Go from me! Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow,

deserves immortality.

But to return to Mr. Hart's studio. One of the most remarkable things I saw in Florence was this artist's invention to reduce certain details of sculpture to a mechanical process. This machine at first sight struck me as a queer kind of ancient armor. In brief, the subject is placed in position, when the front part of this armor, set on some kind, of hinge, swings round before him, and the sculptor makes measurements by means of numberless long metal needles, which are so arranged as to run in and touch the subject: A stationary mark is placed where the needle touches, and then I think it is pulled back. So the artist goes on, until some hundreds of measurements are made, if necessary, when the process is finished and the subject is released. How these measurements are made to serve the artist in modeling the statue I cannot very well describe, but I understood that by their aid Mr. Hart had modeled a bust from life in the incredible space of two days! I further understood that Mr. Hart's portrait-busts are remarkable for their correct likeness, which of course they must be if they are mathematically correct in their proportions. Many of the artists in Florence have the bad taste to make sport of this machine; but if Mr. Hart's portrait-busts are what they have the reputation of being, this sport is only a mask for jealousy. Mr. Hart is extremely sensitive to the light manner Mr. Powers and others have of speaking of this invention. One day he was much annoyed when a visitor, after examining the machine very attentively for some time, exclaimed, "Mr. Hart, what if you should have a man shut in there among those points, and he should happen to sneeze?"

The Pitti Palace was one of my favorite haunts, and I often spent whole hours there in a single salon. There I almost always saw Mr. G——, a German-American, copying from the masters; and he could copy too! What an indefatigable worker he was! Slight and delicate of frame, he seemed absolutely incapable of growing weary. He often toiled there all day long, his hands red and swollen with the cold, for the winter, as I have before remarked, was unusually severe. For many days I saw him working on a Descent from the Cross by Tintoretto—a bold attempt, for Tintoretto's colors are as baffling as those of the great Venetian master himself. This copy had received very general praise, and one day I took a Lucca friend, a dilettante, to see it. Mr. G—— brought the canvas out in the hall, that we might see it outside of the ocean of color which surrounded it in the gallery. When we reached the hall, Mr. G—— turned the picture full to the light. The effect was astounding. It was so brilliant that you could hardly look at it. It seemed a mass of molten gold reflecting the sun. "Good God!" exclaimed G——, "did I do that?" and an expression of bitter disappointment passed over his face. I ventured to suggest that as everybody had found it good while it was in the gallery, this brilliant effect must be from the cold gray marble of the hall. G—— could not pardon the picture, and nothing that the Italian or I could say had the least effect. He would hear no excuse for it, and, evidently quite mortified at the debut of his Tintoretto, he hurried the canvas back to the easel. The sister of the czar of Russia was greatly pleased with this copy, and proposed to buy it, but whether she did or not I forgot to ascertain.

Alone as I was in Florence, cultivating only the acquaintance of Italians, yet was I never troubled with ennui. I read much at Vieussieux's, and when I grew tired of that and of music, I made long sables on the Lung Arno to the Cascine, through the charming Boboli gardens, or out to Fiesole. Fiesole is some two miles from Florence, and once on my way there I stopped at the Protestant burying-ground and pilfered a little wildflower from Theodore Parker's grave to send home to one of his romantic admirers. Fiesole must be a very ancient town, for there is a ruined amphitheatre there, and the remains of walls so old that they are called Pelasgic in their origin; which is, I take it, sufficiently vague. The high hill is composed of the most solid marble; so the guidebooks say, at least. This is five hundred and seventy-five feet above the sea, and on its summit stands the cathedral, very old indeed, and built in the form of a basilica, like that of San Miniato. From this hill you look down upon the plain beneath, with the Arno winding through it, and upon Florence and the Apennine chain, above which rise the high mountains of Carrara. Here, on the highest available point of the rock, I used to sit reading, and looking upon the panorama beneath, until the sinking sun warned me that I had only time to reach the city before its setting. I used to love to look also at works of art in this way, for by so doing I fixed them in my mind for future reference. I never passed the Piazza della Signoria without standing some minutes before the Loggia dei Lanzi and the old ducal palace with its marvelous tower. Before this palace, exposed to the weather for three hundred and fifty years, stands Michael Angelo's David; to the left, the fountain on the spot where Savonarola was burnt alive by the order of Alexander VI.; and immediately facing this is the post-office. I never could pass the post-office without thinking of the poet Shelley, who was there brutally felled to the earth by an Englishman, who accused him of being an infidel, struck his blow and escaped.

I made many visits to the Nuova Sacrista to see the tombs of the two Medici by Michael Angelo. The one at the right on entering is that of Giuliano, duke of Nemours, brother of Leo X. The two allegorical figures reclining beneath are Morning and Night. The tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urfrino, stands on the other side of the chapel, facing that of the duke de Nemours. The statue of Lorenzo, for grace of attitude and beauty of expression, has, in my opinion, never been equaled. The allegorical figures at the feet of this Medici are more beautiful and more easily understood than most of Michael Angelo's allegorical figures. Nevertheless, I used sometimes, when looking at these four figures, to think that they had been created merely as architectural auxiliaries, and that their expression was an accident or a freak of the artist's fancy, rather than the expression of some particular thought: at other times I saw as much in them as most enthusiasts do—enough, I have no doubt, to astonish their great author himself. I believe that very few people really experience rapturous sensations when they look at works of art. People are generally much more moved by the sight of the two canes preserved in Casa Buonarotti, upon which the great master in his latter days supported his tottering frame, than they are by the noblest achievements of his genius.

The Carnival in Florence was a meagre affair compared with the same fete in Rome. During the afternoon, however, there was goodly procession of masks in carriages on the Lung' Arno, and in the evening there was a feeble moccoletti display. The grand masked ball at the Casino about this time presents an irresistible attraction to the floating population in Florence. I was foolish enough to go. All were obliged to be dressed in character or in full ball-costume: no dominoes allowed. The Casino, I was told, is the largest club-house in the world; and salon after salon of that immense building was so crowded that locomotion was nearly impossible. The floral decorations were magnificent, the music was excellent, and some of the ten thousand people present tried to dance, but the sets formed were soon squeezed into a ball. Then they gave up in despair, while the men swore under their breath, and the women repaired to the dressing-rooms to sew on flounces or other skirt-trimmings. Masks wriggled about, and spoke to each other in the ridiculously squeaky voice generally adopted on such occasions. Most of their conversation was English, and of this very exciting order: "You don't know me?" "Yes I do." "No you don't." "I know what you did yesterday," etc., etc., ad nauseam. How fine masked balls are in sensational novels! how absolutely flat and unsatisfactory in fact! There was on this occasion a vast display of dress and jewelry, and among the babel of languages spoken the most prominent was the beautiful London dialect sometimes irreverently called Cockney. I lost my cavalier at one time, and while I waited for him to find me I retired to a corner and challenged a mask to a game of chess. He proved to be a Russian who spoke neither French nor Italian. We got along famously, however. He said something very polite in Russian, I responded irrelevantly in French, and then we looked at each other and grinned. He subsequently, thinking he had made an impression, ventured to press my hand; I drew it away and told him he was an idiot, at which he was greatly flattered; and then we grinned at each other again. It was very exciting indeed. I won the game easily, because he knew nothing of chess, and then he said something in his mother-tongue, placing his hand upon his heart. I could have sworn that it meant, "Of course I would not be so rude as to win when playing with a lady." I thought so, principally because he was a man, for I never knew a man under such circumstances who did not immediately betray his self-conceit by making that gallant declaration. Feeling sure that the Russian had done so, when we placed the pieces on the board again I offered him my queen. He seemed astounded and hurt; and then for the first time I thought that if this Russian were an exception to his sex, and I had not understood his remark, then it was a rudeness to offer him my queen. I was fortunately relieved from my perplexing situation by the approach of my cavalier, and as he led me away I gave my other hand to my antagonist in the most impressive manner, by way of atonement in case there had been anything wrong in my conduct toward him.

One day during the latter part of my stay in Florence I went the second time to the splendid studio of Mr. Powers. He talked very eloquently upon art. He said that some of the classic statues had become famous, and deservedly so, although they were sometimes false in proportion and disposed in attitudes quite impossible in nature. He illustrated this by a fine plaster cast of the Venus of Milo, before which we were standing. He showed that the spinal cord in the neck could never, from the position of the head, have joined that of the body, that there was a radical fault in the termination of the spinal column, and that the navel was located falsely with respect to height. As he proceeded he convinced me that he was correct; and in defence of this, my most cherished idol after the Apollo Belvedere, I only asked the iconoclast whether these defects might not have been intentional, in order to make the statue appear more natural when looked at in its elevated position from below. I subsequently repeated Mr. Powers's criticism of the Venus of Milo in the studio of another of our distinguished sculptors, and he treated it with great levity, especially when I told him my authority. There is a spirit of rivalry among sculptors which does not always manifest itself in that courteous and well-bred manner which distinguishes the medical faculty, for instance, in their dealings with each other. This courtesy is well illustrated by an anecdote I have recently heard. A gentleman fell down in a fit, and a physician entering saw a man kneeling over the patient and grasping him firmly by the throat; whereupon the physician exclaimed, "Why, sir, you are stopping the circulation in the jugular vein!" "Sir," replied the other, "I am a doctor of medicine." To which the first M.D. remarked, "Ah! I beg your pardon," and stood by very composedly until the patient was comfortably dead.

While Mr. Powers was conversing with me about the Venus of Milo, there entered two Englishwomen dressed very richly in brocades and velvets. They seemed very anxious to see everything in the studio, talked in loud tones of the various objects of art, passed us, and occupied themselves for some time before the statue called California. I heard one of them say, "I wonder if there's anybody 'ere that talks Hinglish?" and in the same breath she called out to Mr. Powers, "Come 'ere!" He was at work that day, and wore his studio costume. I was somewhat surprised to see him immediately obey the rude command, and the following conversation occurred:

"Do you speak Hinglish?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What is this statue?"

"It is called California, madam."

"What has she got in 'er 'and?"

"Thorns, madam, in the hand held behind the back; in the other she presents the quartz containing the tempting metal."

"Oh!"

We next entered a room where there was another work of the sculptor in process of formation. Mr. Powers and myself were engaged in an animated and, to me, very agreeable conversation, which was constantly interrupted by these ill-bred women, who kept all the time mistaking the plaster for the marble, and asked the artist the most pestering questions on the modus operandi of sculpturing. I was astonished at the marvelous temper of Mr. Powers, who politely and patiently answered all their queries. By some lucky chance these women got out of the way during our slow progress back to the outer rooms, and I enjoyed Mr. Powers's conversation uninterruptedly. He showed me the beautiful baby hand in marble, a copy of his daughter's hand when an infant, and had just returned it to its shrine when the two women reappeared, and we all proceeded together. In the outer room there were several admirable busts, upon which these women passed comment freely. One of these busts was that of a lady, and they attacked it spitefully. "What an ugly face!" "What a mean expression about the mouth!" "Isn't it 'orrible?"

"Who is it?" asked one of them, addressing Mr. Powers.

"That is a portrait of my wife," said the artist modestly.

"Your wife!" repeated one of the women, and then, nothing abashed, added, "Who are you?"

"My name is Powers, madam," he answered very politely. This discovery evidently disconcerted the impudence even of these visitors, and they immediately left the studio.

As the day approached for my departure I visited all my old haunts, and dwelt fondly upon scenes which I might never see again. My dear old music-master cried when I bade him farewell. Povero maestro! He used to think me so good that I was always ashamed of not being a veritable angel. I left Florence when

All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer.

My last visit was with the maestro to the Cascine, where he gathered me a bunch of wild violets—cherished souvenir of a city I love, and of a friend whose like I "ne'er may look upon again."

MARIE HOWLAND.



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER.

While Philadelphia hibernates in the ice and snow of February, the spring season opens in the Southern woods and pastures. The fragrant yellow jessamine clusters in golden bugles over shrubs and trees, and the sward is enameled with the white, yellow and blue violet. The crocus and cowslip, low anemone and colts-foot begin to show, and the land brightens with waxy flowers of the huckleberry, set in delicate gamboge edging. Yards, greeneries, conservatories breathe a June like fragrance, and aviaries are vocal with songsters, mocked outside by the American mocking-bird, who chants all night under the full moon, as if day was too short for his medley.

New Orleans burgeons with the season. The broad fair avenues, the wide boulevards, famed Canal street, are luxuriant with spring life and drapery. Dashing equipages glance down the Shell Road with merry driving-and picnic-parties. There is boating on the lake, and delicious French collations at pleasant resorts, spread by neat-handed mulatto waiters speaking a patois of French, English and negro. There spring meats and sauces and light French wines allure to enjoyments less sensual than the coarser Northern climate affords.

The unrivaled French opera is in season, the forcing house of that bright garden of exotics. Other and Northern cities boast of such entertainments, but I apprehend they resemble the Simon-Pure much as an Englishman's French resembles the native tongue. In New Orleans it is the natural, full-flavored article, lively with French taste and talent, and for a people instinct with a truer Gallic spirit, perhaps, than that of Paris itself. It is antique and colonial, but age and the sea-voyage have preserved more distinctly the native bouquet of the wine after all grosser flavors have wasted away. The spectacle within the theatre on a fine night is brilliant, recherche and French. From side-scene to dome, and from gallery after gallery to the gay parquette, glitters the bright, shining audience. There are loungers, American and French, blase and roue, who in the intervals drink brandy and whisky, or anisette, maraschino, curcoa or some other fiery French cordial. The French loungers are gesticulatory, and shoulders, arms, fingers, eyes and eyebrows help out the tongue's rapid utterance; but they are never rude or boisterous. There are belles, pretty French belles, with just a tint of deceitless rouge for fashion's sake, and tinkling, crisp, low French voices modulated to chime with the music and not disharmonize it; nay, rather add to the sweetness of its concord.

And there is the Creole dandy, the small master of the revels. There is nothing perfumed in the latest box of bonbons from Paris so exquisite, sparkling, racy, French and happy in its own sweet conceit as he is. He has hands and feet a Kentucky girl might envy for their shapely delicacy and dainty size, cased in the neatest kid and prunella. His hair is negligent in the elegantest grace of the perruquier's art, his dress fashioned to the very line of fastidious elegance and simplicity, yet a simplicity his Creole taste makes unique and attractive. He has the true French persiflage, founded on happy content, not the blank indifference of the Englishman's disregard. It becomes graceful self-forgetfulness, and yet his vanity is French and victorious. In the atmosphere of breathing music and faint perfume he looks around the glancing boxes, and knows he has but to throw his sultanic handkerchief to have the handsomest Circassian in the glowing circle of female beauty. But he does not throw it, for all that. His manner plainly says: "Beautiful dames, it would do me much of pleasure if I could elope with you all on the road of iron, but the bete noir, the Moral, will not permit. Behold for which, as an opened box of Louvin's perfumeries, I dispense my fragrant affection to you all: breathe it and be happy!" Such homage he receives with graceful acquiescence, believing his recognition of it a sweet fruition to the fair adorers. He accepts it as he does the ices, wines and delicate French dishes familiar to his palate. Life is a fountain of eau sucree, where everything is sweet to him, and he tries to make it so to you, for he is a kindly-natured, true-hearted, valiant little French gentleman. His loves, his innocent dissipations, his grand passions, his rapier duels, would fill the volumes of a Le Sage or a Cervantes. In the gay circles of New Orleans he floats with lambent wings and irresistible fine eyes, its serenest butterfly, admired and spoiled alike by the French and American element.

At this early spring season a new atom of the latter enters the charmed circle, breaking its merry round into other sparkles of foam. A well-formed, stately, rather florid gentleman alights at the St. Charles, and is ushered into the hospitalities of that elegant caravansary. There is something impressive about him, or there would be farther North. He is American, from the strong, careless Anglo-Saxon face, through all the stalwart bones and full figure, to the strong, firm, light step. He will crush through the lepidoptera of this half-French society like a silver knife through Tourtereaux souffles a la creme. He brings letters to this and that citizen, or he is well known already, and "coloneled" familiarly by stamp-expectant waiters and the courteous master of ceremonies at the clerk's desk. He calls, on his bankers, and is received with gracious familiarity in the pleasant bank-parlor. Correspondence has made them acquainted with Colonel Beverage in the way of business: they are glad to see him in person, and will be happy to wait on him. He makes them happy in that way, for they do wait upon him satisfactorily. There is a little pleasant interchange of news and city gossip, and of something else. There is a crinkling of a certain crispy, green foliage, and the colonel withdraws in the midst of civilities.

He next appears on Canal street, by and beyond the Clay Monument, with occasional pauses at clothiers', and buys his shirts at Moody's, as he has probably often sworn not to do, because of its annoyingly frequent posters everywhere. He enters jewelers' shops and examines trinkets—serpents with ruby eyes curled in gold on beds of golden leaves with emerald dews upon them; pearls, pear-shaped and tearlike, brought up by swart, glittering divers, seven fathom deep, at Tuticorin or in the Persian Gulf; rubies and sapphires mined in Burmese Ava, and diamonds from Borneo and Brazil. Is he choosing a bridal present? It looks so; but no, he selects a splendid, brilliant solitaire, for which he pays eight hundred dollars out of a plethoric purse, and also a finger-ring, diamond too, for two hundred and fifty dollars. The jewelers are polite, as the bankers were. He must be a large cotton-planter, one of a class with whom a fondness for jewels serves as a means of dozing away life in a kind of crystallization. He otherwise adorns his stately person, till he has a Sublime Porte indeed, the very vizier of a fairy tale glittering in barbaric gems and gold. His taste, to speak it mildly, is expressed rather than subdued—not to be compared with the quiet elegance of your husband or lover, madam or miss, but not unsuited to his showy style, for all that. As the crimson-purple, plume-like prince's feather has its own royal charm in Southern gardens beside the pale and placidlily, so these luxuriant adornments, do not misbecome his full and not too fleshy person. There is a certain harmony in the Oriental sumptuousness of his attire, like radiant sunsets, appropriate to certain styles of man and woman. Let us humble creatures be content to have our portraits done in crayon, but the colonel calls for the color-box.

So adorned and radiant, this variety of the American aloe floats into the charmed circle of New Orleans society—that lively, sparkling epitome and relic of the old regime. He has good letters and a fair name, and mingles in the Mystick Krewe, that curious club, possible nowhere else, that has raised mummery into the sphere of aesthetics. Perhaps he has worn the gray, perhaps the blue. It is only in the very arcana of exclusive passion it makes much difference. But gray or blue, or North or South in birth, he is in every essential a Southerner, as many, like S.S. Prentiss, curiously independent of nativity, are. He is well received and courteously entreated. He has his little suppers at Moreau's, and knows the ways of the place and names of the waiters. He has his promenades, his drives, his club visits, is seen everywhere—a brilliant convolvulus now, twining the espaliers of that Saracenic fabric of society; to speak architecturally, its very summer-house. He visits the opera and gives it his frank approval, but confesses a preference for the old plantation-melodies. He crushes through the meshes of the Creole dandies, not offensively, but as the law of his volume and momentum dictates, and they yield the pas to his superior weight and metal. They are civil, and he is civil, but they do not like one another, for all that. That Zodiac passed, they continue their own summery orbit of charm and conquest. He tends toward the aureal spheres and the green and pleasant banks of issue. The colonel is not here for pleasure, though he takes a little pleasure, as is his way, seasonably; but he means business, and that several thirsty, eager cotton-houses of repute know.

Of course they know. It came in his letters and distills in the aroma of his talk. It may even have slipped into the personals of the Pic and Times that Colonel Beverage has taken Millefleur and Rottenbottom plantations on Red River, and is going extensively into the cultivation of the staple. The colonel is modest over this: "not extensively, no, but to the extent of his limited means." In the mean while he looks out for some sound, well-recommended cotton-house.

This means business. In the North the farmer raises his crop on his own capital, and turns it over unencumbered to the merchant for the public. The credit system prevails in the agriculture of the South, and brings another precarious element into the already hazardous occupation of cotton-growing. A new party appears in the cotton-merchant. He is not merely the broker, yielding the proceeds, less a commission, to the planter. Either, by hypothecation on advances made during the year, he secures a legal pre-emption in the crop, or, by initiatory contract, he becomes an actual partner of limited liability in the crop itself. He agrees to furnish so much cash capital at periods for the cultivation and securing of the crop, which is husbanded by the planter. The money for these advances he obtains from the banks; and hence it is that in every cotton-crop raised South there are three or more principals actually interested—the banker, the merchant and the planter. This condition of planting is almost invariable. Even the small farmer, whose crop is a few bags, is ground into it. In his case the country-side grocer and dealer is banker and merchant, and his advances the bare necessaries. In this blending of interests the curious partnership rises, thrives, labors and sometimes falls—the planter, as a rule, undermost in that accident.

The Millefleur and Rottenbottom plantations are famous, and a hand well over the crops raised under such shrewd, experienced management as that of Colonel Beverage is a stroke of policy. Therefore, as the bankers and jewelers have been polite, so now the cotton-merchants are civil; but the colonel is shy—an old bird and a game bird.

Shy, but not suspicious. He chooses his own time, and at an early day walks into the business-house of Negocier & Duthem. They are pleased to see the colonel in the way of business, as they have been in society, and the pleasure is mutual. As he expounds his plans they are more and more convinced that he is a plumy bird of much waste feather.

He has taken Rottenbottom and Millefleur, and is going pretty well into cotton. He thinks he understands it: he ought to. Then he has his own capital—an advantage, certainly. Some of his friends, So-and-so—running over commercial and bankable names easily—have suggested the usual co-operation with some reputable house, and an extension, but he believes He will stay within limits. He has five thousand dollars in cash he wishes to deposit with some good firm for the year's supplies. He believes that will be sufficient, and he has called to hear their terms. All this comes not at once, but here and there in the business-conversation.

The reader will perceive one strong bait carelessly thrown out by the auriferous or folliferous colonel—the five thousand dollars cash in hand. The immediate use of that is a strong incentive to the house. They covet the colonel's business: they think well of the proposed extension. Cotton is sure to be up, and under practical, experienced cultivation must yield a handsome fortune. The result is foreseen. The cotton-house and the colonel enter into the usual agreement of such transactions. The colonel leaves his five thousand dollars, and draws on that, and for as much more as may be necessary in securing the crop.

The commercial reader North who has had no dealings South will smile at the credulous merchant who entrusts his credit to such a full-blown, thirsty tropical pitcher-plant as the colonel, who carries childish extravagances in his very dress; but he will judge hastily. We have seen this gaudy efflorescence pass over the curiously-wrought enameled gold-work, opals, pearls and rubies, and adorn himself with solid diamonds. The careful economist North puts his superfluous thousands in government bonds, or gambles them away in Erie stocks, because he likes the increase of Jacob's speckled sheep. The Southerner invests his in diamonds because he likes show, and diamonds have a pretty steady market value. There is method, too, in the colonel's associations, and all his acquaintance is gilt-edged and bankable.

His business is now done, and he does not tarry, but wings his way to Millefleur and Rottenbottom, where he moults all his fine feathers. He goes into fertilizers, beginning with crushed cotton-seed and barnyard manure, if possible, before February is over. He follows the shovel-plough with a slick-jack, and plants, and then the labor begins to fail him. He talks about importing Chinese, and writes about it in the local paper. He is sure it will do, as he is positive in all his opinions. He is true pluck, and tries to make new machinery make up for deficient labor. He buys "bull-tongues," "cotton-shovels," "fifteen-inch sweeps," "twenty-inch sweeps," "team-ploughs with seven-inch twisters," and a "finishing sweep of twenty-six inches." He hears of other inventions, and orders them. The South is flooded with a thousand quack contrivances now, about as applicable to cotton-raising as a pair of nut-crackers; but the colonel buys them. He is going to dispense with the hoe. That is the plan; and by that plan of furnishing a large plantation with new tools before Lent is over the five thousand dollars are gone. But he writes cheerfully. It is his nature to be sanguine, and to hope loudly, vaingloriously; and he writes it honestly enough to his merchant—and draws. The labor gets worse and worse. In the indolent summer days the negro, careless, thriftless, ignorant, works only at intervals. Perhaps the June rise catches him, and there is a heavy expense in ditching and damming to save the Rottenbottom crop. Maybe the merchant hears of the army-worm and is alarmed, but the colonel writes back assuring letters that it is only the grasshopper, and the grasshopper has helped more than hurt—and draws. Then possibly the army-worm comes sure enough, and cripples him. But he keeps up his courage—and draws. The five thousand dollars appear to have been employed in digging or building a sluice through which a constant current of currency flows from the city to Rottenbottom and Millefleur. The merchant has gone into bank, and the tide flows on. At last the planter writes: "The most magnificent crop ever raised on Red River, just waiting for the necessary hands to gather it in!" Of course the necessary sums are supplied, and at last the crop gets to market. It finds the market low, and declining steadily week by week. The banks begin to press: money is tight, as it is now while I write. The crop is sacrificed, for the merchant cannot wait, and some fine morning the house of Negocier & Duthem is closed, and Colonel Beverage is bankrupt.

And both are ruined? No. We will suppose the business-house is old and reputable: the banks are obliging and creditors prudently liberal, and by and by the firm resumes its old career. As for the colonel, the reader sees that to ruin him would be an absolute contradiction of nature. His friends or relations give him assistance, or he sells his diamonds, and soon you meet him at the St. Charles, as blooming, sanguine and splendiferous as ever. No, he cannot be ruined, but his is not an infrequent episode in the life of a Southern Planter.

WILL WALLACE HARNEY.

* * * * *



BABES IN THE WOOD.

I had two little babes, a boy and girl— Two little babes that are not with me now: On one bright brow full golden fell the curl— The curl fell chestnut-brown on one bright brow.

I like to dream of them that some soft day, Whilst wandering from home, their fitful feet Went heedlessly through some still woodland way Where light and shade harmoniously meet;

And that they wandered deeper and more deep Into the forest's fragrant heart and fair, Till just at evenfall they dropped asleep, And ever since they have been resting there.

After their willful wandering that day Each is so tired it does not wake at all, Whilst over them the boughs that sigh and sway Conspire to make perpetual evenfall.

And I, that must not join them, still am blest, Passionately, though this poor heart grieves; For memories, like birds, at my behest, Have covered them with tender thoughts, like leaves.

EDGAR FAWCETT.



MY CHARGE ON THE LIFE-GUARDS.

Now that our little international troubles about consequential damages and the like are happily settled, and there is no danger that my revelations will augment them in any degree, I think I may venture to give the particulars of an affair of honor which I once had with a gigantic member of Her Britannic Majesty's household troops.

My guardian had a special veneration for England in general and for Oxford in particular, and I was brought up and sent to Yale with the full understanding that St. Bridget's, Oxon., was the place where I was to be "finished." I left Yale at the end of Junior year and crossed the ocean in the crack steamer of the then famous Collins line. I do not believe any young American ever had a more favorable introduction to England than I had, and the wonder is that, considering the philo-Anglican atmosphere in which I was educated, I did not become a thorough-paced renegade. I was, however, blessed with a tolerably independent spirit, and kept my nationality intact throughout my university course.

Like Tom Brown, I felt myself drawn to the sporting set, and, as I was always an adept at athletics, soon won repute as an oarsman, and was well satisfied to be looked upon as the Yankee champion sundry amateur rowing-and boxing-matches, as well as in the lecture-room. Of course, I was the mark for no end of good-natured chaff about my nationality, but was nearly always able, I believe, to sustain the honor of the American name, and so at length graduated in the "firsts" as to scholarship, and enjoyed the distinguished honor of pulling number four in the "'Varsity eight" in our annual match with Cambridge on the Thames. Moreover, I stood six feet in my stockings, had the muscle of a gladiator, and was physically the equal of any man at Oxford.

After the race was over my special cronies hung about London for a few days, usually making that classical "cave" of Evans's a rendezvous in the evening. Two or three young officers of the Guards were often with us, and one night, when the talk had turned, as it often did, on personal prowess, the superb average physique of their regiment was duly lauded by our soldier companions. At length one of them remarked, in that aggravatingly superior tone which some Englishmen assume, that any man in his troop could handle any two of the then present company. This provoked a general laugh of incredulity, and two or three of our college set turned to me with—"What do you say to that, Jonathan?"

"Nonsense!" said I. "I'll put on the gloves with the biggest fellow among them, any day."

This somewhat democratic readiness to spar with a private soldier led to remarks which I chose to consider insular, if not insolent, and I replied, supporting the principle of Yankee equality, until, losing my temper at something which one of the ensigns said, I delivered myself in some such fashion as this: "Well, gentlemen, I'm only one Yankee among many Englishmen, but I will bet a hundred guineas, and put up the money, that I will tumble one of those mighty warriors out of his saddle in front of the Horse Guards, and ride off on his horse before the guard can turn out and stop me."

Of course my bet was instantly taken by the officers, but my friends were so astounded at my rashness that I found no backers. However, my blood was up, and, possibly because Evans's bitter beer was buzzing slightly in my head, I booked several more bets at large odds in my own favor. As the hour was late, we separated with an agreement to meet and arrange details on the following day, keeping the whole affair strictly secret meanwhile.

I confess that my feelings were not of the pleasantest as I sat at my late London breakfast somewhere about noon the next day, and I was fain to admit to my special friend that I had put myself in an awkward, if not an unenviable, position. However, I was in for it, and being naturally of an elastic temperament, began to cast about for a cheerful view of my undertaking. In the course of the day preliminaries were arranged and reduced to writing with all the care which Englishmen practice in such affairs of "honor." I only stipulated that I should be allowed to use a stout walking-stick in my encounter; that I should be kept informed as to the detail for guard; that I should be freely allowed to see the regiment at drill and in quarters; and that I should select my time of attack within a fortnight, giving a few hours' notice to all parties concerned, so as to ensure their presence as witnesses.

Every one who has ever visited London has seen and admired the gigantic horsemen who sit on mighty black steeds, one on either side of the archway facing Whitehall, and who are presumed at once to guard the commander-in-chief's head-quarters and to serve as "specimen bricks" of the finest cavalry corps in the world. Splendid fellows they are! None of them are under six feet high, and many of them are considerably above that mark. They wear polished steel corselets and helmets, white buck-skin trowsers, high jack-boots, and at the time of which I write their arms consisted of a brace of heavy, single-barreled pistols in holsters, a carbine and a sabre. The firearms were, under ordinary circumstances, not loaded, and the sabre was held at a "carry" in the right hand. This last was the weapon against which I must guard, and I accordingly placed a traveling cap and a coat in the hands of a discreet tailor, who sewed steel bands into the crown of one and into the shoulders of the other, in such a way as afforded very efficient protection against a possible downward cut.

Besides attending to these defensive preparations, I at once looked about for a competent horseman with military experience who could give me some practical hints as to encounters between infantry and cavalry, and, singularly enough, was thrown in with that gallant young officer who rode into immortality in front of the Light Brigade at Balaklava a few years afterward. I learned that he was a superb horseman, was down upon the English system of cavalry training, and was using pen and tongue to bring about a change. A sudden inspiration led me to take him into my confidence, as the terms of our agreement permitted me to do. He caught the idea with enthusiasm. What an argument it would be in favor of his new system if a mere civilian unhorsed a Guardsman trained after the old fashion! For a week he drilled me more or less every day in getting him off his horse in various ways, and I speedily became a proficient in the art, he meanwhile gaining some new ideas on the subject, which were duly printed in his well-known book.

Well, to make my story short, I gave notice to interested parties on the tenth day, put on my steel-ribbed cap and my armor-plated coat, and with stick in hand walked over to a hairdresser's with whom I had previously communicated, had my complexion darkened to a Spanish olive, put on a false beard, and was ready for service. I had arranged with this tonsorial artist, whose shop was in the Strand near Northumberland House, that he should be prepared to remove these traces of disguise as speedily as he had put them on, and that I should leave a stylish coat and hat in his charge, to be donned in haste should occasion require. I next engaged two boys to stand opposite Northumberland House, and be ready to hold a horse. These boys I partially paid beforehand, and promised more liberal largess if they did their duty. Preliminaries having been thus arranged, I strolled down Whitehall, feeling very much as I did years afterward when I found myself going into action for the first time in Dixie.

It was early afternoon on a lovely spring day. The Strand was a roaring stream of omnibuses and drays, carriages were beginning to roll along the drives leading to Rotten Row, and all London was in the streets. I was assured that at this hour I should find a big but father clumsy giant on post; and there he was, sure enough, sitting like a colossal statue on his coal-black charger, the crest of his helmet almost touching the keystone of the arch under which he sat, his accoutrements shining like jewels, and he looking every inch a British cavalryman. I walked past on the opposite side of Whitehall, meeting, without being recognized, all my aiders and abettors in this most heinous attack on Her Majesty's Guards. I then crossed the street and took a good look at my man. He and his companion-sentry under the other arch were aware of officers in "mufti" on the opposite sidewalk, and kept their eyes immovably to the front. Evidently nothing much short of an earthquake could cause either to relax a muscle. The little circle of admiring beholders which is always on hand inspecting these splendid horsemen was present, of course, with varying elements, and I had to wait a few minutes until a small number of innocuous spectators coincided with the aphelion of the periodical policeman.

It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate that tower of polished leather, brass and steel, with a man inside of it some forty pounds heavier than I, and think that in a minute or so we two should be engaged in a close grapple, whose termination involved considerable risk for me physically as well as pecuniarily. However, there was, in addition to the feeling of apprehension, a touch of elation at the thought that I, a lone Yankee, was about to beard the British lion in his most formidable shape, almost under the walls of Buckingham Palace.

I looked my antagonist carefully over, deciding several minor points in my mind, and then at a favorable moment stepped quietly within striking distance, and delivered a sharp blow with my stick on his left instep, as far forward as I could without hitting the stirrup. The man seemed to be in a sort of military trance, for he never winced. Quick as thought, I repeated the blow, and this time the fellow fairly yelled with rage, astonishment and pain. I have since made up my mind that his nerve-fibre must have been of that inert sort which transmits waves of sensation but slowly, so that the perception of the first blow reached the interior of his helmet just about as the second descended. At all events, he jerked back his foot, and somehow, between the involuntary contraction of his flexor muscles from pain and the glancing of my stick, his foot slipped from the stirrup. This, as I had learned from my instructor, was a great point gained, and in an instant I had him by the ankle and by the top of his jack-boot, doubling his leg, at the same time heaving mightily upward.

As I gave my whole strength to the effort I was dimly aware of screams and panic among the nursery—maids and children who were but a moment before my fellow-spectators. At the same time I caught the flash of the Guardsman's sabre as he cut down at me after the fashion prescribed in the broadsword exercise. Fortune, however, did not desert me. My antagonist had not enough elbow-room, and his sword-point was shivered against the stone arch overhead, the blade descending flatways and harmlessly upon my well-protected shoulder just as, with a final effort, I tumbled him out his saddle.

The recollection of the ludicrous figure which that Guardsman cut haunts me still. His pipeclayed gloves clutched wildly at holster and cantle as he went over. Down came the gleaming helmet crashing upon the pavement, and with a calamitous rattle and bang the whole complicated structure of corselet, scabbard, carbine, cross-belts, spurs and boots went into the inside corner of the archway, a helpless heap.

That started the horse. The noble animal had stood my assault as steadily as if he had been cast in bronze, but precisely such an emergency as this had never been contemplated in his training, as it had not in that of his master, and he now started forward rather wildly. I had my hand on the bridle before he had moved a foot, and swung myself half over his back as he dashed across the sidewalk and up Whitehall. The Guards' saddles are very easy when once you are in them, and I had reason, temporarily at least, to approve the English style of riding with short stirrups, for I readily found my seat, and ascertained that I could touch bottom with my toes. As I left the scene of my victory behind me I heard the guards turning out, and caught a glimpse as of all London running in my direction, but by the time that I had secured the control of my horse I had distanced the crowd, and as we entered the Strand we attracted comparatively little notice. In driving, the English turn out to the left instead of to the right, as is the custom here, and I was obliged to cross the westward-bound line of vehicles before I could fall in with that which would bring me to my boys. I decided to make a "carom" of it, and nearly took the heads off a pair of horses, and the pole off the omnibus to which they were attached, as I dashed through. Turning to the right, I soon lost the torrent of invective hurled after me by the driver and conductor of the discomfited 'bus, and in less than two minutes—which seemed to me an age, for the pursuit was drawing near—I reached my boys, dropped them a half sov. apiece, which I had ready in my hand, and bolted for my hairdresser's, the boys leading the horse in the opposite direction, as previously ordered.

It was none too soon, for as I ran up stairs I saw three or four policemen running toward the horse, and there was a gleam of dancing plumes and shining helmets toward Whitehall. My false beard and complexion were changed with marvelous rapidity, and, assuming my promenade costume, I sauntered down stairs and out upon the sidewalk in time to see the whole street jammed with a crowd of excited Britons, while the recaptured horse was turned over to the Guardsmen, and the two boys were marched off to Bow street for examination before a magistrate.

A private room and an elaborate dinner at the United Service Club closed the day; and I must admit that my military friends swallowed their evident chagrin with a very good grace. Of course I was told that I could not do it again, which I readily admitted; and that there was not another man in the troop whom I could have unhorsed—an assertion which I as persistently combated. The affair was officially hushed up, and probably not more than a few thousand people ever heard of it outside military circles.

How I escaped arrest and punishment to the extent of the law I did not know for many years, for the duke of Wellington, who was then commander-in-chief, had only to order the officers concerned under arrest, and I should have been in honor bound to come forward with a voluntary confession.

My giant was sent for to the old duke's private room the day after his overthrow, and questioned sharply by the adjutant, who, with pardonable incredulity, suspected that bribery alone could have brought about so direful a catastrophe. The duke was from the first convinced of the soldier's, honesty and bravery, and presently broke in upon the adjutant's examination with—"Well, well! speak to me now. What have you to say for yourself?"

"May it please yer ludship," said the undismayed soldier, "I've never fought a civilian sence I 'listed, an' yer ludship will bear me witness that there's nothing in the cavalry drill about resisting a charge of foot when a mon's on post at the Horse Guards."

This speech was delivered with the most perfect sincerity and sobriety, and although it reflected upon the efficiency of the army under the hero of Waterloo, the Iron Duke was so much impressed by the affair that he sent word to Lieutenant-Colonel Varian, commanding the regiment, not to order the man any punishment whatever, but to see that his command was thereafter trained in view of possible attacks, even when posted in front of army head-quarters.

CHARLES L. NORTON.



PAINTING AND A PAINTER.

Charles V. once said, "Titian should be served by Caesar;" and Michael Angelo, we read, was treated by Lorenzo de' Medici "as a son;" Raphael, his contemporary, was great enough to revere him, and thank God he had lived at the same time. In England, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain at this day, the poet and the painter stand hedged about by the divinity of their gifts, and the people are proud to recognize their kingship.

Has "Reverence, that angel of the world," as Shakespeare beautifully says, forgot to visit America? Or must we consider ourselves less capable yet of delicate appreciation, such as older nations possess? Or are we over-occupied in gaining possession of material comforts and luxuries, and so forget to revere our poets and painters till it is too late, and the curtain has fallen upon their unobtrusive and often struggling earthly career? What a millennium will have arrived when we learn to be as faithful to our love as we are sincere!

Questions like these have been asked also in times preceding ours. Alfred de Musset wrote upon this subject in 1833, in Paris: "There are people who tell you our age is preoccupied, that men no longer read anything or care for anything. Napoleon was occupied, I think, at Beresina: he, however, had his Ossian with him. When did Thought lose the power of being able to leap into the saddle behind Action? When did man forget to rush like Tyrtaeus to the combat, a sword in one hand, the lyre in the other? Since the world still has a body, it has a soul."

Monsieur Charles Blanc writes: "In order to have an idea of the importance of the arts, it is enough to fancy what the great nations of the world would be if the monuments they have erected to their faiths, and the works whereon they have left the mark of their genius, were suppressed from history. It is with people as with men—after death only the emanations of their mind remain; that is to say, literature and art, written poems, and poems inscribed on stone, in marble or in color."

The same writer, in his admirable book, Grammaire des arts du dessin, from which we are tempted to quote again and again, says: "The artist who limits himself simply to the imitation of Nature reaches only individuality: he is a slave. He who interprets Nature sees in her happy qualities; he evolves character from her; he is master. The artist who idealizes her discovers in her or imprints upon her the image of beauty: this last is a great master.... Placed between Nature and the ideal, between what is and what must be, the artist has a vast career before him in order to pass from the reality he sees to the beauty he divines. If we follow him in this career, we see his model transform itself successively before his eyes.... But the artist must give to these creations of his soul the imprint of life, and he can only find this imprint in the individuals Nature has created. The two are inseparable—the type, which is a product of thought, and the individual, which is a child of life."

With this excellent analysis before us, we will recall one by one some of the best-known and most interesting works of W.M. Hunt, a painter who now holds a prominent place among the artists of America. We will try to discover by careful observation if the high gifts of Verity and Imagination, the sign and seal of the true artist, really belong to him: if so, where these qualities are expressed, and what value we should set upon them.

First, perhaps, for those readers remote from New England who may never have seen any pictures by this artist, a few words should be said by way of describing some characteristics of his work and the limitations of it; which limitations are rather loudly dwelt upon by connoisseurs and lovers of the popular modern French school. Artists discern these limitations of course more keenly even than others, but their tribute to verity and ideal beauty as represented by this painter is too sincere to allow caviling to find expression. This limitation to which we refer causes Mr. Hunt to allow ideal suggestions, rather than pictures, to pass from his studio, and makes him cowardly before his own work. It recalls in a contrary sense that saying of the sculptor Puget: "The marble trembles before me." Mr. Hunt trembles before his new-born idea. His swift nature has allowed him in the first hour of work to put into his picture the tenderness or rapture, the unconscious grace or tempestuous force, which he despaired at first of ever being able to express. In the flush of success he stops: he has it, the idea; the chief interest of the subject is portrayed before him; the delicate presence (and what can be more delicate than the thoughts he has delineated?) is there, and may vanish if touched in a less fortunate moment. But is this lack of fulfillment in the artist entirely without precedent or parallel? Had not Sir Joshua Reynolds a studio full of young artists who "finished off" his pictures? Were not the very faces themselves painted with such rapidity and want of proper method as to drop off, on occasion, entirely from the canvas, as in case of the boy's head, in being carried through the street? Hunt is of our own age, and would scorn the suggestion of having a hand or a foot painted for him, as if it were a matter of small importance what individual expression a hand or a foot should wear; but who can tell for what future age he has painted the wise, abrupt, kind, persistent, simple, strong old Judge in his Yankee coat; or the genial, resolute, hopeful, self-sacrificing governor of Massachusetts; and the Master of the boys, with his keen, loving, uncompromising face? These are pictures that, when children say, "Tell us about the Governor who helped Massachusetts bring her men first into the field during our war," we may lead them up before and reply, "He was this man!" So also with the portraits of the Judge, of the Master of the boys, of the old man with clear eyes and firm mouth, and that sweet American girl standing, unconscious of observation, plucking at the daisy in her hat and guessing at her fate.

Hurry, impatience and a worship of crude thought are characteristics of our present American life. Hunt is one of us. If these faults mark and mar his work, they show him also to be a child of the time. His quick sympathies are caught by the wayside and somewhat frayed out among his fellows; but nevertheless one essential of a great painter, that of Verity, will be accorded to him after an examination of the pictures we have mentioned.

But truth, character, skill, the many gifts and great labor which must unite to lead an artist to the foot of his shadowy, sun-crowned mountain, can then carry him no step farther unless ideal Beauty join him, and he comprehend her nature and follow to her height. Again we quote from Charles Blanc—for why should we rewrite what he says so ably?—"All the germs of beauty are in Nature, but it belongs to the spirit of man alone to disengage them. When Nature is beautiful, the painter knows that she is beautiful, but Nature knows nothing of it. Thus beauty exists only on the condition of being understood—that is to say, of receiving a second life in the human thought. Art has something else to do than to copy Nature exactly: it must penetrate into the spirit of things, it must evoke the soul of its hero. It can then not only rival Nature, but surpass her. What is indeed the superiority of Nature? It is the life which animates all her forms. But man possesses a treasure which Nature does not possess—thought. Now thought is more than life, for it is life at its highest power, life in its glory. Man can then contest with Nature by manifesting thought in the forms of art, as Nature manifests life in her forms. In this sense the philosopher Hegel was able to say that the creations of art were truer than the phenomena of the physical world and the realities of history."

Now, thought in the soul of the true artist for ever labors to evolve the beautiful. This is what the thought of a picture means to him—how to express beauty, which he finds underlying even the imperfect individual of Nature's decaying birth. To the high insight this is always discernible. None are so fallen that some ray of God's light may not touch them, and this possibility, the faith in light for ever, radiates from the spirit of the artist, and renders him a messenger of joy. No immortal works have bloomed in despondency: they may have taken root in the slime of the earth, but they have blossomed into lilies.

We call this divine power to discern beauty in every manifestation of the Deity, imagination. As it expresses itself in painting, it is so closely allied with what is highest and holiest in our natures that painting has come to be esteemed a Christian art, as contrasted in its development subsequent to the Christian era with the less human works of sculpture. "Christianity came, and instead of physical beauty substituted moral beauty, infinitely preferring the expression of the soul to the perfection of the body. Every man was great in its eyes, not by his perishable members, but by his immortal soul. With this religion begins the reign of painting, which is a more subtle art, more immaterial, than the others—more expressive, and also more individual. We will give some proofs of it. Instead of acting, like architecture and sculpture, upon the three dimensions of heavy matter, painting acts only upon one surface, and produces its effects with an imponderable thing, which is color—that is to say, light. Hegel has said with admirable wisdom: 'In sculpture and architecture forms are rendered visible by exterior light. In painting, on the contrary, matter, obscure in itself, has within itself its internal element, its ideal—light: it draws from itself both clearness and obscurity. Now, unity, the combination of light and dark, is color.' The painter, then, proposes to himself to represent, not bodies with their real thickness, but simply their appearance, their image; but by this means it is the mind which he addresses. Visible but impalpable, and in some sense immaterial, his work does not meet the touch, which is the sight of the body: it only meets the eye, which is the touch of the soul. Painting is then, from this point of view, the essential art of Christianity.... If the painter, like Phidias or Lysippus, had only to portray the types of humanity, the majesty of Jupiter, the strength of Hercules, he might do without the riches of color, and paint in one tone, modified only by light and shade; but the most heroic man among Christians is not a demigod: he is a being profoundly individual, tormented, combating, suffering, and who throughout his real life shares with environing Nature, and receives from every side the reflection of her colors. Sculpture, generalizing, raises itself to the dignity of allegory—painting, individualizing, descends to the familiarity of portraiture."

Let us now return to consider William Hunt's pictures from this second point of view. The gift of Verity having been already assumed, can we also discern that higher power of Imagination whose crown and seal is the Beautiful. To decide this question we have, unhappily, to consider his work as lyrical, rather than dramatic, and for this reason we must study his power under disadvantage. That he possesses dramatic power will hardly be denied by those who know his "Hamlet," "The Drummer-Boy," and "The Boy and the Butterfly;" but the exigencies of life appear to prevent him from occupying himself with compositions such as filled years in the existence of the old painters.

Portraiture being the highest and most difficult labor to which an artist can aspire, to this branch of art Hunt has chiefly confined himself, and from this point of view he must be studied. We do not forget, in saying this, his angel with the flaming torch, strong and beautiful and of unearthly presence, nor the shadowy, half-portrayed figures which dart and flit across his easel; but as we may understand the power of Titian from his portraits, yet never revel in it fully until we look upon "The Presentation" or "The Assumption"—never comprehend the painter's joy or his divine rest in endeavor until the achievement lies before us—we must speak of Hunt only from the work to which he has devoted himself, and not do him the injustice to predict dramas he has never yet composed.

First, pre-eminently appears that worship for moral beauty which suffers him to fear no ugliness. This power allies him with keen sympathy to every living thing. He sees kinship and the immortal spark in each breathing being. The soul of love goes out and paints the dark or the suffering or the repellant faithfully, bringing it in to the light where God's sunshine may fall upon it, and men and women, seeing for the first time, may help to wipe away the stain. This tendency he shares with the great French painter Millet, whom he loves to call Master, and with Dore, whose terrible picture of "The Mountebanks" should call men and women from their homes to penetrate the fastnesses of vice and strive to heal the sorrows of their kind.

This love of moral beauty, which forces painters to paint such pictures, was never in any age more evident. Hunt in his beggar-man, in his forlorn children, and other pictures of the same class, unfolds a beauty that men should be thankful for.

On the other hand, his love of beauty and his power of expressing it should be studied in its direct influence. The beauty of flesh and blood, even the loveliness of children, seems to have slight hold upon him, compared with the significance of character and the lustre with which his imagination endows everything. This lustre is a distinguishing power with him. The depth to which he sees and feels causes him to give higher lights and deeper shadows than other men. White flowers are not only white to him—they shine like stars. His pictures give a sense of splendor.

In his sketch of the poor mother cuddling her child, it is the feeling of rest, the mother's sleeping joy, the relaxed limbs, the folding embrace, which he has given us to enjoy. These are the beauty of the picture—not rounded flesh, nor graceful curves, nor fair complexion; and so with the singing-girls: they are not beautiful girls, but they are simple—they love to sing, they are full of tenderness and music. We might go over all his pictures to weariness in this way. The young girl plucking at the daisy as she stands in an open field must, however, not be omitted. The natural elegance of this portrait renders it peculiarly, we should say, such a one as any woman would be proud to see of herself. Doubtless this young girl, like others, may have worn ear-rings and chains and pins and rings, but the artist knew her better than she knew herself, and has portrayed that exquisite crown of simplicity with which, it should seem, Nature only endows beggars and her royal favorites.

In all the ages since Hamlet was created there appears never to have been an era in which his character has excited such strong and universal interest as in America at this time. William Hunt has thrown upon the canvas a figure of Hamlet beautiful and living. There is no suggestion of any actor in it. Hamlet walks new-born from the painter's brain. His "cursed spite" bends the youthful shoulders, and the figure marches past unmindful of terrestrial presences.

One other picture will illustrate more clearly, perhaps, than everything which has gone before, this gift of imagination. In "The Boy and the Butterfly," now on the walls of the Century Club-house, the loveliness of the child, the power of action, the subtle management of color and light, are all subordinated to the ideas of defeat and endeavor. Energy, the irrepressible strength of the spirit upheld by a divine light of indestructible youth, shines out from the canvas. The boy who cannot catch the butterfly is transmuted as we stand into the Soul of Beauty reaching out in vain for satisfaction, and ready to follow its aspiration to another sphere.



OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

WILHELMINE VON HILLERN.

German literature, despite its extraordinary productiveness and its possession of a few great masterpieces, is far from being rich in the department of belles-lettres, especially in works of fiction. It has no list of novelists like those which include such names as Fielding, Scott and Thackeray, Balzac, Hugo and Sand. In fact, there is scarcely an instance of a male writer in Germany who has devoted himself exclusively to this branch of literature, and has won high distinction in it. It has been cultivated with success chiefly by a few writers of the other sex, whose delineations have gained a popularity in America only less than that which they enjoy at home—in part because the life which they depict has closer internal analogies to our own than to that of England or of France, still more perhaps because the pictures themselves, whatever their intrinsic fidelity, are suffused with a romantic glow which has long since faded from those of the thoroughly realistic art now dominant in the two latter countries.

In none of them is this characteristic more apparent than in the works of Wilhelmine von Hillern, which bear also in a marked degree the stamp of a mind at once vigorous and sympathetic, and are thus calculated to awaken the interest of readers in regard to the author's personal history.

Her father, Doctor Christian Birch, a Dane by birth and originally a diplomatist by profession, held for many years the post of secretary of legation at London and Paris. He withdrew from this career on the occasion of his marriage with a German lady connected with the stage in the triple capacity of author, manager and actress. Madame Birch-Pfeiffer, as she is commonly called, was one of the celebrities of her time, and her dramatic productions still keep possession of the stage. Soon after the birth of her daughter, which took place at Munich, she was invited to assume the direction of the theatre of Zurich. Here Wilhelmine passed several years of her childhood, separated from her father, whose engagements as a political writer retained him in Germany, and scarcely less divided from her mother, whose duties at this period did not permit her to give much attention to domestic cares. Without companions of her own age, and left almost wholly to the charge of an invalid aunt, she led a monotonous existence, which left an impression on her mind all the more deep from its contrast with the life which opened upon her in her eighth year, when Madame Birch-Pfeiffer was summoned to Berlin to hold an appointment at the court theatre.

In the Prussian capital the family was again united, and became the centre of a social circle embracing many persons connected with dramatic art and literature. Devrient, Dawison and Jenny Lind were among the visitors whose conversation was greedily listened to by the little girl while supposed to be immersed in her lessons or her plays. Under such influences it would have been strange if even a less active brain had not been fired with aspirations, which took the form of an irresistible impulse when, at thirteen, Wilhelmine was allowed for the first time to visit the theatre and witness the acting of Dawison in Hamlet and other parts. Henceforth all opposition had to give way, and in her seventeenth year she made her debut as Juliet at the ducal theatre of Coburg. Two qualities, we are told, distinguished her acting: a strong conception worked out in the minutest details, and an intensity of passion which knew no restraint, and at its culminating point overpowered even hostile criticism. Subsequently careful training under Edward Devrient and Madame Glossbrenner enabled her to bring her emotions under better control, repressing all tendency to extravagance; and, greeted with the assurance that she was destined to become the German Rachel, she entered upon her career with a round of performances at the principal theatres of Germany, including those of Frankfort, Hamburg and Berlin.

These triumphs were followed by the acceptance of a permanent engagement at Mannheim, which, however, had hardly been concluded when it gave place to one of a different kind, followed by her marriage and sudden relinquishment of the vocation embraced with such ardor and pursued for a short period with such brilliant promise. Dawison is said to have remarked that by her retirement the German stage had lost its last genuine tragic actress.

Since her marriage Madame von Hillern has resided at Freiburg, in the grand duchy of Baden, where her husband holds a legal position analogous to that of the judge of a superior court. Her social life is one of great activity, though much of her time is given to superintending the education of her two daughters. But the abounding energy of her nature made it inevitable that her artistic instincts, repressed in one direction, should seek their full development in another. Literature was naturally her choice. Her first work, Doppelleben, appeared in 1865, and though defective in construction, owing to a change of plan in the process of composition, served to give assurance of her powers and to inspire her with the requisite confidence. Three years later Ein Arzt der Seele, of which a translation under the title of Only a Girl has been widely circulated in America, established her claim to a high place among the writers of her class. Her third work, Aus eigener Kraft (By his own Might), met with equal success, securing for its author a large circle of readers on both sides of the Atlantic ready to welcome the future productions of her pen. The qualities which distinguish her writings are vigor of conception, sharpness of characterization, a moral earnestness pervading the judgments and reflections, and an ardor, sometimes too exuberant, which gives intensity to the delineation even while exciting doubts of its fidelity. Similar qualities had characterized her acting, and they spring from a nature which a close observer has described as clear in perception yet swayed by fantasy; strong of will yet impulsive as quicksilver; finding enjoyment now in animated discussion, now in impetuous riding, now in absolute repose; full of maternal tenderness, yet fond of splendor and the excitements of society; a nature, in short, abounding in contrasts, but substantially that of a true, noble and lovable woman.



HIS NAME?

(An incident of the Boston fire.)

I.

—Oh the billows of fire! With maelstrom-like swirl, Their surges they hurl Over roof—over spire, Mad—masterless—higher,— Till with rumble—crack—crash, Down boom with a flash, Whole columns of granite and marble;—see! see! Sucked in as a weed on the ocean might be, Or engulfed as a sail In the hurricane riot and wreak of the gale!

II.

Ha! yonder they rush where the death-dealing stream, Over-pent, waits their gleam, To shiver the city with earthquake!—Who, who Will adventure, mid-flame, and unfasten the screw,— Set the fiend loose, and save us so?—Fireman, you, You willing?—Would God you might hazard it!— Nay, The red tongues are licking the faucets now: Stay! —Too late,—'tis too late! If ruin comes, wait Its coming: To go, is to perish:—Hold! Hold! You are young,—I am old,— You've a wife, too—and children?—O God! he is gone Straight into destruction! The pipes, men! On, on, Play the water-stream on him,—full—faster—the whole! And now—Christ save his soul!

III.

—I stifle—I choke; And he,—Heaven grant that he smother in smoke Ere the fearful explosion comes. Hark! What's the shout? —Is he saved?—Is he out? —Did he compass his purpose,—the Hero?—(One name To-night we shall write on the records of fame,— The perilous deed was so noble!) Why here On my cheek is a tear, Which not a whole city in ashes could claim! —His name, now: Can nobody tell me his name?

M. J. P.



UNPUBLISHED LETTER FROM LORD NELSON TO LADY HAMILTON.

[It has been a matter of congratulation that the destruction by the Boston fire was confined to buildings and other property representing simply the wealth of the city, and did not extend to its monuments or its artistic and literary treasures. The exceptions are, in fact, comparatively small in amount, yet they are such as must excite a general regret. The contents of the studios in Summer street, and the collection of armor, unique in this country, bequeathed by the late Colonel Bigelow Lawrence to the Boston Athenaeum, and temporarily deposited at 82 Milk street, could not perish without awaking other feelings besides that of sympathy with their past or prospective possessors. A similar loss was that of many of the books and manuscripts amassed by the historian Prescott, and comprising the collections pertaining to the Histories of the Conquest of Mexico and Peru and of Philip II. The manuscripts were comprised in some thirty or forty folio volumes, and consisted of copies or abstracts of documents in the public archives and libraries of Europe, in the family archives of several Spanish noblemen, and in private collections like that at Middle Hill. The printed books, of which there were perhaps a thousand, included many of great value and not a few of extreme rarity. A large mass of private correspondence was also consumed. We are not yet informed whether the same fate has befallen a small but very choice collection of autographs, embracing letters written or signed by Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V., Pope Clement VII., Prospero Colonna, the Great Captain, and other sovereigns and eminent personages of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Very few modern autographs were included in this collection, the only examples, we believe, being notes written by Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the duke of Wellington, and a longer letter addressed by Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton. This last, which we are permitted to print from a copy made some time ago, is not exactly a model of composition, but it is very characteristic, and shows the strength of that enthrallment which led him, despite his natural kindness of heart, to risk the lives of his men in order to communicate with the object of his passion.]

SUNDAY NIGHT, Feb. 15, 9 o'clock [1801].

MY DEAR AMIABLE FRIEND: Could you have seen the boat leave the ship, I am sure your heart would have sunk within you. I would not have given sixpence for the lives of the men: a tremendous wave broke and missed upsetting the boat by a miracle. O God, how my heart thumped to see them safe! Then they got safe on shore, and I had given a two-pound note to cheer up the poor fellows when they landed; but I was so anxious to send a letter for you. I knew it was impossible for any boat to come off to us since Friday noon, when the boat carried your letters enclosed for Napean, and she still remains on shore. Only rest assured I always write, and never doubt your old and dear friend, who never yet deserved it. The gale abates very little, if anything, and it is truly fortunate that our fleet is not in port, or some accident would most probably happen; but both St. George and this ship have new cables, which is all we have to trust to; but if my friend is true I have no fear. I can take all the care which human foresight can, and then we must trust to Providence, who keeps a lookout for poor Jack. I cannot, my dear friend, afford to buy the three pictures of the "Battle of the Nile," or I should like very much to have them, and Mr. Boyden cannot afford to trust me one year. If he could, perhaps I could manage it. I have desired my brother to examine the four numbers of the tickets I bought with Gibbs. I hope he has told you. I dare say in the office here is the numbers of the tickets my agents have bought for the ensuing lottery. I hope we shall be successful. I hope you always kiss my godchild for me: pray do, and I will repay you ten times when we meet, which I hope will be very soon. Monday morning. It is a little more moderate, and we are going to send a boat, but at present none can get to us, and, therefore, I send this letter No. (1) to say we are in being. I hope in the afternoon to be able to get letters, and, if possible, to answer them. Kiss my godchild for me, bless it, and Believe me ever yours,

NELSON AND BRONTE.



"WHITE-HAT" DAY.

On one of the last days in September we were the astonished recipients of a singular and mysterious invitation from a member of the New York Board of Brokers. The note contained words like these: "Come to the Exchange on Monday, September 30th: white hats are declared confiscated on that day."

It would have puzzled Oedipus or a Philadelphia lawyer to trace the connection between white hats and stocks, to tell what Hecuba was to them or they to Hecuba, and why they should be more interfered with by the New York Stock Exchange on the 30th of September than upon any other day. It is true that during the last summer some slight political bias was supposed to be hidden beneath that popular headpiece irreverently styled "a Greeley plug," but then stocks are not politics, nor would any but a punster trace an intimate connection between hats and polls. A story has gone through the papers, to be sure, about an unfortunate deacon who found it impossible to collect the coppers of the congregation in a Greeley hat, but then slight excuses have been made available on charitable occasions before the present election, and we decline to accept the sentiment of that congregation as unmixed devotion to the Republican candidates. They did not wish to Grant their money, that was all.

And then, again, unlike the miller of the old conundrum, men generally wear white hats to keep their heads cool; with which laudable endeavor why should the Stock Exchange wish to interfere? One never hears of a "corner" in hats. And then, too, was it the bulls or the bears who objected to them? Bulls, we all know, have an aversion to scarlet drapery, but Darwin, in his studies of the feeling for color among animals, has omitted any references to a horror of white hats even among the most accomplished of the anthropoid apes.

Pondering all these problems, and many more, our puzzled trio went to the Stock Exchange on the last day of September. We were conducted into the safe seclusion of the Visitors' Gallery, from which coign of vantage we could look down unharmed upon the frantic multitude below. The room is large and very lofty, its prevailing tint a warm brown, relieved by bright decorations of the Byzantine order. Across one end runs a small gallery for visitors, without seats, and some twenty feet above the floor, and opposite the gallery is a raised platform, with a long table and majestic arm-chairs for the president and other officers of the Board. High on the wall above these elevated dignitaries glitters in large gold letters the mystic legend, "New York Stock Exchange." On the left of the platform stands a large blackboard, whereon the fluctuations in stocks are recorded, and around the sides of the room are displayed various signs bearing the names of different stocks (like the banners of the knights in royal chapels), beneath which eager groups collect. At the lower end of the room, under the Visitors' Gallery, are seats whereon weary brokers may repose after the brunt of battle. In the centre of the upper end of the vast apartment is a long oval cock-pit—if it may be so called—of two or three degrees, with a table in the lowest circle. It is so arranged as to give the brokers, standing upon the graded steps, full opportunity to see and to be seen. On the table, in singular contrast with the spirit of the place, was a large and beautiful basket of flowers. Anything more painfully incongruous it would be difficult to imagine. The poor flowers seemed to wear an air of patient suffering as they wasted their sweetness on that (literally) howling wilderness.

It was just after ten, and the doors had been open but a few moments when we entered the gallery, already quite full of ladies and gentlemen—generally very young gentlemen, anxious to learn from the glorious example of their elders. The floor below us was fast being strewn with torn bits of paper, which have to be swept up several times a day. Eager groups were gathered under the various signs upon the walls and pillars, apparently playing the Italian game of morra, to judge by the quick gestures of their restless fingers. Some were scribbling cabalistic signs on little bits of paper, and almost all were howling like maniacs or wild beasts half starved. The only place I was ever in at all to be compared with it in volume and variety of noise is the parrot-room in the London Zoological Gardens. Bedlam and Pandemonium I have not visited—as yet—and consequently cannot speak from personal experience. But the parrots in that awful house in Regent's Park are capable of making more hideous noises in a given moment than any other wild beasts in the world, except brokers. Here the human animal comes out triumphantly supreme.

To add to the refreshing variety of the din, long, lanky youths in gray sauntered about like the keepers of the carnivora, and bawled incessantly till they were red in the face. These, we were told, were the pages, who reported the state of the market and delivered orders and commissions. To the uninitiated they were a fraud and a delusion, but so was the whole thing. A crowd of men, walking about or standing in groups, note-book in hand, talking eagerly or yelling unintelligible nonsense at the top of their voices, and gesticulating with the fury of madmen, while in and around the crowd strolled those extraordinary pages, calmly shouting full in the brokers' faces,—this, we were told, was "business!" This is the mysterious occupation to which our friends, countrymen and lovers devote so large a portion of their time and thoughts. At this strange diversion millions of dollars change hands in a few hours, and bulls and bears in this little nest agree to make things generally uncomfortable and uncertain for the outside world.

But where were the white hats, and what of their daring wearers? As the crowd thickened, they began to shine out upon the general blackness in obvious distinction. At first, the howling multitude, eager for filthy lucre, took no particular notice of them beyond an occasional hurried poke or pat, but this delusive mildness did not long continue. After the first fifteen or twenty minutes, during which the favorite stocks had been danced up and down a few times, like so many crying babies, the appetite of the hundred-headed hydra abated a little, and the general attention to business relaxed. Suddenly—no one knew whence or wherefore—up rose a white hat in the air, high above the heads of the people, and a bareheaded individual was seen struggling wildly in the arms of the mob, who set up ironical cheers at his unavailing efforts to regain his flying headpiece. It rose and fell faster and farther than any fancy stock of them all, now soaring to the vaulted roof, now being kicked along the dusty floor.