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posely abstained from any description of you may follow out your study of its sohis dealings with the great powers of cial history without going farther than its Christendom; but he was always contend- picture galleries. You may rely with abing against one or more of them, and his solute confidence on the realism of Dutch relations with Philip of Spain, though his art, and, strange to say, the most capable staunchest friend, partook of the charac- artists have been as faithful as their less ter of constant diplomatic warfare. In gifted fellows. It does not take you back fact he had the disposition of a despot, and to prehistoric days when skin-clad Frisians opposition ever roused him to wrath. Thus and Batavians were damning, dyking, and he fretted himself to death. In the spring draining - reclaiming the drowned alluviof 1590 his health and strength manifested an from the incursions of the sea and the unmistakable symptoms of decline. Yet ocean. Nor had it even begun to blossom he would not listen to, his physicians, but when the venerable Rhenish school had preferred to doctor himself. On Ascen- already been made illustrious by forgotten sion Day he was seized with an attack of predecessors of Meister Stephen and Meisfever during the services of High Mass in ter Wilhelm, of Cologne. But it dates St. Peter's. With the advancing heats the from the period when chivalrous courage, visitations of fever became more frequent, constancy, and self-sacrifice had given Holand they came on when he was presiding land an actual history, when its substanover congregations or giving audiences to tial burghers found money to spare for the ambassadors. Yet on the 13th of matters comparatively frivolous, and when August he not only held a consistory, but artists ranked among the recognized guilds spoke with marvellous vigour. There was a that were decently remunerated like other great scarcity of food, and banditti had re- handicrafts. From the first, Dutch artists appeared on his territories. He had pledged turned their attention to the real, making himself to extirpate famine and brigand- little pretension to inspiration and showthe two great reproaches of his pre- ing few signs of imagination. The nation decessor's reign- and their resuscitation was Protestant and practical, and had it cut him to the quick and probably hast- been far less practical than it was the time ened his end. On the 21st of August he had gone by for seeking popular subjects addressed the Congregation of France, in the sanctified legends and the holy suabused Philip, whom he compared to Neb- perstitions of the southern Church. The uchadnezzar, and expressed a belief that painters of the Netherlands had not even Henry of France would be converted. imagination sufficient to aspire to embody Then he became incoherent, and that night the memories of the glorious deeds by the doctors despaired of his living till which their ancestors had immortalized morning. Yet he rose with the day, dined themselves in making their country. Here off a melon and some wine, and trans- and there, the exceptions proving the rule, acted business with the governor of Rome. in some dingy room in the town-halls of During the next few days he seemed to Leyden or Haarlem, you may chance on a rally, but by Sunday the 26th the precari- scene from the stirring sieges, where some ousness of his condition might be gathered one with the soul of a sign painter has from the submissiveness with which he cleverly missed the spirit of his subject. listened to his physicians. The following But there are no great national battle-picmorning he heard mass, and trying to tures of those struggles of the War of Inkneel during the Elevation, was held up dependence when Dutchmen fought Spanby an attendant, but swooned. All day iards waist deep in the water; and while he suffered horribly, but contended with Backhuysen and Vandervelde launch fleets amazing tenacity with death. Towards of peaceful merchantmen and herringsundown tremendous thunderstorm boats, there are no souvenirs of Lumé de burst over Rome, and whilst it was at its la Marck and his desperate beggars of the height the citizens heard with stupefaction | sea. It is a loss, no doubt; and yet the and sorrow that the great Pontiff was no stranger gains far more than he loses. He feels, if he does not confess, the winning charins of conscientiousness, patience, and perseverance. If he has little excitement, he has a great deal of quiet enjoyment. He is never elevated above earthly things by such a transcendent masterpiece of genius as the "Transfiguration," nor en tranced by a face so heavenly as the Madonna's of San Sisto. But, on the other

more.

a

From The Pall Mall Gazette.
DUTCH ART.

No one need go to Holland to know the
country, and if you do find yourself there

town he happened to live in. He did so accordingly, and as there was no room anywhere for the play of his fancy, he had to endeavour to outshine his rivals by assiduous observation and minute and meritori

hand, he is seldom or never disappointed, tional scenery, but as a rule the Dutchman by a failure of some master he has taught could do no better than look out of his himself to love; nor is he disenchanted by window or stroll to the nearest gate of the the introduction of tawdry stage properties out of keeping with some sublime mise en scène. There are Madonnas by Titian, by Murillo, nay even by Raphael himself, which give you the impression of indifferent and somewhat vulgar reproduc-ous fidelity. tions of the artists' grandest and sweetest The consequence is, as we said, that any conceptions. Italians generally, and the of us may see Holland without going there. school of Venice especially, are too apt to People who care little for painting, and deck the Virgin with jewels and robe the know as little of physical geography-who, Fathers in silks and brocades, while the in spite of the works of Salvator Rosa, are simple fishermen of Galilee find themselves ignorant whether the Abruzzi is a country grouped round a board which is loaded of mountains or a maremma are perfectly with dainties and groans with golden plate. familiar with " A Dutch Landscape." Land There is nothing of such extravagance in them at Rotterdam, and let them leave the Dutch school. In the first place, the that city by the railway to the Hague, and talent or genius of the artists may they seem to be as much at home as if always pretty much be depended upon to they were travelling on the South Western turn out much the same quality of work or the London and Brighton. Far as eye as we might expect of a people whose tem- can reach stretches that dull flat of rank, perament is rather solid than spiritual. rich, unwholesome-looking green they have In the second, the painter paints precisely seen so often, with the shadowy sails of what he has seen, and although he some- the more distant windmills vaguely breaktimes scandalizes you by a touch of coarse-ing the horizon. There is the straight ness that might have been spared, at least network of ditches arranged rectangularly you must pay homage to his honesty. to drain the superabundant moistures into and honesty in art carries its own reward, the broad canal with its deep-laden barges like virtue in morals. In landscape, for and an occasional trekschuit. Dotted about example, a Salvator who has nursed his everywhere are the groups of great coarsegenius in the savage solitudes of the bred cattle, often watery sky-blue in their Abruzzi may carry his recollections with colour like the milk they yield in such prohim to Rome, and reproduce them with the fusion the cattle that enliven the pieces vigour that carries irresistible conviction of Cuyp and Paul Potter. Here and there, in the quiet seclusion of the palace of his at long intervals, stands in its brick enRoman patrons. But the picturesque gen- closure one of the bald, red-roofed farmius of a Salvator working upon a solid houses; or, much more frequently, you foundation of observation and experience pass by a windmill, the sturdy miller, red is sure to betray a score of tolerably com- nightcap on head and china pipe in mouth, petent imitators into weaknesses and indis-standing in the doorway on the top of the cretion. Either these works become servile copies of his failures, and as painful as those of the professed copyists you see drudging for a living in every gallery you visit, or else they trust for success to general picturesqueness of effect, and draw on the imagination for the details of their artificial nature. Thanks to the character of his country, the Dutch landscape-painter would have been saved from all snares of the sort, even had he been more predisposed to fall into them. Except for the dreary lines of the sand dunes, from Utrecht westward there is not a roll in the ground that can be dignified with the name of an eminence; the water stagnates; and Hobbema and Ruysdael had to go far over the Dutch frontiers to fetch home their rushing waterfalls. Hobbema and Ruysdael occasionally did go abroad for sensa

ladder, superintending the lowering of the
sacks into the rough, broad-wheeled cart
which the grey horse has backed against
the wall. With the boor who drives, and
the miller's man and the miller's wife in
her clean-starched cap with the lappets
pinned back at the ears, the group might
have been standing there since Wouverman
or Jan Steen took them for a study.
that it by any means follows that the
painters came for their studies to this par-
ticular mill, for similar scenes are repeat-
ing themselves at thousands of mills over
the length and breadth of the country, as
they have been repeating themselves for
centuries. And these few miles of journey
to the Hague have sampled for us the gen-
eral surface of Holland, yet have scarcely
given us a single new idea, and at most
only deepened or refreshed our previous

impressions. We may dispense with Mur-peeps out under the boorish exterior.
ray and Baedeker when we take for our Look at that venerable trio of village
guides the ideas we have picked up, al- fathers the sage in the middle knitting
most unconsciously, among the works of his long, bald, brown forehead as he spells
the Dutch masters scattered through our a meaning out of the news-letter of the
English galleries.
day, while those on either side are bending
Rural Holland must always remain what across him, listening with eyes and ears
it always has been, but the cities have and mouths. No wonder it is hard to
changed somewhat with the manners and hear him read, for the noise in the place
customs of the citizens. It is the older must be distracting. There is the screech
Holland you have an opportunity of study- of the fiddle from where the musician sits
ing in the galleries of the Hague and Am- throned high on his cask, and you can see
sterdam. You have seen Rotterdam, a that the peasants who are clattering out
vulgar Venice as Hood called it, with its of time to the music are shouting with the
spick and span new stuccoed houses, its full force of their lungs, while laughter is
varnished doors, its green window sashes, shaking the sides of the fat hostess who is
and its bright brass knockers. You will standing with arms akimbo, and of that
see the Hague, the new diplomatic capital, other ancient with the blue-veined beer
and Amsterdam, the rich commercial capi- jug in his hand. You have had enough of
tal, and then, doubtless, you will hurry out the vulgar debauch and want something
of the country, without wandering up to from more refined society. Very well:
the Texel or away into the wastes of turn to that Terburg, and you have it.
Gröningen. You may visit some of the Only it is as dull and uncharacteristic as
quaint old-fashioned towns - Alkmaar, for fashionable life generally is, and the con-
instance that are now either in decay or scientious painter has made no attempt to
conserving painfully the faded remains of idealize. A lady, young, fat, and fair, in
their former splendour. So look well at pearls and a white satin stomacher, is lis-
that picture of Delft, and it may very tening to the vapid nothings of a handsome
probably tempt you to go thither. What and stupid cavalier in inlaid cuirass and
can be more perfect in its way than that Terburg's inevitable slashed satin trunk
stretch of weed-grown moat, sleeping half hose. It is a relief to turn to the Back-
in the shadow, half in the sunshine, under huysen, where that high-built galley with
the venerable city wall, with its bartizans the red lion of the Netherlands at her bows
and turrets and embattled gate, and the is heeling to a fresh breeze in spite of her
steep, moss-grown house gables, rising own exceeding stiffness, while the lighter
behind it. You feel it is a bit of Delft, a fishing craft, as they scud for shelter,
couple of hundred years old, painted down pitch over the curling crests of the green
to the very cracks in the bricks; but if you billows. We need hardly talk of such
care to verify it, do so by all means. The world-famed paintings as Paul Potter's
bit remains still, to speak to the pains- bull or Rembrandt's school of anatomy.
taking fidelity of the painter, and, for any Only in that Potter the animal is as he
better idea it may give you of Delft, you was in the very flesh-it seems odd the
will have had your journey for your pains. twist of a little tuft behind a bull's shoul-
But, after all, architectural subjects are der should have been immortalized — and
tame, and what you care for more is the the judges who assisted at the Hague ex-
humours of old Dutch life, and a glance at hibition some weeks ago might have classed
the familiar habits of the people. You
have only to choose among a dozen of
chroniclers in colours, but take Teniers for
choice. There is an interior boors
drinking, of course, smoking, dancing;
low, heavy beams; rude, massive tables;
a vast fireplace, and a rugged earthen
floor. The figures in the background are
types, you may still check them off any-
where, with no necks and no waists, and
calves a trifle thicker than their thighs.
But those that are the more prominent are
obviously portraits; the intense and pro-
nounced individuality of each of them!

him with any of the beasts that were shown in the yard. Nor have we left ourselves time now to speak of the portraits, although in that primary virtue of uncompromising fidelity Van der Helst must take rank even before the unrivalled Velasquez. The jolly burghers who fêted the peace of Munster will live on in their every lineanent till the colours and the canvas perish by age or accident. For, like truth, Dutch art is eternal, and must always win admiration although it may find few enthusiastic worshippers.

A REMARKABLE MAN.

THE following sketch of a humble citizen of Amesbury, by John G. Whittier, appeared in the last number of the villa

ger:

fear. All personal auxieties and soliertudes were unknown. The outward world was phantasmal and unreal - he was utterly beyond its common temptations, and looked with simple wonder upon the struggle for wealth and place - the strifes and The present number of the Villager ambitions of sects and parties about him. chronicles, in its obituary department, the To art-if we except a love of music - be death of Henry Taylor of Amesbury. was indifferent. Even the wonderful open Quiet, unassuming, and simple in all his book of Nature seemed to have no attrachabits, an unlettered workinginan, he gave tion for him. He seemed nearer than any no outward evidence, beyond the reticent one I had ever known, to have realized gravity of his manner, of the profound in- that the things seen are temporal and illutellectual abstraction, the depth of philo- sive, but "the things unseen are eternal." sophic meditation which made up his real He used to quote with much intensity of life. He was no reader probably he meaning, the words which Professor never mastered half a dozen books and Plumbtree attributes to the founder of he felt small interest in the thoughts and Buddhism, on reaching the condition of opinions of others. I remember on the oc- absolute rest. It was a description of his casion of one of my first conversations with own State-in which the Nirvana of the him twenty-five years ago, that I was struck Buddhist the mystic suicide and selfby a remark which indicated a knowledge abnegation of the moslem sufi - the abof Plato. On inquiry, however, I found he sorption into the Divine Will of the Chrishad no idea that such a man ever lived. tian mystics, and "the rest that remaineth I lent him a volume, which he partially for the people of God," seemed to him read, and returned with the simple remark but different names for the same spiritual that he saw that Plato had got hold of experience. It must not be inferred that some of his own ideas." A volume of he was blind to, or neglectful of, the duties Emerson, Alger's Oriental poetry, and the pertaining to time and space. On the New Testament, were the, only books that contrary, he was, in practical matters, of he ever referred to. The latter was his con- sound judgment, prompt to aid and wise stant text-book, and he reproduced the to counsel, a good neighbour and citizen. incidents recorded in the Gospels, with His life was pure; he had no enemies; he wonderful vividness of coloring and clear-cherished no antagonism; what Lord Baness of insight. The words of the Divine Master had for him a depth of meaning which he found difficult to translate into common language; and he was compelled often to make words to express himself. He watched, with absorbing interest, the gradual processes and unfoldings of his own mind, and spoke of them as if he had no personal concern in the matter, regarding his mental movements as impelled by a power not his own. He had only to wait and observe, like the recluse of Wordsworth, the revelations of

"the powers, That of themselves our minds impress." He was Oriental in his cast of mind; he would have been quite at home with Chinese bonzes, Buddhist priests, Mohammedan dervishes and Christian monks of Mt. Athos. Yet he was never gloomy or ascetic; he had a quick sense of the ludicrous, and could easily put himself in the bystander's position and smile at his own peculiarities and inconsistencies.

He had somehow reached a state of absolute quietude-a region of ineffable calm, blown over by no winds of hope or

con calls "the colors of good and evil" blended in the white light of his conception of the Divine order. Every way a man noteworthy and remarkable, there are many who will love to recall the rare phenomena of his words and life.

He has passed the gates of the Great Mystery; and to-day, while the earth is closing over all that was mortal, I seem to hear him, as in one of our latest conversations, repeat the words of Jesus to Martha : "I am the Resurrection and the Life; whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die."

From The Saturday Review. PRUSSIA AND GERMANY. THE Lower House of the Prussian Parliament has wisely decided to adopt the suggestions of the Government, and without further discussion to pass the new County Reform Bill in the shape in which it has now been drawn up. The Ministry took two of the leaders of the Liberal majority into their confidence, and the

slight changes necessary to give the Upper the aims of a reform merely to get the House an excuse for reconsidering its credit of having carried out this reform in vote were quietly agreed on. The only a consistent and logical manner. alteration of any importance is that some- The Bill itself is one of very mild charthing more of their old police jurisdiction acter, and of a very narrow scope. It fixes is still to be retained by the feudal pro- on the county as the new unit of adminprietors than was at first intended. But istration. It recognizes below the county, the whole framework of the Bill is the first communes, and then groups of comsame, and the determination of the Gov-munes associated for such objects as ernment to carry it remains unshaken, drainage and sanitary supervision which although the Ministry very properly de- cannot be undertaken satisfactorily by any clined to explain to the Lower House the single commune. It provides that the precise measures which they are prepared County Assembly shall be chosen so as to to adopt in order to bend the Peers to give the inhabitants other than the feudal their will. If the measure can be carried proprietors an equal share in the represenwithout any definite threats of what will tation, whereas at present these feudal happen in case the Peers remain obsti- proprietors are virtually masters of everynate, so much the better; and it would thing. This Assembly is to choose a Counhave been a needless insult to the Peers if cil, and also a President of the Council, subthe process by which they are to be ject to the ratification of the Crown, and brought to submission had been explained the President is to be the organ of comelsewhere than in their own House. The munication between the Crown and the Polish deputies appear to have asked how county. The main value of the Bill is that it happened that the proposed reforms it gives to the organization of each counwere not to be extended to their districts, ty a simple character with a well-defined and they were frankly told that the re-gradation of authorities, while it makes forms which in East Prussia were ex- the basis of government representative, pected to introduce a more liberal system and gives a fair share in the representation of administration would work in an exact- to the humbler classes of the population. ly opposite direction if they were intro- Some of the fendal privileges of the landduced into districts where those invested ed proprietors are still to be retained, and with new powers would be under the con- it is obvious that, with the influence of trol of the Ultramontane clergy. At any rank and wealth and the prestige of cenrate there is no pretentious nonsense about turies of unquestioned superiority, the nothe infant Liberalism of the Prussian Gov- bles would exercise a power in the counernment. It does not appear to think that ties even after the Bill was carried which there are universal principles of govern- might satisfy any reasonable men. ment which apply equally everywhere. It Upper House objects to the Bill not bewants to strengthen its hands against the cause it would in real life deprive the noparty which is reactionary in religion and bles of much power, but because, by forcin politics; and it thinks that one mode ing them to acquire and use power in a of effecting its object is to breathe new life new way, it would hurt the feelings of the into the representative government of cer- good and gratify the aspirations of the tain provinces. Those who will get more bad the good being those who cling to power there will be men anxious to secure the Prussia of the past, and the bad being their own local independence as against those who cling to the Prussia of the futhe great feudal proprietors, and men al- ture. It is important to seize on these lied by education, relationship, and the two characteristics of the Government ties of commerce with the Liberal inhabit-policy in this matter, for they represent ants of the larger provincial towns. Such the leading principles of the policy of the men are to be encouraged because they Prussian Government in recent years. are likely hereafter to be the best allies of A reform is proposed, and on examination the Government in its endeavour to estab- it is found that it is in itself a tiny reform; lish the union of Germany on a Liberal and in the next place there is no intention basis. To give equal advantages to men of carrying out a similar reform where it not at all inclined to assert any inde- would not suit the Government to do so, pendence, men habitually obedient to an merely because consistency is pressed on Ultramontane clergy, and averse both by it. This is exactly the way in which habit and training to any modes of thought Prussia has been going on ever since or action on which their superiors would Prince Bismarck ruled its fortunes. It is look with suspicion, would be to sacrifice a policy to which many objections may be the reality to the shadow, and to frustrate made, which is often marked with signs of

The