There is an anecdote told of the duke, | cowering merchants in long robes will be that riding one day with the prince Eu- huddled together in a railway carriage. gene, a storm of rain came on, and they Some interesting letters have been pubsent for their cloaks. Prince Eugene re-lished in Paris newspapers describing the ceived his immediately. Marlborough's construction of the bridge over the Oxus servant did not appear for some time. near Charjui. The town of Charjui itself The duke asking why he did not bring the is eight or nine miles to the south of the cloak before, the answer was sulkily giv- river; and round the Russian barracks en: "I came as soon as I could." The and workshops, which are located only a duke turned to Prince Eugene and said, short distance from the bank, a new settle"Now I would not have that fellow's tem- ment has grown up, called by the Rusper for the whole world." There are two sians the town of Amu Darya. The bridge stories told of Lord Carteret's wonderful will be a wooden one, two miles eight good nature. After a speech made by hundred and fifty-five yards long, supLord Carteret in the House of Lords ported on no fewer than two hundred piers, against Walpole, Lord Aylesford came up each consisting of five piles. General Anand attacked him for his moderation. nenkoff declares that his bridge will be By, Carteret, I know not what you open for traffic by the beginning of the mean by this; but whatever you mean, you new year. It will then be possible to will not find it easy to get any party to transport across the Oxus the rollingtrust you again. I am sure I will not, and stock and other railway material which where you will find fools who will, I don't now lies accumulated on the left bank. know. By -, Carteret, we all know According to the letters written from the you!" Lord Carteret turned to those who Oxus a month ago, one hundred piles had were sitting by him, and only said with been sunk and over thirty yards of the cheerful unconcern, "Poor Aylesford is bridge were already finished. With steamreally angry." Lord Aylesford belonged hammers working on four different points to the quarrelsome Finch family, who at once the whole will, no doubt, be fin frequented Lord Carteret's house as a ished within the time mentioned. neutral territory, and used to talk to each other through him. Lord Carteret was careless about money affairs, and a tradesman put an execution in his house and seized his carriage-horses. Lord Carteret met the man in the hall, was very polite to him, and continued his custom ever afterwards.

When Lord Carteret was dying, Lord Chesterfield said, "When he dies, the best head in England dies too, take it for all and all." Lord Carteret in his lifetime had gloriously fulfilled the promise l.eld out by the proud motto of his ancient family, "Loyal devoir." It will be well for the statesmen of the present time if at the end of their career these two words can be inscribed truly on their tombs.

From St. James's Gazette.
THE OXUS BRIDGE.

THE ferry on "the lone Chorasmian stream" which, according to Mr. Matthew Arnold's strayed reveller, the gods could see, will be replaced before long by a wooden bridge. The horses "strongly swimming" that towed the ferry-boat will make way for a locomotive, directed not by "a chief with shout and shaken spear," but by a Russian engine-driver. The

The correspondents who tell us about the bridge also describe the launch of a river steamboat, the Tsar, on the clayladen waters of the Oxus, close to the temporary terminus of the railway. The ceremony began with a religious service, to which the soldiers of the Turkestan line battalion stationed at Charjui listened with bare heads. "If Russian troops," the French visitor observes, "ever cross the Himalayas, their officers will do well to shorten these open-air services." The Tsar is one hundred feet long and twentytwo feet in beam, and draws only two and one-half feet of water. A sister boat, the Tsarina, was to be launched in a few weeks' time. The shallow draught of these vessels will enable the one to descend the river to Khiva and the other to ascend to Kilif and probably, we are told and can well believe, to Badakshan. When the Tsar had been safely launched, amid the hourras frénétiques of the spectators, a number of distinguished guests, including General Annenkoff and the Bokharan governor of Charjui, were entertained at a banquet by the engineer Butz, under whose supervision the two steamers, which had been made in parts at St. Petersburg, were put together on the banks of the Oxus.

The completion of this bridge over the Oxus and of the railway to Samarkand

will prepare the way for events which are | same relation to the Tashkend governlikely to prove important. It will soon ment as Bhawalpur, or perhaps Cashmere, become no longer possible for the Rus- stands to us, will be swallowed up without sians to tolerate even the shadow of inde- much trouble or ceremony. The ground pendence which has been left to Bokhara. will then be clear for for further action. So long as the Turkestan district to the Of course it is quite possible for Russia east was cut off from Russia proper by even now to move troops to Kilif or wide deserts, only crossed by difficult Kulab, or anywhere along the right bank roads, the formal annexation of the State of the Oxus, without the least fear of opwould have been a waste of energy. But position. But this is not all she wants, the situation is changed. The Russian even for her present purpose. She must garrisons in Samarkand and Tashkend be free to station her troops anywhere will now now be connected by rail with in Bokhara without the risk of exciting the base on the Caspian; and the embar- suspicion, or at any rate without the rassments that would arise from the pro- inconvenience of being asked tiresome longed existence of a semi-independent questions. There will then be nothing to territory wedged in between Russian pos- prevent the exercise of a strong pressure sessions on either side are too awkward to on Afghan Turkestan south of the Oxus; be ignored. Russia cannot go on holding and Maimena, Andkhui, Balkh, and TashMerv and Samarkand with a native State kurghan will be within easy range of Rusintervening much longer. A pretext for sian influence or, if need be, interference. complete annexation will be easily found Only the other day a Russian paper noin disputes about the railway which the ticed with frank satisfaction the weakness Usbegs already regard with disfavor, just of the ameer Abdur Rahman's garrisons as they disliked the construction of a tele- at these points. Should the central power graph line. Some more or less unexpected at Cabul cease for a moment to be felt outrage, committed by a few fanatics, will north of the Hindoo Koosh, Russia's opbe avenged by the advance of a force portunity will have come, and she will be from Samarkand; and the country which ready to seize it. has been allowed till now to stand in the

DEATH RITES IN INDIA. It is but a few | wealthy-surrounded by officiating Brahmins years ago that certain officials in Calcutta and mourning friends. The Parsees dispose erected a large oven, in which the bodies of otherwise of their dead. On a hill in the the Hindoos might be rapidly cremated; but island of Bombay (called by the Europeans this wholesome mode of consuming was re- Malabar Hill) stand, all within a short disjected as heterodox; yet still, on dark nights, tance of each other, the churchyard of the and at the stated places on the holy river, Christians, the cemetery of the Mussulman, from Calcutta upward to Benares, may be the place where the Hindoos cremate their seen the solemn flames that reduce the dead dead, and the Tower of Silence, where the to ashes, and may be heard, on the still air of Parsees leave theirs uncoffined, to be devoured the Indian sky, the wailings that tell of sorrow by the birds of the air. It is a lofty, square and separation. The Mohammedan in India, enclosure, without roof or covering of any as elsewhere, buries his dead; but the Hin- kind. Huge, bloated vultures and kites, doo commits their ashes to Father Gunga, gorged with human flesh, throng lazily the amid the waters of which they are supposed summit of the lofty wall surrounding the stone to be restored to participate in happier scenes pavement, which is divided into three comthan earth can present- -a portion of mythol- partments, wherein the corpses of men, of ogy too vast to be entered on here. To be women, and of children are laid apart, and all without a son to close one's eyes is to ensure nude as they came into the world. Some relanother period of probation and perhaps a ative or friend anxiously watches, at a short degrading one-in this world; hence the law distance, to ascertain which eye is first plucked of adoption, to which we have had so often to out by the birds; and from thence it is inrefer. To die in Benares is to secure immor-ferred whether the soul of the departed is tality; and to die on the banks of the Ganges happy or miserable. The Parsees regard with the highway to heaven-is essential to horror the Hindoo method of disposing of the everlasting joy. Hence on the burning Ghaut dead, by throwing the bodies or ashes into at Calcutta may be seen at times six or seven rivers; yet their own custom is even more bodies, each on its pile of wood often of repugnant to the feelings of the Europeans in the most costly description, if the people be | India. Cassell's Illustrated History of India.

I. GAMBIER PARRY'S MINISTRY OF FINE ART, Edinburgh Review,
II. MAJOR AND MINOR. By W. E. Norris.

• 707

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THE essays which have been collected in a volume bearing the title of "The Ministry of Fine Art" are a worthy contribution to the literature of art. The author, Mr. Gambier Parry, has been known for many years as a distinguished amateur. Towards the close of a long and useful life he has done what every one would wish to do who has had great opportunities of making himself acquainted with the best specimens of ancient and modern art, and who has himself carried out into practice the principles which he

has observed and made his own. One of the chief of these is the connection of the various branches of art and their relation to architecture. There is no subject handled in the nine essays of which Mr. Gambier Parry is not entitled to speak with authority. However we may feel disposed to criticise the style of some of the essays, as wanting that care and polish

which a finished work demands, it should

be borne in mind that they are introduced to the reading public as sketches; and the modesty of the dedication should to a great extent disarm criticism. Perhaps the most valuable essays are those which treat of mosaic as used in church decora

tion, and of colored glass, and the conditions under which the best examples of these have been produced. There is an especial interest in the last essay on Gloucester Cathedral, which Mr. Gambier Parry describes with the enthusiasm of an antiquary and the loving familiarity of a near neighbor.

The purpose of art is stated in the first essay as the expression of the sense of beauty. This sense is not entirely a gift or nature, but is (in great measure) a creature of education. Much disappointment may be saved by the knowledge of a few principles which are common to all the branches of art; for instance, the value of

* 1. The Ministry of Fine Art to the Happiness of Life. Essays on various Arts. By T. GAMBIER PARRY. 8vo. London: 1886.

2. Handbook of Painting. The Italian Schools, based on the Handbook of Kugler; originally edited by Sir Charles Eastlake, P. R. A. Fifth Edition, thoroughly revised and in part re-written by AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD. G.C.B. Two vols. London: 1887.

repose, whch Mr. Gambier Parry illustrates by one of Cuyp's quiet landscapes. The want of this in architecture may be there is no rest for the eye. Another seen in some of our club-houses, where principle is, the necessity of the artist combining intellectual with moral qualities. He should aim not only at the representation of beauty, but at making others recognize it; and his duty is so to present nature to the eyes of men as to make them love that nature more. As regards his own qualifications, a man must have inteland he must have a pure and noble nature, lect, else his art will be incomprehensible; else his art will be sensual, and only fit to

be burnt.

These are some of the principles which we find stated in the first essay, and illustrated by reference to some of the noblest application of these to architecture is works in sculpture and painting. The continually suggested; and music is invoked to bring some points home to the subtler feelings. The value of constant study from the fountain-head of nature is upheld, and the claims of genius are acknowledged in a generous spirit of appreciation.

The second essay treats of the ministry of fine art to common life. It starts with

the modest assertion that fine art ministers to human happiness, but does not make it. It requires a sympathetic nature in order that it may give pleasure. But without the rest and refreshment of art a portion of our nature is unsatisfied. It is a vulgar assumption that the enjoyment of art must be confined to the few. The love of art was once more diffused. It nourished in many ways the poetry of for beautiful surroundings disappeared.¡ common life. Gradually the national love

The old narrow shed, with all its interest of home endearment, with its pleasant outline of overhanging roofs and gables, quaint domes, turrets, and spires of shining shingle, carved woodwork, and painted panelling, and all the cheery sense of friendship, warmth, and comfort that they gave; the deep chimney corner, the pleasant open porch, with their associations of rest, of refreshment, of warm-hearted hospitality, and all else that could nourish in our people the last remaining and least sense of the poetry of common life, gave way before