come of the Manipur disaster. Our English officers have been killed there in the execution of duty according to their lights. They may have been imprudent in trusting themselves—their lives, but not their honour-to half-civilised people in a state of excitement. But they relied on the bona fides of the people among whom they had lived and laboured, and over whom they had wisely and considerately ruled. They were striving to secure peace and to save bloodshed. While so doing they have been treacherously captured and murdered. The truly Christian way of exacting retribution for their death is so to improve this region that repetition of such a crime shall be impossible. We all remember the saying in higher matters, that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. The same principle is applicable to secular affairs. Let the blood of our murdered officers be rendered fruitful for consolidating and strengthening the north-eastern portion of the Indian Empire.

RICHARD TEMPLE.

E

THE IDEALS OF ART.

EFORE the close of last year's Academy, an articlewhich was most important, as it summed up in logical completeness the current ideas upon the subject—appeared in the NEW REVIEW, written by the Duke of Marlborough. It gave judgment upon the relative merits of Continental and British Art. The verdict arrived at was unfavourable for England as far as its pictorial genius is concerned. The absence of all artistic instinct in this befogged nation was first laid down by Wincklemann. Strictural judgments of ourselves are always wholesomely in favour in this country, and so Wincklemann's view has never been without its champions among us, for malcontents have much used it as a last retreat in a Parthian attack; the keepers of the defending fort never having taken pains to demolish the distant cover; and in France the axiom has been welcomed as scarcely less precious than if it had risen on Gallic soil. That which makes it necessary to refer to the argument relied upon by the Duke of Marlborough here is that it does stand on a practical ground very rightly approved by a nation of shopkeepers such as the English are. The test so good for other products is applied with confidence tɔ settle the worth of Art creations. The principle has been often before tacitly assumed as final, but the whole argument of the article is an open declaration of the infallibility of the tribunal cited. If accepted, the question of the ideals of our Art needs no further disquisition. The matter is settled absolutely, with a perfect adaptability for the changing occasions of the future. The conclusion of the whole would be that henceforth Englishmen should consider themselves debarred from the consideration of the theory together with the practice of Art, for the whole 150 years of

Not

its effort seem to result in nothing but hopeless failure. only are they defeated now, but our national flag is so given up to our rivals that henceforth we should look upon ourselves at the best as only a province of France. The test is the demand in the market, and for portraiture the readiness of foreigners to pay English artists to paint their portraits, and it is shown that whereas French picture dealers never come to England to buy British works, the English picture dealers go in shoals to France, Belgium, &c., to buy works by the natives of these gifted countries. For all who accept the inference it remains only to search out what the ideals of Art are with Frenchmen, Belgians, &c., and to be thankful for due intelligence to understand these. The case is, in fact, more than proved, for beyond what is stated we have foreigners of all races brought here to do their Art work on English soil; and the welcome they get from all quarters, to the great humiliation of English artists and Art, warrants the Duke of Marlborough's conclusions that Continental painting and sculpture far surpass English work, for they are patronised by the British Court, by the Government and public Corporations, by portrait sitters and by picture collectors. This foreign Art has an undoubtedly distinct character at its highest, as well as its lowest, and many young men—even before the appearance of the article referred to-had been persuaded by the general tone of appreciation it gained to set themselves the task of cultivating the particular ideal adopted, and of imitating the manner of realising this.

On such a wide scale the rule is a safe one among merchants, that what is the best in quality is the most in demand, and therefore the dearest, so that it seems a natural prejudice to sustain the principle to the very utmost extent as omnipotent. It applies in the first instance to articles of food and clothing, which are accepted by experienced sight and judgment as of the brand and locality which before have produced the most nourishing and delicious food or the best wearing materials and finest fabrics for dresses. The merchant has such respect for the knowledge and judgment of his customers that he feels he would not be acting in his own interest to purchase inferior articles, except at a lower price-for everything is put to the test of use and cost and wear by the first and second

buyers, and thus the dealer would quickly destroy his reputation with the consumers were he to select spurious or over-price goods.

This rule extends to weapons, to harness, to tools, and materials for practical work of all kinds, and to building materials of all descriptions, to all articles, in fact, consumed by contemporaries; but when we come to works of Art we ought to ask twice, at least, before we conclude that we are on equally safe ground with our test, since we are confronted with one very startling difference on the threshold of our inquiry: for we never heard of the first and the later opinion of the worth of any commodity of daily utility being appraised so differently at first sight and afterwards (within a few years it may be) as we constantly do of a work of Art. Within our own national experience there is in illustration the case of our first landscape painter, Wilson, who, when in Rome, was momentarily rescued from poverty by the good-hearted championship of Vernet, the seaport painter, who reproved the throng of English admirers and would-be patrons of his studio, of the fashionable class, for their disregard of their compatriot, whom he declared to be his superior. The kindly service produced but brief patronage. The dealers could sell nothing of Wilson's then, and the only merchant who later ventured upon the purchase of works at 16s. each after a term refused further investment in the wares on the ground that he had never sold a single canvas of all which he had bought previously. The fashionable class have, since this painter's subsequent neglect and death, slowly recognised Wilson's worth, as is proved by the prices they have accorded to the pictures so determinedly neglected at first. Hogarth's works had as strangely gone begging in his lifetime; one example is convincing. The six pictures of "Marriage à la Mode," in their beautifully carved frames, were bought from the great painter for 11ogs., and in fortyseven years they sold for £1,381; and now, notwithstanding the verdict by a great critic, Chesneau, against Hogarth, what would they not fetch? To come to later times-passing over, by the way, many other extraordinary examples of utter contempt of work in the beginning, which reflective years have estimated as among the most precious pearls in the nation's crown of glory, and also the wonderfully high appraisements of works which accorded with the

taste of the passing day, and which have since sunk in commercial value to no more than the value of the frames-we have one glaring example of the uncertainty in the minds of picture merchants of more value to our argument, because it puts France on the same level with England in this matter. It is the wide difference between the first and final valuation by dealers of Millet's "Angelus." This the painter offered in vain to successive Parisian picture-shops for £100, until he was compelled to accept about £75. It was brought to this country soon after, and refused by an amateur dealer at £200; and in another ten years or so it was sold, after Millet's death, at £27,000. As further evidence of the uncertainty of dealers' and buyers' judgment at first sight, let it be remembered that Turner's bequest to the nation consists of pictures which had been declined by the connoisseurs, speculative or otherwise. In his Life by Walter Thornbury, a contributor tells of Turner replying to a remark on some paintings standing in the passage of his house, which had recently been brought in, "Yes, I send them to exhibitions, but they all come back again," and it is well known that his exquisite painting of "Crossing the Brook" was refused by the gentleman for whom it was painted at the price of £300. Yet this work at an auction would now certainly bring more than twenty times the original sum. With such facts before us we have to ask which judgment of the picture-dealers we shall accept, the first or the second?

In any investigation as to the ideals of Art it is ever of the first importance to determine how far the taste of the day is founded upon healthy study of the question. I am not able to conclude that artists themselves, who ought to be cautious as well as broad-minded, have not, and do not, come to opinions with but small care for their future reputation for judgment, for they have too often adopted the prejudices of the day without inquiry. On the Continent the claims of England to Art excellence have been but grudgingly acknowledged.

There is a frieze on the Palais de l'Industrie bearing the names of many great artists of the Continent, but among all, as I am assured, there is not that of one Englishman. To the concoctors of that list Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney (the three last