girl, especially at the feet and at the bottom of her skirt. Perhaps the only criticism that could fairly be passed upon M. Jacquet's picture is that there is too much of mere "prettiness" about his principal figures.

A curious feature in this year's exhibition is that there are three pictures of the assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday, two of which are hung in the same room. There are also three paintings representing a scene from Victor Hugo's _Histoire d'un Crime_, "L'enfant avait recu deux balles dans la tete." The child is represented in Henry Gervex's picture as being lifted up by his friends, who are examining the poor little wounded, bleeding head. It is powerful in composition and a very thrilling, realistic picture. The other two representations of this subject are by Paul Langlois and Paul Robert.

Gustave Courtois's _Dante and Virgil in Hell: The Circle of the Traitors to their Country_, is a picture very much studied by all the artists who visit the Salon because of its strange landscape, its wonderful effect of the glacial formations and its marvellous effects of color. Benjamin Constant's _Les Derniers Rebelles_ is one of the best efforts of this artist, so fruitful in scenes drawn from Morocco and Egyptian life. He has depicted the sultan going forth in great splendor from the gates of the city of Morocco, surrounded by his army and courtiers, and before him are brought, either dead or alive, all the principal chiefs of the revolted tribes. There is much that is noble in the composition, and the coloring is perfect.

The arrangement of the pictures this year is not altogether satisfactory to the artists. A radical change has been made--grouping all the _hors-concours_ men by themselves, and all the foreigners by themselves, and crowding about one thousand pictures out of doors into the corridors which run around the garden of the Palais de l'Industrie. A friend of mine saw a French artist mount a stepladder and deliberately cut out of the frame his picture and carry it away with him, because it was so badly hung.

The _Illustrated Catalogue_ of the Salon is a somewhat remarkable work. It is specially noticeable for the very curious English translations of the titles of some of the paintings. For instance, the title of Gabriel Boutel's picture, _Bonne a tout faire_--a soldier seated with a baby in his arms--is rendered, _Maid for anything_(!). _Priere a Saint Janvier_ is rendered _Prayer_ AT _Saint Januarious_. _Le Cabaret du Pot d'Etain_ is translated _The Tavern of the Brass_ POT (instead of _Pewter Mug_). Ed. Morin's _Promenade en Marne_ is _A_ F_rip on the Marne!_ Our friend from Boston, Edwin Lord Weeks, is mentioned as "LORD" Edwin Weeks! But the best of all is _La Cruche cassee_, translated _The Broken_ PIG! The title of another picture is (in the catalogue) _Good-bye, Swee_L _hart!_

Out of the 3957 oil paintings exhibited, our country is represented by 113 pictures, the productions of 83 Americans. Then we claim 13 of the aquarelle painters, and there are in addition 11 natives of the United States who exhibit designs in charcoal, _sanguine_, _gouache_, and paintings on either porcelain or faience; also 7 sculptors--in all, 114 of our compatriots whose works are in the present Salon. New York claims the lion's share of these artists, 40 being accredited to that State. Of the remainder, 18 are from Boston, 13 from Philadelphia, 6 from New Orleans, 3 from Chicago, 2 from Toledo, 2 from San Francisco, etc. etc.

I think it will be generally admitted that the only really strong pictures exhibited by the American artists are John S. Sargent's portrait of Madame Pailleron (wife of the author of _L'Etincelle_) and his _Fumee d'Ambre Gris_; Henry Mosler's _Toilette de Noce_; D.R. Knight's _Une Halte_; Miss Gardner's _Priscilla the Puritan_; F.A. Bridgman's _Habitation Arabe a Biskra_; Charles E. DuBois's _Autumn Evening on Lake Neuchatel_; and Edwin L. Weeks's _Embarkment of the Camels_ and _Gateway of an Old Fondak in the Holy City of Sallee_ (Morocco)--both of which were sold immediately after the opening. Of course there are several other good pictures by our compatriots, and some that possess great merit. But the ones indicated above are the only ones which (excepting Picknell's two landscapes, _Sur le Bord du Marais_ and _La Route de Concarneau_) have called forth any special notice from French critics or in any way attracted much of the public attention thus far. Mr. Sargent is a surprise and a wonder to even his master, Carolus Duran, whose portrait, painted by Sargent, attracted great attention in the Salon of last year and received an "honorable mention." He has painted this year a full-length in the open air, producing a very sunny, strong out-door effect. The hands attract much praise, but opinions vary as to the face. His _Fumee d'Ambre Gris_ represents a woman of Tangiers engaged in perfuming her clothing with the fumes from a lamp in which ambergris is burning. The white robes of the woman set off against a pearly-gray background, the rising smoke, the curiously-tinted finger-nails of the woman, and the rich rug on which the lamp stands, combine to make a very notable and curious picture.

Miss Elizabeth J. Gardner of New Hampshire has two excellent pictures in the Salon--_Priscilla the Puritan_ and _The Water's Edge_. They are both well hung, as indeed are most of our American artists' contributions to this exhibition. Out of the 111 pictures in oils sent in by the Americans, I can recall 46 which are hung "on the line," and there may be even more. This is certainly treating our countrymen very fairly. Miss Gardner's _Au Bord de l'Eau_ represents two young girls standing at the edge of a pond, the one reaching down to pluck a water-lily, and the other supporting her by clasping her waist. There is great purity in the tones of this picture, and, though lacking somewhat in action, the coloring and drawing are both admirable.

The most notable piece of statuary in the Salon, the work of an American, is Saint-Gaudens's statue of Admiral Farragut. Mr. Saint-Gaudens, who is a native of New York, received about two years ago from one hundred gentlemen of that city, who had subscribed the necessary funds, a commission to make a statue of the great sailor. It is to be placed in Madison Square, New York. The pedestal is to be of granite, having at its base a large seat, on the back of which will be an inscription mentioning the important events in the life of the hero. The statue, of bronze, represents Farragut in a standing posture, a little larger than life-size. It is now being cast, and will be ready to be placed in position within two months. Mr. Saint-Gaudens is now at work on a statue of Richard Robert Randall, the founder of the Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island, in front of which institution this statue is to be placed. This sculptor has also nearly completed his cast of the figures intended to ornament the mausoleum of Ex-Senator E.D. Morgan (of New York), about to be erected at Hartford, Connecticut. Mr. Saint-Gaudens intends removing his atelier from Paris to New York in June, and will hereafter be permanently located in that city, where he will be an important addition to the art-movement in our own country.

The catalogue numbers, names and birthplaces of the Americans who exhibit this year are here given:

OIL PAINTINGS.

103. Audra, Rosemond Casimir, New Orleans, La. 127. Bacon, Henry, Boston, Mass. 139. Baird, William, Chicago. 142, 143. Baker, Miss Ellen K., Buffalo. 193. Bayard, Miss Kate, New York. 220, 221. Beckwith, Arthur, New York. 329. Bierstadt, Albert, New York. 344. Bispham, Henry C., Philadelphia, Pa. 355, 356. Blackman, Walter, Chicago. 362. Blashfield, Edwin H., New York. 380. Boggs, Frank Myers, New York. 490, 491. Bridgman, Frederic D., Alabama. 519, 520. Brown, Walter Francis, Rhode Island. 742. Cheret-Lauchaume de Gavarmy, J.L., New Orleans. 823, 824. Coffin, Wm. Anderson, Allegheny City. 841. Collins, Alfred Q., Boston, Mass. 844. Comans, Mrs. Charlotte B., New York. 855. Conant, Miss Cornelia, New York. 866. Copeland, Alfred Bryant, Boston. 890. Correja, Henry, New York. 893, 894. Corson, Miss Helen, Philadelphia. 933, 934. Cox, Kenyon, Warren, O. 965, 966. Daniel, George, New York. 1009. Davis, John Steeple, New York. 1089. Delport, J.S., New York. 1132, 1133. Deschamps, Mme. Camille, New York. 2096. DeLancey, William, New York. 1155. Dessommes, Edmond, New Orleans. 1161. Desvarreux-Larpenteur, Jas., St. Paul, Minn. 1199. Dillon, Henry, San Francisco, Cal. 1234, 1235. Dubois, Charles Edward, New York. 1381. Faller, Miss Emily, New York. 1426. Flagg, Charles Noel, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1537, 1538. Gardner, Miss Elizabeth J., New Hampshire. 1559. Gault, Alfred de, New Orleans, La. 1569, 1570. Gay, Walter, Boston. 1614. Gilman, Ben Ferris, Salem, Mass. 1693, 1694. Gregory, J. Eliot, New York. 1796. Harrison, Thomas Alexander, Philadelphia. 1799, 1800. Healy, George P.A., Boston. 1801, 1802. Heaton, Augustus G., Philadelphia. 1835, 1836. Herpin-Masseras, Madame Marguerite, Boston, Mass. 1851, 1852. Hilliard, William H., Boston. 1853. Hinckley, Robert, Boston. 1859. Hlasko, Miss Annie, Philadelphia. 387. Jones, Bolton, Baltimore, Md. 2011. Knight, Daniel Ridgeway, Philadelphia. 2337. Lippincott, William H., Philadelphia. 2364. Loomis, Chester, Syracuse, N.Y. 2513. Mason, Louis Gage, Boston. 2556, 2557. May, Edward Harrison, New York. 2666. Mitchell, John Ames, New York. 2730. Morgan, Charles W., Philadelphia. 2738. Mortimer, Stanley, New York. 2739, 2740. Mosler, Henry, Cincinnati, O. 2741. Moss, Charles E., Charloe, Kansas(?). 2742, 2743. Moss, Frank, Philadelphia. 2760. Mowbray, Henry S., Alexandria, Egypt (of American parentage). 2780. Neal, David, Lowell, Mass. 2789. Nicholls, Burr H., Buffalo, N.Y. 2823. Obermiller, Miss Louisa, Toledo, O. 2878, 2879. Parker, Stephen Hills, New York. 2895. Pattison, James William, Boston. (Mr. Pattison exhibits also an aquarelle.) 2944. Perkins, Miss Fanny A., New York. 3014, 3015. Picknell, W.L., Boston, Mass. 3147, 3148. Ramsey, Milne, Philadelphia. 3177. Reilly, John Louis, New York. 3284. Robinson, Theodore, Irasburg. 3428, 3429. Sargent, John S., Philadelphia. 3525. Shonborn, Lewis, Nemora. 3578. Stone, Miss Marie L., New York. 3579. Strain, Daniel, Cincinnati, O. 3584. Swift, Clement. 3606. Teka, Madame E., Boston, Mass. 3695. Tuckerman, Ernest, New York. 3697. Tuttle, C.F., Ohio. 5850. Vogel, Miss Christine, New Orleans. 3879. Walker, Henry, Boston. 3891, 3892. Weeks, Edwin Lord, Boston. 3900, 3901. Welch, Thaddeus, Laporte, Ind. 3908, 3909. Williams, Frederic D., Boston. 3921. Woodward, Wilbur W., Indiana. 3923. Wright, Marian Lois.

DESIGNS, AQUARELLES, PORCELAINS, ETC.

4101. Berend, Edward, New York. 4182, 4183. Boker, Miss Orleana V., New York. 4187, 4188. Boni, Mrs. Marie Louise. 4370. Chauncey, Mrs. Lucy, New York. 4399, 4400. Clark, George, New York. 4462. Crocker, Miss Sallie S., Portland, Me. 4474, 4475. Dana, Charles E., Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 4578. Dixey, Mrs. Ellen S., Boston. 4586. Donohoe, Eliza, Buffalo, N.Y. 4686. Faquani, Miss Nina, New York. 4688. Faller, Miss Emily, New York. 4855. Goodridge, Miss S.M. 4867. Greatorex, Miss Eleanor E., New York. 4868, 4869. Greatorex, Miss Kathleen, New York. 4927. Hardie, Robert G. 4953. Heuston, Miss Emma L., Sacramento, Cal. 5384. Merrill, Mrs. Emma F.R., New York. 5396. Mezzara, Mrs. Rosine, New York. 5562. Pering, Miss Cornelia. 5914. Tompkins, Miss Clementina, Washington. 6008, 6009. Volkmar, Charles, Baltimore. 6015. Walker, Miss Sophia A. 6028. Wheeler, Miss Mary, Concord. 6029, 6030. Whidden, W.M., Boston.

SCULPTURE.

6081. Bartlett, Paul, New Haven. 6136. Boyle, John, Philadelphia. 6276. Donoghue, John, Chicago. 6312, 6313. Ezekiel, Moses, Richmond. 6371. Gould, Thomas Ridgway, Boston. 6534. Mezzara, Joseph, New York. 6661, 6662. Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, New York --J.J.R.

A PLOT FOR AN HISTORICAL NOVEL.

In Hawthorne's _American Note-Book_, among his memoranda, into which he conscientiously put every scrap and detail which might be useful in his writings, is an allusion to the "Grey Property Case," a lawsuit which held the Pennsylvania courts for more than half a century, and turned upon a curious story which will be new to some readers and may have slipped from the recollection of others. It belongs to the history of Mifflin, Juniata county, first settled by Scotch-Irish colonists in 1749. Two of the four men who claimed some land and built a fort had the name of Grey, and the narrative concerns the younger of these two brothers, John Grey. One morning in August, 1756, he left his wife and children at the fort and set out on an expedition to Carlisle. He was returning when he had an encounter with a bear, and was detained on the mountain-road for several hours. This probably preserved his life, for when he reached the settlement he found that the fort had just been burned by the Indians, and that every person in it had either been killed or taken prisoner. Among the latter were Grey's wife and his child, a beautiful little girl of three years old. Grey was an affectionate husband and father, and he was almost heartbroken by this catastrophe. Fired with longing for revenge, he joined Colonel Armstrong's expedition in September against the Indian settlement at Kittanning on the Ohio, with some hope that his wife and child might be found among the captives whom, it was rumored, the Indians had carried there. Colonel Armstrong's onslaught was successful: he succeeded in burning the village, killed about fifty savages and rescued eleven white prisoners. Grey gained no information, however, about his family, and, sick and exhausted by the disappointment and the fatigues of the campaign, went home to die. He left a will bequeathing one-half of his farm to his wife and one-half to his child if they returned from captivity. In case his child should never be given up or should not survive him, he gave her half of the estate to his sister, who had a claim against him, having lent him money.

The rumor was true that the Indians had first carried Mrs. Grey and her little daughter to Kittanning, but afterward, for greater security, they were given over to the French commander at Fort Duquesne. They were confined there for a time, then carried into Canada. About a year later Mrs. Grey had a chance to escape. She concealed herself among the skins in the sledge of a fur-trader, and was thus able to elude pursuit. She left her child behind her in captivity, and after passing through a variety of adventures returned to Tuscarora Valley, and, finding her husband dead, proved his will and took possession of her half of his property. Grey's sister was disposed to assert her claim to the other portion, but Mrs. Grey always maintained that her little daughter Jane was alive, and would sooner or later, after the French and Indian wars were ended, be released and sent back. In 1764 a treaty was made with the Indians enforcing a general surrender of all their white captives. A number of stolen children were brought to Philadelphia to be identified by their friends and relations, and Mrs. Grey (who in the mean time had married a Mr. Williams) made the journey to this city in the hope of claiming her little daughter Jane. Seven years had passed since Mrs. Williams had seen the child, who might be expected to have grown out of her remembrance. But, even taking this into consideration, there seemed at first to be none of the children who in the least respect answered the description of the lost girl. Mrs. Grey probably longed to find her daughter for affection's sake. But there was besides a powerful motive to induce her, inasmuch as she wished to get possession of the other half of her husband's property, which must otherwise be forfeited to his sister, Mrs. James Grey. One of the captive children, apparently about the same age as the lost Jane, had found no one to recognize her. Mrs. Williams determined to take this girl and substitute her for her own, and put an end to Mrs. James Grey's claim. She did so, and brought up the stranger for her own child. The Grey property thus passed wholly into the possession of Mrs. Williams. The girl grew up rough, awkward and ugly, incapable of refinement and even gross in her morals. She finally married a minister by the name of Gillespie.

Meanwhile, the heirs of Mrs. James Grey had gained some sort of information which led them to suspect that the returned girl was no relation of their uncle John Grey, and in 1789 they brought a lawsuit to recover their mother's half of the property. By this time endless complications had arisen. Mrs. Williams was dead: her half of her first husband's farm had been bequeathed to her second husband's kindred, and was now in part held by them and in part had been bought by half a dozen others. The supposed daughter, Mrs. Gillespie, had died, as had her husband, and their share had passed to his relations. It had become almost impossible for the most astute lawyers to find beginning, middle or end to the claims which were set forth. Plenty of evidence was collected to show that Mrs. Williams had substituted a stranger for her own child, and the decision finally rested on this, and the property was given up to the heirs of Mrs. James Grey. This did not happen, however, until 1834, when few or none of the original litigants remained.

The real little Jane Grey, so it was said, was brought up in a good family who adopted her, and afterward married well and had children, residing near Sir William Johnson's place in Central New York.--L.W.

THE MISERIES OF CAMPING OUT.

My dear cousin Laura: So you are thinking about camping out, and want my opinion as to whether the spot we chose for our trout-fishing in June is a suitable place for ladies to go? I should give a decided negative. My brother takes his wife and his sister usually, although he fortunately left them at home last time. I think they must have to "make believe" a good deal to think it fun. I am certain that had they been with us they would have been forced to exercise their largest powers of imagination. We set out in fine weather, but entered the woods in a driving snowstorm, and enjoyed a forty-six-mile drive over a road that has, I must say this for it, not been known to be so bad for years. We came back in a pelting rain. We made our camp in a snowstorm, and the wood was wet and would not burn, and our tent was damp and would not dry. We fished in a boat on the lake, swept by cold winds until we were chilled to the bone and our hands were so stiff we could not hold the rods. My brother had a "chill" the first night in camp. I had indigestion from eating things fried in pork fat from the first meal until I got a civilized repast at Frank's house in New York. I was bounced sore. My nose was peeled by sun and cold. My lips were decorated by three large cold-sores. My hands bled constantly from a combination of chap and sunburn. I made up my mind if I ever got safely out of those woods it would be several years at least before I could be persuaded to enter them again. The scenery _is_ lovely, but one cannot enjoy it. The fishing _is_ good, but it is hard work, and my own opinion is that there is altogether "too much pork for a shilling" in the whole business. Talk about being "ten miles from a lemon"! Try forty-six miles from a lemon over a corduroy road. At first we had cold weather, hence no black flies or mosquitos. When warm weather came on again we had both of them, and our experience was that the snowstorm was preferable. The black flies made the day unendurable, and the mosquitos made the night as well as the day a wasting misery. We had them everywhere--in the hut, in the tent, at the table, on the lake, in the woods. No smudge or lotion discourages them; oil of tar is their delight, camphor they revel in; buzzing, singing, biting continually are their pastime. They are a galling curse--a nuisance which no words can describe. A lady _might_ go through all this if she had perfect health and the endurance under punishment of a prize-fighter. Your party may travel all those weary miles and strike a fortunate week of pleasant weather, but you may, and more likely will, have a week when it will rain dismally straight through without stopping. We found, on looking up the statistics, that in an average season out of every twenty-two days eighteen will always be stormy, lowering and dismal. No, don't camp out unless you can make up your mind beforehand to every kind of discomfort and inconvenience to mar all that is beautiful and all that is pleasing. I speak of course of the localities I have known in my three several attempts. _They say_ it is different in other parts of the region. But when you have plank roads and first-class hotels and all the modern conveniences, I don't call that going into the woods and camping out. The real thing is not very much fun except in the retrospect, when you can thank your stars that you got out alive. For the greater part it is a snare and a delusion. But if you still pine for the forests and streams and the free out-of-door life, I don't wish to discourage you, and you know I never give advice.

Your affectionate cousin, F.G.

UNREFORMED SPELLING.

A little note has come to me which gives an entertaining glimpse of the average ability of a class. "John Stubbs x his mark" is obviously "low-watermark," but there are levels between that and high-school possibilities which we cannot often measure. The note is written on fair white paper and had a white envelope. The writer is American, the wife of a fisherman, and about thirty years old, though the handwriting is like that of the old ladies of our grandmothers' time. It is given of course, in the full sense, _literatim_, and is offered for the encouragement--or the despair--of the Spelling Reform Association. The little touch of pathos makes one read with respect:

June the 2.
Dear Madam

Will you pleas to enclose the 100 dollars in an envelope, so that the little boy wont loose it: the little dog was too years old the first of May: and my babey too the 24 of April, they have always ben together and he is verey intelegent indead and you can learn him eneything you would wish to fealing asuared he will receve everey kindness you have the best wishes of Mrs. Hattie ----.

Perhaps it is well to add, the "100" means ten. The hero is a black Skye, long-haired, plume-tailed and soft-eyed. What his views were upon removal from the back alley of his youth to a well-appointed though by no means luxurious home he never said, but his investigation was comically thorough, winding up in dumb amaze at the discovery of himself in a long mirror. His experience of feminine humanity being limited to the variety that rolls its sleeves above its elbows and comports itself accordingly, he bitterly resented good clothes, transferred his affections to the housemaids, and only much coaxing and much sugar could win his heart for his new mistress.

"The little boy" had dubbed him "Penny," which hardly suited his silken attire and his little haughty, imperious ways; so, though the children will still call him "Penny-wise" and "Four Farthings," the mistress finds nothing less than "Pendennis" due to his dignity.--C.B.M.

OUR NEW VISITORS.

I should like to have Mr. Burroughs or some of our naturalists write one of their pleasant papers and explain the mystery of the wood-thrush's advent in our gardens and upon our lawns. Until a year ago the wood-thrush was not one of the birds which ever raised its note in our pleasure-grounds. We heard them in the woods, and looked at them, when we intruded upon their privacy, with that sort of shyness with which we watch strangers. We knew their "wood-notes wild," and admired their plumage, but they did not inspire the same feeling as their cousin the robin. But a year ago all at once here was the thrush. Nobody could tell when he came, how he came or why he came. It seemed an accident, for there was but one pair: it was as if through innocence or ignorance, instead of building their nests in their old chosen haunts, they had wandered away and lost themselves in the spacious grounds of a gentleman's country-seat. They had no dismay, no doubts, however: they took possession of the lawn with the utmost boldness. They were rarely out of sight, hopping from morning until night about the turf, flying from tree to tree with their impulsive movements, more graceful than the robins. They were never silent, uttering perpetually their mellow flute-like cry and singing their simple but ecstatic melody.

That was last year; and this year, 1880, the thrushes are everywhere in this Connecticut village by the Sound. Their orange-and-tawny backs gleam in the sunshine from morning until night. There are numbers of them. Their manners are very marked. They have quite the air of conquerors. All the other birds yield them precedence, and they positively domineer over the pugnacious little English sparrow, who is content to keep in the background and watch his chance when feeding-time comes.

And of all the curious things about them, what seems most inexplicable is their tameness. They have no mistrust, but eye you with an intelligent, knowing look while bringing their young to feed within half a dozen feet of you. They perch on the croquet-arches in the midst of a noisy game. They sing directly over your head with the utmost spirit and vivacity, hardly ceasing all the forenoon, and again bursting out toward evening and maintaining their song until every other bird's lay is hushed in the twilight. White of Selborne would have delighted in such a freak on the part of these pretty gay strangers, who have left secluded swampy haunts, the deep dells where the blackberries twine and the daisies and clover blossom, for our close-cut lawns and elm- and willow-shaded nooks.--A.T.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Alexander Pope. By Leslie Stephen. (English Men-of-Letters Series.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

The interest of this series, which increases rather than diminishes--as one might have feared would be the case--with each succeeding volume, lies very much in the fact that the list of writers, almost as long and varied as that of the subjects, is a representative one. It comprises men who have won distinction in different departments--as novelists, historians, scholars, scientific expounders--but who here meet in the common field of biographical criticism and work together under the same limitations and conditions. Hence their performances give us not so much a measure of their individual powers as of the tone of thought and intellectual depth of the class to which they belong. However diverse their abilities and special fields of observation or research, their general range of knowledge, methods of study and ideas of life are very much the same. They are collectively "men of culture," as the writers of Queen Anne's time were "wits," and it is the qualities associated with that term, rather than any distinct gifts or characteristics, that are here called into play. Mr. Trollope's _Thackeray_ was perhaps an exception--a black spot on the otherwise immaculate whiteness. In a different way the general effect would have been still more seriously impaired if Mr. Ruskin's co-operation had been invited. The outcroppings of a vulgar egotism might indicate a substratum necessary to be taken into account, but it would have been a clear loss of labor to follow the leadings of any eccentric vein. One might wonder at the absence of Mr. Matthew Arnold, the high priest of culture; but we have to remember that Mr. Arnold is solicitous to stand apart, that he holds up ideals which he is careful to inform us are not those of his time, and that he is fastidious in selecting a point of view where he cannot be jostled, with perspectives to which no vision but his own can accommodate itself. His culture may represent that of the future, but certainly does not typify that of the present.

Mr. Leslie Stephen, on the contrary, might very well stand as a type of his class both in its positive and negative qualities. He, more than any of his confreres, is a product of culture. Unlike the greater number of them, he has no special talent, or pet object of enthusiasm, or erratic tendencies. He is a trained critic, and is "nothing if not critical." His coolness is a real coolness, not the effect of any "toning down" for the occasion, as we may suspect to have been the case with Mr. Froude and Mr. Goldwin Smith. His knowledge is accurate, his judgments are sound, his taste is seldom at fault, his style is faultless and colorless, he never attempts what he is unable to do well and without any appearance of strain. Though he may have given more attention to the literature of the eighteenth century than to that of any other period, one feels that he might safely have been entrusted with the preparation of any volume of this series. It was probably from a sense of fitness, not by mere chance, that he was selected to write the initial volume, which pitched the key for those that were to follow, and that so far he is the only writer who has been called upon for a second contribution.

His task in the present instance has been much less easy and simple than that which he before undertook. In the case of Johnson he had only to select and condense from material so copious and authentic as left no question of fact or problem of criticism unsettled. Pope's career, on the other hand, after all the research that has been spent upon it, is full of obscurities; his character, while it invites, seems to evade, analysis; even his rank and exact position in literature cannot be said to be conclusively determined. It is needless to say that Mr. Stephen has been diligent and skilful in examining and summarizing whatever facts relating to his subject have been brought to light by recent or early investigation; that he weighs all the evidence with strict impartiality, and, when it is insufficient, is content to suspend judgment without resorting to conjecture; or that his views both on points of conduct and literary questions, if not marked by any striking originality, show clear and vigorous thinking and are stated in a way that provokes no impatience or captious dissent. The interest of the narrative is well sustained, and the general impression left by it that of a report made by an expert on documents that needed to be thoroughly sifted in order that the issues which had been raised might be succinctly set forth and fully apprehended. Further than this Mr. Stephen does not pretend to go. His report is preliminary, not final. No matter previously left uncertain is here determined. Instead of an added knowledge, we are only made more sensible of our former ignorance. Pope's figure, far from coming more distinctly into view, seems to have receded and grown more vague. Certain traits have perhaps been made more noticeable than before, but those essential elements of character which would define, explain, reconcile, and enable us to conceive the combination as a unit, have eluded observation.

This is, of course, a natural result of the gaps and contradictions in the evidence, the lack especially of those minute details which are not only necessary links, but often the most suggestive features, in a record of facts or delineation of character. And if it be urged that a deeper insight would have in some measure supplied this deficiency, the answer can only be that we have no right to expect from any man the exercise of powers which he does not possess or affect to possess--powers which, in a case like this, would need to be of the finest and rarest kind. We may, however, fairly regret that Mr. Stephen has not availed himself of a resource that lay within his reach for making the accessories of his picture more brilliant and effective, with the possible incidental result of throwing a stronger light on the principal figure. Whatever else may be debated about Pope, no one would deny that he was pre-eminently the man of his time--not only its most conspicuous figure, but the very embodiment of its ideals. He suited it and it suited him. Hence the fulness and in a certain sense perfection of his work, the fact that he has given his name to an epoch as well as a school, and consequently the important place which he still retains in the history of literature. Men who were certainly not his inferiors in intellectual power lived in the same age, partook of its influence and contributed to its achievements; but they were not so thoroughly at home in it: their best qualities were stunted, rather than developed, by its soil and atmosphere. Dryden, one may safely say, would have been greater had he lived earlier, Fielding had he lived later. But one cannot imagine Pope thriving in any other air or producing equal work under different influences. The qualities most esteemed by his contemporaries he possessed in a superlative degree; his limitations were common to the society in which he moved, and neither he nor it was conscious of them as such; consequently, what would have been impediments to a different nature were to his means of free and spontaneous action. And not only does he represent the ideas of his age, but he depicted its types and manners. In this respect he is the link between the comic dramatists and the novelists, between Congreve and Fielding. The wits, the beaux, the fine ladies, the Grub Street drudges of the reign of Anne, whatever be the fidelity or other merits of the portraitures, are more familiar to us in the satires of Pope than as reflected in any other mirror. For these reasons Pope is one of the last men who can be studied to advantage from a single point of view or in a detached position. We need to understand not only his personal relations but his general affinities with the men and events of his time--of that world, at least, of which he was the centre. True, the period is better known to readers generally than almost any other. But it is not a copious accumulation of facts or a labored analysis--for which there would have been no space--that we miss in Mr. Stephen's book, but such groupings and irradiating touches as might have given us a vivid glimpse, if only a glimpse, of the whole field. Yet in lamenting that this much is not given us we are perhaps making the mistake before noticed, of demanding from a given source what it could not supply. We are driven back, therefore, on the reflection how much the slightest things in art depend on inspiration, on original power--how immeasurable the distance is between the man of culture and the man of genius.

Samuel Lover: A Biographical Sketch. With Selections from his Writings and Correspondence. By Andrew James Symington. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The memory of so genial and popular a writer as Lover ought to be kept as green as possible, and Mr. Symington has done well to embody his Loveriana in a short life of the Irish humorist. The new material brought forth is slender, consisting simply of a few letters and ten short poems, not of his best; but it was worth publishing, and Mr. Symington has the advantage, in treating of Lover, of writing from personal knowledge. He has rather slurred over the earlier part of Lover's career, apparently from a fear of trespassing on the preserves of a longer biography previously published; which is a pity, as his sketch will have most interest for readers who come fresh to the subject. Even those whose curiosity in regard to the writer has not been stirred by reading his works may get a very good idea of them from the selections printed here. The book is not a critical study: it enters into no details or analysis of Lover's character. It is simply a hurried outline of his life, interspersed with songs and stories which go a good way to make up for the meagreness of personal anecdote, and ending with some friendly letters and short notes written by Lover during the last few years of his life and addressed to Mr. Symington. Most of these letters were written in poor health from the Isle of Wight or Jersey, to which places he was sent by the doctors. They are not of the brilliant or gossipy order, but they are admirable in their good colloquial English and cheerful, unaffected style. Lover was a man of great activity of mind, combined with warm affections. His life-story was not very romantic, but it was a wholesome and pleasant one. When young he was deeply attached to an English girl, with whom, though they were separated (Mr. Symington does not say from what cause), he maintained through life a warm friendship. The young lady married, and Lover consoled himself and was married twice, each time, it appears, very happily. His letters contain many little domestic allusions, reporting his own occupations and those of "the good little wife" at their fireside in Kent or away at the shore, where they look back with regret to their own country-house. Lover had a warm attachment to home, the house as well as the inmates. "I cannot tell you," he writes from the Isle of Wight, "how much I have been put off my balance by my exile from my own house. For a time one is willing to make, for health's sake, a sacrifice of domestic comfort and give up the pleasant habits one can indulge in in one's own home; but to lead for months and months a lodging-house life is very miserable: it benumbs the best of our faculties; the edge of enjoyment is blunted. Music is sweeter within the compass of your own walls; the book is pleasanter taken from the familiar shelf of your own library; in one's own studio the habit of happy occupation has made an atmosphere that has a charm in it."

Gifted with a rare variety of talents, Lover heartily enjoyed the exercise of each, and found his chief pleasure in their development. He worked incessantly at painting, writing or musical composition--worked for love of the work, not from uneasy effort or outside pressure. In this respect he presents a happy contrast to his fellow-countryman and brother-humorist Charles Lever, whose biography, published some months ago, left a painful impression on the mind in its view of a man of genuine talent and attractive qualities living in a feverish way and writing constantly against his inclination, too often below his powers. As writers the two stand side by side. Lover had more versatility of talent, taking him partly outside the field of literature. He made the most of his powers: nothing which he has written gives the idea that he might have done it better. He was a poet, which Lever was not, and had an easy command of versification and language. His songs, while they show no high poetic qualities, are excellent of their kind, and his facility in turning an impromptu verse is shown in this scrap from the book before us in praise of a friend and physician:

Whene'er your vitality
Is feeble in quality,
And you fear a fatality
May end the strife,
Then Dr. Joe Dickson
Is the man I would fix on
For putting new wicks on
The lamp of life.

In his stories Lover relied less on drollery of incident and indulged more in play upon words than Lever, but the humor of both is essentially of the same kind and drawn from the same source. Compared with much of our American humor, it has a spontaneousness, and above all a lovable quality, that ours lacks. The boy who has laughed over _Lorrequer_ and _Handy Andy_ is apt to look back at them not merely with amusement, but with a feeling of _camaraderie_ and even tenderness. He has laughed with them as well as at them--has somehow gained through the laughter a glimpse of the writer which inspires liking and respect.

New England Bygones. By E.H. Arr. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co.

E.H. Arr has produced a very pleasant book by a simple effort of memory. By letting the mind's eye travel back carefully and vigilantly over the scenes of a youth passed in a rural part of New England, and taking notes of its journey, she has made a graphic picture of life in that corner of the country forty years ago. Not a few men and women who were "raised" there have carried away, bit for bit, the same reminiscences, so exactly does one New England landscape resemble another, in details of foreground at least. The same description of orchard, stone walls or old well will fit any farm in Maine or Massachusetts, and fond recollection sniffs the same odor of sputtering doughnuts through the kitchen-door, whether it carries one back to the Green hills or the White. Recollections are alike, but impressions differ, one class of minds retaining the sense of bareness and gloom which is so continually insisted upon in some New England books, and others, as in the book before us, dwelling lovingly upon the wholesome flavor, pungent yet mellow, which gives New England country life a distinctive charm unlike anything else either in this or the mother-country. Even the Sunday is pleasant to look back upon to E.H. Arr; which is probably one instance of the fact that retrospective pleasure is sometimes totally disproportionate to present enjoyment.

The author is more successful in her treatment of landscape than of figures. Her village people are shown too much under one aspect: she possesses none of the humor which dares to take the most opposite traits, the grotesque and the beautiful alike, and blend them in a sound, artistic whole. Her characters are evidently drawn from life, but we miss the many little touches which would make them alive. An essay on "Old Trees" contains some of the best work in the book, with its charming sketch of an old orchard, bringing to view the twisted trees and even the irregularities of the ground, and to the palate a sharp after-taste of yellowing apples picked up from tufts of matted grass. After all, the New England of the writer's bygones does not differ essentially from the New England of to-day, though a more vivid study of life would perhaps have brought out more contrasts between the two.

_Books Received_.

Homo Sum: A Novel. By Georg Ebers. From the German by Clara Bell. New York: William S. Gottsberger.

Unto the Third and Fourth Generation: A Study. By Helen Campbell. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

Allaooddeen, a Tragedy, and Other Poems. By the author of "Constance," etc. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Third-Term Politics: A Lecture. By Horace White. New York: Independent Republican Association.

The American Bicycler. By Charles E. Pratt. Illustrated. Boston: Press of Rockwell & Churchill.

Alva Vine; or, Art _versus_ Duty. By Henri Gordon. New York: American News Company.