there are scores who are accustomed to gain from reading part of their culture and recreation, and of these all or nearly all would feel interest in any book about which much was talked and written, and would go to see pictures which illustrated it. An edition of the Royal Academy Catalogue, with such slight sketches of the pictures as are now given in Mr. Blackburne's notes, would be published each year, and there would undoubtedly also be each year a new edition of the book of the year, illustrated with more carefully finished copies of the best pictures. A catalogue, or a copy of the new edition of the book, would be read by almost everyone who cared for books in every English-speaking place, and the art of our best painters would thus a few years hence be a factor in the education of most people who read; and as every year a larger proportion of the working classes are brought by our new school system under the influence of books, probably in a not very distant future, the mode of thinking and feeling of the whole race would be ennobled in some degree by great writers and great painters. It should not be overlooked that the help of painters would not simply increase the usefulness of a book by causing it to be read by more people, and to be read more than once by many readers. Some readers would gain from books a kind of pleasure which without the help of painters they hardly gain at all. Just as the pleasure gained from the pictures of incidents in the book would be increased by knowledge of those parts of the book not represented in the pictures, so the pleasure gained from many parts of the book not represented by any pictures would be increased by having seen the pictures. For even if those incidents which were most fully and vividly described by the writer, were chosen by painters as subjects for pictures, no one who has readLaocoon' will doubt that the pictures would give a kind of beauty—a breadth of beauty— of which a writer can give little or no indication. And as the parts of a story, as Lessing has pointed out, in which painters find their best subjects are often those which must be most slightly treated by the writer, and leave the imagination of the reader most passive, it is certain that the representation to the outward eye by painters of beauty, lying on each side of the apparently narrowest and shallowest parts of the stream of the tale, would make the inward eye of many readers seek for beauty on the banks of other parts of the stream. The very differences between different painters' conceptions of the same incident taken from the book, would make the pictures all the more stimulating to the imagination of the people who saw them. It is quite conceivable that under the system I have described, the exhibition of the Royal Academy would each year make almost as large a number of people familiar with fine thought and feeling finely expressed in books and pictures, as one of our little wars, or a famine, or some other great calamity, now makes familiar with the geography of a distant country or the manners of a barbarous except an invasion would do so much to bring people of different classes nearer together than they now are in England, as the possession by many persons in every class of familiar knowledge of even one great book. From it would spring the thought in common, the feeling in common, which make many classes into one people. It would be an immense gain if even most of the members of the higher middle-class acquired, by all knowing one book well, a higher level of thought and feeling on which to meet than that which alone is now common to them-the level on which the state of the weather, war, party politics, and the last divorce case are discussed. If knowledge of a single book of the Bible, of a single play of Shakespeare, were common to people of all classes but the lowest, we should be a more civilised people than any influence now at work seems likely ever to make us. To painters, as I have already said, the new system would bring great gain. Against the loss of whatever advantage it may now be to them to be quite unfettered in the choice of subjects, there would be the great advantage to be set, that they would be placed under the conditions which, probably more than any other, made art great in Greece and Italy. They would paint under the stimulus of knowing that their works were no longer waited for eagerly only by æsthetic coteries, and that if, by beautiful colour and form, they expressed fine thought and feeling, they would give noble pleasure to a large proportion of the intelligent people of their race. T. C. HORSFALL. there are scores who are accustomed to gain from reading part of their culture and recreation, and of these all or nearly all would feel interest in any book about which much was talked and written, and would go to see pictures which illustrated it. An edition of the Royal Academy Catalogue, with such slight sketches of the pictures as are now given in Mr. Blackburne's notes, would be published each year, and there would undoubtedly also be each year a new edition of the book of the year, illustrated with more carefully finished copies of the best pictures. A catalogue, or a copy of the new edition of the book, would be read by almost everyone who cared for books in every English-speaking place, and the art of our best painters would thus a few years hence be a factor in the education of most people who read; and as every year a larger proportion of the working classes are brought by our new school system under the influence of books, probably in a not very distant future, the mode of thinking and feeling of the whole race would be ennobled in some degree by great writers and great painters. It should not be overlooked that the help of painters would not simply increase the usefulness of a book by causing it to be read by more people, and to be read more than once by many readers. Some readers would gain from books a kind of pleasure which without the help of painters they hardly gain at all. Just as the pleasure gained from the pictures of incidents in the book would be increased by knowledge of those parts of the book not represented in the pictures, so the pleasure gained from many parts of the book not represented by any pictures would be increased by having seen the pictures. For even if those incidents which were most fully and vividly described by the writer, were chosen by painters as subjects for pictures, no one who has read Laocoon' will doubt that the pictures would give a kind of beauty-a breadth of beautyof which a writer can give little or no indication. And as the parts of a story, as Lessing has pointed out, in which painters find their best subjects are often those which must be most slightly treated by the writer, and leave the imagination of the reader most passive, it is certain that the representation to the outward eye by painters of beauty, lying on each side of the apparently narrowest and shallowest parts of the stream of the tale, would make the inward eye of many readers seek for beauty on the banks of other parts of the stream. The very differences between different painters' conceptions of the same incident taken from the book, would make the pictures all the more stimulating to the imagination of the people who saw them. It is quite conceivable that under the system I have described, the exhibition of the Royal Academy would each year make almost as large a number of people familiar with fine thought and feeling finely expressed in books and pictures, as one of our little wars, or a famine, or some other great calamity, now makes familiar with the geography of a distant country or the manners of a barbarous except an invasion would do so much to bring people of different classes nearer together than they now are in England, as the possession by many persons in every class of familiar knowledge of even one great book. From it would spring the thought in common, the feeling in common, which make many classes into one people. It would be an immense gain if even most of the members of the higher middle-class acquired, by all knowing one book well, a higher level of thought and feeling on which to meet than that which alone is now common to them-the level on which the state of the weather, war, party politics, and the last divorce case are discussed. If knowledge of a single book of the Bible, of a single play of Shakespeare, were common to people of all classes but the lowest, we should be a more civilised people than any influence now at work seems likely ever to make us. To painters, as I have already said, the new system would bring great gain. Against the loss of whatever advantage it may now be to them to be quite unfettered in the choice of subjects, there would be the great advantage to be set, that they would be placed under the conditions which, probably more than any other, made art great in Greece and Italy. They would paint under the stimulus of knowing that their works were no longer waited for eagerly only by æsthetic coteries, and that if, by beautiful colour and form, they expressed fine thought and feeling, they would give noble pleasure to a large proportion of the intelligent people of their race. T. C. HORSFALL. THE New THE NEW DEPARTURE. HE New Parliament has met, the officials have been re-elected, and the House of Commons has begun its work. The machine is perfect in all its parts: what is to be the product? what are to be the results of its work? In the autumn of 1868 a similar piece of machinery was put together, and did great things; but there was in it some latent but inherent defect, which year by year sapped its energies and weakened its motive power, till at last those by whom it had been constructed lost confidence in its efficiency, and, when they had the opportunity given them, pulled it all to pieces. The results of this act of destructiveness are too fresh in our memories to require recapitulation— We have had enough of motion, Tossing on the tossing ocean, with many winds let loose upon the devoted ship of the State. Now, however, that the atmosphere has calmed and a season of fruitful legislative earnestness has set in, let us take courage and try—in spite of Ambassador Lowell's warning not to prophesy unless you know' to anticipate the future. The future has, as regards some questions, already become the present. We see already the Concert of Europe, which since the days of the Andrassy Note had been a thing of the past, reappearing or preparing to reappear. Mr. Gladstone's phrases as to Austria, even if the policy of their original utterance be questioned, have had good effect. They have provoked, or at least produced, an inquiry on the part of Austria, and a reply on the part of the Prime Minister. From that reply we gather that assurances of a most satisfactory character have been received from Austria, and that we in England need not disquiet ourselves by any apprehensions as to the part about to be taken by Austria as regards the Balkan nationalities. Considering the way in which the Eastern pear appears to be ripening, this is most satisfactory. Month by month, nay, week by week, and almost day by day, the state of things at Constantinople appears to get worse. We hear of a trembling despot cowering amongst his women, in a palace, protected by earthworks it is true, but guarded by soldiers whose pay is in arrear, and whose fidelity is in an inverse ratio to their claims. Albania is in revolt; Syria in a state not much better. Anatolia is starving. Those astonishing people |