these three leading varieties there are oth- | As they are driven in, the men listen er machines, differing in slight details, all of use for special kinds of work, but difficult to describe in the language of a lay man. The final rupture between a block and its ancient bed is an interesting process. Let us suppose the two cuts to be made, one nearly vertical, and the other, or horizontal one, at right angles to it, and both one or two feet deep. A series of wedges is then inserted into the openings, and a man with a heavy hammer goes along tapping them lightly one after another. sharply for the effect, the crack gradually widens, the great mass of stone begins to heave and swell under the strain, the quick ear of the experts detects the critical moment, and a simultaneous blow on all the wedges throws the monster loose. Now and then, of course, a failure is made, and a block splits in two. But the judgment of the workmen is singularly correct, and the block is generally thrown out in its full integrity. At West Rutland there are half a dozen or more quarries belonging to as many different firms; and others are strewn Swedes-but they are temperate and oralong the hill-sides throughout the region, especially between Rutland and Sutherland Falls, and north as far as Brandon. One of the finest quarries in respect to quality, connected with one of the most extensive mills, is that at Sutherland Falls. The common laborers are nearly all foreigners French Canadians, Irish, and derly; strikes are rare; and here, as in the other marble districts, the proprietors have shown themselves the friends of their employés by building neat little cottages, founding libraries and readingrooms, and endowing churches. For the Green Mountain State likes to boast of its men as well as of its mountains. LOUIS XVII. HEAVEN'S golden gates were opened wide one day, Beneath the dome of stars. From griefs untold that boy-soul took its flight. Sorrow had dimmed his eyes and quenched their light; Round his pale features floats his golden hair; Whilst virgin souls with songs of welcome stand With martyr palms to fill his childish hand, And crown him with that crown the Innocents should wear. Hark! Hear th' angelic hosts their song begin: Come to thy rest; thine earthly griefs are o'er. To hail thee as a King and Martyr evermore! When did I reign? the gentle spirit cries. The angels answered: God the Wise and Good, tears. Dear boy, hath called thee from an evil world, The angels paused. The child's eyes filled with A world that tramples on the Blessed Rood, Where regicides with ruthless hands have hurled Kings from their thrones, And from their very graves have tossed their mouldering bones. What is my long, sad, weary waiting o'er? The child exclaimed. Has all been suffered, then? How long, O God, before some help will come? Can I have died, and be at last at home? You know not half my griefs that long sad while; I wept, but had no mother's pitying smile, On heaven an awful silence seemed to fall. The Father spake, and echoing through the spheres His voice was heard by all. My love, dear king, preserved thee from the fate Rejoice, and join the angels' happy hymns. Child of bright hopes, heir of a royal name! Child of that blessed One who suffered scorn, IT SOME GLIMPSES OF ARTISTIC LONDON. T is a popular fiction that English progress is exceptionally slow, more especially when compared with forward movements in the United States. This view is perhaps even more prevalent in England than in America. In certain things appertaining to the saving of labor, in the encouragement and adoption of new inventions for lubricating the wheels of trade, in the application of the laws of hygiene to hotel management, and in the construction of theatres, the Americans, indeed, advance by bounds, while the English move with tardy step and slow. But Her there must be taken into account the fact that the mother country has a habit of repose which more or less disguises the rapidity with which some of her changes and improvements march onward. greatest social, artistic, and material reforms have been accomplished with the least noise and the smallest amount of friction. It may take her a long time to make up her mind as to the adoption of some new idea, but when she has decided she is neither slow nor uncertain in her action. In this way she possibly makes fewer experiments than her neighbors, though now and then she must be credited | cottage and the nursery artistic substiwith changes which, accepted as advances tutes for poor German prints; famous in the path of progress, have unfortunate- draughtsmen have adorned the fairy tales ly proved to be steps backward. The and fables of youthful literature with charreign of stucco in English, more particu- acteristic forms of beauty: the painter has larly in London, architecture-a tyranny left his garret among the London chimof ugliness only just now being dethroned ney-pots; and once more English archi-marks a period which might well be tects and builders are erecting English designated as that of the "mud-pie" order houses in which all that was useful and of architecture. The name of Nash will picturesque in the "Old Kensington" and go down to posterity as the interpreter of "Queen Anne" styles is restored and a spirit of vulgar economy and sham, adapted to our greater knowledge and betwhich found London a city of brick, and ter sanitary skill, and more or less idealleft it a city of stucco. ized through the impulse of the reaction that has set in against whitewashing church-wardens and the other Goths and Vandals of the interregnum now happily at an end. It is in the discovery of errors that England is apt to be tardy; but mistakes or abuses once exposed, we have now and then a habit of vigor which surprises ourselves almost as much as our foreign critics. In nothing have we been more energetic of late years than in the hearty recognition of the errors of our ways in regard to architecture and decoration, or rather in our admission that since stucco came in there has been an interregnum of taste. The art preachers and teachers having fairly demonstrated the fact that we were groaning under a despotism of ugliness, we began to set about dethroning the tyrant, and though as late as a dozen years ago he still clung to possession inside and outside our houses, he is to-day tottering to his fall. Tributes to the new power are set up all over the land, and it is proper that London, which accepted the stucco king, should be most active in its allegiance to the restoration of brick and stone, and most earnest in promoting the new alliance of beauty and utility. It does not come within the compass of this article to tell the story of the revival of artistic taste, but rather to illustrate its very notable existence. One might date its prominent beginning to the Exhibition year of 1851, since which time South Kensington has passed on the torch of knowledge from town to town. Art schools have sprung up all over the land; Lambeth has competed with Worcester, and both with the great potteries of the Continent; Durham and Kidderminster have vied with the carpet looms of Brussels, and the hand-weavers of Persia and Turkey; Birmingham and Sheffield have sought to perpetuate classic models in their metal wares; Manchester, Bradford, and Belfast have consulted the best schools of design and color for their textile fabrics; the illustrated newspapers have given the VOL. LXVII.-No. 402.-52 It is fitting that in this paper, which can snatch glimpses of but a few representative features of its wide subject, he should have foremost mention who is not only enthroned by his peers as the official head of English art, but is in some respects the highest example of modern culture, and shows in his life-work that universality which some regard as better and greater than nationalism of aim and purpose. Sir Frederick Leighton's house and studio are notable not only in themselves, but as the centre of an art colony which has been somewhere strikingly described as a red group of artists' houses, like soldiers or clansmen loyally closing round their chief. There is no mistaking the character of Sir Frederick Leighton's house as you approach it by a side street running out of Melbury Road. It presents itself to your understanding at once as the private residence and studio of an artist. I suspect the master would not consider it infra dig. if you should credit him with having seen the advantages of the site long before many of his friends, and found his reward thereby in an easy purchase of land. He built his house irrespective of some very humble surroundings, and it is curious to-day to note at his very gate the cottage of a "builder and stone-mason," who still hangs out his sign, in spite of the shadow that falls upon it from over the way, where architect and constructor, as well as designer and draughtsman, and poet and orator, might learn many valuable lessons. A red brick house, with windows deep set and various, with loop-holes here and there, indications of inner stairways, and suggestions of colonnades, and with a domed octagon and bays wrought in terra cotta-there is an indescribable air of individuality about the house that marks it as the dwelling of a travelled man who has brought home to his own country many artistic memories. At Sir Frederick Leighton's house the taste of the master reveals itself as you cross the threshold. The entrance hall, or lobby, is decorated in subdued color, a chocolate tone prevailing. A fine drawing of the "Fontana delle Tartarughe" hangs on one side, and some monochromes on the other. The former is the work of Sir Frederick's old Roman master Steinle. Near the door are several reminiscences of the figure studies of Jean Goujon, the sculptor, whose name comes down to us with the double interest of his work and his death. He was one of the victims of the Saint Bartholomew massacre. It is to be noted that in this lobby, which gives upon the central hall, the pictures are examples of black and white, the pavement is mosaic, the doors dead black, decorated with incised scroll-work. The effect is in useful contrast to the inner hall, where one is met by an effect of color in a setting of tiles that eclipses the peacock in azure sheen. Before, however, the eye is fully gratified with this variety of blue lustre, one has to pause and notice that the floor is a dark polished piece of Italian mosaic-work, in the centre of which stands anenormous antique brass pot, from which springs a tall palm. The lowest angle of the staircase is fronted with an inlaid Persian cabinet, upon which is perched a peacock singularly rich in plumage. There is a seat here enriched with olive-amber cushions, and as you look upward, while ascending the staircase to the studio, you find that with all the shimmer of color that made itself manifest at first, the tout ensemble impresses you as exquisitely harmonious and pleasant. The hues of the peacock strike a high key, but it is delightfully maintained without incongruity. There are artists who seem to think that the painter's home is not the place for pictures. The President of the Royal Academy does not think so. One of the staircase walls is given over to a copy of Michael Angelo's cartoon of "Adam." There are many smaller works-several Venetian, bright with color, a head by Tintoretto, and an unfinished painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Approaching the studio door the visitor is arrested by Watts's fine portrait of the master, Leighton's study of the characteristic profile of Captain Burton, a landscape by Signor Costa, a figure subject by Legros, a woman and child by Armstrong (a Manchester man, and for some time a pupil of Ary Scheffer in Paris), and pencil sketches by Wilkie and John Leech. Even these few details between the porch and the entrance to the studio give a broad understanding of the artist's many-sidedness. The President makes it a point to be "at home" on Sunday afternoons, and he has friends who do not go more religiously to morning service at their churches than to his informal and cordial reception afterward. Pausing at the head of the staircase to have poured into my ear some grateful reminiscences of a young Academy Associate touching the kindnesses he had received at the hands of the master of the house, I pause here also to mention this generous characteristic of the famous painter: whatever the pressure upon his time, he always finds opportunities to give a word of counsel and a friendly hand to struggl ng workers who show signs of promise or surety of future power. And," says my friend-who is himself high up on the ladder of fame"when he begins to drop you, when he no longer looks in, or when he is too busy to give you the old attention, then you may be sure you are getting on, or that he can be of no further use to you, and that he is helping some one else who has more need of his sympathy and advice." 66 There are two studios in Sir Frederick Leighton's house. It is in his studio proper, his great art workshop, that the master especially reveals himself. The first impression of the place is exactly what one might expect. Your mind travels back in imagination to the studio of one of the princely artists of Italy, to be brought back, however, to these modern days by a touch of nineteenth-century color or some latterday device of comfort. You are surrounded by sufficient in the way of luxury to suggest the home of a Rubens, a Titian, or a Rembrandt, but I suspect there is an air of elegant refinement and usefulness in this studio of to-day which was absent in perhaps the more regal aspect of the grand studios of those old masters who entertained kings. An artist might live here as well as work, might play the æsthetic hermit and never leave the room except for exercise, so pleasant, so adapted is it to |