description of talent required for conducting the relations of the country with foreign nations. It will end by our having to import it if we can't breed it ourselves. It would not be a bad idea to create a new department in the Foreign Office, to be called the Contract Department, which should invite tenders from distinguished foreign statesmen for foreign policy, and which should be prepared to treat with such persons as might be willing to contract for supplying forms of despatches couched in conciliatory language, items of information not more than six months old, and common-sense ideas as to the use to be made of such information. While I am in the vein I will write out the sort of form which I should take the liberty to suggest :

"Contract for Foreign Policy.

CONTRACT DEPARTMENT. Foreign Office, Whitehall Gardens, 1st July 1865.

"The chief of her Majesty's Contract Department for Foreign Policy hereby gives notice, That he is instructed by the nation to hold himself ready, on any day, or at any hour of the day, to treat with such Continental statesmen as may be willing to contract for suggesting, and afterwards carrying out, to the satisfaction of Mr Bright and the country, a sound practical foreign policy. Tenders may be made for the supply of ideas, of forms of despatches, of correct information, and of good grammar. The chief of her Majesty's Contract Department reserves to himself the power, when the tenders are opened, of contracting either for the Continental statesman himself, together with his policy, or for his policy without the Continental statesman, if it is so simple that any Englishman can carry it out; or for such part of his policy as he may deem fit, or for a greater quantity, or of not contracting for any.

"No reason will be given for re

VOL. XCVIII.—NO. DXCVIII.

jection of tender. No tender will be received unless made on the printed form provided for the purpose, which, together with the conditions of the contract, will be found lying about in all the waiting-rooms of the Foreign Office. As parties tendering will probably be the Foreign Ministers of other countries, and unable to quit their posts, agents duly authorised by them in writing will be noticed. Every tender must be addressed to the Head of the Contract Department, Foreign Office; and bear in the left-hand corner the words "Tender for Foreign policy ideas, grammar, &c. ;" and must also be delivered at the Contract Department, Foreign Office, Whitehall, accompanied by a letter signed by two bishops of the Church to which the tenderer belongs, engaging to become bound with him, in the value of their respective sees, for the due performance of the contract. By Order, (Signed)

M. or N.,

Registrar of Contracts for the Department of Foreign Affairs.""

"It is no use," said Grandon, laughing, after I had read this aloud to him; "the nation would not stand the sagacity or foresight of a foreigner in that department. The great merit of our institutions is, that they represent the ignorance of the majority. One does not know how great that is till one sees it condensed in an organisation expressly designed for the purpose. I suppose there never was an instance in history of a country more completely self-governed than this is. The head of a department is no more bound to do what he knows to be right than a member of Parliament is bound to vote according to his conscience: the one is obliged to act under the dictate of the nation to keep himself in office, the other under the dictate of his constituency to keep himself in his seat. The principal questions discussed in the British Cabinet are not 'how

shall we get the country out of the mess we have got her into,' but 'how shall we get ourselves out of it;' not 'how shall we advance the interests of the nation at the risk of our own,' but 'to what extent shall we advance our own at the risk of those of the nation.' It is an inevitable result of popular government, and if it pleases the people to bungle their own affairs they have a right to invoke their last hobby of non-intervention in their own favour. After all, the present system involves lesser evils than are entailed by the opposite extreme of absolute despotism on the

part of one individual, such as we see in Washington and St Petersburg.'

Grandon had warmed to his theme, and I was glad to see that either the prospect of the intelligence I promised him for to-morrow, or the excitement of our discussion, had dispelled the cloud which for many weeks past has rested upon him. At last, I thought, as I said good-night to him, there is some hope of a solution of this problem in which Lady Broadbrim has hitherto been "the unknown quantity." If it rests with me, the result of our interview to-morrow will be-Q. E. D.

THE kingdom of Art has its seasons, like Nature's times of spring and harvest,-first when the seed is sown, and then when the wheat is gathered. The realm of Art too, like the face of the outward world of hill and valley, has soaring heights as well as lowly walks. The domain of Art also, like the checkered surface of society, is sometimes placid as a lake, and ofttimes agitated as storm-driven waves; and so it is, that this territory wherein imagination holds sway, is vast as the circuit of Nature and varied as the life of man. The London Art-Season, which in some degree is an epitome of the world's art, has now swelled into such magnitude of dimension, it puts on aspects so diversified, it is the expression of so much thought, the product of such untiring toil, the representative of wealth so considerable, that to survey its vast extent, or to grasp it in its grand entirety, were more than we can hope to compass within the limits of a single article. In order to escape, then, the confusion incident to overcrowded detail, we shall seek out and endeavour to emphasise the general truths and the governing laws, which may serve as the basis

of a defined classification. As in the kingdom of Nature, so in the province of Art, broad lines of demarcation there are that enable the intellect to map out clearly the phenomena which otherwise were distracting. Art, in fact, is a second nature, and the principles applicable to the criticism of the one, differ in little from the laws which govern the other. In these days, indeed, when naturalism has laid firm and almost tyrannous hold upon the arts, the critic of a picture-gallery thinks he needs nothing else than an eye conversant with the common show of things. Provided he can distinguish between a granite rock and a chalk cliff, or can tell a horse-chestnut from a weeping willow, he believes himself competent to pass discriminative judgment on the quality of every painting. Certain it is, as we have said, that the outward forms of nature, and the laws which mould visible phenomena, are the materials and the vital energies which conspire to true and vigorous growth in art. But beyond and beneath this material side or surface there are a life and a spirit which come not so much, from nature as from the genius of the

artist, who, while he copies, creates. And thus the critic, entering the Academy or other Exhibitions, must bring to his scrutiny two senses— the outward sense of vision and the inward sense of intuition; by the one he recognises fidelity to nature, by the other he discovers the correspondence between a picture and the mind that conceived it. Here, then, we arrive at the basis of a broad classification; here we at once come to the essential elements which mingle in and mould the entire art-creation. Nature brings material, the artist adds mind. The one is the world of matter, the other the sphere of spirit, and the two conjoined constitute a well-blended art.

How far our English school is thus happily balanced, remains to be seen in the sequel. The points on which at present we insist are merely these: that the London Art- Season, which, as a mass, is overwhelming, must be marshalled into rank and file, analysed to its constituent elements, and so passed in detailed review; that pictures, whatever be their multitude, or however great their diversity, must be judged by a twofold standardfirst, as products of nature, and subject to the laws of nature; and, second, as phenomena of mind, and therefore amenable to the ordinances of the intellect and the imagination. We have written thus much under the conviction that the distinctions here drawn are by artists and writers in danger of being overlooked. Pictures which may rank as the higher manifestations of creative imagination have simply ceased to exist. And after a survey of the Academy we would, in the words of Lord Bacon, ask, Where are the works which, as feigned histories, "give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it" where are the pictures which testify that "the world is in proportion inferior to the soul, and that

there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things"? Where, in fine, is the art - creation that "doth raise and erect the mind by submitting the show of things to the desires of the mind"? It must be confessed that the products of modern art, when contrasted with the soul-moving forms of Greece and of Italy, are of the earth, earthy. In classic and medieval works there is a strain of divine melody which in the art of our times is lost in silence or breaks forth only in dissonance. Materialism has choked the channels whence in other ages flowed streams of inspiration, and the fogs and vapours that encircle the lower world have intercepted the light that once shone within the chambers of the artist's mind. Nevertheless, styles which are present to us naturally exert a power, schools which are now the vogue necessarily have fashion on their side. But if there be any value in essential principles, if there be any use in time-established standards, it is in the appeal thereby rendered possible to a law and to a precedent which shall weigh truth as in a balance, and apportion beauty according to the measure which God hath given to things made perfect. Our English art cannot live unto posterity unless it be built on a basis which time will not shake, unless it be shaped out of the elements which know not decay, unless it be fashioned in the symmetry of those eternal verities which change not with time and place.

The principles just propounded may seem to threaten universal denunciation. We will at once, then, relieve the mind of the reader from any such dread, by the admission, that scarcely within living memory has there been known an Academy so excellent in general quality, or so exceptional in peculiar merit, as that which has just closed.

Hardly, however, is it to be expected that the standards we have raised can be reached when indeed they are not so much as aimed at. It is not to be anticipated, in the present material phase of our English School, that spiritual beauty or transcendental truth should find their way to the walls of our exhibitions. And even when the attempt is made to leave the beaten track of everyday life-when, for example, as in the drawings exhibited by Mr Burne Jones in the gallery of the Old Water - Colour Society, mystery and mysticism, and a style which may be pronounced positively non-natural, are put on view in uncompromising form-we feel perhaps more than ever how far we have wandered from the old paths, how grievously we are wanting in that inspiration which in the master-works of prior times has been manifest in lines and forms, in shades and colours, wrought into concerted harmony. But it were obviously mere waste of time to mourn over deficiencies which there is no immediate prospect of supplying. Rather let us take our English school just as we find it, and having ascertained its latitude and longitude in space and time, we may now, for closer review, approach under some sense of thankfulness the healthful and right-minded works given unto us for joy and edification.

High art, whether sacred or secular, has been, of course, in the Academy at a discount. However, some pictures may be quoted, such as 'The Sower of Good Seed,' by Mr Herbert; 'Queen Esther's Banquet,' by Mr Armitage; Helen of Troy,' by Mr Leighton; 'The Night of Rizzio's Murder,' by Mr Ward, which fulfil in good degree the conditions imposed on high historic works. A well-known French painter, M. Signol, sent a large, and in some degree a grand, composition, Christ descendu de la Croix,' which has been of service in our English Academy as a

landmark to indicate the whereabouts of our national art, and to show the relative positions of European schools, ancient and modern. This picture is the nearest approach we have seen in this country, for some years, to the manner prescribed by academies and practised by time-honoured historic schools. The traditions handed down from the days of Raphael, cherished by the Carracci, upheld by Vandyke, are in this studious but coldly-calculated composition preserved in dead petrifaction. In contrast stands our English school, naturalistic, picturesque, and altogether unideal. Mr Leighton's 'Helen of Troy' is in its classic and Continental reminiscences the most deliberate departure from the modes habitual to this country; hence, perhaps, it happened that this startling product proved a bone of no small contention. Persons, standing in judgment on a mere naturalistic platform, have denounced the work for the very qualities which people pledged to the opposite party recognise as merits. For ourselves, we would say that in these days there is too little of ideal beauty, too little of scholarly culture, too little of gentlemanly refinement; and so we receive gladly a work which, whatever be its defectsand they are not few-stands apart from the common herd in the possession of these rare qualities. There was scarcely, as we have said, in the Academy, another picture which fell under the same category. The grand figure of Esau,' by Mr Watts, showed, we admit, decided predilections for the old masters; but its power-to its praise let us say-rests on its reality. Realism, indeed, look where we will, on all sides stares us boldly in the face. Even Mr Herbert's symbolic reading in the parable of The Sower' is no exception. The late Mr Dyce, it will be remembered, allied himself obediently to the schools of Italy: Mr Herbert, who is now the chief representative of religious art

6

in England, has taken a more independent course. The great mural picture in the Houses of Parliament, Moses coming down from the Mount,' and this subsequent and minor work, The Sower of Good Seed,' are alike directly realistic. It is, however, worthy of remark, that the nature which Mr Herbert selects is not accidental, but essential and typical; that the details which he so studiously brings together, become instinct with thought and purpose, and so every touch is a letter, every object a word wherefrom may be read accumulative meaning. The literal rises close to the ideal under such treatment. Dissimilar, yet as marking the tendencies of our school approximate, is the most successful work yet painted by Mr Armitage, Queen Esther's Banquet.' This composition is in some points allied to styles Academic; the lines have been subject to careful calculation, the draperies are cast in symmetric folds, the figures pass from individual form to generic type. But, on the other hand, there is the accumulation of objective facts, the bringing together of accessories and appurtenances to the banquet and the palace, which prove that the artist has fallen under the realistic force of the age. The manner in which a painter three centuries ago would have treated this subject it is not difficult to conjecture. He would have commenced by placing the scene nowhere, or perhaps would have boldly transferred the action from the Tigris to the banks of the Tiber; he would have changed the Assyrian monarch and Queen Esther into Tuscans or Romans; the architecture might have been borrowed from an Italian villa; and the costumes, probably, would have come from the backs of men and women walking the streets of Florence! But, as Earl Stanhope took occasion to point out at the dinner of the Academy, the archæologist in these our days comes to the assistance of the

artist. Thus the objects buried from the sight of our predecessors, now disinterred by the antiquary, it is the privilege of our painters to portray. Hence, in the picture before us, the banquet of Queen Esther has been furnished, and the chamber of the palace of King Ahasuerus adorned, with spoils brought by Mr Layard from the ruins of Nineveh. The work is hereby made a truer transcript of the actual event; but what is gain to the intellect is loss to the imagination. Mr Ward's composition,

The Night of Rizzio's Murder,' is a further example of the realistic rendering of history now in vogue. The artist made studies on the spot of the chamber in Holyrood Palace known as "Queen Mary's boudoir;" the elaborate execution bestowed upon the accessories of arms, armour, and dress, imparts to the scene circumstantial verity, and thus the completed work takes the spectator back to the very times. We all know that a like treatment obtains in literary composition; the art of miniature word-painting is now applied to the detailed description of smallest incidents. It is now the fashion to introduce a daguerreotype delineation of still life into the pages of popular novels a manipulative feat not surpassed by the tricky transcript of pots, pans, and copper kettles in a Dutch canvass. On the other hand, the Greeks, in sculpture, knew how to preserve the due balance between detail and broad generalisation. Likewise, in the drama, Shakespeare teaches the way in which the photograph of an individual character may obtain the largeness and gain the colour which Michael Angelo concentrated within his statues, and Titian reflected in his portraits. Our modern artists are either supremely detailed or exclusively generalised: the one aim or the other, separately, is within their reach; but, conjointly, the finish, which is the measure of labour, and the large