not the vital question to solve in the interest of Reform-it is, do the people really want a thorough Reform? We believe they do-but do they? If so, let them indicate it in tones that may not be misunderstood, and their wishes will be regarded by the chief and the entire administration, whether he and it be Republican or Democratic. But of this more

anon.

Belknap's Escape.—As regards Belknap himself, the question of his impeachment or non-impeachment is not perhaps worthy the importance already given it. The quietest oblivion is ever hungry for this grade of man. But the general attitude and manner of our government toward official criminals may be worthy a thought or two. It is in fact, a question of vital moment whether or not the American government, through its Congress and Senate, is so organized that in considering Belknap's case or the case of any other man, it is made to stultify itself and to appear to call white black to-day and black white to-morrow. Better Belknap had been allowed to go quietly off with his pockets full of post-traders' bribes than that the Senate of the United States should on one day, by a majority vote, have deliberately declared that it had jurisdiction in his case, and on another a few weeks later, by lack of a two-thirds vote, have just as deliberately proclaimed that it had not. As it required a two-thirds vote to convict on impeachment, it should have required a two-thirds vote on all questions looking toward conviction, and thus much farce and eloquence might have been spared us. But it is now all past beyond recall. It seemed to us from the first, that to attempt an impeachment of Belknap out of office after his resignation had been accepted was about as sensible as to give a man a thrashing after he was dead. The greatest farce, however, was in the first step, wherein the investigating committee, over-elated with the fact that it had caught a culprit at last, determined, in its first flush of glory, to decapitate him by demanding his resignation, and then, seeing its error and being slightly cross about it, determined to impeach said culprit to death after he was already dead.

But we are not paid $5,000 or $10,000 a year to understand and interpret the law on such points, and therefore did not attempt any dogmatism thereon. It seems passing strange, however, that there was not enough definitelysettled legal wisdom in the land to have prevented the expense and contradiction of this so-called impeachment trial, which has really proved the greatest farce of the Centennial year. There was no precedent, it seems, and so the law doctors had to experiment to find out whether or not the official corpse was really dead. But official bribery is no new disease among us. Belknap is not worse than some upon whom the towers of investigating committees have not fallen. The complaint ought to be understood by this time, and halters duly prepared for the hanging of such men, before they get a chance of sliding out of office and danger by way of higher official or other sympathy. Not for the sake of punishing a poor, dishonest man, but for the sake of our own present and future safety and dignity as a nation among the nations of the world, ought we to have severer standards of official character, and know just exactly how to hang or bury such cases as Belknap's, without the outlays and sympathies incident to "High Courts" of Impeachment trials.

The Case of the Late Secretary of War. Editor of Potter's Monthly.

SIR: In an article entitled, "Crime in Official Crás, on page 64 of the MONTHLY for July, 1876, you say: "Take an illustration from the painful case of the late fall in our National Capital. A gentleman of limited mem receives an appointment to a position of great bir distinction; he and his must accommodate their les z living to the popular notion of what is required of thems rather than be guided and controlled by the amer money they can honestly command to meet their exper ! tures. The salary is ample for all proper expenses, entirely inadequate to satisfy the demands of society; the legitimate income being insufficient, the deficien.y. be made up by illegal and criminal practices."

Of course, the "gentleman of limited means" posted a is the late Secretary of War. Now, I am sure you won! not willingly do him injustice, whatever may be the verla of the High Court of Impeachment. I am quite as cemara that you have been misled by untrue statements that have filled newspaper columns concerning his way of i ving, a you have written what is not correct. I will state what I believe to be susceptible of clearest proof, and leave a o yourself and the readers of the MONTHLY to judge the cle dispassionately.

The late Secretary of War went into the cabinet i 18e From that time until 1873 he lived a part of the ant is a boarding-house and a part of the time at the Aring a hotel. In 1873 and since, he has lived in a modest boast, at a moderate rent, on G. street, which is a part of a rue similar houses. There he gave only one evening enterta ment, never an evening "reception," and a very few ite pensive dinners. He was naturally desirous of showing a fair degree of hospitality, in the official position in which ** was placed; but his annual expenditures were always am siderably below the amount of his annual salary. That susceptible of proof. This statement applies to his wh household expenses, including those of his family with away in the summer, and every kind of incidental exper e. I have not seen a solitary item of proof that cas owned a this statement; but there has been a recklessness of asser concerning the ex-Secretary's private expenses, with et a shadow of truth, that has cruelly wronged him because the are, undoubtedly, utterly without foundation in truth.

With a public officer's private affairs the public have t business to interfere, nor should I now allude to this c had not the private affairs of the late Secretary of War tert pressed upon the public attention by these reckless assert ta The question of the guilt or innocence of the ex Secretar of the charges preferred against him has nothing to do win the matter. Truth is precious in whatever connection, it is only in its vindication that I send this to you, and as you to publish it.

There is a growing evil in journalism, namely, trea: accused persons as if they were already convicted. The Low is more merciful. It presumes a man to be innocent an he is proven guilty. BENSON J. LOSING

THE RIDGE, July 24, 1876.

REMARKS.-We are grateful to Dr. Lossing for the alone communication, and in so far as we erred are harassin

66

set right. But the doctor will pardon us for saying that we feel that our inferences were kinder to the ex-Secretary than his facts. Eschewing the words guilt and crime, it must be admitted that the ex-Secretary received moneys other than his salary and from sources not authorized by law. Now, if we accept the statement that his annual expenditures were always considerably below the amount of his annual salary," as we are content to do upon the simple assurance of our esteemed correspondent, will not that acceptance strip the exSecretary of the sole palliation for receiving moneys not allowed him by law?

The Duty of Citizens to their Successors. We have more than once spoken warmly in condemnation of the pernicious papers issued in New York City for the youth of our land. But, we presume, law cannot reach this evil, and the only remedy we can suggest is-let an overwhelming public opinion be developed to stop it.

There is another devil-begotten crime-begetter in our larger cities which the law can and should suppress-we mean the

"Varieties" places of amusement, and like infamous dens. Here, in our good old moral city of Philadelphia, there are several such places, luring our boys to crime, and to prison, and to hell. We cannot speak from personal inspection, but a person, who we are confident did not exaggerate the terrible truth, has given us a strong description of one of these infernal vestibules to the infernal regions, and we demand of our Mayor and other law-administering officials that it be at once closed and the villians who conduct it punished to the full extent of the law. We deem it best not to give the locality here, because some young reader might be tempted to visit the terrible den, and the city authorities do not require to be told-they know not only the one we allude to but others of the same sort, every one of which they are guilty of tolerating in violation of law.

Philadelphia is not exceptional in the possession of these sinks-and we demand that in every city the laws be rigidly enforced against every immoral, indecent "place of amusement." The press and people should see to it that this be done.

The Prince Society. The annual meeting of this association, whose object is to preserve and extend the knowledge of American history by editing and printing for its members such manuscripts, rare tracts and volumes as are mostly confined in their use to historical students and public libraries, was held at 18 Somerset street, Boston, on Thursday, May 25, it being the anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Thomas Prince, the annalist of New England, in honor of whom the Society is named.

Mr. Dean, the President, announced the death since the last meeting of the Society of Samuel Gardner Drake, the historian, who was the first to suggest the formation of the Society, and who assisted in organizing it. He was the first President of the Society, having been chosen in 1858, and held the office by successive elections till 1870. He died in Boston, June 14, 1875, aged 76. Among the seven members who were elected officers in 1858 no death had occurred till last year. The first death among them was that of Thomas Waterman, the first Vice-President, who held that office from 1858 to 1866, and the second that of John Wells Parker, who was Treasurer from 1858 to 1863. Mr. Waterman died February 27, 1875, aged 84, and Mr. Parker, June 3, 1875, aged 66. The Society, during the last year, has lost five other members, namely, George Brinley of Hartford, Connecticut; the Hon. John Elwyn of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the Hon. Thomas H. Wynne of Richmond, Virginia; William B. Towne of Milford, New Hampshire, and John M. Bradbury of Ipswich, Massachusetts, all well known as historical students.

William B. Trask, after a few preliminary remarks, offered the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:

died during the year 1875, namely, Thomas Waterman, its first Vice-President, and John W. Parker, its first Treasurer.

Resolved, That in the death of Mr. Drake, the literary world mourns the death of a faithful historian, well read in the antiquities of our country, and a careful, thorough and successful investigator of the facts upon which history rests, while this Society deplores him as an efficient officer and a friend who always had its interests at heart.

Resolved, That by the death of Messrs. Waterman and Parker we lose two gentlemen of sterling integrity, whose conscientious devotion to the duties of the offices which they filled will be long and gratefully remembered by their associates.

William B. Trask and Charles H. Guild were appointed a committee to nominate officers for the ensuing year. They reported the following list of candidates:

President, John Ward Dean, A.M., of Boston; VicePresidents, John Wingate Thornton, A. M.; the Rev. Edmund F. Slafter, A.M., and William B. Trask, all of Boston; and the Hon. Charles H. Bell, A.M., of Exeter, New Hampshire; Corresponding Secretary, Charles W. Tuttle, A.M., of Boston; Recording Secretary, David Green Haskins, Jr., A.M., of Cambridge; Treasurer, Elbridge H. Goss, of Melrose. The report was accepted and the gentlemen unanimously elected to the several offices.

Mr. Goss, the Treasurer, made his annual report, showing the Society entirely free from debt and a balance of $439,81, on hand.

Mr. Haskins, in behalf of the Council, reported that since the last meeting, the ninth volume of the Society's publications had been printed, entitled: "John Wheelwright, his Writings, including his Fast Day Sermon, 1637, and his Mercurius Americanus, 1645; with a paper upon the Genuine. ness of the Indian Deed of 1629, and a Memoir by Charles H. Bell, A.M."

Art that is Art, and Art that Isn't.-Blushes won't down; neither will hero worship. The one starts out upon the face of a nation's work like the other upon the face of a child. Neither democracy nor brute force can hide the one or the other. And true art is the highest vehicle of expres sion for both. Hence it happens that Bismarck, the ablest German of this generation, is the leading subject of inter and sculptor in our Republican Centennial Exhibition. His face is the strongest and his features the most determined and impressive in that fiery-looking picture of

the 24

Surrender of Napoleon after the Battle of Sedan.” Ile is the prominent foreground object in one of the richest landscapes in the German main gallery, immediately on the right as you enter from the central hall-way, where he is represented as a sportsman with gun in hand, and as social parent, chatting with a little child. It is all right; Bismarck has Germany in the brain, and Germany has Bismarck on the brain. It is an old law with a new expression. The tradesmen as well as the artists have caught the flame, and are fanning it in the light of Bismarck faces every here and there in the Main Building as well. But the work that is at once the most typical of the man and the nation, and the strongest piece of art in the whole Exhibition, is the heroic bronze figure of Bismarck in the rotunda of Memorial Hall, to the right as you enter from the south side. It is the strongest figure of a man since the days of Cæsar and Pericles and Jupiter. It has all the fixedness, calm and force of the old heroes, with thousand-fold new combinations of character growing out of the mechanisms and complications of modern civilization. It is the Krupp Gun and the New Testament ground up and together in one. It is Luther and Cæsar combined. And the artist has wrought well at his work and succeeded. To the left of the Rotunda and as a sort of companion-piece for the great Bismarck, is Mr. Bailey's "General Blanco on Horseback." We saw it once or twice in the studio, and thought it rather tame-looking for so much prance and apparent action, thought it lacked fire and nerve and fibre, but did not allow our judgment to decide one way or the other, especially as man and beast seemed anatomically correct. In that rotunda, however, surrounded by art that is art, the tameness of this piece of Philadelphia equestrianism seemed to touch us as the dead wings of a ghost might be supposed to do in passing. And as we got around where the south hindquarters of the animal could be seen, the menkind by seemed to have taken a gradual case of rheumatism, and the whole group looked in danger of falling, not willfully-that might have been artbut weakly, back into the curtains and mouldings of the walls of Memorial Hall, which isn't art, but something which passes for art in certain familiar corners of the world.

Artists and Artisans.-The more one thinks about it, the more it becomes apparent that the distinction between the artist and mechanic is not one of profession or vocation, but purely a matter of comparative quality of head, and the work accomplished thereby. There is a plausible ground for applying the term artists exclusively to painters and sculptors, but it will not hold. It is now more generally known than ever before, that the actual work of sculpturing the marble is usually done by what are called skilled me

chanics, and not by the reputed sculptors at all. The known sculptor, from Michael Angelo till now, is really not a hewer of marble, but a modeller in clay. Nor do the terms creative and imitative, or creator and imitatcr, fully cover the ground. In fact, nature abhors all such marked distinctions. There is no pure creation and no imitation that has not some original work in it. As in the shadings of the trees, and the mingling of species, so creation and imitation are perpetually invading each other's sphere. Who has not seen coats cut and button-holes worked as only the head and hands of artists could cut and work them? There is more art in many a pair of pantaloons than in lots of marble busts and paintings we have seen; yet a tailor is said to be only the ninth part of a man, to say nothing of a man with genius such as an artist must ever have. Are not our drygoods stores and dressmakers' headquarters, and jewelry establishments, art temples, often enough with more creative and real beauty in them than are to be found in picture galleries? It is not the work, but the quality of head that goes into the work. There were ways about a man who used to come to us for advertising, that stamped him as an Artist born and bred. He had an artist's head and action; was full of genius. Nor was it of Milton's or Grey's inglorious kind—a kind, in fact, we don't believe in, and have never seen. There does, however, seem to be a marked distinction in heads. There is a fineness, clearness, fullness and richness in the eye of an artist, a certain delicate moulding of the lips, a fixed, positive harmony of head and being, all of which somehow manage to get into every bit of work he touches, making it and him more complete entities than any artisan or mechanic work in his line. Frequently enough there is a close and hard chase for the mastery. Circumstances often dull and becloud and thwart the early assertions of the artist's hand; but if the true heat be there, it comes to sunlight by and by. Nast saw through you before he made successful pictures. He now makes you see through yourselves. The genius or the artist is a revealer of truth to the world. It is a new mixture, working by a new method; and whether in stone or wood, or amid paste-pots or kitchen utensils, the result is the same: new light and new truth for men. The artisan goes on his way, the old way, the world's way. No strange voices come to him; no fresh thought springs from him. He may model horses and busts of men, and paint pictures, but they are dead and all wrong. Many a business card has more art in it than is to be found in whole groups of paintings and statuary. It is when the soul touches, for the time being, the perfection of the subject, that art proper may be named. Nor is all copying mere mechanism. There may be consummate art in taking a photograph, in catching the rays of heaven's light and wreathing them about the brow of your subject; that is, as Emerson has it, in the way hitching your wagon to a star." Certainly a good barber is an artist, and a good cook a genius, a diamond of the purest water; and the razor, shears, and frying-pan, or rather gridiron, may yet, in the good time coming, be as renowned as the brushes and pens and chisels of old; and the veritable inverted torch of the future may not come from female votes, or poetry, or sculpture and painting, but from the potato-pot, and a generally improved culinary practice, clear gone to the fine art of the future. Who knows? The

of "

stomach is a wonderful organ, and must be properly fed before true art can flourish and artists and artisans find their true places in the world.

Modern Art and Art Critics.-The Centennial has had the effect of developing quantities of latent genius in many directions, but in no one line more remarkably than in that of the Fine Arts and the art critics. Some of us had sup posed that certain real and true standards of high art had been established, and that questions of this sort were really no longer at the mercy of men whose familiarity with the subject is too limited to make their opinions of any value. But it now looks as though some American Ruskin would have to make a martyr of himself, in order to preach a gospel of art that shall at once be universal, and all convincing to the Western mind. Soon after the Centennial Exhibition opened, the art critic of one of our city papers discovered that Rothermel's "Battle of Gettysburg" was a low-toned, disgusting and prejudiced daub, giving all the glory of character to the Northern soldier and planting brutality on the brows of our Southern foes. It is sufficient to say that the critic in question seems to be the only person that such an idea has ever occurred to. The picture is a powerful treatment of a very difficult subject, and the best art judges have long ago decided in its favor. The same writer thought that Mr. Aiken's painting of "Professor Gross at a Clinic" was one of the few Philadelphia pictures that ought to have been admitted, but were there space and time we could give reasons upon reasons why the rejection of it was the proper thing to do. It was of bold but very imperfect execution, and the judges again followed the true laws of art.

Another day we noticed that the Bulletin man had gət on a track of his own, and displayed his unwisdom by dubbing Turner "the wrong-eyed painter." But the man might as well have called Shakspeare the crack-brained dramatist. The English have brought one old and soiled painting of Turner's, and put it in the northwest pavilion of Memorial Hall, a room with a side light never intended for paintings, and probably this poor Turner of the earliest period of the painter, and in this worst of light, is the only painting of the great Master the Bulletin man has ever seen. It is not difficult to conclude, under the circumstances, where the wrongeyed faculty comes in.

Another singular instance of the infelicity of our Philadelphia art critics was that wherein the Times man styled the new Philadelphia Public Buildings "a tomb." Wait till those buildings are finished, Mr. Critic, and you will find your art reverence and admiration rising instinctively toward the structure. The stone-cutters have not in all cases executed with fidelity the modelling of the designer, but there will be more original, strong and good work about that building when it is done, than in any other single structure in any city in the Union. And it is not by books and newspapers, but by the influence of this kind of buildings, and of the works of Fine Art approved by the best judges, that the tastes of our people are to be educated to true standards of art and architecture.

Mr. Robert Browning's new volume of poems has its full share of the author's characteristic thought and style. The London Athenæum says, "if there is a defect in it, it is that Mr. Browning betrays a tendency to quarrel with

his critics, and to write not so much about Lime!' himself." We should rather say that in this volume its predecessors, the author writes in a manner and vein lucidly suggestive of himself and of the very lughest z deepest poetic thoughts and feelings known to the ha soul. As a piece of introspective verse-making and a striking illustration of Mr. Browning's mode and being, the following verses are as characteristic as anything we have seen iz many a day:

Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?

Do I live in a house you would like to see?
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pell?
Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key."

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"For a ticket, apply to the Publisher." No: thanking the public, I must decli›e. A peep through my window, if folks prefer; But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine!

Outside should suffice for evidence;

And whoso desires to penetrate Deeper, must dive by the spirit senseNo optics like yours, at any rate! "Hoity toity! A street to explore, Your house the exception! With this same ? Shakspeare unlocked his heart, once more!" Did Shakspeare? If so, the less Shakspeare be '

+

Did Lord Houghton Plagiarize Tennyson, or Tetnyson him? or are the following verses another illus of a natural streak o' nature? A Mr. Erl Rygenb æg, a ́ ́ American Bibliopolist for August, says: In a recent rov. of Lord Houghton's poems (London Academy, June 20 1876), the writer defends this poet from a suppos charge of plagiarizing the Laureate's well-known lines: "I hold it true, whate' er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all,”

(In Memoriam, 11v. By assigning the date 1830 to the following extrat one of the poems under review:

"He who for love has undergone
The worst that can befall,

Is happier thousand-fold than one
Who never loved at all;

A grace within his soul has reigned,
Which nothing else can bring-
Thank God for all that I have games!
By that high suffering."

The death of Tennyson's bosom friend and brother in law. Arthur Hallam, which event furnished the occ±v in vỶ the noblest and most long sustained of elegies, In dérmuran, (most melodious strain of sorrowing friendship and ja in phic-Christian resignation)!-occurred in 1833. AE. the invocation, which forms an introduction to In Memoriam as commonly printed, is the date 1840-nineten your sin sequent to the date assigned to Lord Houghton's poem.

Of course the Laureate is no more to be sus,e.el { plagiary than Lord Houghton is; assuming the a'widt originality of both passages, however, they presett til the most remarkable examples of "parallelism* în cea dor literal expression, ever pointed out.