but that he was the enemy of the aristocra- flushed, as if he had sat for it after his wine. cy, which in raising the Tudors to his place Not a pleasant man for a great noble to raised unconsciously still mightier foes. Or fight at the council-board there is a pos that exquisite portrait of Henry VII., wisest sible laugh in that face not soothing to and narrowest of his House, with his face of pride. -nor one to whom he would send calm intelligence, and broad brow flanked his daughters to confess. It is a grand by grey silken hair, and look as if God had head, but that of a priest, and a priest in somehow made a miserly archbishop King. high position. Or take that exquisite porThere is priestliness in those deep lines, or trait, which looks like a photograph of say Italian wile, and that compressed Thomas Cromwell, the blue-bearded, closemouth, but something more in the steady, shaven man, with intent but not calm eyes, thoughtful regard. You begin to think as and chiselled mouth, and long mobile upper you gaze that the wonder of one unpopular lip, which is rigid but can tremble, and the and comparatively low-born man beating deep dimple in its curve. That man lacks the aristocracy of England, and shaking only force, a back to his head, a jaw to his every noble house by his inquiry into titles face, to be a master; and as it is, he is the - inquiry for which Empson and Dudley best of servants, a kindly, but over-watchdied is less than you had imagined, that ful, and it may be over-obedient, man. the effort to defraud or frighten the man The only two we remember utterly unlike with that face was rather a silly one. Only their popular characters are Sir Thomas how came his son like that, whence the ruf- More and Lord Bacon, and both would fianly richness of blood, the "bluffness" in seem plausible to many. Sir Thomas More every portrait and in tradition? Was that has a low-bred Spanish face, with high really, as history indicates, the primary bones, broad yellow cheeks, and mouth cut character of the House of York, though after birth with a knife to let him breathe, shaven in Edward IV. (No. 24) into effemi- a bad kind of Dissenting preacher; and nacy, and refined in Richard III. into Lord Bacon is a mean man, a realistic Italian wile? Take, again, Wolsey. The Shylock, with no element of greatness popular idea of Wolsey's face, if we mistake about him except a possibly high brow, not, is that of a monk, slightly ascetic and worn; but there is a picture here, No. 148, which is liker the man, the face of an overfed Italian noble, the features cut like those of a Roman Emperor on a gem-brow, nose, lips, chin all full, all clean, all cut as if by a diamond on a sard, but overfat and wanting in every characteristic of beauty as well as wisdom. Macaulay would have said that was natural, and undoubtedly, if this portrait be correct, it is difficult not to side with Macaulay and those who believe it was possible for a man to be the "greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind." 7 No. 1148. Fourth Series, No. 9. 2 June, 1866. POETRY: Another Way, 578. Fast and Humiliation, 607. Summer come again, 626. Buridan's Ass, 637. London Review, 639 640 3 3 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO. BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay a commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 30 volumes, 90 dollars. Second" The Complete work 20 "6 50 80 220 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. OFFICE OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE, | lessen the excessive stimulus which they To THE HON. GEORGE BOUTWELL, MEMBER OF CONGRESS.-There are some things which seem almost too self evident to be argued about. If we could profit by the experience of the past, should we not see, that if President Jackson's fifty "Pet Banks," supported by the deposits and favor of the Government, and impelled by the desire to make profit out of the public, did, at the risk and loss of their own credit, stimulate trade and speculation to a shameful degree, it is certain that two thousand banks, indorsed by the Government, and having no character of their own to support, would do the same mischief to still greater extent? Another self-evident proposition would seem to be that currency, founded solely upon the public faith, should be issued for the national benefit; and yet we are now paying 18 millions a year for the privilege of furnishing and indorsing notes for the national banks! The banks add no credit to these notes so indorsed by the Government. The notes of the most remote of the "wild cat " herd pass as freely as those of the best banks of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The "Green Backs" have been tried, and have the confidence of the public as far as any paper currency can have. They now save us a large amount of interest. Why not keep the ground entirely for them? This can yet be done if the Government will pay off all the "national" bank-notes with green-backs," and then, as creditor of said banks, receive its own stock now held by them, and on which it pays them 18 millions of dollars a year. It does not follow that any sudden contraction of the currency, any disturbance of business, should be caused. There are now afloat 400 millions of green-backs and 300 millions of "national" bank-notes. The proposition is, that there shall be 700 millions of green-backs, for the present, and no bank-notes. We might afterwards use the interest we should save (18 millions or perhaps 42 millions) as a sinking-fund for withdrawing half the green-backs, leaving 350 millions in circulation, until "specie payments' shall be resumed; when the convenience of trade will determine how much or how little will be needed. As soon as this process of reduction shall begin, the "national" banks will begin to In a former number of The Living Age, there was a table, showing, that if only the eighteen millions a year, which is now paid to the "national "banks for no reason whatever, should be made into a sinking fund, it would pay off the whole debt in forty years. As soon as the nation shall reform its currency, and not before, its credit will be good, and it can borrow all that it shall need at five per cent, and perhaps at four. It should not voluntarily go into the market until it shall have set its house in order. It has been proposed, that, when a new loan shall be made, it shall be with a stipu lation that the income derived from it shall not be subject to taxation. This, of course, will be the case with such part as may be held abroad; but no such discrimination can be made in favour of our own citizens, without producing great discontent, and eventually diminishing our credit. While we write, we have a letter from a sagacious friend in New York (Edward W. Dunham, Esq., President of the Corn Exchange Bank), suggesting, that, when the new loan shall be called for, it shall be so arranged as that the principal shall be payable at the pleasure of the Government, but only after such time (say twenty, thirty, or forty years) as may be necessary to command present success. "ANOTHER WAY." WHEN lovely woman, Lump of Folly, And warns each man of sense away, From Fraser's Magazine. SALONS.* THE club is an essentially masculine institution; the seat, the central point, of female influence is the salon; and an important social question is consequently involved in the fact that clubs have multiplied and thriven in England, whilst the salon can scarcely be said to have taken root or prospered largely out of France. So little, indeed, is the institution understood in this country, that we shall probably be required at the outset to explain the precise meaning of the term; and we are not aware that we can supply a better description or definition than we find at the commencement of one of the books which we propose to use as the text-books of this article: When we speak of salons,' says Madame Ancelot, it is well understood that a salon has nothing in common with those numerous fêtes where we crowd together people, strangers to one another, who do not converse, and who are there only to dance, to hear music, or to.display, dresses more or less sumptuous. No; that is not what is called a salon. A salon is an intimate re union, which lasts several years, where we get acquainted and look for one another; where we are glad to meet, and with good reason. The persons who receive are a tie between those who are invited, and this tie is the closer when the recognised merit of a clever woman (femme d'esprit) has formed it.' 'But many other things are required to form a salon: congenial habits, ideas, and tastes; that urbanity which quickly establishes relations, allows talking with everybody without being acquainted-which in the olden time was a proof of good education, and of familiarity with circles to which none were admitted otherwise than on the supposition of their being worthy to mix with the greatest and best. This continual exchange of ideas makes known the value of each: he or she is most welcome who brings most agreeability, without regard to rank or fortune; and one is appreciated, I might almost say loved, for what one has of real merit: the true king of this kind of republic is the mind (esprit) !' Les Salons de Paris: Foyers Fteints. Par Rahel und Ihre Zeit. Von E. SCHMIDT WEISSEN- WHARTON. In Two Volumes. London, 1863. 'There were formerly in France many salons of this kind, which have given the tone to all the salons of Europe. The most thest the art of saying good things well, of pouring forth mind, of diffusing it to be born anew, and of multiplying it by contact. Many of these salons have acquired celebrity, and if they have been less numerous and less before the public in our time, it is that, in general, intelligence has been more actively employed, and moreover that politics have made such a noise as prevented anything from being heard.' cited were those in which was carried far Politics, we regret to say, have had a still worse effect on France than preventing gone far towards preventing anything from anything from being heard; they have also being said- that is, anything frankly, freely, or carelessly; anything which could be twisted to the disadvantage of the speaksential to the salon. It is for this reason er; and the complete absence of distrust is esprobably that the printed experiences of Mesdames de Bassanville and Ancelot break off some twenty years back, when gentlemen and ladies had not begun to look round them in a crowded room before The work of the Comtesse de Bassanville is a posthumous publication, with a preface by the editor, who states that the hapthe limits of two worlds, at the moment py apropos of her birth placed her on when the old society which was crumbling, was confronted with the new society which was preparing to succeed it. The doors of both, he adds, were opened to her by her connexions. Her sister-in-law, the Duchesse de Laviano, Neapolitan ambassadress at Paris, introduced her to the Princess de Vaudemont. Her father was the intimate friend of Isabey, the painter; and one of her uncles had made the campaign of Egypt with Bourrienne. She was also related to the great parliamentary families of Provence, through whom she became free of the salon of the Comtesse de Rumfort. Madame Ancelot, the wife of the dramatic author and academician, was herself the mistress of a very agreeable salon, which boasted a fair sprinkling of notabilities She was honourably distinguished both in literature and art, and her attractions were not limited to her intellectual gifts or accomplishments. She was in as well as of the world which she undertakes to portray; originals. A farmer general, named Grimod she puts down little or nothing at second- de la Reynière, was conspicuous in this charhand; and her sketches are almost always acter, if only by dint of his hair, which was redolent of reality and life. She is so wed- curled, and puffed to a breadth and height ded to self-dependence, that she has not even ventured on an introductory retrospect of the brilliant salons or circles of antecedent periods, like those when the Précieuses assembled in the Hôtel Rambouillet, or the Du Deffants and D'Epinays (as described by Sydney Smith) violated all the common duties of life, and gave very pleasant little suppers.' The only instance in which she trusts to tradition, confirmed by personal impressions of a later date, is in describing the salon of Madame Le Brun, which was founded prior to the Revolution of 1789, and, renewed repeatedly at long intervals, survived the Revolution of July. Madame Le Brun was largely endowed with all the chief requisites for the position at which she aimed. She had beauty, charm of manner, and celebrity-that kind of celebrity, too, which necessarily brings the possessor into direct contact with other first-class celebrities. She was the female Reynolds or Lawrence of her day: perhaps the most successful portrait-painter of her sex that ever lived. She was elected a member of all the continental academies of painting, and was on the point of being invested with the cordon of St. Michael, when the old monarchy was swept away. She visited most of the European capitals, where her fame had preceded her; and her success kept pace with her fame. She was received by Catherine of Prussia with the same favour which had been lavished on her by her first patroness, the ill-starred Marie Antoinette; and she sent from Italy a picture (her portrait of Paësillo) which, when placed alongside of a picture by David, extorted from him the bitter avowal: One would believe my picture painted by a woman and the portrait of Paesillo by a man.' It was Mademoiselle de Staal, we believe, who, when her little room was full, called out to the fresh arrivals on the staircase, Attendez que mes siéges soient vides.' Madame Le Brun was frequently in the same predicament in her small apartment of the Rue de Cléry, where, for want of vacant chairs, marshals of France might be seen seated on the floor; a circumstance rendered memorable by the embarrassment of Marshal de Noailles, an enormously fat man, who was once unable to get up again. The Comte de Vaudreuil, the Prince de Ligne, Diderot, D'Alembert, Marmontel, La Harpe, with a host of great ladies, were amongst the throng, which also comprised a fair allowance of that rendered the putting on of his hat an impossibility. A short man who occupied the seat behind him at the opera, finding the view completely obstructed, contrived little by little to perforate a seeing place through the mass with his fingers. Grimod de la Reynière never stirred during the operation or the performance, but when the piece terminated, he drew a comb from his pocket and calmly presented it to the gentleman, with these words: Monsieur, I have permitted you to see the ballet at your ease, not to interfere with your amusement: it is now your turn not to interfere with mine: I am going to a supper party; you must see that I cannot appear there with my hair in its present state, and you will have the goodness to arrange it properly, or to-morrow we must cross swords.' The peaceful alternative was laughingly accept ed, and they parted friends. A similar adventure is related of Turenne in his youth, and ended less agreeably for the future hero, who had cut off the side curls of an elderly chevalier in the pit, in order to see better. The offended senior was one of the best fencers in Paris, and Turenne was severely wounded in the duel that ensued. Not long after his recovery, he fell in with his old antagonist, who insisted on a renewal of the combat, with the pleasing intimation that a third or fourth meeting might still leave the satisfaction of wounded honour incomplete. Turenne was run through the sword-arm, and confined to his room for some weeks, at the end of which he was thinking how best to evade the further consequences of his indiscretion, when he was opportunely relieved by the death of the chevalier. The name is peculiar, and a Grimod de la Reynière was the editor and principal writer of the Almanach des Gourmands, which set the fashion of that semi-serious mode of discussing gastronomic subjects in and which Brillat-Savarin shone preeminent, which, we trust, will henceforth be dropped, for nothing can be worse than the taste and style of recent plagiarists and imitators. It was Grimod de la Reyniére who said that a gala dinner occupied him five hours, although he could despatch an ordinary one in three hours and a half; cautioning his readers not to infer that he was a bad breakfast eater. Another of Madame le Brun's habitués, the Compte d'Espinchal, prided himself on know |