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courts not the applause of the uncultured multitude. Our English school, ranged in the British Picture Galleries, at present tends to "the Romantic." We may quote Baily's Eve,' Durham's Hermione," Macdowell's Day Dream,' Marshall's Griselda,' as leading examples of this winning style. Without quoting the names of individual artists, we would say generally that our English sculpture is wanting in the precision, certainty, and power which come of knowledge, and that, therefore, it gladly takes refuge in a sentiment. As belonging to a somewhat naturalistic style-Nature as known in the middle ages-we may quote Woolner's 'Lord Bacon'-a figure strong in individual character. This artist's admirable busts of Tennyson, Sedgewick, and Maurice, are likewise nature, in the reading and sense of a Pre-Raphaelite picture, every wrinkle a facsimile, only surpassed, indeed, by Denner's portraits, and not unlike them. The works of Signor Monti are striking examples of "sensation sculpture." Lastly, as belonging to direct and vigorous naturalism, we must not forget one of the most original and nervous works of the year, The Grapplers,' by Molin, a bronze group from Sweden, placed in the centre of the nave.

The vast territories in the International Exhibition devoted to raw materials and manufactures extend over an area of twenty acres ! No living individual is supposed to have traversed every square foot of this rich domain, and we shall not attempt to describe or criticise what is beyond the strength of any one human being to compass. For the moment let us rest content with the echo of general opinion. It is then, we believe, on all hands conceded, that during the last ten years arts and manufactures have made not only appreciable but in some directions incredible advance. It is, too, generally admitted that our English manufacturers, in the fierce competition, are found to

hold their own. English glass, porcelain, pottery, furniture, ironcastings, and works in the precious metals, are all pronounced first-rate, and can be only approached or surpassed by Continental rivals in points of some direct specialty. We believe, however, it will be found, notwithstanding the training given to many thousand students in the Government Schools of Art, that our English manufacturers are still, in a great degree, dependent upon foreign artists for designs. Of this we will give two signal examples: 'The Poetry of Great Britain,' manufactured by Mr Hancock, but designed and modelled by Signor Monti; and a Vase, figures in alto relievo, executed at the command of the late Prince Consort, by Messrs Hunt and Raskell, but designed and chased by a French artist, fortunately for us well known in England-Antoine Vechte.

The year 1862, a sequel to 1851, will long remain memorable in the annals of Art. The history of the past should encourage but not absolutely satisfy us. The present Exhibition is not a standpoint for complaisant stagnation, but a startpoint to further progression. We have still each day around us, in our national monuments, public edifices, and our too utilitarian manufactures, melancholy proof that England has yet much to learn, and that our artists, manufacturers, and people are as yet but at the portals of the great temple of Art. It is possible that another ten years may again test our capability and our advance. The past and the future, then, alike demand that England's efforts should not relax. Art-education throughout the length and breadth of the land, extending from village school to university, securing to artisans practical skill and to our future legislators a knowledge of essential principles-this becomes for us each year more and more a national necessity. The Great Exhibition must win for us these benefits, otherwise it will fail in its highest and true intent.

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JEFFREYS'S BRITISH CONCHOLOGY-SNAILS.

WE are all born zoologists. The hunting instinct still exists in every man in some shape or other; not destroyed by civilisation, but only developed and modified into a hundred ramifications. When he has no longer to dig for his roots, or hunt down his game and his venison -when the forced potatoes and strawberries come to table in due season, or out of season, by grace of the gardener, and the steaks and the mutton find their way into his kitchen with no labour of his own spear and bow-he takes to hunting something else. It matters wonderfully little what. If the animal instincts are still strong within him, he sends his horses (if he has them) down to Melton or Market Harborough, and gallops madly after an animal which, after all, is not good to eat, which he preserves and cherishes at much pains and cost, and then congratulates himself upon destroying as vermin. Orif he votes that slow-he goes off to Norway to kill salmon, to Central Africa to shoot elephants and hippopotami, to the Nile to slaughter flamingoes, or to the North Sea to have his "Season with the Seahorses." Supposing his tastes to take a quieter range, he rents his moor in Scotland, or walks, rod in hand, on an angling tour through Wales. Do none of these suit him, he becomes, in some form or other, a naturalist or a physiologist; and, instead of a stable of thoroughbreds or a double barrelled breechloader, he sets up a geological hammer or an aquarium. He hunts animals which have been dead for ages, or which, in popular belief, are not animals at all. In very quiet men-where the softening processes of social refinement have worn away not merely the caudal appendage of the original type, but

much of the original instinct-the natural love of prey takes the form of a mere love of collecting. Such men become hunters of books, accumulators of old manuscripts, autographs, copper tokens-or even of postage-stamps, which seems the new female form of the collecting mania. The man, in short, is miserable who has nothing to hunt.

But zoology-the capture of a living prey in some form-is plainly the natural instinct still. We are not in the least inclined to deny the higher motives which may and do influence the student of nature. The naturalist, if he deserves the name, feels, no doubt, a deep and absorbing interest in the study of the wonders of creation. But it is equally true, whether he be inclined or not to confess it, that the motive which has first led him to such investigations, and furnished him with patience in the pursuit, has been as much a natural propensity

call it what you will-as in the fisherman or the fox-hunter. The love of analysis in the philosopher, is but what scent is in the bloodhound: both are acting in accordance with a law of their nature, and so far are acting right. When a widower marries a second wife "for the sake of his children ". when a politician accepts office "in the hope of being able to serve his country," we all accept the avowed motives as a perfectly honest statement; knowing, at the same time, that office is honourable and pleasant, and believing that the lady is not altogether disagreeable. We trust our friends the naturalists, who are generally very pleasant people, will not accuse us of ignoring the higher aspects of their pursuits, because we believe a natural instinct to underlie them in every Heaven help us all, if the

case.

British Conchology.' Vol. I. Land and Freshwater Shells. By John Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. Van Voorst.

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commonest instincts of our nature never lead to good.

The hunting-passion shows itself very early. The child forsakes the handsomest and most expensive plaything you can give him for something alive"-the uglier and the "nastier," in nurserymaid's language, the more attractive; it looks more like the real thingferæ naturæ. A kitten may do very well for girls; but to the boy -unless his honest natural tastes have been corrupted by the aforesaid nurserymaid's ideas of "nastiness"-the young bat and the newt are much more interesting pets, and there is intense excitement in their capture, dead or alive. Unfortunately, this being "very fond of animals" admits too often of the same explanation as in Master Thomas Tulliver's case-"fond of throwing stones at them;" but, even then, it is merely the same passion in the more savage and unsophisticated form; it does not necessarily imply any real cruelty of disposition: the act may be cruel, but the intention is not so. The grouse might complain of the gun quite as reasonably as the frogs of the stones; the fact of the former being eatable is but the flimsiest of excuses. And when the sportsman sells his game wholesale to the London poulterer, we confess our own sympathies could go more readily with the poacher or the schoolboy.

The interest in animal life continues strong, even where this innate hunting propensity has, from circumstances, been little developed, or been weakened from want of opportunities for its exercise. It would be quite impossible to raise, in the majority of ordinary people, any real enthusiasm for literature, for machinery, for art or science of any kind. Even pictures are comparatively indifferent to them that is, to their eyes the broadly-coloured lithograph is as pleasing as the most delicate touch of the master. But show them something alive, explain familiarly

its structure and its habits, and nine out of ten become interested at once. All other tastes are to a great extent a matter of education. It will take many generations, with all our art-galleries and schools of design, to educate the eye of the million to any real appreciation of the beauty of form and the harmonies of colour; but the phenomena of life have a natural interest for all. We are told that, in the International Exhibition, the skilled workmen cluster round the machinery, the ladies admire the "pretty things," the art-enthusiasts, or those who wish to be considered so, throng the picture galleries and criticise the statuary; but every soul that has a pair of eyes, from the peer to the pedlar, goes with an unanimous interest to see an infant hippopotamus or a new monkey. It appears to be rather the fashion for scientific naturalists to joke about the undisguised contempt which village ignorance shows for the lower forms of animal life which they themselves are at so much pains to collect and examine; we confess that we rather suspect them of a little harmless exaggeration on this point; a quaint expression of astonishment upon Jack's" part serves perhaps, occasionally, to carry off, by way of foil, a scientific observation which the writer finds it necessary to impress upon the too careless reader. We can only say that we ourselves have been surprised to see a common labourer become strongly interested, after a few weeks' excavating work, in the palæontologist's researches; handling the old bones tenderly," as if he loved them," speculating, in his own fashion, as to their probable owners, and evidently picking up more of even the scientific nomenclature than he cared to commit to his own powers of pronunciation.

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should put on increasing attractions for this hard-worked and shopbound generation. We cannot all of us rent grouse-shootings, or go to "The Shires" for our hunting, even on Mr Sawyer's economical principles; we cannot get even the commonest fishing and shooting, or sport of any kind, without expense and inconvenience, or having to ask favours of one's neighbours, which is worse. Let us be very thankful that, while the pressure of civilisation cuts these natural pleasures short, and confines them to the few in our thickly-peopled island, education is at the same time advancing all the natural sciences, cultivating healthful tastes, and pointing out to the student of nature a wide and open field in which no man will hinder him.

Conchology has scarcely kept pace in popular estimation with its rival sciences. It may have been so far happy in its retirement, that it has hitherto escaped the questionable honours of criticism. It was commonly considered to be-what it is not a mere collection and classification of shells, so as to look pretty in a cabinet. Much that was called conchology in days gone by no doubt went very little further. Shells were even scoured, and polished, and beautified, by some who passed as conchologists, until some of their most interesting characteristics were almost lost-a process as heterodox in the sight of a true collector as the polishing off the precious rust from the relics of the antiquary. A cabinet of shells was considered rather as a young lady's apology for natural history than anything else, though it was vaguely supposed that there was here and there a man who had a mania for collecting, and was supposed to know something about what he picked up. "The Conchologist" who formed the ideal of our own childhood we remember distinctly. He was to be seen in the windows of sea-side curiosity-shopsa little figure, with his name very properly labelled at the bottom,

with a head in which lobster's eyes were set, a limpet-shell forming a Chinese-looking hat, and, for the rest of him, literally a man of shells, clothed in a fantastic drapery of coloured sea-weed, and presenting altogether a Robinson-Crusoe sort of appearance, not without interest to the youthful mind. An "Entomologist," we remember, used to be frequently his companion-made up of beetles chiefly; in the individual whom we rather think came into our own possession as "a present from Brighton," a large dried spider formed an appropriate hand with outspread fingers; altogether a more unpleasant and uncleanlooking personage. We will not say, at this distance of time, that we quite expected to meet either the conchologist or the entomologist of real life in such entirely professional costume; still-as Fraser Tytler could not help forming a notion of a "Rural" Dean as "going about with a daisy in his hat"-there did seem a fitness in the nature of things that some hint of the professional status should transpire in the outward man.

After all, one is led to wonder sometimes how it is that we do not all grow up conchologists. To judge from the numberless figures to be seen in summer holiday-time on every coast, of all sizes and ages, wandering about at low water, and stooping down and poking amongst the debris of the last tide, or routing in holes in the rocks, one would think that the habits of the mollusca were the most popular of all studies. It is puzzling to know what ordinary people do pick up on the seashore, or what they expect to find. The industry of the children in that way is, of course, easily accounted for. To them there is, in the first place, the delight of either taking off shoes and stockings, and wading ad libitum (an indulgence to which it is pleasant to see that mammas and nurses have of late years given in), or of getting thoroughly wet through to the detriment of the same garments-always a delight

ful contravention of the proprieties. To them, besides, everything is treasure-trove, from a dead conger to a live sand-hopper. But those middle-aged females! it ought to be nothing less than an intense devotion to science that can induce them to forget the cat-like abhorrence of water which most of them have in their inland characters, and to stand for hours, as we have watched them with unfeigned amusement, stooping over pools and poking in the sand, in the most ridiculous of all attitudes under the difficulties of modern costume, making such an unnecessarily liberal display to the spectator of what, by an equally liberal figure of speech, we will call their ankles. Those

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common objects of the sea-side," and their mysterious occupation, were the subject of much meditation on our part long before Mr Leech's clever sketch immortalised them. Sea-anemones, no doubt, we shall be told, are the object of search; but this passion for poking and picking up existed long before nerves went out and actinia came into fashion; when those animals would have been rejected with disgust by most of the fair discoverers, with some imprecation of feminine those horrid ignorance against jelly-fish." It must be the entire strangeness of marine forms, animal and vegetable, which so fascinates the most careless inland observers. We tread upon beetles and crush out insect life, without a thought, in the familiar forms of the way side; the various species of grass are to most eyes of no more interest than so many worsteds in nature's carpet. But on the sea-shore, below high-water mark, every object we meet with has somewhat of the charm of novelty and wonder. It is a revelation from that fathomless world whose unknown depths are mysteries even to the learned. We feel that every weed and shell we handle might possibly have a tale to tell us of its dwelling and

its companions scarcely less wondrous than if it were a messenger from a world of spirits. We half believe still the pleasant fancy which we accepted as philosophical truth in boyhood, that the hollow shell which we were never tired of putting to our ear could tell in those "sonorous cadences" of coming storms at sea, or sounded only when the tide was coming inwhich it always was, on that theory; it was one of those delightful natural miracles which we are more thankful to the poet for having canonised than to science for explaining away-that the shell had "imbibed its pearly lustre"

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Strange as it may seem, the zoologist finds the sea more fertile in living forms than the land. Homer was less happy than his wont is in his epithets, though he spoke to the popular belief, when he calls earth quoi oos aia, as though "life-teeming" were its distinctive epithet.

66 Barren" the ocean may be, as it is called, but not in the sense of untenanted. Its forms of both animal and vegetable life are widespread and manifold. Mr Darwin declares that the annihilation of a forest would not entail such loss of animal life as the destruction of a bed of sea-weed on the shores of Terra del Fuego. The variety of living marine forms which may come under the observation of any ordinarily curious explorer at the sea-side is far greater than he would have conceived; Mr Kingsley gives nearly a page of names of distinct species which might possibly be found under a single large stone near low-water mark.†

More than one writer has grown eloquent, discoursing of the wonders

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