made in Great Britain! Yet of how different a character! The famous pictures in England are, in great part, of the old masters. Those among us are of the new masters. Standing in the bright room, and looking at the fresh and glowing canvases in rich and exquisite frames, many of the works of an almost micro

but to lead; not to please opinion, but to form | not make in the United States, like those he it. In the newspaper discussion of public questions, the general opinion of the moment, as nearly as it can be instinctively felt or skillfully surmised, may be merely reflected, or it may be reasoned with and moulded. These are the two great schools of editing. In this country Mr. Greeley and Mr. Bryant have been conspicuous illustrations of the one kind, Mr. Ben-scopic fineness and size, the spectator could nett of the other. Evidently in a country where the newspaper is the chief literature, and where everybody reads the paper, it is the leader rather than the follower who is the more valuable editor. Of two magic mirrors, in one of which we could see what we are, and in the other what we ought to be, if a choice must be made, who would not take the latter? Yet the plain view of what we are will often stim-ed to ask his neighbor if he could lend him a ulate the resolution to become what we should be. Fortunately for us, the press supplies us with both of these mirrors.

not but recall his studies of the old pictures— huge canvases, discolored, often dark, dirty, in vast bleak or shabby halls, or among the fading magnificence and dingy splendors of old palaces. Or in fancy seeing Venice once more, he remembered the vast extent of single works of Titian or of Paul, the "Marriage at Cana," the "Presentation in the Temple," and turn

magnifying-glass to peer into the picture before him, six inches square.

The very size of the favorite works of to-day is suggestive of the character of the reigning art. There is a fond and delicate elaboration of details, a refinement and finish so careful and minute that the unity and breadth of the picture are in danger of being wrecked upon the perfect parts, and the sentiment of the scene to vanish in wonder and delight over the setting of the stage. In many of the characteristic works of the modern school the eye is caught and entangled in a net of technique so

ONE of the pleasantest events of the month was the view of the pictures from Mr. J. Abner Harper's collection previous to their sale at auction. They were mainly characteristic works of not less than a hundred of the most noted modern and living artists of every country, and they were arranged in the beautiful gallery of Mr. Leavitt, making a singularly delightful and instructive exhibition. There was a private view for ladies only in the after-fine and bewildering that it becomes the chief noon, and the gallery was filled, as we were told, pleasure. The mind and heart about to symwith a murmuring and brilliant throng, that pathize with the heroine of the picture sudgazed upon every form of its own charm per- denly pause, fascinated and dazzled with the petuated in many of the pictures, which seek | rosy reality of her flesh, the symmetry of her to reproduce in art what the society around form, the perfect pearl upon her arm, which the artist shows him. A certain sumptuous- your finger aches to touch, the gloss of silk, ness and delight in splendor and luxury are the sheen of satin, the flutter of ribbons, the characteristic of the modern school, and the gleam of the jewelled fan. It is paradise; but scene itself, could any masculine eyes have be- it is the paradise of Mohammed. Yonder figure, held it-the pretty gallery, the beautiful wo- superbly draped, reclining under the heavily men beautifully dressed, the grace, the mur- lustrous canopy upon a couch of Persian stuffs, mur, the various charm-would have illustra- her ruby-ringed fingers tapping idly the vase ted the fidelity of the pictures. In the evening of lapis lazuli-it is a houri, a sultana, an there were gentlemen only, connoisseurs, col-odalisque, a bayadere; it is not a Madonna. lectors, and critics, passing from work to work, and observing that none must be omitted where all had a peculiar interest.

It does not pretend to be. It is an external art, perfect in its kind, and interesting; nor is it a criticism of a work to say that it is not something else. As the spectator passed along the brilliant line, he saw as clearly, perhaps, as it could be seen anywhere, the characteristic tendency of the art which is now most popular. It is not epical, but lyrical. It is Benvenuto rath

Such an exhibition is very significant as a sudden glimpse of the unsuspected treasures of art in the country. The traveller in other lands would make long journeys to see so striking an illustration of the character of contemporary art as this collection afforded.er than Michael Angelo. In the landscape, for It would be noted in the guide-books. It would be commemorated in the stories of travel. It would be included in the plans of travellers. Yet until it was quietly opened to the private view, this rich collection was hardly known beyond a circle of personal friends and of other collectors. How many more may there be? If some German Waagen could know what pictures are within the houses that he passes in the great commercial city alone, what revelations of "Art Treasures" might he

instance, it is a mood, an effect, rather than the great general impression, which now arrests the artist. In the older Italian pictures, in Perugino, the trees and the lines of the landscape are merely indicative of natural objects which sympathize with the tender feeling of adoration that pervades the picture. In Salvator Rosa, in Claude-and Ruskin points it out as a fault-the trees are not individual, but there is a sense of sunny peace and idyllic pleasure, and, on the other hand, of vast gloomy

forests or mountains, a wild picturesqueness of solitude. Here are Diaz, Rousseau, Dupré, or, still later, Corot, and the others; a momentary effect is dashed upon the canvas with consummate skill and felicity, sometimes so curiously that you are more interested to know how it is done than quite sure that you know what it is. It is sometimes, if a bull may be permitted, an artificial nature-the scene of Watteau, the rusticity of Marie Antoinette and the Petit Trianon.

as a director were attested by the call to the new Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. He had directed there the great musical festivals which recall those of Germany and England, and which made the musical mouth of New York water-more with desire, we ought to say, than envy. When Louis the Eighteenth returned to France and Paris in the arms of the allies, he was reported to have said—although it is also reported to have been an invention, of a kind always common upon such occasions "There is only one Frenchman more." When Thomas left New York, there was only one NewYorker less. But there was also one conductor less-which was another matter. There has been trouble, however, in the new musical kingdom at the West, and at last a kind of musical explosion. The president of the Musical College and Mr. Thomas differed. The president was charged with the business control of the college, and Mr. Thomas with the musical direction. Mr.Thomas was of opinion that musical measures which he deemed im

This piquant and interesting collection had no picture more attractive as a piece of pure sentiment than a negro boy-a sweep-by Eastman Johnson. The innocence, the characteristic beauty, the unconscious pathos, arrested the eye and mind first, and then the excellence of the execution. Finish without "niggling," breadth, firmness, purity of tone, depth of color, an effortless and harmonious blending as in a beautiful melody-these were all obvious, and through them all shone the human tenderness which makes the whole world kin. It was not a conceit, it was a pic-portant were "ignored and willfully misunderture. Long ago in Rome, sitting in the Café Greco, an artist said to the Easy Chair, “In art it is one part genius and nine parts mechanism." The student who diligently studies these modern pictures, as well as the great older works, will soon see that there are no shortcuts to success, and that the one part genius can not safely despise the other nine parts. Indeed, as the admiring eye follows the marvellous detail and execution of some of the works of painters now most in vogue, the amazed and delighted spectator finds himself wondering whether the nine parts have not done the work of the one.

stood." The president of the College held that he had tried only to discharge his duties as the business head. The directors alleged that they could not draw from Mr. Thomas any definite statement of grievances. Both the director and the president resigned, and there was great confusion and excitement in musical circles. The Cincinnati Commercial, commenting upon the subject on the day before the resignation, said that as there was no personal ill feeling between the gentlemen, and as musical genius is more uncommon than business capacity, it would be wiser to permit Mr. Thomas to have his own way, stay in the West, and "grow up with the country."

There can not be two heads; and since Mr. Thomas leaves Cincinnati, it will be a great gain for New York if he is added to the list of musical directors here. He has the kind of command, the "masterfulness," which we remember in the older Strauss, who in his way, and at the head of his orchestra, was a Napoleon. The gift of leadership is unique and exceptional. A man may even have all the qual

THE musical winter has been full and pleasing, with a fine opera and admirable concerts, but with no signal event like the triumph of Gerster last year. Madame Marimon has charmed her audience, and Campanini has confirmed the impression of last winter, that he is one of the finest of "lyric artists" now upon the stage. But the most notable incident in a musical record of the season must be the return of Theodore Thomas from Cincin-ities of a leader without the fusing element nati, whither he had gone, it was supposed, for five years. He had, however, under the terms of his arrangement, conducted several concerts during the season in New York and Brooklyn, renewing in many musical breasts the regret that he was not permanently settled in New York.

It is proverbial that the makers of harmony are given to discord, and that their quarrels divide "the town." Those who will not cry "one God, one Farinelli," must take all the consequences. There are those evidently who would gladly shout "one God, one Wagner," but they can not, quite yet, fill the air. The departure of Mr. Thomas from New York was deeply regretted by sincere lovers of good music, and both his excellence and his fame

which makes them effective, as he may have the knowledge and disposition and desire and opportunity necessary for teaching, yet still be unable to teach. Mr. Thomas is—from the point of view of the audience-quiet, courteous, perfectly apprehensive, and inflexible. It is the first condition of a real mastery that it shall command confidence. It was plain. that Strauss's orchestra depended upon him as wholly as an army in action upon its general. He led without apparent leading, and often when his impulse had penetrated every man and every instrument, he raised his own violin, and added his note to the resistless stream.

He was a composer and player of waltzes; but how much he made of them! De Quincey might have written his prose dithy

self is a landscape or a figure, a flower or a fruit, his aim will be, within the resources of his means, to reproduce as nearly as possible the impression of the natural object. If this

rambic upon the dance after hearing Strauss | by which the pleasure is produced. But the some happy day at the Belvedere in Vienna, character of his pleasure persuades him that or Kroll's Garten in Berlin. Certainly to read wood-engraving is not a mere trick or meDe Quincey's words is to recall the impression chanical sleight of hand, but an art, and an of the Strauss orchestra, with all its sugges- art worthy to be pursued for its own sake. tions, its associations of youthful passion, the If so much be conceded—and it can hardly be romance of youth, and its vague and exquisite denied-it must then be granted that its object melancholy, which throbbed and murmured is that of all art of the kind, namely, the reand wailed in long, long cadences. production of nature. That is to say, if the Among the other musical events of the win-work to which the engraver is to address himter, the production of the Damnation of Faust, by Hector Berlioz, and the Streuensee of Meyerbeer, must not be forgotten. In Meyerbeer's music there is always the consciousness of the nine parts mechanism of which we were speak-be so, must he not pursue this purpose regarding as we looked at the pictures, but there is seldom the suspicion of the presence of that other precious one part. The painful criticism upon his own speech which the orator invol-elm-tree, and the design given to the engraver untarily heard is applicable to the Meyerbeer music: "Good speaker; but tedious, tedious." The Streuensee was heard with intelligent interest: "Good music; but tedious, tedious." Berlioz's Damnation was a triumph. At the rehearsal and at two repetitions it was received with immense applause. There was also a fine performance of the Passion music of Sebastian Bach by the Sacred Music Society in the spacious church of St. George. The choruses were remarkable for the blending of voices and shading of sound, and we have heard no better choral singing. The music is of the old oratorio school, but it is very impressive.

But this is the field in which no one may dogmatize, although it has more stubborn frequenters than any other. "Love me, love my dog," is a mild necessity compared with, "Love me, love my composer." As when an irresistible body encounters an immovable body, so is it when the Wagnerian encounters the Beethovenian. As for an antediluvian Easy Chair, which recalls, and with pleasure, a waltz-playing Strauss, it is plain that it can not rise even to the pity of the contending hosts.

less of the failure of the drawing or painting that he may be copying to achieve it? Thus, if the work to be done is an engraving of an

is so imperfect as to resemble all trees in general, but none in particular, what must he do? Must he carefully reproduce the failure, as the Chinese tailor reproduces the buttonless and rent coat which serves him for a model; or must he take care to make an elm-tree, and not an oak or a willow?

Wood-engraving, like all other, is, indeed, copying. But is it only the copy of a copy? Has the artist in wood no initiative like the artist of the crayon or the brush? If it is to be anything more than servile imitation, must not wood-engraving, within its necessary limits, aim at the representation of nature? The designer should remember that he is preparing a drawing which is to be made effective in a certain way, and he is bound to consider the conditions, and to co-operate so far as practicable with the engraver who is to complete the work. The closer this union of the two minds and hands, the finer the effect. "The plumage of Bewick's birds," writes a correspondent, himself an accomplished engraver, whose views singularly accord with our own

"the plumage of Bewick's birds, that has won almost universal admiration, is a characIF the gentle reader will compare the earliest teristic example of the style I am advocating, numbers of this Magazine with the latest, and the immeasurable superiority of this over nothing will strike him more forcibly than the everything else that Bewick has left us is due improvement in the wood-engraving. Indeed, solely to this faithfulness to nature's truth. the difference is so great that the present beau- In this case the artist and the engraver were tiful art seems to be less a development than a united in the same person, and to produce succreation. Some of the recent illustrations in cessful work in this style, the two must work the Magazine, such, for instance, as those of a together in perfect harmony as one man, each "Winter Idyl" in the March number, are so ex- | adapting himself to the requirements of the quisite and poetic that the interest and dis-other, and both exerting themselves to the cussion upon the general subject are not surprising. The "Symposium" of eminent woodengravers in our issue for February shows the differing views of experts, and the contest of opinion is still exceedingly warm.

The public, to which all art appeals, enjoys often without knowing or caring why. The general and gentle reader opens this number of the Magazine, for instance; and if he is pleased with the pictures, as he is quite sure to be, he is not greatly interested in the methods

uttermost for the attainment of their common object."

But if wood-engraving is thus to reproduce nature as faithfully as possible within the limits of its resources, it follows that if the object be not to represent an effect of nature, but a certain picture, as an illustration of a school or style, there must be the same fidelity. For instance, the object of the illustrations of our articles upon old painters or contemporary painters and their works is to show just what

those works are, with all their characteristics | tially an art, and peculiarly the pictorial art and all their imperfections. The same fidelity which can do most for general enlightenment to nature upon which we have insisted re- and refinement? quires that in these cases the failures be accurately reproduced. If Claude's clouds in his loveliest pictures look like cotton-wool, as Ruskin says, they must be made in the engraving to resemble cotton - wool. The engraver must not correct what he may see to be a plain fault, because the object is to show Claude's faulty presentation of nature, not to show the way in which he ought to have presented nature. But if Claude were designing for the engraver, the work would be common to both of them; each would be bound to make it true to nature, and so far as practicable each must supplement the eye and the hand of the other.

This is a very important distinction, because it affects the question whether it is the business of the engraver to imitate and reproduce as well as he can the peculiar process by which the designer may choose to work. The process may serve to indicate more plainly to the engraver the effect that he seeks to reproduce, but it does not follow that imitation in the engraving of the process of the designer will make the reproduction of the natural effect more truthful. The imitation of the process has often a bizarre and novel effect which is pleasing to the spectator. But the French general's criticism upon the charge at Balaklava-It is fine, but it is not war-is very applicable to such work. It may be "taking," but it is not art. If the engraver's object, for example, be to show Rembrandt's style of portraiture, which is a perfectly legitimate object, he must reproduce it as faithfully as he can. So if his purpose be to show the different processes of designers for wood-engraving, he must do it as accurately as possible. But if he and the designer wish to reproduce certain facts of nature, the engraver will regard the designer's process not as an ultimate object in itself, but only as a means of indicating the effect at which he aims, and which the engraver will endeavor to produce by the means at his command.

THE normal ground of political party division in this country is said to be the rightful extent of national authority. That is a discussion which is foreign to this arena. But that a just State pride, like all other local public spirit, is a great advantage to the State, is plain enough. Nothing is more evident and more striking than the fact of States, not, of course, as political communities, but as distinctive neighborhoods. Not only is the NewEnglander different from the New-Yorker, and the New-Yorker from the Pennsylvanian, and the Pennsylvanian from the Virginian and the Ohioan, but every State in New England has a certain local distinction. It has its own traditions, habits, reputations, and separate life, which in a degree make a difference like that between nations.

This diversity has its root in the colonial settlement, so that the States are not merely territories arbitrarily determined, mere geographical expressions, but they each represent a kind of homogeneous life. This homogeneity is the secret of the local vitality which is the strength of a true popular system, of which the conservative element is the defense of minorities. Its traditions are racy and charming, and nothing, therefore, is a more delightful and illustrative historical study than well-told local annals. In this State pride the greatest of States, the Imperial State, as we proudly call it, has been always deficient. Three years ago, at the centennial celebration of the formation of the first State government, and the inauguration of the first Governor of New York, George Clinton, although the day fell in the balmy summer weather, and the place was the pleasant and quaint old town of Kingston, there was, we believe, not one of the living ex-Governors of the State present, although ex-Governor Seymour, who was detained by illness, sent an admirable letter, which served very well for a speech. Later in the year, on a perfect day in October, when the centennial anniversary of the surrender of Burgoyne was commemorated, although the spot was but about twenty miles from the capital, the Gov

full of genuine local pride such instances could not be cited.

There remains the question for engravers of the comparative value of technical methods. But that is a professional question, like that among painters of the best way of mixing col-ernor of the State did not appear. In a State ors and of laying them on. The principle which we have asserted is that engraving, whether on steel or wood, is an art, not a mere mechanism, and that, like all art, it demands for its highest excellence not only technical | skill, but imaginative and poetic insight. Certainly the fame of Bewick is as beautiful and desirable in its kind as that of any other artist. He was not a servile imitator; he was a poet. And now that the resources of his art have been so wonderfully increased, and the demand for fine wood-engraving has become so universal, is it not clear that the progress is largely due to the perception that it is essen

It is pleasant to see the decided awakening of a generous spirit of this kind in New York. It has been much stimulated by the centennial celebrations of three years ago, and it was very fortunate that so many capital events in the Revolutionary history of the State occurred in the same year. It is now proposed to mark the spot in Wall Street where Washington took the oath of office, and the government of the United States was inaugurated; and the plan mentioned is a group of memorial statues of Washington and Robert R. Livingston

Mr. Campbell, indeed, criticises the Puritans with a zest which suggests pleasure, although of course it is the truth of history, not the Puritan, that he seeks. The Puritan policy toward the Indian, he insists, was merely that of the extirpation of the heathen. The Puritans, in their own conceit, he alleges, were the chosen people of God, and the Indians his enemies, whom the God-fearing Miles Standish was to smite hip and thigh. He describes the pitiless and ghastly tortures which were inflicted upon the Indians, and declares that it was the conduct of the Puritans which produced the inextinguishable hatred of the Indians for the

Meanwhile students are diligently exploring the history of the State, and preparing themselves to take the aggressive in claiming for New York honors which have been gener-whites. Mr. Campbell very wisely asserts that ally conceded to other States. But there is one honor which will hardly be disputed with New York, and that is a wise and humane policy toward the Indians. It is a chapter of the early history of the State which may be profitably studied in Congress. Our general treatment of the Indians from the beginning has been a crime or a blunder. William Penn was wise and just with them; but the Indians with whom he dealt were, like himself, mild and peaceable. They were, indeed, as Mr. Douglass Campbell says, a kind of Quaker Indian. For Mr. Campbell, son of the author of the Annals of Tryon County, is one of the most diligent students of New York history, and is understood to be writing its colonial chapter. In some delightful papers which he has read before the New York and the Oneida Historical Societies, he has asserted the superiority of the Dutch Indian policy to that of the Puritans in a way which is sure to bring Dr. Dexter to his feet.

TE

so long as the country is taught that the early Indian wars were due to the innate hatred of the red man for the white, a just and sound Indian policy is made more difficult; and his story of the humane and reasonable treatment of the Indians by colonial New York is a powerful plea for the treatment of them now upon the principle of the Dutch traders of Albany, and of Arent van Curler, to whom he pays a just tribute, that honesty is the best policy. The Dutch were traders, not missionaries. They never broke faith with the Indians, they did not steal nor lie, and they respected the Indian's religion. And they had their reward. The English in New York succeeded to the Dutch policy, and the Indians were faithful to the English crown, under which they had been well treated, throughout the Revolution. Such studies are not mere delving in antiquarian lore; they reveal the lights which should guide wise statesmanship.

Editor's Literary Record.

authorities, and are of great value to scholars, and which in all the former editions referred to old and generally inaccessible editions of ancient writers, whose divisions do not correspond with those now in common use, have been verified afresh by Dr. Smith; and the

HERE is now passing through the press of Messrs. Harper and Brothers a new library edition, in six luxurious octavo volumes, of Gibbon's great work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' which combines every requisite for the entertainment and instruction of the general read-books and chapters of the best modern editions er, and for the convenience of the advanced historical scholar. The text followed by the industrious editor of this fine edition, of which three volumes are now published, is that of the last quarto edition as corrected by Gibbon himself. The original has been faithfully preserved, the editor not allowing himself to introduce any changes even in the orthography, except in the case of evident misprints, and of a few modern names, of which the more cor-dition to these editorial improvements, involvrect forms are now substituted for those employed by the author. The notes, which comprise a vast mass of references to original

1 The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By EDWARD GIBBON. With Notes by Dean MILMAN, M. GUIZOT, and Dr. WILLIAM SMITH. In Six Volumes. Vols. I., II., and III. 8vo, pp. 706, 715, and 714. New York: Harper and Brothers.

of the authors cited are given in brackets, side by side with Gibbon's original references. Dr. Smith has also revised the numerals accompanying Gibbon's references, correcting them where they were erroneous; and he has also uniformly applied the system finally adopted by Gibbon in the greater part of his work, of numbering the notes consecutively for each chapter, instead of for each page only. In ad

ing great labor and research, the notes contain, besides Gibbon's references, the annotations of his former commentators and editors, Guizot, Milman, and Wenck, and of the present editor, and embody the results of all the advances that have been made in historical knowledge through the researches of English and Continental historians, jurists, philologers,