the new Sfo/s Obserue^'^ too, there are signs that we may hope for
a much fuller recognition of literature and art. But we are not
simply convinced that these will occupy a far larger share in the
journalism of the future, but even that they might safely be far
more generously treated than is yet the case by the journalism of
the present.
Kilmarnock Fine Art Exhibition. — This Exhibition is
composed almost entirely of works by Edinburgh and Glasgow
artists, and these with a few palpable exceptions may be placed .
under the category of bad and indifferent. Had the pictures
received a more judicious selection, based on art principles, the
result would have been more profitable alike in the interests of art,
and to the public in general. Edinburgh is best represented by
the works of R. Alexander, R.S.A., James Pryde, Henry Kerr,
and Mason Hunter, all showing a sincerity in expression and
motive, somewhat different from the majority of the works exhibited
by prominent members of the R.S.A., who, Jo judge from their
works, seem to think that anything is good enough to exhibit here.
To substantiate these remarks, we have only to draw attention to
such works as those shown by Charles Martin Hardie, A.R.S.A.,
Beattie Brown, R.S.A., Otto Leyde, R.S.A., Robert Macgregor,
A.R.S.A., W. D. Mackay, R.S.A., George Aikman, A.R.S.A.,
G. W. Johnstone, A.R.S.A., and last, but not least, Waller Paton,
R.S.A. Although the works sent from Glasgow do not call for
special reference, yet there are many examples rising above the
average. These form the backbone of the exhibition, giving to
it any distinction it may possess, though many are hung in places
doing them but scant justice. The mediocre appearance of the
exhibition is greatly due to the indifference the hangers have
shown to pictures which, by judicious hanging, would have cer-
tainly raised the standard above the commonplace. As it is, many
of the worst pictures hold important positions on the line ; picture
jars with picture, the result being confusion. We feel that these
inconsistencies will tend greatly to mar the progress of art
culture in Kilmarnock, which the promoters of these exhibitions
have fondly hoped for, and are struggling to attain.
Paisley Fine Art Institute ; Thirteenth Annual Exhibition. — If exhibitims so poor may be compared, we think that on no previous occasion has there been in Paisley so many paltry and mediocre works. Paisley claims to be a town of intelligence and advanced political opinion ; we however question if there is any town of its size so backward and retrograde in matters of art. ' Opjn ' exhibitions are popular, and in every way successful, not only in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, but even in smaller towns, such as Stirling, Kilmarnock, Kirkcaldy and Dumfries. Art exhibitions have a twofold or double purpose — to permit artists to display their works, and possibly make siles ; but also to educate and elevate the public taste. We do not know in the past what has been the value of the Paisley Exhibition from a fin.incial standpoint, but we confidently say, if Paisley's ideas of art are formed from views of such exhibitions as the present, they must be miserably low. To cultivate local talent by means of a club, is obviously the aim of the directors of the above institute. If, however, they wish this exhibition to serve the other and no less important purpose of delighting and instructing the art taste of Paisley, they must contrive some means whereby more pictures of merit may bedeck their walls. A cursory glance over the Catalogue (391 exhibits) reveals the fact that several amateurs, whose works have no special mark of ability, are represented by six or nine canvases enclosed in frames, while apart from the few loan pictures we question if there are nine artists represented whose pictures would find a place in any other exhibition. It is quite commendable that local talent should be cultivated, yet in the interests of broad art culture, and general art knowledge, we would suggest that the fourteenth annual exhibition should indicate a new departure, permitting the novices to retain their valuable productions within their homes, where their friends (who alone are likely to appreciate them) could see them, and substitute works which would give the general public an opportunity of studying fine art through the medium of a well-selected collection. The November and December numbers of the Magazine of Art contained two most interesting and valuable articles, upon the portraits of Dante Gabriel Rossetti by his brother William Michael Rossetti. Beginning with a portrait of Rossetti when a child of six from a miniature by Filippo Pistrucci, the series continues to represent the poet-artist in his youth and at various stages of man- hood. The January number of the same magazine "contains an illustration of quite special interest. This is a reproduction of a sketch of a Cabinet Council taken at the moment when Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet waited for news from Egypt. The ministers had gone out upon the terrace of the Foreign Office, and had played chess and chatted in groups to while away the time. The sketch was taken by a Foreign Office clerk. A copy of it had come into the hands of Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, the biographer of Mr. Forster, and thus, with the permission of some of the persons chiefly concerned, has been made public. The American Constitution. By PROFESSOR Bkyce. (Macmillan & Co.)
A hundred years ago Edward Gibbon, in his own pompous style, alluded to the help which the Member for I,iskeard had afforded to the historian of the Roman Empire. A seat in Parlia- ment, no doubt, is always something, and may conceivably be the means of a valuable education in politics, even although the occupant of it be the most silent and amateurish of senators. But if Gibbon in the old House of Commons acquired such training for the historian's office, it would be hard to overestimate the benefit which Mr. Bryce, an actual and practical politician, has derived from his work in the House of Commons of to-day. The fruits of that training are seen perhaps in their very best in the great work on the American Constitution which the historian of the Holy Roman Empire and the ex-Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs has but lately published. It is sometimes made a matter of complaint that so many men of good literary faculty * waste their time ' in the barren toils of politics. But if there is loss in the bulk of their literary products, and sometimes too in the quality of their style, there is often the most ample compensation in the sound practical- ness and sanity which their work displays. Mr. Grote would probably never have grasped the full secret of the Athenian polls if he had not been an active voter and debater among the party of the philosophical Radicals, and similarly the altogether unacademic note of the American Commonwealth, the keenness of vision which it shows for political systems in their working and not in their mere abstractness on paper, could with difficulty have been compassed by any one unused to the actual functions of political life. There are innumerable merits in the great book of Professor Bryce. For one thing it is an almost inexhaustible repository of facts ; for another it shows the most broadly tolerant and cosmopolitan cast of thinking. But perhaps the greatest merit of all is the way in which its author has managed to catch American institutions as it were in the very fact, to associate them most intimately with the life of the nation, and to present them as what they really are, the American people in their everyday political activity.
We regret to announce the death, on Saturday, 19th January, of Dr. Francis Hueffer, musical critic of the Times, and editor of the Musical World. Dr. Hueffer was among the first in this country to recognise the genius of Richard Wagner, and for many years he was the chief literary exponent of Wagner in England. Among his more important contributions to the literature of music was his volume of musical studies, and another of Italian studies. Dr. Hueffer was a valued contributor to our own pages. The articles upon the Wagner-Liszt Correspondence in our December and January issues signed by ' An Old Wagnerian,' were from his pen.
In autumn next there will be an Exhibition of Pastels and Works in Black and White, under the auspices of the Glasgow Fine Art Institute.
An interesting Exhibition of works, some sixty in number, of Mr. William Young, has been opened in the gallery of Messrs. J. B. Bennett & Co., Gordon Street, Glasgow.
Erratum. — Through an inadvertence the name of the French painter Monet was spelt Manet in our Paris notes on p. 221.
Ediiiburgk ; r. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty,
