tion for a lost first-love which neither art nor family could wholly supplant. Upon his death one of his most celebrated paintings was for the first time exposed for sale. This was the "Straw Hat," acknowledged by critics to be "the most beautiful female head Ruben ever painted." He had steadily refused all proposals for its purchase, and, when traveling, wherever he went the famous picture was carried with him. This circumstance lends plausibility to the romantic story of an earlier flame, a story which, even though based on nothing more certain than a generally accredited rumor, is sufficiently poetical to believe. "Whom first we love, you know we seldom wed. Time rules us all. And life, indeed, is not dead." real or pretended importance found new evidences of our artist's wonderful productivity, I was at last forced to confess that I had grown tired of Rubens. And such I believe has been the experience of most tourists. Familiarity seemed to have bred contempt. But in Antwerp his genius stood out the more prominent because of its freshness. All the conditions necessary for the keenest enjoyment of his master-pieces were here present. If the Antwerp of to-day is less inspiring and imposing than the Antwerp of the sixteenth century, if you miss the bustle of its medieval prosperity, the brilliant coloring and gay costumes of a period at once eventful and unique, yet the historical landmarks have been to a large extent preserved, and a tolerably vivid imagination soon supplies the rest. It is a great privilege to see and feel the external sources We have already seen that Rubens of an artist's inspiration. In this conwas born not in Belgium but in Ger- nection an able critic remarks: "The many, and that Cologne no less than historical significance of art, the necesAntwerp have each been forced to yield sary cause of her development, can be their respective claims to such honor. understood by those only who will exBut when we come to examine the cha-plore the scenes which witnessed her racter and peculiarities of his genius, and inquire as to the chief place of his labors, there is no division of opinion, no conflict as to fact. We are at once confronted with the very highest type of the Flemish school of art, and Antwerp is the geographical centre of the artist's career. It is, however, equally certain that many of his works were executed elsewhere, for Rubens was never inactive. Even when traveling or when engaged upon missions of diplomacy he invariably turned his art to account; whether, primarily, to secure court favor, or to increase his income, it is not for us to decide. That he was avaricious his most partial biographers have not denied. Berjamin relates how when once approached by an alchemist claiming to have discovered the philosopher's stone, and who "applied for a slight advance in order that he might construct a suitable furnace, in return for which he would share the profits," Rubens replied with grim and characteristic humor, "You have come twenty years too late. I have found the philosopher's stone in my palette!" As we traveled from city to city on the continent, and in every gallery of life's first dawn." Accordingly Rubens was, and remains, for me the centre of attraction in the Netherlands' great capital. We had spent the morning of the twenty-fifth of last July in the museum, a supressed monastery, containing upwards of six hundred pictures, and presenting a full and instructive historical survey of the development of Flemish art. Here we soon learned to recognize the distinctive characteristics of the most celebrated representatives of the Dutch school. The afternoon had been reserved for our long anticipated visit to the Cathedral, itself a worthy shrine for the master's most celebrated painting-" The Descent from the Cross." This is one of the few of his pictures with which, as reproduced in engravings and wood-cuts, the majority of persons even in America have become acquainted. Its production, by the way, was not altogether spontaneous. "A dispute having arisen about the cost of a wall which separated Rubens' property from that of the Arquebusiers, the burgomaster Rockox, the master of the guild and a friend of Rubens, persuaded him to paint this picture in order to equalize the effect. 'Fat' Mrs. Rubens is planted as firmly and comfortably among the clouds, as if in an easy-chair, gazing with phlegmatic composure on the wondrous scene which she witnesses in her aerial flight, and betraying not the faintest symptom of ecstacy or emotion." the price to be paid by each party." Legend has strangely elaborated the story, but Baedeker assures the traveler of the truth of the account just cited. So much of praise has been awarded this painting that it would be almost presumption to attempt its description. In my journal I find these words: "It If I have referred rather to defects is all that we had hoped to find and than to excellencies in the compositions even more. Its grandeur is overpower- of Rubens, it has been only because the ing, and we were loth to leave it.' It is former are generally lost sight of in the affirmed that Rubens borrowed the idea presence of the self-evidencing power of from a painting in Rome by Daniele da the latter. Our judgment is never Volterra. Be this as it may there is no weakened when we turn an impartial lack of originality in its treatment. ear to both sides. Nor is our appreciaThere is energy in every line, expression tion of genuine merit necessarily lessened in every feature. Perhaps, indeed, it is when we recognize imperfections and too intensely real. If good taste is vio- acknowledge faults. Honest criticisms lated at all, it is in this direction. The cannot injure the deserving, for that spiritual is subordinated to the physical. which is of permanent worth is thereby Muscular development is exhibited at made to stand out the more prominently. the expense of bodily suffering. There Contrast always tends to heighten an efis, moreover, little, if anything, of the fect. Unqualified and equally proJewish type in any of the figures. His nounced admiration for every sweep of models are essentially Flemish, modified the brush in the hands of a master proby the conventionalities of mythological ceeds oftener from the conscious dread, art which dealt so largely in the super- common to us all, of being accounted abundance of animal life. And in this without taste, than from positive appreparticular Rubens is unrivalled. Whilst ciation. Better out of the world than one can hardly approve of the glossness out of fashion. This dictum is all-powof his conceptions it must be admitted erful, and not only carries hundreds that he is true to nature under the form across the Atlantic every summer but is which he seeks to portray. But the the prolific source of much of the meanGreek mind itself, with all its idealiza-ingless enthusiasm of most tourists tion of the perfect physical organism, whilst abroad. would certainly be offended at the uncouth heaviness of many of his men and women. This is the case in nearly all of his works. He painted humanity as he found it, and that, too, as he found it in Flanders. Nor was he at all careful in his selections. Brawny workmen and fat women were his models. His first wife and daughter are represented under circumstances the most varied, unshapely, ungraceful and coarse, whether as nymphs or peasant-wives. In a criticism on the truly magnificent altar-piece-"The Assumption of the Virgin"-occurs the following passage, which I venture to quote as illustrating this point: "The Virgin is represented among the clouds, surrounded by a heavenly choir, below whom are the apostles and numerous other figures. The coloring is less gorgeous than is usual in his pictures, while the ponderosity of flesh somewhat mars Peter Paul Rubens, artist and diplomat, the glory of Antwerp, the admiration of the world. I have tried to present a brief sketch of his interesting and instructive career. Brief and necessarily imperfect, it may nevertheless serve to bring us to one of the few, the immortal names That were not born to die." Of his works I have said but little. They speak for themselves, and must be seen to be appreciated. And as we wait for the train which shall soon carry us southward into the Fatherland, we need not regret our excursion through the Low Countries, nor yet our delay on the banks of the Schelde. LIVE by the day; you will have daily trials, and strength according: leave to-morrow to the Lord. A Little Help Worth a Great Deal of Pity. I have seen a blind man walking I have heard the people talking As they watched his shambling feet: And I've seen the bright-eyed school-boy Across the busy way. Oh let pity lead to action, For the wortd is full of need; There are many eyes that water, There are many hearts that bleed, There are wounds that all want binding, There are feet that go astray, There are tears all hot and blinding And the smallest piece of needed help Child's Own Magazine. The Lessons of the Ancient Sepulchres. BY THE EDITOR. Rameses the Great-" the Napoleon of his day," a noted ruler of Egypt 3,300 years ago, eager to perpetuate his name, had large statues erected to his memory. The largest statue ever known he placed in the temple of Rameseum. It was cut out of a single block of granite, and weighed nearly 900 tons. Herodotus, who saw it 2,300 years ago, says that its inscription was: I am the King of Kings: if any man wish to know how great I am, and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works." Despite this pompous epitaph, 1,200 years later, Cambyses, the Persian, threw it down. Now the statue of the selfpraised monarch "lies on its back, with its nose knocked off, and eyes put out, and all its glory in the dust!" At Memphis, then a great city, Rameses had another statue over fifty feet high. It is now lying flat in a ditch, with its face downward, biting the dust, imbedded in mud and water during part of the year. When the Nile overflows it sweeps heedlessly over its own proud ruler. When the water subsides the statue is literally left lying in a mudpuddle. Thus Rameses the Great," the King of Kings," has fallen into a ditch -like all blind leaders of the blindand Egypt has not enough reverence for his name to raise one of his colossal statues out of the mud, and give it a decent place in its museum. We venerate Egypt as the cradle of civilization, and not without reason. "The mysteries of the Egyptians," in which Moses was learned, at that time comprised the highest learning in the world. Their temples,although in ruins, show a degree of knowledge and skill which for that day seems almost incredible. But these grand temples they built in adoration of birds and bulls. They made gods not only of the sun, moon and stars, but of beasts, birds and reptiles; of the apis and the ibis ; of the serpent and the crocodile. Many of their grandest works are built in honor of a deified brute. One of their favorite divinities is the sphinx, a being with the body of a lion and a human face. At Sakkara, not far from the site of ancient Memphis, is a large burial ground, which for many ages was buried under the sand of the Lybian desert. Of late years a large part of this cemetery has been dug out of the earth. The approach to it used to be through an avenue of sphinxes, extending more than a quarter of a mile. Along the sides of a vaulted passage chambers have been hewn out of the rock. Each of these contains a sarcophagus 15 by 8 feet, of solid granite, finely carved and smoothly polished. How such a heavy mass could have been brought here no one seems to know. Thus far thirty of these grand monuments lining this passage have been unearthed. They would be fit burial places for kings, but were all erected in honor of certain sacred bulls. On the walls of each is a tablet which records the birth, death and burial of each particular brute. "These were the gods of Egypt, mother of the arts, and civilizer of the earth." The Eccentricities of Ruskin. BY PROF. WM. M. REILY, Since the appearance of the article on Ruskin, it has occurred to the writer that the following question might arise in the minds of some of the readers of the GUARDIAN:-If Ruskin has such a high conception of art, and is so thoroughly imbued with a Christian spirit, how does it come that he possesses so little influence among artists, and is to so so great an extent, sneered at by the public press? The answer to this is that he has a great many eccentricities. Some of these will now be set forth, and an opportunity afforded for a fair verdict. But first of all, a fact should be stated which redounds much to his credit. His four volumes on Modern Painters may be regarded as a monument of gratitude and affection to the honor of a noble friend. It is very evident that Ruskin did not compose that work with the object which so many authors have in view-namely: of parading their own learning and literary ability before the public. Almost every page glows with devotion to the cause of truth and friendship. Turner, the landscape painter, was overlooked and neglected. The eyes of the public must be opened to his merit; and if it required four volumes or forty, he would not stop till the scales dropped, and the artist be seen in his true light and character. Now in order to accomplish his purpose, what does Ruskin undertake to do? Nothing short of proving that Turner was the greatest painter that ever lived. He says so expressly. It is true, he modifies his language at times; and from the praises he lavishes upon Angelico and Tintoret, one might infer that he placed them higher; still they surpassed Turner only in certain spheres of excellence. He explains himself thus: "Such, then, being the characters required in order to constitute high art, if the reader will think over them a little... he will see how difficult it must be... to rank the real artist in any thing like a progressive system of greater and less... so that classed by one kind of merit, as, for instance, purity of expression, Angelico will stand highest; classed by another, sincerity of manner, Veronese will stand highest; classed by another, love of beauty, Leonardo will stand highest, and so on.' Still all that landscape of the old masters is to be considered merely as a struggle of expiring skill to discover some new direc their reward. They do deceive and delight the unpracticed eye; they will to all eyes, as long as their colors endure, be the standards of excellence with all who, ignorant of nature, claim to be thought learned in art. And they will to all ages be, to those who have thorough love and knowledge of the creation which they libel, instructive proofs of the limited number and low character of the truths which are necessary, and the accumulated multitude of pure, broad, bold falsehoods which are admissible in pictures meant only to deceive." For the French school he has a similar contempt. "Industry they have, learning they have, feeling they have; yet not so much feeling as ever to forget themselves even for a moment; the ruling motive is invariably vanity, and the picture therefore an abortion.” Ruskin certainly has a right to choose the principles upon which to base a judgment. In selecting them he has much show of reason on his side, and employs them logically and skilfully in making his point. But he injures his cause and brings ridicule upon himself by the debasing epithets by which he seeks to degrade the rivals of his favorite. Before reading Ruskin, we had been accustomed to regard Claude Lorraine and Salvator Rosa as the most distinguished of all artists in the sphere of landscape. If any are mentioned by such writers as Goethe, Coleridge, Cousin, Rauch, and Emerson, it is one or the other of these. We had never heard them referred to except in the most respectful terms; and their productions are always regarded as gems in the great picture galleries of Europe. But according to Ruskin, Claude's capacities are of the meanest order. He is totally devoid of imagination. He is senseless and childish. Turner had been a close student of him—but "it was impossible to dwell on such works for any length of time without being grievously harmed by them." On Salvator Rosa, he is still more severe. "His baseness of Hegel speaks of this subject, like a thought and bluntness of sight were un-philosopher and a man of sense, as folconquerable; and his works possess no value whatever for any person versed in the walks of noble art." He is not ashamed to say of the great artist that "he was base-born and thief-bred." But he does not confine his denunciations to individuals. He pours contempt upon the "great body" of the ancient landscapists: "They had neither love of nature nor feeling of her beauty; they looked for her coldest and most common-place effects, because they were easiest to imitate; and for her most vulgar forms, because they were most easily to be recognized by the untaught eyes of those whom alone they could hope to please; they did it like the Pharisee of old, to be seen of men, and they had One of the most interesting spheres of art to the ordinary traveler is the Dutch school of painters. If there is in one room of a royal gallery in which he is prompted to tarry long, it is where the Hollanders display their sincerity, goodhumor and marvellous technical skill and care. No one who has given any attention to them will fail to carry with him a pleasant and affectionate recollection of their graphic and thoughtful representations of domestic life, on all its sides, sober, joyous, and comic; of their pictures of outdoor amusements, and business; of the plain and homespun, but honest and faithful, delineations of prosaic human existence in general. lows: "The Hollanders got the material of their artistic productions out of themselves, out of the presence of their own life; and they are not to be reproached for giving this presence a second realization in the form of art. What they bring before the eyes and the mind of their cotemporaries must belong also to them in order to engage their entire interest. If we would know in what the interest of the Hollanders of that period consisted, we must consult their history. The Hollander himself to a great extent made the soil on which he subsists, and has been constantly compelled to defend himself against the attacks of the ocean. The inhabitants of both cities and the |