group, refined, full of sentiment. But for all women Edwin Landseer had this courteous feeling of manly deference. There is a Highland mother sitting with a little Highland baby in her arms among limpid grays and browns; there is a lovely marchioness with a dear little chubby innocenteyed baby upon her knee. It is all the same feeling, the same grace and tenderness of expression.

Ruskin describes somewhere the attitude of mind in which a true artist should set to work. Sham art concocts its effect bit by bit; it puts in a light here, a shade there; piles on beauties, rubs in sentiment. The true painter will receive the impression straight from the subject, and then, keeping to that precious impression, works upon it with all his skill and power of attention. Anybody can understand the difference. Even great artists like Landseer sometimes paint pictures out of tune with their own natures, where the painter's skill is evident, and his industry, but his heart is not.

But here is his heart in many a delightful sketch and completed work in the "lovable dogs' heads," that my companion liked so much, with eyes flashing and melting from the canvas; in the pointer's creeping along the ground; in the sportsmanlike eagerness and stir of the "otter-hunt;" in the tender uplifted paw of the little dog talking to Godiva s horse; in many a sketch and completed picture.

When Landseer first became intimate with Mr. Jacob Bell, he was not a rich man, nor had he ever been able to save any money, but under this excellent and experienced good advice and management the painter's affairs became more flourishing. When Mr. Bell died, his partner devoted himself, as he had done, to Sir Edwin's interests. The little old cottage had been added to and enlarged meanwhile, the great studio was built, the park was enclosed, the pictures and prints multiplied and spread, the painter's popularity grew.

One wonderful - never to be forgotten-night, my father took us to see some great ladies in their dresses going to the Queen's fancy ball. We drove to - House (it is all very vague and dazzlingly indistinct in my mind). We were shown into a great empty room, and almost immediately some doors were flung open, there came a blaze of light, a burst of laughing voices, and from a manytwinkling dinner-table rose a company that seemed, to our unaccustomed eyes, as if all the pictures in Hampton Court had come to life. The chairs scraped back, the ladies and gentlemen advanced together over the shining floors. I can remember their high heels clicking on the floor: they were in the dress of the court of King Charles II., the ladies beautiful, dignified, and excited. There was one, lovely and animated, in yellow; I remember her pearls shining. Another seemed to us even more beautiful, as she crossed the room all dressed in black but she, I think, was not going to the ball; and then somebody began to say, "Sir Edwin has promised to rouge them," and then everybody to call out for him, and there was also an outery about his moustaches that "really must be shaved off," for they were not in keeping with his dre-s. Then, as in a dream, we went off to some other great house, Bath House, perhaps, where one lady, more magnificently dressed than all the others, was sitting in a wax-lighted dressing room, in a sumptuous sort of conscious splendor, and just behind her chair stood a smiling gentleman, also in court dress, whom my father knew, and he held up something in one hand and laughed, and said he must go back to the house from whence we came, and the lady thanked him and called him Sir Edwin. We could not understand who this Sir Edwin was, who seemed to be wherever we went. Nor why he should put on the rouge. Then the majestic lady showed us her beautiful jewelled shoe, and one person, who it was I cannot remember, suddenly fell on her knees exclaiming, "Oh, let me kiss it." Then a fairy thundering chariot carried off this splendid lady, and the nosegays of the hanging footmen seemed to scent the air as the equipage drove off under the covered way. Perhaps all this is only a dream, but I think it is

66

"This

I see a note about nothing at all lying on the table, which a friend has sent among some others of sadder import; but it seems to give a picture of a day's work, written as it is with the palette in the other hand," at the time of Sir Edwin's health of labor and popularity. "I shall like to be scolded by you," he writes. eve I dine with Lord Hardinge, and have to go to Lord Londesborough's after the banquet, and then to come back here to R. A. Leslie, who has a family hop - which I am afraid will entirely fill up my time, otherwise I should have been delighted to say yes. Pray give me another opportunity.

"Written, with my palette in the other hand, in honest hurry."

Perhaps Edwin Landseer was the first among modern painters who restored the old traditions of a certain sumptuous habit of living and association with great persons. The charm of manner of which kind Leslie spoke put him at ease in a world where charm of manner is not without its influence, and where his brilliant gifts and high-minded scrupulous spirit made him deservedly loved, trusted, and popular. To artistic natures especially, there is something almost irresistible in the attraction of beauty and calm leisure-refinement. They seem to say more perhaps than such things are really worth in themselves — a lovely marchioness leaving her world of brilliant conversation and well-rubbed plate and beautifully dressed companions of high rank to devote herself to a little baby, or to tend some gentle home affection, is certainly a more attractive impersonation of domesticity than the worried and untidy materfamilias in the suburban villa who has been wearily and ignobly struggling with a maid-of-all-work, and whose way of loving and power of affection is so hurried and distracted by economies of every sort.

Lords and ladies have to thank the intellectual classes for many of the things that make their homes delightful and complete; for the noble pictures on their walls, the books that speak to them, the arts that move them; and, perhaps, the intelligent classes might in their turn learn to adorn their own homes with something of the living art which belongs to many of these well-bred people, who sometimes win the best loved of the workers away from their companions, and make them welcome. No wonder that men not otherwise absorbed by home ties are delighted and charmed by a sense of artistic fitness and tranquillity, which surely might be more widely spread, by a certain gentleness and deference that often strike one as wanting among many good, wise, and true-hearted people, who might with advantage improve their own manner and their wives' happiness by some admixture of chivalry in the round of their honest hard-working existence.

am speaking of him as he appeared before the fine spirit was darkened by one of the heaviest of calamities!

"Landseer's perceptions of character were remarkably acute. Not only did he know what was passing in the hearts of dogs, but he could read pretty closely into those of men and women also. The love of truth was an instinct with him; his common phrase about those he estimated highly was that they had the true ring.' This was most applicable to himself; there was no alloy in his metal; he was true to himself and to others. This was proved in many passages of his life, when nearly submerged by those disappointments and troubles which are more especially felt by sensitive organizations such as that which it was his fortune or misfortune to possess. It was a pity that Landseer, who might have done so much for the good of animal kind, never wrote on the subject of their treatment. He had a strong feeling against the way some dogs are tied up, only allowed their freedom now and then. He used to say a man would fare better tied up, than a dog, because the former can take his coat off, but a dog lives in his forever. He declared a tied-up dog, without daily exercise, goes mad, or dies, in three years. His wonderful power over dogs is well known. An illustrious lady asked him how it was that he gained this knowledge. By peeping into their hearts ma'am,' was his answer. I remember once being wonderfully struck with the mesmeric attraction he possessed with them. A large party of his friends were with him at his house in St. John's Wood; his servant opened the door; three or four dogs rushed in, one a very fierce-looking mastiff. We ladies recoiled, but there was no fear; the creature bounded up to Landseer, treated him like an old friend, with most expansive demonstrations of delight. Some one remarking 'how fond the dog seemed of him,' he said, 'I never saw it before in my life.'

"Would that horse-trainers could have learned from him how horses could be broken in or trained more easily by kindness than by cruelty. Once when visiting him he came in from his meadow looking somewhat dishevelled and tired. 'What have you been doing?' we asked him. 'Only teaching some horses tricks for Astley's, and here is my whip,' he said, showing us a piece of sugar in his hand. He said that breaking-in horses meant more often breaking their hearts, and robbing them of all their spirit.

"Innumerable are the instances, if I had the space, I could give you of his kind and wise laws respecting the treatment of the animal world, and it is a pity they are not preserved for the large portion of the world who love, and wish to ameliorate, the condition of their poor relations.'

"There were few studios formerly more charming to visit than Landseer's. Besides the genial artist and his beautiful pictures, the habitués of his workshop (as he called it) belonged to the élite of London society, especially the men of wit and distinguished talents - none more often there than D'Orsay, with his good-humored face, his ready wit, and delicate flattery. Landseer,' he would call out at his entrance, keep the dogs off me' (the painted ones); 'I want to come in, and some of them will bite me - and that fellow in de corner is growling furiously.' Another day he seriously asked me for a pin, and when I presented it to him and wished to know why he wanted it, he replied, to take de thorn out of dat dog's foot; do you not see what pain he is in?' I never look at the picture now without this other picture rising before me. Then there was Mulready, still looking upon Landseer as the young student, and fearing that all this incense would spoil him for future work; and Fonblanque, who maintained from first to last that he was on the top rung of the ladder, and when at the exhibition of some of Landseer's later works, he heard it said, "They were not equal to his former ones,' he exclaimed in his own happy manner, 'It is hard upon Landseer to flog him with his own laurels.'

"But, dear A—————, I am exceeding the limits of a letter; you asked me to write some of my impressions about Landseer, and I am sure you and all his friends will forgive me for being verbose when recalling, not only the great gifts, but delightful qualities of our lost friend."

Here is one of his early letters to this lady:

February 2, 1856. "DEAR- I must not allow more time to vanish without thanking you for that old friendly note of yours, reread some days ago. I fully expected to thank you personally on Wednesday last, only it was the wrong eve. I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that my brother Charles is so much better. The seaside has put him on his legs again. When are you to be at home? Remember me to Mr. Craufurd and his darling daughter.

"Believe me gratefully and sincerely yours."

"My worn-out old pencil will work with friendly gladness in an old friend's service," he writes to my father, who had asked him to draw a sketch for the Cornhill Magazine. Elsewhere will be read the fac-simile of a second letter he sent him on the same subject. Some years after:

"I quite forgot that I dined with a group of doctors (a committee) at two o'clock. R. A. business after dinner. This necessity prevents me kissing hands before your departure. Don't become too Italian; don't speak broken English to your old friends on your return to our village, where you will find no end of us charmed to have you back again; and amongst them, let me say, you will find old E. L. sincerely glad to see his unvarying K. P. once more by that old fireside."

So he writes in '63 to the friend to whom I owe the notes already given here. There is the "true ring," as he himself says, in these faithful greetings continued through a lifetime. And now that the life is over, the friend still seems there, and his hand stretches faithfully from the little blue page. He writes again, September 2, 1864:

"Do you think you could bring Mrs. Brookfield to my lion studio to-morrow between five and six o'clock? I have forgotten her address, or would not trouble you. Have you still got that cruel dagger in your sleeve? If you can also lasso my friend Brookfield I shall be grateful, and beg you to believe me your used-up old friend, "E. L."

A little later I find a note written in better spirits. His work is done, and those great over-weighing sphinxes are no longer upon his mind.

"The colossal clay," he says, "is now in Baron Marochetti's hands, casting in metal. When No. 2 is in a respectable condition, remind me of Colonel Hamley's kind and highly flattering desire to see my efforts. We can, on the 3d, discuss pictures, lions, and friends.

Yours always, E. L.”

What efforts his work had cost him, and what a price he paid for that which he achieved, may be gathered from a letter to another correspondent, which was written about

this time:

"Dear H.," he says, "I am much surprised by your note. The plates, large vignettes, are all the same size. The sketches from which they were engraved for the deer stalking work being done in a sketch-book of a particular shape and size. Those of the O form all the same, as also the others. I have got quite trouble enough; ten or twelve pictures about which I am tortured, and a large national monument to complete. . . . . If I am bothered about everything and anything, no matter what, I know my head will not stand it much longer."

respondent: "I have just parted from your friend P. He strongly urged me going to 45, where I have been so kindly received of late. I told him you were an object for plunder in this world, and that I was ashamed of living on you as others do." This letter is written in a state of nervous irritation which is very painful; he wishes to make changes in his house; to build, to alter the arrangements; he does not know what to decide or where to go; the struggle of an over-wrought mind is beginning to tell. It is the penalty some men must pay for their gifts; but some generous souls may not think the price of a few weary years too great for a life of useful and ennobling work.

The letters grow sadder and more sad as time goes on. Miss Landseer has kindly sent me some, written to her between 1866 and 1869. The first is written from abroad:

:

"I have made up my mind to return, to face the ocean! The weather is unfriendly-sharp wind and spiteful rain. There is no denying the fact, since my arrival and during my sojourn here I have been less well. The doctors keep on saying it is on the nerves; hereafter they may be found to be in error. Kind Lady E. Peel keeps on writing for me to go to Villa Lammermoor, and says she will undertake my recovery. I desire to get home. With this feeling, I am to leave this to-morrow, pass some hours in Paris (with W. B., in a helpless state of ignorance of the French language); take the rail to Calais at night, if it does not blow cats and dogs; take the vessel to Dover; hope to be home on the 6th before two o'clock. If C. L. had started to come here he might have enjoyed unlimited amusement and nov. elty. B. M. and I wrote to that effect; he leaving on Sunday night.. ... would have found me and B. M. waiting his arrival to bring him here to dinner."

The next is a letter from Balmoral, dated June, 1867:

"The Queen kindly commands me to get well here. She has to-day been twice to my room to show additions recently added to her already rich collection of photographs. Why, I know not, but since I have been in the Highlands I have for the first time felt wretchedly weak, without appetite. The easterly winds, and now again the unceasing cold rain, may possibly account for my condition, as I can't get out. Drawing tires me; however, I have done a little better to-day. The doctor residing in the castle has taken me in hand, and gives me leave to dine today with the Queen and the rest of the royal family.'

Flogging would be mild compared to my sufferings. No sleep, fearful cramp at night, accompanied by a feeling of faintness and distressful feebleness. . .. All this means that I shall not be home on the 7th."

He seems to have returned to Scotland a second time this year, and writes from Lochlinhart, Dingwall : —

"Imade out my journey without pausing, starting on the eve of Thursday the 3d, arriving here the evening of Friday (700 miles) the 4th. I confess to feeling jaded and tired. The whole of hills here present to the eye one endless mass of snow. It is really cold and winterly. Unless the weather recovers a more generous tone I shall not stay long, but at once return south to Chillingham. I was tempted yesterday to go out with Mr. Coleman to the low ground part of the forest, and killed my first shot, at deer.

am paying for my boldness to-day, Sunday. All my joints ache; the lumbago has reasserted its unkindness; a warm bath is in requisition, and I am a poor devil. Unless we have the comfort of genial sunshine, I shall not venture on getting out. . . . I am naturally desirous to hear from you, and to receive a report of the progress of goings on at my home. We have here Mr. C. M. and a third gentleman, just arrived. Mr. Coleman has returned to London on account of his mother's ill health. I have written to H., but in case he has not received my note, let him know my condition; say I shall be very glad to hear from him when he goes to Paris, and how long he remains in foreign parts.

"DEAR JESSY,- Strange enough, but I have only just found at the bottom of the bag your little package of letters. Many thanks for your pale green note, so far satisfactory. I believe it is best to yield to Mr. C.'s advice, and remain here another day or two. It is on the cards that I try my boldness by a run up to my home and back here the same day. It is quite a trial for me to be away from the meditation in the old studio - my works starving for my

hand."

The last letter is written in 1869 from Chillingham Castle, where he seems to have been at home and in sympathy, although he writes so sadly :

"Very mortifying are the disappointments I have to face; one day seeming to give hope of a decided turn in favor of natural feeling, the next knocked down again. If my present scheme comes off, I shall not be at home again for ten days. If on my return I find myself a victim to the old impulsive misery, I shall go on to Eastwall Park, as the Duchess of Abercorn writes she will take every care of me. Since I last wrote I have been on a visit to the Dowager Marchioness of Waterford, Ford Castle, a splendid old edifice, which C. L. would enjoy. Love to all."

I go on selecting at hazard from the letters before me :-

Again accept my gratitude for your constant kindness," he writes to his faithful T. H. H. "The spell is broken in a mild form, but the work is too much for me. The long, long walk in the dark, after the shot is fired, over rocks, bogs, black moss, and through torrents, is more than enough for twenty-five!

"Poor C. has been very ill rewarded for his Highland enterprise. Fifteen hundred miles of peril on the rail; endless bad weather whilst he was here, without killing one deer; finally obliged to hurry off. . . . I have begged him not to think of undertaking another long journey on my account, even in the event of his being able to leave home. . . It is like you to think of my request touching medicines for the poor here. . . . We have a dead calm after the wicked weather; not a dimple in the lake. I am not bold yet. Possibly reaction may take place in the quiet of the studio. I shall not start on great difficulties, but on child's play."

Here is another letter, written in the following spring: "March 11th, 1869.

"I know you like water better than oil; but, in spite of your love of paper-staining, I venture to beg your acceptance of these oil studies, which you will receive as old friends from the Zoo.

"In some respects they will recall the interest you took in my labors for the Nelson lions, and I hope will always remind of you my admiration for your kindly nature, to say nothing of my endless obligations to your unceasing desire to aid a poor old man, nearly used up. Dear T. H. H., ever sincerely yours, "E. LANDSEER."

66

Here is a letter which is very characteristic:

"Saturday Eve, June 5th. "DEAR H., — I am not quite content with myself touching the proposed suggestion of our taking advantage of an offer made by for the two pictures. He has not put his desire to have the pictures in writing, has he? We

must talk it over to-morrow if you come up at four o'clock, or sooner. . . . The enclosed letters are most friendly, as you will see. Read them and bring them up to-morrow. I am anything but well; botherations unfit me for healthy work. You must pat me on the back to-morrow; at the same time, if anything has turned up more attractive don't bind yourself to me.

"I should not dislike a drive or a walk to-morrow before dinner."

He writes once again: "I have a great horror of the smell of a trick, or a money motive."

"MY DEAR HILLS, My health (or rather condition) is a mystery quite beyond human intelligence. I sleep well seven hours, and awake tired and jaded, and do not rally till after luncheon. J. L. came down yesterday and did her very best to cheer me. She left at nine. I return to my own home, in spite of a kind invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone to meet Princess Louise at breakfast.

"I wonder if you are free to-morrow. I shall try and catch you for a little dinner with me, tho' I am sure to find you better engaged. Dear H., ever thine, E. L."

Then comes the sad concluding scene the long illness and the anxious watch. Was ever any one more tenderly nursed and cared for? Those who had loved him in his bright wealth of life now watched the long days one by one telling away its treasure. He was very weak in body latterly, but sometimes he used to go into the garden and walk round the paths, leaning on his sister's arm. One beautiful spring morning he looked up and said, "I shall never see the green leaves again;" but he did see them, Mrs. Mackenzie said. He lived through another spring. He used to lie in his studio, where he would have liked to die. To the very end he did not give up his work; but he used to go on, painting a little at a time, faithful to his task. When he was almost at his worst so some one told me

they gave him his easel and his canvas, and left him alone in the studio, in the hope that he might take up his work and forget his suffering. When they came back they found that he had painted the picture of a little lamb lying beside a lion. This and "The Font " were the last pictures ever painted by that faithful hand. "The Font" is an allegory of all creeds and all created things coming together into the light of truth. The Queen is the owner of "The Font." She wrote to her old friend and expressed her admiration for it, and asked to become the possessor. Her help and sympathy brightened the sadness of those last days for him. It is well known that he appealed to her once, when haunted by some painful apprehensions, and that her wise and judicious kindness came to the help of his nurses. She sent him back a message: bade him not be afraid, and to trust to those who were doing their best for him, and in whom she herself had every confidence.

Sir Edwin once told Mr. Browning that he had thought upon the subject, and come to the conclusion that the stag was the bravest of all animals. Other animals are born warriors, they fight in a dogged and determined sort of way; the stag is naturally timid, trembling, vibrating with every sound, flying from danger, from the approach of other creatures, halting to fight. When pursued, its first impulse is to escape; but when turned to bay and flight is impossible it fronts its enemies nobly, closes its eyes not to see the horrible bloodshed, and with its branching horns steadily tosses dog after dog up one upon the other, until overpowered at last by numbers it sinks to its death.

It seems to me, as I think of it, not unlike a picture of his own sad end. Nervous, sensitive, high-minded, working on to the end, he was brought to bay and at last overpowered by that terrible mental rout and misery.

He wished to die in his studio - his dear studio for which he used to long when he was away, and where he lay so long expecting the end, but it was in his own room that he slept away. His brother was with him. His old friend came into the room. He knew him, and pressed his hand. . . .

As time goes on the men are born, one by one, who seem to bring to us the answers to the secrets of life, each in his place and revealing in his turn according to his gift. Such men belong to nature's true priesthood, and among their names, not forgotten, will be that of Edwin Land

seer.

A PEEP AT BRITTANY.

THE tourist who makes a rapid flight from Paris to Rennes, suffers no great loss by flitting by night. The region traversed is what the French call "un beau pays," a fine country, with no pretensions to scenery, with an horizon of low wooded hills when not absolutely flat, fertile, well cultivated, populous, very pleasant to own or to occupy, but somewhat monotonous to travel through.

But in railway travelling by night, "the more the merrier" is by no means the rule. At starting from Paris, we were four, one of whom, a veteran wanderer, filled the carriage door with his portly person, while a second protruded his bald and shining head to close the entrance more effectually. Those tactics answered. The train began to move. Each member of the quaternion, chuckling in high glee, was in indisputable possession of his comfortable corner, with liberty to stretch out his limbs at full length.

We had triumphed, and in ordinary times might have retained the victory. But the National Assembly had just been dissolved: but the school vacation had just commenced; everybody was rushing out of Paris, ready for any amount of rural or maritime discomfort. At Versailles, to our disgust, a lady forced her way into our stronghold. Ugh! Why couldn't she go with the Dames Seules? Unwillingly and ungraciously we made the least possible room to allow her to take her place, when she quietly, clearly, and decidedly observed, "I am sorry, messieurs, to disturb your first sleep, but we are several.”

Several! Yes; several they were! Husband, daughters, maid, bags, baskets, cloaks and rugs, umbrellas and walking-sticks, besides a personage who seemed a cross between an uncle and a grandfather. Six added to four, make up ten; and ten we were instead of four. Railway law, happily, allows no more souls (unless in arms) to be packed in one second-class compartment, but the law puts no limit to travelling personalities; so that bodies combined with baggage made a respectable squeeze, promising what society calls a delightful evening

Our Cerberus, baffled, protested gruffly against the amount of portable property introduced. For some minutes we held a Hyde Park meeting, threatening, we four, to shift into another carriage, although we well knew there was none to be had. We were almost as bearish as the National Assembly, and I thought gesticulation would end in a fight; but the clear-voiced lady was too much for us. The storm subsided into quiet, and we gradually dropped into attitudes which you may see on the stage when gangs of robbers are supposed to be slumbering.

Those attitudes don't look comfortable or cosy; no more was mine or anybody else's except our invaders', who made themselves at home at our expense. A remedy for sleeplessness is to count a hundred. Not having Dr. Droney's sermons, I tried it, but caught myself repeatedly running off into "Four and six make ten; four and six make ten.' Whether it brought on sleep I cannot aver; which suggests the probability that it did.

At four-twenty-five of that August morning, the city of Rennes and daybreak were reached. The ladies are not so good-looking as they were overnight by lamplight, and the men much less distinguished in their appearance. Not being able to see myself as others see me, I cannot tell whether night has worked in me a like "sea change. But the return of day would console for all that, did not a cold, envious mist prevent our looking out of window. Nevertheless, although we have been running away from the rising sun all night long, he will be sure to catch us.

And here he comes at last, as bright and warm as ever. Away go the mists. And this is Brittany!

There is buckwheat, called blé noir because its flowers are white, in never-ending blossom we shall taste its leathery cakes and crumpets by and by; there are endless flat many-furrowed fields separated by scrubby hedges not seen in other parts of France; but was it worth while to come so far to see so little? To suffer dust and international hot-pressing during a whole dead-long Nox Railwayana?

Civil words are exchanged between overnight's disputants. They converse, astonished to find each other mutually agreeable and intelligent.

"That's pretty, madame, that bay, though the tide is out. Those valleys, too, are fresh and green, only they might be a trifle deeper, longer, and wider. But we must take what we find, as I am obliged to, settling down here after leaving Alsace. Everybody wants land, that is, rock, stones, and heath, such as you see, but nobody cultivates it or will let anybody else cultivate it. There, madame, stands a shepherdess. She is keeping perhaps a dozen sheep, but you would hardly sing her charms in a madrigal. The people, madame? Well; your true Breton is devout and thirsty, given to confession and tipsyfication, otherwise called dramography. He will walk in a pardon-procession at noon, and be unable to walk home at night. Neither in women's nor in children's litanies do you find,' From alcohol in all its forms, the Holy Saints deliver us.' Wages, madam? A farm-woman servant hereabouts earns seven or eight francs a month, and is content with coarse and humble fare. Her wages being small and her board costing nothing, you have no right to complain that she knows nothing, that she can neither iron linen, sew, cook,

nor

"But why does the train stop? We are not at a station," madame inquires, a little uneasily.

"Is there a doctor in the train?" the conductor asks, running from carriage to carriage.

A doctor is found, and taken possession of. What is the matter? A "welcome little stranger," or an old gentleman choked with buckwheat pancake? After half an hour's waiting, the doctor comes back, folding up his instrumentcase, and coolly informing us: —

"Crossing gate-keeper stood in locomotive's way. Lucky escape. A few fingers squeezed; that's all."

"The Bretons, madame, I was saying, finish religious observances with worldly enjoyment. Look at the bill stuck up at this station. 'Grand Pardon at Saint Renan, on Sunday the 17th of August, 1873. Public dances in all the Places or open spaces. Varied sports; Retraite aux Flambeaux. Grand Ball at seven o'clock.'"

"Morlaix Mor-r-r-laix!" shouts the railway guard. We halt, suspended aloft as if in a balloon. Beneath and athwart us runs a deep valley in the direction of the sea, lined with dark green foliage sheltering clumps of gray houses. At the bottom of all runs a sinuous stream to which the valley owes its depth if not its existence. What sustains us on high is a wonderfully bold viaduct bestriding the chasm with two stories of arches, which, being on them, we cannot see.

"Morlaix! Mor-r-r laix !"

"Madame is English, though she speaks without accent. My daughters, consequently, are half English, too." "Ah! that explains all: baggage, baskets, bibelots, and the rest."

"If you return to Morlaix, come to our hotel. A pleasant journey!"

Stretched limbs and basket-breakfast help wonderfully to the appreciation of pretty scenery. Those hill sides, heaped with ivy-clad boulders, all garnished, like dishes of fruit at dessert, with tufts of ferns and sprigs of leaves, are absolutely charming in their wildness. When you, gentle reader, take this trip, on arriving at Landerneau shift to the side of the carriage where people get in and out. On passing the station of Kerhuon, you will see before you, on the other side of the water, enormous rocks springing up from a bed of bright green copse-wood. They are the rocks of Plougastel, justly famous and well worth a visit. At their foot you find the rare Tunbridge film-fern, which carpets the rocks, mixes with the mosses, and even climbs up the tree-trunks. From their summit you command a valley, for the like of which you must cross over to Wales.

Brest, the Princess if not the Queen of Brittany, is enthroned on an eminence commanding delicious prospects by sea and land. Of all known French fortified towns, Brest is the least shut up and suffocated. Its enclosing ramparts lie mostly beneath it. The streets are long, straight, and airy, many terminating, not in a blank wall or an ugly house, but with a view of the bright sea and the hills beyond it. The public walk, the Cours d'Ajot, possesses admirably umbrageous elms for a maritime town. Its elevated site allows the breeze to sweep in direct from the Roads, which but for their communication with the ocean, by means of the Goulet or the Gullet, might be taken for a magnificent hill-bound lake.

It is here that the bonnes or nurse-maids of Brest sit in permanent committee, safely discussing in their Breton tongue the demerits and chignons of their mistresses, the merits of their masters, and the comparative weights and tempers of their sucklings and nurselings. Here, too, the travelling naturalist can classify Breton caps according to their species and varieties. It is for him to determine whether it was by natural selection or independent creation that bonnes' caps assumed the forms of an extinguisher, an egg-shell with a white swelling at the end, a roll of music, a butterfly, a flying fish, and a ship in full sail.

Brest, however, is a populous town of eighty thousand inhabitants, and though in, is scarcely Brittany. Town life, in Europe, at least, is similar, if not exactly the same. Human nature is everywhere identical. Is there a city in the world in which dirty boys do not get up behind smart carriages, nor slide down the handrails of public staircases? Brest shows plenty of brilliant toilettes. If open-air gatherings are so bright and gay, what must the salons be? There is a praiseworthy paucity of flies, and an absence of gnats which leaves nothing to desire. Armaments may be active, but trade is slack: the mercantile branch of the navy does not flourish. Consequently, in Brest, there are no monkey-shops, no parrots imploring you with wistful eyes to buy them, no cockatoos screaming to attract your attention, no love-birds fascinated by each other's charms, no tiny Indian feathered bipeds crowding together with half-shut eyes and pining for a hotter climate-all because no merchantmen put into port. Land, nevertheless, is exceedingly valuable. The ground on which our excellent hotel stands, and the whole Champ de Bataille in front of it, is worth eight pounds the square mètre.

Northwestward, ho! The calèche is at the door at early morn, and we start for Argenton, our favorite and most primitive watering-place, where, until the late calamitous, rise in prices, you could be boarded and lodged for three francs a day, and get lobsters and prawns for less than nothing. The roadside hedges are often ill-natured, shutting out what view there is, but the luxuriant tallstemmed furze that tops them tells a tale of mild and frostless winter, and forms by its dingy green a fitting backWe ground for the venerable gray of the granite crosses. might take the peasants we meet for priests, clad as they