But a little distance in from the shore of the lake where the Victoria House stands is one of the prettiest buildings in the park, that devoted to Fisheries. Our view gives so good an idea of it that no description is wanted. In the decorations the artist has very cleverly carried out the idea adopted by Mr. Waterhouse at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, and has introduced no other forms but those of aquatic creatures.

towards the Administration Building.

Such are the chief buildings of this great Exhibition. They, however, form but a small part of the total number of structures with which Jackson Park is being rapidly being rapidly covered. The forty-four States and Territories of the Union are erecting each its own pavilion. Eighteen foreign countries are doing the same. Special buildings are being put up for exhibits connected with Forestry, Dairywork, and Leather Manufacture. There

Quaint sea-beasts of every imaginable monstrosity curl round the pillars, sprawl over the walls, and are twined and twisted into the mouldings.

Turning back to the lake near the domed building of the United States Government, we see lying off the shore a modern ironclad. If one wondered at anything in an exhibition, one would feel surprised at finding a 10,000-ton man-ofwar on the waters of Lake Michigan comfortably moored in about six feet of water. Inquiry, if not inspection, would reveal the fact that U.S. Steamship Illinois is made of bricks and mortar, built up from the ground in the lake.

From this point we may follow the broad esplanade by the edge of the lake between it and what may be termed the sea front of the Manufactures Building until we find ourselves at the other end of the great canal, looking down its length

is to be a reproduction of the Convent of La Rabida in Palos, the Spanish port from which Columbus sailed. The southern end of the park is occupied with sheds and stabling for the great LiveStock Shows which will be continued during the summer; while the whole of the broad boulevard known as the Midway Plaisance, and connecting Jackson and Washington Parks, will be filled with places of amusement-shows, cafés, Eastern bazaars, and the like. When to this it is added that all the available sites in the park will be occupied by restaurants and by the pavilions and kiosks of specially important exhibitors, some idea may be formed of the new city of marvels which Chicago is erecting beside herself for the amusement and instruction of the millions of visitors whom she has invited to her festival during the year now just begun.

HE little vessel swung round, as we hove her to, and we were facing the native village of Soma Soma, the residence of Ratu Lala-last descendant of the kings of Fiji. It consisted of about a hundred huts, clustering around an inlet, where the waves came gently lapping the coral beach, and made a soft murmuring noise that blended well with the hum that rose from the village.

A low hill rose in the background, covered from foot to crest with foliage and rich green growth; whilst overhead one could only gaze in bewildered rapture at the dreamy blue of the sky-cloudless and serene a perfect finish to the landscape.

I stepped eagerly ashore, and, with camera in hand, inquired for Ratu Lala's residence. A dozen hands pointed in reply, and another minute found me standing before the thatched domicile shown in the accompanying picture.

Overhead the palms waved their graceful heads and threw a refreshing shade around. Here and there a huge bunch of nuts hung temptingly downwards, and the long grass and wild flowers threw up a delightful scent, such as no artificial cultivation can produce.

The storms of the wet seasons had toned the thatch of the roof and the plaited sides of the house down to a warm brownish grey-a soft, retiring effect which suggested dreamland; and as I stood and looked and waited for "His Majesty," I fell to picturing a dreamy, poetical individual, with a far-away look, and a shambling gait, and a mellow musical voice-when a tall form clad in rough tweeds, woven with a coarse pattern, stood before me, and grinned.

"How-doo?" he said, lacadaisically, his hands thrust deeply into his side pockets, after the fashion of the most approved European aristocrat. "Glad to see you, -though I didn't expect company,-ah! -and it isn't much of a shanty, is it?"

He wore knickerbockers, with thick

woollen stockings and high water-tight boots, a costume particularly unsuited to the climate and a cigar dangled from his lips. I could scarcely believe my eyes, and but for his complexion, should have taken my host for an English countryman, just returned from a day's shooting.

We were soon seated inside on the clean mats that strewed the floor, with bottles of brandy and whisky beside us, and cigars. A pretty, tawny, Tongan girl, of about sixteen, sat bashfully apart. "My wife," the host explained, and that is her pretty little sister," pointing to another damsel.

"It's awfully slow, here!" he continued; "no billiards or anything."

He saw me eying some beautifully plaited fans that hung on the walls.

HERE is no name

Our

amongst modern painters, which calls up so much varied criticism as that of Mr. BurneJones. His pictures form a meeting-place for the critic, the artist, and the general public.

What, then, is the mainspring of his genius? What has combined to form the peculiar style of his artistic power? What are the tendencies that we see figured in his work? To answer these questions will be my best endeavour.-His genius springs from a nature deeply imbued with. a poetic sense. Beauty he sees everywhere-in tender womanhood, in the charm of girlhood, in the world of Nature, in legend and fairy-lore, in classic tale and heathen myth-in all these he finds poetic charm. The realm of the past, touched by his own imagination, is inexhaustible in furnishing him with conceptions and themes for artistic utterance; he is only disturbed by their frequency and richness. But I may say that we have no imaginative painter, who is apparently so untouched by the events or progress of the world as it is at present.

His imagination is both rich and penetrating, but never was there artist less fanciful-which accounts perhaps for the very serious tone of his work; the light, the gay, the sportive has no place with him, that side of humanity is never represented, nor is the humorous, the grotesque or the plaintive. He loves all Nature, but it is Nature untouched by man, he never paints a garden, or a park, or any tilled ground. The landscape in the

1 From Edward Burne-Jones: a Record and Review, by Malcolm Bell. London: George Bell & Sons, 4 York Street, Covent Garden. Second Edition, 1893.

Mirror of Venus, is an uninhabited stretch of upland valley, amongst hills, beautiful but very lonely. The rose in Briar Rose is not the garden rose, but the wild one, painted with exquisite fidelity. The shore the angels stand on in The Six Days of Creation is not one of Earth's human shores, never was there sand so delicate, never were there shells so exquisite of tint or shape. But though his love of Nature does not impel him to follow her in all her moods or manifestations, his care in representing her forms is entirely painstaking and extreme. I cannot tell if it was his early companionship with certain members of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood (though he never joined them), which made him so careful in his delineation, and so truthful in every small detail. It is almost

curious to see side by side with such dreamy conceptions an intense accuracy of detail and searching into the minutest item. This extreme carefulness is shown by his countless studies made for every picture-studies of drapery, as it falls on arm, or knee, or shoulder; studies of every part of armour, and the lights on it; studies of the gradation of hues and tints; and feathers, with all their delicate involvement - all this, and more than I can name, witness to his painstaking method in regard to every part of his work. I have no hesitation in saying that this artist is a perfect draughtsman. People may not admire his style, but that is quite another thing. The turn of a head, or the shape of a figure may not suit their taste, but that is no proof it is deformed or out of shape, so long as it is harmonious in itself, it does not break the rules of good drawing.

Accuracy of drawing is a good thing, it is the letter of the law, but there is something finer even than the latter-it is the spirit which breathes through the

work. The Soul of Beauty, is it there? What matter if the hand should falter, or tremble?-we can overlook it. Only if it should be the result of carelessness, or want of study, it ought not to be overlooked. But no one in their senses could accuse Burne-Jones of either one or the other of these. There is not a day of his life in which he does not make some small picture in pencil as a study. I have seen some drawings of his, done in silver-point, of which the perfection of accuracy and precision of touch is most striking and exquisite. His pictures are never painted in a hurry, they often hang for years on the walls of his studio, looked at, thought over, but never touched unless he feels drawn towards working at them, but his art is his life, he lives in and through his pictures. The only picture I heard that he complained of weariness in doing, was one called The Golden Stairs, and this had to be finished for exhibition, he said, "I am so tired of those girls!" To my mind this one is the least interesting of his works.

The series of the Briar Rose was for many a long year on the walls of his studio unfinished, and worked at at intervals. It was only a few years ago that it was finished and exhibited; and though some refused to admire the figure of the Sleeping Beauty or the Knight, in every other respect these pictures were the admiration and wonder of those who saw them. Although we are in fairyland, the costume of the sleeping figures, and the details of their surroundings are worked out in the carefullest way, the colouring is glowing and rich, the lustre of the jewels, the splendid tones of the drapery, and the magnificent leaves of the huge briar, with its pink and white roses, are a pure delight to the eye. One feels that there is no laborious thinking out of the story, no concoction of its different parts, but that the delineation is the outcome of a complete conception which visited the artist and impressed itself upon him.

In speaking of the care with which he delineates nature, it may be objected by some, that in this respect he fails at times. For instance, in his Perseus and Andromeda, exhibited two years ago, the rock against which the hapless maid is standing is strangely unnatural, and reminds. one of those tentative works of mediæval painters who were feeling after a representation of natural forms, but had not arrived at a true representation of them. These rocks are a piled-up heap of stones,