and wasted wretches as "the three great goddesses who claimed the golden apple as the prize of beauty." In the "Tree of Forgiveness," by the same painter, we are pained perhaps more by the offensiveness of the subject (in an artistic sense) than by the hideous complexions and expressions (we say nothing about the utterly incorrect proportions of Demophoon's chest, belly, and limbs, seeing that the painters of this school must be all wrong anatomically, or they would not be medieval). A lady who had been an almond-tree for a while might have such a colour, for aught we know, and a man upon whom such a creature suddenly sprang out might be excused for wearing a very uncomfortable expression. But Venus Aphrodite sick and sorry, worn, wan, and wasted, we really "cannot away with." Mr. Jones is admirable in stained windows; why will he offend those who admire his good work best, by such absurdities as these?

It is, indeed, easy to fall into a way of lightly ridiculing this absurd school. But their offences merit more serious chastisement than mere ridicule. The mischief such paintings do is very serious. Among the inexperienced they create utterly false tastes. They are not only bad in themselves: they are bad in their indirect influence. They kill men's love for the works of the old painters. If there are any who have done more than others to destroy our appreciation of those works, to make them positively hateful and disgusting to us, instead of interesting and delightful

(as rightly viewed they should be), it is their so-called followers, who admire them for their defects, carefully copy their defects, and have nothing in common with them but the worst of their defects.

But if we feel contempt for the paltry affectation of the old style, with what feelings must we regard the mad new style, the Nocturnes in Blue and Silver, the Harmonies in Flesh-colour and Pink, the Notes in Blue and Opal? We are shown a sooty-faced, illshaped creature, with limbs entirely out of proportion (do look at that left arm!), on a dirty-black background, with smears of vermilion on necklace, lips, and hat, and we are told it is not a Horror in Soot and Ochre, as our eyes tell us-but (forsooth) a Harmony in Black and Red! A dark bluish surface, with white dots on it, and the faintest adumbrations of shape under the darkness, is gravely called a Nocturne in Black and Gold. A few smears of colour, such as a painter might make in cleaning his paint-brushes, and which neither near at hand nor far off, neither from one side nor from the other, nor from in front, do more than vaguely suggest a shore and bay, are described as a Note in Blue and Brown." Criticism is powerless here, because one who found these pictures other than insults to his artistic sense, could never be reached by reasoning. We are not sure but that it would be something like an insult to our readers to say more about these "things." They must surely be meant in jest; but whether the public have chiefly to thank Mr. Whistler, or the managers

of the Grosvenor Gallery, for playing off on them this sorry joke, we do not know, nor greatly care.

Meliora canamus!

We shall not dwell further on those enormities of the æsthetic and maniac schools which are manifest at once to the artistic eye. But we must note that a word in excuse may be said for the followers of the modern medieval school. There is a natural temptation for those who find that, though eager to cover canvas, they can neither draw nor paint, to take work in hand which requires skill neither in colouring nor in drawing. "You are not pretty, my child," said a clever mother to her daughter; "therefore, you had better be odd. It is your only chance of attracting attention." This, which is the raison d'être of the æsthetic school generally, is a sufficient principle for the painters of that school. Any one can copy a medieval picture without faults detracting from its mediæval character: a little change in an impossible limb does not make it less mediævally impossible; a slight difference in some ghastly tint gives only another ghastly hue, which still remains mediævally hideous. Therefore, if we were advising a would-be artist who could neither paint nor draw, and who was too lazy to learn, how he might obtain an easy notoriety, we should tell him to try the medieval school. "You are too unskilful or too idle," we might say, "to paint anything really good; therefore go in for oddity. Even your drawing will not spoil a mediæval figure. You know as much of perspective, linear and

aerial, as the mediaval painters did (who knew nothing); you cannot err much more egregiously through want of talent and energy than they did through want of experience. Follow, then, their school. Carefully copy all their faults. Pretend that you find in deformity beauty which others cannot see, in sickly tints a delicacy of hue which others cannot appreciate. Remembering that as there are always many foolish people, you may be sure of a following, after a fashion." In every age there have been these affectations, though we learn it, unfortunately, not from any works which have survived, for all the works of such schools have a fatal facility in fading out of view, but from occasional passages of ridicule in writings by contemporaries who have survived. In this way the memory of even æsthetic absurdities may be handed down-to an amused posterity.

Of the Whistler school it need only be said that as there are some who take idiocy for ecstacy, there may be a few who find genius in insanity.

BETTING AND MATHEMATICS.

BY R. A. PROCTOR.

WHEN I was travelling in Australasia, I saw a good deal of a class of men with whom, in this country, only betting men are likely to come much in contact -bookmakers, or men who make a profession of

betting. What struck me most, perhaps, at first was, that they regarded their business as a distinct profession. Just as a man would say in England, “I am a lawyer or a doctor," so these men would say that they were bookmakers. Yet, on consideration, I saw that there was nothing altogether novel in this. Others, whose business really is to gain money by making use of the weaknesses of their fellow-men, have not scrupled to call their employment a trade or a profession. Madame Rachel might have even raised her special occupation to the dignity of "a mystery" on Shakespearean grounds ("Painting, sir, I have heard say is a mystery, and members of my occupation using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery "); and if aught of wrong in his employment could be made out to the satisfaction of a bookmaker, his answer might be Shakespearean also, "Other sorts offend as well as we-ay, and better, too."

My own views about betting and bookmaking are regarded by many as unduly harsh, though I have admitted that the immorality which I find in betting has no existence with those who have not weighed the considerations on which a just opinion is based. I regard betting as essentially immoral so soon as its true nature is recognised. When a wager is made, and when after it has been lost and won its conditions are fulfilled, money has passed from one person to another without any "work done" by which society is benefited. The feeling underlying the transaction has been greed of gain, however disguised as merely