CHAPTER XL.

Literature and Art in the Nineteenth Century.

[=The Literary Giants of Former Times=]

For ages the world has swarmed with writers. Almost since man first began to think he has been actively engaged in literary labor; long, indeed, before he had learned the art of writing, and when the work of his mind could be preserved only in his memory and that of his fellows. And the progress of man down the ages is starred with names that gleam like suns in the firmament of thought, those of such great magicians of the intellect as Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and a host besides. In this field of human effort therefore, the nineteenth century has nothing peculiar to show. Its finest labors are surpassed by those of others who lived centuries or ages ago. Here, almost alone in the circle of human labors, the century we deal with stands on the level of many of its predecessors and below that of others. Its single claim to distinction is an extraordinary activity in literary production, and especially in the field of novelistic fiction, which it may in great measure claim as its own. The novel before the nineteenth century was a crude pioneer; within the century it has grown into a product of the most advanced culture.

[=The Standing of the Fine Arts in the Past and the Present=]

What has been said about literature may be repeated about art. That, too, seemingly reached its culmination in the past, and the artists of to-day can merely seek to emulate, they cannot hope to surpass, those of former centuries. Sculpture, for instance, reached its highest stage of perfection in Greece, and painting in mediæval Europe; and strive as our artists may, they seem incapable of producing works of superior beauty and charm to those of the long ago. The architecture of to-day is largely a rescript of that of the past, the original ideas are few, nobler and more beautiful conceptions are wanting. Of the remaining fine arts, music and poetry--if we may class the latter in this category--the work of former centuries remains unsurpassed, and the best that can be done with the nineteenth century authors and artists is to mention their works and speak of their styles: it is impossible to place them on a pedestal overlooking that of their predecessors.

[=Early American Writers=]

Yet while what has been said is true as a whole, the literature of at least one country is almost wholly a product of the nineteenth century. This is the United States, which had writers, but little which fairly deserves the name of literature, prior to 1800. Aside from the famous papers of the _Federalist_, the work of the great statesmen of the Constitutional Convention, the writings of one or two authors of the Revolutionary period, and some of those of Benjamin Franklin, this country possessed hardly any literature, truly so-called, before the days of Washington Irving, whose polished "Sketch Book" essays, popular histories of Columbus and Mahomet, and humorous "History of New York," first taught the English critics that Americans could write as well as fight and work, and that a new world of thought was likely to arise beyond the waters. Irving was not alone. Contemporary with him were a number of graceful poets, chief among them being William Cullen Bryant, whose "Thanatopsis," still an American classic, is perhaps unequalled in depth of reflection and grandeur of thought by the work of any other author of nineteen years of age.

[=The Poets of the United States=]

Bryant, however, did not rise above this early effort, but rather declined, and he has been far surpassed in poetic fervor and richness of diction and conception by a number of his successors, notably Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell, men worthy to occupy a place beside the famous English poets of the century. Of these, Longfellow has gained the widest reputation, not, however, through force of superior genius, but from the sweetness, grace and ease of his diction and the popular character of his themes and handling, which have fitted his verse to touch the heart of the people in all lands. Lowell was not only a poet of rare depth of thought, but stands as the first of American satirists, his "Biglow Papers" being among the keenest and most humorous works of satire of the century, while they rank with the most purely national of American works. Of other American poets, of whom many of fine powers might be named, we shall mention only Edgar Allan Poe, the most original in style and musical in tone of all our writers of verse; the witty and genial Oliver Wendell Holmes; and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose verse, while lacking polish and smoothness, is rich in poetic thought.

It was rather in his philosophy than in his poetry that the rich imagination and fine powers of reflection of Emerson made themselves manifest, and his essays stand prominent among the finest thought products of the century. They are expressed in telling apothems, of which many are little poems in themselves, while his works are instinct with the finest spirit of altruism and optimism, taking the most hopeful and cheerful views of the future of man and his institutions.

[=American Novelists=]

Among popular American novelists James Fenimore Cooper stands as the pioneer, his tales of ocean and Indian life, while of no superior merit as literature, holding a wide audience by their spirit of adventure and careful elaboration. Most original of our writers is Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose "Scarlet Letter," "Marble Faun," and other novels stand in a field of their own among the productions of the century, and take rank with the best of European productions. For the sensational and lurid tale Poe stands first, and his genius in this direction still brings him readers, despite the impossible incidents of many of his plots. Of other novelists we may name Harriet Beecher Stowe, with her famous "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" Howells, our leading naturalistic novelist; Edward Everett Hale, made famous by his "Man Without a Country;" Edward Eggleston, with the flavor of frontier life in his "Hoosier Schoolmaster," Lew Wallace, who touched a deep vein of popular approval in his "Ben Hur;" Henry James, too scholarly perhaps to be highly popular, but of the finest literary skill; Helen Hunt Jackson, whose "Ramona" depicts in thrilling idealism the wrongs of the Indians; and--but we must stop here, for as we approach the present day novelists of merit so throng the field of view that we cannot venture even to name them.

[=Historians of the United States=]

Not the least notable field of American literature lies in the domain of history, in which the authors of our country hold their own with the best of those abroad. Irving's graceful, though not critical, works of history we have mentioned. Greatest in this field stands Bancroft, whose history of our country is a classic of world-wide fame. Close beside him may be placed Prescott, with his glowing pictures of Spanish and Spanish-American life; Motley, the skilled and popular historian of the Netherlands; Parkman, who brilliantly pictures for us the romance of French enterprise in America; McMaster, who may fairly pose as the historian of the American people; and Parton, whose historical biographies are among the most readable of American books of this character.

[=American Orators=]

Our greatest orators, men whose speeches have become literature, hold a place in the history of our country. The famous Webster and Clay and Calhoun we have already described. Close after those come Sumner, Seward and others who stood high in the stirring period of the Civil War and of reconstruction. Aside from public speakers devoted to statesmanship are many others of fame, including the eloquent Edward Everett; the daring anti-slavery orator, Wendell Phillips; the earnest platform apostle of temperance, John B. Gough; the greatest of our pulpit orators, Henry Ward Beecher; the advocate of the "New South", Henry W. Grady; the most amusing of our recent orators, Chauncey M. Depew, and others of fine powers whom the need of brevity forbids our naming. The mention of Depew's vein of humor calls to mind this domain of literature, of which our country has had many popular representatives, chief among whom stands the rollicking and favorite Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain).

It has not been proposed here to present more than a passing review of the authors of the United States, or to attempt to name all those of leading merit. We might have named in political economy Henry C. Carey; in American history, John Fiske; in European church history, Henry C. Lea; and, in addition, eminent authors in legal lore, in science, in philosophy, in theology, and in other fields, all aiding to show the vast advance our people have made in this important direction since their feeble beginnings in the early days of the century.

[=The Poets of Great Britain=]

Unlike the United States, Great Britain came to the nineteenth century with a great galaxy of famous writers, leading back through many centuries. The eighteenth century is rich in great names, including among its poets Pope, Burns, Cowper, Gray and Thompson; among its essayists, Addison, Swift and Johnson; among its novelists, Richardson, Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and Goldsmith; among its historians Gibbon, Hume and Robertson. It crossed the portals of the nineteenth century with a galaxy of poets more brilliant than has appeared in any equal period of English literature, including the world-famous Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Moore, Keats, Scott and Campbell, a group of writers which, taken as a whole, it would be difficult to match in any age. These sweet singers have been followed by others who have kept up the standard of British poetry, including Tennyson, one of the rarest of artists in words, the two Brownings, Matthew and Edwin Arnold, William Morris, Swinburne, the Rossettis, and various others of lesser note, among whom we must include Alfred Austin, the latest though not the most admired poet-laureate. These are but the elder flight of singing birds of the century, many younger ones being on the wing, among whom at present Rudyard Kipling leads the way.

[=British Novelists and Historians=]

In the second field of imaginative literature, that of the novel, the British isles are abundantly represented, and by some of the most famous names anywhere existing in this domain of intellectual activity. The names alone of these writers form a catalogue rarely equalled in the world's literature. It will suffice to name Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer, Charlotte Bronte and Marion Evans as the most prominent among a multitude of able writers, containing many names high in merit and rich in variety of style. At the end of the century the field was crowded with writers of conspicuous skill.

[=Other British Writers=]

History has reached a high level in the hands of some of the ablest writers in this field known in any age, including Macaulay, Freeman, Froude, Grote, Thirwall, Hallam, Merivale, Buckle, Leckey, Carlyle and Green. Two of these, Carlyle and Macaulay, have won as high a place in the field of criticism and biography as in that of history. In art criticism Ruskin occupies a unique position, while theological subjects and religious thought are represented by such able exponents as Cardinal Newman, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, Dean Farrar, Martineau, Whately, Drummond, Spurgeon and many others. The great reviewers include Jeffrey, Lydrely, Smith, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Foster; the wits Sheridan, Hook, Jerrold, Smith and Hood; the philosophers Stewart, Bentham, Brown, Hamilton, Spencer and Stuart Mill; and the scientists Owen, Faraday, Murchison, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall and various others.

[=French Novelists and Historians=]

The above named are merely some of the best known English writers of the century. If it were attempted to name all those of merit the list would be wearisomely long. The same may be said of the literary men of France, of whom many of world-wide fame flourished during the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the new age appeared the versatile Madame de Staël, and Chateaubriand with his famous "Genius of Christianity." These ushered in a host of able writers, of whom the leading lyric poets were Victor Hugo, Béranger, Lamartine and Alfred de Musset, and the most prominent novelists Hugo, Dumas, Sue, Balzac, Dudevant (George Sand), succeeded in later years by the younger Dumas, Feuillet, Murger, Zola, About and a host besides. Dramatic writers have been little less numerous, and essayists and literary critics of merit might be named by the dozen, among them the well-known names of Renan, St. Beuve, Gautier, Taine, Girardin and Rémusat.

Perhaps the most successful branch of recent French literature is history, around which a brilliant galaxy of great names has gathered. Prominent among these are Guizot, Thierry and Thiers, to whom may be added, as able writers of the history of their country, Sismondi, Michelet, Martin, Barante and Mignet. Other workers in this field are Lamartine and Villemain, while in philosophy, sociology and the various branches of science the writers have been numerous, and many of them of high ability.

[=German Poets and Novelists=]

The writers of Germany have been as prolific as those of England and France, though the greatest names of that country, such giants of thought as Goethe, Schiller, and Kant, belong to the closing period of the eighteenth century, and have found no equals in the nineteenth. Kant was succeeded by three other great metaphysical philosophers, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, the four forming a group nowhere matched for depth of thought in any similar period of time. In poetry, Goethe and Schiller were succeeded by the song writers Körner, Arndt, Rückert, and Uhland, while of the poets of later date Heine undoubtedly ranks first. Fiction was enormously developed during the century, Gustav Freytag being one of the most eminent novelists, while others of note were Hackländer, Spielhagen, Heyse, Ebers, Auerbach, and of women writers Ida von Hahn-Hahn, Fanny Lewald, Schopenhauer, and Marlitt. Famous authors who have dealt with the mysterious agencies of nature are De la Motte Fouque, the author of the charming "Undine," Chamisso, with his fantastic "Peter Schlenühl," and Hoffmann, whose tales of wonder and fantasy are of the first merit. Best known among fantastic and imaginative writers is Jean Paul Richter, whose satirical and humorous novels had a striking effect upon German thought at the beginning of the century. Of German humorists, Fritz Reuter occupies perhaps the highest rank.

[=German Scientists and Historians=]

In the field of science and exploration the literature of Germany is rich. Scientific travel was given a great impetus by the famous works of Alexander von Humboldt,--"Cosmos," "Views of Nature," etc.,--and his example has been abundantly followed. Among his more famous successors are Martins, the learned traveler in Brazil; Tschudi, in Peru; Lepsius and Brugsch, in Egypt; Gützlaff, in China; Barth, Vogel, and Schweinfurth, in Africa; and Leichhardt, in Australia.

In scientific literature of high value Germany is strong, its writers including Bessel, Encke, Mädler, and Struve, in astronomy; Müller, Ehrenberg, Liebig, Virchow, Vogel, Helmholtz, Haeckel, Kirchhoff, von Baer, and many others in natural science. The historians are of unsurpassed critical excellence, and embrace Von Ranke, Curtius, Mommsen, von Müller, Heeren, Niebuhr, Neander, Menzel, and many more. In philology and critical study may be named Wolf, Hermann, the brothers Grimm, Bopp, Benecke, and Haupt. Critical essayists include the two Schlegels, von Hardenberg (Novalis), Tieck, Schelling, and Wilhelm von Humboldt.

[=The Literature of Russia=]

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the prominent German authors of the nineteenth century, and we must deal still more briefly with the other nations of Europe. Russia may fairly be ranked with the United States, as being, in a literary sense, largely confined to the nineteenth century. It had some writers of merit of earlier date, largely poets and fabulists, but the first prose writer of excellence of style was Nicholas Karamzin, whose famous "History of the Russian Empire" began to appear in 1815. Poetry also became more meritorious in this period, Alexander Pushkin, the greatest of Russian poets, giving to the world some charming narratives in verse. Ivan Kriloff won fame as a writer of fables, while other poets of merit appeared, among them Koltsov, the writer of Russian national songs.

In the field of fiction the first of special merit was Nicholai Gogol, one of the most powerful of Russian novelists; but the first to gain a European fame was Ivan Turgeneff. Greatest among his successors is Count Leo Tolstoi, who entered this field with "War and Peace," the record of his experience in the Crimean war. His radical studies of the problems of social life have since led to a number of works of striking character, which have won him a world-wide fame. In romantic fiction Russian writers have gained much celebrity, and they include able authors in history, science and other fields.

[=The Authors of Sweden=]

The three Scandinavian nations, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, have been active in literary production, and possess many authors of national fame, and several who are read and admired throughout the world. Of high standing among the poets of Sweden is the popular poet Runeberg, born in Finland in 1804, who possessed a poetic genius of the highest quality. But the most celebrated poet of Sweden is Esaias Tegnér, whose "Frithiof's Saga" has won him a world-wide fame, it having been translated into the principal modern languages, though with great loss of the beauty of the original. Almquist, a man of fine genius and wide knowledge, was a poet and novelist of the romantic school, his novels including "Book of the Rose," "The Palace," etc. Stagnelius, another poet of eminence, obtained fame by his epic of "Wladimir the Great." The novelists include several well-known women writers, the productions of Fredrika Bremer and Emilie Carlén having gained popularity in English translations. Fredrika Runeberg, wife of the poet, was also a popular novelist, while favorite male writers of historical novels include Mellin, Sparre, Topelius, and Rydberg, the last also a popular poet. Wetterbergh (Uncle Adam) gained reputation by his humorous tales of Swedish home life.

[=Literature of Sweden and Norway=]

Most famous of the poets of Norway is Wergeland, the Schiller of his country, his works including tragedies, poems and satires. Various later writers followed in his line, including Moe, Jensen, Kjerulf and Thomsen. Chief among Norwegian novelists is Björnson, the author of a series of charming studies of the peasant life of his country, all which are popular in English speaking countries. Others who have wrought in the same field are Thoresen and Lie. But most famous of the recent writers of Norway is the dramatist Ibsen, a thorough playwright on historical and romantic themes, and on social problems. It is the striking and radical character of his productions in the last named field, including "A Doll's House" and various others, to which he owes his widespread fame, and the severe criticism with which his works have been assailed.

The Danish literature of the nineteenth century opened with Jens Baggesen, whose lyrics, mock-heroic poems, and "Comic Tales" are much admired. The great poet of Denmark, however, is Oehlenschläger, who produced tragedies of the highest merit, while his splendid epic poem, "The Gods of the North," is one of the noblest modern works of this character. Of the many other Danish writers of the century we shall name only the famous Hans Christian Andersen, whose folk-tales are household words throughout the world.

[=Writers of Italy=]

The literary fame of Spain rests with its authors of the past, there being few of notable merit of recent date. Much the same must be said in regard to Italy, the latest of its great poets and dramatists, Alfieri, dying in 1803. One of its most famous nineteenth century writers was Ugo Foscolo, whose political romance, "Letters of Jacopo Ortis," published about 1800, became immensely popular. His finest work is considered to be "The Monuments," an admirable lyric poem. Count Leopardi also attained to high eminence as a poet, and Manzoni as a novelist and dramatist, his "Betrothed Lovers" ("I Promessi Sposi"), having a wide reputation as a vivid picture of Italian society of the seventeenth century. We shall speak of only one other, Silvio Pellico, whose work, "My Prisons," descriptive of his own sufferings in Austrian prisons, is a classic of its kind and has been widely translated.

[=Other Celebrated Authors=]

This rapid review by no means exhausts the meritorious nineteenth century authors of Europe, whose smaller countries possess their writers of fame. Hungary, for instance, presents to us the prolific novelist Jokai, whose works are read in all civilized lands. Poland, no longer a country, merely a people, has its famous novelists, chief among them being H. Sienkiewicz, author of the popular "Quo Vadis." The same may be said of the Netherlands and of Switzerland, to the latter of which the United States was indebted for one of its most eloquent scientific writers, the celebrated Louis Agassiz. Of course, the literature of merit in the nineteenth century has not been confined to Europe and the United States. Canada, for instance, has produced able writers, and the same may be said of the British colonies of Australia and South Africa, while the nations of Spanish-America have also produced noted authors.

[=Merit of the Literature of the Past=]

[=Scientific and Historical Literature=]

We have said in the beginning of this chapter that literature has made no recent advance, writers of conspicuous merit reaching far back into the past. The "Iliad" of Homer, for example, dates back some three thousand years, and Dante belongs to an early era of mediæval Europe. Yet this assertion is true only in a general sense, that of the comparative merit of authors in style and depth of thought, without regard to the character of their works. In a more special sense, that of the distinctive varieties of literature, we may credit the nineteenth century with several marked steps of progress. The most meritorious works of the past ages were in the fields of poetry, drama, philosophy, oratory, and other branches of imaginative and metaphysical thought. The practice of accurate observation and the literature arising from it are very largely of nineteenth century development. The literature of travel, for instance, is confined in great measure to the past century, and the same may be said of that of science, the comparatively few scientific treatises of the past having been replaced by a vast multitude of scientific works. These are in great measure confined to records of scientific observation and discovery. Theoretical science, while very active in the past century, has yielded no works of higher merit than those of such older writers as Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and others of the older worthies. But the gathering of facts has been enormous, and great libraries of works of science to-day replace the scanty volumes of a century ago.

A second field of nineteenth century advance is in the domain of history. The history of the past is largely the annals of kings and the story of wars. Thucydides, the philosophical historian of Greece, had few successors before the century in question, within which written history has greatly broadened its scope, reaching to heights and descending to depths unattempted before. Histories of the people have for the first time been written, and the outreach of historical research has been made to cover institutions, manners and customs, morals and superstitions, and a thousand things neglected by older authors. History, in short, has at once become philosophical and scientific, efforts being made in the latter direction to sweep into its net everything relating to man, and in the former to discover the forces underlying the downward flow through time of the human race, and to trace the influences which have given rise to the political, social and other institutions of mankind.

[=The Novel and Its Development=]

A still more special field of nineteenth century literary development is that of the novel. Imaginative thought has existed for long ages, and fictitious tales are as old as civilization, but in the ancient world these were couched in the form of poetic and dramatic literature, of fable, fairy tale, and the like. The first steps of approach towards the modern novel began in late Greek times, and the development of the tale continued through the Middle Ages, though it failed to reach the level of what may be distinctively called the novel until the middle of the eighteenth century. The novel, specially so called, is the character tale, the development of human personality under the guise of fiction. This was scarcely attempted in the prose works of the past, character drawing being then confined to the drama. Abundant works of romance and adventure were written, but it was left to Richardson, Fielding, and the contemporary French authors to produce character novels, works of fiction peopled by individual men and women, instead of by speaking puppets, shows of man in the abstract, as in earlier years.

The novel attained some promising development in the latter part of the eighteenth century, but was still in a crude state at the opening of the nineteenth, when it was taken up by the powerful hand of Scott, whose remarkable works first fairly opened this new domain of intellectual enjoyment to mankind. Since his time the literature of the novel has grown stupendous in quantity and remarkable in quality, reaching from the most worthless and degraded forms of literary production to the highest regions of human thought. The novel, as now developed, covers almost the entire domain of intellectual production, embracing works of adventure, romance, literal and ideal pictures of life, humor, philosophy, religion, science,--forming indeed a great drag-net that sweeps up everything that comes in its way.

[=The Text-Book and Progress in Education=]

There is another field of literary production, more humble but not less useful than those named, which has had an immense development in the past century, that of the school text-book. The text-books of earlier periods were of the crudest and most imperfect character as compared with the multitude of works, admirably designed to smooth the pathway to knowledge, which now crowd our schools. In connection with these may be named the great development in methods of education, and the spread of educational facilities, whose effect has been such that, whereas a century ago education was confined to the few, it now belongs to the many, and ignorance is being almost driven beyond the borders of civilized nations. Those who cannot read and write are becoming a degraded minority, while a multitude of colleges and universities are yielding the advantages of the higher education to a constantly increasing multitude.

[=Vast Increase in Books and Newspapers=]

By no means the least among the triumphs of the nineteenth century has been the enormous development of book-making. The wide-spread education of the people in recent times has created an extraordinary demand for books, there being a thousand readers now to the one of a century or two ago. This demand has given rise to as extraordinary a supply, which is not offered in books alone, but in periodicals of the most varied character and scope, including a multitude of newspapers almost beyond comprehension. The United States alone, in addition to its numerous magazines, issues more than twenty thousand different newspapers, of which the aggregate circulation reaches daily far up into the millions.

[=Wide-Spread Use of Books=]

The demand for reading matter could not have been a tenth part supplied with the facilities of a century ago, but man's powers in this direction have steadily increased. From the intellectual side, the advance in education has provided a great number of men competent to cater to the multitude of readers, as authors in various fields, editors, reporters, etc., an army of able men and women being enlisted in this work., From the mechanical side, invention has served a similar purpose; the paper-making machinery, with the use of wood as raw material, the mechanical type-setters, the rapid printing-presses, and other inventions having not only enormously increased the ability to produce books and newspapers, but cheapened them to such an extent that they are now within the reach of the poorest. A century ago such a thing as an one-cent newspaper was not known. Now a daily that sells for more than a cent is growing rare. A century ago only a few dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other works of reference were in existence, and those were within the reach only of the well-to-do. Now works of this kind are very numerous, and they are being sold so cheaply and on such easy terms of payment, that they are widely spread through the families of artisans and farmers.

In truth, the number of books possessed by wage-earners and agriculturists to-day is very much greater than those classes could possess a century ago, and the character of these works has improved so greatly that they serve a highly useful purpose in the advancement of popular education. In addition to the actual ownership of books, there has been so great an increase in libraries, and such an improvement in methods of distribution, that books of all kinds are within the reach of the poorest of city people, and measures are being taken to place them at the disposal of country people as well.

[=The Development of Libraries=]

At the opening of the century the free library was almost unknown. At its close there was not a large city in the United States without its free library, and many small ones were similarly provided. In truth, the great library development in this country has been within the latter half of the century. In 1850 there were only eighty-one libraries in the United States that contained over 5,000 volumes, and the total number of books in them was less than a million, a much smaller number than could be found in the libraries of Paris alone. No single American library at that date contained over 75,000 volumes. In 1900 there were more than a dozen with over 100,000 volumes each, some of these possessing considerably over half a million books. Thus the Boston Public Library contained over 600,000 volumes, while a still larger number was housed within the Congressional Library at Washington, in what is the finest and most magnificently decorated library building in the world, with room to accommodate as many as 4,000,000 volumes. The great libraries of the United States are far surpassed in number of books by those of the leading capitals of Europe, and particularly by that of Paris, which contains the enormous number of more than 2,500,000 volumes.

[=Art in Past Centuries=]

What has been said about literature can scarcely be repeated about art. The nineteenth century has developed no new species of fine art, and in its productions in sculpture, painting, architecture and music has given us no works superior to those of the earlier centuries. Many names of artists of genius in this century could be given, if necessary, but as these names indicate nothing original in style or superior in merit there is no call to present them. The advance of the nineteenth century has been rather in the cheap production and wide dissemination of works of art than in any originality of conception.

[=Great Progress in Pictorial Art=]

In this direction the greatest advance has been made in pictorial art. Methods of engraving have been very greatly cheapened, and the photograph has supplied the world with an enormous multitude of faithful counterparts of nature. Among the many ways in which this form of art has been applied, one of the most useful is that of book illustration. The ordinary "picture-book" of the beginning of the century was an eye-sore of frightful character, its only alleviation being that the cost of illustrations prevented many of them being given. The "half-tone" method of reproduction of photographs has made a wonderful development in this direction, pictures that faithfully reproduce in black and white scenes of nature or works of art being now made with such cheapness that book illustrations of superior character have grown very abundant, and it has become possible to illustrate effectively the daily newspaper, laying before us in pictorial form the scenes of events that happened only a few hours before.