ing forward his hair over his ears-"very | demanded Madge. "Perhaps he stole Mrs. glad to hear, Garth, that Jack Selwyn was Tenterden's money." a friend of yours. Of course one who has seen so much of what strangers on the Continent sometimes turn out to be has to exercise great caution in admitting strangers to too great familiarity. H'm. You mustn't say I disliked him, my dear Mildred; but I felt it would be unadvisable to consult a man whose responsibility we had no means of establishing, upon a matter like the recovery of your lost property, you know. Besides, it was perfectly impossible to recover any thing. I-h'm-I believe I never mentioned it to you before, my dear, but for several months I employed the first detectives of London and Paris, and nothing came of it."

known; for before it could leave the forget-pression about the eyes which was peculful old gentleman's lips, the wagon sudden-iar to her at times. While Mr. Graeme was ly swerved violently to the left, and Garth speaking, she had looked point-blank at Goshouted, in a voice that might have done lightley; after that, she seemed to become credit to the stentorian parson himself in quite oblivious of him and of every one else his best days, "Look out for your heads, ev- until he spoke her name. ery body!"

She then turned on him with a slight Every body crouched instinctively, and frown, and mutely shook her head—a panthe overhanging branch of a tree swept tomime which Mrs. Tenterden interpreted close above them. The horses, taking ad- by declaring that it had given the poor child vantage, as it seemed, of their driver's care- a headache, adding that she herself would lessness, had shied off the roadway, and accompany Golightley, but her poor bones hence the accident. Every body escaped were so jolted, and there was so little way except Uncle Golightley, whose hat was to go, she supposed she'd better sit it out. taken off; but such agility did he display Accordingly Garth cracked his whip; but that, almost before any one else had remark-at the same moment Elinor stood up, obed his mishap, he had vaulted from the wag-serving that she had changed her mind, and on and was running toward the place where began to make her way to the end of the it had fallen, laughing loudly at the advent- wagon, Parson Graeme, with elephantine ure; and when, having picked it up and gallantry, lending her a helping hand over clapped it jauntily on his head, he had over-the seats, while Mrs. Tenterden and Mrs. taken the others, his amusement at the ad- Danver pursued her with exhortations and venture was still unsubdued. advice. Golightley stood ready to receive her at the end of her passage, but she sprang quickly to the ground without touching his

"Good-by,” cried Madge, smiling and kissing her hand. "Now you are going to talk secrets."

Garth had halted his horses, partly out of consideration for Mrs. Tenterden, who, like most of her sex possessing ample phys-offered hand. ical development, was timorous as a rabbit, and who now needed time to convince herself that neither she nor any other member of the party had actually been deprived of life; and when that point had been settled, she was moved to expostulate with Garth for his recklessness in putting so many lives in jeopardy. "Now just suppose we'd all been killed! I'm sure it's providential."

Golightley gayly beckoned a parting greeting with his uplifted finger-tips. "We're only in quest of an appetite. Don't eat up all the nuts and grapes before we get there." "Shall we carry your hat for you?" inquired Garth, as he gathered up his reins, or do you think you can risk wearing it yourself?"

"Yes, it was an escape," responded Garth," gravely, eying Uncle Golightley as he spoke. "But a hat is no great loss, especially when it can be picked up again. We have but a quarter of a mile to go. Jump in, Sir."

"Since we're so near, I have a mind to stretch my legs a little along this charming forest path," said Golightley. "Au revoir, though I'm a quick walker, and shall probably keep you in sight most of the way. By-the-bye, I wonder if Miss Elinor would consent to keep me company?"

Elinor had not uttered a syllable since the accident, but had sat looking more than usually pale, and with a fixed, pained ex

"Ha! ha! ha! ha! I believe I won't trouble you," was the reply. "You know, I can keep out of the way of branches better on foot than in your old hay-rigging."

Garth spoke to his horses, and the springless vehicle trundled off, jouncing along the uneven wheel ruts, and was soon lost to sight round the bend of the lane. The two pedestrians were thus thrown upon their own resources for mutual entertainment. They advanced at a leisurely pace, side by side, but not arm in arm, and conversing with earnestness and animation.

PRAYERS.

GOLD-LETTERED, and with curious blazonry
Encircled, was the page whereon I read,
'Mid monkish chronicles of saints long dead,
A tender legend writ most tenderly,

And telling that all prayers by true lips said

In earnestness, God hearing, straightway He

Would quicken, as they sought Him through the sky,
To angels who should work the wishes prayed.
And I was glad, and thought, "How many a wing
Must guard my lady's steps by day, must bring
All good things to her hand, upon her head
All blessing and all peacefulness must shed;
And how the angels in a glittering ring,
Score deep, must stand at night around her bed!"

M. G. V. R.

THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE REPUBLIC.
[Eighteenth Paper.]

PAUL REVERE.-[1735-1818.]

PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS.

HE growth of the arts of design in this

graces known to the early colonists were the austere virtues of their rigid theology. To adorn the home or the person was in their eyes a sinful waste of time, which could be well employed only in the practical duties of the present life and in preparing for the next. The influence of this stern training was of long duration; it still exists, indeed, in the prejudice to be found in many communities against the presence of pictures or sculpture in houses of worship, although this may be partially ascribed to the old Puritan revolt against Romish practices.

With the physical development of the country, and the consequent freedom from the harassing cares which had kept the thoughts of the early colonists on the arts of necessity, one form of luxury after another crept in upon the homely life of our ancestors. Pictures began to find their way here from the Old World, and artists began to visit the colonies. It is probable that they met with many discouragements and but scanty patronage, for few authentic traces have been preserved of those early pioneers of art. Cotton Mather, in his Magnolia, refers to a "limner," but he gives us no name. One of the first of whom we have other than vague traditions was a native of Scotland, John Watson by name, who came to the colonies in 1715, and established himself as a portrait painter at Perth Amboy,

much a rival

York. In a building adjoining his dwelling-house he established the first picturegallery in America. The collection was probably of little value. Watson, who combined the art of portrait painting with the business of a money-lender, amassed a considerable fortune. He never married, and dying in 1768, at the age of eighty-three, left his wealth and his pictures to a nephew. Taking sides with the loyalists in 1776, the nephew was compelled to flee the coun

slower than the national development in other directions. The early colonists had neither time nor inclination for the culture of art. They distrusted and restrained the imaginative faculty, which is the soul of art, and applied all their energies to the great practical tasks which confronted them on their arrival on the shores of the New World. They had the vast wilderness to subdue, houses to build for themselves and their children, to found commonwealths on the broad basis of liberty and justice, and try. The deserted picture-gallery, left to for many generations were compelled to maintain fierce warfare with crafty and cruel foes allied with the civilized enemies of the religious freedom which they had fled hither to establish. If the early New England colonists gave any thought to art, they probably regarded it as one of the forms of luxurious vanity and license belonging to a state of society which they held in abhorrence, and from which they were resolved to keep their land of refuge free. Allowance must also be made for the force of circumstances. The struggle for mere subsistence was too severe for the indulgence of the imagination. The only

the mercies of the undisciplined militia, was broken up, and the collection of paintings was so effectually scattered that all trace of them was lost. None of the portraits executed by Watson are known to be in existence, and he is remembered only as an obscure pioneer in the culture and development of a taste for the fine arts in this country.

To John Smybert, also a Scotchman, American art is more largely indebted. He came to this country in 1728 with Dean Berkeley, afterward Bishop of Cloyne, whose fellowtraveler he had been in Italy. The failure of the dean's grand scheme for the estab

try. True, Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Charles Wilson Peale, dated London, July 4, 1771, prophesied the future prosperity of art among his countrymen. "The arts," he says, "have always traveled westward; and there is no doubt of their flourishing hereafter on our side of the Atlantic, as the number of wealthy inhabitants shall increase who may be able and willing suitably to reward them, since, from several instances, it appears that our people are not deficient in genius." But Trumbull, who spoke from experience, bluntly told a young aspirant for fame that he "had better learn to make shoes or dig potatoes than become a painter in this country." Year by year, however, partly through the influence of art associations, and partly through the influx of the works of foreign artists, the love of art became diffused among our people, and it is many years since American painters and sculptors could justly complain of the want of popular appreciation.

Washington, Cincinnati, and other cities have accumulated extensive and valuable private galleries of the best works of native and foreign artists, and have evinced commendable liberality in opening their doors to the public. There are also fine galleries

One cause of the slow growth of art sentiment and art knowledge among Americans was the absence, even in the larger cities, of JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY.-[1737-1815.] public and private galleries of paintings like those to which the people of every European lishment of a "universal college of science city have constant access, and where they and arts for the instruction of heathen chil- may become familiar with the works of the dren in Christian duties and civil knowl- great masters of almost every age and counedge" left Smybert to the free exercise of try. Of late years these opportunities have his profession. In early youth he had served notably increased among us. Wealthy cithis time, says Horace Walpole, "with a com-izens of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, mon house painter; but eager to handle a pencil in a more elevated style, he came to London, where, however, for a subsistence he was compelled to content himself at first with working for coach painters. It was a little rise to be employed in copying for dealers, and from thence he obtained admittance into the Academy. His efforts and ardor at last carried him to Italy, where he spent three years in copying Raphael, Titian, Vandyck, and Rubens, and improved enough to meet with much business at his return." Thus accomplished, Smybert was well fitted for a career in the New World, which presented no rival in culture and experience. His talents appear to have been in great demand, and they were certainly used to good purpose. To his pencil we owe many excellent portraits of eminent divines and magistrates of his time, and the only authentic portrait of Jonathan Edwards. His picture of the Berkeley household, now in the Yale College Gallery, is said to have been the first containing more than one figure ever painted in this country. He may be said to have been the first teacher of art in America, as it was from his copy of a painting by Vandyck that Allston, Copley, and Trumbull received their earliest inspiration and their first impressions of color and drawing.

It was long before art received popular encouragement and support in this coun

Prejudices

of paintings and statuary belonging to so- | modest-looking young woman seated at the çieties, like the Boston Athenæum and our ticket table in the statue gallery of the Atheown Historical Society; but to most of næum. The young woman was engaged in these the general public can not claim ad- sewing-work. "She ought to employ her mission, and their usefulness as a means of time in making aprons for these horrid, art culture is, therefore, comparatively re-shameful statues," remarked the indignant stricted. There should be in every large visitor, as she left the room. city a public gallery of art, as in Paris, Ber-like these, the fruit of ignorance, are haplin, Munich, London, Dresden, Florence, and pily dying out, and few traces of them will other European cities, to which, on certain be found in the next generation. days of the week, access should be free to The American Art Union, founded in 1839, all. The influence of such institutions would in imitation of the French Société des Amis be immense. There is many a working-man des Arts, exerted an important influence upon in Paris who knows more about pictures and American art culture. For upward of ten statues than the majority of cultivated peo-years it distributed annually from five hunple in this country. He visits freely the dred to more than a thousand works of art. magnificent galleries of the Louvre, hears Its yearly subscriptions reached the sum of artists and connoisseurs converse, and if he one hundred thousand dollars. It issued a is a man of ordinary intelligence and per- series of fine engravings from the works of ception, he acquires a knowledge of pictures American artists, and for several years puband artists which can not be attained in a country where such opportunities are rare, or only to be enjoyed either by paying for them or by the favor of some private collector. True, the want of public art galleries has been in a measure supplied, in most of our large cities, by the collections of art dealers like Schaus and Goupil, who of late years have imported many of the finest specimens of the works of foreign artists, and who admit the public to their exhibition rooms without fee. But this privilege is, for the most part, confined to the educated and the wealthy. Rarely is a working-man or working-woman seen in these rooms, although no respectable and well-behaved person would be denied admission. Enter the galleries of Paris, of Munich, or Dresden, on a holiday, and you will find hundreds of people belonging to the working classes, men, women, and children, feasting their eyes on the treasures of art, and filling their minds with love for the beautiful. The refining influence of such an education can not be overvalued. It may not be quite as useful as the practical instruction of our common schools; but while we can not subscribe to Ruskin's opinion lished a bulletin embracing a complete recthat it is more important that a child ord of the progress of art in this country, toshould learn to draw than that he should gether with much valuable and interesting learn to write, there can be no question as information regarding the arts and artists to the ennobling and refining influence of of Europe. Through the agency of its comart upon personal character and upon the missions several American artists, who have community. The lack of this culture among since attained high rank in their profession, our people only a few years ago was man- were first brought to public notice. The ifested by the commotion which Powers's institution was broken up about ten years "Greek Slave" made on its arrival in this after its organization on account of the viocountry. Many persons questioned the pro-lation, by its method of distributing prizes, priety of exhibiting a nude statue. A delegation of distinguished clergymen was sent to view it, when it was at Cincinnati, for the purpose of deciding whether it should be countenanced by religious people." Not many years ago a well-educated country lady, visiting Boston for the first time In one respect, however, the Art Union in her life, was shocked to find a pretty and was the indirect means of temporary harm.

of the State laws against lotteries. But during the period of its existence it accomplished much toward awakening a love of art throughout the country, and it deserves to be gratefully remembered for its services in this direction.