The Chautauquan, May 1884

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The Chautauquan.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. IV. MAY, 1884. No. 8.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

Superintendent of Instruction—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn.

Counselors—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.

Office Secretary—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

General Secretary—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Contents

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REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4.
May.

READINGS FROM ROMAN HISTORY.

SELECTED BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.

It has not been the compiler’s purpose in these extracts to produce a continuous sketch of the history of Rome. That, in the space assigned, would be impossible. It has not been his purpose to present to readers incidents or events in Roman story judged to be the most important or the most striking of all that were open to his choice. That, too, would require more room than could here be commanded. His purpose has been simply, from the long historic panorama of Rome, to cut out a few pictures, at the same time interesting enough, compact enough, and complete enough within themselves, to deserve and to admit being shown to readers of The Chautauquan, in the comparatively small space that could be allotted to them in these columns.

We begin with a tale taken from the legendary part of Roman history. Livy tells it for us, Mr. George Baker being his English interpreter, a practical one and excellent. A war is in progress between the Romans and the Albans.

THE LEGEND OF THE HORATII AND THE CURIATII.

[No date assignable.]

It happened that, in each of the armies, there were three twin brothers, between whom there was no disparity, in point of age, or of strength. That their names were Horatius and Curiatius, we have sufficient certainty, for no occurrence of antiquity has ever been more universally noticed; yet, notwithstanding that the fact is so well ascertained, there still remains a doubt respecting the names, to which nation the Horatii belonged, and to which the Curiatii; authors are divided on the point; finding, however, that the greater number concur in calling the Horatii Romans, I am inclined to follow them. To these three brothers, on each side, the kings proposed that they should support, by their arms, the honor of their respective countries, informing them that the sovereignty was to be enjoyed by that nation whose champions should prove victorious in the combat. No reluctance was shown on their parts, and time and place were appointed. Previous to the fight a league was made between the Romans and Albans, on these conditions: That, whichever of the two nations should, by its champions, obtain victory in the combat, that nation should, without further dispute, possess sovereign dominion over the other.

The league being concluded, the three brothers, on each side, pursuant to the agreement, took arms, the friends of each putting them in mind that “the gods of their country, the country itself, the whole of their countrymen, whether at home or in the army, rested on their prowess the decision of their fate.” Naturally bold and courageous, and highly animated, beside, by such exhortations, they advanced into the midst, between the two armies. The two armies sat down before their respective camps, free from all apprehensions of immediate danger to themselves, but not from deep anxiety, no less than sovereign power being at stake, and depending on the bravery and success of so small a number. With all the eagerness, therefore, of anxious suspense, they fixed their attention on an exhibition which was far, indeed, from being a matter of mere amusement. The signal being given, the three youths, who had been drawn upon each side, as in battle array, their breasts animated with the magnanimous spirits of whole armies, rushed forward to the fight, intent on mutual slaughter, utterly thoughtless of their own personal peril, and reflecting that, on the event of the contest, depended the future fate and fortune of their respective countries. On the first onset, as soon as the clash of their arms and the glittering of their swords were perceived, the spectators shuddered with excess of horror, and their hopes being, as yet, equally balanced, their voices were suppressed, and even their breath was suspended. Afterward, in the progress of the combat, during which not only the activity of the young men’s limbs, and the rapid motions of their arms, offensive and defensive, but wounds also, and blood, were exhibited to view, the three Albans were wounded, and two of the Romans fell lifeless, one over the other. On their fall the Alban army set up a shout of joy, while the Roman legions were in a state of the most painful anxiety, almost bereft of hope, and reduced to a state of despair by the situation of their champion, who was now surrounded by the three Curiatii. It happened that he was unhurt, so that, though singly he was by no means a match for them altogether, yet was he confident of success against each of them, separately. In order, therefore, to avoid their joint attack, he betook himself to flight, judging that they would pursue with such different degrees of speed as their wounds would allow. He had now fled to some distance from the place where they had fought, when, looking back, he perceived that there were large intervals between the pursuers, and that one was at no great distance from him; against him he turned back, with great fury, and while the Alban army called out to the Curiatii to succor their brother, Horatius having in the meantime slain his antagonist, proceeded, victorious, to attack the second. The Romans then cheered their champion with shouts of applause, such as naturally burst forth on occasions of unexpected joy; on his part, he delayed not to put an end to the combat; for, before the third, who was at no great distance, could come up to the relief of his brother, he dispatched the second Curiatius. And now they were brought to an equality, in point of number, only one on each side surviving, but were far from an equality either in hopes or in strength; the one, unhurt, and flushed with two victories, advanced with confidence to the third contest; the other, enfeebled by a wound, fatigued with running, and dispirited, beside, by the fate of his brethren already slain, met the victorious enemy. What followed could not be called a fight; the Roman, exulting, cried out: “Two of you have I offered to the shades of my brothers, the third I will offer to the cause in which we are engaged, that the Roman may rule over the Alban;” and, whilst the other could scarcely support the weight of his armor, he plunged his sword downward into his throat; then as he lay prostrate, he despoiled him of his arms. The Romans received Horatius with triumphant congratulations, and a degree of joy proportioned to the greatness of the danger that had threatened their cause. Both parties then applied themselves to the burying of their dead, with very different dispositions of mind; the one being elated with the acquisition of empire, the other depressed under a foreign jurisdiction. The sepulchers still remain, in the several spots where the combatants fell: those of the two Romans in one place, nearer to Alba, those of the three Albans on the side next to Rome; but in different places, as they fought.

Do our readers wonder that Byron speaks of Livy’s “pictured page?” We advance immediately to the beginning of authentic Roman history—the date of the war between Pyrrhus and Rome. Our historian shall be the German, Wilhelm Ihne (pronounced Eé-nuh), who, however, writes himself directly in English. He is still later than Mommsen, and far more judicial than he.

THE EMBASSY OF CINEAS TO ROME.

[About 280 B. C.]

The embassy of Cineas to Rome was celebrated in antiquity and was a favorite topic for rhetorical declamation. It is said that he took with him beautiful presents for men and women, but offered them in vain.[A] Rome, which in a later time the Numidian king Jugurtha declared to be ready to sell itself if only a purchaser could be found, was still, as is related, pure and virtuous. It was the time of Manius Curius, the conqueror of the Samnites, who, sitting by his own hearth and eating his simple peasant’s food, had proudly rejected the tempting presents of the Samnites; it was the time when C. Cornelius Rufinus was cast out of the senate by the censors because he had silver plate to the weight of ten pounds in his use. And was not Fabricius, the first soldier and statesman of his time, a pattern of simplicity and contentment, and superior to all temptation? What a contrast to the mercenary Greeks, whose greatest patriots and statesmen were publicly accused of bribery, and were compelled to defend themselves against such charges before the public tribunals! But Cineas was a shrewd, experienced negotiator. Where one scheme failed, he tried another. He discovered the point where the stout Romans were vulnerable. He flattered their pride. On the second day after his arrival he knew the names of all the senators and knights, and had something obliging to say to each. He visited the influential men in their houses, to get them secretly to favor his propositions. At length, when he appeared in the senate and made known his commission, when he brought offers of peace and friendship from the powerful king of Epirus, the redoubted warrior, the victor of Heraclea, the senate wavered in its decision; the deliberations lasted many days, and it appeared that the advice of those would prevail whose courage was damped and whose confidence was small. At that critical moment, the blind Appius Claudius, bowed down with age and infirmity, appeared, supported by his sons, in the solemn assembly. He had for some years retired from public life, but his haughty temper could not brook the idea that Rome should accept laws from a foreign conqueror. The Claudian pride which animated him was the genuine Roman pride, the first national virtue. He summoned all his strength once more to raise his voice in that council which he had so often swayed by his wisdom, and had subdued by his indomitable will. As if from the grave, and as if inspired by the genius of a better time, his words, echoing in the ears of the breathless assembly, scared away all pusillanimous considerations and infused the spirit of resistance which animated the men of Rome when, from the height of the capitol, they beheld the Gaulish conquerors rioting in the ruins of their town. The speech of Appius Claudius was a monument of a glorious time, the contemplation of which warmed and inspired succeeding generations. It is the first speech of the contents of which there has been preserved a substantially correct report. Later generations believed they possessed even the exact words, and Cicero speaks of it as of a literary composition of acknowledged authenticity. This view is hardly tenable; but it may be believed that the general purport and some of the arguments of the speech were faithfully preserved in the Claudian family books, and we can not deny ourselves the pleasure of listening to the faint echo which introduces us for the first time into the immediate presence of the most august assembly of the old world.

According to the tradition, Appius spoke something as follows: “Hitherto, assembled fathers, I used to mourn that I was deprived of the light of the eye; now, however, I should consider myself happy if, in addition to that, I had lost the sense of hearing, that I might not hear the disgraceful counsels which are here publicly proposed, to the shame of the Roman name. How are you changed from your former estate! Whither have your pride and your courage flown? You that boasted you would have opposed the great Alexander himself if, in the period of your youth, he had dared to invade Italy; that he would have lost in battle against you the fame of the invincible, and would have found defeat or death in Italy, to the glory of the Roman name—you now show that all this was nothing but vain boasting; for you fear now the Chaonians and Molossians, who have always been the spoil of the Macedonians, and you tremble before Pyrrhus, who passed his life in the service of one of Alexander’s satellites. Thus one single misfortune has made you forget what you once were. And you are going to make him who is the author of your shame your friend, together with those who brought him over to Italy. What your fathers won by the sword, you will deliver up to the Lucanians and the Bruttians. What is this but making yourselves servants of the Macedonians? And some of you are not ashamed to call that peace which is really slavery!”

When Appius had spoken, the negotiations with Cineas were broken off. He was warned immediately to leave the town, and to inform his king that there could be no idea of peace and friendship between him and the Roman people until he had left the shores of Italy. That was the answer of a people conquered, but not broken in spirit; a people prepared to stand up for their honor and their greatness, even to the last man. The impression which the Romans made on Cineas is described as very powerful. It is said that he compared the town of Rome to a temple, and the senators to kings. Indeed, the dignity, the calmness, and firmness of the Roman people could not have failed to convince him that the Romans were barbarians of a peculiar type; although in refinement and polish, in art and the higher enjoyments of life below the Greeks, still as citizens and soldiers very superior to them. The day of Heraclea was far from damping their courage. A new army was formed in Rome, probably under Cineas’s own eyes, from volunteers, who, full of enthusiasm, poured thither from all parts to fill up the gaps.

Let Dr. Thomas Arnold be compared with Ihne, at this point of the history, and a curiously instinctive contradiction appears. Both historians refer, for their authority, to precisely the same passages in two different works by Cicero; but whereas Ihne, as our readers have seen, makes Cicero in them vouch for the authenticity of Appius Claudius’s speech, Arnold, on the other hand, makes him regard it as utterly unworthy of trust! But Arnold adds a comment that our readers will like to see.

No Englishman can have read thus far without remembering the scene, in all points so similar, which took place within our fathers’ memory in our own House of Parliament. We recollect how the greatest of English statesmen, bowed down by years and infirmity, like Appius, but roused, like him, by the dread of approaching dishonor to the English name, was led by his son and son-in-law into the House of Lords, and all the peers with one impulse arose to receive him. We know the expiring words of that mighty voice, when he protested against the dismemberment of this ancient monarchy, and prayed that if England must fall, she might fall with honor. The real speech of Lord Chatham against yielding to the coalition of France and America, will give a far more lively image of what was said by the blind Appius in the Roman senate, than any fictitious oration which I could either copy from other writers or endeavor myself to invent; and those who would wish to know how Appius spoke, should read the dying words of the great orator of England.

[A] Plutarch, Pyrrh, 18. According to Zonaras, however (viii:3), the attempts at corruption were not fruitless.

COMMERCIAL LAW.

By EDWARD C. REYNOLDS, Esq.

IV.—REAL ESTATE.

How known? Unfortunately, this is not always easily determined, as much expensive litigation is continually demonstrating. There are two general divisions of property, which we designate as real and personal.

Land is real property, or real estate. Stocks, lumber, evidences of debt, and all that property which is classed as movable is personal estate. Personal estate may become real estate. How? Take lumber, bricks, etc., which are personal property, and therewith construct a house, and locate it, with stone or brick foundation, on your land. The personal property, so used, merges its lesser title in that of the greater, that of the land on which it is placed, and becomes with the land real estate, subject to real estate law as regards taxation, transfer, and in fact every essential feature. Whence comes the original ownership? First by right of discovery; next by royal grant, and by purchase, and then by descent and purchase. It is our purpose to consider this transfer by purchase. This being accomplished through the medium of a deed, we pass on to mention a few of its characteristics. This document is the evidence of a sale and conveyance of certain real estate, which should therein be accurately described. There is a recognized form of deed in general use, which although containing a few seeming superfluous words, according to the ideas of an occasional iconoclast, is yet safe; and this blank, which may be purchased of publishers, is the one to use. Lack of space will not permit an analysis of a deed, but we will endeavor to explain its execution. The deed must be signed by the party or parties making the sale; must be sealed, acknowledged, witnessed (this is not required in all the states, but is generally done), delivered and recorded. The deed should be written in ink. The writing should be plain, since it is written to be read, a fact sometimes seemingly overlooked. The description and all the clerical work should be completed and accurately completed before signing, since no change is legitimate, if made after signature has been attached. The witnesses should see the grantor sign his name, and then sign themselves. A corporation making a transfer does it by its president or treasurer, who signs in this way:

Cimbrian Manufacturing Company,
By James Felt,
President.

A seal (a small piece of paper attached as a wafer or sealing wax is ordinarily used) is placed opposite the signature of the grantor, or, if more than one name, a seal for each. After signing, sealing and witnessing, the deed must be “acknowledged.” For this purpose the grantor goes before a Justice of the Peace, or Notary Public, or, if the grantor is not resident in the state where the real estate is situated, then before a State Commissioner of Deeds, or if in a foreign country, then before a consul. These are persons qualified by appointment to the office which they hold, to take acknowledgments. The deed is shown the officer, to whom grantor makes the acknowledgment that the document by him signed is his free act and deed; and by whom a certificate to that effect by him signed, is attached to the deed. The deed being duly executed is now delivered by the grantor to the grantee (this matter of delivery is essential), and is by him placed upon record.

By record is meant this: Each county of the state has an office wherein are kept the records of all the real estate conveyances of that county, or of land situated in that county. This office opens its records to the inspection of the public, and by the records there each real estate owner’s title may be investigated. Between the parties to a transfer, the deed would be sufficient evidence of such passing of title without record, but wherever the rights of other parties might clash with such a change of ownership, record would be absolutely necessary for the protection of the grantee. Make it a rule, then, when right or title in or to real estate becomes vested in you by deed, to allow no great length of time to elapse before having records made. Since all titles are to be established in the Registry of Deeds, it is the privilege of any one purchasing, either to investigate the title to his proposed purchase himself, or have some one do it for him. Whenever one wishes an agent to make a transfer he must first authorize his agent, by giving him a power of attorney to attend to the execution of the deed, and this power of attorney must contain specific authority and plenary, and be executed with the formality of a deed, and be regularly recorded.

On writing deeds remember:

That the price paid is ordinarily stated in the deed. The exact amount need not be mentioned. It may read “In consideration of one dollar.” The amount named is not conclusive evidence of amount paid;

That the description should be accurate. It is quite common to find very imperfect descriptions, but this is wrong, and is the cause of much trouble. In addition to description, refer to previous deeds, by giving book and page; wherein recorded in the Registry of Deeds;

That a deed should describe the incumbrances, if any there be. If any such exist, and the deed is silent regarding them, the grantor is selling that which does not belong to him, a species of business activity which the law does not encourage;

That, if the grantor be a married man, his wife should sign the deed, relinquishing her interest in the property, commonly called dower;

That either a warranty or quit-claim deed transfers the owner’s entire interest in the real estate; but while by the former the grantor warrants the title and engages to defend the same “against the lawful claims and demands of all persons,” by the latter he avoids all such personal liability. Therefore if property be free from incumbrances a quit-claim is as good as a warranty deed; notwithstanding this, a purchaser had better insist on having the latter in every case;

That deeds should be recorded in the Registry of the county in which the real estate is located.

MORTGAGES—Real Estate.

A mortgage is a transfer made with intent of giving mortgagee security for money loaned or a debt in some way incurred. The mortgage is a deed conveying to the mortgagee the owner’s title to the estate granted in just the same way and with same formalities as a regular deed of transfer, subject to one condition, which is, that the mortgage deed shall be void if the amount therein specified is paid at the stated time.

After the delivery of the mortgage deed the relative standing of the parties is this:

The mortgagee:

Unless the right is specially waived in the deed, he may enter and take possession. He is therefore the owner subject to a condition, and has in him the right of possession;

He may sell and assign to a third party his interest in the mortgaged property, investing such person with all his rights therein;

When the stated time for payment, whether of principal or interest, has elapsed, and the conditions have not been complied with, foreclosure of mortgage may be commenced, and at the expiration of three years from such commencement, he may take absolute possession of the estate, unless mortgagor redeems it within that time;

He may insure mortgaged premises for his own protection.

The mortgagor:

He is not in possession of mortgaged premises by right, unless by special permission;

He must pay all amounts designated in the mortgage deed, at the time therein specified;

He may redeem the property at any time within three years after commencement of foreclosure, by paying amount due; with interest and legal costs.

He may sell his remaining interest (called equity of redemption), after mortgage transfer, or procure other mortgages on same property.

Personal Property.

Mortgages of personal property are much more informal in their execution than similar transfers of real estate. The transfer is a complete change of ownership title, with similar conditional clause, relative to payment, to that of a mortgage deed.

The several states make provisions for record of these conveyances, which are to be observed in order to insure the proper security of mortgagee’s title, since record has same significance with personal as with real estate mortgage transfers.

A farther analogy may be found in the fact of a right of foreclosure and equity of redemption.

Wills.

If at any time we were to say that “Every man his own lawyer” would be giving to some very poor assistance, we think the suggestion would be eminently proper here. This is not the word of discouragement, but of caution, else the practicability of these articles, which is the theory leading to their publication, might with propriety be questioned. There is no department of legal work where more skill and care may be demanded than in this. But though care is ever to be exercised, not always is superior skill necessary, for one may desire a very simple and direct disposition of his property, and this may be done if only the formalities are observed, by one not conversant with the niceties of law points, and done in such a proper and regular manner that all complications will be avoided. But where different interests are to be carved out of an estate, then the execution of it requires skill and experience.

Who may make a will? Any person who has attained proper age and is of sound mind. By the old common law a married woman was not competent, but this restriction has been removed by statutory enactment in most of the states, and a married woman in those states is no longer forbidden the disposition of her property in accordance with her own wishes.

Quite generally eighteen years for males and sixteen for females are designated as proper ages. Children not mentioned in a will, unless provided for in testator’s lifetime, are presumed to have been accidentally omitted, and take same share of the estate as they would if there had been no will. It will therefore be readily seen that if omission was intentional, testator’s design would be defeated. Whenever such omission of gift to a child is designed it should be particularly mentioned in the will.

A codicil is simply an addition to or change in the will, and should be attached to the original, and executed with same formalities.

In making a will be careful to observe:

That the person is of proper age and sound mind;

That all statements and declarations be made in clear, unambiguous language, so that a misconception of it will be impossible;

That, in propriety, the word “bequeath” should be used as applied to personal estate, and “devise” as belonging to real;

That, unless a life estate simply is intended, words of inheritance (heirs) should be coupled with devisee’s name;

That, in most of the states, three witnesses are required. They should be wholly disinterested, so far as having no personal interest in the will; they should see the testator sign, and should each attach his signature in testator’s presence, and in presence of the others;

That it is well for the testator to name an executor, although this is not required, since in the absence of such directions the Court will appoint an administrator.

OUTLINE OF FORM.

I ⸺ ⸺ of ⸺ ⸺ being of sound mind, hereby make and declare this to be my last will and testament. I give, devise and bequeath my estate and property, real and personal as follows:

[Then follow disposition of property and appointment of executor.]

In witness whereof I have signed, sealed, published and declared this instrument to be my last will and testament, at ⸺ this ⸺ day of ⸺.

⸺ ⸺ [SEAL]

The witnesses then add:

The said ⸺ ⸺ on said ⸺ day of ⸺ signed, published and declared the above as his last will and testament; and we, at his request, and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses thereto.

⸺ ⸺

⸺ ⸺

⸺ ⸺

The destruction of a will revokes it. The making of a new will revokes all former ones.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[May 4.]

Draw yet nearer, O, my soul! with thy most fervent love. Here is matter for it to work upon, something worth thy loving. O see what beauty presents itself! Is not all the beauty in the world united here? Is not all other beauty but deformity? Dost thou now need to be persuaded to love? Here is a feast for thine eyes and all the powers of thy soul; dost thou need entreaties to feed upon it? Canst thou love a little shining earth, a walking piece of clay? And canst thou not love that God, that Christ, that glory, which are so truly and unmeasurably lovely? Thou canst love thy friend because he loves thee; and is the love of a friend like the love of Christ? Their weeping or bleeding for thee does not ease thee, not stay the course of thy tears or blood; but the tears and blood that fell from thy Lord have a sovereign, healing virtue. O my soul! If love deserves and should beget love, what incomprehensible love is here before thee! Pour out all the store of thy affections here, and all is too little—O that it were more! O that it were many thousand times more! Let him be first served that served the first. Let him have the first born and strength of thy soul, who parted with strength, and life and love for thee.

O my soul! dost thou love for excellency? Yonder is the region of light; this is the land of darkness. Yonder twinkling stars, that shining moon and radiant sun, are all but lanterns, hung out of thy Father’s house, to light thee while thou walkest in this dark world. But how little dost thou know the glory and blessedness that are within.

Dost thou love for suitableness? What person more suitable than Christ—his god-head and humanity, his fullness and freeness, his willingness and constancy, all proclaim him thy most suitable friend. What state more suitable to thy misery than mercy, or to thy sin and pollution than honor and perfection? What place more suitable to thee than heaven? Does this world agree with thy desires? Hast thou not had a sufficient trial of it, or dost thou love for interest and near relation? Where hast thou better interest than in heaven, or nearer relation than there?

Dost thou love for acquaintance and familiarity? Though thine eyes have never seen thy Lord, yet thou hast heard his voice, received his benefits, and lived in his bosom. He taught thee to know thyself and him; he opened thee that first window, through which thou sawest into heaven. Hast thou forgotten since thy heart was careless and he awakened it; hard, and he softened it; stubborn, and he made it yield; at peace, and he troubled it; whole, and he broke it; and broken, till he healed it again? Hast thou forgotten the times when he found thee in tears; when he heard thy secret sighs and groans, and left all to come and comfort thee?…

Methinks I hear him still saying to me, “Poor sinner, though thou hast dealt unkindly with me, and cast me off, yet I will not do so by thee; though thou hast set light by me and all my mercies, yet they and myself are thine. What wouldst thou have that I can give thee? And what dost thou want that I can not give thee? If anything I have will give thee pleasure, thou shalt have it. Wouldst thou have pardon? I freely forgive thee all the debt. Wouldst thou have grace and peace? Thou shalt have both. Wouldst thou have myself? Behold I am thine, thy friend, thy Lord, thy brother, husband and head. Wouldst thou have the Father? I will bring thee to him, and thou shalt have him, in and by me.” These were my Lord’s reviving words.

If bounty and compassion be an attractive of love, how immeasurably, then, am I bound to love him! All the mercies that have filled up my life, all the places that ever I abode in, all the societies and persons I have been conversant with, all my employments and relations, every condition I have been in, and every change I have passed through, all tell me that the fountain is overflowing goodness. Lord, what a sum of love am I indebted to thee! And how does my debt continually increase! How should I love again for so much love? But shall I dare to think of requiting thee, or of recompensing all thy love with mine? Will my mite requite thee for thy golden mines, my faint wishes for thy constant bounty; mine, which is nothing, or not mine, for thine, which is infinite and thine own? Shall I dare to contend in love with thee, or set my borrowed languid spark against the sun of love?

No, Lord, I yield; I am overcome. O blessed conquest. Go on victoriously and still prevail, and triumph in thy love. The captive of love shall proclaim thy victory; when thou leadest me in triumph from earth to heaven, from death to life, from the tribunal to the throne! myself, and all that see it, shall acknowledge thou hast prevailed, and all shall say, “Behold how he loved him.”—From Baxter’s “Saint’s Rest,” abridged by Fawcett.

[May 11.]

For we, being accustomed to a careless and perfunctory performing of these duties, can not but find it a hard and difficult matter to keep our hearts so close unto them as to perform them as we ought to do, and so as that we may be really said to do them. For we must not think that sitting in the church while the word of God is preached, is hearing the word of God, or being present there while prayers are read is real praying; no, no, there is a deal more required than this to our praying to the great God aright; insomuch that, for my own part, I really think that prayer, as it is the highest, so it is the hardest duty that we can be engaged in; all the faculties of our souls as well as members of our bodies being obliged to put forth themselves in their several capacities, to the due performance of it.

And as for these several graces and virtues with which our souls must be adorned withal, before they ever can come to heaven, though it be easy to talk of them, it is not so to act them. I shall instance only in some few, as to love God above all other things, and other things only for God’s sake; to hope on nothing but God’s promises, and to fear nothing but his displeasure; to love other men’s persons so as to hate their vices, and so to hate their vices as still to love their persons; not to covet riches when we have them not, nor trust on them when we have them; to deny ourselves that we may please God, and to take up our cross that we may follow Christ; to live above the world whilst we are in it, and to despise it whilst we use it; to be always upon our watchguard, strictly observing not only the outward actions of our life, but the inward motions of our hearts; to hate those very things which we used to love, and to love those very duties which we used to hate; to choose the greatest affliction before the least sin, and to neglect the getting of the greatest gains rather than the performing of the smallest duty; to believe truths which we can not comprehend, merely upon the testimony of one whom we never saw; to submit our own wills to God’s and to delight ourselves in obeying him; to be patient under sufferings, and thankful for all the troubles we meet with here below; to be ready and willing to do and suffer anything we can for him who hath done and suffered so much for us; to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, relieve the indigent, and rescue the oppressed to the utmost of our power; in a word, to be every way as pious toward God, as obedient to Christ, as loyal to our prince, as faithful to our friends, as loving to our enemies, as charitable to the poor, as just in our dealings, as eminent in all true graces and virtues, as if we were to be saved by it; and yet by no confidence in it, but still look upon ourselves as unprofitable servants, and depend upon Christ, and Christ alone for pardon and salvation.—From “Private Thoughts upon Religion and a Christian Life,” by Bishop Beveridge.

[May 18.]

Now, upon the bank of the river, on the other side, they saw the two Shining Men again, who there waited for them. Therefore, being come out of the river, they saluted them, saying: “We are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation.” Thus they went toward the gate.

Now, you must note that the city stood upon a mighty hill; but the pilgrims went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead them up by the arms; they had likewise left their mortal garments behind them in the river; for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They therefore went up here with much agility and speed, though the foundation upon which the city was framed was higher than the clouds; they therefore went up through the regions of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted because they safely got over the river, and had such glorious companions to attend them.

The talk that they had with the Shining Ones was about the glory of the place; who told them that the beauty and glory of it was inexpressible. There, said they, is “the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect.” You are going now, said they, to the paradise of God, wherein you shall see the tree of life, and eat of the never fading fruits thereof; and, when you come there, you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of eternity. There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region, upon the earth, to-wit: sorrow, sickness, affliction and death; “for the former things are passed away.” You are going now to Abraham, to Isaac, and to the prophets, men that God hath taken away from the evil to come, and that are now resting upon their beds, each one walking in his righteousness. The men then asked, What must we do in the holy place? To whom it was answered: You must there receive the comfort of all your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow; you must reap what you have sown, even the fruit of all your prayers, and tears, and sufferings for the King by the way. In that place you must wear crowns of gold, and enjoy the perpetual sight and visions of the Holy One; for there you shall see him as he is. There also you shall serve him continually with praise, with shouting and thanksgiving, whom you desired to serve in the world, though with much difficulty, because of the infirmity of your flesh. There you shall enjoy your friends again that are gone thither before you, and there you shall with joy receive even every one that follows into the holy place after you. There also you shall be clothed with glory and majesty, and put into an equipage fit to ride out with the King of Glory.… Also when he shall again return to the city, you shall go too, with sound of trumpet and be ever with him.—From Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

[May 25.]

If we can make this with ourselves: I was in times past dead in trespasses and sins, I walked after the prince that ruleth in the air, and after the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience; but God, who is rich in mercy, through his great love, wherewith he loved me, even when I was dead, hath quickened me in Christ. I was fierce, heady, proud, high minded, but God hath made me like a child that is newly weaned. I loved pleasures more than God; I followed greedily the joys of this present world; I esteemed him that erected a stage or theater more than Solomon which built a temple to the Lord; the harp, viol, timbrel, and pipe, men singers and women singers were at my feast; it was my felicity to see my children dance before me; I said of every kind of vanity, O how sweet art thou unto my soul! All which things are now crucified to me, and I to them; now I hate the pride of life, and the pomp of this world; now I take as great delight in the way of thy testimonies, O Lord, as in all riches; now I find more joy of heart in my Lord and Savior, than the worldly minded man when “his possessions do much abound;” now I taste nothing sweet but the bread which came down from heaven, to give life unto the world; now my eyes see nothing but Jesus rising from the dead; now my ears refuse all kinds of melody, to hear the song of them that have gotten the victory of the beast and of his image, and of his mark, and of the number of his name, that stand on the sea of glass, “having the harps of God, and singing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, O King of saints.” Surely, if the Spirit have been thus effectual in the sacred work of our regeneration with newness of life, if we endeavor thus to form ourselves anew, then we may say boldly with the blessed apostle, in the tenth to the Hebrews: We are not of them that withdraw ourselves to perdition, but which follow faith to the salvation of the soul.…

The Lord of his infinite mercy give us hearts plentifully fraught with the treasure of this blessed assurance of faith unto the end.—From Hooker.

All men have a rational soul and moral perfectibility; it is these qualities which make the poorest peasant sacred and valued by me. Moral perfectibility is our destiny, and here are opened up to the historian a boundless field and a rich harvest.—Forster.

READINGS IN ART.

II.—THE PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

This paper is abridged from “German, Flemish and Dutch Paintings,” by H. J. Wilmot Buxton, M.A., and Edward J. Poynter, R.A.

Art in Germany and the Netherlands may be considered as beginning about the middle of the fourteenth century. There is, however, no name of importance in the German school of artists until the time of Albrecht Dürer. Before him painters had shown little or no originality in their work. They had followed the Byzantine models largely, and had been influenced by the servile and narrow influences of the middle ages. With the new intellectual and spiritual life which sprang up in the fifteenth century, artistic life awoke in Germany. Dürer was the first and greatest master of the school. He was born in Nuremberg on the 21st of May, 1471.

His father was a Hungarian, who settled in Nuremberg as a goldsmith. Albrecht Dürer was taught his father’s trade, but fortunately his talent for art was observed, and he was sent, in 1484, a boy of thirteen years, to Schongauer. In 1486 he was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut for three years. From the studio of his master, Albrecht Dürer passed, in the year 1490, to a new world—he traveled; and in those “wander-years,” which lasted till 1494, he was doubtless laying in stores of learning for the after-time; but unfortunately we know nothing of those years, except that he had a glimpse of Venice, the first sight of the Italian paradise which, in his case, though seen again, never made him unfaithful to the art of his fatherland. In 1494, Albrecht Dürer returned to Nuremberg, and married Agnes Frey, the daughter of a singer. He received two hundred florins with his wife for her dowry, and it has been said that with her he found more than two thousand unhappy days. In 1506, Dürer again traveled to Italy, and found a warm welcome from the painters at Venice, a city which he now beheld for the second time. Doubtless he learned much from the works which he saw, and the criticism which he heard, but, fortunately for his country, he could go to Italy without becoming a copyist. Giovanni Bellini paid him especial honor, and Dürer tells us that he considered Bellini “the best painter of them all.”

Between the years 1507 and 1520, Dürer produced many of his most famous works. In 1509, he bought a house for himself in the Zisselgasse, at Nuremberg. In 1515 Raphael sent a sketch from his own pencil to his great brother, who has been well styled the “Raphael of Germany.” The sketch is in red chalk, and is preserved in the collection of the Archduke Charles, at Vienna. In 1520 we find Dürer appointed court-painter to the emperor, Charles V., a position which he had already held under Maximilian. His own countrymen seem to have been niggardly in their reward of genius, for the court-painter had only a salary of one hundred florins a year, and painted portraits for a florin (about twenty English pence). In the same year Dürer, accompanied by his wife, visited the Netherlands, and at Antwerp, then the most important town of the Low Countries, both he and his wife were entertained at a grand supper; the master has recorded in his journal his pleasure at the honor bestowed upon him. At Ghent and Bruges all were delighted to show their respect for his genius. At Brussels, Dürer was summoned to the court of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, to whom he presented several engravings. Either through jealous intrigues, or from some other cause, his court favor was of short duration. In Brussels he painted several portraits which were never paid for, and for a time he was in straitened circumstances. Just at this time, however, Christian II., king of Denmark, became acquainted with him, and having shown every mark of honor to the painter, sat to him for his portrait. Soon afterward he returned to Germany.

Once more at home in his beloved Nuremberg, Dürer wrote to remind the Town Council that whilst the people of Venice and Antwerp had offered him liberal sums to dwell among them, his own city had not given him five hundred florins for thirty years of work. But we must pass to the end. Whether the health of Albrecht Dürer had been injured by home cares and the tongue of Agnes Frey, we know not, though many passages in his letters and journal seem to point to this fact. He died on the 6th of April, 1528, and was buried in the cemetery of St. John, at Nuremberg.

Most of Dürer’s works are to be found in Germany. In the Louvre there are only three or four drawings. The Museum of Madrid possesses several of his paintings—a “Crucifixion” (1513), showing the maturity of his genius, two “Allegories” of the same type as the “Dance of Death,” so favorite a subject at this period, and a “Portrait of Himself,” bearing the date 1496. At Munich we may trace, in a series of seventeen pictures, the dawn, the noonday, and the evening of Albrecht Dürer’s art. The “Portrait of his Father,” 1497, is one of his earliest works. His father was then seventy years old. The color is warm and harmonious. The masterpiece of Dürer’s art is the painting of the four apostles—“St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Mark.” This wonderful work is clearly the production of his later years; it bears no date, but the absence of the hardness, which Michael Wolgemut’s workshop had imparted to his early style, is gone, and the whole work shows the influence of his travels and unflagging study. It is usually assigned to the year 1526. The picture has been supposed to represent the “Four Temperaments,” but there is no satisfactory proof that Dürer intended this.

Vienna possesses some of the finest specimens of his art. In the legend of “The Ten Thousand Martyrs,” who were slain by the Persian king Shahpour II., Dürer has described on a panel of about a foot square every conceivable kind of torture. These horrors are witnessed by two figures which represent the painter himself, and his friend Pirkheimer.

The “Adoration of the Trinity” is one of the most famous of Dürer’s works. It is a vast allegorical picture, representing the Christian Religion.

Of his wood-cuts the best known are the “Apocalypse,” 1498; the “Life of the Virgin,” 1511; and the “History of Christ’s Passion.” Of his copper-plate engravings, “St. Hubert,” “St. Jerome,” and “The Knight, Death, and the Devil,” bearing the date 1513, in which we see what Kugler calls “the most important work which the fantastic spirit of German art has ever produced.” The weird, the terrible, and the grotesque look forth from this picture like the forms of some horrible nightmare. Another famous engraving, called “Melancholy,” is full of mystic poetry; it bears the date 1514. To these may be added a series of sixteen drawings in pen and ink on gray paper, heightened with white, representing “Christ’s Passion,” which he never engraved. They are in his best style, and among the finest of his works.

HANS HOLBEIN.

Contemporary with Dürer lived another great artist, Hans Holbein. He was born at Augsburg, in 1497. Comparing him with Albrecht Dürer, Kugler says that “as respects grandeur and depth of feeling, and richness of his invention and conception in the field of ecclesiastical art, he stands below the great Nuremberg painter. Though not unaffected by the fantastic element which prevailed in the Middle Ages, Holbein shows it in his own way.” What we know of Holbein’s life must be told briefly. He was painting independently, and for profit, when only fifteen. He was only twenty when he left Augsburg and went to Bâle. There he painted his earliest known works, which still remain there. In 1519, after a visit to Lucerne, we find him a member of the Guild of Painters at Bâle, and years later he was painting frescoes for the walls of the Rathaus—frescoes which have yielded to damp and decay, and of which fragments only remain. These are in the Museum of Bâle, as well as eight scenes from “The Passion,” which belong to the same date. Doubtless Holbein had gone to Bâle poor, and in search of any remunerative work. It is said that he and his brother Ambrose visited that city with the hope of finding employment in illustrating books, an art for which Bâle was famous. Hans Holbein was destined, however, to find a new home and new patrons. In 1526, Holbein went to England. The house of Sir Thomas More, in Chelsea, received him, and there he worked as an honored guest—painting portraits of the ill-fated Chancelor and his family. Of other portraits painted at this time that of “Sir Bryan Tuke,” treasurer of the king’s chamber, now in the collection of the Duke of Westminster, and that of “Archbishop Warham,” in the Louvre, are famous specimens. Having returned to Bâle for a season, hard times forced Holbein to seek work once more in England. This was in 1532, when he was taken into the service of Henry VIII., a position not without its dangers. He was appointed court-painter at a salary of thirty-four pounds a year, with rooms in the palace. The amount of this not very magnificent stipend is proved from an entry in a book at the Chamberlain’s office, which, under the date of 1538, contains these words: “Payd to Hans Holbein, Paynter, a quarter due at Lady Day last, £8 10s. 9d.”

Holbein was employed to celebrate the marriage of Anne Boleyn by painting two pictures in tempera in the Banqueting Hall of the Easterlings, at the Steelyard. He chose the favorite subjects for such works, “The Triumph of Riches,” and “The Triumph of Poverty.” The pictures probably perished in the Great Fire of London. In 1538, Holbein was engaged on a very delicate mission, considering the matrimonial peculiarities of his royal master. He was sent to Brussels to paint the “Portrait of Christina,” widow of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, whom Henry would have made his queen, had she been willing. Soon after, having refused an earnest invitation from Bâle to return there, Holbein painted an aspirant to the royal hand, Anne of Cleves. Perhaps the painter flattered the lady; at all events the original was so distasteful to the king that he burst into a fit of rage which cost Thomas Cromwell his head. Holbein continued his work as a portrait painter, and has left us many memorials of the Tudor Court. He died in 1543, of the plague, but nothing is known of his burial place. Some time before his death we hear of him as a resident in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, in the city.

The fame of this great master rests almost entirely upon his power as a portrait painter. In the collection of drawings at Windsor, mostly executed in red chalk and Indian ink, we are introduced to the chief personages who lived in and around the splendid court in the troublous times of the second Tudor.

JOHANN FRIEDRICH OVERBECK.

After the death of Dürer and Holbein the German school did not long hold its supremacy. Its decline was rapid, and not until the present century was there a re-awakening. Johann Friedrich Overbeck, the chief of the revivalists of German art, was born at Lübeck, in 1789. When about eighteen years of age he went to Vienna, to study painting in the academy of that city. The ideas on art which he had carried with him were so entirely new and so little agreeable to the professors of the academy, that they met with but small approval. On the other hand, there were several among his fellow-pupils who gladly followed his lead; and in 1810, Overbeck, accompanied by a small band of youthful artists, went to Rome, where he established the school which was afterward to become so famous.

Overbeck, who was professor of painting in the Academy of St. Luke, a foreign member of the French Institute, and a member of all the German academies, died at Rome in 1869, at the advanced age of eighty years. He painted both in fresco and in oil. Of his productions in fresco, the most noteworthy are a “Vision of St. Francis” in Santa Maria degli Angeli, at Assisi, and five scenes from Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” in the villa of the Marchese Massimo, in Rome. Of his oil paintings, the best are the “Triumph of Religion in the Arts,” in the Städel Institute at Frankfort; “Christ on the Mount of Olives,” at Hamburg; the “Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem,” painted in 1816 for the Marien Kirche, at Lübeck; and a “Descent from the Cross,” at Lübeck. Overbeck also executed a number of small drawings. Of these we may mention forty designs of the “Life of Christ,” and many other Biblical subjects.

THE SCHOOL OF THE NETHERLANDS.

In the Netherlands, we find before the seventeenth century, two schools of art; that of Bruges, whose most famous painters were the brothers Van Eyck, and that of Antwerp, whose founder, Matsys, did some fine work. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, that art in the Netherlands attained its full strength and life. The artist to whom the revival was due was Peter Paul Rubens. He was born on the day of the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul—the 29th of June, 1577, at Siegen, in Westphalia. His father was a physician, who being suspected of Protestant proclivities, had been forced to flee from his native town of Antwerp, and was subsequently imprisoned, not without cause, by William of Orange, whose side he had joined. When Peter Paul was a year old, his parents removed to Cologne, where they remained for nine years, and then on the death of her husband, the mother of Rubens returned with her child to Antwerp. Young Rubens was sent to a Jesuit school, doubtless in proof of his mother’s soundness in the faith of Rome, and studied art. Fortunately for the world, Rubens possessed too original a genius to be much influenced by his masters. He visited Italy in 1600, where the coloring of the Venetians exercised a great influence upon the young painter, and we may consider Paolo Veronese as the source of inspiration from which Rubens derived the richness of his tints. In 1601 we find Rubens in the service of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, an enthusiastic patron of art, and two years later he was sent to Philip III. of Spain, on an “artistic commission,” some secret mission, perhaps, but certainly as the bearer of costly presents. On his return from Spain he passed some time in Mantua, Rome, and Genoa; the dramatic power of his pictures he derived probably from Michelangelo, as he had learned richness of coloring from Veronese, and we can trace the influence of Giulio Romano, whose works he must have studied at Mantua.

Rubens settled in Antwerp, and married in 1609 his first wife, Isabella Brandt. Always popular, and always successful, Rubens founded a school of painting in Antwerp, which was soon crowded with pupils. His life, however, was destined to be full of action and movement. In 1620 he went to Paris at the invitation of Marie de Medicis, then living in the Luxembourg Palace. The work which the widowed queen proposed to Rubens was to decorate two galleries, the one with scenes from her own history, the other with pictures from the life of Henri IV.

In 1626 Rubens visited Holland, saw the principal painters of that country, and lost his wife in the same year. The picture of the two sons of this marriage is in the Lichtenstein Gallery, in Vienna. In 1627 Rubens was employed in diplomatic service at the Hague, and in the next year he was ambassador to Philip IV. of Spain, from the Infanta Isabella, widow of the archduke Albert. In 1629 we find the painter still acting as a diplomatist, and this time to the Court of England. The courtly manner, handsome person, and versatile genius of Rubens made him a favorite at Whitehall.

On his return to Antwerp in 1630, he married his second wife, Helena Fourment, a girl of sixteen, belonging to one of the richest families in the city. She served him many times as a model for his pictures. The great master died in 1640, wealthy, honored, and famous, not only in his own city, but in many another. He was buried in the Church of St. Jacques at Antwerp.

In speaking briefly of the chief works of Rubens, we come first to the “Descent from the Cross,” in Antwerp Cathedral. We find in this wonderful work perfect unity, and a nobler conception and more finished execution than usual. Of the coloring it is needless to speak. But even here in this masterpiece we notice the absence of spirituality. The dead Christ is an unidealized study, magnificently painted and drawn, but unredeemed by any divinity of form, or pathos of expression in the head, so that we discover no foregleam of the Resurrection; it is a dead body, no more. Among the eighteen pictures by Rubens in the Antwerp Museum, is a “Last Communion of St. Francis,” which has a great reputation, but suffers from the ignoble type of St. Francis’s head. It was painted in 1619.

In the Gallery at Munich we find ninety-five paintings by this master, illustrating all his styles. The masterpiece is the “Last Judgment.” Passing to Vienna, we find in the Lichtenstein Gallery the portraits of Rubens’s “Two Sons,” and a long series of pictures illustrating the “History of Decius.” In the Belvedere is a magnificent portrait of his second wife, “Helena Fourment.” In the Louvre we find forty-two paintings by Rubens. The greater number of these belong to the series illustrating “The Life of Marie de Medicis.” At Madrid in the Museo del Rey is a “Glorified Virgin,” a truly wonderful work. Turning to Russia, we find in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg some fine works by this master; especially deserving of notice is the “Feast in the House of Simon.” Coming home to England we find this great master again largely represented. The “History of Ixion on the Cloud” is in the gallery of the Duke of Westminster; and “Diana and her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs,” painted for Charles I. in 1629. Blenheim contains many great works by Rubens.

ANTOON VAN DYCK,

The greatest of the pupils of Rubens, the son of a merchant of good standing, was born at Antwerp, in 1599. At ten years of age he was studying art under Van Balen, and was registered in the Guild as his pupil; from him he proceeded to the studio of Rubens. His wonderful precocity enabled Van Dyck to become a master in the Guild of Antwerp painters when only nineteen. In 1620 he was engaged as an assistant by Rubens, and in the following year he was in England employed by James I. This royal service soon ended, and in 1623 Van Dyck went to Italy; in Venice he copied many of Titian’s works, and spent some time in Rome, and a much longer time at Genoa. Wherever he went he was busy with brush and canvas, and in Genoa he painted many of his best pictures. From 1626 to 1632 Van Dyck was in Antwerp, diligently working at some of his greatest pictures, historical subjects and portraits. In the Cassel Gallery there are fourteen of his portraits, among which that of the “Syndic Meerstraten” is one of the most characteristic of his art at this period. At the close of these six years of Antwerp work a new world opened to him. His first visit to England seems to have been unfruitful, but in 1632 he became one of the court painters of Charles I. Success and honor now crowned the new works of Van Dyck. He received a salary of £200 a year as principal painter to the Stuart court, and was knighted by the king. Nothing succeeds like success, and we find Van Dyck sought after by the nobility and gentry of England, and at once installed as a fashionable portrait painter.

Later, after his return to Flanders, in 1640, with his wife, a lady of the Scottish house of Ruthven, he went to Paris, hoping to obtain from Louis XIII. the commission to adorn with paintings the largest saloon in the Louvre, but here he was doomed to disappointment, as the work had been given to Poussin. Van Dyck returned to England, and found that he had fallen, like his patron, Charles I., “on evil tongues and evil days.” The Civil War had commenced. There was no time now for pipe or tabor, for painting of pictures or curling of lovelocks, and whilst trumpets were sounding to boot and saddle, and dark days were coming for England, Van Dyck died in Blackfriars, on the 9th of December, in 1641, and was buried hard by the tomb of John of Gaunt, in old St. Paul’s.

Possessed of less power of invention than his great master, Van Dyck shows in his pictures that feeling which is wanting in the works of Rubens. It is infinitely more pleasant to gaze on a crucifixion, or some other sacred subject, from the pencil of Van Dyck, than to examine the more brilliant but soulless treatment of similar works by his master. As a portrait painter Van Dyck occupies with Titian and Velasquez the first place. In fertility and production he was equal to Rubens, if we remember that his artistic life was very brief, and that he died at the age of forty-two. He lacked the inexhaustible invention which distinguishes his teacher, and generally confined himself to painting a “Dead Christ” or a “Mater Dolorosa.” Of Van Dyck’s sacred subjects we may mention the “Taking of Jesus in Gethsemane” (Museum of Madrid), “Christ on the Cross” (Munich Gallery), the “Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph” (Vienna), the famous “Madonna with the Partridges” (St. Petersburg), and the “Dead Christ,” mourned by the Virgin, and adored by angels, in the Louvre.

Portraits by Van Dyck are scattered widely throughout the galleries of Europe, and his best are probably in the private galleries of England. In all his portraits there is that air of refinement and taste which rightly earned for Van Dyck the name which the Italians gave him, Pittore Cavalieresco.

REMBRANDT.

Contemporaneous with the Flemish school of which Rubens and Van Dyck were the masters, was the Dutch school, of which the great name was Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn. Few persons have suffered more from their biographers than the painters of the Dutch school, and none of them more than Rembrandt. The writings of Van Mander, and the too active imagination of Houbraken, have misrepresented these artists in every possible way. Thus Rembrandt has been described as the son of a miller, one whose first ideas of light and shadow were gained among his father’s flour sacks in the old mill at the Rhine. He has been described as a spendthrift reveler at taverns, and as marrying a peasant girl. All this is fiction. The facts are briefly these: Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1607, in the house of his father, Hermann Gerritszoon Van Rijn, a substantial burgess, the owner of several houses, and possessing a large share in a mill on the Weddesteeg at Leyden. Educated at the Latin school at Leyden, and intended for the study of the law, Rembrandt’s early skill as an artist determined his father to allow him to follow his own taste.

But it was not from these nor from any master that Rembrandt learnt to paint. Nature was his model, and he was his own teacher. In 1630 he produced one of his earliest oil paintings, the “Portrait of an Old Man,” and at this time he settled as a painter in Amsterdam. He devoted himself to the teaching of his pupils more than to the cultivation of the wealthy, but instead of being the associate of drunken boors, as some have described him, he was the friend of the Burgomaster Six, of Jeremias de Decker the poet, and many other persons of good position. In 1632 Rembrandt produced his famous picture, “The Lesson in Anatomy;” about that time he was established in Sint Antonie Breedstraat; in the next year he married Saskia van Ulenburch, the daughter of the Burgomaster of Leeuwarden, whose face he loved to paint best after that of his old mother. We may see Saskia’s portrait in the famous picture, “Rembrandt with his wife on his knee,” in the Dresden Gallery; and a “Portrait of Saskia” alone is in the Cassel Gallery.

In the year 1640 Rembrandt painted a portrait, long known under the misnomer of “The Frame-maker.” It is usually called “Le Doreur,” and it is said that the artist painted the portrait in payment for some picture frames; but is in reality a portrait of Dorer, a friend of Rembrandt. The year 1642 saw Rembrandt’s masterpiece, the so-called “Night-watch.” Saskia died in the same year, and the four children of the marriage all died early, Titus, the younger son, who promised to follow in his father’s steps, not surviving him. Rembrandt was twice married after Saskia’s death. The latter years of the great master’s life were clouded by misfortune. Probably owing to the stagnation of trade in Amsterdam, Rembrandt grew poorer and poorer, and in 1656 was insolvent. His goods and many pictures were sold by auction in 1658, and realized less than 5,000 guilders. Still he worked bravely on. His last known pictures are dated 1668. On the 8th of October, 1669, Rembrandt died, and was buried in the Wester Kerk.

Rembrandt was the typical painter of the Dutch School; his treatment is distinctly Protestant and naturalistic. Yet he was an idealist in his way, and as “The King of Shadows,” as he has been called, he brought forth from the dark recesses of nature, effects which become, under his pencil, poems upon canvas. Rembrandt loved to paint pictures warmed by a clear, though limited light, which dawns through masses of shadow, and this gives much of that air of mystery so noticeable in his works. In most of his pictures painted before 1633, there is more daylight and less shadow, and the work is more studied and delicate.

In the National Gallery we find two portraits of Rembrandt, one representing him at the age of thirty-two, another when an old man. In the same collection is the “Woman taken in Adultery” (1644), and the “Adoration of the Shepherds” (1646), both superb in arrangement and execution. Germany and Russia are almost as rich as Holland in the number of Rembrandt’s pictures which they possess. The “Descent from the Cross,” in the Munich Gallery, is a specimen of the sacred subjects of this master. He interprets the Bible from the Protestant and realistic standpoint, and though the coloring of the pictures is marvelous, the grotesque features and Walloon dress of the personages represented make it hard to recognize the actors in the gospel story. Many of his Scripture characters were doubtless painted from the models afforded him in the Jews’ quarter of Amsterdam, where he resided. The magnificent panoramic landscape belonging to Lord Overstone, and the famous picture of “The Mill” against a sunset sky, are signal examples of his poetic power, and his etchings show us this peculiarity of his genius, even more than his oil paintings. Of these etchings, which range over every class of subject, religious, historical, landscape and portrait, there is a fine collection in the British Museum; and they should be studied in order to understand the immense range of his superb genius. The “Ecce Homo,” to say nothing of the splendor, the light and shade, and richness of execution, has never been surpassed for dramatic expression; and we forgive the commonness of form and type in the expression of touching pathos in the figure of the Savior; nor would it be possible to express with greater intensity the terrible raging of the crowd, the ignobly servile and cruel supplications of the priests, or the anxious desire to please on the part of Pilate. The celebrated plate “Christ Healing the Sick,” exhibits in the highest perfection his mastery of chiaroscuro, and the marvelous delicacies of gradation which he introduced into his more finished work.

The number of Rembrandt’s pictures in Holland, although it includes his three greatest, is remarkably small—indeed, they may be counted on the fingers; and lately, by the sale of the Van Loon collection, the Dutch have lost two more of his finest works in the portraits of the “Burgomaster Six” and “His Wife.” But his works abound in the other great galleries of Europe.

There is really in nature such a thing as high life. A life of health, of sound morality, of disinterested intellectual activity, of freedom from petty cares is higher than a life of disease and vice, and stupidity and sordid anxiety. I maintain that it is right and wise in a nation to set before itself the highest attainable ideal of human life as the existence of a complete gentleman.—Hamerton.

SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

“Among the writers who have done much to refine and elevate American literature, Thomas Bailey Aldrich should have the brightest place of one who has wrought equally well in prose and poetry. Among his early efforts ‘Baby Bell’ will longest hold its place in poetry.”—Henry James, Jr.

It is the vision of a gentle, tender spirit, and many eyes unused to tears will grow moist over the delicate lines. We have not room for the whole.

“Baby Bell.”

Have you not heard the poets tell,

How came the dainty Baby Bell

Into this world of ours?

The gates of heaven were left ajar;

With folded hands and dreamy eyes,

Wandering out of Paradise,

She saw this planet, like a star,

Hung in the glistening depths of even—

Its bridges, running to and fro,

O’er which the white-winged angels go,

Bearing the holy dead to heaven.

She touched a bridge of flowers—those feet,

So light they did not bend the bells

Of the celestial asphodels.

They fell like dew upon the flowers;

Then all the air grew strangely sweet!

And thus came dainty Baby Bell

Into this world of ours.

…

O, Baby, dainty Baby Bell,

How fair she grew from day to day!

What woman-nature filled her eyes;

What poetry within them lay!

Those deep and tender twilight eyes,

So full of meaning, pure and bright,

As if she yet stood in the light,

Of those oped gates of Paradise.

And so we loved her more and more;

Ah, never in our hearts before

Was love so lovely born;

We felt we had a link between

This real world and that unseen—

The land beyond the morn.

And for the love of those dear eyes,

For love of her whom God led forth

(The mother’s being ceased on earth

When Baby came from Paradise),

For love of Him who smote our lives,

And woke the chords of joy and pain,

We said, Dear Christ! our hearts bent down

Like violets after rain.

…

It came upon us by degrees,

We saw its shadow ere it fell—

The knowledge that our God had sent

His messenger for Baby Bell.

We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,

And all our hopes were changed to fears,

And all our thoughts ran into tears

Like sunshine into rain.

We cried aloud in our belief,

“O, smite us gently, gently, God!

Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,

And perfect grow through grief.”

Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;

Her heart was folded deep in ours;

Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell!

At last he came, the messenger,

The messenger from unseen lands;

And what did dainty Baby Bell?

She only crossed her little hands,

She only looked more meek and fair;

We parted back her silken hair,

We wove the roses round her brow—

White buds, the summer’s drifted snow—

Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers

And thus went dainty Baby Bell

Out of this world of ours.

Some of Aldrich’s descriptions of oriental scenery are richer in color and more luxurious, but he is more at home and more captivating with familiar themes drawn from every day life. We are charmed with such simple pictures as

“Before the Rain.”

We knew it would rain, for all the morn

A spirit on slender ropes of mist

Was lowering its golden buckets down

Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens,

Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,

Dipping the jewels out of the sea,

To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed

The white of their leaves, the amber grain

Shrunk in the wind—and the lightning now

Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

North from Jerusalem.

We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate. Not far from the city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure. The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we breathed was an elixir of immortality.

Through a luxuriated olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings, situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley, if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in the rocks, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the rocks was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and cut apart by grooves chiseled between them. I visited four or five tombs, each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without sculptures of any kind. There were fragments of sarcophagi in some of them. On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down. The opening of the quarry made a striking picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.

From the long hill beyond the tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem, far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem, and cheerfully took the rough road northward over the stony hills. There were few habitations in sight, yet the hillsides were cultivated, wherever it was possible for anything to grow. After four hours’ ride we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a convent and a large Khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. The night was calm and cool, and the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.

We rose long before sunrise and rode off in the brilliant morning—the sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the husbandmen were already at their plows, and the village boys were on their way to the uncultured parts of the hills with their flocks of sheep and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting landscape opened upon us.

The village of Zebroud crowned a hill which rose opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning toward it on all sides were covered with orchards of fig trees, and either rustling with wheat or cleanly plowed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich. The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air the very hills laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of gladness on its countenance.

The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over hills laden with the olive, fig and vine, we passed to Aian el Haramiyeh, or the fountain of the robbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descend to a large, bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward toward the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest harvest land. On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear sweet water, beside a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we were told, was the tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near Shechem.

There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests not on Christian, but on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot, render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time.

Leaving the tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west and entered the narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbors. Through an orchard of grand old olive trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of the valley resembles some old garden run to waste.

CELIA THAXTER.

Her home is by the sea, and she gives us some vivid glimpses of ocean scenes. Occasionally a joyous phrase is delicately presented, but the prevailing tone of her verse, on whatever subject, is in the minor. Perhaps “Beethoven” shows most imagination and insight, as well as felicity of expression.

Beethoven.

If God speaks anywhere, in any voice,

To us his creatures, surely here and now

We hear him, while the great chords seem to bow

Our heads, and all the symphony’s breathless noise

Breaks over us, with challenge to our souls!

Beethoven’s music! From the mountain peaks

The strong, divine, compelling thunder rolls;

And “Come up higher, come!” the words it speaks,

“Out of your darkened valleys of despair;

Behold, I lift you upon mighty wings

Into Hope’s living, reconciling air!

Breathe, and forget your life’s perpetual stings—

Dream, folded on the breast of Patience sweet,

Some pulse of pitying love for you may beat!”

Faith.

Fain would I hold my lamp of life aloft

Like yonder tower built high above the reef;