Chisholm is a great man in his own country-why didn't he stay there?" Professional jealousy has occasionally paid unwilling homage to the merit of a rival. When the painter Le Brun heard of Le Sour's death, he exclaimed: "I feel as if a thorn had been taken out of my foot." What actor could desire a stronger testimony to his versatility than that wrung from Kitty Clive as she anxiously watched Garrick fron the wings, and at last blurted out: "Confound the fellow, he could act a gridiron !" Mistress Clive was happy at concentrated criticism; it would be difficult to say more in a few words than she did when she described the acting of Siddons as "all truth and daylight." Pacchiarotti, the operasinger, extorted an involuntary compiiment when singing one night in Metastasio's Artaxerxes; all at once the orchestra became mute; turning angrily to the leader, Pacchiarotti asked what they were about. Awaking as if from a trance, the musician sobbed out: "We are crying, sir." So at Farinelli's first rehearsal in England, the members of the orchestra were so dumfounded by his splendid singing that they quite forgot to do their part in the performance. A still greater compliment was paid him by Senesino, who had to play a ferocious tyrant in an opera wherein Farinelli figured as his captive. Farinelli's very first song so charmed his fellow-singer, that, forgetting his assumed character altogether, Seresino ran towards his supposed victim, and fairly embraced him. Music had indeed charmed the savage. Varelst the flower-painter was happily flattered by Matthew Prior when he wrote: When famed Varelst this little wonder drew, Flora vouchsafed the growing work to view; Finding the painter's science at a stand, The goddess snatched the pencil from his hand, And, finishing the piece, she, smiling, said : "Behold one work of mine shall never fade !" Very happy, too, though not so complimentary, is Macaulay's description of Atterbury's defence of The Letters of Pha-' laris, as "the very best book ever written on the wrong side of a question, of both sides of which the writer was profoundly ignorant." In as profound ignorance did Victor Hugo take up his pen to acknowledge a poetical epistle from Roubaix, telling his unknown correspondent: "I distinctly see your image in your verses; your every idea came out of a head surrounded by a wreath of blonde ringlets. Oh, my child, may you retain for a long time those tresses which the scissors of age have not yet touched!" The recip ient of this tender apostrophe was a man of sixty-five, and a bricklayer to boot! The well-known remark of the countryman contemplating the pigs portrayed by a great painter, that they were plaguy like pigs, but no one ever saw three pigs feeding together but one of them had a foot in the trough, is a fair example of practical criticism. We are indebted to the late Cardinal Wiseman for another. At the Manchester Exhibition was a large fresco of the Death of Absalom. On the one side was seen the Jewish prince hanging by his hair from the branches of an oak; on the other was the mule he had been riding, galloping away, wild and scared. Two men, evidently of horsy proclivities, looked at the picture a long time in silence; at length one of them exclaimed: "Well, he deserves it! What a stupid fellow he must have been to think of riding such a vicious brute as that with nothing but a snaffle!" A good story, too, was that told by the same dignitary, of the English gentleman taking his Yorkshire groom through the Vatican Museum, and making him halt in the centre of the Salla della Biga before a marble model of an ancient chariot drawn by two horses running at: full speed, with distended nostrils and dishevelled manes. "Look at these two horses, and tell me what you think of them," said the master. The Yorkshireman, interested at once, set about examining them in the same spirit as he would have done had they been living animals he was commissioned to buy. He patted the necks and flanks of the marble steeds,. stroked their stony coats, and scrutinised them carefully from head to heel. "Now," said the gentleman, "what do you say to them?" "Why, sir, that is a splendid animal; I don't think much of t' other!" His judgment was not at fault; the horsehe admired was the work of the ancient sculptor, the one he did not think much of was a modern restoration. The practised eye of the groom recognised the truthfulness of the old artist. An artist may, however, be too truthful to please, as John Riley found out when Charles II. exclaimed, as he looked upon his own portrait by that painter: "Is this like me? Then, od's-fish, I am an ugly fellow!" Riley was too honest for courtly patrons, and it was not surprising that Lely's pencil should be preferred to transmit the features of the frail beauties of his time to canvas; whether he did transmit them, we may be allowed to doubt, after reading Mr. Pepys' note: "This day I did first see the Duke of York's room of pictures of some maids of honor, done by Lely; good, but not like." Mr. Lowell, in the mock-reviews affixed to his Biglow Papers, has smartly ridiculed the eccentricities of American criticism, and not without ample provocation. A San Francisco journalist, desiring to give his readers a faint idea of the performance of a band of Chinese musicians, asks them to imagine themselves "in a boiler-manufactory where five hundred men are putting in rivets, a mammoth tin shop next door on one side, and a forty-stamp quartzmill upon the other, with a drunken chariwari party with six hundred instruments in front, and four thousand enraged cats on the roof." A Philadelphian newspaper takes an actress to task in the following pleasant fashion: "We took the liberty of telling Miss Western, that though misery and remorse may be expressed by letting a long piece of black wool hang out of the mouth, and munching it abstractedly, there are better ways of revealing the emotions of the soul. But Miss Western persists in chawing her shawl night after night with a regularity and exactness which indicates she considers it very fine art." An irreverent art-critic declared the Washington statue in Boston State-house conveyed to any one looking upon it for the first time the unæsthetic impression that it represented a man getting up in his night-shirt and attempting to light the gas. Criticisms to match the above might be gathered in any quan.ity from the columns of American newspapers; but it would be hard to find one couched in stranger form than that given utterance to by the independent editor, as he styled himself, of the Nevada Union Gazette, when speaking of Carlyle and Tennyson"Guess them thar men ken sling ink, they ken!" London Society. THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II. cape is equally small, and for the same reason is poisoned instantly. Can it be wondered then that from the spicy shore of his beloved canals, where, though choleras and fevers, like Clarence in his Malmsey butt, lie drunk unto death in the stench they love, but where each passing barge exuscitates odors the reverse of Sabæan-our Amsterdammer flies, as summer comes on, to the sweeter air of his country house? All who have one do so. DURING the summer months Amsterdam is not, for many reasons, a particularly sweet and wholesome place of residence. When it is considered that a vast population has been living there for many centuries, and that all down below is simply one huge cesspool, which cannot be effectually emptied or cleansed, the wonder is that any one can live there at all. And yet the place is by no means unhealthy for the natives who are acclimatized. Amsterdammers, indeed, boast with almost perfect truth, that cholera A house in town with us, now-a days, has never visited them. For this two means a house in London only; for Bath reasons are given. First, the water-supply and Tunbridge have sunk into mere huge for drinking purposes is all brought in collections of lodging houses, except ingreat purity from a distance. Secondly, deed for those who reside all the year the stinks stifle the cholera. If any germs round. But just as our great-great-grandget into the canals or down below any- fathers would have a town house in these where, they have not a chance. Let a Let a places, which, together, with Canterbury, man tumble into an Amsterdam canal, or York, and other important county towns, into the London docks, though the best were almost rivals, on equal terms with swimmer in the world, his chance of es- London itself, raised as they sometimes "Ne me touche pas !" be sufficiently regarded. temporarily were, to the dignity of royal residences-so it is now in Holland. Wealthy merchants, country gentlemen, Vagrants, sturdy beggars, and loafers, and noblemen, remove for the winter into are sternly repressed by this order-loving the town house in Utrecht, Arnheim, and industrious people, and professional Amsterdam, or wherever it may be. A thieves have but a hard life of it. At a nobleman in Holland! Are there any? distance, therefore, from large towns, and, who ever heard of them? Scarcely any indeed, in their suburbs, people live with body out of the country; and even there complacent security in the full gaze of their the nobleman is known intimately by few neighbors and passers-by, the fences of out of his own circle; for, compelled by the gardens being mere symbols, somecircumstances, he is a proud and exclusive times barely eighteen inches high; for as no one thinks of trespassing, and straying cattle inflict no small penalty upon their owners, a Dutchman jealous of privacy, who should put up a tall brick wall, would be held churlish indeed. man. Say what people will, England is in tensely aristocratic. High birth, a personal share by ancestry in illustrious deeds and men, relationship in an hereditary House of Lords, a well-defined position among his fellows, esprit de corps, generated and kept alive at public schools and universities, and amid manly sports, together with, in most cases, a conspicuous share in the government of his country, as magistrate, member of either House, or high-class civil servant, or again, as the wearer of a sword, such things as these so far assure to an English country-gentleman or nobleman his acknowledged place, that no amount of mingling with his inferiors in birth, nothing indeed but the most unmitigated blackguardism, scarce even that with those below him, can deprive him of it. To a Dutch nobleman, all these advantages, high birth excepted, are, as the rule, wanting; and therefore in his very democratic country, a kingdom by accident only, he is a being aloof from all but his kind. An English nobleman claims his nobility, and his claim is allowed by all his countrymen. The Dutch nobleman looks upon himself, and is regarded by other noblemen, as a nobleman; but among other classes his claim is not maintained so easily. Proud, therefore, he is, to a degree; but never insolent to his inferiors, because he never seeks the chance. Delighting in the quiet pleasures of his country house; nothing of a sportsman, but fond of a handsome turn-out; rather given sometimes to high play on the whole, a quiet, estimable, domesticated man, who does not trouble himself with other people's business; and if he has a fine house, or castle-as he loves to call it-and grounds, does not shut them in with high walls, but allows all to see them and himself in the enjoyment of them, provided always that his implied motto, Except in the case of a few show places it is unusual to see any good smooth turf. Mynheer carefully raises a scanty crop of hay from the lawn in front of his house; so that croquet is played under discouraging conditions at present. His theory of beauty seems to be that all ground should bear a crop. Tulip-beds, tulips; potato-patches, potatoes; grassplot, hay: he has no idea of mowing, sweeping, and rolling, simply to produce a smooth green turf, the absence of which, however, is a great eyesore at most country houses. Good gardening is the same everywhere; but the Dutchman's kitchengarden, commonly of considerable area, is kept in order, like a market-gardener's, with a view to produce solely, and makes no show of especial trimness. Weeds are ruthlessly kept down, but he has no particular pride in gravel walks, nor is he fastidious in borders. He likes to have a sun-dial or a colored glass globe on a light stand, to reflect surrounding objects, but the hot-houses and pits are few and far between. Acres of beans and peas, carefully propped as vines, and almost as graceful, are seen in every garden. Singularly enough, rhubarb, when grown at all-it is scarcely ever eaten has its place in the flower-garden. Carrots, turnips, onions, and the essential esculents are raised in bountiful profusion; for, as has been said, your Dutchman is a great vegetarian. What we call wall-fruitpeaches and other stone fruit-are trained in any convenient part of the garden to catch the sun, upon trellis backed with rush-matwork, eight or ten feet high, and costing about sevenpence the linear yard; this often serves for the garden fence. What is the cost of an English garden wall? but then garden robbers are unknown among the Dutch. : Country houses in Holland may be regarded chiefly as summer retreats for mothers, grown-up daughters, and the younger children. The elder children go to school, the young men stick close to the towns and the office desk, and paterfamilias goes backwards and forwards once or twice a week, or perhaps daily, to his town house and place of business. So that, except on Sunday, ladies in the country commonly have the greater part of the day to themselves. Their mornings are devoted to household matters and study afternoons, to driving, making calls, and walking. Athletic games, archery, and croquet do not take kindly root-do they anywhere out of England? And as men ride on horseback but little, and ladies not at all, the only resource in this state of things is the billiard-room, with which most houses are provided. One means of passing the time never fails the men-tobacco. The Dutchman with his long pipe is almost a thing of the past; but it would be indeed strange to see one at any hour of the day without a cigar. Young and old smoke ever. Cigars of home growth and make are plentiful, very cheap, and tolerable for smoking, if one be but careful to throw away the last half of his cigar; but really fair Havannahs and Manillas are to be had at a cost of about twopence a piece and upwards. The Dutchman smokes everywhere except in church-in the house, out of the house, and in my lady's chamber. My lady is fortunately bred and born to the business of endurance, and after-training makes her perfect she certainly has a stay-at-home husband as the reward of her acquiescence in his tranquillising sensuality. Game is not plentiful; but as few care for sport of any kind-young men having generally plenty of work to do, older men who have more leisure caring little for the pleasure of bodily exertion-it becomes the chiefest of a game-keeper's duties to supply the table of his town-staying master. The ease-loving Hollander, however, occasionally gets into a boat and drags his pools, or angles for roach and perch, like any punting cockney up Thames, in the placid enjoyment of his everlasting cigar, and thus calmly satisfies the yearning of his soul for active field-sports. Sunday is the great day in the country. Then, the young men come out of the towns for the day, and all having duly attended morning service in church, afternoon calls, dinner-parties, and flirting help to render the rest of the day very agreeable, but rather unsabbatical. Is it possible that even the young of these sober-minded people fall in love? Young people do fall in love in the customary manner, and the swain makes his offer without any intermediary assistance. A marriage of convenience is an unheardof thing. Consent of parents, however, is necessary, for without it the marriage of persons, even up to the age of thirty, may be declared absolutely null and void; but any one who is more than twenty-one has a legal means of bringing a recalcitrant parent to reason. When all that delightful private arrangement has been made, and consent of parents obtained, the engagement soon gets abroad, and the young couple have to go in company to make calls upon his friends and her friends. The proverbial slip 'twixt cup and lip is not unknown in Holland as elsewhere; nevertheless this system of making formal engaged calls certainly does tend to prevent a rupture upon slight grounds; for it is a matter of no small embarrassment to call upon the same people a second time and ceremoniously introduce sweetheart number two: It is held to be part of a lover's duties to accompany his mistress to parties and balls, and also his right and pleasure to take her to theatres and concerts unaccompanied by a chaperone; but he is seldom asked to pay a visit in the same house with her for more than the day. Lovers always choose the house and buy the furniture together during the courtship. When the time comes the two go together alone to the Town Hall for the "aanteekening" or betrothal. This is merely a public notice of the intention to marry, and is given in writing. The notice is then put into a kind of box, protected by brass wire, and placed for some time in a conspicuous part of the Hall. Banns are also published in church. A runaway match is held to be thoroughly disgraceful, is accomplished with difficulty, and seldom attempted. Friends now, in place of wedding cards, receive by post a lithographed document announcing the aanteekening. On the first Sunday afternoon subsequent to this, the bruid and bruidgom, who are thus called in the interval between the aanteekening and the wedding day, hold a grand reception in the drawing-room of the father of the bruid. A sofa, sometimes gaily decorated with flowers and evergreens, being occupied by the two, the bruid's relations range themselves at his right hand, the bruidgom's at hers. The bruid wears her wedding dress, veil and orange wreath on this occasion, and the company generally are in gala costume. Visitors then, when announced, march up between the two opposite lines of relations and make pretty speeches to the happy pair; and, after having entrusted themselves for a short time to the care of the bruidsmeisjes, who, dressed for the occasion, show the presents placed upon a table at the other end of the room, and offer hippocras and sweets called "bruidssuikers," and cake, make a rapid departure, and are succeeded by others. The wedding commonly takes place on the Thursday week after reception Sunday, and during the interval balls and parties are given in honor of the young couple. On the appointed day the wedding party, bruid and bruidgom going alone in the first carriage, make first for the Town Hall. The Burgomaster marries them, makes a little speech, and receives their signatures; to all this there must be four witnesses. Then to church in the same order. The party having assembled in a sort of vestry, the bruidgom gives his right arm to the bruid and leads the way to the chancel (reserved now-a-days for marriages only) or to the body of the church in front of the pulpit. Here the pair seat themselves upon a central sofa, and relations range themselves as at the aanteekening reception. The ceremony is simple, the couple being already married. After a hymn has been sung they merely have to acknowledge the fact of marriage in answer to the clergyman, and having advanced to two kneeling chairs ready placed a few steps in front, receive a blessing from him and a short exhortation. No ring is used, but one is sometimes worn subsequently. The new husband then gives his left arm to his wife and leads the way home again. The wedding breakfast is a small affair, attended by very near relations only, and the happy pair slip off without adieux as soon as possible. The wedding dress is never worn again in its original state. Settlements seem to be in full accord with the Code Napoleon. When a baby is born, a notification of the fact is at once sent round to all friends, and even to tradesmen and dependants: in the case of people of wealth, who can afford the luxury of men-servants, these are the messengers, wearing white gloves in honor of the auspicious event. Each day, for two or three weeks after the confinement, a paper bulletin is placed on the door-post, or inside of the glass above the door, to the effect that mevrouw and the baby are going on well. It is nevertheless considered proper, and indeed expected, that friends should call and make inquiries and leave cards, and that pretty constantly. But all these bulletins and inquiries cease when mevrouw holds her kramvisiten, or boudoir reception, for married ladies only. On this occasion the baby, dressed in the height of prevailing fashion, and wearing a beautiful long white veil, is brought in by the monthly nurse, who expects to receive a gratuity from each visitor, a perquisite always considered in engaging her. And it may not be out of place to mention that it is only of late years that the ancient institution of midwives has begun to fail in favor of male accoucheurs, who formerly were only called in when a mother, however wealthy and well-born, was almost in extremis; and then, whatever might be their theoretical knowledge, their services, from want of practical skill, were commonly of no great advantage: the fashion is changing now. The kramvisiters are presented with caudle, and a plate with cinnamon cake is handed round. during this period to send out to young lady friends little packets of carrawayseed comfits, which are sprinkled upon bread and butter, and thus eaten to the health of the new baby. It is customary When mynheer dies, the body is at once removed from the chamber of death into another room, generally the diningroom, or one of the chief rooms of the house, the blinds are drawn close up to the top, and the shutters completely closed, so that the house looks, and is intended to look, empty: the soul of the house is gone. The notary is immediately sent for, and seals are put by him without delay upon every article or room he may |