My dear Mrs. Hopping,-I very deeply regret to have to write as I must; but we are all servants and at the mercy of our masters, and the Bishop has just signified his intention of visiting Widdesdon on the day of your charming party, and has asked me to be his host.

To so good a churchwoman as yourself I need not say more, except that I am deeply concerned to have to break faith with you and to miss a congenial antiquarian gossip with Sir Mordaunt. Believe me, dear Mrs. Hopping, Yours sincerely, Oliver Bath.

VIII.

Mrs. Vansittart to Mrs. Montgomery

Hopping.

Dear Mrs. Hopping,-I have put off writing till the last moment, hoping that the necessity might pass, but I am now forced to say that I shall not be able to dine with you on the 5th. Poor

Arthur was brought home on Saturday, from mixed hockey, so badly bruised and injured that he has been in bed ever since and requires constant attention. I am sure that you (who also are a mother) will understand that I should not like to leave him in this state even for an evening; and so I hasten to let you know.

Yours sincerely,

Kate Vansittart.

P.S.-You will please tell Sir Mordaunt and Lady Hopping that I am deeply grieved not to meet them.

IX.

Mrs. Montgomery Hopping to Messrs. Patti and Casserole. (Telegram.)

Mrs. Montgomery Hopping will not require either the entrées or the waiters for the 5th.

X.

Miss Daisy Hopping to the same lifelong school friend. (Extract.) This house isn't fit to live in. Everyone who was invited has backed out, except old General Stores, who says he put off going to the South of France on purpose. Mother never thought he would come at all. If it weren't for him, mother (who is more like a whirlwind than anything I ever experienced) says she would have no party at all; but now she must go on with it, especially as she told Uncle Mordaunt. And so it means the Smithsons and the Parkinsons and Col. Home-Hopkins after all. The worst of it is we are not to have new dresses.

XI.

Mrs. Parkinson to Mrs. Montgomery Hopping.

Dear Mrs. Montgomery Hopping,-It will give Mr. Parkinson and myself such very great pleasure to dine with you on the 5th to meet your distin

Mrs. Smithson to Mrs. Montgomery Hopping.

My dear Mrs. Hopping,-It would give Mr. Smithson and myself much pleasure to accept your kind invitation were it not that we are a little in bondage to a visitor, a niece of my husband's, such a very nice girl, who is staying with us before taking up a position at Cannes as a companion to a very interesting old lady, the widow of Commander Muncaster, who, you may remember, died a few weeks ago. As we do not quite like to leave her

Punch.

alone all the evening I wondered if I might bring Madeline with me. She is a very nice girl, and quite the best pupil at the Guildhall School of Music last year. Perhaps you would like her to bring some music with her. I know it is often a help. But of course, dear Mrs. Hopping, you will say at once if it is inconvenient or likely to put your table out, and then we can perhaps get Miss Moberly to come in for the evening and bring her knitting, as I should not like to refuse your very kind invitation. The Doctor was say ing only the other day how long it was since we had the pleasure of dining with you. As for short notice, I hope you won't mention it. It is so difficult often to give long notice, as I know only too well.

Yours very truly,

Martha Smithson.

P.S.-I find I have not said how glad we shall be to see Sir Mordaunt and Lady Hopping.

XIV.

Mrs. Montgomery Hopping to Mrs.

Smart.

To Mrs. Smart.

I am glad your husband can come for Thursday evening. I am counting on him to be here at five to help with the silver, and I shall want some mushrooms if you can get them, some French beans, and two heads of celery. E. Montgomery Hopping.

Is it fair or logical to base any conclusion as to the moral or æsthetic qualities of a nation on the works of its poets and artists? To this question many would reply in the negative, yet they would admit that in dealing with primitive times, when the artist and

the poet were indistinguishable from the mass of the people, when each man adorned his own weapon, and poetry consisted of stories handed down from father to son, it would be a perfectly justifiable proceeding. After a little further consideration they would also

be willing to grant that, in the case of

a nation so artistic as the Italians of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, or so musical as the Germans, it would not be unreasonable to see in the work of Italian artists of that period, or of German musicians, a fairly accurate picture of the taste of the nation at large. The Greeks of classical times were certainly as a nation both poetic and artistic; they who took such a keen interest in the dramatic competitions and in the games, who were so ready to dedicate works of art at their famous shrines, who were anxious that every article of dress or furniture should be beautiful in shape and ornament, surely these people shared in the spirit of their artists and poets, and their artistic perceptions and capabilities differed from theirs only in degree. We shall not be wrong, therefore, in using the works of art which are left as foundations for our conclusions as to the feeling for Nature felt by the Greeks as a whole.

At first sight there will perhaps seem a dearth of material for this study. If we recall the various specimens of Greek art with which we are familiar, it is certainly no natural scenery, no fruits or flowers, which will first occur to us; it is surely men, men everywhere, from the hero to the slave, from the athlete to the ghost fluttering round the tomb. It seems as though the human interest were of paramount, of unique importance; yet on further reflection it will perhaps be necessary to modify this view. The Greek, above all men, had an idea of the eternal fitness of things. He knew by instinct the right kind of ornament to suit his object, the proper subject for the material at his command; he would not, for instance, use as a design for a bas-relief the subject which would be suitable only to a flat painting. Now the kinds of artistic production which have come down to us from

Greek times are architecture, sculpture (in stone or bronze) and relief-work, vase-painting, terra-cottas, gems and coins. The three divisions of natural objects imitated in art are, roughly, landscape, animal-forms and vegetableforms.

Let us first take landscape: there is obviously no place for direct imitation of scenery in any of these departments of art; its place is in the painter's studio, and of easel pictures or frescoes we have not a single example. It is clear that landscape proper could have no share in the art of the vase-painter. In most cases such an artist was limited to two or three colors only; he found therefore that, as a rule, the most effective method of treating his subject was in silhouette. For this variety of outline was essential, and he therefore turned his attention to the human figure, or to a conventional treatment of flowers or animals, which would ensure the greatest possible wealth of line rather than a mass or a choice of color. We have indeed seen landscape as vase decoration in our own day, especially on certain miscalled Dutch ware, but the effect is only questionably good, even where the painter has had a large choice of color. The other kinds of artistic production may be classed together, as the same conditions apply to all. There is certainly no place for landscape in any of the plastic arts; variety of outline, mass of light and shade, contrast of surface are what the modeller or engraver requires. A French sculptor has indeed recently proved that a seawave can be treated in bas-relief in a most beautiful and convincing manner as a background for the dripping figure of Leander; but there still remains a lurking feeling that such a thing is out of place, and is rather an experiment or a tour de force than a successful innovation.

So much, then, for landscape: let us

come to the second division of our subject, the treatment of animals. Here, as we should expect, we are confronted with a mass of evidence. The animal and human forms are so closely akin that any artist appreciating the one must almost inevitably delight also in the study of the other. And animal subjects supply the very qualities the sculptor needs; conditions are found the very reverse of those present in landscape. Look at any collection of Greek coins; half of them bear representations of animals,-animals treated so tenderly and with such feeling for the texture of feather and hide, that there can be little doubt that the artist studied them with understanding and affection. Look at the eagles of Agrigentum devouring their prey; the splendid eagle's head of Elis, or the lion and bull of Acanthus; the cow and calf of Dyrrhacium, or the bull of Eretria scratching his head to the very life; the chariot-horses of the cities of Magna Græcia tossing their heads in eagerness for the contest. We are even told that a bronze cow was the chief glory of the great Myron. The same is true of gem-engraving; greyhounds, dolphins, and rams appear drawn with a wonderful truth to Nature; indeed, in some cases the engraver has made his design correspond to the color of his stone, so that a cow will appear on an emerald as in a green field, or a dolphin on a beryl as if in the blue-green sea-water; though that may possibly be due to the desire to emphasize the power of the gem as an amulet.

In our third division, the treatment of floral and vegetable forms, the result is, I think we must admit, disappointing. Flowers and leaves occur on coins, but their treatment is not successful; it is neither natural nor conventional. The wheat-ear of Metapontum, the parsley-leaf of Selinus, the rose of Rhodes are unsatisfactory; all that can be said for them is that they

are unmistakable. On a coin of Gortyna in Crete Europa is seen seated in a tree which is certainly drawn after a more natural pattern; but even here it is inferior to the bull on the other side so complacently licking his back. It is doubtful whether a natural treatment of flowers is suitable as a decoration for vases; admirers of the Worcester china of our own day will say that it is, but the question remains open. No one, however, will deny that most beautiful conventional patterns may be made from floral forms, yet the only cases of such designs on Greek vases are, so far as I know, the stereotyped lotus and palmette. The vine appears as the adjunct of Dionysus, and sometimes alone, as on a vase where satyrs are gathering the grapes; yet the treatment is almost always inadequate, and in no case, I believe, does the olive appear on vases of Athenian manufacture. An apple-bough is seen on a very beautiful white-ground vase by Sotades in the British Museum; but the general feeling for floral forms is different from that which the Mycenæan potter had for the weeds and flowers of the deep. Where they do occur it is generally as a necessary part of a story in which the human interest is paramount. Triptolemus, for instance, holds the wheat-ears in his hand, but it is on him that the artist expends his skill; Dionysus is surrounded by the vine, but it is the god at whom we look, not at the curving spirals of the plant. The acanthus leaf, again, is the motive of the Corinthian capital, but it quickly becomes stereotyped; the variety of the Byzantine capitals and friezes show a far greater love for leaf-forms.

But there are more ways than one of treating natural objects. Beside the natural method there is also the symbolic; and a love for Nature may show itself by means of this, if the limitations which the material or purpose of his work lay upon the artist preclude

him from using the direct, and at first sight more spontaneous, method. If the artist takes the trouble to invent symbolic forms for natural objects when he cannot imitate them directly, it will rather show his desire of introducing those objects at all costs than a state of mind which loves symbols for their own sake. It is from the manner in which this symbolism is treated, and the length to which it is carried, that the craftsman must be judged, and not from the mere fact that he employs such a device. Sometimes, indeed, naturalistic treatment will be tried and will fail, as, for example, on a vase found at Cumæ, where Europa is painted crossing the sea on a bull. The painter has obviously observed the effect of refraction through water, for the bull's legs appear slanted in a curious way as he swims; but such treatment once proved unsuitable for its object, the painter gives it up and contents himself with symbolizing the sea under the form of a dolphin or a crab; the effect as a piece of mere decoration being much better, while the circumstances of the story are equally elucidated. On another vase Dionysus crosses the sea in a boat, shaded by the branches of his own vine, and surrounded by dolphins which appear above as well as below his boat, perhaps a graceful way of showing the sea in perspective. Dolphins seem to have been great favorites with the Greeks, as they appear on many coins and gems; Arion, Taras, Phalanthus are carried across the sea by them, and the ship of Dionysus itself becomes a dolphin. Perhaps their sportive character had some resemblance to that of human beings and the dolphins were once men, as in the story of Dionysus and the rude sailors. On another vase, which shows Theseus below the sea in quest of a certain ring, the painter, besides suggesting moisture in the clinging draperies of

the figures, has marked the locality by placing a little triton beneath the feet of Theseus, ready to bear him to the surface, an ingenious way of representing the buoyancy of sea-water.

Connected with this symbolical rendering of Nature is the method of personification, in which mountain, river, or spring is shown not by some symbol, but as an actual person. This idea was familiar to the Greeks from the earliest times. They personified everything; Galene, Comos, Pothos, and above all Nike, appear over and over again on their vases as men and women. And if this personification of abstractions was familiar, none the less so was that of natural scenery. From the time of Homer, who makes the river Scamander fight with Achilles, and Eos bear away her son Memnon to Egypt, Nature was not merely scenery but a collection of persons with interests deep and varied in the affairs of the human race.

We read of a picture by Aristophon, the brother of Polygnotus, in which Alcibiades reposed on the lap of Nemea; of another representing Orpheus, Pontus, and charming Thalassa, wherein the last two evidently had quite as much of the personal form as the first. This way of treating Nature could hardly be carried further than on a vase in the British Museum, where Eos is seen pursuing Cephalus; Helios rises in his chariot from the sea, Selene sinks beneath the waves on the other side, while the fixed stars, in the shape of little boys, dive into the water at the coming of day. Even the winds have histories, and Boreas woos Orithyia as she gathers flowers on the banks of a river; Zetes and Calais, their sons, drive off the harpies from the feast of poor blind Phineus. And all this is not merely the creation of poets or story-tellers; it is a natural growth from the mind of the people. The human interest is always predominant: