aspects of Art, whatever the material or purpose may be which employs them. I repeat in italics the expression, alike true and honourable aspects. You will observe that word alike. I do not say, alike true and equally honourable aspects: that is not so: but that they are alike true and alike honourable, this is what we believe.

I understand that the Editors of the Hobby Horse in asking me to write this note, are asking me to say plainly what it is that one means by this principle of Unity, not to enter upon the metaphysical and historical grounds, which lead one to believe in it. I should not shrink from that task any more than I shrink from this: but it is not the task laid upon me at the moment; and so here at least I have nothing to do with it. And perhaps there are quite a number of us, who will find it sufficient for immediate purposes to think over what we mean without troubling themselves as to why we mean it. For when you begin to realize, that all kinds of invented Form, and Tone, and Colour, are alike true and honourable aspects of Art, you see something very much like a revolution looming ahead of you. For indeed this realization of the thing has not yet gone very far with us. The popular use of terms is an index of popular thought. Now the popular use of the term "artist" means, and means only, a picture-painter. That is to say, in the popular mind of Englishmen Art and the painting of pictures are exactly synonymous. I was hearing only a week ago of a distinguished painter, still spared to us, who persistently maintained that Art was oil-painting, and that oilpainting was Art: and when it was suggested to him that possibly sculpture was Art as well, he was astonished at the impertinence. And yet perhaps this distinguished person might have sheltered himself not illogically behind a distinguished body-behind the Royal Academy of whom indeed I desire to say nothing irreverent;

but only that they very accurately represent the ordinary Englishman's view upon the matter-that Art is picture-painting. For the Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, about which we are all annually so eager in asking one another whether we have been to it, is most properly described, when we say that it is the Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Oil-paintings: for though there are other things exhibited there, as a little Sculpture for example, and some Architectural drawings, these are only appendages to the main business, about which neither Academicians nor their visitors feel bound to much trouble themselves. One should not wish to say this with sarcasm, or bitterly, or to work oneself into an eloquent passion over it. In innumerable cases things are after all what they are, because it has been impossible for them to be otherwise. In innumerable cases therefore we do well to restrain ourselves, and to be content with laying a quiet finger on the thing that is wrong,-content with calling attention to it, and to some of its consequences, if there is opportunity, but by all means without bluster. And so I would say, that when a man comes to believe in the Unity of Art, as I have been trying to explain it, he will no doubt be surprised, when he is brought face to face with a National Institution for the encouragement of Art, where there are so many forms of Art almost, it would seem, undreamed of. He will think it curious, that all the years, and funds, and eloquent after-dinner speeches of individuals distinguished in Church and State have gone by, and left men content with so little. But he will, if he is a sound-minded person, not tear his hair or rage finely but quietly he will say what he thinks, and explain his difficulties, when the times come: and live on in the faith that "salvation draweth nigh."

And indeed the old content is not quite what it was.

I take it to

be as significant a sign for English Art as any that has appeared for many a long day, when sixty or seventy men come together, as they came together a week or two since in Chelsea,-sixty or seventy men, among whom the picture-painters were in a secure majority,and say out with great determination that there can be no National Exhibition of Art, in which all its forms have not their proper representation. There are still many of us, who may smile at these revolutionists, or pass them over contemptuously: but the future lies not with us who smile and are content, perhaps; the future may lie with them. Not easily do old prejudices die, nor the scales fall off men's eyes. Not to-day, nor to-morrow, nor the day following do just thoughts win their dominion over us; but, except where there is only decay, at last they do win. And who knows but that it may be in a near future, in a day of rejuvenescence and salubrity already beginning to break, when as little shall we think of leaving the business-manufacturer to look after our decorations in Tottenham Court Road, as we think now of leaving him to look after the charming pictures of our Academicians?

"LIKE THE DAYS OF AN HIRELING.”

I CANNOT hold the days, they are not mine;

I may

not fill them with the prayer of toil:

They pass as dead men that, in death, divine

Their saving souls, long lost in the world's broil.

They fly, they fly before God's face, ah me!

Even where the avenger's feet have been and yet shall be.

They go between an east and summer west;
They go as ghosts, looking for that last day,
Impatient ever of their present rest;

They go 'twixt hope and fear alway, alway,
Flying, flying before God's face. Alas,

The avenger's feet have past and yet again must pass!

HERBERT P. HORNE.

LA ROSE DE L'INFANTE, FROM VICTOR HUGO'S “LÉGENDE DES SIÈCLES,”

DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE.

N 1878, when Anne Gilchrist was staying at Philadelphia, in constant intercourse with Walt Whitman, she translated into English prose some nine or ten of the pieces of Victor Hugo's "Legend of the Ages," and read them to Mr. Whitman, who, as I am told, heard them with an unfeigned admiration. It is from these translations that we have selected the present version of the "Rose of the Infanta."

Those of our readers who have read the Life of William Blake, and to whom the beautiful close of its second volume, the Memoir of Alexander Gilchrist, is more than a mere record of facts, will, I think, especially welcome it, apart from any value it may possess, from the justness of its rendering, as a "new acquist" of the authoress of that relation. Yet this is but a little contribution. The letters and essays of this remarkable woman are shortly to be published, of whom it may be well said, in the words she used of another, that to a nature like hers "the cup of life is full of fine flavours."

THE EDITOR.